Dual Citizenship, Dual Heritage

The duties, obligations, and privileges of our dual citizenship embrace the following:

  • We affirm that the reciprocal relationship of family and kinship—where the moral equality of give-and-take prevails with those we are related to—mirrors the parallel idea of equality of citizenship, where citizenship and freedom are subject to the rule of law (Heb. 13:17).
  • Because governments exist by our will and serve our need for public tranquility and an orderly life, we affirm that believers have a moral duty to uphold government and to pray for leaders. Upholding the state is a matter of high moral obligation, and not a matter of political expedience merely (1 Tim. 2:1–2).
  • We affirm that citizenship, however, does not exhaust our status as moral persons, because the state cannot be a substitute for the Church as “the edifice of human worth, freedom, and wellbeing.”
  • We affirm that our dual citizenship reflects the complexity of our dual heritage by providing for our common welfare under law in obedience to our common Creator.
  • As human persons we acknowledge the Creator as the source of the moral teaching concerning the gift of life, the purpose of our existence, and the worth and destiny of the soul.
  • We affirm that citizenship is based on our needs and desires, while our standing as believers is original to our nature and dignity as moral persons.
  • We affirm that, tied by the moral cord, citizenship is an idea that draws on our moral affinity with the Creator’s purpose—we are who we are because we bear the image and likeness of the Creator.
  • We affirm our dual heritage by acknowledging the two spheres of political sovereignty and divine sovereignty, one delegated to earthly rulers, and the other reserved to God and His ministers.
  • We affirm that when obligations of citizenship violate the believer’s conscience, they violate the law of God. We affirm, too, that violations of conscience have a deleterious impact on state and society. When religious freedom is denied, democratic government is weakened and public order undermined.