"Such a fascinating topic!" I was thinking as I read this essay. I was getting ready to rebut it with some of the horror stories of the inhuman abuses of imperial power, but then you did that for me. You hit both sides of the argument very well. If you had just picked one side or the other, I could have made a very convincing counterargument, but you didn't.

I have come, over the years, to the conviction that there is one overriding argument in favor of stable, central governing power: It prevents chaos, anarchy, and civil war. Most governing powers are preferable to those nightmares. When I lived in Zaire in the 1980s, it was obvious that the dictator Mobutu was running the country into the ground with corruption and financial mismanagement. Everyone looked forward to his exit. So, he finally exited, and the country was plunged into chaos, anarchy, invasion, and war. About four million people died, the largest death toll of any war since WWII, although few Americans know it even happened. Before, school children had to pay bribes to their teachers to pass their classes. (The government didn't pay the teachers, so there was no other way for them to survive.) After Mobutu, though, they had no schools at all. Which is better?

Have you read any of Niall Ferguson's writings that depict the British Empire in a more or less favorable light? It's a view that isn't exactly "au courant" in academia or at the BBC, but he makes a convincing case--without being ignorant of the abuses of power that you mentioned. It is also true that America has been the logical extension of British power. We have had a couple of centuries of Pax Anglo-Americana, but that is coming to an end now. Ferguson attributes the transformation to the fact that other civilizations have "downloaded the killer apps" that made the West so powerful. They have grown up. I suppose it would be patronizing to cast ourselves in the role of their parents, but we have to adjust to our new, diminished status, just as I have had to adjust to my nearly grown teenage sons treating me like a senile fossil who is in their way.

By the way, I believe the neocons made a serious miscalculation with the invasion of Iraq. Not only are we leaving a still unstable nation with a government that is corrupt beyond all understanding, our invasion has also resulted in the absolute devastation of the Christian community in Iraq. At least, under the tyrant Saddam, they could live safely in peace as long as they kept their noses out of politics. But, as I said, that is one of the benefits of even the worst government.

Leithart, minister of the gospel, gives us another bit of cock-eyed pseudo-wisdom from his pulpit. Read point 1 again with the Christian vision in mind, such as "It is better to enter into the kingdom maimed...." or "If eating meat offends my brother, then I will not eat meat for the rest of my life...." or "Rejoice when the humble are exalted AND when the rich are brought low" or "The poor are rich in faith" or "Shouldn't you rather suffer the loss?" or "He took on the form of a servant".

And if point 1 wasn't wise enough, then there is point 2. Not only is power good or bad depending on its use, but also the *distribution* of power is good or bad depending on its use. Well, one wonders how these two points are of any material difference. Is undistributed power good or bad depending on its use? What is undistributed power, anyway?

Point 4, on abuses of power only being corrected by force, is short-sighted to say the least, because sometimes power-abusers ruin themselves without the help of anyone- or only with the assistance of God, you might say. Read Solomon's Proverbs from the pulpit, and you will be preaching a different message de facto.

And as for the "truisms" about empire, one wonders if natural law concepts such as states' rights or the principle of subsidiarity have made their way into Leithart's radar. Who knows? I might be able to manage Leithart's home better than he does- admittedly with some evils prevailing, as with any good empire. But does my great home management conceit give me the invitation to wear the pants in his home? All in all, a very bad article is before us.

I can easily picture an essentially identical "sensible defense of empire" being made by a German academic in defense of the Nazis during the period of their rise to power during the 1930s, which was also a period during which the Nazis successfully engineered a remarkable German economic recovery. In fact, if one consults the writings of Martin Heidegger on this topic (or of many other German academics - for he was hardly alone in his ardent advocacy of the Nazis), one may very well come up with actual examples that deviate little if at all in the essential logic of their "sensible defense" from the current example.

