O' Donovan's Defense of Christian Mission

Oliver O’ DONOVAN, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). xii + 304 pp.

As the subtitle of Oliver O’ Donovan’s book makes clear, Desire of the Nations marks the author’s bold attempt to rediscover the roots of political theology. The scope of the work is nothing short of magisterial as the author traces the trajectory of political thought from the moment of Israel’s formation through to our current era, post-Christendom. The author remarks in the preface to the paperback edition of his work that what he set out to uncover was Christ’s kingship. This did not, however, prevent some of his readers to in fact see the work as a defense of Christendom. We proceed to outline the broad contours of Desire of the Nations and argue that, far from being a defense of Christendom, O’ Donovan’s work is better understood as a defense of Christian mission.
The book begins by addressing the suspicion directed toward the very concept of political theology in the present era, having been unmasked in the modern age as supposedly nothing more than a means to power and control. Despite the difficulties that this suspicious hermeneutic poses for anyone attempting to undertake political theology nowadays, O’ Donovan is to be commended for courageously stepping up to the plate in prophetic stance to take up the challenge against suspicion (6 - 12).
According to O’ Donovan, political theology, as with any theological undertaking, must begin with the articulation of concepts that comport with reality, and hence with objective truth. “True political concepts” are what this author is after, and he believes that chief among such concepts is that of political authority. In the face of modernity’s and post-modernity’s inability to speak intelligibly of political authority O’ Donovan turns first to Israel’s history and the divine reign revealed within that history. Israel’s political forms, believes O’ Donovan, are normative for all political reflection (25). Such a claim is already to place the author’s commitments emphatically and unapologetically within the sphere of Christian confession: O’ Donovan’s approach to political theology is a dogmatic political theology.
Having surveyed the manner in which political authority was understood within Israel, O’ Donovan concludes with remarkable insight that, in Israel, the notion of political authority arises where power, execution of right, and the perpetuation of tradition are assured together in one co-ordinated agency (46). Such a large-scale claim cannot help but face proportionate scrutiny by many who would want to resist such a unified reading of the Old Testament (and of the NT for that matter as we shall see below). In any case, it is welcome to see a sustained, attentive and nuanced reading of Scripture at centre stage, rather than at the periphery, of political theological discourse.
For O’ Donovan it is precisely in the person of the crucified and resurrected Jesus that each of the above aspects - power, right and tradition - find their fulfillment. Jesus is presented as an unmistakably political figure; to put faith in him is to acknowledge God’s political rule at work in his ministry (113). Thus, in light of the Old and New Testament narratives, political theology acknowledges one and only one authority in the person of Jesus. Under Christ, says O’ Donovan, the authorization of secular authority is dramatically relativized and made provisional, existing only for the sake of enabling the church’s subsequent mission and the exercise of judgment (147).
In the one unified act consisting of the four moments of Advent, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, O’ Donovan sees Jesus as representative of Israel on the one hand, and the Church on the other. In this very act of representation, Jesus is said to authorize the church as a truly political community (146). Through the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost O’ Donovan believes that the Church proceeds to recapitulate the mission of the Christ-event itself as the gathering, suffering and glad community that speaks the word of God (161). Importantly for the author, the church is not to be thought of as being governed by its various institutions, but by only by Christ himself through his Spirit (171). Church order, far from being dispensable, however, functions as a necessary “badge” of the Church’s persisting identity as a political community authorized by Christ (172).
The type of political theology presented throughout Desire of the Nations is characteristically one of Two Kingdoms - one which sees the slowly fading kingdom of worldly powers overlapping with the coming ultimate reign of God in Christ (193). It is in the context of this dual authority that O’ Donovan offers a genealogical account of how political theology eventually arrived at Christendom. For O’ Donovan, Christendom is not to be confused either with revealed history or the church’s tradition. It is but the idea of a Christian secular political order put into practice. Over against the Hauerwasian critique of so called Constantinianism, he rightly understands Christendom not as the church’s buying into of Rome’s project, but quite the reverse vis-a-vis its gospel mission (215 - 216). The church’s relation to the state, says O’ Donovan, can never be one of identity, but persists in the stance of martyrdom. Thus, Christendom was the result of the church’s witness which sought and succeeded in humbling the state before the authority of Christ (219).
Thus, when O’ Donovan argues that the legacy of Christendom to the modern West is political liberalism (228) and that it is from that tradition that contemporary political theological reflection must proceed, he is able to both affirm and disaffirm various aspects. On the one hand, the liberal tradition is born out of the four moments of Christ’s representative action. On the other hand, however, liberal tradition as it has eventuated in late modernity under the influence of voluntarism and social contractarianism, has also, paradoxically, become a reflection of the Anti-Christ (252 - 284). Thus, O’ Donovan’s narrative of modern liberalism is one that is complicatedly mixed and requiring much discernment if the church is to see the Christ within it. But, such should the church’s quandary be if the the earthly and heavenly cities are indeed a permixtum.
As we noted earlier some have come to interpret Desire of the Nations as the author’s defense of Christendom. The reading is predictable, but rather a flat one. What the author does defend, however, is a broad depiction of modern liberalism, which has gained the status of the church’s tradition, bequeathed even in the passing of Christendom. It is important to realize that in defending the four aspects of modern liberalism he is in fact ultimately seeking to defend the four aspects of Christ’s mission to the world: in defending liberal freedom he defends the effectiveness of the Advent of Christ who has come and relativized all earthly authority (252 - 256); in defending liberal mercy in judgment he defends the effectiveness of the Passion of Christ who suffered judgment for the sake of others’ redemption (256 - 261); in defending liberal natural rights, he defends Christ’s resurrection and the vindication of the humane order of the world which followed (262 - 268); and, finally, in defending liberalism’s openness to speech O’ Donovan defends the freedom won to the church at Pentecost, which addresses God in prayerful and prophetic speech (268 - 271). Indeed, what the author intended to achieve in writing Desire of the Nations he has succeeded in doing - not a defense of Christendom but of Christ’s kingship, truly the desire of the nations, and the effectiveness of church’s mission to all political authorities, which witnesses to that rule.