Rich But Not Robust

Published on by D. G. Hart

The word robust is overused and has become a cliche. People use it now to add emphasis without considering alternatives — like vigorous, energetic, profound. A good example of the overuse of robust comes in Andrew Sandlin’s endorsement for John Frame’s new book, Escondido Theology:

Frame has lived to see a vocal segment of the robust, rich tradition in which he was educated transformed into a narrow sectarianism that anathematizes other orthodox, Bible-believing Christians; elevates theological and church tradition to near equal status with God s Word; and diminishes that Word as the norm for all of life and thought. This book is the agonizing jeremiad of an older prophet who sadly diagnoses a desiccating illness of a friend and offers a prescription for a wholesome healing.

This is another way of saying that another book has come out attacking 2 kingdom theology as sectarian and outside the Reformed tradition. I guess if you still think that Christian societies should exist — what to do with Roman Catholics, Jews, and Mormons is never really clear in this nostalgia for the Reformed nation- or city-state — then 2k theology may look bizarre. At the same time, if you have lived in the United States with its religious diversity as long as John Frame has, and if you have been an officer in one of the churches that uses the revised Westminster Confession as Frame does, then you may not be shocked to find that some contemporary Reformed authors actually follow the teaching not of James Jordan or Greg Bahnsen but of the Reformed churches.

But to bring up theonomists is to note a place at which the word rich applies. It is indeed rich for Sandlin to plug a book that argues 2k theology is outside the mainstream of Reformed thought when the author, Frame, has not been exactly in the center of Reformed teaching about worship and the regulative principle (for starters). It is also rich for Sandlin to suggest that 2k has anathematized other views when Frame is not too bashful in castigating former colleagues and present peers (in the Reformed churches).

And not to be missed on the rich front is that Frame had to find an obscure publisher, Whitefield Media Productions, for his blast against 2k. Not even the gracious editors at P&R, apparently, would take this screed. Meanwhile, the idiosyncratic and sideline proponents of 2k have found editors at out of the way presses like Zondervan, Eerdmans, and P&R.

I sure hope Frame does not believe in conspiracies.

27 thoughts on “Rich But Not Robust”

  1. “An older prophet”? Really, Mr. Sandlin? I have read one Frame book cover-to-cover: Evangelical Reunion. Not only did it look like a rough draft, it looked like a rough draft that should have convinced the author to abandon the whole project.

    On the whole, would you rather be praised or condemned by a Frame / Sandlin duo?

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  2. Frame appears to be ahistorical in his thinking and appears to think the church didn’t exist prior to the reformation. He seems to have a view of God’s churches that is limited to the western world. He doesn’t appear to understand how many churches exist outside the West where they live under tyranny, persecution, and death threats. To say two kingdoms is outside of Reformed thought is akin to saying there was no church prior to Geneva and that the church fathers and the teaching throughout church history have no value.

    How Frame can ignore the greater conversation of the church about the two kingdoms over the last two thousand years and the fact that we know natural law has been part of the conversation of mankind dating back to at least Cicero… well, poor scholarship is poor scholarship. To create a straw man out of church tradition and use it as his foil to argue against two kingdoms exposes the poverty of his arguments. Sheesh, first Tipton and his straw men, now Frame and his straw men. Perhaps they could benefit from taking some logic classes?

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  3. Darryl,

    Re: Sandlin’s blurb: “diminishes that Word as the norm for all of life and thought”

    Is this the crux of the argument for the theonomists? ALL of life and thought instead of ALL that pertains to faith and salvation? Could their views be summed up as foolishness of:

    1. Christian plumbing, Christian accounting, and so forth.
    2. Christians wanting to set themselves up as rulers over ALL men (eg: world dominion)
    3. A premillennial (utopian) eschatology rather than staying within the limits and boundaries God set for his church until his return

    Numbers 2 & 3 are expressions of liberal progressivism aren’t they? And #1 is merely poor logic?

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  5. Lily, I think the authority of Scripture is the formal basis of the theonomic critique. The material basis is the secular and relativistic turn in the United States since the 1960s. If you read Bahnsen (which I have done a little), you see lots of bellyaching about moral decline in the West. You also see it (if you can stand it) in John Frame’s movie reviews (at his website). But this is where history becomes a major obstacle in the theonomic and Kuyperian outlook (though Kuyper understood the obstacle better than his jingoistic followers): not only have Christians been debating the meaning of Christ’s words about a kingdom not of this world for 2 thousand years. But the United States between 1776 and 1966 was hardly a biblical polity. But when all you have to worry about is logic and w— v—, history is easily thrown overboard.

