Politics
“They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.””
— Jesus · Matthew 22:21Two powers, the Black church, and the reform movements — Christian political thought across continents.
“Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” With one sentence about a coin, Jesus split authority in two — and church and state have been arguing about the crack ever since. This field follows that argument through emperors and popes, reformers and Quakers, and a preacher from Georgia who used the Sermon on the Mount to change American law.
It also carries the field's hard edges: the same church infrastructure that organized freedom movements served other masters at other times. The ledger does not sort its members into flattering and unflattering; it records what the documents say.