March 16, 2008
Chris Strevel

The year is 54 A.D. Claudius has just died: whether from natural causes or poison is uncertain. The Empire experiences its typical convulsions during the transition from one emperor to the next. Whom will the Imperial Guard support? It had almost singlehandedly brought Claudius to power when, finding him hiding in the palace after the death of Caligula and almost as a joke, it hailed him as the new Caesar. Will the army be loyal to the next emperor? Intrigue abounds. The purple falls to Nero. Hope returns to Rome. Nero had been tutored by Seneca, whose little book De Clementia was dedicated to Nero and advocated mercy and self-control as the chief virtues for a Roman emperor. Perhaps strength and honor would restore the internally corrupt and war-torn Empire.

The early believers watched these events with interest. A passing remark in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which was written a few years later during his Roman imprisonment, indicates the presence of believers in the royal family (4:22). There was likely religious intrigue in Nero’s household. The beautiful Poppaea, in her zeal to become empress of Rome, had divorced Otho, the future emperor, and married Nero. She was a known sympathizer with the Jewish people. Would the Christians find clemency through her indirect influence? At this time, Christianity was viewed as a subset of the Jewish religion. Any hope of tolerance the believers had, however, was soon shattered. Sometime in the middle of Nero’s reign, madness and ambition overcame him. Nero had Seneca, the lone sane voice in his life, murdered. He kicked his pregnant wife in the abdomen, causing her death. He burned Rome. He burned the Christians.

Postmodernism greatly exaggerates the importance of politics. Since it categorically denies any universal moral standard, there is no bar of judgment beyond political power. Grabbing and holding political power is the only way to persuade, i.e., to force those who disagree with you to conform to your agenda for society. Feminists, the homosexual lobby, and environmentalism, whose philosophies are closely wedded to the radical relativism underlying postmodernism, recognized early the importance of obtaining political power. Their views were too marginal to become mainstream, and they were too impatient to work for a change in public opinion. The same can be said of numerous other special, limited interest groups whose chief goal is to remake American society in their own image and for their own advantage and dominance. As a result, Washington D.C. has become like ancient Rome: a sewer into which everything vile and corrupt pours and out of which nothing pure can come.

O, how American Christianity is caught up in this same power game. In the late nineteenth century, the abolitionist movement was begun by New England transcendentalists, i.e., Unitarians, anti-Trinitarian, higher light spiritualists who promoted their social agenda through ostensibly Christian jargon. In the early twentieth century, it was prohibition. Then, it was the National and later the World Council of Churches, whose gospel was humanitarianism and world peace. Now, it is the religious right or conservative fundamentalism. In each of these instances, there is an underlying commitment to gain political power in order to secure government support and even enforcement of religious and social agendas. Whether or not one agrees with the specific convictions or goals of these movements, the fact remains that each sought alignment with the political power of the day in order to achieve its ends. Many portions of the church, increasingly caught up in the game of power politics, are implicitly dependent upon the state to attain their desired social ends. This is the reason conservative Christians are wringing their hands in despair over the Presidential choices confronting us in this year’s elections. Running for the highest office in the land are three statists, three socialists, three advocates of big government, secular government, and anti-biblical government – an unholy trinity.

The believers in Caesar’s household – they watched, as we do, the ebbs and flows of political fortunes and fallings, promises and compromises. They lived, as we are, through tumultuous times, some of them undoubtedly giving their lives for the faith. They also recognized, as I am certain we must, that something higher and more significant was transpiring than the political chicaneries unfolding around them. They knew that there was another King, one Jesus, and since his kingdom was not of this world, it was not tied to earthly political movements. In fact, through prayer, unparalleled love, and proclaiming the gospel of the King, they were far more relevant than the ever-changing world of politics. They preached and prayed, as the apostles encouraged them to do. They loved their enemies, as Jesus did. They set their ultimate affections upon things above. They knew that unbelieving men and nations are in the process of burning out, for the form of this world, its masks, pretensions, and philosophies, have been made obsolete. They are passing away (1 Cor. 7:31). They are doomed to destruction, for God has made foolish the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 1:20). The destiny of each nation is now inseparable from its submission to Jesus Christ (Isa. 60:12). To tie in with any political party rendered the Christian faith mundane, a political pawn, just another worldly power vying for domination. In time, through suffering, faithfulness, and kingdom weaponry, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

This is our model. The most significant events this year are not the troubled economy, the Presidential election, or rising oil prices. While these self-inflicted calamities impact our lives and require our attention, they can become diversions that immerse the church in the cares of this world, with the effect being that the word of God is choked out in our lives. The real challenge before us this year is whether or not we will use our divinely empowered weapons that God promises will demolish every stronghold raised in opposition to Jesus Christ. The city of man in this nation is trembling. Do you not see it? Its economy based upon limitless, paper, and mythical money is going bankrupt. Its educational promises are sheer folly, with illiteracy and government slavery their bitter fruits. Its hope of life liberated from God is now being exposed as utterly dissatisfying and personally destructive. We are burning in the fires of our arrogance just as surely as old Rome burned through the caprice of Nero.

When Rome is burning, what shall we do? This is not the first time believers have found themselves in the midst of a cultural conflagration. The believers in ancient Rome, the Waldensians facing Roman Catholic wrath throughout the Middle Ages, the believers during the Reformation, the Marian martyrs, and the Scottish covenanters found themselves standing for the word of God against determined opposition and with few earthly helps. Believers now living under Muslim tyranny are enduring the same. Like them, we cannot obtain the crown without carrying the cross. Our methods must consist of more than elbowing our way to a place at the political and cultural table. Our aims cannot be achieved through the ballot box, back room deals, or legislative fiat. Men and women must be personally transformed by the power of God, brought into submission to Jesus Christ by the regenerating Spirit of God, and made willing by his love and grace to serve him. Lasting and legitimate cultural transformation is gospel-driven, gospel-love saturated, and gospel-suffering produced. As our Rome burns, we preach and pray, stand for Christ, and if necessary, suffer, while exhorting all men everywhere to kiss the Son and obey his commandments.

Are you praying for the increase of Christ’s kingdom? Is zeal for his glory growing daily in your breast? Are you living in the hope and power of the gospel in your daily life? Is your life reflecting the light, order, and peace that only the King can give? Or, have you become so frustrated with American politics that you are now mean-spirited, forgetting the real enemy, ignoring that cultural change is an indirect fruit of generations of direct faithfulness to the Great Commission? And this is something you can do every day, like the ancient believers did, even in Caesar’s household. The King is working. His judgments do not usually look like apocalyptic movies. His kingdom is marching, growing in his providence, waiting for a generation that will be content with a simple life of Christian discipleship, even when Rome is burning. The Romes of this world will not last. Only the city and kingdom of Jesus Christ will. When the enemy rushes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. That standard has been lifted; the King is holding it up. It still drips with the blood of our victorious Savior. Speak his word. Rome is burning.