Albeit homo sapiens,
which in Latin means the wise species of humans, we have a tendency to outdo
ourselves on our petty, partisan perches in pontificating on God’s will, as if
we know it even though we can merely believe in God, rather than know
God, here defined as the Abrahamic deity—a supreme being within (immanent)
and beyond (transcendent) Creation. This “beyondness” is of the sort that goes
beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and emotions, and even
intuition. Because God’s will is not based in Creation since God is the
Creator, the matter of that will can only be a matter of belief rather
than knowledge as far as we are concerned, and that belief must contend
with the human discretion that is inevitable in interpreting scriptural
passages, which, depending on the verse, may be literal, figurative,
allegorical, or symbolic. Even within the Christian Trinity, only the Father
knows when the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur. In the Gospel of
Matthew (24:36), Jesus says, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even
the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Does this mean that of
the three persons (Latin) or manifestations (Greek) of the Christian deity,
only the Father is omniscient (i.e., all-knowing: knows absolutely everything)?
It would seem so. The Holy Spirit may come through the Son, but only the Father
is omniscient, and thus the Godhead. In verse 34, Jesus has just said, “Truly I
tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things
have happened.” Even if “that day or hour” is up to the Father, while Jesus
only knows that the Son will come on clouds to judge the living and the dead sometime
within the lifetimes of the people to whom he is speaking, omniscience would
require even the exact second to be known; otherwise, the knowledge is not
complete (i.e., omni). That Jesus is wrong concerning his prediction
does not mean that he is with sin; only that he is represented in the New Testament
as being of the god-man type. Now, if Jesus Christ in the Gospel of
Matthew does not have complete knowledge of when the world will end at the
final judgement by Christ himself, then human claims to know the contents of
God’s will can safely be relegated as arrogance as if it were on stilts during
a flood, for such presumption should be underwater rather than lording itself
in pontificating to other mortals. With all this as context, the partisan rhetoric
and genuine beliefs of the U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, while he was campaigning
in 2026 for Republican candidates for elected office in the U.S. House, can be
situated and analyzed from well within the religious domain.
While campaigning, “Johnson
said he is grateful for the outpouring of prayers he receives, for him and the
country.”[1]
The prayers to which he was referring were for the Republican group to retain
control of the U.S. House in its next 2-year session, beginning in early 2027.
As for his own prayers, he said that he prays for such a win. “And it does say
in the New Testament, you run the race to win,” he said, alluding to 1 Corinthians
9:24 to insist, “This is a biblical admonition. So we will.”[2]
We will win, in other words, because it is God’s will. The fact that Paul was
writing letters to congregations on religious matters means that Mike Johnson’s
interpretation that political, even partisan wins can be extrapolated can be
questioned in particular on the leap he makes from the religious to the
political domain. What sort of win does 1 Cor. 9:24 refer to, and if not a political
win, can such a win be included?
Verse 24, in the English
Standard Version of the Bible, begins by asking, “Do you not know that in a race
all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may
obtain it.” That Paul is referring to an athletic race is clear from the next
verse: “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do so to
receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” Here, it is clear that
Paul is referring to a distinctly religious prize, as it is inherently imperishable.
I contend that a partisan win which group controls a legislative body is of the
perishable variety because political control can shift again in the future. The
verse is situated after Paul has been referring to spreading the Gospel. In
verse 21, Paul writes of evangelizing outside of Judaism, “that I might win
those outside the law.” Verse 22 ends with, “that by all means I might save
them.” Paul’s orientation here is to soteriology—to saving souls by bringing to
Christ Jesus. This is indeed an inherently imperishable prize, and thus the
inference that such a win also applies to retaining political control of
a legislative chamber is invalid because the latter—political control—can be
all too fleeting for those who enjoy such power, whereas, Paul might say, the
power of Christ is everlasting.
If this analysis holds water,
then Speaker Johnson’s assumption that it is God’s will that the Republican
group retains control of the U.S. House in 2027-2028 is dogmatic in the sense
of being arbitrary from a distinctly religious standpoint. Similarly,
the Crusaders who believed that they were killing Muslims in the Middle East
and even eastern Christians in Constantinople for Christ were utterly
mistaken, especially as Jesus preaches in the Gospels that people should be
compassionate, even merciful, toward enemies, rather than killing them, which,
by the way, is also in violation of “Thou shalt not kill” in the Ten
Commandments. Even as late as 2026, Pope Leo countered the U.S. Defense Secretary’s
claim that the U.S. was bombing Iran for God by warning that God, which
Christians believe is love, should not be dragged into justifying war.
Not even democracy can be said
to be God’s will, even though it is easy to argue that religious free-will and
political liberty are mutually consistent. Conflating a distinctively theological
concept with one from political philosophy, and even assuming that one leads to
or justifies the other can be problematic. Confusing political communism
with economic socialism, Speaker Johnson said in the midst of the
campaigns in 2026, “I pray for God’s will. And I believe God’s will is for
us-and not the communists—to be in charge of America.”[3]
That he was mischaracterizing the liberal democrats’ position in favor of universal
health-insurance through Medicare for all Americans as not only the state owning
all of the means of production (i.e., every industry) but also as political
communism, which means political dictatorship rather than socialist ownership
of industries, renders his prayer nonsensical at best because the Democratic
group was not for political dictatorship. God would perhaps scratch “his” head
and in hearing Johnson’s politically partisan prayer, quickly conclude that
Mike Johnson must either be confused or mendacious in using rhetoric, besides
being wrong in assuming that God itself is partisan, and thus favors the Republican
group over the Democrats. Labeling even the self-styled Democratic socialists
as communists, or even just as wanting to nationalize every industry rather
than just expanding Medicare to all Americans, violates the Commandment against
bearing false witness, which applies even to political campaigning.
