I feel like at least some of what’s driving this is buyer’s remorse over the sharp separation of church and state. Even in the Catholic world there’s Daniélou’s provocative book “Prayer as a Political Problem”.
If there’s a strong aspect of “something missing” in evangelicalism then the dominionism and the "Trump as Cyrus" seems related to that. Humans are political animals and it feels unnatural to Protestants that pastors in the 18th century could speak boldly against King George by name while leadership now feels constrained (or perceived as being) by 501c3s and the 1954 amendment to tax code that prohibited churches from taking a public stand on candidates.
But the relationship between church and state is surely an insolvable problem or at least has been up to now (per Msgr Lane). St Paul taught obedience to government authorities and the natural question is where is the line drawn? Bonhoeffer struggled with it (without resolution alas):
“In Bonhoeffer’s book 'Discipleship', he says that the Church claims space in a world of secular power and dominion. This witness the Church provides, taking up space in a secular-dominated world, the state may tolerate the Church for awhile but, ‘there will be a clash with the world’s claim for space for its own activities...the world is becoming heated, more and more intense, an apocalyptic battle is approaching...’the older the world grows the more heated becomes the conflict between the Christ and the anti-christ and the more thorough the efforts of the world to get rid of Christians.’”
Relatedly it's interesting how two heroes, one Orthodox and one Catholic, viewed resistance to evil. St Maximilian Kolbe’s approach seems to have been the polar opposite of both Bonhoeffer’s and Alexander Solzenheitzen's, based on the latter's haunting quote: "What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?...They would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn't love freedom enough… We purely and simply deserved everything that happened.”
I feel like at least some of what’s driving this is buyer’s remorse over the sharp separation of church and state. Even in the Catholic world there’s Daniélou’s provocative book “Prayer as a Political Problem”.
If there’s a strong aspect of “something missing” in evangelicalism then the dominionism and the "Trump as Cyrus" seems related to that. Humans are political animals and it feels unnatural to Protestants that pastors in the 18th century could speak boldly against King George by name while leadership now feels constrained (or perceived as being) by 501c3s and the 1954 amendment to tax code that prohibited churches from taking a public stand on candidates.
But the relationship between church and state is surely an insolvable problem or at least has been up to now (per Msgr Lane). St Paul taught obedience to government authorities and the natural question is where is the line drawn? Bonhoeffer struggled with it (without resolution alas):
“In Bonhoeffer’s book 'Discipleship', he says that the Church claims space in a world of secular power and dominion. This witness the Church provides, taking up space in a secular-dominated world, the state may tolerate the Church for awhile but, ‘there will be a clash with the world’s claim for space for its own activities...the world is becoming heated, more and more intense, an apocalyptic battle is approaching...’the older the world grows the more heated becomes the conflict between the Christ and the anti-christ and the more thorough the efforts of the world to get rid of Christians.’”
Relatedly it's interesting how two heroes, one Orthodox and one Catholic, viewed resistance to evil. St Maximilian Kolbe’s approach seems to have been the polar opposite of both Bonhoeffer’s and Alexander Solzenheitzen's, based on the latter's haunting quote: "What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?...They would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn't love freedom enough… We purely and simply deserved everything that happened.”