The Church: Neither Chaplain nor Partisan

Today's Scripture

Jeremiah 29:4-7 — "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce... But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

1 Peter 2:11-12 — "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."

The Big Idea

The church faces two standing temptations: become the chaplain of a political party — blessing whatever its side does — or hide from public life altogether. The Bible calls God's people to a third way. We are to be deeply different from the world and deeply for the world at the same time. Lose either half, and the church loses its reason to exist.

Reflection

A surprising letter to the losers of a war

Jeremiah 29 is a letter to refugees. Babylon had smashed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and dragged God's people hundreds of miles from home. If anyone had a right to hate their new city, the exiles did. You would expect God's instructions to be: resist Babylon, or at least keep your distance until I rescue you.

Instead, God writes this: Jeremiah 29:5, 7 — "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce... But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." The word translated "welfare" is shalom — the Hebrew word for peace, wholeness, everything-as-it-should-be. God commands his people to want shalom for Babylon. Pagan, idol-worshiping, empire-building Babylon.

That is the strangest community in the ancient world: people who keep their own identity, refuse the city's gods, and still pray for the city's flourishing. Augustine described the church's situation in exactly these terms — two cities, the city of God and the city of man, sharing the same streets until history ends:

"These two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effects their separation." — Augustine, The City of God

Entangled. You cannot pull the church out of the world like a tea bag out of a cup. And John Wesley, banned from many English pulpits, decided the entanglement was the point:

"I look upon all the world as my parish." — John Wesley, Journal (June 11, 1739)

A parish is the neighborhood a pastor is responsible for. Wesley's claim was that no street, no industry, no political ward sits outside the church's care. Babylon is in the parish too.

Different on purpose

But Jeremiah is only half the picture. The other half comes from Peter, writing to Christians scattered across the Roman Empire. 1 Peter 2:9 — "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Notice the political words: race, priesthood, nation, people. The church is not a club inside a country. It is its own nation, gathered from every country.

That is why Peter calls believers "sojourners and exiles" (1 Peter 2:11-12) — temporary residents, people whose passport comes from somewhere else — and tells them to keep their conduct "honorable" so that even hostile neighbors end up glorifying God. Jesus prayed for exactly this combination the night before he died. John 17:15-18 — "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one... As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." Not out of the world. Not absorbed by the world. Sent into it, kept distinct within it.

An old preacher's picture helps: a boat belongs in the water, but the water must not get into the boat. A church belongs in its culture — its politics, its problems, its pain. But when the culture's way of fighting floods into the church, the church starts to sink. C.S. Lewis named what the church is actually for:

"The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time." — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

And here is why the distinctness matters so much. The missionary Lesslie Newbigin spent decades in India, then came home to a Britain that no longer believed. People asked him: how will anyone find the gospel convincing now? His answer has become famous:

"The only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it." — Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

"Hermeneutic" is a scholar's word for the way something gets interpreted — the lens people read it through. Newbigin's point is simple: your neighbors will read the gospel through the life of your church. A church that is just one more partisan interest group gives them nothing new to read.

The chaplain trap and the bunker trap

Now name the two failures precisely. The first is the chaplain trap. A team chaplain travels with the team, wears the team's colors, prays before the games — and is quietly expected never to question the coach. When a church becomes the chaplain of a political party, it is welcome everywhere its side gathers, and useless. It is kept around to bless, not to speak. It has traded its prophetic voice — "prophetic" just means saying what God says, even when it costs you — for a seat near power. This temptation is fully bipartisan. There are left-leaning chaplaincies and right-leaning chaplaincies, and both lose the ability to say "thus says the Lord" to their own team.

The second is the bunker trap: deciding the public square is so dirty that holy people should stay out of it entirely. That sounds humble, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer — who watched most German churches go quiet at the worst possible moment — called it a betrayal of the church's nature:

"The church is the church only when it exists for others." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Martin Luther King Jr., writing from a Birmingham jail cell to pastors who urged him to slow down, described what the church once was and must be again:

"In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society." — Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

A thermometer tells you the temperature of the room. A thermostat changes it. And King gave the church's job description its sharpest single sentence:

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool." — Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

Not master — the church does not grab the controls. Not servant — the church does not take orders from any party. Conscience — close enough to speak, free enough to tell the truth. Tim Keller insisted this rules out the bunker as much as the chaplaincy:

"Christians cannot pretend they can transcend politics and simply 'preach the Gospel.' Those who avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the social status quo." — Tim Keller, "How Do Christians Fit Into the Two-Party System? They Don't"

Silence is not neutral. But neither is the church's engagement supposed to look like everyone else's. Matthew 5:9 — "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Galatians 6:10 — "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Doing good to everyone — not just to voters who agree with us — is the church's native political style.

Ambassadors from another city

So what holds the two halves together — different from the world, given for the world? Paul's word is "ambassador." 2 Corinthians 5:20 — "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." An ambassador lives in a foreign capital and works hard for good relations there. But she never forgets which government she represents, and she does not run for office in the country where she serves. Her job is to carry her King's message: be reconciled.

And underneath it all is a promise. Hebrews 13:14 — "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come." The church can afford to be honest in every earthly city because it is not depending on any of them for a home.

Here is the gospel turn. This whole pattern is not first a strategy; it is a Person. Jesus is the true exile — he left his home, entered a city that did not want him, and sought its welfare anyway. He healed its sick, fed its crowds, and wept over it. The city answered by handing him to the empire for execution. And from the cross he prayed for the city that was killing him: Father, forgive them. Bonhoeffer's line — the church exists for others — is simply a description of its Lord, the man for others.

Because Jesus sought the shalom of the city at the cost of his life, his church can seek the shalom of every city without needing any of them to crown us. We have already been claimed by a King. That is what frees us to be neither chaplain nor partisan — just witnesses.

Going Deeper

Pray Jeremiah 29:7 over your actual town today — out loud, with names in it. Name your mayor or council (whatever their party), one school, one struggling business, one lonely street. Then pick a single concrete act of seeking your city's welfare this week that earns you nothing: no post, no credit, no side scored. Exiles who pray for Babylon end up loving it — and that love is the church's oldest political strategy.