I so appreciate your ability to tie historical details to the contents of this thread and discussion. I fuilly agree that the church of the Early Christian Era and the Middle Ages were focused upon geo-political application of the term and idea of kingdom so that it became, for them, a physical expression.

I also believe that beyond the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Era, the concept of kingdom underwent an additional change during the Reformation Era and its subsequent Age of Enlightenment. The popularity of Deism during the Age of Enlightenment and the first Great Awakening were opposite ends of the same philosophical spectrum. I find it interesting that George Whitfield and his colleagues like the Wesley Brothers Johnathan Edwards anticipated a kingdom of physical proportions even though they insisted upon referring to it "spiritual terms".. It is not lost on me that the form of ecclesiastical government of which my denominational tradition is based, Baptist (congregationalism), seeks to impose the same form of governance upon its churches as it did its colonial states, republicanism.

With the absence of the Lord's return in the last 2000 years I think we all mostly agree that the dominant definition of kingdom today is apocalyptic. However, I do see trends and evidence of a mindset that seeks to define the kingdom in purely political terms.

When I hear members of the religious right" contend on single issue voting and suggest that there should be a continued resistance to President Elect Obama because of his stance of women having the right to choose and decide what is done with their bodies, it causes me to wonder just how far we have moved from the historic ideas of the Medival and Renaissance definitions of the "Old World. What do you think?

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