This past Saturday (October 18, 2025), according to some news sources over 7 million Americans joined together at over 2,700 protests held across the United States on what was called “No Kings Day II” (*No Kings Day I was held June 14, 2025). These individuals met in common bond around the concern that the current Presidential Administration is working to subvert democracy and moving at a fast clip in an autocratic direction more common to a dictator or king than what the United States Constitution proscribes for the Executive Branch of our government.
While I was not able to join the local protest due to another obligation, I had loved ones and friends who did participate. Consistent with what has been reported elsewhere, they said the local protest was peaceful, non-disruptive, and made up of people from varied age groups, ethnicities and political allegiance. In other words, it was a gathering held in the spirit of other American protests over the years, acting on the rights of free speech and independent thinking. It was not, as some critics claimed, an anti-American or non-patriotic act of disobedience – there being a distinct difference between disagreement and disobedience.
It seems to me that if over 7 million Americans were willing to give up some of their Saturday to attend and participate in such a protest, there is a significant amount of dissatisfaction being registered concerning the actions of our current Executive and his administration. In short, many people (maybe most people?) are not happy with the autocratic acts of a president who continues to circumvent congressional oversight, and overreach on judicial precedents. Many people are worried about the direction the country is heading and the unwillingness of the other branches of government to act as a check and balance on an out-of-control president.
Coincidently, as this latest mass planned and led act of free speech was developing, I had been reading a book by N.T. Wright titled “How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels”. Typical of books by this scholar, “How God Became King” is a thorough treatise of how followers of Christ have mostly missed the mark on Jesus’ central message of “the Kingdom of God” shared in the Gospels. In it’s stead they have settled for an abbreviated version of Christianity focused more on basic bullet points of the ancient creeds (Apostle’s and Nicene). This truncated version of the Good News is mostly individualistic, focused on Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension – but not much at all on the “kingdom of God”.
In skipping over the most taught and preached about message Jesus shares in the Gospels, Christ followers have settled on an embrace of Christianity that is focused on salvation and redemption, followed by extraction to heaven for the great by and by. Granted, as conceded by Wright, these are not all bad things, but by making them the focus to the near exclusion of God’s kingdom, Christ followers risk missing the point of much of Jesus’ life and ministry. Namely, that He came announcing and inaugurating a new kingdom or reign and rule of God that began in Him. Furthermore, upon His death and resurrection, followed by His ascension back to the right hand of God, that kingdom has now been fully installed, is to be advanced by the Church (led by the Holy Spirit), and will be complete upon His return – not to extract believers to heaven, but to re-create a new heaven and earth, with the King living there among believers, ala Revelation 21.
It’s rather heady stuff, I know, and contrary (as Wright explains) to some of the messaging shared in today’s Christian pulpits and pews, but it does ring true with my reading and study of the Gospels. The main point being, God is King – or Jesus is King (if you prefer to put His name and face on it) and our allegiance, as well as our citizenship is found in Him and His kingdom.
It is for this reason that I struggle and cringe when I see and hear Christ followers promote the blather of Christian Nationalism that has become so prevalent (again) today. This elevation of an earthly nation (even one I cherish and call home), particularly when led by one with monarchical aspirations, to a status of near “sovereign” is worrisome. The elevation of a political leader (again) to a place where he is not to be questioned or criticized is dangerous. The blatant grab and pursuit of power couched in the murkiness of faith-laced Christian language is sickening.
The Good News I read tells me to “seek first the kingdom of God” and “to render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar’s”. As an American Baptist, in the tradition of Roger Williams, I ascribe to the separation of church and state not the blurring of those lines when it’s politically convenient. I embrace religious liberty for all, not just those who think or pray like I do. I am called to “pray for those in high positions” and to “be subject to governing authorities” but with the primary intent that “we may lead peaceful and quiet lives of all godliness and holiness”. In short, I strive to stay informed, to speak out against injustice and meanness (of which there is no lack today), but to not become so consumed with the earthly kingdom, or its king wannabe, that I lose sight of God’s kingdom foremost.
Some may say, “God can use unlikely leaders to advance God’s cause. Just look at Cyrus in the Old Testament.” (I’ve heard that one too many times!) We can debate to what extent “God’s cause” may be being advanced these days! I know that Jesus said, “by their fruits you will know them”. And, to quote a more recent civil and military leader: “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But, if you must be without one, be without strategy.” – Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. I fear, sadly, we are without both in our current elected leader.
The arc of Scripture teaches that we are headed toward a day when Christ the King will return in glory to make right all things that are not yet right. It will be a day of judgment, yes. But it will also be a day of restoration and re-creation – when that new heaven and earth is fully and permanently joined together, just as it was in King Jesus’ death and resurrection. Until that day, there may be days of suffering and challenge and endurance. But I choose to live each day as a citizen of the Kingdom of God which Jesus taught and modeled and invited each of us to join.
To circle back to N.T. Wright and his book “How God Became King”, written in 2012, he ends his book by making some suggestions as to what a Christ follower, living in the “already here but not yet fully realized Kingdom of God” should make his or her focus. Wright suggests that those of us who live under the King Jesus’ banner are called to live as “little Christs” – the literal meaning of “Christian” – by being mindful that our lives, like that of Jesus, are to be temples – or places where heaven and earth meet. In other words, we are to be mindful, prayerful, thoughtful and behave in ways that demonstrate we are already citizens of the Kingdom of God.
We are to seek and show the mind of King Jesus, to live by his ethic and teaching, and to point to him through both our conduct and our words. We are to be resident aliens who live “in this world” but are “not of this world’s kingdoms”. We are citizens of another kingdom, the Kingdom of God, that will one day will be fully re-created right here. Until then, we pray, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.
© Daniel M. Cash 2025
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