219 thoughts on “Nelson Kloosterman May Not Be But I Am Thankful for David VanDrunen”

1. Nothing like a little Thanksgiving polemics, eh?:) I thought about taking a shot at Federal Visionists in my Thanksgiving post. However, I decided not to. I guess I’m more pious than you (or less?).

   By the way, great article on Machen’s Warrior Children in the Always Reformed book. I hope to feature that on my blog sometime soon.

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2. Wes, I’ve heard that a little indigestion helps turkey eaters stay awake during the second football game.

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3. I think there’s an interesting discussion at the end of Dick Gaffin’s chapter in the Westminster critique of theonomy (edited volume from the the late 80’s or early 90’s). Gaffin of all people sees the genius of Westminster to be the melding of the American/British Presbyterian tradition with the continental, neo-Calvinist tradition. I don’t have a copy of this article in my immediate possession but recall him discussing the balancing act between the suffering, pilgrim church idea and the cultural vision of neo-Calvinism. My recollection is that he is able to endorse both.

   I am a bit puzzled by the simplistic appeal to the New Testament only in the quote from Van Drunen. While I don’t want to go down the theonomic path and do recognize some discontinuity between Old and New, continuities are profoundly integral to Reformed theology.

   No Kuyperian that I know advocates a simplistic “back to the Garden” eschatology. Culture building and development would have happened whether or not the Fall occurred (okay, I admit that’s a bit speculative) and is part of the history God intended in the eschatologically confirmed, glorified state. The fact that some of that culture building occurred during the “covenant of grace” timeline is beside the point.

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4. Here’s the paragraph I was recalling:

   It will not do simply to dismiss this chapter as the ramblings of someone who has be-
   trayed his Reformed heritage—with its ennobling vision of life itself as religion and the whole of life to the glory of God—for an anemic, escapist Christianity of cultural surrender. Without question, the Great Commission continues fully in force, with its full cultural breadth, until Jesus returns; “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” is the mandate of the exalted Last Adam to the people of his new creation. We can not measure the limit of that “everything” and its implications; of it we can only confess with the Psalmist: “To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless” (119:96). That mandate, then, is bound to have a robust, leavening impact—one that will redirect every area of life and will transform not only individuals but, through them corporately (as the church), their cultures; it already has done so and will continue to do so, until Jesus comes.

   The Gaffin article is on-line at http://newhope2.timberlakepublishing.com/files/Gaffin%20Theonomy%20and%20Eschatology.pdf

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5. Terry, I think you and I are basically on the same page here, but per the Regulative Principle, we do indeed limit what the church is to teach to what is taught in the Bible. And the Bible does not teach, nor authorize that the church teach Math or Economics or Art or Psychology, etc. But this is not to say (contra the neo-twokingdoms view) that there aren’t Christian presuppositions that can direct a proper understanding of creation / general revelation.

   So, neocalvinists affirm that Darryl, et.al. are correct to limit the church’s ministry… and that they are wrong to suppose that outside of that proper ministry that nothing else can be Christian.

   Right?

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6. I should add that I think Gaffin appreciates my point, and speaks of a distinction between the “everything” of the Commission and the “implications” God’s Word has for culture; between the church’s mission and a “leavening impact” on culture. The point is that whatever the impact/implications, that impact/implication is not itself the (institutional) church’s mission.

   This distinction is the crux of the debate with neo-2k’ers and neocalvinists, and should not be understated. The neo-twokingdom claim is that there are absolutely no distinctive Christian implications for culture.

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7. Baus, wrong, at least until you can tell me what Christian language is. What is this stuff outside the church that is Christian? A hope and a prayer is not a sufficient answer.

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8. Terry, I think Gaffin’s paragraph is a weak link upon which to hang the Kuyperian project, especially when you read the entire NT. Why was there so little in Christ’s and the apostle’s teaching, hopes, or plans for the transformation of culture? Even more, why did Christ keep downplaying expectations for cultural transformation when so much of that hope was for a restoration of Israel. Suffering, endurance, patience, and hope for Christ’s return are the dominant themes of Christian devotion in the NT.

