Everyone belongs to God

In every age, says the Foreword of the book, Everyone Belongs to God, God’s people need prophets to help them see beyond their own blind spots – to expand their vision of what God is about. Although written over a hundred years ago, much of Blumhardt’s thinking is still relevant today as he argues that our gospel is just too small.

Written by the German Lutheran theologian and erstwhile Social Democrat politician Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, the book is compiled from letters to his son in law whilst serving as a missionary in China, together with sermons and talks. Liberally supported by Bible references throughout and with probing discussion questions for each chapter, the book presents an opportunity for a genuine challenge to our contemporary thinking even though the original ideas were penned over a hundred years ago.

Frustrated by institutional church life, Blumhardt sought, during the period from which these writings are derived, to reclaim the heart of Christian mission, to discover where Christ is in our lives, our communities and our societies. The premise is simple: everyone belongs to God whether they know it or not. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’, just people, some of whom have come to recognise that they belong to God and some of whom haven’t – yet. Our role, as Christians, isn’t to teach the particular dogmas of denomination or to save souls for eternity. Our role, he suggests, is to be present in our communities and in our societies talking about the kingdom of God and reaching people at the point of their need. But we have to be near people if we want to gain any kind of foothold in contemporary culture.

The key question, and one which it is up to each reader to answer, is: How do we bring the gospel of Christ to a world that is in the grip of capitalistic materialism, increasingly secular, and resentful of religious façades that perpetuate injustice, without spreading a Christianity that is little more than a pie-in-the-sky religion among a world of religions?’ Each chapter suggests a possible answer to the question.

Central to the answer is our view of the kingdom of God. Blumhardt argues that the kingdom is growing quietly (Matthew 13:31-33): we just need to keep it in view, knowing that God is at work while we play our part in building it. We should avoid being religious, instead living lives that are powerful and living witnesses to the love of God, showing that his rule over our lives really does make a difference.  We may never see the ripples that we cause as God changes the hearts of those we point to him, but as Blumhardt eloquently points out, we are to put people in God’s hands, not in our pockets.

He also indirectly addresses a thorny issue which is very current – that of social gospel. He argues that while active Christians are political just because working for the kingdom of God takes them where people are, there must be a spiritual expression to their work; ‘church and state,’ he writes, ‘are riddled with gaping holes and people are falling through’. But he also suggests that social contributions from the church are tolerated for only two reasons – because they simultaneously prop up the state and the common culture. While we must proclaim the gospel by what we do, we must also confess Christ in our work, as we are his ambassadors. Systems change with circumstance, so if we operate politically or socially to change society outside of Christ, we will fail. We must offer people something that they can’t find anywhere else, because the gospel is about transforming people at all levels of society – the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with party politics. We aren’t working to improve society. We are working, as Christ did, to show the love of God by meeting people at the point of their need; both spiritual and physical.

Secular thinkers, like Christians, look forward to a new way of living when some key questions are answered – Blumhardt lists these as being : ‘How can we really become human? How can we build mutual relationships that make life on earth tolerable for all people? How can peace be achieved among the nations?’ As Christians, we should understand, as secular thinkers cannot, that the answers to these questions are spiritual. Jesus didn’t tackle poverty with a social change programme. Instead, he showed people that spiritual thirst transcends  the human thirst for a better world.

Blumhardt also exhorts us to live in constant hope because, as Luke writes, the kingdom of God is not just some distant event for eternity, but something which we must work out in the here and now (Luke 17:20-21). When Christ told the disciples that he would always be with them, he was telling them that their work was in his hands, not their own. God’s kingdom won’t be brought about by our efforts but by God’s work in the people whom we point to him.  And we can work with assurance that the victory is already won. Christ is Lord over every corner of the universe. Death has been defeated. Satan cannot do as he pleases – he lives in darkness at God’s command.

This is ultimately a book about hope, about transformation and about a revolutionary way to live out the gospel of Christ in our daily lives. Everyone already belongs to God, but not everyone knows it. Our calling is simply to let them see the kingdom of God through our expression of the gospel in our lives and the confession of Christ in our speech. It’s a book that encourages, challenges and provokes. You may not agree with all that is written, but the thought that our gospel might just be too small for the needs of our world won’t leave you untouched.

‘Everyone Belongs to God’ is written by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt and published by Plough Publishing.