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A recent poll by Ipsos covering 10 countries shows that the United States is by far one of the most religious cultures on our planet. While the new pope, Benedict XVI, laments how Europe has lost her way and is becoming a secular community, religious vibrancy among the masses is so high in the United States that one can hardly cover politics and not run into it. France was on the other end of the spectrum with the highest percentage of nonbelievers in God, while South Korea was second in unbelief. Only Mexico of the 10 countries surveyed comes close to the United States in religious fervency.

What do we do with our religious interest? In some countries, like Mexico, there is a concern about too strongly mixing faith and politics. The same hesitancy is true for Italy, the most religiously robust of the European countries polled.

One of the great calls to the faithful is that we must engage and influence our culture. Some critics credit the now-defunct Moral Majority with creating the newfound interest in integrating faith and civic life in the United States. But the United States has always integrated faith and politics. This was evident in the days of the Pilgrims. Alexis de Tocqueville noted it in the early 19th century in his famous study, Democracy in America. Faith in God deals with all of life, so culture and the state are inevitably a part of the equation. The question is, How does an individual believer best integrate faith into the surrounding political culture?

History can teach us much here, as can theology.

First, we look at theology. When Jesus told his followers to render unto Caesar the things that are his, he implicitly endorsed the idea that government has the right to exist. He also implied that the state has a right to tax its citizens. In Romans 13:1-7, Paul taught that government is a servant of God. Its main concern is to protect its people and bear the sword against wrongdoers. Luther taught this view, which became known as the "two realms." The "two realms" view contrasts with other approaches that tried to have the church and state work closely together or that opted for a complete separation of the two.

But the New Testament also teaches that the kingdom of God is a thing unto itself. It is a community in the midst of the world and as such stands alongside the nations. It operates not so much in states as between them. Primary loyalty for the Christian is not to any nation, but to the kingdom of God. The New Testament spends a great deal of time preaching the virtues of a God-honoring life and being a good citizen. Yet it clearly distinguishes love for the world from love for God and his kingdom. It is amazing how little is said directly about or against Rome, even though the church's values clearly opposed Roman values.

Another way to say this is that government rules over a specific land and people. It is to protect the interests and well-being not just of believers but of all its citizens, whatever their race, color, or creed. On the other hand, the kingdom of God is made up of a specific group of believing people from a variety of backgrounds, countries, and cultures. It has no boundaries of concern other than to love God and its neighbors, whoever they may be, just as Jesus taught and modeled.

Second, consider history, which teaches two lessons.

On the negative side: History teaches us to be wary of confusing church and state. The fourth-century fusion of these two after Constantine resulted in the formation of national churches, which often coerced the belief of their citizens. When church and state become too closely identified, one cannot tell whether one is allied to the movement because it is the state or because it is God's community. National church structures in Europe fragmented the body of Christ into national units. This produced, among other things, centuries of infamous wars of religion, and eventually led to cynicism about Christianity in Europe that remains to this day.

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September 2005, Vol. 49, No. 9