A Kingdom-based foreign policy promotes the fulfillment of God’s plan for the earth.
Therefore, treaties should should be evaluated on the basis of whether they advance God’s plan for the earth or retard it, not whether they promote the nation’s self-interest.
A treaty designed to promote a cleaner environment or protect the ozone layer may not be in a nation’s best short-term economic interest but it is consistent with God’s plan to ensure the life of a planet whose future ultimately belongs to the Kingdom of God.
A Kingdom-based foreign policy should seek treaties that permit Christian missionaries entry into foreign nations and secure religious liberty around the world. The Treaty of Tien-tsin in 1858 did just that. France, the UK, the Russian Empire and the United States entered into the treaty with the Emperor of China to open up Chinese ports, allow missionaries into China and secure religious liberty to all Christians in China.
Today, however, it is economics alone that drives such treaties. America, for example, wants to sell it’s goods in a particular country to create more jobs at home, so it seeks treaties that promote its economic self-interest. Instead, America, should offer the American marketplace to other other countries as an incentive in exchange for permitting Christian missionaries into foreign countries and in exchange for ensuring religious liberty for Christians in those countries.
America, with it’s wealth, could be a powerful force for expanding the Kingdom of God if it chose to use it’s wealth to do so. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly materialistic and self-interested in its foreign policy.
Trade will eventually replace warfare among the nations. Nations will eventually beat their swords into plowshares. (Isaiah 2:4). But the foundation for that transformation is Christianity, not materialism. Only as Jesus’ Kingdom expands around the world, will peace increase as well. (Isaiah 9:7).
America is just one example. I use it as an example, because it is where I live, but America is not the only repository of Christianity or missionaries, nor is it the only country with economic leverage in the world.
A Kingdom-based foreign policy seeks treaties not primarily for a nation’s self-interest, but to advance the purposes of the Kingdom, whether that be the spread of Christianity and peace, longer lifespans, a cleaner planet, or the eradication of disease.
In the next post, I will address the fourth principle of a Kingdom-based foreign policy. GS