FIRE
OF GOD VERSUS PRESERVATION BY MAN
Every great faith
began with fire—with a founding conviction strong enough to reorder life and
demand loyalty beyond convenience. None began as a cultural ornament or
political accessory. Yet history presses a sobering question upon every
religion: what
did it choose to preserve when power entered the picture? Because
when influence grows and institutions harden, what a faith defends over time
reveals what it truly worships. Fire exposes purpose, but preservation exposes
priorities. Across history, religions have preserved different things—law,
land, culture, authority, identity, or suffering—and those choices continue to
shape political systems and human conflict.
Judaism
and Israel occupy a unique place in this discourse because Israel did not begin
merely as a religion but as a covenant people directly governed by God. From
Abraham through Moses, Israel was formed as a nation under divine law, where
Torah functioned not only as spiritual instruction but as moral, civil, and
communal order. Land, lineage, worship, and obedience were inseparable, and God
Himself was Israel’s King. Crucially, when Israel later demanded a human king
in order to be “like the other nations,” this request was not aligned with
God’s perfect will. Scripture records that God granted them a king in
displeasure, warning them through Samuel that kings would tax
them, conscript their sons, take their daughters, and burden the people.
Israel’s monarchy, therefore, was not God’s original design but a concession to
human desire for visible power, security, and political normalcy. Even then,
Israel’s kings were never absolute; they remained subject to the Law and
answerable to the prophets, who confronted kings openly when they violated
God’s covenant.
This
distinction matters deeply, because Judaism’s political relationship is rooted
not in expansion or conquest, but in covenant preservation and survival. After
the destruction of the Temple and centuries of exile, Jewish identity was
preserved through law, memory, tradition, and communal boundaries rather than
political dominance. Modern Israel represents a historic return to sovereignty,
where ancient covenant identity now intersects with modern statehood, producing
tension between divine calling, secular governance, and international politics.
Judaism’s influence on political structure is therefore shaped by the struggle
to preserve identity under power and without it, always carrying the memory
that human kingship itself was a guarded and conditional allowance, not the
ultimate hope.
Islam,
by contrast, emerged from its inception as a religio-political system. Its
founder functioned simultaneously as prophet, lawgiver, military leader, and
head of state, uniting faith, governance, and law into a single structure. This
framework has been consciously preserved by some adherents across centuries,
making Islam’s political influence direct and structural. In such a system, the
separation between mosque and state is not foundational but foreign, and
political dissent can easily be interpreted as religious rebellion. Modern
jihadist movements, while rejected by many Muslims, are not inventing something
new so much as attempting to revive early models of governance where belief
expands through authority and law, sometimes by force. Reform becomes difficult
where religious obedience and political loyalty are fused.
Buddhism
and Hinduism follow a different trajectory. Buddhism began with renunciation,
as its founder rejected kingship and worldly power in pursuit of enlightenment,
while Hinduism historically allowed a broad plurality of spiritual paths and
expressions of the divine. Yet when these traditions became embedded within
nations, they gradually transformed into cultural and institutional
authorities. In several regions, Buddhism has become tied to ethnic identity,
temple influence, and national loyalty, serving as a stabilizing force for
political order rather than solely a path of detachment. Hinduism, particularly
in modern reform and nationalist movements, has shifted from spiritual
diversity toward political consolidation, temple control, and identity-based
governance. In these contexts, religion governs not through conquest but
through culture, where tradition is sanctified and dissent becomes social
betrayal. What began as spiritual wisdom is preserved as cultural power.
Christianity
stands apart not because Christians are superior, but because its Founder
categorically refused political authority. Jesus rejected kingship, rebuked
violence, and declared that His kingdom was not of this world. He established
no state, claimed no land, and codified no civil law. The apostles followed
this pattern, and the Apostle Paul explicitly warned that no soldier of Christ
should entangle himself with the affairs of this life, lest he cease to please
the One who enlisted him. Christianity was politically disarmed at birth
because its warfare was never legislative, military, or territorial. Its
battlefield was the conscience, its weapon was truth, and its aim was
redemption rather than control.
This
posture explains Christianity’s enduring collision with political power.
Christianity asserts that kings answer to God, that laws are not moral merely
because they are legal, that tradition can be wrong, and that truth does not
depend on majority rule. For this reason, Christianity is tolerated when it is
silent, celebrated when it is symbolic, and persecuted when it is prophetic.
Empires can accommodate religion that blesses their authority, but they cannot
endure a faith that judges it. History confirms the pattern: Judaism preserves
covenant and identity while remembering the danger of human kingship, Islam
preserves governance and law, Buddhism and Hinduism preserve cultural order,
but Christianity preserves the cross.
This
outcome is not accidental. Each faith continues to guard what it carried from
its beginning. Religions aligned with power are preserved by power; religions
tied to culture are defended by culture; Christianity, which refuses both, is
opposed by them all. Its persecution is not evidence of failure but of
fidelity. The faith that began with a cross never sought a crown, and even
Israel’s own history testifies that when God’s people demand kings like the
nations, the cost is always higher than expected. The world has never been
comfortable with that lesson—but history keeps teaching it all the same.
