You might want to... interesting article my sister pointed out to me here.
By the way, I am also a TCK (Germany). I guess I have this one thing in common with our new president!
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
New President, Foundation: Two Kingdoms
I've been trying to think about what to write about our new president. Lots of things come to mind, all rather random and disconnected order. There is no Shorter Cathechism for new presidents that puts it all very succinctly. But thank you for those who offered their thoughts.
Maybe the first thing to say is that Scripture, especially Jesus and the New Testament, focuses on the Kingdom of God, which, as Jesus said to Pilate, is not of this world (John 18:36). Let me go out on a limb and say that evangelicals on both the left (Jim Wallis) and the right (Pat Robertson, James Dobson) pay lip service to this, but then go ahead and forget about it as they seek to impose redemptive, kingdom ethics on secular government. Whether it is urging a form of socialism in the name of serving the poor (on the left), or urging laws against, e.g., sodomy (on the right), in both cases they are imposing on secular, non-redemptive government what comes from being redeemed--from having the "law written on the heart" (Jer. 31:33).
Now I do not claim to have it right, either. Not by a long shot! But my hope is that in writing about our new president, I will be able to keep the distinction between the redemptive Kingdom of God, and the non-redemptive, common-grace kingdom of man, intact. I know that creates questions of its own. But for my part, I am convinced that distinction, however difficult, has to be maintained.
Historical sidenote: St. Augustine (4th-5th centuries) wrote the classic on the distinction between the "city of God" and the "city of man", called The City of God. He wrote that after the "Christian" empire of Rome was overrun by barbarians, which forced him to rethink biblically the roles of church and empire. Luther also emphasized this distinction. John Calvin blurred the distinction, as did the Puritans, who sought in the New World to create a government that was also a church (to simplify a bit). Recently the late Dr. James Boice of Tenth Presbyterian urged the distinction in his book Foundations of God's City. D.A. Carson also stresses that in his recent book Christ and Culture Revisited, though that is not an easy thing to plow through.
Stay tuned for more.
Maybe the first thing to say is that Scripture, especially Jesus and the New Testament, focuses on the Kingdom of God, which, as Jesus said to Pilate, is not of this world (John 18:36). Let me go out on a limb and say that evangelicals on both the left (Jim Wallis) and the right (Pat Robertson, James Dobson) pay lip service to this, but then go ahead and forget about it as they seek to impose redemptive, kingdom ethics on secular government. Whether it is urging a form of socialism in the name of serving the poor (on the left), or urging laws against, e.g., sodomy (on the right), in both cases they are imposing on secular, non-redemptive government what comes from being redeemed--from having the "law written on the heart" (Jer. 31:33).
Now I do not claim to have it right, either. Not by a long shot! But my hope is that in writing about our new president, I will be able to keep the distinction between the redemptive Kingdom of God, and the non-redemptive, common-grace kingdom of man, intact. I know that creates questions of its own. But for my part, I am convinced that distinction, however difficult, has to be maintained.
Historical sidenote: St. Augustine (4th-5th centuries) wrote the classic on the distinction between the "city of God" and the "city of man", called The City of God. He wrote that after the "Christian" empire of Rome was overrun by barbarians, which forced him to rethink biblically the roles of church and empire. Luther also emphasized this distinction. John Calvin blurred the distinction, as did the Puritans, who sought in the New World to create a government that was also a church (to simplify a bit). Recently the late Dr. James Boice of Tenth Presbyterian urged the distinction in his book Foundations of God's City. D.A. Carson also stresses that in his recent book Christ and Culture Revisited, though that is not an easy thing to plow through.
Stay tuned for more.
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