Christians must never dream of taking over the power structures of the world, (Boice was writing soon after the collapse of the Christian Right in the 1980s,) nor must they seclude themselves from the world like monks or Mennonites. They must instead aim to live biblical, prayerful, authentic, godly, courageous, and joyful lives of service within the world; in a way that will bring great blessing to their cities and communities.

Many Christians in the West feel more and more like foreigners in their own land.

Our community finds our beliefs about marriage and sex and family as fragrant as ammonia; that our desire to join with like-minded people for the Christian education of our children reeks of apartheid; and that our passion to protect unborn life is invasively “creepy.”

Christian social convictions are not just different, nor even just wrong. They stink.

Some Christians counter-attack with the hope of recapturing formal control and influence over centres of power like the academy or government. So get your God Bless the USA Donald Trump-endorsed King James Bible for only $59.99.

Other Christians collapse into the foetal position; or at least into societal disengagement of any kind other than strictly Word evangelism.

The first group, like Israel in Numbers, presume to go where the Lord has not called them (Numbers 14:44-45). The second, like an anti-Daniel praying with the windows shut, or like a tongue-tied watchman, take cover when they should be seen and heard.

Both stand outside of Reformed-evangelistic civics of the past five centuries. And neither position, as Boice explains, is biblical.  

There are some encouraging signs. The puerile arguments of the noughties New Atheists, the self-styled “Brights”, the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris), are now an embarrassment to the cause. Thoughtful agnostics like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland are making people think again about the truth and value of Christianity. But for the moment the world is a bit hostile. No one in the West is suffering like Christians in Nigeria or China, but it is still a bit fraught and threatening.  

This is where Two Cities, Two Loves: Christian Responsibility in a Crumbling Culture comes in.

James Montgomery Boice (1938 – 2000), pastor of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death, was the author of some fifty books and Bible commentaries. He served also as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy from 1977 until its dischargement in 1988. He wrote and taught from the evangelical-Reformed position.

Two Cities, Two Loves was first published in 1996 and was recently lightly edited and updated for republication.

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