   Now you may want to go back to the OT. But that takes you awfully close to the theonomic instinct. Mind you, it’s not as if Israel had a commission to transform culture beyond the Holy Land. And it’s not as if the Israelites got that world domination would come through the church.

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9. I never read my Kuyper (except bits and pieces), I read this and put it into action and then some 2Kers called me Kuyperian:

   Yet the culture of today cannot simply be rejected as a whole. It is not like the pagan culture of the first century. It is not wholly non-Christian. Much of it has been derived directly from the Bible. There are significant movements in it, going to waste, which might well be used for the defence of the gospel. The situation is complex. Easy wholesale measures are not in place. Discrimination, investigation is necessary. Some

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   of modern thought must be refuted. The rest must be made subservient. But nothing in it can be ignored. He that is not with us is against us. Modern culture is a mighty force. It is either subservient to the gospel or else it is the deadliest enemy of the gospel. For making it subservient, religious emotion is not enough, intellectual labor is also necessary. And that labor is being neglected. The Church has turned to easier tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now she must battle for her life.

   The situation is desperate. It might discourage us. But not if we are truly Christians. Not if we are living in vital communion with the risen Lord. If we are really convinced of the truth of our message, then we can proclaim it before a world of enemies, then the very difficulty of our task, the very scarcity of our allies becomes an inspiration, then we can even rejoice that God did not place us in an easy age, but in a time of doubt and perplexity and battle. Then, too, we shall not be afraid to call forth other soldiers into the conflict. Instead of making our theological seminaries merely centres of religious emotion, we shall make them battle-grounds of the faith, where, helped a little by the experience of Christian teachers, men are taught to fight their own battle, where they come to appreciate the real strength of the adversary and in the hard school of intellectual struggle learn to substitute for the unthinking faith of childhood the profound convictions of full-grown men. Let us not fear in this a loss of spiritual power. The Church is perishing today through the lack of thinking, not through an excess of it. She is winning victories in the sphere of material betterment. Such victories are glorious. God save us from the heartless crime of disparaging them. They are relieving the misery of men. But if they stand alone, I fear they are but temporary. The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal. What will become of philanthropy if God be lost? Beneath the surface of life lies a

   THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. 11, 1913, Page 14

   world of spirit. Philosophers have attempted to explore it. Christianity has revealed its wonders to the simple soul. There lie the springs of the Church’s power. But that spiritual realm cannot be entered without controversy. And now the Church is shrinking from the conflict. Driven from the spiritual realm by the current of modern thought, she is consoling herself with things about which there is no dispute. If she favors better housing for the poor, she need fear no contradiction. She will need all her courage. she will have enemies enough, God knows. But they will not fight her with argument. The twentieth century, in theory, is agreed on social betterment. But sin, and death, and salvation, and life, and God—about these things there is debate. You can avoid the debate if you choose. You need only drift with the current. Preach every Sunday during your Seminary course, devote the fag ends of your time to study and to thought, study about as you studied in college—and these questions will probably never trouble you. The great questions may easily be avoided. Many preachers are avoiding them. And many preachers are preaching to the air. The Church is waiting for men of another type. Men to fight her battles and solve her problems. The hope of finding them is the one great inspiration of a Seminary’s life. They need not all be men of conspicuous attainments. But they must all be men of thought. They must fight hard against spiritual and intellectual indolence. Their thinking may be confined to narrow limits. But it must be their own. To them theology must be something more than a task. It must be a matter of inquiry. It must lead not to successful memorizing, but to genuine convictions.

   The Church is puzzled by the world’s indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict, she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the clear light of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely to the questions of the hour but, first of all,

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   to the eternal problems of the spiritual world, then perhaps, by God’s grace, through His good Spirit, in His good time, she might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt might be followed by the dawn of an era of faith.

   Princeton.

