Imagine the following scenario (not apparently one conceived by John Lennon): a hotel owner refuses to let out a room to couples whom he knows may engage in fornication, adultery or sodomy. The owner decides upon this policy out of his own Christian convictions. But the owner conducts his business in a civil polity that grants civil rights to fornicators, adulterers, and sodomites. What is the owner to do?
This is a conundrum which supposedly trips up two-kingdom thinking because the idea of a distinction between civil or common and religious realms denies the possibility of the existence of anything like a Christian hotel. If no such religious hotels exist, then apparently the owner should, according to 2k logic, change his policy and make rooms available to those who violate God’s laws. But if he insists on his policy, informed by his conscience, then he should sell his hotel because he lives in a land that will prohibits “Christian” hotels. One other option is to suffer the penalty for his violation of civil rights and either pay a fine or go to jail.
This test case for two-kingdom thinking actually fails to recognize that the alternatives here are actually more than two, and that the either-or approach that afflicts so much anti-thetical analysis does not do justice to the variety of God’s creation and providence. First, the hotel owner could actually appeal to natural law as a common standard for local laws. He could argue that sexual encounters outside marriage are inappropriate because they ignore the telos of sex, namely, procreation and reproduction. Second, if natural law is unavailable to this Christian hotel owner, he could appeal to the mercy of his local magistrate and petition for an exception to the laws of the county, city, or state. If he asked for such an allowance, he might actually find a kinder hearing than if he simply asserted to the town council, while wagging his finger, that the state’s laws were an affront to God’s moral will.
Third, to ensure that his hotel was thoroughly Christian, he could also deny rooms to liars, blasphemers, idolaters, thieves, and murderers, as well as anyone who has considered such acts and words in his or her heart. Of course, the owner might have to go out of business because no patron, not even a saint, could meet the owners’ righteous standards. Fourth, the owner could show his zeal for God’s law by also refusing to cohabit with his spouse and children for violating any one of God’s laws in heart, word, or deed.
The last option might be the most ingenious of all. If the Christian hotel owner is a member of a Presbyterian Church, he might prevail upon his session to petition the local magistrate in a case “extraordinary,” as tolerated by the Confession of Faith, ch. 31. What the session could do would be to work with the local government to establish a Bureau of Weaker Siblings in which the church would provide members of a public committee whose charge would be to evaluate the religious scruples of this hotel owner, and similar cases, to determine if he qualifies as one of St. Paul’s weaker brothers. Owners who cannot provide services to sinners, or to those who perform certain, more heinous kinds of sin, clearly lack the strong conscience that allows other Christians to regard such services to sinners as a legitimate part of their calling before God and love of neighbor. If a person, like the hotel owner in this example, were approved by the bureau as a weaker sibling, then he could gain permission from the state to be exempted from the scope and sanctions of laws that violated his conscience. Certificates of Weakness would be valid ideally for sixty days, and renewable, after meeting monthly with the Bureau, up to ten times.
Old Life 
Genius. Love it. I mean, if you’re not going to let certain sinners use your business, what about those who don’t meet doctrinal standards? Where would you draw the line? NAPARC Christians only? If you only let NAPARC Christians use your premises you’d probably have less visitors than Norman Bates’ motel.
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Now that they’ve got total control of your hotel business… next it will be your home. Sorry DGH I’m rather simple – what exactly do you mean by this article?
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Simple? Maybe. Obscure? Seemingly. I don’t know what you’re asking, especially because I have no idea about the first sentence of your comment.
As near as I can tell, the point of the post was to reply to people who complain that 2k theology can’t address tough situations in which Christians, who are beleagured by secular society, find themselves. I was trying to show that 2k theology is up to the challenge. I was also trying to show an inherent weakness in the critics of 2k views.
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My first sentence was a suggestion that the current civil kingdoms in the West are beginning to encroach into territory that 2k theologians would prefer them not to. This is clearly a challenge to any practical 2k theologian.
