Series - Church and State

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This last article in our series sketches the culminating principle for properly understanding the “church v. state” issue. It’s actually less a principle than an analogy with some implications.

Principle no. 5: “Church” is to “state” what “home” is to “work.”

It will help if you view church v. state as similar to home v. work. I’ll pretend you work in an office environment of some sort, but you can adapt the illustration however you wish. Think with me here …

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Now we have to tackle the issue of identity. This is where we get down to brass tacks. Our first two principles taught us that (1) there are two kingdoms, Babylon and Jerusalem, and Babylon will lose, and also that (2) God’s kingdom is distinct from every nation state. So far, so abstract—what are Christians supposed to do with this information?

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In the last article, we discussed the most basic principle to rightly understand the “church v. state” conundrum. That principle was this—there are two kingdoms, Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon will lose. Now we’ll build on this foundation and introduce the next building block:

Principle no. 2: God’s kingdom is distinct from every nation state.

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This essay aims to help ordinary Christians rightly consider the relationship between the church and the state. This is important because Christians receive many contradictory messages about this issue. Some Christian influencers call for believers to “take America back for God.” Others just want good, old-fashioned Christian values to influence society and feel marginalized because Mayberry is gone and isn’t coming back. Still others just want nothing to do with politics—perhaps to the extent that their churches neglect to speak truth to a decadent culture.