Month: September 2010

I'm Brilliant (at least religiously)

Published on by D. G. Hart17 Comments

The new Pew Forum Poll on religious knowledge in the U.S. is out and generating comments at different blogs. The general theme is how ignorant Americans are. But any American can take a sample quiz and see whether they are that dumb. I took it and it turns out I am smart.

I can’t say that this will send me out in search of a beer to chug or a co-ed to kiss. The questions did not seem all that difficult.

What I do find interesting is the answers on which Americans stumbled the most. Coming in with only 11% (average) correct answers was: “Which one of these preachers participated in the period of religious activity known as the First Great Awakening?” Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham, or Charles Finney. Surprisingly, those who identified themselves as evangelical only got the question right 15% of the time. (Hey, if evangelicals actually studied history would they still be evangelical?)

Next in difficulty was the following: ” According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, or not?” Yes, permitted or No, not permitted. Americans gave correct answers only 23% of the time. (Evangelicals answered it correctly by a rate of 26%; Jewish Americans scored the best with 42%.) This would seem to indicate that the legal difference between teaching about religion and indoctrination is a distinction lost on many Americans.

Finally, the fifth most difficult question (one point behind a question on Job and two points behind another on Hinduism) was this: “Which of the following best describes the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?” The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ or
The bread and wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Here evangelicals scored as well as Mormons (40%), with White Roman Catholics (59%) and Hispanic Roman Catholics (47%) pushing up the averages sufficiently so that 40% of all Americans answered the question correctly.

Rather than revealing how dumb Americans are, these questions suggest that Christians in the U.S. understand an important point of doctrine and practice much better than a fact from church history or the reasons behind a Supreme Court decision. Again, the questions are not on the order of rocket science, but I am somewhat heartened to see that a majority of Roman Catholics and Protestants in America are not ignorant of one of the major points of contention at the time of the Reformation. Maybe Protestantism still lives. (And who says Old Life is always negative?)

Where's Waldo Wednesday

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

One reason for questioning the influence of union with Christ on Reformed Protestants concerns the language of Reformed devotion. Hymns are one measure of devotional discourse and the more I sing out of the Trinity Hymnal, the more I am struck by the centrality of the cross and of forensic themes in the songs Presbyterians sing most frequently and energetically. It could be that more hymns need to be written that use the language and images of union with Christ. But so far they do not seem to be as prominent or as popular with Presbyterians.

Here is a hymn sung this past Sunday that evokes the centrality of the cross and Christ’s sacrificial death.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And has shed his own blood for my soul.

My sin—O the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

O Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend;
“Even so”—it is well with my soul.

Dare I say it would throw off the rhyme scheme to unravel union with Christ in the line, ” has shed his own blood for my soul.”

Two-Kingdom Tuesday: The Roman Catholic Version

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

The contemporary vocal critics of modern 2k often remark that everyone is 2k, meaning that it is wrong for modern 2k advocates to paint them as 1k. The Roman Catholic expression of 2k doctrine qualifies that claim in important ways. First, it suggests that not everyone is 2k since the Eastern Church allowed itself to be absorbed by the state in the form of Caesaropapism. Second, it reveals that Roman Catholics also believe in the two-kingdoms, especially the idea that the church is and should be free from the state. (Rome would apparently not favor the language of the original Westminster Confession which gives the magistrate power to ensure that church counsels follow God’s mind.) In which case, if part of the point of the 2k doctrine is to separate the church and the state, and the papacy was an important institution for introducing and preserving that autonomy in the West, then the critics of modern 2k may want to explain how their 2k avoids the problems pointed out in the following (i.e., a Leviathan state) without also embracing the papacy. Of course, the other alternatives are Constantine or King David, but not if you want to be 2k along with everyone.

