Posts Tagged ‘Tim Bayly’

. . . and along the way denies the teaching and authority of Peter and Paul.

That is, if you use the logic that Tim does in his drive-by post (comments are closed), then you may reach the conclusion that he (and by implication, his brother, David) consider the apostles (except for Matthew) to be unworthy of contemporary Christians’ obedience. Here’s the exact reasoning:

If an officer of Christ’s Church today is not known, as all the Christians were known in the ancient Roman Empire, for taking up the cause of the children being slaughtered, loving the little ones as their Master does, he merits no reading, no listening, no following as a teacher of the church or shepherd of souls.

Tim’s pleasant little introduction to this deduction was another piece of generic slander against two-kingdom and spirituality of the church theology.

Reformed men who promote that hatred of God legislated by the judiciary these past fifty years or so, justifying their cuddly relationships with evil men under the rubric of “two kingdom theology” and “the spirituality of the church,” are unconcerned about the injustice, oppression, and bloodshed of innocents that has long been the foundation of our civil compact here in these United States. They simply don’t give a rip

It’s self evident on any terms a civilized man accepts for the foundation of common law that sending wives, sisters, and mothers off to fight our enemies is evil, but you’ll look in vain for the spirituality of the church men to address the civil magistrate condemning this evil. It’s self evident on any terms a civilized man accepts for the foundation of common law that ripping unborn babies apart in their mothers’ wombs for money, no less is an evil as great as the world has ever known, but you’ll look in vain for the two kingdom men to write about it on their blogs, speak against it in the public square, preach against it in their pulpits, or show up at the killing place to lift a finger to stop it..

Strong stuff. Tim claims that this is the “entire argument,” but he goes on to throw in comparisons with the Third Reich, I guess, just to throw caution to the wind.

Apparently, the Baylys have encyclopedic knowledge of the writings and thoughts of all 2k pastors. I’d have thought this was the kind of comprehension reserved for God. But I guess they have one of those worldviews.

Or maybe they are so right and righteous that they don’t need to be careful with the facts. Have they followed Tennent in donning a the attire and following the diet of John the Baptist?

But one fact they should consider is that the only mention of the slaughter of babies in the New Testament comes in Matthew. I am open to correction since my Bible knowledge could be better. Still, I don’t recall Paul or Peter addressing the slaughter of innocents or abortion in their epistles, let alone women serving as soldiers.

It is also worth mentioning that in the Roman Empire, slavery existed, as did human sacrifice, not to mention infanticide. And yet, the very same apostles who cautioned against the dangers of self-righteousness, also instructed Christians to be subject to the imperial authorities.

So, if the Baylys’ logic holds, since Peter and Paul were not known for condemning the evils the Baylys list, then Christians should pay no heed to the New Testament epistles (for starters). Apparently, Peter and Paul did not give a rip the way Tim and David rip.

Of course, there is a solution to this predicament. It is the teaching of 2k and the spirituality of the church. If the Bible commands something, or if it forbids it, then Christians must follow. If the Bible doesn’t speak to a matter, then Christians have liberty. This is of the essence of sola scriptura and the formal principle of the Reformation. The Roman Church, like the Baylys, tried to bind consciences with their own extra-biblical requirements. In the Baylys’ case, we must not only refrain from certain actions but we must publicly oppose it the way Baylys do – otherwise, you’re not a true minister they way they are. To this logic, the Reformers said that only the Bible should be heeded in matters of conscience because only Christ is Lord of conscience. When it comes to public life, the only real guidance to Christians is to submit to the ordained powers.

So the Baylys fundamentally misunderstand a basic building block of the Reformed faith and are grossly uncharitable in displaying their ignorance.

Of course, they are not wrong to oppose the slaughter of innocents or even women serving in the military. They may do that and likely have plenty of good reasons from the created order and even the sixth commandment (in the case of abortion). They stray when they beat their breast and bray that only those ministers are worthy of hearing are the ones like the Baylys. If they are right about their own example and reasoning, then the apostles – and even Jesus himself – stand condemned.

Strong stuff, indeed.

I have made this point several times, but I think it bears repeating. Evangelicals and cultural transformers spend a lot (inordinate, in my estimation) telling the wider culture how it needs to follow God’s law. Much of this activity happens during the ordinary days of the week. When James Dobson calls for a Justice Sunday or some such, it also happens on the faithful’s lone holiday.

But when many evangelicals and culture transformers gather for worship (or for church business – namely, ordination, instruction of the youth, Bible studies, etc.) they do not do as they say – they don’t follow God’s word but they follow their own rules. An obvious example is contemporary worship led by non-ordained church members. Another example is the Reformed or Presbyterian congregation that follows the praise & worship methods of charismatics and Pentecostals. Such Reformed Christians are awfully serious about husbands and wives respecting their marriage vows. Do they actually worry about the vows their pastors and elders make to uphold Reformed teaching and practice?

I wrote these paragraphs even before reading a juicy example of this very inconsistency at the blog of the Brothers Bayly. Pastors Tim and David are apparently big fans of contemporary Christian music in public worship. I cannot tell what their services are like entirely but I have seen clips of worship bands in their services and have followed links to the Good Shepherd Band’s page at Myspace. (Church of the Good Shepherd, by the way, is the name of Pastor Tim’s congregation in Bloomington, In.) So readers of their blog naturally receive the sense that services in the Baylys’ congregations is up-tempo.

The Baylys left no one to wonder about their worship preferences when this past week they posted a piece in which they divided the world between the effeminate traditionalists/classicalists and the manly singers and performers of contemporary Christian music. In particular, Tim faults Reformed Protestantism for simply being a stop on the ladder of upward mobility:

The Wesleyan or Southern Baptist moves up to Presbyterian. And there in his new Presbyterian church, our convert finds the accoutrements of his new social class wonderfully reassuring. It’s the church’s zip code, the minister’s Genevan gown or collar, the frequent repetition of those peaceful words ‘providence’ and ‘sovereignty,’ the high priority placed on the education of the congregation’s Covenant children, the preacher’s thoughtful message and splendid vocabulary, and of course the high classical style of music.

