Sen. Ben Sasse to Christians: Prioritize Jesus and His Coming Kingdom Over America
Sen. Ben Sasse called upon Christians to prioritize their citizenship in the Kingdom of God over their American citizenship, in a June 13 broadcast with Westminster Theological Seminary of California.
"Christians should realize that we have always been living in exile" and this earthly kingdom is not our true home, said Sasse. "We live at a moment where it is very dangerous, and let's just admit that Christians have always been tempted to be forgetful of the work that God has done and the things to which he has called us. But it is very dangerous for us to yearn for a city that has foundations in political entities when we should be yearning for the Church eternal and our coming Redeemer King."
In the interview available online, the Republican senator from Nebraska, a devout evangelical Christian who spoke to the graduating class of seminarians a few days ago, told Westminister Seminary and church history professor Scott Clark that he prioritizes his faith in Jesus Christ above any other calling.
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The interview also explored religious freedom issues and American political history.
Noting that many public sectors are in tumult today, Sass emphasized the need for integrity and leadership, such as understanding people's relationship to God and fellow man, and how vocations enable us to serve Him and our neighbors.
He further explained that Christians have many different callings with regard to how to live out their gratitude to God, and stressed the importance of ordering those callings.
"I am a Republican, I am a conservative, currently a U.S. Senator, we all have lots of different callings on Earth. But I think it it very important for us not to forget that we have plural callings nor to get them, misordered in the ranking." said Sasse.
Sasse, a fan of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, mused that it would be deeply problematic for his loyalties to his favorite team to trump his duties as a husband and father, and half-jokingly welcomed a "slap upside the head" were that to happen.
Also in the interview, Sasse contended that Americans should recover an understanding of both the necessity of government and the limits that should be placed on government power.
"Politics and governance exists to provide a framework for ordered liberty, to preserve a system where people are free from lots of bad things that can happen in a world where people with broken souls — like all of us after the Fall, where folks want to take your life and your liberty and your stuff — people should be protected from that to then go out and pursue the good the true and good and beautiful and actually build community."
Sasse is a fifth generation Nebraskan who was elected in 2014 and has a Ph.D. in American history from Yale.
He's been a strong opponent of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Leaders in the so-called "#NeverTrump" movement asked him to run against Trump as an independent candidate, but Sasse declined.
The senator is married to Melissa Sasse and has three children.
