Okay, I may have overstated the point that the Bible has little to say about political theory. But if Scripture does have a political preference it would appear to be monarchy — think David and Jesus — not democracy. And yet, American Protestants continue the line that the American republic has Protestant roots all the while ignoring that England’s government was closer to scriptural norms than the three branches of government established in the U.S. Even worse, political theorists from Tocqueville to Elshtain insist that the church is a school for democracy; that is, it is a civil association in which citizens learn the skills to participate in democratic society. Not only is this a starkly utilitarian view of the faith, but it also conflicts with biblical politics.
If Christ is King, What’s Up with Democracy?
April 4, 2007 by D. G. Hart
Posted in Corporate Confession | 26 Comments
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Not sure I am agreeing that the Bible has much to say about what type of government (it would seem to me that God directs these things through providences not revelation) yet I would say, with Calvin, that aristocratic republicanism may be more biblically normative than monarchy.
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Darryl, the mediatorial-kingship tradition is not who you have a fight with. For the most part the contributors to this blog disagree with a “Christian America” standpoint – clearly held by many evangelical political leaders (including G-Dubs, evidently) and rooted, as you point out, in the older Protestant triumphalism of Beecher et al. (and, as I pointed out, in British Protestant jingoism).
Honestly, does anyone here think that American-style democracy is truly God’s ultimate political gift to the world, or that it has unmoveable roots in the Christian tradition of political reflection?
Whatever its roots, contemporary evangelicalism has taken the tack of “Christ without culture” (see Neuhaus’s recent FT editorial) – which means that it has become Christ defined by culture. Establishment is not even on the radar screen of the most important evangelicals – far from it; they can only think that Islamic establishment would be a worse disaster.
It is really only Calvin and some of his more wacky followers (Covenanters, anyone?) that maintained at once a separation of church and state and the genuine independent authority of the church. Evangelicalism today has its roots (theologically, politically, and especially ecclesiologically) in the baptistic and congregationalist strands of Protestantism. Agree?
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What about a system of judges after system in place written of in the book of Judges?
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In the chapter, The People’s Faith, Darryl discusses American Protestant reaction to anti-democrative and anti-modern Roman Catholic declarations like Syllabus of Errors and Testem Benevolentiae. 100 years later it is hard not to wonder if the RC’s were on to something.
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Darryl writes of the Machen trial, “This episode also suggests that looking to churches and religious organizations as classrooms for democracy may be a form of schooling always in need of remedial education… (pg. 148).
Having sat through arguments made in the courts of my church, having witnessed them run roughshod over any recognizable form of due processes, and having seen appeals drag on for years without satisfactory resolution makes me wonder how good a school of democracy the RPCNA could be?
I also wonder if this has something to do with our increasing cultural irrelevence. We can do what we want because the stakes are so small?
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Let me recommend another book that I do interact with in A Secular Faith. Robert Kraynak’s Christian Faith and Modern Democracy is exceptional on the incompatibility of liberal democracy and historic Christianity, and he blames much of the harmonization of the two on Kant.
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E.C. Wines in his excellent book, The Hebrew Republic, makes a great case for the existence of almost every element of our republican government in Israel prior to the establishment of the monarchy. This tends to be a forgotten period in O.T. history, precisely for the same reason that our best presidents are the ones no one can name. Humble foreign policy, small federal government, and peace don’t make headlines. The biblical pattern seems to head towards less and less government. The temptations of kings as found in Deut. 18, are almost as likely, historically speaking, to occur in a Christian nation as they are a pagan one.
So, we should be working towards anarchy -Christian anarchy- that God’s will may be done in government on earth as it is in Heaven.
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Bill wrote, “I also wonder if this has something to do with our increasing cultural irrelevance. We can do what we want because the stakes are so small?”
What do you mean by cultural irrelevance? And what is it that the “we” want?
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I am RPCNA member and currently a student at Hillsdale College. I have read a Secular Faith and in one of my classes I am reading it again. I have been profoundly impacted by the argument. I know Dr. Hart insists that this is the proper interpretation of the reformed tradition, but which major Reformed figures really consistently held this view in practice? While there might be exceptions like Robinson, the Southern Presbyterians like Thornwell, who Hart upholds as an example in Mother Kirk, certainly did not. It is surely my young and unexperienced undergraduate opinion, but it seems that the RPCNA is more consistent with the Reformed tradition on the issue of the Church and politics. Hart’s view seems to be much closer to Lutheranism. Since I have been nearly convinced that Hart is right about the role of the Church, this places me in a tough spot as someone considering entering the ministry.