Musical style is simply an expression of socio-economic status. Could the Marxists teaching down the road at Indiana University have said it any better? This led to remarks, one part anti-intellectual, one part anti-elitist (and therefore egalitarian), that contrasted the snobbery of Reformed upper-middle classness with the poor and uneducated apostles whom Christ turned into fishers of men. “ Our converts don’t take pride in the foolishness of the Cross,” Tim writes, “so much as the wisdom of Calvin and their senior pastor’s earned doctorate from somewhere across the pond.”

This standard leftist cultural analysis in turn led to a brief on behalf of contemporary Christian music:

Speaking specifically of the music of our worship, Reformed pastors would do well to consider whether it isn’t time to stop despising the musical vernacular of our own day. There may be some congregations where musical archaisms have put down such deep roots that it would split the church to turn the clock forward, embracing the musical vernacular. But I’m betting use of the amplified instruments, tunes, and vocabulary of the common man in worship won’t happen in most of our Reformed churches for the same reason preaching against the heresy of egalitarian feminism doesn’t happen. Elisabeth Elliot put it well some years back when she said the problem with the church today is that “it’s filled with emasculated men who can’t bring themselves to say ‘no’ to a woman.”

Thus, when we set the musical forms and instrumentation of our other six days a week beside the musical forms and instrumentation of our Sunday worship, we find our Sunday worship to be cloyingly feminine, an historic specimen best suited to be trotted out by the curator for occasional museum exhibits.

So important is the fork in the liturgical road prompted by contemporary Christian music that Tim thinks fidelity to the gospel is at stake:

We must stop trying to kill two birds with one stone. Either we seek to make men into disciples of this Jesus Who chose tax collectors and fishermen to be His Apostles, or we make men into disciples of these archaic liturgies and exquisite musical forms that have evolved across centuries of Western culture. Yes, they’re true and good and beautiful. But what is the cost of making them the focus of our churches’ culture?

Somehow, the Baylys think the only alternatives are the praise band or the robed (see, they really are effeminate) four-part choir accompanied by an organ. They don’t seem to know or allow for the cultural idiom between high-brow and mass culture which is folk or common. (Ken Myers is brilliant on this point in his book, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes.) And if Reformed have a folk culture certainly one part of it psalm singing (another is the high-carb, low ruffage, pot luck supper). As Shaker furniture can well teach us, simplicity and order can reveal treasures of great beauty, and clearly the Reformed are on the side of decency and order and should be seeking simplicity.

But what may be most troubling about the Bayly post is how much they imitate the academic left that they believe has led the culture astray. The Baylys reduce culture to socio-economic and gender categories. They are as egalitarian and radical as the lefties they oppose. And just as these sorts of arguments have ruined the study of the liberal arts in universities and colleges, so they are also responsible for ruining our churches and undermining any credibility about the church as pilgrim people set apart from the world. In fact, if you see the embarrassing antics of worship leaders and praise bands you have all reasons you need for Keller’s arguments for using professional musicians in services. Again, the choice isn’t between the dudes and the pro’s; the psalter or hymnal accompanied by one instrument or sung acapella depends neither on the failed rock star or the conservatory student.

Which leads to the following excerpt from a piece written fifteen years ago that still seems as fresh as it was then pungent:

Why is it, then, that when evangelicals retreat from the public square into their houses of worship they manifest the same hostility to tradition, intellectual standards, and good taste they find so deplorable in their opponents in the culture wars? Anyone familiar with the so-called “Praise & Worship” phenomenon (so named, supposedly, to remind participants of what they are doing) would be hard pressed to identify these believers as the party of memory or the defenders of cultural conservatism. P&W has become the dominant mode of expression within evangelical churches, from conservative Presbyterian denominations to low church independent congregations. What characterizes this “style” of worship is the praise song (“four words, three notes and two hours”) with its mantra-like repetition of phrases from Scripture, displayed on an overhead projector or video monitors (for those churches with bigger budgets), and accompanied by the standard pieces in a rock band.

Gone are the hymnals which keep the faithful in touch with previous generations of saints. They have been abandoned, in many cases, because they are filled with music and texts considered too boring, too doctrinal, and too restrained. What boomers and busters need instead, according to the liturgy of P&W, are a steady diet of religious ballads most of which date from the 1970s, the decade of disco, leisure suits, and long hair. Gone too are the traditional elements of Protestant worship, the invocation,confession of sins, the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the doxology, and the Gloria Patri. Again, these elements are not sufficiently celebrative or “dynamic,” the favorite word used to describe the new worship. And while P&W has retained the talking head in the sermon, probably the most boring element of Protestant worship, the substance of much preaching turns out to be more therapeutic than theological.

Of course, evangelicals are not the only ones guilty of abandoning the treasures of historic Protestant worship. Various churches in the ELCA and Missouri Synod have begun to experiment with contemporary worship. The traditionalists in Reformed circles, if the periodical Reformed Worship, is any indication, have also begun to incorporate P&W in their services. And Roman Catholics, one of the genuine conservative constituencies throughout American history, have contributed to the mix with the now infamous guitar and polka mass. Yet, judging on the basis of worship practices, evangelicals look the most hypocritical. For six days a week they trumpet traditional values and the heritage of the West, but on Sunday they turn out to be the most novel. Indeed, the patterns of worship that prevail in most evangelical congregations suggest that these Protestants are no more interested in tradition than their arch-enemies in the academy.

A variety of factors, many of which stem from developments in post-1960s American popular culture, unite evangelicalism and the cultural left. In both movements, we see a form of anti-elitism that questions any distinction between good and bad (or even not so good), or between what is appropriate and inappropriate. Professors of literature have long been saying that the traditional literary canon was the product, or better, the social construction of a particular period in intellectual life which preserved the hegemony of white men, but which had no intrinsic merit. In other words, because aesthetic and intellectual standards turn out to be means of sustaining power, there is no legitimate criteria for including some works and excluding others.