   J. Gresham Machen

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10. I know, Paul, and then a world war happened and the controversy in the PCUSA and Machen found that Kuyperianism doesn’t work. Which is why he told graduates of WTS in 1931 the following:

    “Remember this, at least — the things in which the world is now interested are the things that are seen; but the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are not seen are eternal. You, as ministers of Christ, are called to deal with the unseen things. You are stewards of the mysteries of God. You alone can lead men, by the proclamation of God’s word, out of the crash and jazz and noise and rattle and smoke of this weary age into the green pastures and beside the still waters; you alone, as ministers of reconciliation, can give what the world with all its boasting and pride can never give — the infinite sweetness of the communion of the redeemed soul with the living God.”

    Find me a Kuyperian that can say all those “alones” and you may be able to use Machen.

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11. Great post. Living in exile, not subduing Canaan is the model for Christian living.

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12. Darryl, it’s not the theonomic instinct that drives us here, it’s our doctrine of creation. And here I want to underscore that I’m not talking about “origins”, I’m talking about God and the relation and attitude that he has toward what he has made. I would suggest that the NT presupposes the OT doctrine of creation. You know full well (based on your love of all things Reformed) 1 Timothy 4:4-5 “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

    Your underplaying of Creation here sounds quite hollow in this layman’s ear. How can I consider my work in the world to be a calling of God if God’s main business in the world is the church? I guess my incipient Kuyperian leanings (even before I had ever heard of Kuyper or thought that Reformed theology meant anything besides the five points of Calvinism) that God wanted Christian scientists as much as he wanted pastors and missionaries was wrong-headed. You also seem to underplay the many NT verses that speak of life as worship, glorifying God in whatever you do, etc. (You do know them, because you quote them all the time and remind us how few of them there are.) I’d suggest that there is more NT evidence for Kuyperianism than there is for corporate worship and liturgy. John Piper (not that you consider him an authority) even suggests in his teaching on worship that the NT epistles go out of their way to remove the cultus from the concept of worship in the interest of a “life as worship” focus. (For what it’s worth, this doesn’t remove for either Piper or me the necessity of corporate worship.)

    Frankly, I don’t see your Machen quote above to be in conflict with Kuyperian notions. As Van Til says about his apologetics, so the Kuyperian says about his cultural activity. We presuppose the full orb of Biblical truth (Reformed systematic theology). Isn’t this foundation that the Kuyperian enterprise builds upon? (Granted, some modern-day “Kuyps” seem to miss this.) The Bible or systematic theology does not address everything. God’s Creation is out there to be studied and stewarded. I can’t find out much about plumbing in the Bible, but plumbing as a part of Creation (in all its aspects–perhaps even all its Dooyeweerdian aspects) is as much God’s business (and the Christian’s business) as is the preaching of the Gospel.

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13. Terry, I’m curious: if the NT epistles go out of their way to make the case that “all of life is worship” then on what grounds do you also maintain “the necessity of corporate worship”?

    But this sounds an awful lot like the sort of thing I heard in my evangelical days before Reformation, what some have termed “worship as homeroom,” and I see it all around me in my own neo Dutch Reformed environs that slouch toward evangelicalism: the Sabbath and its attendant rituals and contemplations isn’t so much a time and place to prepare for the world to come as it is a time and place to check in, get “re-charged” and receive marching orders to go back out into and conquer one way or another this one (note that, just like in civic homeroom, attending sacred homeroom is merely a really good idea but let’s not be too dogmatic). Those really are two different religious expressions.

    And, for my own part, it’s actually the paleo-Calvinist understanding that has such a high view of creation that it makes no difference who earth’s cultivators are as long as they are good cultivators, and just as often as not good ones tend to be those without faith. The evangelically tinged expression you seem sympathetic to is actually the one that finally underplays creation because it demands that faith must have some direct or obvious bearing on doing creation well instead of letting creation and its cultivators be just fine as-is. But reality proves that this just isn’t true, at least if, and as with all fantasizing it’s an “if” easier said than done, one is willing to let go of religious fantasy. It’s actually paleo-Calvinism that allows us to have a brutally world-affirming piety instead of the ironcial world-flight piety resident within broad evangelicalism and the one more or less the same as neo-Calvinism.

