For those who truly have dual citizenship, it has both advantages and disadvantages. Travel is easier with two passports. Dual citizens have twice as many civil rights as other people. But they are subject to being drafted into two armies instead of one, and sometimes have to pay more taxes, because they are paying to two countries.
By analogy, many people have a spiritual form of dual citizenship. Martin Luther explained that there are two domains: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. These two realms both lay claim to a person’s life. Having already received a legal status from a worldly kingdom, people owe taxes and obedience. Having already received eternal salvation from God, people owe thanks and praise to God, and kindness to one’s fellow human being.
Just as a person with two nationalities carries two passports, so spiritually a person wears two hats: simultaneously living and working in the Kingdom of God and in the kingdom of this world, as Erwin Mülhaupt writes:
Ein gläubiger Christ gehört hier auf Erden zugleich beiden Reichen an, so wie ein Christ zugleich Kirchengemeinderat und Polizist, zugleich Vater und Lehrer, zugleich Christ und Richter sein kann.
A Christian moves back and forth between the two roles. In a time of worship, he is humble and does not coerce others; in his worldly role, perhaps as an employee of a governmental regulatory agency, he imposes his decisions on others. Quoting Luther (WA 39 II, pg. 81, line 17), Mülhaupt points to the fact that the Christian in both realms is a subordinate — a subject in the etymological sense — to an authority:
So hat auch ein Christ »zweierlei Bürgerrecht, in dem er im Glauben Christus untertan ist, dem Kaiser aber mit seinem Leib.«
This recalls Luther’s dictum in Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, where he explains that “A Christian man is the most free master of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”
This paradox served Luther in that text as he explored Christian living; a similar paradox serves in the investigation of the two realms. It is a paradox, not a contradiction, because it can be systematically sorted into consistent applications, as Mülhaupt notes:
Das ist kein Widerspruch, weil ein Christ nicht nur bei seinesgleichen, sondern auch unter den härteren Bedingungen des weltlichen Regiments zu Dienst und Liebe verpflichtet bleibt.
The doctrine of the two kingdoms prevents any pattern of Christians withdrawing from the world, although this doctrine serves other purposes as well. The doctrine pushes the Christian into the worldly realm and demands that he take action there. Luther is steering away from monasticism and asceticism. Avoiding the world is bad enough, but it’s even worse when it is done in alleged obedience to God. The Christian is called not only be in the world, but to do something there, as Mülhaupt reports:
Gott will keine Weltflucht und keinen Rückzug auf die eigene Innerlichkeit, namentlich nicht aus angeblich religiösen Gründen.
Luther lists (WA 40 III, pg. 207, lines 30ff) a list of prophets whom God sent into political and economic situations, to speak to, and interact with, the government’s leaders. That such leaders were princes and kings in the past, and presidents and prime ministers in the present, makes no difference. God uses His people to steer the events of history; to this end, they must be involved in worldly matters.
Those who withdraw from the world, Luther writes (WA 57, part 2, pg. 107, line 10), fail to love allegedly for the sake of love: they fail to be pious, claiming that isolation is piousness.
Thus the doctrine of the two realms gets to the core of the Gospel: it shows Christians how, when, and where to show true charity, whether in the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world, as Mülhaupt concludes:
Die Pflicht zur Nächstenliebe gilt in beiden Reichen. Was sollte hieran zu überholen sein?
This doctrine seems, at first glance, confined to politics and government, but it unfolds to shape all aspects of the life of faith.