. . . the Church, always maturing as she groped for a just balance in her relations with the state for eight hundred years, finally broke in two, each part exhibiting a possible alternative solution to the problem. In the Eastern half of the Christian empire, in the new Rome founded by Constantine, divided from the West by her inheritance of Hellenistic culture and continuing the division of the empire into two blocks existing from the time of Diocletian to that of Theodosius, the Church succumbed to the States. Or would it be more exact to say that the state succumbed to the Church? . . . The other alternative has had even a greater historical role to play. In the Latin West, the Church, under the guidance of the Pope and her bishops, vindicated her freedom before the state. In this she was helped by a variety of external developments. Not the least of these is the fact that in the West, the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, and the papacy remained the only rock of cultural unity among the states that rose in the aftermath of the invasions. It is often said that the freedom of the Western Church was built only on the ruins of the civil power; but the Church had in fact defended her freedom against the Emperor Constantius and later against Byzantine despotism, which weighted heavily on Rome and the West from the sixth to the eighth century. What favored the Western Church’s victorious struggle for her freedom was, above all, the fact that in Latin culture the sense of human freedom, especially religious freedom, had deeper roots than in the East. . . . But the most important internal resource from which the Western Church drew renewed strength in her struggle for freedom was the guiding role of the papacy, growing increasingly conscious of the rights granted to it by Christ as it sought to respond to the needs of a Church basically solid but ever struggling even in a Christian empire. It is a fact grasped not only by faith but also seen in history that all the churches who wish to withdraw from the unity of the Church dogmatically first of all seek refuge with the state but soon are absorbed by the state and fall with it. (Hugo Rahner, Church and State in Early Christianity [1962], pp. xiv-xvi)

Having Your Constitution and Obeying It Too

Published on by D. G. Hart106 Comments

One of the notable inconsistencies of so-called social conservatives in the United States is the disparity between wanting government to legislate morality and wanting government to be small. This isn’t simply a question of “gotcha” politics, it is a serious matter of political theory and historical inquiry. Is the ideal of American government one of keeping the state under check, or is a far-reaching state fine as long as it supports and enforces the morality that I believe is good. A recent exchange at On Faith explores this tension within the ranks of the Tea Party. This populist effort seemingly favors limited government but if it attracts social conservatives who want the American government to enforce their moral convictions it’s policies may not be so limited.

Contemporary conservative Protestants are equally implicated in this glaring problem. On the one hand, they long for a magistrate who will enforce both tables of God’s law. And shortly thereafter they will upbraid President Obama for violating American notions of limited government.

How can you possibly think you stand in continuity with the framers of the American political order who instituted checks and balances to guard freedom from tyranny and also believe, with the original Westminster Confession, that the magistrate has the power to “call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.” Let’s get this straight. The magistrate has power to call synods of the church, and to ensure that whatever happens at them – this from a lay person, no less – conforms not to Scripture but to the “mind of God.” What magistrate has that kind of spiritual insight? What people wants to give a magistrate that kind of power? One obvious answer — not the American people, and that is why they have a Constitution that not only divides the magistracy up into executive, legislative, and judicial helpings, but also prevents the legislature from enacting laws that govern religion.

But despite the disparity between an Erastian magistrate and the American form of government, Presbyterians in the United States continue to think that their big magistrate in religious matters goes with a limited government over the rest of life. Take the example of the Baylys.

First, here’s an excerpt from a sermon which includes exhortations to President Obama from David Bayly (though it may have originated from Doug Wilson):

President Obama stands as our head. He is our representative not just under our federal form of government, not just in earthly terms, but in heavenly terms, before the throne of God. He stands before God for all the righteousness and wickedness of our nation. He either opposes the sins of the nation and reaps blessing from God, or stands in affirmation of them and reaps their judgment.

And in this regard I call on us to declare and President Obama to hear the Word of God.

President Obama, you have promised not to make abortion a litmus test in nominating judges to the Supreme Court. The King of kings, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, however, has declared the murder of innocents a high sin, a sin so vile that even after Manasseh repents of his butchery of the innocent and is followed by the righteous Josiah, God will not turn back his judgment on Judah. President Obama, you are not the first American political leader to embrace this slaughter. Others have gone before you in this. Others bear equal or greater responsibility. But you are president today. And you are the leader of a nation which is at war against God in this, President Obama. We have rejected the Word of God and the Lordship of Christ in this matter. You must oppose abortion in obedience to the King of kings for whom the murder of innocents is indeed a litmus test of righteous authority.

President Obama, in your declaration of June 1, 2009, “NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third. BARACK OBAMA.”

President Obama, you speak of “the year of our Lord,” yet you honor what God despises, declaring a matter of pride that which is an abomination to God. In declaring good what God has judged wicked you are in rebellion against the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.

President Obama, in your speech in Cairo last Thursday you said, “All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.”

