The militaristic mindset wants to build walls, bomb “evil” nations, reinstitute torture, jail millions of people for all kinds of minor offenses, and maintain a “show of force” as a means of “keeping the peace”—but it knows nothing of peace. The problem with modern Christianity—and indeed a large swath of historic Christianity—is that it has separated the realms of the state and military apart from God’s revealed word. It has created a radical division between “two kingdoms”: the private kingdom of God and the church, and the general public and civil society. The private kingdom of God and church are ruled by the revealed word of God, they say, but we dare not “impose” God’s revealed standards upon the civil realm, for God rules that only by his secret providence. Here, Christians must repose and allow a mixture of Christians and pagans, or perhaps just pagans, to rule society by “natural” law (whatever that may be), or humanism, or whatever is the law de jure.

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