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12 Lutheran Life ADVERTISEMENT EXERCISING "TWO-KINGDOM" CITIZENSHIP IS NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER For this is the will of God. . . . Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:15–17) Our world needs people living God-given free lives for others now more than ever! Would you agree? Are you living such a life? Do you want to? That's what exercis- ing Two-Kingdom (2KG) citizenship is about. There's freedom, power, and purpose in that way of life be- cause it's rooted in God's 2KG engagement of the world to preserve it and to save it. So, in spite of all that's happening today, God is at work—in the church and in the public sphere of life; government included, for the sake of all. And we who are His people get to joyfully serve in both spheres for the sake of those we love. In 1 Peter 2, we see that a part of Christian freedom is to properly honor everyone, including those in authority. Written to Christians living under a government that was persecuting Christians, Peter's epistle teaches that such freedom could mean suffering for righteousness. It means serving as Jesus served and loving as Jesus loved. Living today not under the power of the Caesars, but in the freedoms of representative democracy, we have even more ways to undergird the sphere of Caesar for the good of all. Such 2KG citizenship blesses the community while still proclaiming the unique message of the church. But what about "separation of church and state?" Many don't realize that it's not "separation" but is properly the "differentiation" of the roles of both church and state role in public life. Such differentiation is a bibli- cal, not secular, worldview. The principles of differenti- ation and mutual honor have undergirded the cause of individual liberty in society better than any other ever has. James Madison noted American government's inspiration from the biblical notion of the two king- doms in a letter to a Reverend Schaeffer on December 3, 1821: It illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. 1 Luther would remind us that God's 2KG engagement goes back to Jesus Himself, who instructs us to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21) 2 , honoring God's unique work in the world to preserve and save. Differ- entiating God's preserving and saving work prevents us from giving into the secular or religious puritanical temptation of believing that our best "laws" will save us (law can preserve, never save). Engaging the world as God engages it also prevents us from falling into the destructive temptation to live amoral, libertine lives that destroy civil society as if the Gospel frees us to do as we please. A 2KG, sanctified, commonsense engage- ment of our culture can help us sustain a civil society that still yearns for God's ultimate answers to the ques- tions that really matter. So God's 2KG engagement of the world clearly differ- entiates His preserving and saving work. Christians humbly need to be knowledgeable of the curbing, preserving power of God's Law applied to us all. We

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