In that same speech you also said, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

But I say to you as a minister of the Gospel you claim to believe: Scripture tells us God hates all false gods and that Jesus is earth’s sole Lord of lords. When Moses, Elijah and Jesus stood together on the mount of transfiguration and Peter suggested building tabernacles for all three, God thundered from heaven the unique authority of His Son. You proclaimed yourself a Christian in your speech. In so saying you claimed to accept the authority of Jesus Christ. Surely any Christian knows that Scripture teaches the unique authority of Jesus.

You, Barack Obama, by using your office to defend the impostor Mohammed, and to suggest that Jesus and Moses are equals, usurp the authority of Christ and are in rebellion against King Jesus.

Reading this you’d almost think Obama was a king (of Israel, no less). But the American rebellion was against monarchical forms of government. Go figure.

And when figuring do take into account another Bayly post which faults Obama for not following the Constitution:

During his State of the Union Address with the justices sitting under his nose, President Obama shamed them for their recent decision overturning unconstitutional campaign reform laws. Note how little the Constitution matters to this former law professor at University of Chicago and editor of the law review at Harvard. His issue isn’t that their decision was wrong, constitutionally, but that its consequences are bad for America. He might have said “with all due respect First Amendment to the Constitution,” but he didn’t.

Whatever in the world happened to the Constitution? Among these public masters, finding submission to their vow to uphold the Constitution is like a “Where’s Waldo” game.

I know consistency is the hobgobblin of small minds, but wouldn’t President Obama after reading the Baylys, be a tad confused about knowing when he is supposed to obey the Constitution and when he’s not? Do the Baylys (and their defenders) really think you can have the Constitution without the First Amendment? Do they also think you can have the original Westminster Confession or Calvin’s Geneva for that matter and have the Constitution of the United States? If the Baylys want to uphold limited government along the lines of the American founding, then how can they support an expansive government with power to pry into personal beliefs?

This is the plight of contemporary American political conservatism. It is populated by people who, thanks to their confusing the spiritual and temporal kingdoms, also confuse 1640s England with 1770s America. That leaves American Protestants of an allegedly conservative bent lurching for policies, laws, and officials that veer markedly from the limits that those not-so-Christian founders placed upon American government. Ironically enough, the sort of limited government practiced in the United States and upheld by political conservatives grants loud-mouthed ministers the freedom to mock and ridicule authorities instituted by the very God they profess to serve. And people think Obama is un-American!

All Sermons Are Not Created Equal

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

The one’s preached in the nation’s capitaol are more important than the ones in the provinces. Not really, though some transformationalists and faith-based urbanists might be tempted to think so. Instead, the point of a new fall lecture series at Christ Reformed Church in Washington, D.C., (yes, that nation’s capitaol) is to understand better what constitutes a faithful sermon. Here is how the hosts describe the series:

The Reformation taught that preaching is the very Word of God, a mark of the true church, and a key of the kingdom that opens the doors of heaven to those that believe. It is the divinely appointed means by which the Spirit produces faith in our hearts, and the primary source of Christian instruction.
Is this still true today?

Most contemporary sermons are a mix of anecdotes, tips, and inspirational stories—more junk food than bread of life. We often hear more about the person behind the pulpit than about the person and work of Christ. It seems that few in our pulpits—or our pews— understand what’s required by our Lord’s command to preach the Gospel.

Join us for Preaching in the Capitaol, a lecture series that will critically explore the state of preaching today and ask how the lost art of Reformation preaching can be recovered. Explore this site to learn more about our speakers, their books, and ways to win and iPad by helping us promote Preaching in the Capitaol.

The schedule is a follows:

Oct. 7 Gene Edward Veith

Oct. 14 T. David Gordon

Oct. 21 Robert Norris

Oct. 28 Marva Dawn

If I were a betting man, I’d put money on the proposition that the lecturers will not be telling audiences about the need to preach to the sort of people who work in the capitaols of nations.

George Washington: Deistic Christian

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Joe Carter at First Things‘ blog has a helpful summary of one historian’s criteria for evaluating the faith of the United State’s founding statesmen. David Holmes is the author of The Faiths of the Founders and he offers four categories for determining whether a politician was a Deist, an orthodox Christian, or something in between. They are:

1. Examine the actions of the founding father in the area of religion (e.g., Did they attend church regularly?).

2. Examine the participation of the founding father in a church’s ordinances or sacraments (e.g., Did they have their children baptized? Did they take Holy Communion?).

