Written by Simon P. Kennedy |
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
As the world closes in on the Church in the West, and politics becomes a more hostile space for Christians, sphere sovereignty offers an explanation of how the Christian life can be carried on in a meaningful way beyond the public square. Christ’s rule, and our response to that rule, is not limited to earthly politics. Even when the kings of this world do not “kiss the Son,” as they so often don’t, Christ still reigns.

Political Theology in the Reformed Tradition: Past and Present
Christian political thinking is marked by a struggle between two seemingly opposing principles. On the one hand, the rulers of the kingdoms of this world are required to submit to the authority of Jesus Christ, to “serve the Lord with fear and trembling,” and to “kiss the Son.” (Ps. 2:10-12) On the other hand, Jesus said to Pilate that his “kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)
There is a challenge here for Christians, an ethical tension built into Christian political theology. The world, including the politics of this world, is a space where Jesus Christ rules. But the question is: what is the nature of that rule? How can Christ be both the King of Kings, and simultaneously not have a rule that is political? How should Christians live in the world here and now in light of the reign of Jesus Christ?
One tradition that offers distinct answers to these questions flows from the sixteenth-century reformations in Switzerland, England, and Scotland: the Reformed Protestant tradition. This article will explore three important politico-theological ideas that flow from the Reformed tradition: two kingdoms theology, sphere sovereignty, and political realism. Each of these ideas offers us ways of answering those big ethical questions that flow from the reality of Christ’s reign and his otherworldly kingdom.
A. Two Kingdoms Theology
In 1520, the German reformer Martin Luther first outlined the doctrine of the two kingdoms. The basic idea, articulated in his 1520 tracts The Freedom of the Christian and the Letter to the German Nobility, as well as later works like Temporal Authority, was that the Christian lives in two kingdoms. One is the “spiritual kingdom,” the kingdom of the soul, which is ruled by God alone. This is the realm of the person’s spiritual standing before God. According to Luther, nothing can come between God and the individual soul, who stands naked before he Lord either justified or unjustified. The other, “temporal kingdom,” is the realm of external relations, and takes in all of life in the world.
Luther argued that, because of the Christian’s simultaneous placement in these two distinct realms, Christians were both entirely free from all earthly obligations and servants of all. Christians, he argued, are free from obligation to the law, both divine and civil, and yet are motivated by their justification to be all the more obedient to earthly authorities.
John Calvin (1509-1564), the great reformer of Geneva, picked up this motif of Luther’s and developed it as he considered the relationship between the conscience, political obligation, and a Reformed understanding of political institutions. Towards the end of Book III of his 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin addresses the distinction between the spiritual and temporal kingdoms and the way this distinction impacts Christian freedom. He says that the doctrine of Christian freedom is “a matter of primary necessity, one without the knowledge of which the conscience can scarcely attempt any thing without hesitation.” Calvin argued that the Christian life in the world cannot be attempted with any certainty unless we understand the meaning of the freedom Christians have in Christ.
This question ultimately pertains to the conscience, according to Calvin. Humans are liable to be bound to the dictates of man, dictates which they have no spiritual obligation to attend to, dictates that have no bearing on one’s standing with God. He says, “as works have respect to men, so conscience bears reference to God.” Outward works, the works of the temporal kingdom, are directed towards our fellow humans in an external sense. Our conscience is different, though, as it pertains to our standing before God. Calvin’s of framing helps us understand what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 13:5, that we ought to obey the magistrate “for conscience’s sake.” According to Calvin, we obey because God requires it, for the sake of our conscience, not because the magistrate requires it, that is for the sake of pleasing people with our works.