I know this is a simplistic question, but is this really consistent with the intent of the Westminster divines? We know what the Scots thought…
p.s. This is probably a question for another place and time: Dr. Hart, I know you have a strong admiration for Lutheranism. What has kept you within the Reformed tradition? I have seen reformed folk falling like flies for Lutheranism, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox over some of the very issues you advocate in your books. You said in one of your books that your research has been an attempt to keep you from being a presbyterian in exile, how has it done that?
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Narrowly considered, the Covenanter tradition, if I may be so bold, is bound up with the politics of the United Kingdom. The National Covenant had nothing to do with Amsterdam, Geneva, or Heidelberg. I know, the Reformed tradition on the continent held views of the magistrate that are compatible with the Covenanter tradition. But I think it would be useful for all who still hold some sympathy for the National Covenant to reflect on the possibility of applying that document to the politics of other nation-states.
As to my Lutheran tendencies, I must admit that I prefer being called this than a fundamentalist or pietist, which is generally the way Kuyperians talk about any sort of dualism. And for students who are tempted to leave the church of their parents, I can’t help but think that the road to Wittenberg is far better than the roads to Canterbury, Rome or Constantinople. I myself have not headed down that road because I still believe Reformed theology, polity and liturgy has less errors than Lutheran faith and practice.
But I’m not sure it is fair to call my view of politics Lutheran. It is more accurate, I think, to call it Augustinian. Granted, the Reformed tradition held on to Constantinian patterns of church and state that the American situation overthrew. If Calvin or Knox had tried to implement what Robinson or Thornwell had in mind they would have been torched. But it is important to remember that there were also Lutheran magistrates and that Lutheranism was by no means a proponent of the separation of church and state. No one could get away with that in the 16th century.
So the real question is what is the understanding of the state in both the Reformed and Lutheran traditions. I study American history and mainly the 20th century. So I can’t answer for the 16th or 17th centuries in any definitive way. But I do know of a quotation from Calvin that few Calvinists seem to have considered. It is from the Institutes where he begins his treatment of the magistrate:
“We have established that there are two governments to which mankind is subject, and we have already said enough about the first of these, which rules over the soul or the inner man, and concerns itself with eternal life. Our order of presentation now demands that we say something about the second, whose province is the establishment of merely civil or external justice, a justice in conduct. . . . In the first place, before we go any further in this matter, we must hold fast to the distinction we drew earlier. For if we do not, we will be led into a thoughtless confusion of the two things we distinguished, which are of quite different character. . . . But anyone who knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present transitory life and the eternal life to come, will not find it difficult to understand that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things far removed from one another. It is a Judaic folly to look for the kingdom of Christ among the things that make up this world, and to shut it up among them; our opinion, which is supported by the plainest teaching of Scripture, is that on the contrary, the fruit we reap from grace is spiritual fruit.”
For my money, that’s not only fairly separationist, but also dualistic. Psssss. Don’t tell the Kuyperians.
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Maybe you’ve found few Calvinists commenting on this portion of the Institutes because it is not Calvin at his best.
As long as “Judaic folly” be understood to refer to the Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah, and not to the OT System, okay.
Calvin’s use of soul and body is problematic in two ways: is the Church the soul and the state the body? No, I don’t think so, but he does not clarify this. Are the soul and body “far removed” from one another? And, what of the resurrection of the Body. Is not this body the one that will be transformed at the resurrection, and so partake of eternal life? Calvin has some Constantinian hangovers, but he also has some other sort of hangover, perhaps platonic, perhaps stoic, which leads him to state the nature of the relationship between soul and body as if the soul did not participate in SARX (Flesh) and the Body did not participate in life eternal. It is the “soulish” man who cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God. The body does not present the problems. It is not a mere shell which our spirits inhabit.
As for the National Covenant, the old American Covenanters were up to exactly what you suggest: they wanted to state things in their Testimony in such a way as they may have been applied to any nation. Hence they did not get into the details of the Scottish/British Covenants. In 1871 when they finally developed a specifically American Covenant, this is what it said:
http://www.reformed.com/rpcna-constitution/covenant.htm
Here are some paragraphs which touch upon what is above (see esp. 3 & 6):
3. Persuaded that God is the source of all legitimate power; that He has instituted civil government for His own glory and the good of man; that He has appointed His Son, the Mediator, to headship over the nations; and that the Bible is the supreme law and rule in national as in all other things, we will maintain the responsibility of nations to God, the rightful dominion of Jesus Christ over the commonwealth, and the obligation of nations to legislate in conformity with the written Word. We take ourselves sacredly bound to regulate all our civil relations, attachments, professions and deportment, by our allegiance and loyalty to the Lord, our King, Lawgiver and Judge; and by this, our oath, we are pledged to promote the interests of public order and justice, to support cheerfully whatever is for the good of the commonwealth in which we dwell, and to pursue this object in all things not forbidden by the law of God, or inconsistent with public dissent from an unscriptural and immoral civil power.
