Understanding our Calling as Dual Citizens (Part 1)

On Monday night of this year’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the ERLC hosted a packed dinner event in honor of our nation’s 250th anniversary. During the event, the room was greeted by Dr. Evan Lenow during his second week as ERLC president, in addition to hearing a keynote address and a panel. 

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from keynote speaker, ERLC Director of Research Dr. RaShan Frost, as he explores the responsibility we have to live as faithful citizens of the Kingdom of God while also living as faithful citizens in the United States. 

You’ll also hear the first part of our panel discussion at SBC26 featuring Dr. Frost and ERLC research fellows, including Nathan Finn of Greenville University, Dustin Bruce of Boyce College, Daniel Darling of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Adam Groza of Gateway Seminary. 

Episode Transcript: Understanding our Calling as Dual Citizens (Part 1)

Narration:

Welcome to The ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re featuring the first half of our event at the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting, One Nation Under God: Reflections on 250 Years of Faith and Democracy.

On Monday night of this year’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the ERLC hosted a packed dinner event in honor of our nation’s 250th anniversary. During the event, the room was greeted by Dr. Evan Lenow during his second week as ERLC president, in addition to hearing a keynote address and a panel. 

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from keynote speaker, ERLC Director of Research Dr. RaShan Frost, as he explores the responsibility we have to live as faithful citizens of the Kingdom of God while also living as faithful citizens in the United States. You’ll also hear the first part of our panel discussion at SBC26 featuring Dr. Frost and ERLC research fellows, including Nathan Finn of Greenville University, Dustin Bruce of Boyce College, Daniel Darling of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Adam Groza of Gateway Seminary. 

Now, let’s turn to the first part of our conversation at our SBC26 event, One Nation Under God.

RaShan Frost:

I want to tip my hand a little bit. This is a TED Talk, but I am a Baptist pastor. And so it might be less TED-y and more preachy, but what I want for us to have today is to have an understanding of the moment that we’re in, that we understand our missional moment. And I want to kind of prime the pump, if you will, for that. Acts chapter 17:26 and 27 says this, “From one man, he has made every nationality to live under the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” 

God, by his sovereign hand, has set the times and boundaries of nations for where people live. By his Word, we know that the ages belong to him and that he works in and through human history.

And it is in that moment in time that on July 4th, 1776, God in his sovereignty saw that a new nation would be born. And out of that nation, a project that articulated a truth that we hold dear and has served as a model for the whole world. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

These revolutionary words serve as the philosophical foundation of the American democracy and that the legitimacy of the government comes from the consent of the governed. To put it another way, human beings have an intrinsic dignity that must be protected because these rights we are given and this dignity that we have does not come from man, but from God. And because they come from him that he sets and they establish the governing parameters of the nation.

The American constitutional republic was founded upon this principle. And as such, the trajectory of the life of the nation is toward a more perfect union. We have seen throughout history that even when the nation has violated her principles, it is the Judeo-Christian values that undergird the nation. They were the means by which the nation’s conscience was recalibrated. And we see that by God’s grace, we live in a nation where freedom of conscience and religious liberty are enshrined in the Constitution. It is also by God’s grace that we stand on the shoulders of believers who have been faithful to their gospel calling in this nation. And it is for these reasons that we stand here today assembled together to celebrate the moment, to reflect on our history and to consider how we live forward. So then, if that’s the case, what is our responsibility as Christians and as Southern Baptists in this moment?

What is our responsibility as we remember 250 years of faith and democracy? Well, our responsibility is simple. We are called to live as dual citizens. We are called to be faithful citizens of the kingdom of God whose ultimate allegiance and loyalty is to the Lord Jesus Christ while living as faithful citizens in the land that we reside, the United States of America. To be a dual citizen is to live as Christ’s ambassadors in our nation, calling her to a Godward trajectory that brings glory to God and seeks the good of our nation.

We see it in the text that the people might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him. When we live as faithful dual citizens, we show the nation the beauty of the gospel where we live, learn, work, and play in all aspects of life. We are a better nation when we live as faithful dual citizens. So if that is our responsibility, here is the charge. Charge number one: God’s agenda must be our agenda. 2 Corinthians 5 verses 18 and 19 says it like this, “Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, as he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. We have been given our orders by our Lord and King, and this ministry of reconciliation is the call of our ministry, and it is our job to be carriers of his message of reconciliation.

