Church and State: Kingdoms in Crisis

In a world of deep political division, how should we as followers of Jesus navigate national identity? And how should we think about not only partisan allegiance, but allegiance to the states we are born into? From the "Constantinian shift" to modern Christian Nationalism, the church has often struggled to balance the ethics of the Gospel with the demands of worldly power. Sometimes we have privatized the Kingdom of God, while at other times, we have sacrificed its uniqueness in order to seize state power. In this episode, we strip away the layers of "Christian Realism" and "Two Kingdoms" theology and we urge the modern church in the U.S. to rediscover the radical political identity of the early church. Resources Referenced: The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, The Schleitheim Confession (1527) (Anabaptist Statement of Faith), The City of God (De Civitate Dei) by Augustine of Hippo, Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved (1526) by Martin Luther Interlude Music: Elysian Echoes by Ben Elson Theme Song: Believe by Posthumorous https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC718UlWgpDl3yCVmlkBwnxA?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.reparadigmed.com/