OWIJOPPA Volume 10 Number 1 2026

GOD AND CAESAR: CHRISTIAN FAITH AND POLITICAL DUTY

Rev. Fr. Cyril Udebunu, PhD
Abstract

Some Scriptural passages suggest that as citizens of heaven, Christians are called to a higher form of life, a judgement which makes them eschew the political space labelled as corrupt, dirty or the world of sin. To be a true citizen of heaven, one must abandon the world's social order, a meddling in political affairs; he must love God and despise the world. Interestingly, the Sacred Scriptures present also ideas suggesting that man participates with God in bettering the universe and fulfils his role in the state by giving to Caesar what belongs to him. The aim of the paper is to reconcile the seemingly opposed injunctions of the sacred Scriptures from man's natural predisposition to politics overcoming the ideas in which those sacred Scriptures seem to contradict themselves and building up the synthesis that man is actually called to dual citizenship –the spiritual kingdom and the real world of now. Consequently, that Christians must calibrate between the eschatological expectations of the heavenly kingdom and the political demands of the social world order (God and Caesar). The author uses the dialectical method of exposition and hermeneutical approach in building up his arguments.

Keywords: God, Caesar, Christianity, Faith, Political Duty
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