In our first ever debate on the Libertarian Christian Podcast, author Keith Giles returns to debate author/activist Mark van Steenwyk on Two Kingdoms theology and Christian involvement in formal politics.
As he explained in our earlier interview, Giles holds that formal politics is not a proper task of the Christian life. Van Steenwyk counters that Christians must be involved in direct political activism so as to undermine oppression and promote God's justice in the world.
Nick serves as moderator and asks some critical questions of both debaters. We haven't heard of anyone advocating for a Three Kingdom theology, but if you're such a person and are offended that your position didn't get any press here, you might consider lobbying the FCC to implement the so-called Fairness Doctrine, but as much as we'd like to see Christian libertarian thought get air time on MSNBC we still wouldn't recommend that course of action.
While you talk about 2 kingdoms and Mark talks about 1 Kingdom I think you are both saying the same thing on the one hand. The point of agreement is that there is only one kingdom to which Christians belong. He calls the others illegitimate and wants to subvert them. You call the others inconsequential and want to ignore them. It seems to me that the way of Jesus was the latter. Where many of his followers were ready for Jesus to use government to help the poor and oppressed Jesus fed the poor himself, stood in line of fire for the oppressed. What would happen if every Christian did that instead of writing our congressmen?
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