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  6. It is indeed a lotta chutzpah from one who favors intelligibility over regularity and ends up giving cover to juggling in worship.

    Lily, I think you’re onto it. And speaking of Kuyper, here is what he had to say about the theonomic impulse that makes no distinction between all of life and faith and practice (from “The Oracles of God”):

    Does it follow, therefore, that the sooner we stop our observation of life the better, so that we can seek the rules of state polity outside life in Holy Scripture? This is how some mistakenly think that we reason…However, the opposite is true. Calvinism has never supported this untenable position but has always opposed it with might and main. A state polity that dismisses and scorns the observation of life and simply wishes to duplicate the situation of Israel, taking Holy Scripture as a complete code of Christian law for the state, would, according to the spiritual fathers of Calvinism, be the epitome of absurdity. Accordingly, in their opposition to Anabaptism as well as the Quakers, they expressed unreservedly their repugnance for this extremely dangerous and impractical theory.

    If we considered the political life of the nations as something unholy, unclean and wrong in itself, it would lie outside of human nature. Then the state would have to be seen as a purely external means of compulsion, and every attempt to discover even a trace of God’s ordinances in our own nature would be absurd. Only special revelation would then be capable of imparting to us the standards for that external means of discipline. Wherever, thus, this special revelation is absent, as in the heathen worlds, nothing but sin and distortion would prevail, which would therefore not even be worth the trouble of our observation…However, if we open the works of Calvin, Bullinger, Beza and Marnix van St. Aldegonde, it becomes obvious that Calvinism consciously chooses sides against this viewpoint. The experience of the states of antiquity, the practical wisdom of their laws, and the deep insight of their statesmen and philosophers is held in esteem by these men, and these are cited in support of their own affirmations and consciously related to the ordinances of God. The earnest intent of the political life of many nations can be explained in terms of the principles of justice and morality that spoke in their consciences. They cannot be explained simply as blindness brought on by the Evil One; on the contrary, in the excellence of their political efforts we encounter a divine ray of light…

    …with proper rights we contradict the argument that Holy Scripture should be seen as the source from which a knowledge of the best civil laws flow. The supporters of this potion talk as though after the Fall nature, human life, and history have ceased being a revelation of God and As though, with the closing of this book, another book, called Holy Scriptures, as opened for us. Calvinism has never defended this untenable position and will never acknowledge it as its own…We have refuted the notion that we entertain the foolish effort to patch together civil laws from Bible texts, and we have declared unconditionally that psychology, ethnology, history and statistics are also for us given which, by the light of God’s Word, must determine the standards for the state polity.

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  7. Is this just a critique from a Neo-Cal and theonomist cultural point of view or is there more to it? From the title it seems to be an all encompassing critique of “Escondido theology” rather than just a critiqe of 2k Theology. What are the major themes in “Escondido theology” which distinquish it from historical Reformation theology? It seems to me that is not an easy question to answer. At least from the debates that have gone on at Old life in the last 3 or 4 years.

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  12. DGH,

    While Frame is likely a finer scholar than I will ever be, and has certainly contributed some fine insights in philosophical theology, this strikes me as overly combative. To say that Westminster California has a particular take or emphasis on the two kingdoms is one thing, but this implies that it is limited to them, which simply isn’t true; further, while not as conversant with 2K as most, even I could pick out caricatures in the endorsement.

    My last observation would be that it is telling that this book is published by the same seminary that awarded Frame his (honorary) doctorate. While there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their objectivity on this subject.

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  13. John, someone is actually going to have to spend money and buy the book to find out. I can’t imagine any libraries acquiring it.

    Darryl, better you than me- I would not waste my money

    Eliza, you know me. Love the Frame, hate the Frameanism

    Now that was funny!!

    Why can’t Frame put his spite behind him? Maybe Paul M put him up to it. I wish I could say I was above all this.

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  14. John Y., that would actually require Frame acknowledging that he is a warrior child himself. He thinks he is all about ecumencity, charity, and broad-mindedness.

