250 Years: America’s Christian Heritage
Nations Exist Under God
In Washington’s 1796 farewell address, he counselled, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”[1]
On our nation’s 250th birthday, our generation needs to answer this perennial question: Who is really in charge? Christians, too, must answer this question. This field is called political theology—the study of how God’s authority relates to human government, where the state’s power comes from, and where its limits lie. You don’t need a seminary degree to think about it well. God gave us a brain and a Bible to read and reason.
To whet your palate, consider what James Baird wrote in his book King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government, “God requires civil rulers to use their government powers to promote true religion among the people. When rulers do this, God is pleased. When they do not, God is angry. Simple as that.”[2]
A good political theology pleases God.
Lord of Lands
Towns and tribes, lords and lands—that has always been the rhythm of human life. There are nearly two hundred sovereign nations in the world today, but the draw to form communities and protect boundaries is no modern invention. From the beginning, humanity has gathered into families, tribes, and eventually nations.
Genesis gives the earliest account. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden and charged them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). When they disobeyed, He set a border and expelled them—deported, in effect, from their first home. Cain followed the same pattern, going “away from the presence of the LORD” to settle in the land of Nod (Gen. 4:16). Movement, borders, and settlement became the rhythm of history.
God Himself recognized this. He told Abram to leave “your country and your kindred and your father’s house” (Gen. 12:1)—language that assumes a land and a people. Later He gave Moses detailed borders for Israel’s tribes (Num. 34–35). Yet those boundaries were never absolute. They were always subject to the One who owns the earth: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1). This is the first lesson of political theology, and the one everything else hangs on: nations exist, and nations matter—but they exist under the sovereignty of God.
Christ Is Lord of All
The story does not end with nations. Over every nation, tribe, and tongue stands one King.
In one sense, earthly rulers are legitimate rulers. The presidents, kings, and prime ministers of the world each hold a valid claim to authority. But their rule is borrowed—it is handed to them, not generated by them. Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11), and Paul agrees: “There is no authority except from God” (Rom. 13:1). Earthly power is real, but it is derivative; it traces back to a source higher than itself.
Christ’s authority is the opposite—original, unlimited, and supreme. “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). Revelation calls Him “Lord of lords and King of kings” (Rev. 17:14). His reign depends on no election, constitution, or army; His throne is in heaven, and “his kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19). That reign reaches into every realm of existence—the material, the moral, the intellectual, the relational. As Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch pastor and statesman who served as prime minister of the Netherlands, famously put it: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”[3]
Spheres of Authority
That “square inch” claim raises an obvious question for daily life: if Christ rules everything, how is our society supposed to be ordered under Him? Kuyper answers that with a concept called sphere sovereignty. The idea is simple once you see it: society is divided into distinct, God-ordained domains, and each one has its own kind of authority that the others are not allowed to usurp.
Consider four of them. Morality governs the self. Family governs the home. The church governs worship. The state governs civic life. Each has a God-given purpose, and each is limited in scope. The family cannot govern the church, and the state should not dictate doctrine. They are not interchangeable, and not one of them stands outside Christ’s authority.
Here Kuyper drew a distinction. Human rulers receive conferred authority—it is granted to them from above. Christ’s authority, by contrast, is acknowledged authority. We may recognize His Lordship, but we cannot bestow it on Him. In other words, He reigns whether or not we admit it.
Trouble comes when one sphere oversteps its bounds. The family can abuse its members; the church can distort doctrine; and the state—perhaps most often—can drift into tyranny, swallowing the others. Kuyper warned that the state “seeks to strengthen its arm, and with that outstretched arm opposes and attempts to break every aspiration of those spheres toward expansion.”[4] Douglas Wilson has helpfully warned, “when there is no God above the state, the state is God.”[5] Not only is it the just duty of the civil magistrate to protect the freedom, or sovereignty, of each sphere, they are commanded by God to punish the evildoers.
Separation of Church and State
These questions are woven into the fabric of American history. 150 years before the Continental Congress gathered or The Declaration of Independence was written, The Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 were Separatists and Non-Conformists—Christians who had broken from the official Church of England rather than submit to practices they believed violated Scripture—and they were fleeing its oppressive reach. Their founding document, the Mayflower Compact, was undertaken “for the glory of God and advancements of the Christian faith.”[6] John Winthrop, an English Puritan lawyer who led in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, would later describe their community as a city upon a hill. These were people who understood that a nation lives under the eye of God.
But few phrases are more misunderstood than “separation of church and state.” Its earliest echo came from Roger Williams, the Puritan pastor who spoke of a wall to keep the wilderness of governments out of the affairs of religion.[7] Notice the direction of his concern. He was not worried about religious influence corrupting politics; he was worried about political power corrupting faith. The Baptist pastor John Leland pressed the same conviction of the independence of the local church under God. Leland influenced both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson's own use of the phrase came in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. Pointing to the First Amendment's prohibition on any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” he declared that the American people had thereby built “a wall of separation between Church & State.”[8] Read it in context and the modern misunderstanding can easily be corrected. Jefferson’s intent was not to keep the church out of the state; it was to protect the church from the state. This wall was to protect the church from the overreach of government—not the public square from the influence of faith. Today, this is the single most important correction to absorb: the original “wall” was built to keep the government out of the church, not the gospel out of public life.
