Two Kingdoms & the Secular World

This page offers a selection of articles and presentations with Lutheran perspectives of the Two Kingdoms and the secular world.

They will be organized by topic, but please do contact us with both topics and articles to address.

Vocation, Faith and Science, Liberty & Christian Freedom, Lutheran Ethics, the Christian Mind, and New life in Christ have their own pages. 

Abortion

• “And who shall hear their cry? Sermon on Abortion” Karl Barth, Concordia Seminary (St. Louis), 9/27/84.

Church and State

• The goal (or telos) of Government and a Lutheran justification for political resistance, “Reflections on the End of Civil Government,” the Hausvater Project, July 2019.
• “Church and State” by Otto Debelius, anti-Nazi Lutheran Bishop in the time of Hilter, presented at Lutheran World Federation Assembly, Minneapolis, August 17, 1957.

Civil Religion

“The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Public Square in the Era of C. F. W. Walther,” The Anonymous God: The Church Confronts Civil Religious and American Society, Dr. Cameron MacKenzie, pp. 93-119.

Economics

• How God Governs Economics, Session 1, Session 2, from the 2016 Just and Sinner Conference in Watseka, IL. Youtube. 

• Gene Veith on the (actual) Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, November 2014.

Equality

• Why Christian Women Don’t Need to Be Pastors To Be Equal with Men by Hans Fiene, August 1, 2019.

Evangelism

Bringing Christ to the Neighbor Workshop, Robert Kolb

Homosexuality & Related Matters

• Christian Responses to the Culture’s Normalization of Homosexuality Panel Discussion, 9/22/04.
• An Ethical Evaluation of Homosexuality, Gilbert Meilaender, Concordia Seminary (St. Louis), January 28, 1981. 

Politics

• The Need for a Lutheran Perspective on Christianity and Politics, Mark Noll, 11/5/06.
• The Christian and Politics, Charles Bosma, 1/5/1983.

The Two Sexes

• Woman and Man, Four sessions in eight total sessions, Joel Biermann, 1/14/2010. 
• Male and Female He Created Them: Women in Times of War, Andrew Bartelt, 6/5/08.

Two Kingdoms

“The kingdom of the Church does not exist alongside the kingdoms of the world; rather, it is in the kingdoms of the world, cutting across them—without disrupting them—like a hidden vein of gold” (C. F. W. Walther)

• Luther, Madison, and the Two Kingdoms, Gene Veith (More Veith papers here)
• Two Kingdoms, Jay DeBeir
• The Christian a Citizen of Two Kingdoms, J. M. Weidenschilling
• Christian Citizenship, Theodore Graebner
• The Social Doctrine of the Augsburg Confession and its Significance for the Present, Hermann Sasse
• Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms and the Three Estates, John Pless.
• “The Two Kingdoms as a Paradigm for Criticism,” from the 2016 Just and Sinner Conference in Watseka, IL. Youtube. 
• “Two Kingdoms: One Lord,” by Dr. John Pless, For the Life of the World, Vol. 16:1, 2012, 13-20. 
• “Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms and the Three Estates, “Dr. John Pless, Youtube Video.
• “Reason the the Two Kingdoms: An Essay in Luther’s Thought” by Steven Hein, The Springfielder, Vol. XXXVI: 2, September 1972.
• “The Challenge of History: Luther’s Two Kingdoms Theology as a Test Case” by Dr. Cameron MacKenzie.
• God’s Other Kingdom, Gene Veith, TableTalk, December 2007

Lutheran Hour Ministries Bible Study, We the People: Citizens of Two Kingdoms, by Dale Meyer, with additional resources here.