In his excellent book, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church Michael Horton imagines two scenarios of church life (pp. 189-192):

In the first, God gathers his people together in a covenantal event to judge and to justify, to kill and to make alive. The emphasis is on God's work for us - the Father's gracious plan, the Son's saving life, death, and resurrection, and the Spirit's work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ. The preaching focuses on God's work in the history of redemption from Genesis through Revelation, and sinners are swept into the unfolding drama. Trained and ordained to mine the riches of Scripture for the benefit of God's people, ministers try to push their own agendas, opinions, and personalities to the background so that God's Word will be clearly proclaimed. In this preaching, the people once again are simply receivers - recipients of grace. Similarly, in baptism, they do not baptize themselves; they are baptized. In the Lord's Supper, they do not prepare and cook the meal; they do not contribute to the fare; but they are guests who simply enjoy the bread of heaven. As this gospel creates, deepens, and inflames faith, a profound sense of praise and thanksgiving fills hearts, leading to good works among the saints and in the world throughout the week. Having been served by God in the public assembly, the people are then servants of each other and their neighbors in the world. Pursuing their callings in the world with vigor and dedication, they win the respect of outsiders. Because they have been served well themselves - especially by the pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons - they are able to share the Good News of Christ in well-informed and natural ways. And because they have been relieved of numerous burdens to spend all of their energy on church-related ministries throughout the week, they have more time to serve their families, neighbors, and coworkers in the world.

In the second scenario, the church is its own subculture, an alternative community not only for weekly dying and rising in Christ but for ones entire circle of friends, electricians, and neighbors. In this scenario, the people assume that they come to church primarily to do something. The emphasis is on their work for God. The preaching concentrates on principles and steps to a better life, with a constant stream of exhortations: Be more committed. Read your Bible more. Pray more. Witness more. Give more. Get involved in this cause or that movement to save the world. Their calling by God to secular vocations is made secondary to finding their ministry in the church. Often malnourished because of a ministry defined by personal charisma and motivational skills rather than by knowledge and godliness, these same sheep are expected to be shepherds themselves. Always serving, they are rarely served. Ill-informed about the grand narrative of God's work in redemptive history, they do not really know what to say to a non-Christian except to talk about their own experiences and perhaps repeat some slogans or formulas that they might be hard-pressed to explain. Furthermore, because they are expected to be so heavily involved in church-related activities (often considered more important even than the public services on Sunday), they do not have the time, energy, or opportunity to develop significant relationships outside the church. And if they were to bring a friend to church, they could not be sure that he or she would hear the gospel.

Horton goes on to explain that scenario two has become pretty standard across the denominational spectrum. Vatican II defined the Mass as "the work of the people," and such a view of church has prevailed today, including amongst evangelicals. Of course, the cry of the evangelical is not focussed on the Mass but on, in the words of Rick Warren, "deeds, not creeds." As Horton says, "The list of deeds may be different, but the paradigm is the same."

To most readers and friends, my view on Bible translations are will known. I'm terribly thankful for the multitude of good English translations, and have been particularly enjoying the 2011 revision of the New International Version. But for a person of reasonable intelligence, proficient in English, it still seems to me that the English Standard Version is the best option. John Piper, in a very dark room, feels the same way.

...God is not redeeming the cultural activities and institutions of this world, but is preserving them through the covenant he made with all living creatures through Noah in Genesis 8:20–9:17. God himself rules this “common kingdom,” and thus it is not, as some writers describe it, the “kingdom of man.” This kingdom is in no sense a realm of moral neutrality or autonomy. God makes its institutions and activities honorable, though only for temporary and provisional purposes. (p.15)

God is redeeming a people for himself, by virtue of the covenant made with Abraham and brought to glorious fulfillment in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has completed Adam’s original task once and for all. These redeemed people are citizens of the “redemptive kingdom,” whom God is gathering now in the church and will welcome into the new heaven and new earth at Christ’s glorious return. Until that day, Christians live as members of both kingdoms, discharging their proper duties in each. They rejoice to be citizens of heaven through membership in the church, but also recognize that for the time being they are living in Babylon, striving for justice and xcellence in their cultural labors, out of love for Christ and their neighbor, as sojourners and exiles in a land that is not their lasting home. (p.15)

God created Adam and Eve in his image and gave them a task to accomplish: to be fruitful and multiply and to exercise dominion over the earth. At the dawn of history, therefore, God gave a cultural task to the human race. That is more, God set a goal and reward before the first Adam. If he completed his cultural task through faithful obedience to God’s commands, God would have brought Adam into a new creation (what the New Testament calls the “world to come” or “the new heaven and new earth”) far surpassing the delightful and sinless world into which Adam was originally created. By a divine covenant, Adam’s righteous cultural labors would have earned him a share in the eschatological world to come. Instead, Adam fell into sin and plunged the present world into a state of sin and misery. (p. 27)