Faith and Government Through the Ages
Nations have tried every conceivable form of government—monarchy and democracy, oligarchy and republic, the disorder of anarchy and the false promises of socialism and communism. Or what Zohran Mamdani, the Mayor of New York City, wishes to accomplish through a political shift to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
The United States, by design, is a constitutional federal republic: limited by written law, divided between state and federal power, with ultimate sovereignty resting in the voters. But the system of government matters less than the character of those who fill it. Proverbs 29:2 teaches, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked rule, the people mourn.”
Behind the systems lie deeper convictions, and this is where political theology really begins for the beginner. Christians have wrestled for centuries with how faith should intersect with government, and these three flavors answer the question with slight variation: Augustine, Luther, and Kuyper.
Augustine taught the two cities. Writing as Rome collapsed around him, he needed to explain why Christians should not place their hope in any empire. He wrote in City of God, there are really two cities running through all of history—the city of man (built on love of self) and the city of God (built on love of God). Christians are citizens of both at once, living in the earthly city while their true allegiance belongs to the heavenly one, waiting for the day the city of God is fully revealed. The problem he solves: how to be invested in your country without worshiping it.
Luther taught the two kingdoms. He needed to keep two things from collapsing into each other—the work of the government and the work of the church. So, he distinguished a civic kingdom, which God governs through law, order, and the sword, from a spiritual kingdom, which God governs through the gospel and the Word. Both are ordained by God, but they run by different rules and must not be confused. The problem he solves: keeping the state from preaching and the church from policing.
Kuyper taught a transformational vision. He wanted to recover the truth that Christ’s lordship is not confined to the Lord’s Day but extends to everything—art, science, sports, politics, economics, work, and sex. Drawing the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 (fill and steward the earth) together with the Great Commission (go and make disciples), he argued that believers are called to bring every sphere of life under Christ’s lordship while honoring the distinct integrity of each. The problem he solves: how to take all of life seriously as God’s without letting any one institution dominate the rest.
Augustine teaches that we should be involved in the world without worshipping it. Luther taught that the government and the church have distinct roles that shouldn’t be interfered with. Kuyper taught that Christ reigns supreme and the dignity of distinct human institutions—insisting that politics, science, art, family, and worship must all bend the knee to King Jesus.
Christ Over All
Nations rise and fall. Kings and presidents make laws and command armies. But Christ reigns above them all. His authority is not borrowed, fragile, or subject to election cycles—it is total, pervasive, and unshakable. He is Lord because He is God, because He was perfectly obedient, and because He has been given all authority. Therefore, we are to obey Him in all ways, trust Him in all things, and proclaim Him in all places.
Kuyper’s reminder still rings true: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
Where to Go Next
If this has stirred your appetite, the conversation is centuries deep and you can wade in at your own pace. Here are a few books that may help you think through the times we are in:
Augustine’s City of God is the foundational text and worth owning even if you read it slowly. That’s what I’m doing.
Sphere Sovereignty by Kuyper is a lecture he gave at the inauguration of Free University, which he founded in 1880.
Aaron Renn’s sobering article entitled The Three World’s of Evangelicalism describing our current American situation: coming out of Positive World, Neutral World, and now in Negative World.
Andy Naselli wrote a brilliant article called What Is the Spectrum of Major Views on Political Theology? A Proposed Taxonomy of Seven Views on Religion and Government. Naselli helpfully lays out each position with precision and, I think, honesty.
I’d also highly recommend this short booklet from 9Marks called How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics by Jonathan Leeman and Andy Naselli.
And most importantly, read your Bible: Genesis 1 and 9, Deuteronomy 17, Psalm 2 and 22, Romans 13, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Peter 2, and Revelation 13.
[1] George Washington, "Washington's Farewell Address 1796," the Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp.
[2] James Baird, King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2025).
[3] Abraham Kuyper, "Sphere Sovereignty," trans. George Kamps (public address, inauguration of the Free University, Amsterdam, October 20, 1880), 26, https://media.thegospelcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/24130543/SphereSovereignty_English.pdf.
[4] Kuyper, "Sphere Sovereignty," 12–13.
[5] Douglas Wilson, "A Primer on Theocracies," Blog & Mablog, January 10, 2018, https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/a-primer-on-theocracies.html.
[6] "The Mayflower Compact," November 11, 1620, the Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp
[7] Roger Williams, "Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered," in The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, vol. 1 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), 108.
[8] Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, January 1, 1802, the Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffwall.asp.