3. Comparison of inactivity versus activity in regards to religious involvement.

4. Examine the religious language used by the founding father.

What is particularly attractive about these criteria is that the church functions as an important measure. Taking affirmations of various kinds, or copious amounts of sincerity, though appealing to many evangelicals who have a low estimate of the visible church, will not cut it. Instead Holmes is looking for religious behavior that conforms to the teachings and practices of a Christian communion.

Applying these criteria to George Washington, Holmes finds:

1) Although he was raised in the Anglican Church, Washington was never confirmed.

2) Washington appears to have consistently refused to take Holy Communion, the principle means by which, as Holmes notes, “Anglicans displayed a commitment to Jesus Christ.”

3) Washington was active in the Episcopal Church, serving as both a vestryman and churchwarden. He attended services with some regularity (about once a month). And

4) Washington consistently used Deistic language in reference to God. Although he often used such terms as “the Deity” and “the Supreme Being” in his correspondence he only uses the name Jesus Christ once (in a letter to an Indian tribe)

Holmes also provides a Christian scorecard for the founding generation of American magistrates:

Non-Christian Deists: Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen.

Deistic Christians/Unitarians: Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe.

Orthodox Christians: Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Elias Boudinot, John Witherspoon.

This may be upsetting to some, but it sure looks like an astute tool of analysis and a sensible interpretation of the Founding Fathers.

Submit or Suppress?

Published on by D. G. Hart80 Comments

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 the appeal, at least in part, because the idea seems to be part of a desire for the state to impose law and order on a lawless and chaotic society. What I don’t understand is the biblical basis for this appeal. Yes, the Old Testament will supply you with all the theonomic ammunition you need to execute heretics and banish blasphemers. And if you start to use the OT why only the parts about suppression of idolatry and not the bits about goats and bulls? But does the example of Christ and the apostles bear such law-and-order fruit?

When Jesus addressed rulers, did he remind them of their ordained responsibility to suppress unbelief? In Luke 23, for instance, Jesus had a chance to go into an Al Pacino, “no-judge-you’re-out-of order”-like rage but refused the opportunity. He simply responded to Pilate’s questions in such a way that the governor declared Jesus innocent. Did Jesus not care about the slaughter of the innocents or the idolatry and blasphemy that was rampant in the Roman Empire? If he did, he chose another means of expressing that concern other than reminding the magistrate of his duty to enforce the Ten Commandments.

Of course, Jesus had more important work to do than to clean up society so maybe this is not the best example. But when Paul was on trial and he had another chance for a showdown with the tolerant and iniquitous Roman authorities, he followed the example of his Lord. In Acts 24 when Paul appeared before Felix, Paul defended his own actions and words. He did also discourse “on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come,” but if he spoke on the need to suppress heresy Luke sure had a funny way of reporting it. What is more likely is that Paul addressed Felix about his own spiritual condition, not about his irresponsibility as a magistrate appointed to uphold God’s law.

At the same time, when the New Testament writers addressed the subject of the magistrate, they always told believers to submit. Paul does so obviously in Romans 13 and also in 1 Timothy 2, and Peter echoes Paul in his epistles.

So if the Baylys are right about the duty of Christians to speak out against the atrocities of a corrupt state, the New Testament is of no help. And since Reformed Christians need a biblical warrant to bind believers to certain conduct or words, the silence of Christ and the apostles and the magistrate’s religious duties is deafening.

Make My Joy Complete?

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

After last night’s Phillies’ 1-0 victory over the Braves — their tenth in-a-row — it is hard not to feel down-right gleeful as a Phillies fan. Not only have the Phils seemed to work out many kinks from an injury ridden season and a poor first half, but they are doing this without Jimmy Rollins who was 2007 MVP of the National League. (Does Phil’s GM Reuben Amaro get enough credit for acquiring Wilson Valdez, even while receiving accolades for picking up Roy Oswald to make up for the indiscretion of giving up Cliff Lee?)

The problem with my joy is that it comes with knowledge of friends’ grief. Back in 2008 when the Phils won it all, they owed part of their success to the Met’s failure. Granted, the Metropolitans’ September ’08 performance was not as bad as 2007 when the Phils came from 7 1/2 games back to win the division (and then get crushed by the Rockies in the first round). But the Mets did have a 3 1/2 game lead in 2008 with three weeks to go. Normally, a Philadelphia fan gets a huge kick from seeing the home team win and any New York team lose — yes, Philadelphia does not always wear its inferiority complex with aplomb — who does? But in this case, my sidekick at Old Life is a Mets fan. So I couldn’t celebrate as heartily as I wanted because I could well imagine some of John Muether’s pain. By the way, one way I have found to like Mets fans — it is very hard, after all — is to remember that these are New Yorkers who decided not to root for the Yankees. That makes their value go way up.

