The pastor in question is responding specifically to the claim made here that the teaching of history should differ little if taught in a class at a secular university or a Christian college. The point being that the standards governing historical scholarship do not come from Scripture – since the Bible as little to say about the use of primary and secondary sources or about the polity of nation-states and the relations among them – but from organizations like the American Historical Association.

The really right reverend comments:

Can Darryl be so thick as to miss the decided difference between the Marxists Charles and Mary Beard teaching a survey of American History and a R. L. Dabney teaching a survey of American History? Darryl assumes his position and then goes on to act as if the standards of “secular” history proves his position. Talk about circular reasoning! What Darryl has forgotten is that Theology is the Queen of the Sciences. Biblical Christians would insist that History is but Theology clothed in a different discipline, but this is not the way Darryl reasons. For Darryl, Theology resides in the Church and each compartmentalized discipline is Lord over its own realm. Talk about creating sacred and profane realms. By Darryl’s standards a student could become a Marxist historian, complete with all that implies, and still be a Christian as long as he could navigate the gross contradiction.

A couple of points show how convoluted this reaction is. First, hello! Robert Louis Dabney was not a historian and simply being a theologian does not grant proficiency or expertise in every single academic discipline, secular vocation, or square inch (Kuyper even knew this). If it did, then theologians would function in western society the way Imams do in Islamic societies – that is, as interpreters of God’s word they have authority over everything. So, I would likely trust the Beard over Dabney on interpreting American history – though I might give Dabney extra credit on the South.

Second, why does being a Marxist invalidate one’s credentials as a historian? Why even some very good Christian historians such as Carl Trueman have been known to have affection for Marx and the usefulness of Marxist analysis not only for secular but also church history. Our CRC pastor is apparently aware that sometimes Christian historians apply the insights of Marx but rejects outright the compatibility of Christianity and Marxism.

So as in all good circular reasoning, what goes around comes around. We trust the Pastor will not become so dizzy about two-kingdom theology that his mind explodes. Here’s the trick: take two aspirin (get it?) and keep your theology in the appropriate kingdom.

First, say I am a political theorist who greatly admires the Federalist Papers (which I am not) and the arguments found there about the need for a Constitution that specifies the branches of a new federal government and their powers. If someone came along and said that federalism was the most wicked political notion ever known to man because it violated the divinely ordained rule of monarchs, would I not object because of my federalist convictions? In other words, would it matter to my federalist convictions that the attacker of federalism did not name John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, or James Madison explicitly? Wouldn’t I understand an attack on federalism to include those figures most identified with developing federalist thought (at least in the United States)?

Second, say I am a huge fan of the Coen Brothers’ movies (which I am) and someone comes along and tells me that the Coen brother’s are some of the least gifted and most adolescent of indie American directors who dabble merely in fashionable postmodernism, would I not feel my aesthetic toes trod upon even if this critic of the Coens did not mention their two best movies by name, “Miller’s Crossing” and “Hudsucker Proxy”? I mean, is a general put-down of the Coen brothers easier to take simply because it is general and lacks specifics? Or is the general rejection more sweeping because it lacks specifics that might provide wiggle room for hurt feelings?

The point here is that a criticism of a general category would certainly seem to involve the specific embodiments (whether in persons or texts or artifacts) of that larger truth or expression. Again, if I say Russians are a beastly lot, would not admirers of Alexander Solzhenitsyn naturally think I had him in view until I explained that I had in mind rather the kind of Russians one associates with Stalin? Or if someone attacked the regulative principle of worship without mentioning T. David Gordon or W. Robert Godfrey, would it not be fair to think that the criticism of the building block of Reformed worship applied not simply to the idea but also to those who maintain and defend the idea?

Why is it, then, if someone criticizes the spirituality of the church or the two-kingdoms doctrine that this criticism is somehow in good taste as long as it does not mention specific proponents of these ideas? The critic of two-kingdoms may not know the entire cast of characters who espouse this view – those such as Mike Horton, Scott Clark, David Van Drunen, and the bloggers at oldlife.org. And if the critic found out that these people held the spirituality of the church and wanted to change his criticism because he personally respected one or more of these men, he could conceivably do so by offering an explanation of his initial criticism. But short of such amendments or revisions, it seems eminently reasonable to conclude that those who argue for the two-kingdom perspective are included in any general critique of two-kingdom doctrine.

What then of a spirituality of the church advocate who only objects to criticism when one of the doctrine’s expounders, say Mike Horton, is criticized but feels no twinge about general complaints about the two-kingdom view when Scott Clark is holding it? It seems reasonably fair to conclude that such a reaction would be selective and personal.

Carl Trueman makes a similar point when he issues his Second Law, namely: “in any exchange of views, sooner or later one or more of the participants will describe themselves as hurt or in pain as a result of somebody else’s comment; and at that point it is clear that they have lost the real debate.” He explains this rule with the following hypothetical:

What, for example, should I do when I receive a note from someone who claims to be “hurt” by something I have written which she described as a “personal attack,” despite the fact that I have never heard of her and was completely unaware of her existence until she chose to contact me? Now, I am no philosopher, but it would seem to be logically necessary for me to know of the actual existence of somebody before I can launch a personal attack upon them. Thus, to respond as this person did would seem to point to one of two possible explanations: she was a narcissist and thus incapable of understanding that articles written by another could possibly not be aimed at her; or (and frankly, more likely), she was clueless about controversial discourse and unable to separate critique of a particular viewpoint from a malicious attack on any person who might hold to said viewpoint. Whichever was the case, however, the use of the language of hurt and pain as primary involved both a trivialization of those concepts in themselves and a sidestepping of the real issue, i.e., was the argument I proposed right or wrong?

It is a good point and one that many seminary administrators, theological faculty, and church officers should consider before concluding that the sort of criticism that traffics at this blog or in the Nicotine Theological Journal, let alone the pages of Ordained Servant or the Westminster Theological Journal, is beyond the pale of Christian charity or intellectual and doctrinal rigor.