the Kingdom is the church

Increasingly, I've been reading and hearing about a greater emphasis among Christians of the Kingdom of God. Jesus announced it had come, he taught often about it ("the kingdom is like..."), and so on. Along with greater emphasis on the Kingdom has come greater emphasis on discipleship and Lordship, carried out not only in the afterlife (perhaps the common label "kingdom come" should now be dropped as misleading...) but here and now. And the forgiveness of sin is extended to the citizens of the Kingdom by the King, not to anyone who merely recites the right prayer out of guilt. This part of the trend is quite good, of course, because it encourages greater participation and diligence from nominal Christians.

But I've also been disturbed by a different part of the trend: the tendency to misconstrue the definition and extent of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not the entire universe. The Kingdom is the church, the group of people regenerated divinely.

The Kingdom is not an earthly government. As a rule I veer away from petty politics, but it seems to me that if God wished for a world that enforced Christianity then Jesus would have lived his short life differently. The way that I read the Bible, it doesn't support the notion that the way to expand the Kingdom is by force, political or otherwise. Christians in a democracy can vote their consciences, naturally, but the Bible doesn't provide a blueprint for a nation, only a group of devotees. We aren't called to institute heaven on earth or to correct every problem. Our mission is to spread good news and be citizens of a Kingdom that isn't bounded by any lower kingdom.

The way to expand the Kingdom is by bringing people together in obedience and love to the highest Authority. That is the nature of the Kingdom's existence.