Kingdom theology saw a resurgence in the second half of the twentieth century. Many rightfully consider the embracing of kingdom theology as essential for a biblically faithful community, witness, and mission to the world. A brief survey of Jesus’ message and ministry in the Gospels reveals that God’s kingdom was absolutely central to his work. It was what he preached, why he exercised his authority, and was part of his identity and self-understanding.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:24 (NIV)
Many in the church are warming up to this idea. Some in the nineteenth and twentieth century, especially liberal theologies, used the concept to set forth a humanistic agenda of world peace which stripped away any notion of supernatural salvation or atonement theology from the Christian message. It is also used by some to propagate socialist political theory. More recently, it is used by charismatics as grounds for a theology of healing and reconciliation. While some of these may be aspects of evangelical options, kingdom theology serves as what is referred to as theology’s integrating theme. Some consider it the most basic theological theme that gives meaning to all other doctrines. That being said, it was surprising to see John Franke and Stanley Grenz offer such little treatment of it in Beyond Foundationalism, especially in light of Franke’s other work The Character of Theology in which he continues this pattern but does use the term at various points in his work, rather affirmingly. While I considered the idea that it was not within the scope of Beyond Foundationalism, as it turns out they propose community as theology’s integrative motif. So, there is an obvious intentionality and thoughtfulness put into it, and they even offered a few brief paragraphs as to why kingdom as an orienting motif falls short. The reasons they provide are (p. 234-235):
- The kingdom of God is hard to define. But there have been satisfactory, technical definitions. Also, community itself is not without controversy.
- It lends itself to individualistic theology, even in the hands of liberal theology. Actually, kingdom theology probably provides the most social motif while retaining the individual responsibility of persons. Of course they would probably resist the need for such a move in the first place, since he takes seriously that we do not have meaning or identity without the reference of community. Still, the individuality of persons is retained in Scriptures, so there is no need to fear where kingdom theology only may lead, even as Franke grants.
- Kingdom theology is a pervasive but not a basic theme in the Bible. While this may be true if looking for explicit references, this is not true if one understand the concept as implicit. Community, though also convincingly pervasive, falls short in a similar manner.
“In fact, the concept of community forms the content of the kingdom of God. The divine reign consists of God at work redeeming, reconciling, and transforming creation into God’s intended ideal and thereby constituting the world as God’s realm.”
I don’t know if they realized what they just did here—they resorted to God’s realm as being more basic than community. God’s realm is his kingdom. What community as an integrative motif misses out on is all the dimensions of creation that is beside humans; big-picture ecology is gleaned over. God’s kingdom plan extends to the destiny of creation, and has a wider scope than that of community. Since the subtitle of Beyond Foundationalism is “Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context,” it makes sense that community is at the core of their proposal. Not to mention, it is incredibly helpful and useful. Still, since postmodern theory admits that the words we use actually shape our experience, I think it would be wonderful to see works that treat theology’s task, nature, or method take seriously the term Jesus used to define his ministry. I am curious as to why they decided to go in a different direction. The one reason I understand, though still have my reservations about, is that it is an outdated model in a post-monarchical world.