We will pray and labor for the peace and welfare of our country, and for its reformation by a constitutional recognition of God as the source of all power, of Jesus Christ as the Ruler of Nations, of the Holy Scriptures as the supreme rule, and of the true Christian religion; and we will continue to refuse to incorporate by any act, with the political body, until this blessed reformation has been secured.
4. That, believing the church to be one, and that all the saints have communion with God and with one another in the same Covenant; believing, moreover, that schism and sectariansim are sinful in themselves; and inimical to the true religion, and trusting that divisions shall cease, and the people of God become one Catholic church over all the earth, we will pray and labor for the visible oneness of the Church of God in our own land and throughout the world, on the basis of truth and of Scriptural order. Considering it a principal duty of our profession to cultivate a holy brotherhood, we will strive to maintain Christian friendship with pious men of every name, and to feel and act as one with all in every land who pursue this grand end. And, as a means of securing this great result, we will by dissemination and application of the principles of truth herein professed, and by cultivating and exercising Christian charity, labor to remove stumbling-blocks, and to gather into one the scattered and divided friends of truth and righteousness.
5. Rejoicing that the enthroned Mediator is not only King in Zion, but King over all the earth, and recognizing the obligation of His command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and resting with faith in the promise of His perpetual presence as the pledge of success, we hereby dedicate ourselves to the great work of making known God’s light and salvation among the nation, and to this end will labor that the Church may be provided with an earnest, self-denying and able ministry. Profoundly conscious of past remissness and neglect, we will henceforth, by our prayers, pecuniary contributions and personal exertions, seek the revival of pure and undefiled religion, the conversion of Jews and Gentiles to Christ, that all men may be blessed in Him, and that all nations may call Him blessed.
6. Committing ourselves with all our interests to the keeping of Him in whom we have believed; in faithfulness to our vows, and to the Covenants of our fathers, and to our children whom we desire to lead in the right ways of the Lord; in love to all mankind, especially the household of faith; in obedience to the commandment of the everlasting God to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we will bear true testimony in word and in deed for every known part of divine truth, and for all the ordinances appointed by Christ in His Kingdom; and we will tenderly and charitably, but plainly and decidedly, oppose and discountenance all and every known error, immorality, neglect or perversion of divine institutions. Taking as our example the faithful in all ages, and, most of all, the blessed Master Himself, and with our eye fixed upon the great cloud of witnesses who have sealed with their blood the testimony which they held, we will strive to hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, in hope of the crown of life which fadeth not away.
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Before rushing to condemn Calvin’s dualism as Platonic, we should remember that Paul talked alot about the differences between the things that are seen (body) and things that are unseen (spiritual). Calvin may have gotten it honestly. In fact, the whole business about denying dualism as inauthentic to Calvinism may be a carnard foisted on us by the Kuyperians. Read the portion of the Institutes sometimes repackaged as the Golden Booklet of the Christian life and you see even more how dualistic Calvin was, and how we should not become “too deeply attached to earthly and perishable things.”
I believe Calvin’s reference to the body and soul was that the state governs the physical world, the church the spiritual. I’m not sure Calvin was doing much more than bumper-sticker political theory or ecclesiology. But as a shorthand about the nature and function of each authority, I tend, dare I say, to side with Calvin. I wish more self-professed Calvinists would join me.
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“Article 36: Of Magistrates.
We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, hath appointed kings, princes and magistrates, willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose he hath invested the magistracy with the sword, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the protection of them that do well. And their office is, not only to have regard unto, and watch for the welfare of the civil state; but also that they protect the sacred ministry; and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of anti-Christ may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the Word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshipped by every one, of what state, quality, or condition so ever he may be, to subject himself to the magistrates; to pay tribute, to show due honor and respect to them, and to obey them in all things which are not repugnant to the Word of God; to supplicate for them in their prayers, that God may rule and guide them in all their ways, and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Wherefore we detest the Anabaptists and other seditious people, and in general all those who reject the higher powers and magistrates, and would subvert justice, introduce community of goods, and confound that decency and good order, which God hath established among men.”