    P.S. have you considered that worship is a lot like grace: if everything is worship (or grace) then nothing is. In the end, if you maintain this “all of life is worship/corporate worship is necessary” view there finally is no viable reason to maintain the Sabbath, except out of mere rote or traditionalism (as much as paleo’s disdain the bad mouthing of routine, there is such a thing as empty traditionalism). Far better, I say, to say that all of life is obedience, where the six days are characterized by covenant law keeping obedience and Sabbath is characterized as means of grace obedience. Once you flatten out eveything out with the “all of life” jazz you actually lose all antithesis.

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14. In point of fact, he sounds exactly like Calvin.

    Sure, in the same way that Edgar Bergen sounded exactly like Charlie McCarthy.

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15. Zrim, not sure where you’re getting your notion of “evangelicalism”. The “all of life” sentiments of evangelicalism that you may have experienced are the result of American fundamentalism/evangelicalism drinking deeply from the cup of neo-Calvinism during that 30-40 years. (Unfortunately, neo-Calvinism suffered mutation in the process.) I learned my “all of life” jazz originally from my OPC pastors and subsequent reading from the WTS crowd. Maybe some earlier influences were Francis Shaeffer and Shaeffer-influenced IVP writers. Digging deeper I learned more from Van Til, Knudsen, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd, hardly “evangelical” mainstream. Of course, the point of the present debate is who is reading Calvin correctly. Those of us in the Kuyperian camp claim Calvin, of course, along with Augustine, Paul, and Jesus.

    Sabbatarianism is not more inimical to “all of life” jazz–it would be interesting to see you and Darryl get sabbatarianism out of the New Testament, if we’re going to play that game. But, see, I don’t play that game. I don’t have to find something in the NT re-affirmed in order to have it as the foundation for some Biblical teaching. That’s one of the real differences between evangelical and Reformed theology. And neither is corporate worship inimical to life as worship. Tell me what do you think Romans 12:1-2 means if it doesn’t mean that “all of life” jazz?

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16. Mark, don’t you mean Paul McCartney?

    But here’s what I mean about Calvin, from the Institutes book 3.9.1-2

    “1. Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy. Every one of us, indeed, would be thought to aspire and aim at heavenly immortality during the whole course of his life. For we would be ashamed in no respect to excel the lower animals; whose condition would not be at all inferior to ours, had we not a hope of immortality beyond the grave. But when you attend to the plans, wishes, and actions of each, you see nothing in them but the earth. Hence our stupidity; our minds being dazzled with the glare of wealth, power, and honours, that they can see no farther. The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries. Thus, that they may not promise themselves deep and lasting peace in it, he often allows them to be assailed by war, tumult, or rapine, or to be disturbed by other injuries. That they may not long with too much eagerness after fleeting and fading riches, or rest in those which they already possess, he reduces them to want, or, at least, restricts them to a moderate allowance, at one time by exile, at another by sterility, at another by fire, or by other means. That they may not indulge too complacently in the advantages of married life, he either vexes them by the misconduct of their partners, or humbles them by the wickedness of their children, or afflicts them by bereavement. But if in all these he is indulgent to them, lest they should either swell with vain-glory, or be elated with confidence, by diseases and dangers he sets palpably before them how unstable and evanescent are all the advantages competent to mortals. We duly profit by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, estimated in itself, is restless, troubled, in numberless ways wretched, and plainly in no respect happy; that what are estimated its blessings are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by a great admixture of evil. From this we conclude, that all we have to seek or hope for here is contest; that when we think of the crown we must raise our eyes to heaven. For we must hold, that our mind never rises seriously to desire and aspire after the future, until it has learned to despise the present life.
    2. For there is no medium between the two things: the earth must either be worthless in our estimation, or keep us enslaved by an intemperate love of it. Therefore, if we have any regard to eternity, we must carefully strive to disencumber ourselves of these fetters.”

