First, he wants to “replace the map of politics and religion that many Christians have been using since the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century with a more biblical one.” Second, he aims to “explain where the local church fits onto this redrawn map as a political institution or embassy of Christ’s rule” (p. Leeman states his two goals in his preface. Leeman, editorial director of 9 Marks Ministries and an elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, offers a sophisticated contribution to evangelical ecclesiology and political theology that hopefully will influence how the faith and politics discussion takes shape in the coming years. Considering this cultural context, Jonathan Leeman’s new book Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ’s Rule is a particularly timely contribution to IVP Academic’s new series, Studies in Doctrine and Scripture.

Some of these voices are more thoughtful than others, of course, and no doubt such prognostications will continue long past the election this fall. Many Christians, including some well-known evangelical personalities, have been weighing in on the relationship between faith and politics for many months. Vanhoozer, promotes evangelical contributions to systematic theology, seeking fresh understanding of Christian doctrine through creatively faithful engagement with Scripture in dialogue with church.At the writing of this review, the USA is currently in between the summer nominating conventions of its two main political parties. Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture, edited by Daniel J. Political Church heralds a new era in political theology. Drawing on covenant theology and the 'new institutionalism' in political science, Leeman critiques political liberalism and explores how the biblical canon informs an account of the local church as an embassy of Christ's kingdom. What do we mean by politics and the political? What are the limits of the church's political reach? What is the nature of the church as an institution? How do we establish these claims theologically? Jonathan Leeman sets out to address these questions in this Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture volume.

Liberationists, Anabaptists, Augustinians, neo-Calvinists, Radical Orthodox, and others continue to discuss the matter. Theologians have been debating this claim for years.

Political Church by Jonathan Leeman