Peter Leithart is, to my mind, one of our finest theological thinkers.  In this post, he offers a few brief words on Augustine on the nature of political order.  Leithart is arguing (and believes Augustine argues the same essential way) that the church and civil realms both--in their unique ways--conduct themselves in ways that bring glory and honor to God.  The state is not "secular" while the Church is not.  If "secular" has to do with time and not place (and Leithart follows John Milbank here), and if the secular realm is the pre-eschatological fulfillment realm, then both church and state are "secular" in that they exist in this time, which is a time when the eschatological kingdom has not come in its fullest.

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