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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As God’s Word teaches over and over, you, and all lost sinners, are called to recognize your sinful condition before God, acknowledge it, and repent by turning from it, and accepting the only remedy He has provided to deliver you from eternal death: the gift of eternal life. The saving remedy God provided was to send His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to live a sinless life and then to die in our place on the cross to atone for our sins.

LGBTQ pride is defined by the Left as the positive stance toward, and promotion of, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender people as a social group.
“Pride” is all about sex and gender, with the characteristic of having a sexual or gender identity that does NOT correspond to established norms of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms. The term queer is used by both right and left to describe proponents of non-normative sexual identities, but with opposite meanings.
Queerness is an umbrella term, used by the Left, to include people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender, i.e., all those who embrace LGBTQism. Originally meaning ‘strange,’ ‘odd,’ or ‘peculiar,’ queer gained a connotation of sexual deviance and came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships. This is how the word is still used by the Right.
More recently, queer activists, have tried to redefine the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical term, and queer has become increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-normative sexual or gender identities. Being queer to the Left is now viewed positively and is proudly included under their banner of “Pride.”
There is very much a dark side to Pride that springs from the extreme culture of sexual freedom that they have created, in which anything goes, sexually speaking. One of the big areas of concern is physical health. Think of diseases like AIDS and Monkeypox that particularly affect gay men. The Atlantic recently carried an article with the provocative headline: Gay Men Need a Specific Warning About Monkeypox.
There are many negative concerns with Pride beyond health, but my main concern with it is not physical, but spiritual and moral. In short, I believe the whole Pride agenda is wrong and profoundly immoral. Pride neither is nor has anything to be proud of.
Queer activists may retort, “How can you say that, Ostien; who are you to judge? Millions upon millions of people believe ardently in Pride and all it stands for. Look at the rainbow flags flying everywhere. The President of the United States is an strong supporter (despite being a ‘devout’ Catholic).”
You’re right, who am I to judge? But it isn’t I who is judging. My authority for calling Pride wrong and immoral is not from me. The authority for saying such is directly from the Word of the living God who created both you and me. He is there and He is not silent (Schaeffer). He didn’t just fill His Word with nice sayings and pleasant stories. He gave us commandments and law. He told us in no uncertain terms to keep his commandments, or suffer serious consequences.
His Word on sexual matters is particularly straight forward and clear, and it’s unequivocally condemnatory to all things Pride. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:22-32:
Claiming to be wise, they became fools [i.e., those who suppress the truth], and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. … Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
This passage calls out negatively many practices touted by Pride devotees; v. 22 makes clear that such people may claim to be wise but instead have become fools.
Verse 32 presents your precarious position before God, if you approve or practice the sorts of sinful practices that Pride stands for, listed in the passage. The death spoken of there is not just physical death, which we all experience, but eternal death separated from God in hell.
If you are among the sinful followers and practitioners of Pride, you will die that second, eternal death, because God says in His Word that the wages of sin is death. However, all is not yet lost for you. You don’t have to remain in that fearful condition of facing eternal doom in hell.
As God’s Word teaches over and over, you, and all lost sinners, are called to recognize your sinful condition before God, acknowledge it, and repent by turning from it, and accepting the only remedy He has provided to deliver you from eternal death: the gift of eternal life.
The saving remedy God provided was to send His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to live a sinless life and then to die in our place on the cross to atone for our sins. He rose again and is now in heaven preparing a place for His people to dwell eternally with Him.
But note, that great privilege is only for His people, not for all people in the world. That raises the all-important question, how do you become one of God’s people? What must you do to be saved?
“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). 
“To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16-18).
Believe in Christ now and your condemnation will be removed and you will be saved.
Douglas Ostien is a member of Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in Chestnut Mountain, Ga.
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The Central Georgia Presbytery first called the Rev. Barnes to start the local Presbyterian Church as a mission church. He said that initial church started with just five families in addition to his own. Pastor Barnes said, “I came to Statesboro in April 1981. For the first six months or so, we met in a room at Georgia Southern University on the second floor of the Williams Center. We also met at homes.”

Members of Trinity Presbyterian Church describe their senior pastor of 42 years with such words as hospitable, hard-working, and mission-driven. Those descriptors are of Reverend Roland Barnes, who retires this spring after decades of serving at Trinity. Members of the church will celebrate Barnes and his service with a retirement celebration on Saturday, March 25.
Emily Kochetta is a long-time member of the church and alumna of Georgia Southern University. She will help throw the pastor’s retirement celebration and was very helpful in helping Grice Connect share Rev. Barnes’s legacy and some of the things that made his 42 years with the church so special.
Rev. Barnes is hospitable to many inside and outside of church
As with most pastors, scriptures dictate how the Rev. Barnes does his best to live his life. One such scripture gives an example of this.
Hebrews 13:1-2 in the Bible reads, “Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
The pastor, who uses this verse in one of his pamphlets at the church, said the Greek for hospitality translates as “love of strangers.”
One example of this, Pastor Barnes said, “We [his wife, Peaches, and his children] have had somebody over for Sunday dinner almost every Sunday for 42 years. You become less austere. You become more of a real person when you are sitting around sharing a meal.”
Doing the math, the Rev. Barnes and Peaches, doing the cooking, have fed approximately 10,000 people those 42 years.
The pastor said the meals would not have happened without Peaches, adding, “I would like to think that I laid the bricks, but she provided the mortar.”
Emily shared, “Peaches is a very outgoing person…Others can attest to her persistence in getting visitors to come eat on Sundays.”
Emily says others have emulated the example of the pastor and his wife, evidence of his wider influence on the community. She joined Trinity because of a hospitable couple in her apartment complex who were members there. Then, the hospitality continued.
“After I joined the church in January of 1984, I rented a room from a couple (members Charlie and Jan Davis). I got a front row seat to how they also had members and strangers into their home week after week, something I’ve tried to model myself.”
Building the church from just one room 
The Central Georgia Presbytery first called the Rev. Barnes to start the local Presbyterian Church as a mission church. He said that initial church started with just five families in addition to his own.
Pastor Barnes said, “I came to Statesboro in April 1981. For the first six months or so, we met in a room at Georgia Southern University on the second floor of the Williams Center. We also met at homes.”
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