At the end of Book IV of the Institutes, Calvin finally deals with politics. At the beginning of Chapter 20, the final chapter of the Institutes, Calvin returns to the concept of Christian freedom, and to the doctrine of the two kingdoms. Calvin’s two kingdoms are not, as some have argued, the church and the state. They are the internal forum of the conscience, and the external forum of the world, of works, and of outward behaviour. Does this mean that politics does not matter for the Christian? Does doing good in the external sphere of politics make any difference? If the person’s standing before God is completely separate to their external political life, why should the kings of the earth “kiss the Son”? Perhaps merely to gain salvation and go to heaven? Or does David’s second Psalm also assume that their political rule is to be submitted politically to the true kingship of the Son?
Our answer to these questions depends in part upon how we understand the nature of the institutional church and other external, political institutions. For Calvin, the institutional church and political institutions are all part of the temporal kingdom. The temporal kingdom is the realm where Christians work out their Christian freedom. At the same time, it is also a realm where the moral requirements of God’s law are to be enacted. And part of that law entails, for Calvin, protection of true religion. Governments have a duty to protect the church and the purity of worship and doctrine. Civil magistrates are not preachers, nor ministers of the gospel. However, as Paul makes clear in Romans 13, they are “ministers” (a διάκονός, or diakonos) of God. Further, Calvin says that the office of the civil magistrate is “in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful, but the most sacred, and by far the most honourable, of all stations in mortal life.”
Does this mean those in political authority are required to submit their rule to Christ? Yes. The temporal kingdom is not a realm free from ethical obligation. On the contrary, it is because of our spiritual freedom and our conscience that all Christians have a duty to honour and obey the magistrate. Those who do not follow Christ are bound by their duties before God’s moral law, manifest in their consciences, to do the same. So, too, those in political authority are required to offer themselves to His service. The civil magistrate rules in the temporal kingdom with the ultimate goal of ordering the lives of their subjects to the highest good, which is worshipping and pleasing God. This means that political rule aims, among other things, at the spiritual liberty of the conscience.
B. Sphere Sovereignty
The form that this political rule takes, and the shape of the ensuing society, is generally an open question to any Reformed thinker. There have been Reformed social and political theorists, though, and one of the most brilliant was Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). The Dutch polymath was the definition of the active life. He was a historian, pastor, theology professor, churchman, journalist, activist, politician, and prime minister. He lived out the kind of Christianity that he preached—one that was engaged with the world and in the issues of the world. Many of his ideas were original and insightful, and he offered a distinctively Reformed approach to politics and political thinking.
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Jesus Himself became a little child; He served and loved and trusted too. He was subject to His parents and knows the paths our children trod. He forgave while freely giving up His life to grant our own. He took the time to bless and care for children, and blesses us with ours as well.

Let us become like little children, singing freely to the King of Kings. Faces lifted, voices ringing, unconcerned with notes and rhythm, twisting melodies in swirls of wonder, joy in every note they sing. There’s no embarrassed silence, self-conscious mumbling or comparing of their voice to others. The joy within is echoed in the voice without and warms the hearts of those who listen.
Let us become like little children, free to glory in their father’s care. Children do not seek to earn the love and favor of their parents – instead, they glory in belonging, full of joy in simple pleasures. When they’re naughty, they do not fear being abandoned or disowned. They are secure in love and know it.
Let us become like little children, forgiving faults without a grudge.
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Written by David A. Covington |
Sunday, April 16, 2023
We skim now on the surface tension between two cultural impulses: our inclination to rely on facts, doctrines and arguments to ballast and direct wandering affections; and our inclination to rely on aesthetic impulses toward beauty to move us and others toward God. Each inclination is half right, but each hides a lie we treasure: that we are naturally qualified, without regeneration, to recognize God’s truth or his beauty.

Something attracted us today—a suggestive scent, a lovely turn of a phrase, a surprising smile, a generous deed, an elegant idea. Do you remember yours? For me, it was a sip of wine-in-the-making, sweet as the juice, and sparkling as champagne, like the “new wine” in Jesus’s parable. We answered with a smile; its delight reminded us of a similar one just last week. Again, we are attracted; we move closer.
If attraction to beauty leads us toward God, then we can follow our attractions and let our neighbors follow theirs, confident that when beauty stirs us, our responses move us in the same God-ward direction.
