The state’s coercive power is then taken, usually implicitly, to be the assertion of real power, as opposed to the merely consensual power of voluntary organizations, a category typically taken to include the church. As I argue below, this common understanding ignores that in the Christian self-understanding, at least when carefully considered, the church is a “government” that holds authority, both inducements and penalties, greater than that of the civil government— to wit, the keys of the kingdom.
