The Lutheran Doctrine of Two Kingdoms commends a promising political theology. The doctrine challenged the extremes of religion/government fusion and absolute separation then, as it can with the crises of both Christian nationalism and ideological secularism now. But major changes in philosophy's understanding of natural law and human sovereignty left the doctrine little in the temporal realm to which the values of the spiritual realm could relate, a relationship necessary for the doctrine's viability. This severance was punctuated by the Nazi fusion of church and state. Another, though unrecognized, crisis was that Christian theology itself lost its eschatological mind, which had framed the doctrine. Now philosophy and theology have rediscovered eschatology and apocalyptic. When so read, the Doctrine of Two Kingdoms holds great promise for faith and politics, freed from the flatly chronological eschatology that holds popular culture in thrall today. In this early volume of a new series of postmodern reclamations of doctrine in the Lutheran tradition, Duane Larson offers a theological vision for our politics informed by philosophy and law that enlarges our understanding of St. Paul's counsel to "obey the governing authorities."