This is the reformed confession on government. When we escorted this article to the door and gave it the steel toe, did we clean our house or was our house cleaned?
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And how did James I or Charles I or Charles II for that matter work out for you?
Look, I might give one cheer out of three for John Calvin as Prime Minister, though it would mean a serious downgrade of his abilities. But appeals to articles like this don’t take into account what happens when Roman Catholic monarchs are giving the steel toe to Protestants.
A way out of the predicament is to revise the Standards the way Americans did and welcome religious liberty for all denominations and faiths. On the down side, it means Mormons flourish (talk about idolatry). On the up side, it means no president or congress is guilty of the “killing times.”
Or am I missing something?
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“On the up side, it means no president or congress is guilty of the “killing times.†Or am I missing something?”
Sir, you are missing something. I am not assuming too much to assume that you are an American citizen aware of recent history.
Also, if Article 36 is based not upon Dr. Peter Leithart’s bricolage, whatever that is, but upon holy scripture, are we able to honestly revise it to suit our times which are tolerant of all equally? With some being more equal than others? With some more that others bearing the image of God as constituted in Adam? What duty does the magistrate have towards the triune God? Towards the King of Kings? What duty does the Triune God give the ones ruled towards the magistrates? The answers to these questions have everything to do with the salvific and redemptive reign of the Spirit of the Risen Christ. The article is biblical and should be retained, not as a cure all, but as the confession of those righteous in Christ before God and heirs of eternal life.
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Are our killing times are the result not of a tolerant benign impartiality in politics, but the result of idolatry deeply entrenched in politics?
Also it the report true that contra article 36, some famous living reformed theologians promote communism and/or socialism?
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“But appeals to articles like this don’t take into account what happens when Roman Catholic monarchs are giving the steel toe to Protestants.”
The author of this article may have a wee bit more personal experience with just such a situation than your argument indicates.
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Are our killing times the result not of a tolerant benign impartiality in politics, but the result of idolatry deeply entrenched in politics?
Also is the report true that contra article 36, some famous living reformed theologians promote communism and/or socialism?
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I see a difference between the state actively punishing the preaching of the gospel and making it legal for state-licensed physicians to abort babies still in the womb. Although I am not so stupid that I cannot recognize some relationship between religion and the legal and moral questions surrounding abortion, the question at hand — the duties of the magistrate to Christianity — is less relevant to abortion than to persecuting ministers. The former has to do with the magistrate’s enforcement of the sixth commandment, the latter pertains to her ability to enforce the second.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Article 36 (the statement) up to the point where it talks about the magistrate’s duty to protect the sacred ministry. I see no evidence of that in the NT. In fact, Christ and the apostles spoke and wrote from an expectation that the state’s treatment would be the opposite of article 36. So while a Christian magistrate may be desirable, I need to be convinced that it is something the Bible requires.
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Requires? It does not require a Christian civil magistrate, rather such a benefit is a gift of God’s grace.
Speaking of requirements, is there a biblical requirement that the magistrate not be a Christian? Or that if he secretly is one that he checks is faith at the door?
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When Paul preached the gospel to the magistrate of his day was the magistrate duty bound to believe the gospel and kiss the Son? Was the magistrate of Paul’s day duty bound to rid itself of idolatry and allegiance to all other “gods”? Was the magistrate of Paul’s day duty bound to believe the gospel and live and rule accoding to the law as used by justified and sanctified Christians? Was the magistrate to whom Paul preached the gospel to countenance and protect and promote his preaching? Are the magistrates along with all their subjects actively to manifest of the reign of Christ? The reformed preaching of Christ you rightly hold so dear as the only treasure in heaven and earth came to you by magistrates that answered these questions in the affirmative.
Dr. Hart, for your patience and time, I bow and give my thanks, and leave you with these questions to ponder.
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I’d attribute a Christian magistrate less to God’s grace than to his providence. I’m especially inclined to this with our current resident of the White House.
I’m not sure if Bill and Article 36 are on the same page. But if the answer to all of the latter’s questions is yes, then this means that the magistrate is supposed to do something that the Bible does not require. If a magistrate is bound to rule according to “the law as used by justified and sanctified Christians,” I don’t see much room in our land for Mormons or Roman Catholics for starters. In fact, I see an unlimited government sticking its nose into homes and other private spaces in ways that even the Communists could not devise. So before I answer the above questions, I’d like to know how Art. 36 can answer these questions yes and not have one of the most tyrannical governments the earth has ever seen. I’d also like to know how that complies with Paul’s teaching in Rom. 13 where Christians were told to submit to a ruler who was not inclined to promote God’s law.