A painter friend asked me last week what I was writing. When I explained, she wondered aloud, “If beauty could lead us to God, why isn’t everyone a Christian?” There must be more going on here.
In a media rich age, we are readier than ever to look to beauty as a lever of cultural influence, particularly in discipleship, evangelism, and apologetics. Many are setting aside the levers of evidence, facts, doctrine, and reason, and looking around for a new tool. An old friend, the power of beauty and our attraction to it seems to pull us even before truth’s persuasion kicks in. Beauty’s compelling power, especially when paired with emotionally rich liturgies, music, and devotional habits, marks a path to God that promises to out-perform hobbled doctrines and closely reasoned arguments. Stories stir us. Narrative, literary approaches, and the arts enjoy a surge of interest, while catechisms and systematic theology hobble at the rear.
And why not? God, the creator and source of all beauty, is himself beautiful. His creation stirs admiration for itself and its maker. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). People, too, can make the beautiful—a wine (I can hope), an algorithm, a hymn. God, who everywhere reveals his glory in created beauty, attracts people through this beauty. Some will see and turn to him. Does beauty lead us to God?
Leads Where?
Beauty is everywhere, even in its conspicuous absence. It always leads people. Where? It can lead anywhere. Differing tastes can account for some of this diversity. Individual senses of beauty differ, as do cultures, regions, and eras. Even an individual’s tastes fluctuate day by day, even hour by hour, and develop with years. How can we account for subjective tastes without denying beauty’s obvious solidity? And how can we account for objective beauties while respecting diverse and dynamic tastes? Neither objectivity nor subjectivity alone can finally explain beauty and give us confidence to follow its pull. Beauty may lead us toward God, but at least as often away from God. Even our attractions to beauty draw us to other gods.
Beauty appears often in Scripture: sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes mysterious. People’s taste for beauty figures even larger. The Old Testament frequently says, “in your eyes,” or “in his eyes” to highlight different assessments of honor, justice, truth and beauty, between person and person, and between people and God. Subjective and contradictory human differences, though inescapable now, might find growing agreement if our senses of beauty agreed more closely with God’s. Three obstructions, though, hamper us from sharing God’s taste for beauty.
Three Beauty Blockades
“Stolen Water is Sweet”— Our Taste is Twisted
Eve saw the beauty—“delight to the eyes”—of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil twice: once, before her disobedience, she saw it through God’s eyes, sharing his enjoyment of it, his law about it, and his purpose for it. Then, believing the Serpent, she saw the beautiful fruit alone, excluding God’s vision—the first private indulgence. The beauty that Eve and Adam saw and shared with God one day, the next led them away from God. We follow in their footsteps, seeking the beautiful in our own eyes, as if our tastes, our perception of beauty, were reliable, undamaged by their rebellion, or our own; as if redemption, while needed to restore our sin-twisted sense of truth, were not really needed to restore our sense of beauty.
“He Had…No Beauty”— God Hides His Beauty
Some biblical beauty cameos look deliberately obscure. If we relied on our natural sense of beauty to draw us to God, what must we make of Lot’s nearly-fatal choice of the sumptuous Jordan Valley, leaving dusty Canaan to Abraham? A puzzling preference for the aesthetically inferior pops up often in the OT: Jacob opts for livestock that is streaked or spotted; Leah the plain-looking bears Jacob more children than beautiful Rachel; God preferred David the punk kid to Saul the tall, dark and handsome, and even to David’s showy older brother, Eliab. “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
God even hides the beauty of his chosen Servant: “…he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him.” And so it proved; people who saw the Son of God in the flesh noted how unimpressive he looked. Paul, too, looked unimpressive, and knew it: “…his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.”  Sin has twisted our taste for beauty, and God seems to prefer the ugly, even hides his beauty deliberately. Could beauty’s pull on us meet any worse troubles?
“A Fragrance From Death to Death”— Satanic Blinding
The Enemy “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
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