The second charge is that God’s appeal to us must be our appeal to the nation. 2 Corinthians 5:20, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” As an ambassador, an ambassador is a person who is commissioned and given authority to represent the nations of their home nation in a foreign land. As ambassadors for Christ, we are commissioned to represent the Kingdom of God here in the nation we call home. To use Augustine’s categories in the “City of God”, we represent the city of God here in the city of man. We are called to serve as bridges connecting people to God through Christ. We are called to see people transformed and reconciled to God for His glory, our good, and the good of our nation. As ambassadors for Christ, we should be a breath of fresh air in our nation.

We should be a breath of fresh air where we live and where we work and where we learn and where we play. Why? Because we are carriers of the gospel. We are carriers of the good news of Jesus Christ. And we carry this message in our land, in our nation. Beautiful passage in Romans 10:15. As I like to say, I’m about to land this plane, that in Romans 10:15 it says, “And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?” Your feet are beautiful because they carry the message of reconciliation in Christ. It is our feet in this nation. It is our feet in America. It is our feet in the United States. It is our feet in this time that we get to represent King Jesus as his ambassadors. And we get to bring his good news to this land. 

That is our charge. That is our mission. As we remember 250 years of the American founding, we get to understand, by God’s grace, we are here for this moment. Let us be the salt and light that he’s called us to be. Thank you.

Nathan Finn: 

Well, good evening. We are glad that everyone is here and that you are able to enjoy the good food and to hear from Dr. Lenow and from Dr. Frost and now from this panel. And so as you came in and sat down, you should have found a copy of this booklet, “One Nation Under God”. This resource has been produced by the Research Institute of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And all of us who are up here are contributors to this booklet. And what we’re going to do this evening for the next few minutes is playing off of our theme of God and country and the history of religious liberty. We’re going to just engage with a little bit of the material in the book. And our hope is you like what we say and you go and read the book and you enjoy it.

It’s not a very long book. Every one of you can read it before the Southern Baptist Convention is over. And so I want to encourage you to just tack it on to your daily quiet time in Jesus’ name I pray, amen. And then read one or two of the chapters that are in that book. So gentlemen, the way we’re going to do this is I’m going to ask a couple of questions of all of you and then everybody gets at least one question that’s directly related to what you wrote in your chapter. And as the moderator, I don’t have to answer any questions. 

But let’s begin with this. I would love for each of you, and maybe we’ll start with RaShan and work our way back this way, but share a moment or an experience in your lifetime that caused you to be especially thankful that you’re an American.

RaShan Frost:

Wow, that’s a great question. I get the privilege of remembering it every day. I am the son of an army colonel. I go back to the NAMB part today, when they had the deployment and the chaplain came home. My dad served in Vietnam and also in Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm. And I remember the countdown when my dad was on deployment, and he would come home. And the joy that I had, I would literally, one more day, two more days. You know, I would, the countdown. And my dad, he’s 80 years old, and every day he wears that hat that has a little colonel bird and the tanker up top, and the flag flies in the front of the house. And so I’m constantly reminded that I come from a military family.

And so the beauty of our fighting me and women, our soldiers who are overseas, who decide to answer the nation’s call voluntarily is always a thing for me that I really appreciate. And I also have been a chaplain at a military college, and I live in a military town in Charleston, South Carolina. So I’m always thankful for the place that God’s placed me with a great group of people.

Nathan Finn:

You can clap for that. That’s great. President Groza.

Adam Groza:

There are two things that come to mind. The first is when I was in college, I served as a poll worker. And if you’ve ever had a chance or have the opportunity to serve as a poll worker, I encourage you to do so because it’s a wonderful opportunity to be alongside people from various political parties all working together to ensure the safety and security of the election. It was a great experience, made me very proud to be an American. And like RaShan, whose talk I very much enjoyed just a few moments ago, in my office hangs a picture of the grosses that immigrated to America in 1917 from Romania to escape an authoritarian regime and really in pursuit of religious liberty, and they found it in America. And to think that they came here and worked in Gary, Indiana in a steel mill for many years, moved out west to California. And that journey, that faithfulness, that pursuit of freedom and religious liberty has resulted in me having the opportunities that I have make me incredibly proud and humble that the Lord has brought me and my family to this great country.

Nathan Finn:

That’s great. Professor Darling.

Dan Darling:

I think of two memories. One, when I was like 11 years old, our family packed up our Chevy station wagon in the Chicago area where we lived, and we drove to Washington, D.C. Somehow my mom planned a trip before the internet. I don’t know how people did that. And you know, we toured D.C., and I remember just standing as an 11-year-old at the Lincoln Memorial and just being overwhelmed by the significance of that moment and thinking of Abraham Lincoln and how he’s served this country. And then I think the second moment is just talking to my grandfather who fought in World War II. He was an Army tank commander, fought in the Pacific. He grew up during the Great Depression. He was a first generation.

