Forwards That Make You God, “Huh”- Church and State

A long time ago I received this forward.

This is one of those forwards that brings us into an interesting tension.  It’s the tension of the two kingdoms, of God being ruler over both the Church and the whole world/civic realm.   He rules both in different ways, yet is Lord of both.

So how do we deal with this as Christians, who are members of both kingdoms?  What do you think of this prayer?

We need to remember that God rules the Church and our lives (those of Christians) primarily by grace.  He rules the world according to his law, which might be better undrestood by saying he rules it with his natural law, his design, morality, etc.

So how do we deal with all these sticky church and state questions?  Was this prayer appropriate?  I’d have to say most of it was appropriate.  Most of what he says in this basically speaks about places where our nation has violated God’s natural law and the morality he has written on human hearts.  This is stuff our civic realm has to be concerned with.  This is the stuff that laws are supposed to do, to guide relationships on the larger level, restrain evil, and encourage good.  Most of his prayer is directed at calling our attention to the places where people have tried to hide evil and simply call it moral pluralism, postmodern, new, etc.

Now he does cross into speaking specifically of Jesus Christ, other gods, the Word, etc.  These are things that God reveals through the Church, through his Word, and through the Gospel, not through the state, so he does push things a little beyond where the civic realm is meant to go.

I’d like to hear your reactions about this and other church/state issues, especially the idea of the U.S. as “a Christian nation”.