The same sort of logic can be found across the country at week-night worship planning committee meetings. It is virtually impossible to make the case — without having your hearers go glassy-eyed — that “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is a better text and tune than “Shine, Jesus, Shine,” and, therefore, that the former is fitting for corporate worship while the latter should remain confined to Christian radio. In the case of evangelicals, the inability to make distinctions between good and bad poetry and music does not stem so much from political ideology (though it ends up abetting the cause) as from the deeply ingrained instinct that worship is simply a matter of evangelism. Thus, in order to reach the unchurched the churched have to use the former’s idiom and style. What is wrong with this picture?

The traditionalists are of no help here. Rather than trying to hold the line on what is appropriate and good in worship, most of those who are devoted full-time to thinking about liturgy and worship, the doorkeepers of the sanctuary as it were, have generally adopted a “united-colors-of-Benetton” approach to the challenge of contemporary worship. For instance, a recent editorial in a Reformed publication says that the old ways — the patterns which used Buxtehude rather than Bill Gaither, “Immortal, Invisible” rather than “Do Lord,” a Genevan gown instead of a polo shirt — have turned out to be too restrictive. Churches need to expand their worship “repertoire.” The older predilection was “white, European, adult, classical, with a strong resonance from the traditional concert hall.” But this was merely a preference and reflection of a specific “education, socio-economic status, ethnic background, and personality.” Heaven forbid that anyone should appear to be so elitist. For the traditional “worship idiom” can become “too refined, cultured, and bloodless. . . too arrogant.” Instead, we need to encourage the rainbow coalition — “of old and young, men and women, red and yellow, black and white, classical and contemporary.” And the reason for this need of diversity? It is simply because worship is the reflection of socio-economic status and culture. Gone is any conviction that one liturgy is better than another because it conforms to revealed truth and the order of creation, or that one order of worship is more appropriate than another for the theology which a congregation or denomination confesses. Worship, like food or clothes, is merely a matter of taste. Thus the logic of multi-culturalism has infected even those concerned to preserve traditional liturgy.

The Baylys would have us believe that 2k and the spirituality of the church are responsible for moving the church in radical and liberal directions. As Tom McGinnis would say, “Are you kidding me!?”

I have been kicking around for a while the way that some have kicked around the doctrine of the two kingdoms. (I myself prefer to call it the spirituality of the church, following the Old School Presbyterian tradition, which receives constitutional status, for instance, in the OPC’s Form of Government (3.4), which reads: “All church power is wholly moral or spiritual. No church officers or judicatories possess any civil jurisdiction; they may not inflict any civil penalties nor may they seek the aid of the civil power in the exercise of their jurisdiction further than may be necessary for civil protection and security.”) What still leaves me strangely intrigued is the Bayly Bros. kvetch that 2k (read: the spirituality of the church) leaves the resurrection without policy implications. Does this mean that states, counties and townships should establish new policies for burial procedures so that mourning visitors to cemeteries will not be injured when headstones suddenly pop out of the earth?

What it seems to mean is that the gospel must have direct bearing on government, particularly on the rule of law, what conservative politicians usually call, law and order. Here is how the Baylys put it:

How does a pastor preach the Law to Christ’s Kingdom without spillover into other kingdoms? How are we to preach God’s Law so that the Christian understands God’s demands without leading the unconverted to think he can keep the Law as well? How do we preach on cultural sins to Christians without addressing any kingdom beyond Christ’s? How do we parse the person, dividing earthly citizenship from citizenship in the Kingdom of Christ? How do we parse the Law, applying it carefully in Christ’s Kingdom yet avoiding its implications for the kingdom of man?

The two-kingdom concept seems simple enough initially. Two kingdoms: the kingdoms of earth and the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Two forms of authority: divine and eternal; human and temporal.

In one sense it’s elementary, so basic I doubt any Christian would deny it. There are human kings and the King of Glory, kingdoms of earth and the Kingdom of God.

The problem comes in knowing how to deal with the inevitable collisions between kings and kingdoms.

If Christianity is about law, morality, and uprightness, then this view of the state and its functions, combined with a desire for a faith-based political activism that goes in the public square and takes no prisoners makes perfect sense.

What is baffling about this understanding of the gospel, however, is that it is all law and no forgiveness. And without forgiveness the gospel is not good news – a gospel of law, human righteousness, and condemnation of sin is not a gospel.

I was reminded of this point quite poignantly during a recent worship service where the New Testament lesson came from the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. Matthew 18 reads:

23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

It is hard to listen to this passage and not worry that the world will hear contemporary Christian activists as unforgiving scolds. What is more pressing is whether our heavenly father thinks of such law-and-order believers? Will he look at them as unforgiving servants? Is it not possible that all the faith-based hectoring and finger-pointing in the public square is unbecoming of those who have been forgiven? Isn’t the point of this passage that the Christian’s public face should be one of forgiveness and acceptance?

Does this mean that the state, to be truly Christian, should be like the church, doling out forgiveness for sin? Should the state have mercy on repentant doctors and mothers guilty of abortion? Is that really what faith-based activists want? Isn’t this what the Democrats for the most part give us? In fact, the idea that the state should conform to the church is the way that many evangelicals wind up on the political Left. They believe that the ministry of mercy and compassion will fix the halls of power; the state should be about love, forgiveness, and compassion.

To counter the left, Rightist evangelicals invariably respond with a Christian message of law and order and thereby give the impression that the gospel is one of making people moral (or the world safe for Mormonism – thank you, Ken Myers for that bon mot).

In which case, the Religious Right is right to think that the state should execute justice rather than mercy. But they are wrong to think that the state’s functions are the fundamental building blocks of Christianity.

The problem we face today is that in so wanting the state to uphold standards of law and justice, and in trying to make a Christian case for this, we have turned the church into the state. That is, Americans have generally come to associate the conservative Protestant churches with those believers who advocate law and order (i.e., social conservatism) because the message these Christians invariably promote in public is not one of gospel but of law.

