蜜芽传媒

It鈥檚 not just what we say that matters, but also how we say it.

Every day in Parliament begins with the Lord鈥檚 Prayer. It will be said daily by millions of Christians and in most church services. But, how we say it reveals what we really think it means.

So, for example, should I stress 鈥淵our kingdom come鈥� or 鈥測our kingdom come鈥�?

I think it should be the former, with the stress on the 鈥測our鈥�. Why? Because there are plenty of other kingdoms on offer and vying for dominance. When Jesus taught his friends to pray this way, you could get executed for claiming that anyone other than Caesar was 鈥榯he Lord鈥�. To pray 鈥測our kingdom come鈥� was potentially 鈥� or maybe even essentially 鈥� seditious.

This isn鈥檛 a merely religious question. Whose kingdom we choose to serve has real-world consequences. For some people, it means protesting against the state or the law, thus coming into conflict over what they believe is more fundamentally right than what the dominant culture allows. Those taking part in protests against the proscription of Palestine Action are counting the cost of this ethical choice.

At the end of October this year I will be preaching in the Augustinerklosterkirche in Erfurt. This is the church where Martin Luther was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. It was at the centre of the Reformation and the subsequent Peasants鈥� War of 1525. It is a town whose prison held opponents to the Nazis and Soviet Communists. The walls bear witness to the choices ordinary people made about whose kingdom should have the priority 鈥� the prevailing political masters (Caesar) or the kingdom of God as lived out in Jesus of Nazareth?

This is also the epicentre of the AfD (Alternative f眉r Deutschland), the Far Right party growing in electoral popularity. What should I be saying in October on Reformation Day to a congregation comprising people whose assumptions about God鈥檚 kingdom will be conflicted? I have an old photograph from another Thuringian town, Jena, of several thousand Nazis protesting against an academic Old Testament theologian who wouldn鈥檛 tow the official line. Not a light decision for that man, but one that reveals what he meant when he prayed for the coming of God鈥檚 kingdom in the Lord鈥檚 Prayer 鈥� and saw around him the nature of a different rule.

This theologian knew the Bible. He was shaped by the plea of the prophets that a state must be built on humanity, justice, mutual love and mercy. Anything else must, however quietly, be challenged.

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