by R.C. Sproul
It's one thing to say that the state operates apart from the authority of the church, it's another thing for us to say that the state functions or operates apart from the authority of God. That would be sheer paganism and the total repudiation of Judeo-Christianity.
The minute any government, whether it is in China, the United States, or in Russia, declares itself independent from God, it has become demonized at that point and has become an evil empire because it now, as a government, is in rebellion against the Authority by which it rules in the first place. At that point, it is the task of the Church to call the government not too be the Church but too call the government to be the government – to be faithful to its institution and its ordination.
We do live in a society that has been radically secularized and where it has been tacitly assumed that the civil government is not answerable to God and, in fact, has a right to be Godless.