What we are now living through is a crisis of justification, not only within the churches who have members who should know better, but also one within the state, where Christian citizens have disregarded 2k in pursuit of a righteous society. Which came first, the chicken of moralism in the church or righteous activism in the state? It is hard to tell. But in both cases, the opposition to antinomianism has produced the over compensation of neo-nomianism. In both cases as well, sanctification precedes justification, good works and personal righteousness precede forgiveness and imputed righteousness. It is any wonder that justification-priority folks think the sky is falling?

What critics of 2k need to remember is that the doctrine is not about liberal or conservative politics. It is is essentially an effort to preserve the good news that Jesus Christ died to save sinners from the guilt of sin and the penalty of the law.

Sometime ago, to ridicule two-kingdom theology even more, the Baylys ran a post on whether the resurrection has any public policy implications. Apparently, Obama took the bait and issued remarks at the White House Easter prayer breakfast that outlined the implications of the resurrection for civil society. (By the way, how do you spot the difference between a religious and a political prayer meeting? Depends on whether they are serving eggs.)

Obama said (thanks to Touchstone):

I can’t shed light on centuries of scriptural interpretation or bring any new understandings to those of you who reflect on Easter’s meaning each and every year and each and every day. But what I can do is tell you what draws me to this holy day and what lesson I take from Christ’s sacrifice and what inspires me about the story of the resurrection.

For even after the passage of 2,000 years, we can still picture the moment in our mind’s eye. The young man from Nazareth marched through Jerusalem; object of scorn and derision and abuse and torture by an empire. The agony of crucifixion amid the cries of thieves. The discovery, just three days later, that would forever alter our world — that the Son of Man was not to be found in His tomb and that Jesus Christ had risen.

We are awed by the grace He showed even to those who would have killed Him. We are thankful for the sacrifice He gave for the sins of humanity. And we glory in the promise of redemption in the resurrection.

And such a promise is one of life’s great blessings, because, as I am continually learning, we are, each of us, imperfect. Each of us errs — by accident or by design. Each of us falls short of how we ought to live. And selfishness and pride are vices that afflict us all.

It’s not easy to purge these afflictions, to achieve redemption. But as Christians, we believe that redemption can be delivered — by faith in Jesus Christ. And the possibility of redemption can make straight the crookedness of a character; make whole the incompleteness of a soul. Redemption makes life, however fleeting here on Earth, resound with eternal hope.

Of all the stories passed down through the gospels, this one in particular speaks to me during this season. And I think of hanging — watching Christ hang from the cross, enduring the final seconds of His passion. He summoned what remained of His strength to utter a few last words before He breathed His last breath.

“Father,” He said, “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words were spoken by our Lord and Savior, but they can just as truly be spoken by every one of us here today. Their meaning can just as truly be lived out by all of God’s children.

So, on this day, let us commit our spirit to the pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord. And when we falter, as we will, let redemption — through commitment and through perseverance and through faith — be our abiding hope and fervent prayer.

To borrow a line from Tonto, who is this “we” and “us” to whom President Obama refers? Does it include Jews, Buddhists, and non-Christians, does it merge Mormons into generic Christianity, and does it speak for Roman Catholics and Protestants? This is the sort of universalism in which civil religion always traffics if Christianity is going to serve a religiously plural society.

And what of the theology behind these remarks. As much as I like the priority of the forensic, when Obama says that redemption makes for virtuous character, for the president grace simply seems to be the door prize for contestants who don’t live up to be good and decent folks. People rightly faulted President Bush for trivializing Christianity when he used it in public speeches. Obama may be more eloquent but he is just as guilty of taking something that is sublime and holy and reducing it to having us all get along. Getting a long is a good thing. Christianity is profounder than that.

And yet, if Obama were on the right side of gay marriage and abortion, I suspect readers of the Baylys would be happy to see such policy implications of the resurrection.

(Or, show me your confessionalism!)

In Recovering the Reformed Confession, Scott Clark argues for and understanding of the Christian ministry and piety that informed the confessions of the Reformed churches pretty much all the way down to when Boy George (Whitefield) set foot in the North American British colonies. Among the points Clark makes is that the teachings affirmed and practices prescribed in the Reformed confessions are a better gauge of Reformed identity than the sort of zeal and experience that the likes of Whitefield encouraged and sought.

One way to test Clark’s argument is to ask by what measure do we evaluate a college that claims to be Protestant. Some who are sharply critical of Clark have recently faulted one of the leading evangelical institutions on two grounds: first, a majority of the faculty voted for Barack Obama; second, its teachers education program encourages students to embrace notions of tolerance and diversity that various secular state teachers’ agencies affirm, thus forcing Christian college education majors into a secular mold of “social justice.” (The same critics of Clark have faulted Covenant College for its faculty’s support for Obama in the 2008 presidential contest.)

What does not seem to matter in such evaluations is whether the college’s faculty are members or attend churches where the Reformed creeds are the confessional standard. In fact, one could well imagine a college qualifying as a flagship institution because it was consistently pro-Republican (as long as the pro-life plank of the platform was in place) and minimally doctrinal. If memory serves, this was exactly the kind of place that Wheaton College was before 1990. Culturally activist while doctrinally tolerant on dogmatic minutia is likely the ideal for Clark’s critics, meaning that creeds and confessions do not matter significantly when evaluating Christian higher education.

So why do such critics object if the confessionalist shoe does not fit? It isn’t an accusation of infidelity (though it has implications for this.) It is simply a question of definition: do the creeds inform the way you assess Christianity or do you have a different list of allegiances and personalities that in effect constitute your confession? If you are confessional you are going to evaluate Christian institutions and expressions on the basis of the creeds, as well as the health of the communions with which an institution affiliates. But if you are more inclined, in this case, to Whitefield and Edwards, you end up criticizing a school for its politics. In other words, pietism generates activism; while confessionalism nurtures perseverance.