For example, what will Presbyterian churches in the US and the UK do when they are forced to ordain females and practising homosexuals into positions of leadership? Or what will 2k theologians suggest when and if Christian families are forced to live in a certain way? I’m not sure the 2k theology that I know – that of the 16th and 17thC Reformed theologians – has wrestled with these questions. Of course, perhaps I just don’t know 2k theology properly.
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If the civil polity “grants” civil rights to citizens, what in the world has that got to do with a hotel?… except that it is every business owner’s natural right to refuse to do business with whomever he chooses for whatever reason. If business owners are not “granted” this civil right, then a problem is caused not by rights for fornicators, but by lack of rights for business owners.
The whole scenario is based on a nonsequitur.
Secondly, who exactly is criticizing 2k views based on the criticism you describe? Why not interact with more worthy criticisms of your own views?
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For example, what will Presbyterian churches in the US and the UK do when they are forced to ordain females and practising homosexuals into positions of leadership? Or what will 2k theologians suggest when and if Christian families are forced to live in a certain way? I’m not sure the 2k theology that I know – that of the 16th and 17thC Reformed theologians – has wrestled with these questions.
Probably because they are silly and utterly distracting. I’ll ponder these questions about the same time I seriously consider my 6-year-old’s neurosis about what we’ll do if someone breaks into our house, forces us to eat the family dog then steals the backyard.
Even she is more specific than “live a certain way.” What in thee heck does that even mean?Something tells me you may be ripe for theonomic systems.
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David,
I’m not really sure this is likely in the U.S. If the religious right continues to turn up the rhetoric on the government and its moral obligations, the government might try to retaliate in some legal way. But as things stand, this would be a pr disaster for the state to try to enforce female ordination.
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Baus, of course there are no worthy criticisms of 2k. I have to take what I get.
The scenario is not as far fetched as you suggest. If the state can tell hotel owners they may not exclude customers on the basis of race, why is it so unlikely to think that sexual identity is not in view? In fact, I’d be surprised if a hotel owner could turn down a gay customer as laws now stand. What this says about the “natural rights” of owners is one thing. But the scenario is not from Homer Simpson’s Land of Chocolate.
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The scenerio may not be so far fetched as you may think …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1163810/Gay-couple-sue-Christians-barring-hotel-bed.html
But …. for non UK residents, please note the daily mail is not the most reliable source of news (it has shall we say a tendancy to pander to and exploit the fears of certain constituencies here in the UK – lots of stories about asylum seekers who live in massive houses subsidised by the state), so I take this with a pinch of salt (but it may well be true).
Colin
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But you see my point DGH. Things are very different in the UK, and I think you are rather optimistic about the US.
As for Zrim’s comment above… I think he needs to read international news a little more. In the UK we are already seeing cases where children in extended families are being taking away from those extended families to be adopted by other families – families that would not fit the definition of a 2k theologian’s ideal family.
Zrim, how would you respond if your grandchild was taken from his or her parents to be adopted by a homosexual couple?
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David, I could see your point better if you supplied a link to a news story. As for my optimism, maybe. I actually think U.S. history went down hill after the ratification of the Constitution and the establishment of a national government. I can be more pessimistic than thou. But I wonder if you’re too pessimistic. Does our morally wayward time get any credit for sending to jail for thirty years a father who sells his daughter into prostitution?
What exactly is the standard for evaluating a society? Is it moral perfection? Is it maybe 80% moral, 50%? Do I hear 25%?
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For what it is worth I’ve added one link to one story that illustrates my previous reply. I don’t know the full outcome of the story. I know that the family were appealing the social services decision, with help from a rich benefactor who offered money for legal fees. You must be aware that your Christian hotel scenario is also real.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/4365171/Social-services-remove-young-children-from-grandparents-and-arrange-adoption-by-gay-couple.html
I hope you realise I am not being pessimistic. I’m just thinking that 2k theology, if it is to be credible, must respond to the end of Post Reformation era of law and order. Especially in countries like the UK, which lived out a fairly well developed expression of 2k theology for at least two centuries. I’m not sure 2k theology can be practical in the US at all, given the supposed separation of church and state.