[He] not only took upon himself the penalty of the first Adam’s sin, but also took upon himself the responsibility of fulfilling Adam’s original task. Christ offered perfect obedience in this world to his Father, and was exalted to his right hand as a result. The Lord Jesus, as a human being—as the last Adam—has attained the original goal held out for Adam: a glorified life ruling the world-to-come. Because Jesus has fulfilled the first Adam’s commission, those who belong to Christ by faith are no longer given that commission. Christians already possess eternal life and claim an everlasting inheritance. God does not call them to engage in cultural labors so as to earn their place in the world-to-come. We are not little Adams. Instead, God gives us a share in the world-to-come as a gift of free grace in Christ and then calls us to live obediently in this world as a grateful response. Our cultural activities do not in any sense usher in the new creation. The new creation has been earned and attained once and for all by Christ, the last Adam. Cultural activity remains important for Christians, but it will come to an abrupt end, along with this present world as a whole, when Christ returns and cataclysmically ushers in the new heaven and new earth. (p. 28)

God creates a deep and fundamental spiritual antithesis between believers and unbelievers and also that God ordains a broad cultural commonality that believers and unbelievers share. In describing these things I will identify the origin of the two kingdoms. To summarize, God founds the two kingdoms by means of two covenants. The covenant with Noah (Genesis 9) formally establishes and regulates the common kingdom. The covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15, 17) formally establishes and regulates the redemptive kingdom. By observing the development of these two kingdoms in the Old Testament we can begin to understand what the New Testament means when it refers to Christians, living in this world and participating in human culture, as sojourners and exiles. (p. 75-6)

The New Testament never identifies any place where Christians live as a promised land and never describes Christians as those who can claim any place as their possession. Heaven is the only Promised Land for Christians. The New Testament calls Christians “exiles” and “sojourners” living in the diaspora, that is, in “dispersion” (James 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1, 17; 2:11). They are not like Israelites living in separation from the world in their own homeland but are like Abraham and like the Israelites in Babylon who lived in a land and participated in a culture to which they did not ultimately belong (Heb. 11:8–16; Revelation 18). As Abraham or Daniel could have said, “here we have no lasting city” (Heb. 13:14). It is now time to explore in detail how the two kingdoms theme, so powerfully exemplified in Abraham and the Babylonian exiles, comes to expression in the New Testament, especially in light of the coming of Christ, the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven, and the establishment of the church. (p. 97)

So what does the Christian life look like, when the church stands at the centre? VanDrunen sets out and describes three aspects of the church's ethic "that mark it out as radically distinct from the institutions of the common kingdom (even at their best): it exhibits forgiveness that transcends justice, it exhibits generosity that transcends scarcity, and it pursues evangelism that spurns violence" (p. 144). And so, while acknowledging the value of the common kingdom, we must be careful to ensure the radical distinction exists between it and the redemptive kingdom. One way to ensure this distinction is to only give to the church the authority that it is due. VanDrunen acknowledges some overlap with the common kingdom in the diaconal work entrusted to the church (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Tim. 5:3-16), however ordinarily the distinction, and the limit on the authority of the church, is clear: 

The idea that the church has only ministerial authority can be defined rather simply: the officers of the church have authority only to minister what the Word of God teaches, not to make up their own doctrines for believing or rules for living, no matter how compelling or wise they might seem to be. Ministerial authority stands in contrast to legislative authority, which leaders in the common kingdom possess. While the state, for example, has a broad discretionary power to make laws, the church has only the power to declare the laws and doctrines that already appear in Scripture. In short, church officers can say and do only that which Scripture authorizes them to say and do. At first this may sound constricting and burdensome for the church, but its effect and driving motivation is actually to protect the liberty of Christians. If church officers cannot teach anything beyond what Scripture teaches, then they are unable to bind the consciences of Christians beyond how Scripture already binds it. Thus Christian liberty is maximized. Christian consciences are bound to believe and to do as Scripture instructs, but Christians are free to exercise their own wisdom in deciding how to live and what to think about all matters that Scripture does not address (within the bounds of respecting other legitimate authority structures in society). I might also add that this idea should be liberating for pastors. They do not need to be experts on everything from the pulpit. They have only one simple but profound responsibility: ministering the Word of God. (p. 151-2)