Put another way, a confessional “world view” (as much as I hate the phrase) esteems the cult and the culture in inversely proportional relations. The higher one’s view of the creeds, the less one cares about politics. And the more one cares about culture, the less the creeds matter.

Makes sense to this confessionalist.

Rabbi Bret explains why short of theonomy, even transformationalists like the Baylys are guilty of two-kingdom thinking:

. . . the Bayly’s are victims of compartmentalized thinking. They seem to think that one can have a Constitutional objection or financial objection that isn’t at the same time a theological connection. Would someone mind introducing me to an objection, that at its root, isn’t theological?

Let’s take the Constitutional objection. The Baylys admit that they may have a Constitutional objection that is somehow cordoned off from a theological objection. Now, presuming that the Baylys are here suggesting that they object to paying social security tax because they believe that the Constitution doesn’t make provision for it how is that not at the same time a theological objection? Theologically we are to give taxes to whom taxes are due (Romans 13:7) but if the King is asking for taxes that is not his due (i.e. – social security tax) given the law of the land as expressed in the Constitution then suddenly I immediately also have a theological reason to not pay social security taxation. My Constitutional reason not to pay the social security tax flows out of my theological reason not to pay the social security tax. When Government demands taxes (governments never “ask” for taxes) that are not its due then the Government is engaged in theft, which is a violation of the 8th commandment. What began as a Constitutional issue, when traced back to its origin, has found its theological source.

Apparently evangelical arguments against porn are now retreading arguments against alcohol – both alter brain cells. I wonder if there is a cure for testosterone. I know of one – aging.

John Fea thinks the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey is a reason for breaking with evangelicalism. I can think of other reasons but many thanks for additional ammunition.

This review of David VanDrunen’s new book on bio-ethics may be instructive for those who think that two-kingdom theology and natural law are just so much pie-in-the-sky rationalizations of the status quo. Rated BBW (for Baylys Be Warned, with love, of course). Bill Edgar, the reviewer, writes:

In the opening chapter VanDrunen compares several possible Christian attitudes toward participation in public healthcare. He concludes that, although the world’s agendas are often different, even at loggerheads with the biblical approach, Christians need to be active in healthcare, if only because we are called to defend God’s justice in a hostile environment. More positively, as VanDrunen articulately demonstrates, cultural activities are still enjoined, alongside the duty to proclaim the gospel.

And for those old enough to remember “2001: A Space Odyssey,” this graphic on the creation of the Space Station may bring back bad memories, not to mention Chicken Little-like fears about what happens when this mass of gadgets falls out of its orbit.

Regular readers of Oldlife know about the imbroglio between the Brothers Bayly and those who hold two-kingdoms and the spirituality of the church. The major objection apparently is that these doctrines won’t let the church do what activists on certain moral issues want the church to do in the public square (you know, bad ju ju versus do do). In which case, the spirituality of the church is offensive because it restrains the spiritual and moral dynamic necessary for fighting the culture wars over sex and its illegitimate consequences.

But the Baylys are not alone in wanting the church to be a culture-shaping institution. Tim Keller has recently written (thanks to oldlife reader Zeke Zekowski for the link) at his blog about the need for the church to be engaged in culture making. He writes:

Most of the young evangelicals interested in integrating their faith with film-making, journalism, corporate finance, etc, are getting their support and mentoring from informal networks or para-church groups. Michael Lindsay’s book Faith in the Halls of Power shows that many Christians in places of influence in the culture are alienated from the church, because they get, at best, no church support for living their faith out in the public spheres, and, at worst, opposition.

(A minor quibble here is that I’m not sure Lindsay shows any such thing in a work of sociology that shakes the pom-poms for evangelicals rising in elite sectors without the slightest sense of ambivalence about the theology of glory deeply embedded in [and should be haunting] the evangelical quest for greatness.)

A major kvetch is this: why do Christians pursuing communications and the arts need the church to have their hand held more than plumbers, bakers, farmers, Home Depot check-out clerks, and subway train engineers? How much does the church support the work of the average Mary or Joe? And do these modest workers complain about the church not affirming them? One would think that the perks that come with putting your name on a piece of art or a newspaper column might make up for the lack of gratification that comes with changing the filters in the boiler room of the twelve-floor apartment building.

Keller continues:

At the theological level, the church needs to gain more consensus on how the church and Christian faith relate to culture. There is still a lot of conflict between those who want to disciple Christians for public life, and those who think all “engagement of culture” ultimately leads to compromise and distraction from the preaching of the gospel. What makes this debate difficult is that both sides make good points and have good arguments.

I remain baffled why cultural engagement is a pressing need for the church. I would think it pretty important to shepherd members of Christ’s body in the notion that they are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, whose identity in Christ far transcends the work they do no matter how creative or dull. The church, it seems, has plenty of work to do to confirm Christians in the truth that even when they cease being culture makers or low-level grunts, they are still priests and citizens of a heavenly kingdom with all the affirmation that comes with belonging to Christ, in body and soul, in life and in death. Instead of taking on the task writing a confession for cultural engagement or policy prescription, better is the work of catechizing the faithful in the truths of God, man, sin, salvation, and the church. Those teachings are more important and lasting, even if they do not produce great art or Christian manuals of plumbing.

But without such a consensus on the spirituality of the church and the Christian’s otherworldly identity, communions like the PCA are in danger of becoming balkanized into either the arts-and-culture congregations, or the culture-war churches. Not only are the arts and the politics of nation-states not taught in the PCA’s confessional standards, but very difficult is the task of finding a “thus, sayeth the Lord” for such cultural ambitions.

So irony of ironies, the Baylys and Keller are on the same page in rejecting the spirituality of the church for the culturality of the church. And in so conceiving the church, pastors in the same communion end up driving each other bonkers. Keller doesn’t want the Baylys’ crusading activism and the Baylys don’t want Keller’s urban-chic programming. Wouldn’t the spirituality of the church put an end to these squabbles and make the PCA even more effective than it apparently already is?

