Rethinking Power, Part Three: When Faith Seeks the Throne
- Jeffrey Jenkins
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
What Happens When the Church Is No Longer in Control?
For much of American history, Christianity occupied a place of privilege in public life. Churches helped shape the calendar, the moral vocabulary, social customs, and even much of our political language. Whether that influence was always beneficial is open to debate, but few would deny that Christianity once held a far more prominent place in American culture than it does today.
The Church’s influence has weakened. Attendance has declined. America has become more religiously diverse.
Younger generations often view Christianity with skepticism rather than trust. Cultural assumptions once taken for granted are increasingly questioned.
For many Christians, these changes feel deeply personal, and it’s understandable to ask:
What happened to the country I once knew?
Fear naturally follows loss. And fear asks questions that hope does not. Hope asks, What is true? Or Where can I find help?, and assumes something better is available or possible.
Fear asks, Who took something from us?
When fear searches for an explanation, simple stories become attractive. Some point to immigration, religious pluralism, ethnic groups, or political opponents. Whether these explanations contain elements of truth or not, they often reduce a complicated cultural transformation to a single villain.
Fear rarely tolerates complexity. It searches for someone to blame. And once fear has identified an enemy, taking back political control begins to look like the obvious solution.
But perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps the deeper issue is not who changed America. Perhaps the deeper question is whether Christians have gradually confused cultural influence with faithful witness.
The Church Has Been Here Before
The first followers of Jesus possessed no political power. They held no public office. They commanded no armies. They wrote no legislation.
Yet within a few centuries, they transformed the Roman world.
How?
Not through coercion. Not through political domination. But through sacrificial love, radical hospitality, care for the poor, forgiveness of enemies, courage in suffering, and communities whose lives pointed beyond themselves to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus called His followers the salt of the earth and the light of the world—not the rulers of the world. The Church's influence grew because its witness was compelling.
Eventually, however, Christianity's relationship with political authority changed. As emperors embraced Christianity, the Church gained security, privilege, and influence. Those developments introduced a lasting temptation: to confuse the success of God's Kingdom with the success of Christian political power.
The Church has wrestled with that temptation ever since.
Today, Christians in America face a similar crossroads. As cultural influence declines, we must decide what kind of influence we wish to pursue.
Will we seek once again the power of the throne?
Or will we recover the power of faithful witness?
America Stands at a Crossroads, As Well
The Church is not alone in facing this question. America finds herself at a similar moment.
Throughout history, anxious societies have often been drawn toward leaders who promise certainty. Rather than inviting citizens into the difficult work of self-government, they promise to solve our problems if only we will entrust them with greater authority.
That temptation is not unique to any one political party or ideology. It is a recurring feature of human history. The question every generation must answer is whether we will share responsibility with one another or concentrate power in the hands of those who promise to rescue us.
History offers sobering lessons. When the German population turned to the Nazis for solutions and direction, they drove away Jewish scholars, scientists, physicians, and artists. The nation didn’t merely persecute innocent people; it impoverished itself. Albert Einstein and countless others carried their brilliance elsewhere, enriching nations that welcomed their gifts while Germany sacrificed decades of intellectual leadership.
Whenever societies decide that only certain people truly belong, they not only diminish those who are excluded; they diminish themselves.
America has never been strengthened by uniformity. At its best, our nation has been strengthened by people of different backgrounds, traditions, experiences, and beliefs learning the difficult work of living together.
That work has often been frustrating and messy; it has always demanded patience.
A Different Kind of Power
Scripture tells the surprising and remarkable story of a God who possesses all authority yet repeatedly chooses to share responsibility with humanity. From the opening chapters of Genesis, God entrusts creation to men and women made in His image.
Throughout Israel's history, leadership was understood not as domination but as stewardship. Jesus Himself rejected coercive power, choosing instead humility, service, sacrifice, and love.
Again and again, God entrusts His work to ordinary people. This suggests something profound: The opposite of authoritarianism is not weakness; it is shared responsibility.
When responsibility is shared:
Healthy families can flourish.
Healthy churches can flourish.
Healthy communities can flourish.
Healthy democracies can flourish.
Constitutional democracy cannot be equated with God’s Kingdom; God nor Scripture endorses or prescribes any one political system for a nation. Yet democracy reflects a deeply biblical understanding of human beings:
That every person bears God's image.
That every person possesses dignity
And that no fallen individual should be trusted with unlimited authority.
The U.S. Constitution did not emerge in a vacuum. It grew out of centuries of reflection on human nature, liberty, accountability, and the dangers of concentrated power. Many of those convictions were profoundly shaped by biblical ideas, even while America herself was never established as a Christian nation.
The Questions Before Us
Perhaps our greatest crisis today is not merely political. Perhaps it is theological.
Will Christians respond to cultural anxiety by seeking once again the privileges of political dominance? Or will we rediscover the quiet, transformative influence that changed the world long before Christianity ever possessed a throne?
Will Americans continue the demanding work of self-government? Or will we surrender that responsibility to leaders who promise certainty in exchange for greater power?
These questions ask the same thing: Do we trust shared responsibility? Or do we trust concentrated power?
The story of Scripture points us toward the first path. The God who rules the universe does not hoard power; he shares it.
Perhaps our calling—as followers of Christ, as neighbors, and as citizens—is to learn to do the same.
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