#twokingdoms

[saramackenzie1982]

Get wrapped in Klenard today! #CastlesAndPalaces #KingsAndQueens #GodSaveTheQueen #TwoKingdoms #TwinGirls #WidowedFather #ManyWives #CivilWar #LGBTQ #LesbianCouples #NarcissticAbuse #BreakingTheRules #ThreeTimesMarried #WorldWar #MedievalTimes #MedievalHistory #RevolutionIsHere #PrisonSentence #StormingOfTheBastille #StayTrueToYou #Convictions https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl7f46us8I3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[imagodeiinitiative]

What do we mean by, “justice?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about “justice” over the past few days. Partly because the upcoming "Pilgrim" session in the Imago Day Virtual Home Group (the seventh and final chapter in book #1) deals with the last few questions of the Baptismal Covenant (1979 Book of Common Prayer). The question, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” is of particular interest. The answer to this question, and frankly all questions that ask whether we humans will do the right thing, the good thing, the life-giving thing, is, “I will, with God’s help.” I’ve been thinking about justice, too, because it is supposed to be a hallmark of the American experiment in liberal, republican democracy, even as we seem to fail at it so often. 

I wonder, as a country and culture, as we get further away from, “I will, with God’s help,” whether our notion of “justice” morphs into something very different or wains altogether. I mentioned at the end of last week’s Home Group, the idea of two-kingdoms - the civil, the United States of America and the spiritual, the Kingdom of God. What do we do when the understanding of, definition of, experience of “justice” becomes very different within the two different kingdoms? What have we to learn from history? How then shall we live in our own day?

[jpraxis]

So that magistrates, as magistrates, have no power of setting up the form of church government, electing church officers, punishing with church censures, but to see that the church does her duty therein. And on the other side, the churches as churches have no power (though as members of the commonwealth they may have power) of erecting or altering forms of civil government, electing of civil officers, inflicting civil punishments (no not on persons excommunicate) as by deposing magistrates from their civil authority, or withdrawing the hearts of the people against them, to their laws, no more than to discharge wives, or children or servants, from due obedience to their husbands, parents, or masters; or by taking up arms against their magistrates, though he persecute them for conscience: for though members of churches who are public officers also of the civil state may suppress by force the violence of usurpers, as Iehoiada did Athaliah [2 Chron. 22], yet this they do not as members of the church but as officers of the civil state.

-Roger Williams, A Plea For Religious Liberty, location 135 (KF Edition)