Friends and Members of St. Paul’s,

You may have heard that there was this election last week, and while media of all types in trying to understand the implications of such an election, it is also important for Christians to understand/relearn what our role is in all of this. In Lutheran circles it has been the tradition, based on passages like Matthew 22 and Romans 13 to say that God works in two kingdoms, the kingdom of the right and kingdom of the left. The first (Kingdom of the right), and I would argue the most important kingdom, is the kingdom of the gospel where we are governed by God’s Word and the good news of Jesus. In this kingdom we have the responsibility to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, distribute faithfully the sacraments, teach the faith, and care for souls. If we are not doing this, we are not doing the mandated work given to us by our Lord. However, God works in another area of the world, and that is through the kingdom of the left, that is to create an ordered world. He does this through civil authority (some elected, some appointed), which brings the rule of law to protect citizens. In this realm wrongdoing is punished, and attempts are made to promote a fair/just world. Why? Because that is good for our neighbor. This may seem like a separation of church and state, but not exactly. The church and its citizens can speak on things like the sanctity of human life and abortion, marriage and God’s design for the family, religious liberty, justice, honesty, and the treatment of our neighbors, and holding our leaders to be morally responsible. Why? Because God’s Word speaks to these things. While we do distinguish the two kingdoms, we do not say God is only concerned with the right-hand kingdom and not the other. God cares for both. He just uses different ways to rule in each realm. When the church looks like a political party(either Democrat or Republican) often it is failing to do its main job, however that doesn’t mean believers ignore our neighbor by not dealing with the left-hand kingdom. There are two huge challenges in all of this, and the first is sin, both with the voter (citizen) and those we are electing…that really messes things up 😊 Second, Christians can legitimately disagree on how best to serve our neighbor, especially when it comes to the left hand kingdom. Sorry, this got a bit long, but I hope these helps you navigate some of these thorny issues. 

Blessings in Jesus,

Pastor Krenz