Seeing and Seeking the Kingdom of God in Polarized Times

It is often said don’t to talk about politics in church. However, you can’t honestly and helpfully talk about church and mission today without acknowledging the current social and political climate in which we seek to carry it out.

The evangelical Anglican theologian John Stott said we have to be Jesus’ disciples, living his way, in his world, by having ‘a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.’

And if we do not reflect on what is going on in the world and society around us in light of the bible in our churches, our people will get their information and form their views from other sources anyway.

Speaking from my own perspective; many people who have minority or mixed ethnic heritage are struggling at the moment. People can have different opinions on immigration, but much of it seems to have racist undertones.

And there is so much misinformation. We are to be people of grace and TRUTH, so let us start by looking at what is true and what isn’t.

Any given year there are about 1,500,000 new or temporary migrants in the UK. About 800,000 will be international students bring billions into the economy. Around another 600,000 will be people invited to work in the UK, paying taxes and keeping vital services like the NHS and our care homes up and running. And in 2024 there around 84,200 people seeking asylum. In Northern Ireland as of March 2025 there were 2,637 people seeking asylum support.

Yet the narrative increasingly is that ‘our country’ is being overrun by foreigners. Maybe people who look like me. There are increasing racist and hostile attitudes and actions towards anyone who is of a minority culture or ethnic background.

Of course, we have to think about the resources we have and be concern that they are being distributed for the care and blessing of everyone in our communities. But to make scapegoats out of certain groups for big and complex challenges facing our communities is very dangerous.

Recently someone estimated that asylum seeker benefits cost the UK £60 per year, equivalent to £2 per year per taxpayer. Benefit fraud/error cost £3 billion a year, £100 per year per taxpayer. And Tax avoidance cost £90 billion a year, £3000 per year per taxpayer.

Let’s not be blindly duped into supporting people’s political agendas by taking in narratives they want to spread which create hate and division. Division and conflict which distracts us from real incompetency and greed due to which people of all backgrounds are suffering and which do need to be addressed.

Believing immigration should be controlled doesn’t make you a racist. Believing we should continue to have borders open enough to allow in those seeking safety and security doesn’t make you an unpatriotic, far left Marxist.                              

These issues are of course complicated and need to engage our hearts and our heads. But what can really hurt people of different cultural backgrounds can be the perceived lack of awareness and concern from our Christian brothers and sisters of how comments made my politicians, anti-immigration protests and racially motivated riots, attacks, graffiti and speech are making many of us feel. It is deeply unsettling.

And saying nothing, whether intended or not, can say a lot. 

In recent times I have deeply appreciated the courage of white church leaders like John Stevens who have spoken up. John is the National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, a network of 665 churches across the UK and he recently asked his churches to reflect on the following questions: 

“In these times will our churches reflect the intercultural body of Christ in which all other identity is transcended? Will we shine like stars in the darkness? Will we show that we are one, with a deeper commitment to each other because of our shared faith than even to others of the same race/ethnicity/class as ourselves, precisely because Christ is King? Will we show those of different backgrounds to us, that as our true spiritual family, they are first in the hierarchy of our loves? Even more than that, will we convey that they are a providential blessing and gift from God to us, and that we have so much we want to learn from them so that we are together conformed to Jesus’s likeness? Will we be radical witnesses to the true nature of the kingdom of God?”

Our internet algorithms drive us into silos where we will only find people and opinions that affirm what we want to hear and demonize the people we disagree with. Can we, deeply rooted in Christ and his word, above all things wanting to see King Jesus glorified and his kingdom coming, find a radical and distinctive different way?

Jesus, when he was on earth, said that with his great might he could destroy all his enemies and establish his kingdom, as its king, but that his kingdom was not of this world.

The church from its birth has been caught between secular emperors and religious leaders setting themselves up as divinely ordained rulers. These rulers have then often used the church to endorse their evil ways. Think about slave owning Southern Baptists in the US, the state church in Nazi Germany, the Dutch Reformed church in South Africa.                                                               

Today we are seeing Christians torn between left and right, rather than standing in unity in Christ and for his kingdom.

On the left those seeking a so called ‘woke’ utopia, with many godly components (for example compassion for the poor and marginalized), but without acknowledgement the God whose heart and values they reflect. In their quest for ‘freedom’ and ‘progress’ they advocate going far beyond what God told us is good for us and our societies. They are wise in their own eyes, but don’t accept God’s greater wisdom for what really brings fullness of life and creates flourishing societies. They often make Christians feel that to believe and follow the bible is foolish and even bigoted.                                                                                                                                         

Then on the right, a growing Christian nationalism, where people put their trust in worldly might, in princes and chariots to restore some kind of Christian golden age. Led by leaders who look and sound nothing like Jesus, the servant king. They talk about taking back ‘our land’ and a return to an age where we lived in ‘Christian countries’. However, those ages weren’t very golden if you were not white, or you were a woman, or poor, or differently abled.                                                                                                                                                                                                            We need our people not to be formed by our internet algorithms, but the bible, the good news of Jesus and kingdom values. This is not political correctness, but kingdom correctness. A radical third way which will overlap and grate with all the ideologies in the world.

We can affirm and connect with people through the parts of their worldview which reflect Christian values. But have the wisdom and courage to also speak truth to power, whichever part of the political spectrum it comes from.                                                                                                                                                    

At times we may feel helpless to change what is going on in the world at a political and societal level, but we can change the way we speak and act, and at the end of the day that is what, before God, we will be held accountable for.

We can make sure we see the image of God in each person we meet or speak of, whatever their background. We can remember that Jesus commanded us to love our so-called ‘enemies’, blessing and praying for them. We can remember that Jesus said that he would recognise as his own those who fed the poor, clothe the naked and showed hospitality to the stranger. We can remember that we ourselves are on a pilgrim journey and that this is not our home, and nothing we have is our own, but belongs to the Lord and to be shared with others.                                                                                                                                                      Every ideology that creeps into the church can dilute our distinctiveness in Christ and distract us from the real essence and out working of the good news of Jesus. But it can also drive us to consider and find where our true identity, allegiance and purpose in life lies. Is it in the princes, kings and ideologies of this world? Or in Jesus, his global church and his mission?

When our own primary identity, allegiance and purpose is found in Christ and his kingdom everything

else is much more likely to find its proper place.

It’s okay be fond of our own culture, language, background, traditions and country, but if it gets in the way of loving others as the bible commands us, and welcoming them into our Christ-centred communities, then it has become idolatry. A stumbling block for people hearing, seeing and accepting the gospel.

We need to seek to stir in our people a greater love for and surrender to King Jesus. We need to keep reminding them of the poor and passing nature of earthly kingdoms and glorious and eternal nature of the coming kingdom. We need to remind them of the radical, counter-cultural way of Jesus. Of letting go of wealth and security and power for the blessing of others. Blessings that come through meekness, hungering for righteousness, holiness, mercy, peace-making, suffering and loving friend and foe.

This was not a popular teaching in Jesus’ time, and it may not be popular now. But trust God, it is where full and eternal life and flourish is found.