Acted Prayers

In his contribution to Faith and Power: Christianity and Islam in ‘Secular’ Britain , the late Leslie Newbigin gives an eschatological perspective on the notion of a Christian society:

“The focus of the biblical vision is on the final vindication of God in the gift of his perfect reign, symbolized in a city of perfect beauty and glory into which all the nations are to bring their honour and glory. The gift of God’s blessed reign is both imminent, in the sense that it is the proper horizon of all our actions here and now, whether in the public or the private realms, and at the same time a secret whose timing is wholly in the keeping of God who alone can know what possibilities there remain for repentance, faith and obedience. Our actions do not create this new order, nor do they bring it about. They are, in Albert Schweitzer’s fine words, acted prayers to God that he may give us the Kingdom. We act now (in the public realm as in our personal and domestic life) in ways which correspond to the reality which is to be the final reality, the judgment which will be the final judgment. These actions do not directly solve the world’s problems. They may fail. They will probably be forgotten after a few years or generations. They are simply committed to God, entrusted to his wise hands, in the faith that nothing entrusted to him is lost.”

In short, “we are right to recognize that politics will not solve the world’s problems. But we would be wrong if we concluded that politics are not part of the substance of Christian discipleship” (154-5).