This Is Not Our Fight

Hear the burden of the Spirit: This is not our fight.
If we embrace the Enlightenment principles of morality, then a rabid involvement in politics is necessary. No one can deny this is the philosophy undergirding modern Western governments as a whole. We do not pursue democracy or republican government as it was in the heyday or Ancient Greece, but as it was envisioned by those who claimed to revive something of that ancient belief in justice. They viewed such ancient thoughts through a highly jaundiced assumption deeply affected by the European experience with feudalism. To sing the praises of the US Constitution and other similar forms of representative government theory is to embrace that Enlightenment philosophy and make much of direct participation in politics as a dire necessity.
That this is not the philosophy undergirding the message of Scripture is painfully obvious to anyone who is intellectually honest about it. Modern Western politics is not our fight.
If you pay any attention at all to the Gospels, you can sense the disciples asking often of Jesus, “When do we ride into Jerusalem?” The implication was they expected Jesus to use His miraculous powers to overcome the current political machinery of their nation, and perhaps even of Rome, and restore the ancient Davidic rule. Jesus told them, sometimes coyly using Hebrew symbolism, and a few times quite bluntly, that was not going to happen. That is, at least not as they envisioned it. His reign is in the hearts of humans who follow Him to the Cross, because human politics is just background noise.
This is not our fight.
Paul made it plain we recognize whatever government is over us simply because it really doesn’t matter in the long run. Give it respect within its realm. Human governments exist within boundaries set by God, and they’ve never failed to transgress those boundaries. We are called by God to cynicism and to expect conflict. We are called by God to stand ready for our turn at crucifixion by human governments because that’s their doom, and our loss of life in this world is simply our release from prison. To imagine any human government can rise above a reflexive rejection of God’s ways is to call God a liar, for Jesus said this very thing again and again.
This is not our fight.
Stand aside and watch, but give your passions and energy to serving His calling on your life. He calls His saints from all walks of life, but no one serious about carrying their cross will enter politics, unless they are deeply deluded. Turn, turn away from the pagan Enlightenment ideals, and every other human philosophical regime since the days Our Lord walked this earth. You’ll find the mind of Christ in the intellectual atmosphere of the Ancient Hebrews, and no other place.
This is not our fight, says the Lord.