    Does that sound like Kloosterman? I don’t think so.

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17. Terry, plumbing is God’s business. But it is as important as the gospel? Where you think I miss the import of creation I think you miss the significance of the fall. Sin is a game changer for creation and going back to the garden or to the original work in Eden is not possible. So then what happens? It’s called redemption and the restoration of all things is not going to happen with our work. We seek the welfare of the city. But we don’t redeem the city.

    You mentioned that one issue is who gets Calvin right. I think the neo-Cals are in denial about sections like this from Calvin (where’s his doctrine of creation?):

    “1. Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy. Every one of us, indeed, would be thought to aspire and aim at heavenly immortality during the whole course of his life. For we would be ashamed in no respect to excel the lower animals; whose condition would not be at all inferior to ours, had we not a hope of immortality beyond the grave. But when you attend to the plans, wishes, and actions of each, you see nothing in them but the earth. Hence our stupidity; our minds being dazzled with the glare of wealth, power, and honours, that they can see no farther. The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries. Thus, that they may not promise themselves deep and lasting peace in it, he often allows them to be assailed by war, tumult, or rapine, or to be disturbed by other injuries. That they may not long with too much eagerness after fleeting and fading riches, or rest in those which they already possess, he reduces them to want, or, at least, restricts them to a moderate allowance, at one time by exile, at another by sterility, at another by fire, or by other means. That they may not indulge too complacently in the advantages of married life, he either vexes them by the misconduct of their partners, or humbles them by the wickedness of their children, or afflicts them by bereavement. But if in all these he is indulgent to them, lest they should either swell with vain-glory, or be elated with confidence, by diseases and dangers he sets palpably before them how unstable and evanescent are all the advantages competent to mortals. We duly profit by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, estimated in itself, is restless, troubled, in numberless ways wretched, and plainly in no respect happy; that what are estimated its blessings are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by a great admixture of evil. From this we conclude, that all we have to seek or hope for here is contest; that when we think of the crown we must raise our eyes to heaven. For we must hold, that our mind never rises seriously to desire and aspire after the future, until it has learned to despise the present life.
    2. For there is no medium between the two things: the earth must either be worthless in our estimation, or keep us enslaved by an intemperate love of it. Therefore, if we have any regard to eternity, we must carefully strive to disencumber ourselves of these fetters.” Institutes 3.9.1-2

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18. Terry, I get my notion of evangelicalism from a blend of cutting my own spiritual teeth in it, as well as marrying into it. But I also get it from having read a good deal of confessionally Reformed critique of it. You might get your “all of life” jazz from the WTS crowd, but I get my critique of it from the WSC crowd.

    But if you want to say that American evangelicalism owes itself to neo-Calvinism then you’re not making your case very well, it seems to me, unless you’re wanting to hold up American evagelicalism as a good thing. But I’ve long regarded broad American evangelicalism to be a spirtual bankruptcy, so if drinking deeply at the well of neo-Calvinism gets us American evangelicalism, then you’re actually making my case.

    I don’t have to find something in the NT (explicitly) re-affirmed in order to have it as the foundation for some biblical teaching either, which is why I’m a staunch paedobaptist, unlike evangelicals. But when I think of sabbatarianism I generally think fourth commandment, as in OT, again unlike evangelicals.

    Whatever else Romans 12:1-2 means, I find it hard to believe it means that the fourth commandment is at best spiritualized in the New Covenant or at worst dispensed with. But again, and to answer your question more directly, I fall back on the older categories of the Christian life being one of obedience. Obedience certainly includes and is itself characterized by worship, but all of life is obedience, not worship.

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19. Darryl, I’ve not read Kuyper, and affirm everything Machen said in the piece I quoted from him, so I can quote Machen. My questions was, when I say the same things Machen said, why am I called Kuyperian rather than Machenite?

    Anyway, Darryl, why the non-sequiturs? Nothing in the Machen comment you quote contradicts what I cited.

    Anyway, are you saying that you hold to the newer Machen and I hold to the older Machen? So would that make me paleo-Machen and you neo-Machen?