We do not take up the first Adam’s task of earning, achieving, or in any way ushering in the world-to-come through our cultural labors, for Christ has already done this for us perfectly and sufficiently. Instead, we take up our cultural activities in grateful obedience to God and for his glory, recognizing that they are temporary and fleeting, always remembering that “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31). Though each of us at death “shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand” (Eccles. 5:15), by faith we trust that God is pleased to use our cultural obedience to accomplish his inscrutable purposes in history and will acknowledge all of our good works on the day of Christ’s return. Until then may we all take up our cultural activities with joyful and generous hearts, with charity to our enemies, and with the modesty and humility that befits the servants of Christ. (p.205)

I say to my wife, and to my children, The Lord gave you unto me, and the Lord hath taken me from you, and you from me: blessed be the name of the Lord! I believe that they are blessed which die in the Lord. God careth for sparrows, and for the hairs of our heads. I have ever found Him more faithful and favourable, than is any father or husband. Trust ye therefore in Him by the means of our dear Saviour Christ's merits: believe, love, fear, and obey Him: pray to Him, for He hath promised to help. Count me not dead, for I shall certainly live, and never die. I go before, and you shall follow after, to our long home.

(HT: Sandy Grant at the Sola Panel. See also this article by Andrew Atherstone on the Marian Martyrs, on which Sandy's post is based. Seriously, every protestant should read it!)

Books about Christianity and culture often spend much time speaking about cultural activities such as education, vocation, and politics but say little about the church. Undoubtedly the authors of these books would profess that the church is important. But many of them seem to treat the church as of secondary importance for the Christian life and the various activities of human culture as where Christianity is really lived. In this book I defend the opposite position. The church is primary for the Christian life. Every other institution—the family, the school, the business corporation, the state—is secondary in the practice of the Christian religion. The church is where the chief action of the Christian life takes place. If we do not understand that fact, then we will also fail to understand secondary aspects of our Christian life, such as studying, working, and voting. 

Obviously where Jesus is Lord and Saviour of a person, they do not ordinarily have the option of neglecting the visible church. Jesus as Lord commands otherwise so it's a matter of obedience. But it's also a matter of pragmatics. The argument that a Christian neglecting the institutional church is better able to engage Christianly with the secular world is rubbish, because,

...the church is the only earthly institution that can identify itself with the redemptive kingdom. To have fellowship with the church is to have fellowship with the kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed. The Christian’s “life” is in heaven, hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1–4), and the Christian’s true “citizenship” is in heaven, from where Christ will return again (Phil. 3:20–21). If the life of the world-to-come defines who we really and truly are, then the earthly community that opens the gates to this kingdom and bestows its fellowship upon us has pride of place over those that do not. The family, the state, the school, and the workplace are all honorable and useful communities, and we should strive to participate in them in ways worthy of our heavenly citizenship. But none of them is the kingdom of heaven on earth. The church ought to be central to the Christian life because the church is the only earthly community that manifests the redemptive kingdom and grants us the fellowship of our true home, the world-to-come. 

And so we see that two kingdoms theology is not about withdrawing from the world. Christians are called to live in the redemptive and common kingdoms, however the essence of this theological framework and of this book is that they are distinct and a co-mingling of them is generally unhelpful and unbiblical. While the idea that Christians should be "redeeming culture" gives the common kingdom more importance that is due, the redemptive kingdom (the church) is frequently attributed more authority than is due. VanDrunen acknowledges some overlap with the common kingdom in the diaconal work entrusted to the church (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Tim. 5:3-16), however ordinarily the distinction, and the limit on the authority of the church, is clear:

The idea that the church has only ministerial authority can be defined rather simply: the officers of the church have authority only to minister what the Word of God teaches, not to make up their own doctrines for believing or rules for living, no matter how compelling or wise they might seem to be. Ministerial authority; stands in contrast to legislative authority, which leaders in the common kingdom possess. While the state, for example, has a broad discretionary power to make laws, the church has only the power to declare the laws and doctrines that already appear in Scripture. In short, church officers can say and do only that which Scripture authorizes them to say and do. At first this may sound constricting;and burdensome for the church, but its effect and driving motivation is actually to protect the liberty of Christians. If church officers cannot teach anything beyond what Scripture teaches, then they are unable to bind the consciences of Christians beyond how Scripture already binds it. Thus Christian liberty is maximized. Christian consciences are bound to believe and to do as Scripture instructs, but Christians are free to exercise their own wisdom in deciding how to live and what to think about all matters that Scripture does not address (within the bounds of respecting other legitimate authority structures in society).I might also add that this idea should be liberating for pastors. They do not need to be experts on everything from the pulpit. They have only one simple but profound responsibility: ministering the Word of God. 

Amen.

Living in God's Two KIngdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture will be released on 31 October, and is available for pre-order now.