Edward Gilbreath reflecting on MLK’s legacy:
Today, as in King’s era, we are experts at depersonalizing our ideological opponents, viewing them more as oppositional labels than neighbors whom we are commanded to love. In our contemporary clash of values, perhaps the thing we are missing most is the capacity as Christians to dream large and imagine a culture informed by kingdom values of grace, reconciliation, and justice. Such a culture will likely require more listening than arguing, more giving than posturing.
He is author of Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity
“perhaps the thing we are missing most is the capacity as Christians to dream large and imagine a culture informed by kingdom values of grace, reconciliation, and justice.”
Allow me to render more precisely the above statement: Perhaps Christians have missed the intended Kingdom. (Socialism)
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20
I am reluctant to liken or equate any human political system with the kingdom of God.
…even American Democracy?….pledge of allegiance,apple pie,baseball,God bless America,”In God we trust” ?
And what about the holy Russian Orthodox Church or the holy sovereign country called The Vatican?..not to mention the Islamic States,Tibet? or monasteries with their autocratic rule…Im just sayin ,everyone wants to claim their own kingom of God in one way or another…..
It has fallen into disfavor today, but I think the old Lutheran Two Kingdoms theology is a good way of looking at these things. Each of us potentially has a dual citizenship, in the Kingdom of God and in whatever human kingdom we happen to belong to. There are benefits and obligations connected to each one, but it is important to keep the two distinct in our minds because we tend to confuse them.
Indeed. “Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s” certainly speaks to the “Two Kingdoms” theology…
Depends on how you interpret that enigmatic saying. I’d say it supports a Two Kingdoms view, but others read the saying differently… on the lines of nothing really belongs to emperor, it’s all God’s, etc.