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20. Zrim, neo-Calvinism is a novelty in American evangelicalism. It’s had a healthy influence on the pietism and fundamentalism. I’m in full agreement with much of neo-Calvinist WSC crowd (Godfrey, Horton, Riddlebarger–I’m even going to throw in Kline, Futato, Frame, Strimple, and Johnson). Of course, some of these came from WTS originally. Van Drunen and Hart represent a new breed.

    So I think we’re talking past each other a bit here. You seem to equate evangelicalism with neo-Calvinism. Nothing could be further from the truth (although some evangelicals have learned some tricks from us). With respect to the “Jesus in my heart/experience” vs. “Jesus’s doing/dying 2000 years ago” that Mike Horton is so good at distinguishing, I suspect that we’re on the same page and I’m right with you in critiquing American evangelicalism. My point about Romans 12:1-2 had to do with what Paul is talking about with respect to what is our “true and proper worship.” It consists in offering our bodies as true and living sacrifices, not conforming to the world, being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Hardly any discussion of corporate worship there.

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21. Darryl, surely you can find some neo-Calvinist quotes in Calvin to balance this out–let’s not cherry pick Calvin. We’re not called neo-Calvinists for no reason. You seem to think that this stuff is either/or. It’s more both/and for me (and Calvin and the neo-Calvinists).

    I have no complaint about saying that sin is a game changer or that Christ accomplished redemption. But “transformation” in the Kuyperian sense is similar to progressive sanctification in the personal sense. Surely such strong advocates of the Westminister Standards as you and David are don’t suggest that atonement/justification is contradictory to obedience and growth in personal holiness. Creation-wide activities are no different.

    I am a bit surprised that you see the neo-Calvinist project to be equated with the Covenant of Works. I guess I don’t really see that. The Covenant of Works was limited to obedience with respect to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Had Adam obeyed, he would have been confirmed in his righteousness and the eschaton would have been ushered in. His other mandates would have continued and culture and city would have developed in glory according to God’s creational purposes. These works would not have been part of any meritorious activity, but part of the blessed communion with God, imaging God in our dominion and working out all the potentialities of the created realm.

    Apparently, that was not God’s plan. So, eschaton is delayed and Adam and his elect posterity enter it by grace. But God’s creational purposes unfolded anyway. Israel, Christ himself, and the church are the first fruits of this eschatology community. Tasks in creation are not our working out redemption, per se, but part of the blessed communion with God, imaging God in our dominion and working out all the potentialities of the created realm. We have the additional task in these in-between times to proclaim the good news by being salt and light in an ill-flavored and dark world and to oppose the forces of evil in the power of Christ.

    Is it the case that the whole argument turns on the what degree of continuity we envision between Adam’s life in probation and his would be life in eschatological glory? 2k’s see little continuity; neo-Cal’s see much.

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22. Terry, on the relations between neo-Calvinism and evangelicalism, all you need to do is read Hunter’s To Change the World to see how neo-Calvinism has not supplied any soteriology or ecclesiology to evangelicalism but plenty of naivete and pride.

    Funny that you would claim Kline after what I posted from Kingdom Prologue on Dooyeweerdianism. Seems like neo-Cals can claim whoever they want for their side, transformers that they are.

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23. Paul, ministers alone can give people what the world cannot give. Since most neo-Cal’s want to save the world and don’t think the church as institute should do that kind of kingdom work, I’m not at all sure how you connect the dots.

    As for learning to think historically and see the development of a person’s ideas, I guess you’ll just have to take more courses in history. Given the way that you like abstractions, I don’t expect you to learn from particulars.

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24. Terry, I’m not cherry-picking and it’s up to you to find quotes from Calvin that support neo-Cal’sm. Please don’t expect me to do your historical work for you. Seriously, if you ever read Calvin’s prayers you are going to hit several speed bumps on the neo-Cal highway to Grand Rapids.