Have you read John Owen’s sermon to Parliament in 1646? His remark about how the builders were forced to take up the weapons of war? Is there a 21st century equivalent to this kind of 2k theology?
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That’s awesome!
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In Canada, civil marriage is between two persons regardless of gender. Human rights laws prohibit persons from discriminating against persons because of race, religion, age, sex, marital status or sexual orientation in areas such as housing, employment and public services.
This does NOT apply to not for profit churches or organizations.
Therefore it would be illegal for a Christian hotel owner to refuse to rent a room to people who are black, Reformed, gay, married or unmarried. However, in no way is a church expected to hire a non-Christian as a minister, or marry a gay couple etc. Churches are not and have not been required to ordain women, non-believers, members of other Christian groups, and have not and are not required to marry people that the church does not want to marry. Secular marriage commissioners appointed by government however, cannot discriminate even if it (such as inter-racial or same sex) is against their personal religious beliefs. Would a Christian who belongs to a teetotal group expect to get a job in a liquor store, and then refuse to sell liquor?
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David,
You might get further with dgh, but even if you provide a link methinks you’d not be out of the forest of sensationalism (versus news); I’m a hopeless skeptic. Governments do dumb stuff all the time, sometimes really asinine and just plain wrong stuff. So what? Sorry, but not only may you be primed for American-made theonomy, but you might find our dispensationalism a bit alluring–did you hear that they’ve invented chips to put in our arms to make grocery shopping easier? While I wish the jet-pack came first, I think that’s cool.
And if my grandchild were stolen to be sold to a gay couple, I’d be really friggin’ indignant and fight like hell for justice. As a skeptic not given to sensationalism I’m pretty bad at paranoia.
Would a Christian who belongs to a teetotal group expect to get a job in a liquor store, and then refuse to sell liquor?
In America, probably. We’re the same ones who go to pharmacy school and then whine about having to dispense birth control, or medical school and get excused absences for the day pregnancy-termination is taught. That’s way easier than having to figure out how to negotiate personal ethics with vocational demands. We like life easier than harder.
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Brilliant Zrim! You are running out of labels to attribute to me. And you have no interest in any evidence that might support my only contention, which is that 2k theory needs to be practical in the face of an increasing amount of godless and unethical legislation.
The Christian hotel scenario, and the story I cited, are real situations in which natural law and/or Christian ethical values are being defied. How does 2k theology understand and respond to this growing trend?
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Seems to me it’s not any business of the hotel owner (Christian or
otherwise) to be snooping into what people do in a hotel room.
Hotel owners are not law-enforcement officers. This would be the
case whether we’re talking theonomy or 2 kingdomism.
We already have enough fascism in this country. Best we don’t
encourage it among hotel owners.
Vern
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David,
And you have no interest in any evidence that might support my only contention, which is that 2k theory needs to be practical in the face of an increasing amount of godless and unethical legislation.
You mean like when we start being made into human candles for Nero’s garden? The old-timers called that martyrdom. And by “increasing” do you mean that there was a time when there was less godlessness somewhere? Sorry, but when I hear the demand to be “practical” I go for my gun.
The Christian hotel scenario, and the story I cited, are real situations in which natural law and/or Christian ethical values are being defied. How does 2k theology understand and respond to this growing trend?
Moves to Canada? It worked for Stuart Robinson when he refused to be practical in America, and Wout seems to suggest the sky isn’t falling there. But I’ll never get my wife to agree–she hates Michigan weather as it is.
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Again, Zrim, brilliant! Why haven’t you called me anabaptist yet? It’s probably the closest label you’ll find. Unlike you I don’t do guns.
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Keep an eye out here.
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Isn’t it more about not letting your hotel be used for (the most expected) sin than about not renting out rooms to sinners?
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An interesting post from an English CofE blogger:
http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-day-therell-be-knock-on-door.html#comments
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