for all creation. A theopolitical announcement hardly lends itself to a merely private religious experience. (The reduction of religion to the private sphere began with the Enlightenment.) This personal but not private word is both an invitation and a challenge: But what does it [Scripture; or perhaps better translated ‘he’ = God] say? “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and