In general, reaching over from
the political domain to make use of concepts and practices that are distinctive
to the religious domain is fraught with pitfalls because the two domains are
not only distinct, but have a unique basis. For instance, political prizes are
perishable, whereas salvation of the human soul is imperishable once achieved.
In writing of winning in 1 Corinthians, Paul is clearly oriented to distinctively
religious wins, rather than to athletic, business, or political wins. In the
Gospels, Jesus does not join the zealots because an eye for an eye would only
lead to everyone being blind, whereas compassionate acts to one’s enemies, such
as Jesus demonstrates in reattaching the ear of a Temple guard after Peter has
severed it in anger, ushers in the kingdom of God. Unlike the Last Judgment, of
when only the Father knows, the kingdom of God is within a person, in the ability
of the proverbial human heart to expand to include and even privilege feelings
and acts of kindness to one’s detractors and even enemies; on the arrival of
this spiritual condition within, we, by our free will, can decide,
albeit with God’s grace to give us a boost. If enough of us, including Speaker
Johnson, serve rather than attack or misrepresent enemies, such that inconvenient
acts of compassion become the norm, then the kingdom of God could indeed “win.”
Russians being devoted to helping Ukrainians, Israelis to helping homeless people
in Gaza—in both cases even though the “enemy” has killed even family members—is
the kingdom of which Jesus preaches manifested in the world, rather than in an
afterlife. Such a kingdom is within our grasp, and yet we are afraid.
As a first step, perhaps religious leaders might serve as models of compassionate, humbling acts to marginalized victims of human aggression. Even though such compassion does not necessarily involve serving one's enemies, responding to animalistic aggression with acts of humane compassion to victims would highlight that the aggression is two steps of separation from "love thy enemy," and shift the faithful in the direction of such compassionate love as would bring about Christ's peace on Earth. Furthermore, acts are louder than words.
What if the Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, were to have gone to the border of Gaza in 2026, after years of genocide being perpetuated by hardened hearts, and actually worked with living victims to alleviate their unmet humane needs? It is said, charity begins at home. Talk is cheap. To be sure, denouncing aggression is better than remaining silent during a genocide or military invasion. The pope would doubtlessly have been counselled at the Vatican against such an overt, risky move, as if picking up one’s Cross were to be avoided—as if one could achieve selfless agape love issuing out in inconvenient acts of compassion without dying to self. The pope could have then gone to Ukraine in the mist of Russia's invasion even though he would have risked being blown up by a Russian bomb while caring personally for wounded, hungry, or homeless persons. Perhaps the Pope could then have visited the United States to volunteer for a few days to care for impoverished, homeless immigrants.
Pope Leo would have favored the last task due to his political stance on immigration, so I put that stop last on his trip. Redemption from the convenient congruence of a political ideology and putting compassion first is possible, however.
For Robert Prevost, the first American pope, ideological disagreement with President Trump on several of his policies cannot be counted out, so to take the next step in ushering in the kingdom of God, Pope Leo could have let go of the self-love that is inherent in any ideological ferver by caring for exhausted and emotionally distressed ICE agents whose efforts to enforce U.S. immigration law were being met with hostile protests. Meanwhile, Mike Johnson, if he was truly seeking to follow Jesus's preachments in the Gospels, could have volunteered to care for wounded protesters on the street, in real time, even though he disagreed with their political position. Both men had the opportunity to serve detractors and thus to lead the world not from self-love, and thus from personal ideology, but rather from love of the way into the kingdom of God as exampled and taught by Jesus in the Gospels, who says therein, "I came to preach the mysteries of the kingdom of God."
The challenge for Pope Leo could be said to be in staying within the distinctly religious, or theological, lane, rather than going off from theology, and thus beyond the limits of his ken, into public policy, as if God takes political positions, and into applied ethics, even concerning AI, as if human dignity were a distinctly religious concept rather than an ethical idea. Ironically, a pope's influence is optimized by coloring within the lines, as per one's education and, relatedly, within one's domain.
In short, the kingdom of
God can be at hand at last, in this world, by people feeling and acting
compassionately in serving people having an antipodal ideology (i.e., with whom
one disagrees), and even people who have been rude and even vengeful, whom one
hates. As Peter and Waterman wrote in their business book, In Search of
Excellence, stick to the knitting. In other words, don’t get distracted by
the temptation to shift lanes into other domains as if they were the same or
even inferior to one’s own. Perhaps God “stands by” in silence, as the source
of existence itself, just watching Robert Prevost and Mike Johnson dance a very
human, all too human, dance wherein each of the ideological partisans
presumes to be right. Arrogance on stilts during a flood is difficult to submerge in favor of agape love in service to one's opponents in whatever domain.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
