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The Two Kingdoms in a Democratic, Constitutional Republic

The Two Kingdoms in a Democratic, Constitutional Republic

Last updated on: July 24, 2026 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

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The Two Kingdoms in a Democratic, Constitutional Republic 2026-07-18T17:57:16-04:00 Gene Veith

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Part V of our series on the Lutheran Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Dr. Biermann is among the Christian scholars who believes that the United States of America primarily grew out of Enlightenment assumptions, rather than those of the Bible or Christian theology. But he says that our duty to honor and submit to our temporal government holds no matter the origin or nature of that government, as long as it does not require us to disobey God.

The Roman Empire the New Testament was dealing with and the feudal hierarchies of Luther’s day required a certain relationship between the ruler and the subject. We in the U.S. and much of the West have a very different kind of government that we must deal with: a representative democracy with popular sovereignty written into its foundational laws. So I argue that Christians with the vocation of being an American citizen must apply the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in some special ways. Specifically, they have the duties of both “subjects” and “rulers.”

The government of the United States of America poses a special case. Does submission to our governing officials mean that we have to vote for them in the next election?

A monarchy means one person (monos) rules. A democracy means the people (demos) rule. The United States Constitution begins with the words, written in huge letters, “We the People,” going on to say that the people are the ones who “do ordain and establish this Constitution.” The Constitution’s Bill of Rights concludes by saying that the people have rights beyond those listed here (Amendment IX) and that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (Amendment X). All of this is to say, under the American system of government, the people are sovereign.

Recall how Luther taught that temporal government rules by means of “the sword,” symbolizing the state’s coercive power, including its authorization to use military force and to impose capital punishment. The ruler, writes St. Paul, “is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4). This is the deeper meaning of the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms. Under the American Constitution, since the people are sovereign, the people bear the sword.

Such governments are rare, though not unprecedented, throughout history. Both the Greek democracies and the Roman republic had a version of popular sovereignty. Even when Rome became a de facto monarchy under an Emperor, the nation paid lip service to the ideal, with the Roman legions brandishing standards reading SPQR, standing for “the Senate and the People of Rome,” expressing the representative version of democracy that the American founders would adopt. Today, despite the dictatorships and one-party rule in many countries, representative democracy has largely become the norm throughout the world.

This has consequences for how Christians are to relate to the state. When the people rule, whom do they rule? Each other, through the law and their elected representatives. But they also rule their rulers. They choose who holds the major political offices and if the people so choose they can remove them. Government officials are answerable to the people–they must act in ways that accord with the will of the majority of voters–and are therefore ruled by them.

The traditional heading in the English language of the Catechism’s Table of Duties reads, “What Subjects Owe to the Rulers.”[1] That is in line with the original German. Luther thought in terms of “subjects” who had no say whatsoever in their government and had only to obey their “rulers.” But Americans have the duties of both subjects and rulers. They hold a more complicated vocation, as reflected in the newer English translation of that heading in the Table of Duties: “Of Citizens.”[2]

A Christian with the vocation of American citizen must indeed submit to the ruling authorities; that is, to the law and those who enforce it, such as police officers, judges, and other magistrates. Those who hold high offices–presidents, governors, mayors–are entitled to honor, under the Fourth Commandment, but (as I understand it) citizens are not legally obligated to obey them, as such. If a police officer tells me to lie down on the floor so he can search me, I should comply with that order. But if the president tells me to lie down on the floor, I don’t have to. I don’t have to obey a congressman, unless a law is duly passed and signed by the president, but even then the president and the congressman do not give me orders. If I disobey that law, prosecutors can file charges against me, the FBI can arrest me, I can be brought to trial–in which I am innocent until proven guilty–and, if a jury of my peers (representing the sovereignty of the people) finds me guilty, a judge can consign me to prison. But, as a citizen, I have many rights and protections that the government itself must honor and obey, due to the sovereignty of the people. The president must be obeyed by the military, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, and by his underlings in the government, in his capacity as Head of the Executive Branch. But he does not exercise direct authority over individual citizens. I do not have to do whatever he says, as if he were the Prince of Saxony in Luther’s day. I am under no obligation to obey him. But I am under obligation to submit to the laws of the state, as enacted by the people’s representatives.

Conversely, a Christian with the vocation of being an American citizen has obligations as ruler. That includes studying the issues, monitoring current events, forming judgments about what policies should be enacted, and voting for the candidates who would best carry them out. Since our democratic system requires collective agreement, Christian citizens may try to persuade their fellow-citizens to agree with them, discussing the issues online, in person, and in associations. It is entirely appropriate for Christians to get involved in political campaigns and public demonstrations. They may run for public office, and, if elected, hold that office as a vocation from God. Like all vocations, Christians should exercise their citizenship in love and service to their neighbors, which means considering not just their own self-interest, but the common good and the benefit of their fellow citizens.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is that Christians should not bring their religious convictions into the public square. Of course they should! Opposing abortion is not a matter of trying to impose one’s religion on someone else. Christians know that this is impossible. Our religion consists of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ who died for sinners. No one can coerce a person into saving faith, which is a gift of God. But, having been reconciled to God through faith in Christ and being received into God’s spiritual kingdom, God sends us back to our vocations in our earthly life, His temporal kingdom, where we are to live out our faith in love and service to our neighbors. Those vocations include our citizenship. Our neighbors include the unborn children who are being legally slaughtered. Out of love for them, we should work to correct this horrible injustice and the grave disorder of a government that is violating its divine purpose of protecting the innocent. As we struggle to fight abortion in the temporal kingdom, motivated by God’s Law over against the laws of the state, we also struggle in a different way to offer the gospel of Christ’s forgiveness to mothers who have aborted their children and to everyone else complicit in this sin, thus bringing them into God’s spiritual kingdom. Thus the Two Kingdoms work together.

Notes

[1] “Table of Duties,” Small Catechism in Concordia, https://bookofconcord.cph.org/en/small-catechism/table-of-duties/#what-subjects-owe-to-the-rulers

[2] “Table of Duties,” Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2019). https://catechism.cph.org/en/table-of-duties.html

Illustration: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, photo by Navyatha123 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45149560

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