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  15. Pingback: American Presbyterianism…Who Cares? | Soldier | Athlete | Farmer

  16. We all have passive/aggressive tendencies don’t we? It is not easy to overcome that common fault. You see it all the time. It is probably better to jump in and be that warrior child with all the battle scars, premature judgments and misunderstandings in which that entails. Since you know the goings on between WSCal faculty and Frame better than myself I will acknowledge that your remark probably holds at least a semblance of truth to it. I understand the hesitancy in which to engage in the battle since we are all prone to error. However, as Luther frequently stated, “the Holy Spirit is not a skeptic.”

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  17. Or, it could be just a matter of Frame trying to make WSCal look like the bad guys- a kind of one-up-manship. Who knows, there always are confusing issues and elements involved with warring groups.

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  18. Darryl,

    Whether Frame, Bahnsen, Osteen, Warren, or their cohorts… past reading of their work and their current book covers seems to be more than enough to understand their persistence in their errors?

    I may not be understanding the formal and material basis of theonomy and Kuyperianism properly, but I would offer that these old truths shouldn’t be rocket science: 1) the OT law was given to Israel as God’s chosen nation and was fulfilled in Christ. 2) the OT and NT is about our Savior not a new Moses 3) God’s kingdom is not of this world 4) salvation is monergistic. The truth that innovations should be tested by sound doctrine and tradition(!) doesn’t seem like rocket science either.

    I would argue for the value of tradition in testing innovations since traditions like catechism and liturgy are good medicine for our times. Would we have the “Jesus is my boyfriend” music if they had tested it against tradition? Yep.. there are days the orthodox RC should be thoroughly appreciated for the good points in their arguments against us! 😉

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  20. DG: Maybe the best part is that an inveterate Easterner such as yourself is now associated with a California movement. I wonder if that appellation will stick? If so you’ll need to get a new haircut.

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  21. Whatever arguments Frame makes, he can’t beat the fact that today’s Reformed youth (and I believe young people in general) are tired of all the politicking that the church has often substituted for the Gospel. He’s fighting a losing battle.

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  22. Pat, only when Frame displays the same look. He taught at Escondido four times longer than I, after all. He even taught as students all of the people he attacks (aside from Kline). Horton, VanDrunen, Clark, and I all studied with Frame. Strange, no?

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  24. Well Michael, being a young-ish person myself (25), my experience of my own generation and those coming just behind has been threefold. First, there are the respectful non-Christians/nominal Christians who, despite being pretty liberal on issues such as gay marriage, etc. are typically pretty conservative when it comes to the government/religion question and would rather the Church shut up and stick to the clear words of scripture than be involved in non-ecclesiastical affairs. They tend to view American evangelicalism as anti-intellectual and rather silly and respect people whose opinions diverge from the “party line.” Second, there are the rabid anti-Christians who hate the fact that the Church as an institution makes pronouncements on pretty much everything and roundly condemns those who disagree. When met with a 2K view they are pleasantly surprised and much more open to talking about spiritual issues. They seem generally willing to engage with historic Christian orthodoxy because it’s intelligent and coherent and not in-your-face. Third are those raised in strong Reformed environments as well as those traditionalists from other sections of Christendom (Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy for example). They’ve seen the failure of the Church to witness to the good news of Christ because of its obsession with changing the culture en masse rather than individual by individual. Their perspective tends to be one that supports bringing the Church out of the world and making it a people set apart. They understand that the Church’s primary message is the same as Peter’s sermon on Pentecost and believe that this message properly presented is the Church’s first responsibility with social engagement coming from individual Christians and free associations rather than by the Church as an institution.

    I suppose there might be a fourth group- the liberals- but they’re always around in one form or another and I don’t consider them a major concern at the moment. The trend in Christianity today seems to be one of refinement. Old denominations are dying, largely because of their liberalism, and the Christianity of the future I expect to be much less socially prominent but more internally consistent. I hope to see the Reformed sticking more closely to their confessions along with Rome and the East being more consistent with their traditions as well. This narrowing will further clarify the distinction between the Church and the world and will bring with it great spiritual blessings as well as some truly wonderful opportunities for witness as our culture comes to resemble more closely the world into which the Gospel was originally preached.

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