Postscript: a good question related to this post is why the OPC does not appear to suffer from the culturality of the church, at least not in the same degree. Maybe it is because the OPC is so small we have enough sense not to beat our breasts about being change agents in the culture. We have enough trouble paying the bills of our standing committees, presbytery committees, and struggling congregations to take on the planet’s policies and art. But it could also be that the spirituality of the church that Machen taught the first generation of the OPC, leavened with the potent supplement of amillennialism taught by Vos, Murray, and Kline, has made Orthodox Presbyterians less impressed with the good, but ultimately fading, culture of this world.

Doug Wilson joins the Bayly Bros in heaping scorn on our good friend Scott Clark and the case for recovering the Reformed confessions. To Doug’s credit, he avoids the vituperative edge that characterizes the Baylys’ outbursts.

What unites Wilson and the Brothers Bayly in their criticism of Clark, apart from disdain for Meredith Kline, mind you, one of the true geniuses of twentieth-century Reformed Christianity, is nostalgia for Geneva. Of course, this is not the Geneva that sent Castellio packing or Servetus to the flames – well, it is, but most contemporary pining for Geneva manages to overlook the downside of Constantianism even when practiced by Reformer pastors.

Wilson is writing in response to a piece that Clark did for Table Talk on what evangelicals should expect from a Reformed church. Clark tries to cushion the blow that might come from the doctrinal, polity, and liturgical trappings that disorient the average born-again Christian. When Clark explains that “confessional churches are isolated from both the old liberal mainline and the revivalist traditions” and so offer an alternative to liberal and evangelical Protestantism, Wilson goes off.

First, Wilson laments Clark’s isolationism. Not only are Reformed confessionalists separated from evangelicals and liberals, but also “from the cultural potency of Reformed theology and piety.” This is lamentable because for Wilson, the Reformed theology that he has read and studied “built a great civilization.” In contrast, Clark’s brand of Reformed theology, that of “the truncated brethren,” “would have trouble building a taco stand.”

Wilson also takes exception to Clark’s claim that confessional churches today approximate the churches of the sixteenth century more than other Protestant congregations. For Wilson, this is patently untrue because the sixteenth-century Reformed churches were actually Reformed cities – that is, they were more than merely religious institutions. They were civil polities where supposedly Calvinism shaped all of Geneva’s or Strasbourg’s or Edinburgh’s life (tell that to the magistrates who stuck their neck out against the Holy Roman Empire and hired the Reformed pastors). This suggests that Wilson regards Reformed Protestantism as a way of taking names and kicking butt.

Furthermore, when Clark claims that evangelicals coming to Reformed churches will need time to acclimate to the new spiritual environment, Wilson retorts that Clark has the picture “exactly backwards” because Clark’s otherworldly version of the Reformed faith turns out to be warmed over evangelicalism (read: pietism). According to Wilson:

As an evangelical, and the son of an evangelical, allow me to give my testimony. I was part of the exodus from pop evangelicalism (not historic evangelicalism). I was sick of the cultural irrelevance and impotence of “believe in Jesus, go to Heaven when you die.” I was sick of a pietism that couldn’t find its way out of the prayer closet. I wanted to stop confessing that Jesus was Lord of an invisible seventeenth dimension somewhere. Why not here? Why not now? It was a long story, but the trail to historic evangelicalism, God-honoring worship, and a culturally potent and world transforming faith led me straight to the Reformed faith — the same faith that John Calvin and his successors confessed. Calvin preached to milkmaids and Calvin wrote letters to princes. Calvin drafted catechisms, and he drafted ordinances for the city council. Calvin thought that the idea of a civil society without enforcement of the first table of the law was “preposterous.” Calvin was a loyal son of Christendom, as am I.

It is remarkable that Wilson would seemingly dismiss the idea of people going to heaven, unless he thinks that this world is more than a foretaste but an actual embodiment of the world to come. I mean, people who milk cows to the glory of God still die, at which point the realities of the after life become fairly pressing compared to a Reformed way to pasteurize milk.

Also odd is Wilson’s sleight of hand regarding “pop” and “historic” evangelicalism. My own testimony (both from experience and study) instructs me that appeals to historic evangelicalism generally depend less on historical realities and more to the point the appellant is trying to make. Does Wilson really mean to suggest that Clark has more in common with Joel Osteen than Carl Henry? Let me testify again and say that I’ve spent time with Clark and know that his locks cannot compete with Osteen’s.

But the really arresting aspect of Wilson’s critique of Clark is the idea that cultural relevance and effective change of this world is what characterizes Reformed Christianity. I get it that post-Niebuhr and post-Kuyper Wilson’s brand of transformationalism is par for the course. But what is shocking is the conceit that Reformed are more effective than evangelicals in changing things.

The history of Protestantism in the United States shows that the groups that were most influential in creating the Protestant establishment and its many institutions, along with a civil religion that made the greatest nation on God’s green earth unfriendly to Roman Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and other forms of infidelity, were those evangelicals like Charles Finney and Lyman Beecher, or the ecumenical and liberal Protestants like Josiah Strong and Reinhold Niebuhr. Funny how Calvinism did not characterize those influential voices.

The reason for evangelicalism’s can-do body (as well as spirit) has to do with the inherently activistic and this-worldly faith of born-again Protestantism. Here I am reminded of Mark Noll’s response to a paper by Nick Wolsterstorff about the need for evangelicals to become more engaged in cultural and social matters. Noll said that telling evangelicals to be more active was like pointing an addict to dope.

So Doug Wilson may be the real evangelical. He may be more culturally relevant and effective than Clark and other two-kingdom proponents, though I hear that even in Moscow, Idaho the work of cultural clean up is not perhaps a model for taking on the rest of the nation, globe, or cosmos. Granted, if Wilson can rid the United States of automobiles, Walmart, and illegal drugs, I won’t complain. But I would ask that he put church reform higher on his list. All the infidelity among churches that claim to be Christian (even some Reformed communions) certainly appears to be a matter of greater alarm than getting non-believers to conform outwardly to the manners and customs of Credenda Agenda ‘s readers.

