Category Archives: Christian politics

The Forgotten Mark Hatfield

By D. G. Hart | Published: August 12, 2011

The governor of Oregon and U.S. Senator, Mark Hatfield, died last Sunday. For many evangelicals born after 1970, Hatfield’s name is obscure. But during the 1960s and 1970s he was a model for evangelical political engagement. Only after the rise of the Moral Majority under Jerry Falwell and the Reagan Revolution did Hatfield’s brand of… Read More→

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Glenn Beck, the Kingdom, and Me (per usual)

By D. G. Hart | Published: May 2, 2011

Criticisms of 2k theology keep coming and a major source of opposition is the distinction between Christ’s rule as redeemer in distinction from his rule as creator. For some, this kind of division within Christ could wind up in the error of Nestorianism. And yet, I wonder how you avoid Rob Bell’s error of universalism… Read More→

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Act Two, Scene Four: If the Bible Is the Standard, Are Faith and Repentance Required for Citizenship?

By D. G. Hart | Published: April 15, 2011

I haven’t been keeping up with Dr. Kloosterman’s serialized review of VanDrunen’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms. The series is reminiscent of the way that George Eliot and Charles Dickens wrote novels – you put together enough stories and episodes over a half-year in a magazine and you finally have one Home Depot of… Read More→

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I Did Not Know that Idaho Was In Canada

By D. G. Hart | Published: February 14, 2011

Over the weekend I was doing a little internet searching for churches that still confess the 16th and 17th century Reformed teachings on the civil magistrate’s role. Practically all of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, both mainline and conservative, have modified the creeds of the Reformation and scholastic eras, even to the point, in the… Read More→

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Hi, I’m A Christian So I Can Be Trusted

By D. G. Hart | Published: February 2, 2011

Well, that’s actually a complicated assertion since the holders of 2k do not appear to be trustworthy people from the perspective of 2k’s critics. Let me explain. A repeated contention against 2k is that it relies too much on general revelation or the light of nature. Not only is general revelation apparently insufficient for unbelievers… Read More→

Also posted in Lordship of Christ | Tagged , , , , | 51 Comments

Barefoot, Pregnant, and Unplugged

By D. G. Hart | Published: January 18, 2011

To say that the Bayly brothers have a one track mind would be to traffic in innuendo. I do not know them well enough to speculate on their sexual desires. I presume that as ministers of the gospel and as husbands their sexual passions are properly regulated. But in a sense they do have sex… Read More→

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Two-Kingdom Tuesday: A 2K Pietist (and Dutch to boot!)

By D. G. Hart | Published: November 9, 2010

Wilhelmus a Brakel was a seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed pastor, and a leader in the so-called Second Reformation of the Dutch churches. At one blog dedicated to Brakel this development in Dutch Protestantism receives the following description: By this term, Nadere Reformatie, we mean a movement in the 17th century which was a reaction against dead… Read More→

Also posted in Novus Ordo Seclorum | Tagged , , , , , | 38 Comments

Why Conservatism Beats Biblicism

By D. G. Hart | Published: October 15, 2010

An earlier reference to Ross Douthat’s blog posts on gay marriage was intended to show that people in the mainstream secular media can hear an argument that is laced with Christian norms and not go running to the Supreme Court for an injunction to shut said arguer down. Douthat concluded his series of posts (defending… Read More→

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Submit or Suppress?

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 24, 2010

Despite the modern Reformed churches’ rejection of older confessional views about the responsibility of the magistrate for true religion in the realm, apparently the idea of a ruler who can crack down on idolatry and suppress heresy still appeals, at least if some of the comments at blogs are an indication. I think I understand… Read More→

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Point of Order: Even for Covenanters 2k Is Confessional

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 20, 2010

The grenade that Tim Bayly tossed about the infidelity of 2k ministers sent a lot of shrapnel flying over at Greenbaggins where critics of 2k have repeatedly claimed that two-kingdom theology is outside the bounds of Reformed confessionalism. (So far Rabbi Bret has yet to weigh in directly. Since the Baylys treated him the way… Read More→

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