    What I am surprised about you is that you do not see the end of the creation or cultural mandate because of the fall. The cultural mandate has become the favorite of many neo-Cal’s post Kuyper. But if you look at Kline at least on the end of Gen. 1 and then look at what the fall did, you see that you can’t go back. And if anyone has fulfilled it, it is Christ.

    I do believe that our work in the world sanctifies the workers. I don’t see the stuff of the work — plumbing, banking, baking — being sanctified and I frankly think it is fundamentalist to think that it does become holy (as if worldly activity itself is no good unless done by Christians).

    As for continuity, I have no idea what the continuity or discontinuity would have been like had Adam remained obedient. But I do have a pretty good idea of the discontinuity involved in redemption from the difference between Israel and the church. It was pretty disorienting even for those with whom Christ had spent the most time. And Christ’s resurrected body sure seems to defy natural norms. And even though I don’t take Revelation literally, streets of gold sure does sound otherworldly. I think the Bible points toward discontinuity between a fallen world and the new heavens and new earth. Surely as a neo-Calvinist you can appreciate the meaning of “new.”

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25. Darryl, in case your question was not rhetorical, I was referring not to a Beatle, but a Bergen, the poor radio ventroliquist, who with the advent of TV, saw his career tank when people could see his lips moving and his hand up inside Charlie McCarthy.

    You wrench a portion of Calvin, but as is the habit, skip over some other good stuff, such as Calvin’s sermons on Deuteronomy or this from his Book 3 of the Institutes:

    CHAPTER 6. – THE LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN MAN.…

    Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; is not apprehended by the intellect and memory merely, like other branches of learning; but is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart. Let them, therefore, either cease to insult God, by boasting that they are what they are not, or let them show themselves not unworthy disciples of their divine Master. To doctrine in which our religion is contained we have given the first place, since by it our salvation commences; but it must be transfused into the breast, and pass into the conduct, and so transform us into itself, as not to prove unfruitful. If philosophers are justly offended, and banish from their company with disgrace those who, while professing an art which ought to be the mistress of their conduct, convert it into mere loquacious sophistry, with how much better reason shall we detest those flimsy sophists who are contented to let the Gospel play upon their lips, when, from its efficacy, it ought to penetrate the inmost affections of the heart, fix its seat in the soul, and pervade the whole man a hundred times more than the frigid discourses of philosophers?

    5. I insist not that the life of the Christian shall breathe nothing but the perfect Gospel, though this is to be desired, and ought to be attempted. I insist not so strictly on evangelical perfection, as to refuse to acknowledge as a Christian any man who has not attained it. In this way all would be excluded from the Church, since there is no man who is not far removed from this perfection, while many, who have made but little progress, would be undeservedly rejected. What then? Let us set this before our eye as the end at which we ought constantly to aim. Let it be regarded as the goal towards which we are to run. For you cannot divide the matter with God, undertaking part of what his word enjoins, and omitting part at pleasure. For, in the first place, God uniformly recommends integrity as the principal part of his worship, meaning by integrity real singleness of mind, devoid of gloss and fiction, and to this is opposed a double mind; as if it had been said, that the spiritual commencement of a good life is when the internal affections are sincerely devoted to God, in the cultivation of holiness and justice. But seeing that, in this earthly prison of the body, no man is supplied with strength sufficient to hasten in his course with due alacrity, while the greater number are so oppressed with weakness, that hesitating, and halting, and even crawling on the ground, they make little progress, let every one of us go as far as his humble ability enables him, and prosecute the journey once begun. No one will travel so badly as not daily to make some degree of progress. This, therefore, let us never cease to do, that we may daily advance in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair because of the slender measure of success. How little soever the success may correspond with our wish, our labour is not lost when to-day is better than yesterday, provided with true singleness of mind we keep our aim, and aspire to the goal, not speaking flattering things to ourselves, nor indulging our vices, but making it our constant endeavour to become better, until we attain to goodness itself. If during the whole course of our life we seek and follow, we shall at length attain it, when relieved from the infirmity of flesh we are admitted to full fellowship with God.
    