This year the Metropolitans have not been a factor since the All-Star game, so my mirth could find outlets even in the company of Mr. Muether. But now comes my empathy for a friend who is a fairly strong Braves fan. He will remain nameless, but knowing his own hopes for the Braves and how the Phils may have seriously hurt Atlanta’s chance to make the playoffs, my step today has been a little heavier than it would be if say the Phils had just swept Blue Jays. (Does Canada even deserve a baseball franchise? Why not Canadian baseball with only 2 outs per inning and bases 100 meters apart?)

It may be a stretch, but I find an analogy here in the realm of debates about 2k. The opponents appear to be very quick and ready to celebrate apparent contradictions, failure to answer questions, and departures from Reformed worthies. The spirit that informs anti-modern 2k proponents is one of a Philadelphia fan after an Eagles defeat of the New York Football Giants — strident and ungracious. I am not one to play the 1 Cor. 13 card. Sometimes debate gets personal and feelings get hurt. It comes with the territory and certainly the blogosphere encourages bluster. But I cannot figure out why anti-2k folks feel the urge not only to win but to subject the other side to humiliation.

Of course, they haven’t won any more than another Phillies pennant will somehow make up for the losingest franchise in professional sports history.

Where's Waldo Wednesday

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

I am still wondering about the advisability of turning union into a polemical doctrine that divides Reformed Protestants and Lutherans. Benjamin Warfield supplies support for that wonder.

CALVINISM AND LUTHERANISM

It is unfortunate that a great body of the scientific discussion which, since Max Goebel (“Die religiose Eigenthumlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirchen,” Bonn, 1837) first clearly posited the problem, has been carried on somewhat vigorously with a view to determining the fundamental principle of Calvinism, has sought particularly to bring out its contrast with some other theological tendency, commonly with the sister Protestant tendency of Lutheranism. Undoubtedly somewhat different spirits inform Calvinism and Lutheranism. And undoubtedly the distinguishing spirit of Calvinism is rooted not in some extraneous circumstance of its antecedents or origin — as, for example, Zwingli’s tendency to intellectualism, or the superior humanistic culture and predilections of Zwingli and Calvin, or the democratic instincts of the Swiss, or the radical rationalism of the Reformed leaders as distinguished from the merely modified traditionalism of the Lutherans — but in its formative principle.

But it is misleading to find the formative principle of either type of Protestantism in its difference from the other; they have infinitely more in common than in distinction. And certainly nothing could be more misleading than to represent them (as is often done) as owing their differences to their more pure embodiment respectively of the principle of predestination and that of justification by faith. The doctrine of predestination is not the formative principle of Calvinism, the root from which it springs. It is one of its logical consequences, one of the branches which it has inevitably thrown out. It has been firmly embraced and consistently proclaimed by Calvinists because it is an implicate of theism, is directly given in the religious consciousness, and is an absolutely essential element in evangelical religion, without which its central truth of complete dependence upon the free mercy of a saving God can not be maintained. And so little is it a peculiarity of the Reformed theology, that it underlay and gave its form and power to the whole Reformation movement; which was, as from the spiritual point of view, a great revival of religion, so, from the doctrinal point of view, a great revival of Augustinianism. There was accordingly no difference among the Reformers on this point: Luther and Melanchthon and the compromising Butzer were no less jealous for absolute predestination than Zwingli and Calvin. Even Zwingli could not surpass Luther in sharp and unqualified assertion of it: and it was not Calvin but Melanchthon who gave it a formal place in his primary scientific statement of the elements of the Protestant faith. . . . Just as little can the doctrine of justification by faith be represented as specifically Lutheran. Not merely has it from the beginning been a substantial element in the Reformed faith, but it is only among the Reformed that it has retained or can retain its purity, free from the tendency to become a doctrine of justification on account of faith. . . . Here, too, the difference between the two types of Protestantism is one of degree, not of kind . . . .