I hope we've learned that dignity of the person has to be in place before American- or European-style democracy can ever work. Until an individual's political opinion is respected as a personal matter of conscience, then it'll just be a commodity, sold like everything else. Sold in bulk. That may have been the real benefit of British empire--dignity. Even while they limited political freedom in the colonies, they passed on a culture of personal conscience, personal dignity, and a legal system that flowed from it.

Dr. Leithart,

Very sensible outline. I look forward to seeing how this outline is applied to discussions regarding current issues facing us (such as what choices does the U.S. make going forward regarding it's involvement in Afghanistan or in dealing with the possibility of a nuclear Iran).

I much prefer a clear-eyed look at current and past reality than cramming reality into an ideological lens.

The curious thing about empires is that they so often have unintended consequences. Most commonly, the conquered usually come back to rule the conquerors. But what I find most interesting is that empires provide a framework for the distribution of ideas and peoples to areas where smaller political units, usually mutually hostile to each other, would prevent their entry. Would St Paul's travels have been possible without the Roman Empire? Roman roads, Roman citizenship, Roman law, without these things I contend that the rise of Christianity would have been impossible. All these Roman institutions made it possible for a Christian community to spread despite persecutions. Above all, the Greek and Latin languages made it possible for Syrians as well as Britons to partake of the Christian message. Who would have thought in the Age of Augustus that such a thing could happen? One can almost see the hand of God at work.

mr. embry reads too much into points 1 and 2. power and power differentials are basic facts of reality. i would know, as my daughter is 2 days old today.

Andrew, happy birthday to your home! But my basic point, scrawled out in pre-coffee dawn, was that leithart's whole "line upOn line" approach is pure sophistry. As a minister of the gospel- you know, the one where the kingdom of God advances More or less by losing- Leithart should know better than to go on about the powers of eyesight and suchlike. As much as I like my own vision, the gospel acts like preserving it is not that important. So where does that kind of rationale fit into pastor leihart's proclamation?
Further, I thought that the truisms were merely leads in a vacuous line of thinking. If one premise fails, doesn't that mean that the subsequent premises are compromised?
Further, even as a political theorist and not as a minister, he ignores various natural laws such as what I mentioned already. But his intro aims to relegate these responses such as mine into the pre-fab category of "not sensible discussion". I'm merely trying to show the lack of sense in his whole enterprise, and I suppose I'll leave it to the minds of others to validate the quality of 'intellectus' that he has displayed in this essay.

Ben, I must be missing something. The article is simply "Toward", not the end all or all inclusive discussion. From my experience, speaking with others about the republican presidential candidates positions in light of the Kingdom, many of Peter's points are helpful angles worth including in such a discussion of the role of the US in the world. When you write: "Leithart, minister of the gospel, gives us another bit of cock-eyed pseudo-wisdom from his pulpit," and other comments in your last post, you sound bitter.

FWIW - as one little mind, I will validate the quality of 'intellectus' in Peter's essay. Over the years I have profited much from Peter's godly life and work.

Noam Chomsky is right too. Native Americans have many legitimate complaints against the U.S., as do Latin American countries.

I am not sure Chomsky has ever written a work of 19th Century history. I think you are confounding him with Howard Zinn (who was a friend of Chomsky's but, unlike Chomsky, undertook very little original research after completing his dissertation).

Re the aboriginal population: to what extent can sparsely populated zones without demarcated property rights be said to be in possession of those present there?

Re "Latin American countries": you do not say which Latin American states to which you refer. The United States occupied Cuba from 1898 to 1902 and briefly in 1906 and 1909; occupied the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924; ran a counter-insurgency in Nicaragua from 1925 to 1934 (in defense of that country's legal government); had treaties with Panama and Cuba which limited their sovereignty (prior to 1935); occupied a portion of Santo Domingo in 1965; and occupied Panama (for a period of weeks) in December 1989 and January 1990. Mexico would have liked an opportunity to settle what is now our southwest (which at that time was sparsely populated, predominantly with aboriginals). We also annexed Puerto Rico in 1898, but political separatism has likely never been a majority sentiment there). The Central Intelligence Agency arranged for the overthrow of Pres. Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Complaints arising from these actions are not exactly topical and it is difficult to see how the societies in question were injured by them, bar the Guatemalan example. What's the issue?

Richard Mahar,
Yes, I was kind of wondering what essay Ben was reading. I read this as an outline that could be a useful template for discussion of specific issues and not as exhaustive or an end unto itself. Point #4, for example, is careful to distinguish that there are different kinds of power and that economic and military power is not all there is (he specifically noted the power of oration and martyrdom).

I have always appreciated Leithart's work as well.

" American hegemony is not an undiluted evil. In some respects, it is a good, and preferable to many of the conceivable alternatives. America is the linchpin of a global economic system that has improved the lives of millions. We are still a beacon of liberty, our military has effectively defeated evil regimes and delivered the weak, and we continue to be an asylum for the oppressed. The world reaps more favors from American hegemony than it wants to admit. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and the neoconservatives are right. "

How is this not utter mythology and worn-out American Exceptionalism rhetoric to mask reality? There are 1,000,000 dead in Iraq because of our "good" hegemony. The neoconservatives have been proved utterly wrong and disastrous. Why don't you ask the "beneficiaries" of our hegemony if it has been good to them. The net effect of our hegemony is justified global hatred for our hypocrisy. I think Paul Craig Roberts is much less mythological:

"n the few opening years of the 21st century, Washington has destroyed the US Constitution, the separation of powers, international law, the accountability of government, and has sacrificed every moral principle to achieving hegemony over the world. This ambitious agenda is being attempted while simultaneously Washington removed all regulation over Wall Street, the home of massive greed, permitting Wall Street's short-term horizon to wreck the US economy, thus destroying the economic basis for Washington's assault on the world."

"Indeed, as the neoconservative "Project For A New American Century" makes clear, the war on terror is only an opening for the neoconservative imperial ambition to establish US hegemony over the world.

As wars of aggression or imperial ambition are war crimes under international law, such wars require doctrines that elevate the leader above the law and the Geneva Conventions, as Bush was elevated by his Justice (sic) Department with minimal judicial and legislative interference.

Illegal and unconstitutional actions also require a silencing of critics and punishment of those who reveal government crimes. Thus Bradley Manning has been held for a year, mainly in solitary confinement under abusive conditions, without any charges being presented against him. A federal grand jury is at work concocting spy charges against Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange. Another federal grand jury is at work concocting terrorists charges against antiwar activists.

"Terrorist" and "giving aid to terrorists" are increasingly elastic concepts. Homeland Security has declared that the vast federal police bureaucracy has shifted its focus from terrorists to "domestic extremists."

It is possible that Awlaki was assassinated because he was an effective critic of the US government. Police states do not originate fully fledged. Initially, they justify their illegal acts by demonizing their targets, and in this way create the precedents for unaccountable power. Once the government equates critics with giving "aid and comfort" to terrorists, as they are doing with antiwar activists and Assange, or with terrorism itself, as Obama did with Awlaki, it will only be a short step to bringing accusations against Glenn Greenwald and the ACLU.

The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, is a regime that does not want to be constrained by law. And neither will its successor. Those fighting to uphold the rule of law, humanity's greatest achievement, will find themselves lumped together with the regime's opponents and be treated as such.

This great danger that hovers over America is unrecognized by the majority of the people. When Obama announced before a military gathering his success in assassinating an American citizen, cheers erupted. The Obama regime and the media played the event as a repeat of the (claimed) killing of Osama bin Laden. Two "enemies of the people" have been triumphantly dispatched. That the President of the United States was proudly proclaiming to a cheering audience sworn to defend the Constitution that he was a murderer and that he had also assassinated the US Constitution is extraordinary evidence that Americans are incapable of recognizing the threat to their liberty.

Emotionally, the people have accepted the new powers of the president. If the president can have American citizens assassinated, there is no big deal about torturing them. Amnesty International has sent out an alert that the US Senate is poised to pass legislation that would keep Guantanamo Prison open indefinitely and that Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) might introduce a provision that would legalize "enhanced interrogation techniques," a euphemism for torture.

Instead of seeing the danger, most Americans will merely conclude that the government is getting tough on terrorists, and it will meet with their approval. Smiling with satisfaction over the demise of their enemies, Americans are being led down the garden path to rule by government unrestrained by law and armed with the weapons of the medieval dungeon.

Americans have overwhelming evidence from news reports and YouTube videos of US police brutally abusing women, children, and the elderly, of brutal treatment and murder of prisoners not only in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA prisons abroad, but also in state and federal prisons in the US. Power over the defenseless attracts people of a brutal and evil disposition.

A brutal disposition now infects the US military. The leaked video of US soldiers delighting, as their words and actions reveal, in their murder from the air of civilians and news service camera men walking innocently along a city street shows soldiers and officers devoid of humanity and military discipline. Excited by the thrill of murder, our troops repeated their crime when a father with two small children stopped to give aid to the wounded and were machine-gunned.

So many instances: the rape of a young girl and murder of her entire family; innocent civilians murdered and AK-47s placed by their side as "evidence" of insurgency; the enjoyment experienced not only by high school dropouts from torturing they-knew-not-who in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but also by educated CIA operatives and Ph.D. psychologists. And no one held accountable for these crimes except two lowly soldiers prominently featured in some of the torture photographs.

What do Americans think will be their fate now that the "war on terror" has destroyed the protection once afforded them by the US Constitution? If Awlaki really needed to be assassinated, why did not President Obama protect American citizens from the precedent that their deaths can be ordered without due process of law by first stripping Awlaki of his US citizenship? If the government can strip Awlaki of his life, it certainly can strip him of citizenship. The implication is hard to avoid that the executive branch desires the power to terminate citizens without due process of law.

Governments escape the accountability of law in stages. Washington understands that its justifications for its wars are contrived and indefensible. President Obama even went so far as to declare that the military assault that he authorized on Libya without consulting Congress was not a war and, therefore, he could ignore the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a federal law intended to check the power of the President to commit the US to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress.

Americans are beginning to unwrap themselves from the flag. Some are beginning to grasp that initially they were led into Afghanistan for revenge for 9/11. From there they were led into Iraq for reasons that turned out to be false. They see more and more US military interventions: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and now calls for invasion of Pakistan and continued saber rattling for attacks on Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. The financial cost of a decade of the "war against terror" is starting to come home. Exploding annual federal budget deficits and national debt threaten Medicare and Social Security. Debt ceiling limits threaten government shut-downs.

War critics are beginning to have an audience. The government cannot begin its silencing of critics by bringing charges against US Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. It begins with antiwar protestors, who are elevated into "antiwar activists," perhaps a step below "domestic extremists." Washington begins with citizens who are demonized Muslim clerics radicalized by Washington's wars on Muslims. In this way, Washington establishes the precedent that war protesters give encouragement and, thus, aid to terrorists. It establishes the precedent that those Americans deemed a threat are not protected by law. This is the slippery slope on which we now find ourselves.

Readers ask me what they can do. Americans not only feel powerless, they are powerless. They cannot do anything. The highly concentrated, corporate-owned, government-subservient print and TV media are useless and no longer capable of performing the historic role of protecting our rights and holding government accountable. Even many antiwar Internet sites shield the government from 9/11 skepticism, and most defend the government's "righteous intent" in its war on terror. Acceptable criticism has to be couched in words such as "it doesn't serve our interests."

Voting has no effect. President "Change" is worse than Bush/Cheney. As Jonathan Turley suggests, Obama is "the most disastrous president in our history." Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who stands up for the Constitution, but the majority of Americans are too unconcerned with the Constitution to appreciate him.

To expect salvation from an election is delusional. All you can do, if you are young enough, is to leave the country. The only future for Americans is a nightmare."

I tried but failed make sense of you comments Ben Embry. You display hostility to Peter Leithart whereas Peter Leithart reminds us of straightforward things often overlooked. Ben, try writing simpler and constructively as does Peter.

Wow. I've been sacked. But for good reason. My comments toward/about Leithart were pungent- more so than I realized when writing. But, don't forget the "happy birthday" message I gave, which was in dead earnest and not bitter in the least. I must confess, though, that I claim the "glass half full" label while also suspecting that the glass has a small crack somewhere near the bottom.... I'm pretty sure it does.

So, in an effort to write simpler, I offer this. I have read First Things for maybe 6 years, and frequently enjoy it. But the web posts tend toward rabble-rousing, I feel (not all, but some, Leithart's among them). Let me explain how I see such rabble-rousing with an illustration. I don't know if any of you are familiar with coyotes, but they do something very interesting. They have a way of "casing" a residence before hunting for the chickens or other small animals. What happens is this. The coyotes hide in the nearby brush or woods at night. Then they let loose with a wild chorus of yips and howls. They make a lot of noise. Then the home-owner does what he always does: he turns on a spotlight and stands in the doorway, trying to see the coyotes. Unless the homeowner isn't home that evening. The coyotes know that it will be safe hunting when their howls are answered by home-owner silence. (Incidentally, thieves do this too out in the country. They have loud automotive failure, er, "failure" in front of your house. If you go to inspect, they soon fix their problem and drive off. If you do not look after the commotion in the rarely-trafficked country road, then the drivers have the assurance that no one will see them take your chainsaw.)

These web posts are like coyote howls. (The transience of them assures that no great readership will be lost by the lower quality essays; but) the real benefit is in cajoling the readership into identifying themselves, which enables the editorial board to both offer essays that promise more readership and also to tailor the articles to better advance their philosophical agenda.

Again, this is my approach to FT, and only over the passage of time have I decided to interpret most media in terms of third party advocacy or in the coyote howl technique. (perhaps a better metaphor than coyote howls is that of "sounding" for depth when out on a body of water.)

On the face of it, the Leithart article is just perfectly sensible; after all, he said so himself. But a deeper question is, why publish this? AFter all, is empire a reality? Is empire an issue in current political discussions? If so, which ones (because none were referenced; perhaps some were implied, but bear with me as I ask for more than implied-by-abstract-association.)

You know, the most vocal venue for denouncing empire right now is the Ron Paul campaign. One or two of the commenters brought him up explicitly. But he's unelectable, right? I mean, other media outlets say so, at least (in spite of his taking the lead in key states, and having a ratchet-like base, whose change in support only goes one way). Is this anti-empire philosophy that is gaining traction the actual target of this essay? If not, then what is? Really, who is in the crosshairs? No one? then the essay is pointless, essentially helping us readers to get ready for a sensible discussion that doesn't actually matter. Someone? then say who. Or maybe its just to condition us to thinking that anti-empire rhetoric that we might hear in a few weeks from now (or as Iran/US hostilities begin to emerge in bolder relief) is just short-sighted, just nonsense, just unnuanced and flagrantly binary in its interpretation of the situation that is really at hand, etc.

I didn't want to write a long comment, but I did. Does this clarify my barbs? (And we didn't even broach the topic of why a minister of the gospel of the Kingdom of God is writing about empires and their million-innocents-dead blemishes as if there is a real discussion for such a man to engage in. I still stand by my point that Leithart's first point is completely contrary to the spirit of the gospel he claims to minister.)

And, as part of a constructive addition to the conversation, I would add that another point about empires is that they transgress the principle of subsidiarity and run rough-shod over states' rights. So, anyway, let the conversation begin. How about a definition of empire to begin with?

There is a professor at Wyoming Catholic College named Thaddeus Kozinski, who, if I recall correctly, used to be a contributor to "Seattle Catholic" and "The Latin Mass". Peter Leithart and Carl Scott need to contact him and tell him that someone has been putting up crank posts at "First Things" and "Front Porch Republic" and signing his name to them.

Brother Embry, you seem to presuppose that a country is in the same category as the Church and should be held to the same standards. Winning by losing and all that. That is a strong claim and I wonder where it comes from. Care to take one more crack at this?

Dr. Leithart: "Power is often abused. But in itself, power is preferable to powerlessness. " Amen! And when it comes to the kingdom of God, so is being the "trampler" rather than the "trampled," as per Matthew 5:13. And, yet, most modern Christians (note, I said, Christians not non-Christians) are so fearful of Christian dominion that they have opted for being the trampled.

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and *every high thing* that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled." (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

Wow...talk about coyote howls.

I know that the Presidential election is important and all, but at this point I feel like someone could write a blog post about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it would draw comments about how Ron Paul is the only true candidate and how the "establishment" isn't giving him his due. Am I the only one that his kind of creeps out?

Steve, I'm not sure whose comments you are reading, but I didn't see anything about the establishment not giving Ron Paul his due. I did read ( in fact, I wrote) that the impetus for this article be considered. Is it about anyone in particular, or just untimely thoughts about the irrelevant?
And as for media machinations, I don't discuss that with any bitterness; that is the state of journalism. Read, if you care to, such works as "The Image" by Daniel Boorstin; or "Abuse of Power, Abuse of Language" by Josef Pieper; or "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays (as well as a Wikipedia bio of that man); an for good measure, "The Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis has sme good lines about language, persuasion, and Agendas.
As for Christians and politics, I could write quite a bit, but, yes, I don't honk they should mix. And no, I'm not voting for anyone, including Ron Paul.

Art Deco:


I am now aware of the crank posts written in my name. Thanks.

http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/11/victims-of-mammon/

There are some more here in the comment box appended to a post at "The Distributist Review".

@ Carolinus, I dont think the church and the state are compatible. If Christians believe that the Kingdom of God has won already and all that is lacking is the final denouement of history, then it makes sense to also see the kingdoms of earth as ruined already, only lacking the final denouement of history.
Christians claim to have forsaken all to follow the fellow who fixed His problems and everyone else's by getting beat up and killed. to see these people who minister this method of problem solving to the world sit here telling us that one incontrovertible truism is that political power is a desirable commodity is pitiable. The very thing that the world finds foolish about the faith is that it fixes things by itself being victimized. I mean, the whole new testament bears witness to this, and calls people to imitate this example (see Philippians 3, for instance; or the verse that the fellow cited earlier from 2 Corinthians, which is Paul saying, in short, "we Christians don't fight with guns or swords- we fight with preaching, prayer and the testimony of our faith.")
Political power- the power of empire- is the power of violence. To think that you find in force an aid to your gospel when that gospel is the first witness against that force is so far off the charts of sensibility that it is absurd.
The enemies if the apostles accused them of adhering to a new king (acts 17). I think there was a good bit of truth in that accusation.
The example and teaching of the apostles is to humor the earthly powers with submission to their laws (for example, paying taxes to them, as the story about the money in the fish's mouth teaches) but not to imitate their method of governance. "it shall not be so among you" is what the apostles taught.
As for political involvement, I think each needs to consider this carefully, because you might find that the kingdom of God is best served by political mon-involvement. Taking part in ruling a broken and ever-breaking state is questiOnable enough, but having a christian mapping out a rationale for the conditions for empire and its possible continuance is .... Well, whatever it is, sensible is not the word for it, not in my book.

Art:

Amazing. The author of these comments has some really controversial opinions outside the mainstream. Thanks for letting me know. I'll see if I can't get them removed.

Thaddeus

Art Deco:

Those comments by "Thaddeus Kozinski" on the Distributist Review article have now been removed. Thanks for letting me know about them.

Ben Embry- I find it interesting that you say “Christians claim to have forsaken all to follow the fellow who fixed His problems and everyone else's by getting beat up and killed.”

Oliver O’Donovan, whom Leithart hails as a political theologian says, “The resurrection is the beginning of true politics.” So it would seem that your philosophy of political withdraw and Christian defeatism may be linked to stopping the story of Christ at His death. What about His resurrection and ascension?

Also, would you say that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was wrong for going against the principalities and powers in the Nazi regime, ultimately laying down his life in Germany?

Kevin

Thanks for the questions, Kevin. First off, I appreciate your bringing up the resurrection. I don't know if you looked at the reference to Philippians 3 that I gave. If you did, then you saw that Paul explained that losing everything and suffering was a means to participating in the resurrection. And the resurrection is implicit in my earlier comments, such as “method of problem solving”, “fix problems”, etc. The resurrection “fixed” the problem of death; the resurrection is at the heart of what I already wrote. So no, I'm not stopping at the death of Christ. That was just the begininng, as you rightly noted.

The resurrection is the validation of this “method” of solving problems. That is one reason I prefer it to the methods of violence: because it works.

Politics begins in resurrection, says one thinker whom you mention. I don't really know what all he meant by this, but if by politics he means the activity of people gathering together to solve or temper some of the problems in life, then I firmly support a politics based in the resurrection. But the way this is worked out right now is by participating in suffering while loving. (And we keep coming back to this every time we participate in the broken body and shed blood at communion. This isn't an exercise in forgetting the resurrection. Rather, it is an exercise in preparing for it. and what is done in ceremony at communion is also performed in the milieu of the daily grind; the faithful who (like Philippians 3) have not yet attained to resurrection continue to strive for that goal, the goal of perfect sacrifice followed by perfect glory. This is completed in ways that are humbling, like turning the other cheek, or by living with an abrasive spouse, or by refusing to go to law to forcibly retrieve what was taken unjustly from you.

See, this "defeatism", as you called it, is actually a conquest if it is done in love, as a sacrifice to God for the redemption of the world. (Again, see the Good Friday/ Easter dynamic) This *is* the politics, this is an example of solving a problem in Christ. This is the Kingdom of God at work. Is this Kingdom not political? Is it a pretend Kingdom? No. Peter was not given mere keys; he was given keys of a Kingdom- and not of a Kingdom that occasionally bombs innocent people, or lies about its operations, or slanders people, etc. Not an American empire, in other words.

You know, people read that bit about "render unto to caesar that which is caesar's" and they think it means that they are bound by the laws of the Kingdom of God to risk their lives in the service of a worldly king. What Jesus had in mind was a coin, not a life of civic ambition. Pay Caesar's money to Caesar, but give your life to God, Whose image and inscription we each bear. Don't give your money to church and your life to Caesar; that's the exact opposite of what Jesus said.

And why not? Why not fight for the good? doesn't evil prosper when good men do nothing? Sure it does, but Paul wasn't doing nothing. Jesus wasn't doing nothing when He stood in silence while people were telling lies about him, or when imbecile thug soldiers smacked him in the face. Are other people doing nothing when they imitate this? They might very well be redeeming the world in a small yet permanent way. They might be transforming evil.

I don't know if this satisfies your question. As for Bonhoeffer, I probably have a different opinion of him than you do. I think everyone, myself included, can see that Bonhoeffer was a courageous man. He was courageous before he was arrested, and courageous in his effort to destroy Hitler. But was this courage remarkably Christian? If so, in what way(s)? I agree with Bonhoeffer when he writes of "costly grace" that "It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." But again, I would interpret this as the cost of losing in love (“costs a man his life”) followed by the gift of resurrection (“gives a man the only true life”)(see Phil 3).

Did this answer your questions?

Ben- I think you are getting closer to understanding some of Dr. Leithart’s points. The Resurrection is key, as is the Ascension of Christ. He is presently the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, a human being (God in the flesh) at the right hand of God the Father. You may want to get a copy of Leithart’s “The Kingdom and the Power”.

