The Two Cities of God: The Church's Responsibility for the Earthly City

The chapters of this book offer informed perspectives on a "theology of the world," exploring the question How does/should the church relate to the secular world? The standard dogma of the 1960s was Let the world set the agenda! Such a perspective has often caused the American church merely to reflect, rather than to inform and lead, the society in which it lives. Surely, say the authors of this volume, it must be the other way around.

Using the biblical image of the earthly city and the heavenly city, Robert Benne, Carl E. Braaten, Robert W. Jenson, Gilbert Meilaender, Christopher R. Seitz, Anthony Ugolnik, George Weigel, and Robert L. Wilken discuss such subjects as natural law, politics, the academy, economics, and marriage. Each essay boldly asserts that the church's most faithful service in the world begins and ends with her life in the communion of the triune God. The first task of the church is to be true to her own self as the Body of Christ in the world. As such the church is a sign and agent of the heavenly city within and for the earthly city.

Carl E. Braaten (1929–2023) was an American Lutheran theologian. He earned his doctoral degree from Harvard Divinity School, where he studied under Paul Tillich. He served as professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago for nearly thirty years. In addition to teaching, Braaten cofounded and edited the journal Dialog, cofounded the journal Pro Ecclesia, and cofounded the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. His many publications include Principles of Lutheran Theology; Mother Church: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism; Sin, Death, and the Devil; and The Strange New Word of the Gospel. 

Robert W. Jenson (1930–2017) was a senior scholar for research at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. He was also cofounder and associate director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and cofounder and coeditor of the journal Pro Ecclesia. He was renowned for his work on ecumenical, systematic, and Trinitarian theology.