God’s Two Kingdoms

Inaugurations of a U.S. president often reverberate with religious overtones. The ceremonies blend the sacred and the secular, infusing the launch of a new political era with the weight of a religious experience. One presidential historian claimed that the rituals and ceremonies of inauguration day bore all the “solemnity of a sacrament.”

Into this civic religion, into this attempt of government — and those who see it as a savior — to take for itself religious meaning and fervor, good Lutheran theology steps in and points to the scriptural teaching of the two kingdoms, drawing a line in the sand and saying, “Thus far, O Caesar, and no farther.”

Regular readers of The Lutheran Witness are not strangers to two-kingdom theology. We present it here again in this issue, emphasizing the one King who rules over them both. No wall of separation between the church and state exists: Christ directs both by His guiding hand. He guides and directs all things, even the government, for the good of His church (Rom. 8:28). It may not seem like it at times. The church may be suffering. Unjust and wicked rulers might attack and assail her. Her children may be imprisoned and martyred. But all of this happens for the good of Christ’s Bride, the church.

So whether the man taking the oath of office this month is “your man” or not, he reigns under the hand of Christ, and to Christ he must one day answer. And that’s what this issue is all about. Jesus already reigns in both heaven and earth, Jason Lane reminds us. And even though rulers may be wicked, that doesn’t give citizens the right to twist Scripture, as Kevin Armbrust explains, to make it point to something other than Christ. The consequences of such false teachings have resulted in carnage and death. If you doubt this, pick up Cameron MacKenzie’s article on the Peasants’ Revolt, Luther’s response and what we can learn from it today. And speaking of the consequences of two-kingdom theology today, Brian Gauthier explains how the LCMS cares for international missionaries who so often live at the intersection of laws and the proclamation of the Gospel.

This January, watch the inauguration. Pray for your president, regardless of whether or not you voted for him. Pray for all your leaders and your fellow citizens who elected them. And then go about your day, because you know in whose hand this nation, and all nations of the earth, ultimately rest.

See table of contents for the January 2025 issue

Under Christ our King,

Roy S. Askins

Executive Editor, The Lutheran Witness