    Does that sound like Van Drunen? Nah. Sound like Kuyper, Bavinck, Godfrey or Kloosterman. You bet.

    So DVD can play his little game, propping the dead Calvin on his lap and trying to manipulate him into sounding like an R2k guy. But what you and DVD don’t seem to realize is we’re on to the joke. We can all see the lips moving and the hand firmly up inside the puppet.

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26. MVDM: I could see someone arguing that Calvin sounded closer to Edwards than Nevin in your quote, but I fail to see how it has anything to do with the neocal divide.

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27. Mark, it doesn’t sound like Kuyper at all. Calvin’s focus is on the Christian, not on taking every square inch of the world captive. And what is more, Calvin is hardly triumphalist. The Christian’s progress will be the equivalent of crawling — hardly a boast of taking the entire world captive or laying the credit for the Dutch Republic on the shoulders of Calvinism.

    As I say, did you learn to read at a Christian Day school?

    And while I’m at it, if you’re going to claim Bob Godfrey for “your” side, why doesn’t Bob denounce 2k the way you do. Why he even hires 2kers like VanDrunen and me. Now, if you wanted to be a neo-Cal and charitable the way Bob is, and allow for differences within the tradition, then maybe you could claim him. But because he doesn’t see the danger of 2k the way you do, you have a problem with Bob.

    You know, Mark, it really is dangerous to play with fire.

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28. Mike, Van Drunen’s quote in the original piece starkly separates redemption from creation, a rejection of what Bavinck called, “grace restoring nature”. Darryl rightly anticipated that this would have the ring of anabaptism or cloister religion:

    Redemption does not put Christians back on track to accomplish the original goal of the First Adam through their own cultural work – Christ has already done that on their behalf perfectly and finally. Misunderstanding this point is perhaps the fatal flaw of neo-Calvinism. Until the day when Christ returns he has ordained that his people be pilgrims in this world and be gathered together in the church.

    Calvin on the other hand, sees that the gospel is not confined to one’s interior private relationship with God, but says Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; such that it must be transfused into the breast, and pass into the conduct, and so transform us into itself, as not to prove unfruitful.

    This does not make Calvin some cultural post-mil “triumphalist”, but rather says Let us set this before our eye as the end at which we ought constantly to aim. Let it be regarded as the goal towards which we are to run. So are we pilgrims, do we suffer, and do we often not see much progress? Sure. But R2k mocks Calvin’s gospel saturated, Word directed life- view even as the “goal”, belittling even the texts that exhort it. That is the really dangerous fire the R2k crowd is playing with.

    Darryl, do you really want to make the argument that Godfrey is a latitudinarian on his Kuyperian convictions? And yes, I learned reading at a Christian day school. At what school did you and Van Drunen learn your historical ventriloquism?

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29. Darryl, I was hoping that you’d be a bit more dispassionate in your scholarship.

    As for my claiming Kline–I have always seen a common thread running between all the Westiminster and Dutch Reformed traditions even where there are differences. As I’ve pointed out Gaffin seems to be able to connect the dots between the Charlie Dennison and Abraham Kuyper vision. I read the Kline quote as a fundamental endorsing of neo-Calvinism although rejecting some extreme versions of it. Whether we like it or not there’s a thread connecting John Murray and Norman Shepherd. Sometimes people go off the deep end and so we reject the extreme views of Shepherd, the hyper-theonomist crowd, the particular Dooyeweerdians that Kline complained about, the sometimes Anabaptist sounding excesses of Dennison. Perhaps your rendition of 2k is one of those deep ends. I can get to most of where you seem to want to be with a properly functioning sphere sovereignty which is well within the traditional neo-Calvinist perspective without denouncing the tradition. But you tell me that not only are the extremities of the neo-Calvinist perspective perhaps going off the deep, but that the heart-beat of the perspective is fundamentally wrong. I say it’s you who has gone off the beaten path, not me.

    By the way, who is to blame for contaminating the pure Machen-esque American Presbyterianism with the Dutch Reformed virus? Van Til? Stonehouse? R.B. