ANTONIO GONZALEZ, God’s Reign and the End of Empires. Miami: Convivium Press, 2012. Pp365. $26 (US). Translated from Spanish by Joseph V. Owens. Revised by Doris and Tom Strieter.
Gonzalez presents a comprehensive biblical study, from Genesis to the Revelation, of what it means to be in the Kingdom of God now. As God was the actual and only king in early Israel living in Canaan, so Jesus is the actual and only ruler in the current reign of God. Jesus reigns right now, not just in some future time and place. The author frequently repeats the phrase “there where,” to indicate that Jesus’ lordship is vital in the present. (I checked with a Spanish speaker, and was advised that there is one word in Spanish that means “there where.”) Individual salvation is not the whole story.
Empires have followed the Adamic-Babel logic, with its correspondence of actions and results or consequences: the bad are punished, and the good are rewarded or left in peace. Gonzalez allows that the main function of the state is to limit violence or retribution. Christ-followers are not to take over the state, as this requires participation in violence and retribution. Our kingdom citizenship has precedence over every other loyalty or priority.
Empires, including dictatorships, live by domination, maintaining societies where inequality, injustice, poverty, and oppression are normative, whether based on capitalism or on various forms of socialism. Gonzalez addresses globalization, ecology, paternalism, charity and violence. In many cases, the poor are blamed for their circumstances, instead of having the causes of their plight addressed by the dominant cultures or economies.
In contrast to the rule of self-justification (Adam) and retribution are God’s gratuitous interventions. “Gratuitous” is the word the translators from Gonzalez’s original Spanish text used, instead of gracious or grace-filled. I quite like their approach, as the word’s root isgratia= grace, and it is more contemporary. With Adam and Eve, Noah, Babel, Abraham, the children of Israel in Egypt, God intervenes with words and actions of grace. The ultimate, gratuitous initiative by God is the incarnation of part of the God-community, the Messiah Jesus, who is Lord of all. Through his death and resurrection, the Messiah has cancelled the schema of retribution (2 Corinthians 5).
The communities of Jesus-followers are called to live nowunder the reign of Messiah Jesus; the Sermon on the Mount forms the basis for the new society in his kingdom. Gonzalez appeals for a new social order within this realm, with cooperation/connection among the communities, as the witness to their vitality. This new order grows from down below, from “there where” the followers of Messiah are living out his teaching and example, in a community of equals. No state or empire is expected to enact this new social order. As for the community-of-equals ideal, I read Gonzalez as a comment on the Brethren in Christ/Be in Christ movement away from this perspective through the “Vision Planning” processes of the late 1980s into the 1990s, becoming even more hierarchical than previously.
Those living under the current reign of Jesus, by faith, are members of the latter-day Israel. Thus, restoring Israel as a state has lost its meaning (192-193). The current nation of Israel is just another empire to be ended.
Gonzalez’ appeal for “economic democracy” (19) is difficult to envision; he actually grants this by allowing that we would still need some groups with “executive powers with global reach” (325). He fails to address the deep, human tendency toward greed. He does not propose that every member of the kingdom give all personal property into the hands of the community, which would move the communities of Jesus toward economic equality. In contemporary culture, we expect good Christians to provide for themselves for their “old age,” instead of expecting their families or church communities to support the elderly. If I give allto the church, may I go back to each congregation where I served as a pastor to ask for an annual allotment in their budget? Economic democracy is a stretch!
The translator and revisers have delivered an English work worthy of group study toward applications of his thoroughly Anabaptist perspectives. In our individualistic, evangelical church culture, this would require baby steps of change. Even such baby steps would meet with a lot of resistance, and probable reduction in our attendances. That would not fit well with the Brethren in Christ or Be in Christ denominations. Perhaps Anabaptism is too radical for us.
An extensive bibliography concludes the book. There are no indices, but the book is very accurate in presentation.