To Bill’s question about a politician being required to check her faith at the door, I’d answer it depends. I’d also respond that it is not as clear what Christianity requires from a politician as Bill’s question implies. Take for instance a father and his son in a grocery store. The son picks up a jar of pickles and drops it after the father has repeatedly told the son not to pick up things. While the father is leaning over to spank the son, the son reaches up and smacks the father on the cheek. Is the father required to follow Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek, or does the father go for the son’s other cheek of the backside? I think we’d all agree on the father’s responsibility here.
And yet, if a politician takes his faith into the legislature or court room, which part of the Bible is he supposed to follow? Isn’t he going to be conflicted, just as Christian fathers are conflicted when they have to decide between Christ’s claim on them as church members and Christ’s commands to them as fathers?
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Darryl has a point. I recently read Bucer’s De Regno Christi. I felt my self glad to be living on this side of the Scottish Enlightenment. Bucer’s advice to a reforming magistrates gives a great deal more power to civil authority than I am comfortable with.
Less grace than providence? O.K. yet providence is under the authority of Christ’s mediatorial authority. No cross no history, right?
Darryl’s point breaks down on the issue of ethics. If he is correct, every father is in an ethical dilemma when he exercises discipline. Does the exercises of love not include chastisement?
I do not think it is simple to know how Christianity applies in the day to day realities of law and politics. I am happy for him to recognize he is a steward and not a “god” and fear the justice of the justice one.
As for protecting the church. It sure beats persecuting her. I like not having to pay property taxes on church property. The power to tax is the power to destroy. Not sure the state has a right to chooses among competeing theological claims to am happy to be protected, tax-free, and independent of unnecessary entanglements.
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“I’d also like to know how that complies with Paul’s teaching in Rom. 13 where Christians were told to submit to a ruler who was not inclined to promote God’s law.”
For the same reason Christians, with Paul, must honor the magistracy with due obedience and taxpaying, the magistracy, with the roman rulers, must render belief and self control unto God and His Christ. The belief and godliness of the magistracy is irrelevant to God’s command to His church to submit and render. We must gladly render to our rulers and obey our rulers and pray for the salvation and prosperity of our rulers. Oh my king, oh my president, live forever! In the same way,the obedience and honor of the subjects is irrelevant to what God requires of magistrates. We citizens are to honor and obey our masters in all things lawful-which includes paying taxes and not stirring up sedition.
“I’d like to know how Art. 36 can answer these questions yes and not have one of the most tyrannical governments the earth has ever seen.”
Exactly how does a magistrate believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit ruling with kindness and mercy and justice yield tyranny? In fact the saving grace of Christ is the only way a magistracy can repent of the religious and social and economic tyranny so manifest in communist/socialist states. A Christian husband is to love and cherish his wife and rule her well in all things. A Christian magistrate has a similar duty. What happened to Paul’s instruction to servants and masters?
Oh, and about the different religions-one has wisely said that there never was a ruler that did not rule as the active servant and active promoter of his “god.” He will hinder the true church or the false church. Does he actively serve and promote the living and true God or idols? Was Frederick III, the Pious, a tyrant? Who were the most despotical? Believing reformed magistrates or apostate Christian magistrates? You know the truth of history and theology and the word of God.
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“I recently read Bucer’s De Regno Christi.”
Bill, where can I find a copy of this.
“If a magistrate is bound to rule according to’the law as used by justified and sanctified Christians,’ I don’t see much room in our land for Mormons or Roman Catholics for starters.”
Exactly.
“In fact, I see an unlimited government sticking its nose into homes and other private spaces in ways that even the Communists could not devise.”
Then you misunderstand. The magistrate is to tend to public matters, those those things that impact society in an open and visible manner.
“I’d also like to know how that complies with Paul’s teaching in Rom. 13 where Christians were told to submit to a ruler who was not inclined to promote God’s law.”
Paul only requires them to obey insofar as they DO promote God’s law, and in matters indifferent. Good and evil mean the same thing there as they do everywhere in scripture; God’s Law, the eternal law, the natural law, the moral law-all one in the same.
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Bucer’s De Regno Christi is available on Amazon.com
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