Jesus initiated a new reign of God in our world,
and much of the Gospel narrative is about this new vision. By
and large, the Christian Church has failed to address the Kingdom
agenda, and that failure begins within the New Testament itself
when St Paul switched emphasis from Kingdom to Church.

Over the centuries, the one-sided emphasis, with
its accompanying political and institutional ideology, has prevailed.
Since the time of the Reformation, the emphasis on Church has
been so central and patriarchially controlled that we have lost
virtually all semblance of what the new reign of God (the Kingdom)
is about.

Over the past thirty years, we have been rediscovering
and exploring anew this central biblical and Christian reality.
It has largely been the pursuit of theologians, on the one hand,
and grassroot Christian movements, on the other. By and large,
the institutional Churches, and their respective leaderships,
have given only notional assent to this new development.

A Working Definition

Space does not allow for an overview of the biblical
references and nuances. Instead, I offer a basic working definition
of the Kingdom, which I believe does justice to the biblical data
and is likely to win the approval of most modern theologians.
Jesus seems to have understood the Kingdom as:


A new world order, marked by right relationships
of justice, love and peace.

It is new in a sense that marks the end (or at least,
the imminent decline) of the world order Jesus experienced in
his day: one of power, control and dominance, where some lorded
it over others, where the poor were exploited and the land desecrated.

In the new reign proclaimed by Jesus, all people are equal (those
who arrive at the eleventh hour receive the same wage as those
who arrive at the first) and all power-systems are declared
null and void (hence, Jesus the King rides on a donkey, the beast
of the common people; not on a horse, the beat of royalty and
warfare). The Kingdom has global significance (a world order):
there no longer exists a chosen people – everybody is equally
precious and sacred. It is not a Kingdom confined to any particular
geographical place, political regime or ideological system. It
is for all people.

Indeed, the global ambiance seems to go beyond
the realm of time and space – hence the mistaken
identification of the Kingdom with the afterlife, which frequently
occurs in the history of christian theology. The new reign of
God is not concerned with power, control, politics or even with
Church – in fact, one could argue that it is about the demolition
of these things. Primarily, it is about people and the quality
of relationships that exists (or should exist) among people.

The Beatitudes provide the agenda for these quality relationships, characterised by:


inclusiveness (especially of the poor and marginalised),
justice, compassion and care, gentleness and peace and, above
all, the fundamental equality of all people.

Finally, the new reign of God is a prophetic movement declaring that the only absolute in our world is the God of love and justice
before whom all people are equally loved and cherished, and before
whom all systems and institutions are relative and temporary.
Consequently, no system, ‘sacred’ or ‘secular’, can claim to have
a monopoly of power or priority. Political or ecclesiastical systems
merit our christian allegiance only when they clearly and unambiguously foster the justice, love and peace of the Kingdom.
Otherwise, they contribute to the power of evil, which robs people
of their liberty and creativity, a structural sinfulness which
must be denounced and eradicated.

Activating the Vision

Briefly, I highlight what I perceived to be the consequences
of this vision for our christian lives to-day:

The Christian Church, if truly faithful to the Gospel,
should be the champion of, and catalyst for, the ‘new’, not the
guardian and watchdog of the old – which is not to suggest that
tradition doesn’t have its place. The tendency in so many Churches
and, indeed in world religions generally, to emphasise their uniqueness
over against one another, is totally alien to the vision of the
Kingdom.

In a Kingdom context, truth is universal. All truths
emanating from denominations and religions – revealed or otherwise
– are partial and incomplete. At best, they can only be approximations
of THE truth that progressively unfolds in the course of evolution.

In a Kingdom context, ‘You call no man on earth your
Father….’. Patriarchial leaderships and hierarchical structures
belong to the ‘this world’ domain and not to the ambiance of the
Kingdom. As a people committed to love and justice, our primary
call is to foster and promote those relationships which lead to
life in its fullness. Any system, structure or institution which
militates against this goal must be denounced and called to the
conversion of the Gospel.

Conclusion

In the world today, it seems to me that the Churches
and religious systems are trapped in a whirlpool of ideology,
idolatry and self-survival. By and large, they have lost sight
of the Kingdom agenda.

By the same token, the Kingdom seems to be unfolding
where it is least conspicuous (like the parabolic mustard seed),
in those many and varied situations where people relate and "commune"
at a depth that cries out for, and occasionally succeeds in birthing,
the new world order of justice, love and peace. This movement
– amorphous and apparently chaotic at times – is the life-force
that has birthed the Basic Christian Communities of Latin America,
along with a plethora of similarly inspired movements – within
and outside the Churches – right across the modern world.

If these base communities are to – not simply save
– but revitalise our culture, they must, in a more audacious fashion,
reclaim their Kingdom identity and biblical raison d’etre. To
me, it seems of little consequence whether the communities are
inside or outside the institutional Church. The critical question
is: Are they fostering the building of Kingdom for the creation
of a more just and loving world-order?

…………..

Diarmuid O’Murchu, M.S.C., is an Irish social psychologist.
He has facilitated renewal programs for religious congregations
in Britain and Ireland. His books include The See Must Die, The
God Who Becomes Redundant, Coping with Change in the Modern World.

He is a consultant to the National Association of Christian

Communities and Networks, NACCAN, in Britain and
editor of Community.

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