Which means that if Wilson think’s Reformed confessionalism’s dualism is bad ju ju, his works righteousness is bad do do (is the works righteousness of do doism ever good?).

The best college basketball coach in the United States works in Philadelphia and no one knows about him. Congratulations to Herb Magee for winning his 903rd game at Philadelphia University. His closest competitor is Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski with 856 wins. But does Herb get to do ads for American Express? I don’t think so.

Rabbi Bret almost makes up with the Bayly Bros. when he writes the following against 2k (amazing how unifying 2k thinking is):

. . . there are other preachers out there who do raise their voices against R2Kt. Doug Wilson does a fine job revealing its weaknesses. Also, the Bayly Brothers came out with guns blazing against it in the past week. A gentleman named Rev. Ken Pierce also spoke out strongly against it. Now, at least as concerns the Bayly’s and Rev. Pierce they are not as consistent as they might be on the subject given their disavowal of theonomy, theocracy and a bold optimistic eschatology, but still in many respects, they acquitted themselves well in speaking out against R2Kt. I think more and more people are slowly awakening to the danger that R2Kt represents and I fully expect, in the near future, that you’ll hear more Reformed ministers raising their voices against it.

But then Rabbi Bret blows it when he takes on the experimental Calvinism in ways that make the Bayly Bros. wild about the evils of 2k (isn’t this the point of Scott Clark’s Recovering the Reformed Confession?):

There is a strain in Reformed theology that emphasizes the kind of subjectivism that Alexander warns against. This kind of subjectivism would have us find assurance of faith by examining our faith, or our repentance, or our love for God, or our performance in order to discern whether or not our faith, repentance, love or performance are genuine and not spurious. The problem with this is that when scrupulously honest regenerated people dwell in a concentrated way in examining these realities the more likely they are to conclude that they are unconverted. When we seek to anchor our faith in the quality of our faith, repentance, love, or performance we are sure to be ruined from one of two directions.

If we examine ourselves and find assurance because of the quality of our spiritual virtues we run the danger of being ruined from the sense of a self-satisfaction that may easily give way to self righteousness. We also run the danger of developing a spiritual inertia that does not allow us the capacity to see our real sin since our assurance becomes wrapped up in our ability to convince ourselves of the thorough genuineness of our spiritual virtues.

On the other hand if we examine ourselves and don’t find assurance because of the real lack of quality of our spiritual virtues – thus becoming convinced that our faith, repentance, love, works, etc. are spurious – we run the danger of concluding that God’s genuine work in our lives is false. When sinners such as ourselves turn our gaze inward in order to examine our spiritual virtues what else should we expect to find except the reality that our spiritual virtues are not so virtuous?

Here are a couple of thoughts for the front porch republican heart that beats within the average Old Lifer.

Thanks to John Fea I have new reasons for thinking myself superior. It’s because Ann and I live with Cordelia and Isabelle.

In the many to and fro’s of kicking around two-kingdom theology with those crazy guys, Tim and David Bayly, I have wondered why their rhetoric so often starts and ends Limbaughesque. For instance, here’s a riff on two-kingdom theology and Keller-wannabes that would make Rush proud:

It’s one of the supreme ironies of our reformed fellowship that, despite what any reasonable person would think, the R2K, 2K, spirituality of the church preppies, along with their brothers mute behind the redemptive-historical gag, are out there in the Aussies’ back of beyond helping the PCA/MNA hiptsers dig. Both sides together, now.

The common denominator is hatred for the shame of the Gospel and a propensity to do the look-at-the-birdie routine, albeit they point in radically different directions.

What’s certain is that no one has a heart to love the lost, to rescue the perishing, to break the jaw of the wicked snatching the widow and orphan from his mouth, or to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its earthshaking power and wisdom and holiness. Find me the hip church plant where former lesbians and pro-abort feminists have been converted to the Gospel and are now zealous for the conversion of their former sisters-in-crime, pitying their bondage and, from love, going out to seek and to save that which is lost to bring them under the preaching of the full Gospel and the teaching of everything Jesus commanded–particularly that so-pertinent part having to do with Adam being created first, and then Eve.

For that matter, find me the R2K, 2K, spirituality of the Church, redemptive-historical preaching church where the pastor or elders or deacons–anyone, for that matter–faithfully show up at the baby-slaughterhouse nearby to plead for the lives of those little ones about to die.

Amazing similarities between the most disparate things are all over the place, aren’t they?

The spite mixed with sanctimony in such an outburst is truly hard to fathom (except when you remember Rabbi Bret).

What is curious, though, is that the Baylys are capable of better verbiage. In rummaging through their archives to try to diagnose the unease that produces such vituperation, I ran across a quite sensible post about the problems with Lutheranism, yes, the Lutheranism that I will go out of my way to hug. Pardon the length of the following quotation, but it is useful for making the point I want to make as well as giving a sense of the Baylys’ (I’d say) legitimate concerns with Lutheranism.

At first I viewed the increasing infatuation with Lutheranism within elements of the Reformed Church with bemusement. But as the trend toward accommodation with–and even emulation of–Lutheranism grew within conservative elements of the Reformed Church, I watched with mounting alarm. In particular, I have serious reservations about the Lutheran law-gospel divide, which, from my experience of LCMS practice, seems either to produce or (in the case of Lutheranism-smitten Presbyterians) to be the product of a desire for theological conservativism without the hindrance of practical piety.

Three things immediately struck me as a seventh-grader of Evangelical background upon entering a LCMS school:

First, I remember how startled my brother and I were by the rampant misuse of God’s name by students and adults alike. Not only did students routinely take God’s name in vain, they did so in front of pastors in class without reproach. Of course, my experience of the LCMS is narrow. There may be vast swaths of the LCMS where the third commandment is honored. Yet within the portion of the LCMS I am acquainted with a tragically casual attitude toward the name of God prevails.