You had previously made the assertion that, “Political power- the power of empire- is the power of violence.” That is a presupposition that is not coming out of the Scriptures but rather out of the cultural milieu that comes from Christians vacating the political realm. If we go with the assumption that political power is the power of violence, then of course, Christians must refrain from political power. But where does that leave us? Then only the evil have power. Leithart’s first point is that power can be used for good or evil. Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension enable power to be used for good, at least as a possibility. Humble Christians can die to self and serve, even in the political realm... I think Leithart would agree with your point about communion- that is the Church’s politics, of breaking down walls in connecting to Christ and each other.

1) Whether the sword is good or evil depends on its use. So it’s better to have a sword than to be weak in Christ, because being weak is tempting God, it’s like jumping over the mountain and thinking the angels will save your…. It is better to have the power of making them blind instead of being blind yourself, better to starve them out than ever have your own dna covenant children go hungry. You cannot leave “government” to God alone, because God would rather not use bad nation-states to achieve His purposes. So it’s necessary to take at least two swords if you can, and to turn the nation into an empire if you can. And pacifists who claim not to want this power are really dishonest liars and insincere because pacifists are filled with ressentiment and want the power too, as Nietzsche has taught us, but they tell themselves “not yet” because they are too cowardly to take enough swords to get the job done now.

2) Some people have more swords than others, and you really can’t ever have too many swords, and we have seen in history that two are not enough. The power of the Roman empire to put Jesus Christ to death is a necessary corollary to the restraint of evil and to even have a life together. Because even if the earth is the Lord’s, you should see the earth if we don’t take dominion of it. And the only way you can do anything of any value now is if you have somebody with a sword backing you up. War is simply politics by other means.

3) Being an empire will keep your people alive. Except when it doesn’t, because there are exceptions when individuals act on their “theonomic” impulses. But in these situations, you need to be careful not to think of them as non-nations but instead call for a war, just as if everything was still normal.

4) Those who kill by the sword will live by the sword, and the one and only solution to being weak and threatened is swords because we can’t simply know what providence might bring us, and we don’t want to ever show any weakness. If your neighbor is too loud, sword. If your neighbor is a practicing homosexual, sword. Better for your response to sometimes be “disproportionate” than for you to be abused in any way. Forget those antiquated notions of “just war”. You can’t afford for your people to ever become victims, and if it takes genocide to prevent that, you do it, even if the majority disagrees with you, since of course you are doing it for their own good, for their sake.

5) Never fail to remind the pacifists that they owe you for their right to be pacifists. Tell them they wouldn’t have any freedom to privately object if you had not killed many outsiders as the necessary means to that end, so therefore they should shut up. The roads they walk on?– the sword built them. The plays of Shakespeare– the sword made them possible. Smart phones?– there simply would be no “culture” without the sword. If you vote, you agree with the sword. If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain. The earth that used to belong to the Lord has now been conquered, and if you accept any benefits from the earth, then you have the empire to thank.

6) Hitler is better than nothing, and everything God has predestined is legitimate and good, because nothing evil is in God’s sovereign plan. So it is your responsibility not only to submit to but also to collaborate with the lesser of two evils, because what looks evil is not evil because it is necessary if we are going to have hot showers. We didn’t used to be an empire. And also we didn’t use to have hot showers. We didn’t use to have a wonderful magazine like First Things, which is always right, even when it advocates pre-emptive wars on non-military targets.

7) Of course mistakes were made. Constantine did kill his children. Constantine did wait to get sacramental baptism until just before he died. But we have learned from these mistakes, and we won’t make the same ones again. And never forget that Constantine stopped calling war and the death penalty “sacrifices” for the imperial cult. The killing continued, but it was no longer described as sacrifice but seen as more of a practical 2k necessary thing.

8. Violence is our life, and therefore should not be seen as entertainment in video games and movies. Greed also can be a bad thing, but if we do it together it can work out for us all. Greed is more of a matter of the heart, and therefore nothing yet that the empire can do anything about, but we can get rid of homosexuals.