Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done: The Intersection of Faith and Politics

Tomorrow we will go to the polls and touch a screen, fill in a bubble or pull a lever to cast our vote. Some Christians will vote for Republicans. Some Christians will vote for Democrats. Still other Christians will vote for one of the other parties.

Since it is the month in which we get to vote as citizens of the United States, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the tricky and wonderful intersection of faith and politics. And I would like to use the second and third petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as a way of entering into this discussion.

Thy Kingdom come… Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We pray these words each time we take the Lord’s Prayer on our lips and in our hearts and minds. And I am quite concerned that—at least most of the time—we have no idea the depth and power of these words as we pray them.

When we pray these words, we are asking for God’s Kingdom, to come among us here and now. Put more bluntly: the Christian faith is not only about getting a ticket punched so that you can go to heaven when you die; it also has a deep, profound and lasting impact on our lives—right here and right now.

When we pray these words, we are asking for this Kingdom of God, which began on this earth in the smallest of ways, in Jesus of Nazareth and in his band of followers, to grow to epic proportions. The Scriptures use the image of a mustard seed growing into an enormous tree and a tiny batch of leaven that leavens a whole loaf of bread (Luke 13:18-21).

When we pray these words, we are acknowledging that as Christians, we always carry a dual citizenship: We are first citizens of the Kingdom of God and second, citizens of the United States of America. We live in a monarchy (Christ is King!) as well as a Democracy (the USA). We have duties both as citizens of God’s Kingdom and citizens of the United States.

So whether you go to the polls and vote “Republican” or “Democrat” or “Libertarian” or “Green Party,” be sure that before, during and after you vote, you pray with every fiber of your being, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

Perhaps the dear Pastor Martin Luther said it best, “The kingdom of God comes indeed without our prayer, of itself. But we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.” (Small Catechism, explanation of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer)

May the Lord our God, whose Kingdom is indeed coming into this world in Jesus the Messiah, plant that Kingdom firmly in our lives, that we may be his faithful citizens, now and into eternity.

Note: For the main points of this article, I am indebted to N.T. Wright, a noted New Testament scholar, at the lectures he gave at a conference I attended at Duke University in October. You can listen to the full lectures online here.