Really excellent. Sprinkle thoroughly examines the Scriptures and how Israelites and Christians have engaged with politics and empires, and then asks some good questions about how Christians now might use that knowledge in their own contexts. The focus is always on Jesus as King, and I especially appreciated that even as he highlighted the political dimensions of various biblical texts, he didn’t neglect the spiritual dimensions (the way I think books like Jesus for President do). 

There were a couple spots that I thought were a stretch or could've used more explanation, but on the whole I loved the book. I have felt increasingly uncomfortable with the left-right political binary in the US, so it was gratifying to have someone recognize that, call it out, and offer ways that Christians might engage with that reality. 

This book has also challenged me and galvanized me to look for more ways to be distinctively Christian in my local contexts, and to look for concrete ways to serve my neighbor in order to create the kind of polis the Bible calls the Church to be, even as exiles. Highly recommend.


"Instead of starting with the left/right categories of Rome (or Babylon or Panama or the United States or wherever), we need to start with teh political vision of Christ. We need to cultivate the habit of letting Christ's kingdom and its ethic determine our political values, because Christ's kingdom - and our membership in it - *is* a political identity."

"We live lives of qualified submission to whatever nation God has placed us in, but our allegiance is always to Chris and his global, multi-ethnic kingdom."