Second, we were struck by the gilded cross and life-size, bleeding Jesus at front and center of the LCMS church attached to our school. Again, this is personal experience, but unlike misuse of God’s name, I am not willing to admit that I have a narrow and incomplete view of the LCMS in this area. Check it out. Visit LCMS churches and see how many contain graven images of Christ. Lutherans embrace icons in worship. If you doubt this, use Google to find pages by LCMS men defending icons of Christ in worship. Lutherans (modern Lutherans far more than Martin), in fact, seem to delight in tweaking Reformed sensibilities by defending the spiritual benefits of icons. They not only publish images of Christ in their curriculum and erect pictures of Jesus in their homes, they unashamedly place them front and center in their places of worship.

Third, one of the chief ways my brother and I stood out from the other students in our LCMS school was our father’s refusal to let us join school teams or attend the majority of school sporting events. Why? Because LCMS schools routinely scheduled games on Sundays. This remains true today. Lutherans have few qualms about pursuing their pleasures on the Lord’s Day. Lutherans were far ahead of culture as a whole in placing children’s sporting events on the Lord’s Day. Many Presbyterians find Calvin’s explanation of the Lord’s Day deficient. Lutheran practice in this area makes even the most liberal of PCA churches appear Sabbatarian. . . .

I suspect I know what most LCMS folk will say to these complaints: they’ll complain that they differ from me and other Reformed folk principially and theologically in these areas. They’ll say, “But we interpret these commandments differently than you.” Yes, they do. But I say back to my LCMS friends, isn’t it interesting how your interpretations of these commandments demolish the first table of the law as a practical force within individual human lives? Wasn’t it Luther who said that if we defend the Gospel at points other than the precise point under attack, we are in fact not defending the Gospel at all?

So, you disdain Allah and revile Buddha: but you put images of Christ, false images, idolatrous images, at the center of your sanctuaries. I know, I know, I’m a Docetist. I don’t really accept the humanity of Christ. In Christ, God took on form; we can now make images of God because God has taken on human substance. But, let me ask one question. In Christ, God did take human form. But the Christ of your crucifixes and icons, do they contain that form? Do you really know His form?

You don’t just put holes in His hands and feet and side, you make them a certain size, you put them in particular locations. You go further still: you put a distinctively formed nose on His head, colored eyes in His brow, particular cheeks and lips on His face. You give your graven image not just form, but personality and character. You show Him with tears. You place emotions and character on His face. Yet are your images true? If they are, why do they all differ from each other? Are there ten-thousand human forms of Christ?

Do your icons truly portray Christ? Would I know Jesus from your icons? Would I recognize Him on the basis of your images? Would I be able to tell Him from the reviling thief on the basis of your icons? If not, how can they be anything less than a particularly blasphemous and reprehensible lie when you place them at the front of the Church for veneration? Surely, a man who put up an image of Bozo the Clown and called it Churchill and told children to look to his Churchill for inspiration would be reviled as dishonest and contemptuous. Yet you do far worse to Christ.

Idolatry, other gods, the Lord’s Day, God’s name: the entire first table of the law the LCMS tragically diminishes.

Of course, LCMS advocates deny this. But the proof is in the pudding. As Calvin says, the second table of the law is given to demonstrate hypocrisy in regard to the first. Shall I mention how antinomian my experience of LCMS practice has been in terms of the second table of the law? The seventh grade teacher and children’s choir director who told his LCMS class that he subscribed to Playboy without the slightest fear that his job might be jeopardized? The eighth grade teacher who, though a delightful man’s man, ran off with another man’s wife? The tenth grade, school-sponsored campout where I had my first (and thankfully, only) experience of a pot-fueled group grope in which the staff sponsor was a full participant (and remained on the job for the rest of the year)?

Shall I mention the drinking and drunkenness common in LCMS churches and even at LCMS events? The disdain for Christ’s teaching on divorce within marriages of the church? Yes, all these things take place within other churches, including the PCA. But the frequency of their occurrence within our particular communions cannot be ignored. I find no pleasure in arguing this way. But I can’t be silent when I know these things to be true.

I have no desire to speak ill of the LCMS. To be honest, speaking ill of the LCMS was the last thing on my mind for many years for the simple reason that the LCMS used to be utterly outside the Reformed, Evangelical orbit. But when the LCMS is portrayed as a paradigm for Reformed churches, and when Reformed men praise Lutheran theology and worship, and when Reformed men leave Presbyterian churches for LCMS churches and try to persuade others of the wisdom of their course, I object. The LCMS is brazenly contemptuous of the first table of God’s law. It pays lip service to the second table, but even there, the standard of holiness in the average LCMS church would prove deeply disturbing to most PCA church members within their own churches.

Granted, it’s overdone at points, but aside from the Baylys’ appeal to the first table, which they disallowed when 2kers were trying to explain why they weren’t dropping everything to run out and picket at abortion clinics, their concern for second, third, and fourth commandments here is admirable. Also worth mentioning is the expressed desire of not wanting to speak ill of Lutherans. Boy, we two-kingdomers could have used a little of that love over the last two weeks at the Baylys home blog.

But the most important feature of this post is that it shows the Baylys are capable of analysis. Instead of simply shooting from the hip and dismissing as folly any form of disagreement, the Baylys based their rather restrained objections to Lutheranism on substantial theological points. And while their posts against 2kers were quick to assume the worst, this post against Lutherans manifests a measure of sadness even about important disagreements.

Wow! I didn’t know they had it in them.

Maybe it is a function of hardening arteries (or craniums). The Baylys wrote about Lutherans in 2004, six years before the current evil regime. Maybe conditions in the United States and the nation’s churches have so deteriorated that they feel the need to embody Guillame Farel more than Johannes Oecolampadius. Or it could be that they simply aren’t spending enough time at Happy Hour.

(Should I close comments now before Truth Divides . . . Truth Unites calls me an idiot?)