
Christians have always disagreed over their responsibilities to earthly governments. Jesus, of course, declared to Pilate that his kingdom “is not of this world” (Jn 18.36), leading some since to deny, or at least resist, all earthly kingdoms. Most Christians, though, have tried to follow Paul’s mandate that we should respect “the powers that be” (Ro 13.1), but they have disagreed significantly over what exactly that should look like.
Augustine laid the foundation for “two kingdoms” thinking in his classic work The City of God, in which he asserted that all humans are citizens of either the city of God, loving God, or the city of man (Babylon), loving self. In his view, Christians are also citizens of earthly kingdoms, though only temporarily, and should be good citizens, seeking to improve society while realizing that complete success is impossible.
The medieval Roman Catholic Church gave lip service to this idea—Augustine is, after all, one of the great Fathers of the Church—but various popes sought to exert authority over kings to an extent that rendered the latter essentially powerless. The most well-known example of this is when Pope Gregory VII refused to answer the door at the Canossa Castle in northern Italy, leaving Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV standing barefoot outside in the snow for three days (1077).
The Reformers, who for obvious reasons were not inclined to follow slavishly the Roman Catholic example, mostly returned to something close to Augustine‘s position. Calvin taught that Christians should respect and obey the government—not surprising, since for a time in Geneva he essentially was the government, even ordering capital punishment for heretics as he deemed it appropriate.
These days most evangelical Christians make much of the Romans 13 passage, reserving civil disobedience to matters where they view the government as impinging on matters of biblical command and thus personal conscience. They will disagree with one another on precisely when civil disobedience is necessary*, but they will generally agree on the abstract principle.
In some non-Christian minds this “dual citizenship” seems inappropriate. On November 10, 2004, speaking at the University of Chicago the day after that year’s presidential election, humorist Garrison Keillor said, “I’m trying to organize support for a constitutional amendment to deny voting rights to born-again Christians. I feel if your citizenship is in Heaven—like a born again Christian’s is—you should give up your [US] citizenship. Sorry, but this is my new cause. If born again Christians are allowed to vote in this country, then why not Canadians?”
Now, I’m pretty sure Keillor was joking—first, because that’s what he was getting paid to do, and second, because as far as I know he never acted on those words. But it’s easy to see how this doctrine might give pause to a non-Christian or two.
Well. Given that conservative evangelicals seem to have a robust theology of earthly citizenship based on Romans 13 and are (mostly) in agreement as to its broad application, I think it’s worth giving some attention to our other citizenship—what Augustine called “the city of God.”
- How do we live for the eternal king?
- And how do we demonstrate longing for the eternal city?
Next time.
* In a contemporary example, the US Supreme Court is deciding this year a Christian therapist’s objection to Colorado’s restrictions on “conversion therapy” for homosexual and/or transgender youth. Practicing evangelical licensed therapists in the state disagree over whether their colleagues can abide by the existing state law in good conscience and in obedience to Scripture. Some think the plaintiff’s objection is unnecessary by biblical standards.
Photo by Global Residence Index on Unsplash





