God In Action. Karl Barth

in this respect, obedient to the Scriptures—that this sinful and perverse government among men is a necessary divine order to restrain its equally sinful and perverse freedom.

      Just as definitely, however, the Church has found its calling to consist in something else than in the establishment and maintenance of such a rule. It will give to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, but it can never give its unconditional sanction to any such form of mastery, to any form of the state or trend of culture. It cannot join hands with any of them for better or worse. It is in no wise its office to undergird man and aid his ascendancy. Where it does affirm man’s rule over men it will do so in reverence of the hidden intent of God and not of the only-too-patent plans of man. It will have regard for the patience and wisdom of God who knows to set bounds to sin even by sin itself. But for the sake of God and man, it will keep its hands free for its own peculiar task. The sign which it is called to erect is a sign other than the sign of dominion. For this reason, it will not conceive its task to be the establishment of a rule of its own. It will not proceed to build a city of God in opposition to the cities of the world, a realm of the pious against the realm of the godless, an island of the righteous and blessed in the midst of the sea of wickedness. Its very sympathy and solidarity will prevent its doing so.