His parents came over from Poland, Jewish parents came over from Poland to escape the pogroms in Europe. And, you know, he loved this country. He never really complained about anything because if you’ve gone through the Great Depression and you’ve gone through World War II, you were profoundly grateful for what you had. And so he really instilled that in me. I actually have his flag from when he died, and he had full military honors, and I have that in my office. So really special to me.

Nathan Finn:

Dean Bruce.

Dustin Bruce:

Yeah, there are a few that come to mind. I’ll just pick a recent one. Just a couple of weeks ago in Kentucky, we had an election, primary election and a few nonpartisan voting items. And one of my daughters wanted to go. And so I took my 10-year-old daughter with me to the polls, and we went in and talked through the process, and I cast my vote there, and I was able to just tell her the importance of this, but also the great gift and benefit of that. And even think back to being a child in Alabama when my family would take me to the polls and emphasize that you don’t not do this because people have sacrificed, sometimes even to the point of death, to give you the opportunity to go cast your vote. So that’s just one recent event that comes to mind.

Nathan Finn:

That’s great. I will answer this first question, and I have a couple as well. On April 7th, 1994, I became an Eagle Scout back whenever I think that really meant something. Don’t want to offer too much commentary on the present day. But I can remember at that ceremony as an Eagle Scout just feeling especially proud to be an American. And then years later, when I took my children to Washington, D.C. for the first time, and especially whenever we went to the World War II Memorial, which I still think might be the most sacred places in the United States. It’s right there with Arlington National Cemetery for me. And then walking around that memorial, that was also just a really powerful reminder of the significance of being a citizen of the United States. 

So as we think about the booklet, Dustin, I want to start with you.

The reason that we’re having this event around this theme tonight is in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. What did our Baptist forefathers, foremothers think about the American Revolution and the whole idea that these colonies wanted to be independent of England? Were they loyalists? Were they patriots? Something in between? Talk to us about that.

Dustin Bruce:

Well, as you know, and have written on, history’s very complicated. So, to kind of lay it out a little bit, you have a number of Baptists who are all throughout the colonies during the war of independence. And to some degree, it could depend on where you were, what your experience had been as to how you would feel about the patriot cause. And so you, if you were in, coastal South Carolina, like Oliver Hart, you’re very pro-patriot. You want the war for independence, and you might even be called upon to go through inland South Carolina and try to generate support for the patriots. But if you had been in New England, for instance, as a Baptist, you might have been a bit more reticent when you’re hearing these patriot cries for liberty.

Because leading up to, and even through some of the time of the war, there are Baptists who are being persecuted throughout the colonies, but particularly in some Virginia areas in New England because they’re Baptists, right? We think about the famous case in Ashfield, Massachusetts, where a number of Baptists had land confiscated from them by those same leaders of the patriot cause who are crying out for liberty, but because they were not willing to pay for the upkeep of the local congregational church, their land was confiscated. And in fact, it was King George III who alleviated them from that burden. And so a number of Baptists were, I would say they had a wait and see approach for a bit about, are these patriots that are claiming to be wanting liberty actually going to give us liberty to practice our faith the way that we believe that the Bible teaches we should?

But over the course of the war, I would say nearly all the Baptists became pretty fierce- convinced patriots.

Nathan Finn:

So the Baptists believed you could be patriotic and you could follow Jesus.

Dustin Bruce:

I would say they did.

Nathan Finn:

You would say they did. Dan, you’ve written a lot about this topic, not just your chapter in “One Nation Under God”, but even in the last couple of years, you’ve had a book on this theme. How can Christians be faithful patriots who avoid the two extremes on the one hand of kind of ignoring or discarding our citizenship, or on the other hand of idolizing citizenship, idolizing our nation? What does that look like?

Dan Darling:

Yeah, I think we often create a false binary that you have to either love God or love your country, and you can’t do both. And really, that’s not really how Scripture presents the way that we think about these things. And I’ve been helped a lot by C.S. Lewis’s book, “The Four Loves”, and which I think draws from Augustine, talks about ordering your loves, about ordering your affections. And so most of the time we’re not choosing between each of these, but we’re ordering them rightly. And one of the examples I try to use is 23 years ago, I got married to my wife, and I stood at the altar. And the pastor didn’t say to me, “Well, you know, you have to choose between loving God and loving your wife.” No, he said, “If you love God supremely, then you will love your wife in the best possible way.” And we love our country best when we love God first.