Lutheranism, the product of a poignant sense of sin, born from the throes of a guilt-burdened soul which can not be stilled until it finds peace in God’s decree of justification, is apt to rest in this peace; while Calvinism, the product of an overwhelming vision of God, born from the reflection in the heart of man of the majesty of a God who will not give His glory to another, can not pause until it places the scheme of salvation itself in relation to a complete world-view, in which it becomes subsidiary to the glory of the Lord God Almighty. Calvinism asks with Lutheranism, indeed, that most poignant of all questions, What shall I do to be saved? and answers it as Lutheranism answers it. But the great question which presses upon it is, How shall God be glorified? It is the contemplation of God and zeal for His honor which in it draws out the emotions and absorbs endeavor; and the end of human as of all other existence, of salvation as of all other attainment, is to it the glory of the Lord of all. Full justice is done in it to the scheme of redemption and the experience of salvation, because full justice is done in it to religion itself which underlies these elements of it. It begins, it centers, it ends with the vision of God in His glory: and it sets itself before all things to render to God His rights in every sphere of life- activity. (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 5, pp. 357-58)

Granted, the worldview rhetoric is not the most appealing, but we try to serve red meat occasionally here at Old Life to the tried and true transformationalists.

Point of Order: Even for Covenanters 2k Is Confessional

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

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 the Puritans treated Roger Williams, perhaps he has no dog in this fight.)

The argument about the confessional status of 2k can take several forms. One is that 2k is not the position of the original Westminster Confession, or of the other Reformed confessions for that matter. Another is the idea that the Bible calls the magistrate to uphold both tables of the law. And with this duty comes the magistrate’s responsibility to punish blasphemers and idolaters since the first table clearly forbids these sins and since God instructed the Israelites to execute those guilty of such sins.

The problem with this argument is that American Presbyterians revised (see all the revisions here) the original Westminster Confession and churches such as the PCA and the OPC continue to accept the revisions from 1787-1788. For those unfamiliar, here are a few highlights of the original and the revision:

Original ch. 23.3

The civil magistrate hath. . . authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.

This is fairly standard language in the Reformed confessions with some invoking Old Testament penal codes and some simply saying the magistrate should enforce both tables of the law.

The American Revision

. . . no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

Not to be missed is that the revision not only drops entirely the magistrate’s responsibility for suppressing heresy and blasphemy, but it raises the stakes by forbidding laws that would prefer any denomination and insisting that magistrates protect the good names of all people no matter what their religion or their infidelity. It is an amazing change.

But lest some conclude that this was simply the whacky action of liberalizing and Enlightened Presbyterians who were still high on the fumes of revolution, the case of the Covenanters is especially noteworthy. Reformed Presbyterians are the keepers of the torch for the National Covenant, a view of religion far closer to the one that informed the Westminster Confession than any other in Scotland or North America. That is to say, that Covenanters still insist, as their Constitution indicates, “Every nation ought to recognize the Divine institution of civil government, the sovereignty of God exercised by Jesus Christ, and its duty to rule the civil affairs of men in accordance with the will of God.” The RPCNA Constitution adds, the nation “should enter into covenant with Christ and serve to advance His Kingdom on earth.” If a nation fails, it sins, “makes the nation liable to the wrath of God, and threatens the continued existence of the government and nation.”

This is the logic not only of the establishment principle but the reasoning behind the Covenanters refusal throughout most of their U.S. history to participate in elections or serve in the military.

So you would think that the language of suppressing blasphemy and heresy from the original Westminster Confession is just fine with the RPCNA. It turns out that Covenanters, at least confessionally, no longer have the stomach for the language of 1640s London. In their Testimony, which is part of the communion’s Constitution and runs along side the Confession, the RPCNA has this to say about paragraph three of chapter twenty-three: “We reject the portion of paragraph 3 after the colon:” (emphasis theirs). This means, for the confessionally and grammatically challenged, that even the logic of national covenant no longer sustains the idea that the magistrate has authority

. . . and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. (Original WCF)

For the literacy challenged, that means that critics of 2k who insist 2k is outside the bounds of the confession would not even find a home in the RPCNA under the very Blue Banner at least on this point.

Now some have tried to say that the revisions still assert the magistrate’s duty to suppress blasphemy and heresy. But given what the American divines said and did not say, and given that the Covenanters no longer insist on magisterial responsibility for punishing idolatry, this argument is even less believable than the one about George Washington being an orthodox Protestant.