Over at First Principles, Lynn Robinson has a good review essay of a new IVP book by Greg Foster, The Contested Public Square: The Crisis of Christianity and Politics. Robinson quotes Foster to good effect about the political theology of the New Testament (or the lack thereof):
Almost the only political teaching it provides is that a person’s ordinary political duties (behaving peacefully, obeying the law, paying taxes, etc.) continue to apply when rulers deny God and persecute believers. . . . The New Testament’s silence on politics combined with the apostles’ setting aside the political order of the Old Testament leaves the faithful with no revelatory instruction as to how their political affairs are to be ordered.
Why is this so hard to understand? I guess the one consolation for theonomists, whether soft or hard, is the support they get from the good bishop Tom Wright who interprets the Lordship of Christ in ways remarkably similar to our politically challenged friends.
Old Life 
I recall coming out of Pierce Hall one fine fall afternoon, unconverted yet. I was handed a small green NT/Psalms. In it I found nothing to bolster my ideology, just a lot of irrelevant accounts of odd goings on. I even saw directives to obey masters and meglomaniacs. I promptly dumped the little green book. Upon conversion later I found that many of the faithful thought they saw what I had been looking for in the little green book.
You ask why these things are so hard to understand. I don’t know, but it’s not a little ironic that the secular lit program in Pierce Hall helped me understand the Bible better than the religionists. Ouch.
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Almost the only political teaching it provides is that the magistrate “does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” God’s minister with God’s mandate. Why is this so hard to understand?
Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish political means and political ends; if “political affairs” refers to a bicameral legislature, alright. As for the political end, it is to reward good and punish evil. This means not stealing, murdering (unjust war), or accepting praise as a god (Herod), among other things.
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If the new covenant ratchets up the standards of the old, then if theonomists are right we should be stoned for adulterous thoughts.
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Andrew, if you qualify the assertion about ends with the word “proximate,” I don’t think any 2ker would object. But without that qualification, and given the amount of post-millennialism in Protestant past, that’s a very important revision. It also lowers the stakes considerably for what the Christian expects of the state, even to the point of accepting Herod as God’s appointed governor.
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Christian’s with common-sense (call it sanctified common-sense) have known that ability to spread the Gospel determines New Testament political teaching. Hence things like first ammendment, freedom to assemble, own a gun, checks and balanced on power, such little things *Christians* applied to how we govern ourselves. Things worth fighting for. As Christians know.
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Right, Christian. That’s why John Calvin is the poster boy for the NRA.
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Didn’t Calvin shoot Servetus?
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Pffffttt. Who needs John Calvin when you can get Charelton Heston? Now that’s star power only sanctifed common sense can come up with.
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The shallowness and lack of seriousness among the seminary version of Reformed is astounding.
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Darryl,
That’s the second accusation of “shallowness” in as many days (give or take). I still want to know how one manages to dig so deep to recover the lost soul of American Protestantism, Mother Kirk and A Secular Faith and yet be so shallow.
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Dude, I’m not at a seminary. Boo!
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Zrim, I have been called worse. But the biggest insult is not being called.
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“Prior to accepting this post, he [D. G. Hart] served as dean of academic affairs and professor of church history at Westminster Seminary California.” – Wikipedia
I’ll assume it’s safe to assume you’ve graduated from a Reformed seminary as well. If not then being a dean and professor at one is more than enough to validate the comments above and elsewhere, no? Why the sophistic evasion? How does “I don’t currently teach at a Reformed seminary” inoculate you from “the seminary version of Reformed”?
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Christian, do you still want to hunt Darryl down on judgement day? Just wondering if you’d apologised for that wee chestnut.
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Christian, did you know that Theodore Letis went to seminary? Double boo!
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I also privately chided Letis for his political left-wingism. Not in the most diplomatic words, and just prior to his untimely death, unfortunately. I’m consistent though.
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When you set yourself up as a teacher of Christians God applies a higher standard to you. So, yes, be careful.
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