It informs our love for our country and all of our lesser allegiances. And I actually would say that, obviously patriotism can be idolatrous. I think we see this a little bit with Jonah, but I also think it’s just as sinful to be apathetic or loathe your country. When I think about what Jeremiah says to the exiles in Jeremiah 29, and I think we can consider ourselves exiles. 1 Peter and Hebrews say that we are strangers and exiles. We’re citizens of the Kingdom of God. Well, Jeremiah doesn’t tell the exiles to sort of huddle together and ignore the country and the place where they’ve been given, but he says for them to seek the welfare of the flourishing of your country. It’s hard to seek the flourishing of a country that you hate or you despise. And I think at the end of the day, patriotism and love of country in its proper ordering is really about gratitude to God for where he has put us.

RaShan talked about Acts 17, that God has sovereignly put us here, and we should be grateful for the place God has put us. We have been afforded an extraordinary amount of freedom, an extraordinary amount of prosperity, really unheard of in human history. And so, at the end of the day, I think we should be grateful for it. Richard John Newhouse said this about 40 years ago, but he actually said that proper, well-ordered patriotism is a subset of discipleship. And so I think it really matters.

Nathan Finn:

That’s great. So, Adam, a few minutes ago, RaShan preached a sermon that he called a TED Talk. And in that sermony TED Talk, he used the phrase dual citizens. What are some of the duties that we have as dual citizens of both the Kingdom of God and this specific earthly kingdom that we call the United States of America? 

Adam Groza:

Yeah. First of all, I’d rather hear a sermon over a TED Talk any day. So thank you. I appreciate that. You know, we use this term dual citizenship because Scripture talks in ways that support that idea. You know, in Matthew 22, Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and God, what belongs to God.” In Philippians 3, we’re told that we’re citizens of heaven. In Romans 13, we’re told that there is a proper submission to governing authorities, but there’s a limit to the authority of human institutions. Bonhoeffer talks about institutions like family and government, and institutions can, when they violate God’s Word, transgress the proper authority that they’ve been given. And if our ultimate authority is to God and to God’s Kingdom and to God’s King, Jesus Christ and to God’s Word, then there may be times such as in the case of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Paul, when Christians have to defy rulers who have transgressed their authority because of their ultimate authority to God.

And so as believers, our ultimate authority to God is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And one of the most patriotic things we can do is just pursue righteousness. The Baptist Faith and Message, Article 15 talks about Christians and the social order. And it specifically says that we’re to oppose what is evil and to advocate for what is true and what is just and for righteousness and for brotherly love. We oppose what is evil, and we promote what is good. First, we promote it in our own life by following Jesus Christ. And Augustine talks about the fact that the city of man is driven by a love of self, and the city of God is driven by a love of God. And so cultivating a love for God is one of the most patriotic things you can do.

And that heavenly mindedness makes you of greater earthly good. An early Christian writer named Athenagoras of Athens writing about the second century writes a book called “A Plea for Christians” in which he writes to Marcus Aurelius and says, “Hey, we Christians are your best citizens. It’s because we love Jesus that we love our fellow man. It’s because we love Jesus that we want to support you. It’s because we love Jesus that we want to be good citizens.” And so in my chapter, I talk about three things related to our earthly citizenship: self-determination, self-preservation, and self-education. We need to act in ways that we’re, by God’s grace and God’s providence, allowed to act like voting and speaking up for causes, which are going to look different because our churches are in different places. 

And because we believe in the autonomy of the local church and the priesthood of all believers, we’re going to advocate for different things because we’re on the ground seeking to reach our communities. But we need to be educated. We need to work hard to educate ourselves. It’s interesting. At the time of the American Revolution, there was a rather significantly high level of literacy. And that’s one of the things that fueled the activism of believers because they could read pamphlets and positions. But then self-preservation, we need to guard the institutions which God has ordained. We need to help our society think about their origin and their limits in our society if we intend for it to be free and just. We want it, above all, to be virtuous.

Narration:

As we celebrate 250 years as a nation, understanding the biblical concept of dual citizenship is critical to how we faithfully serve our communities as followers of Christ. We hope the first part of this discussion challenges you to embrace your calling as ambassadors of Christ in boldly proclaiming the truth of God’s Word to a culture in need of the gospel. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of The ERLC Podcast. Join us next time as we feature part two of our panel discussion from our SBC26 event, “One Nation Under God”.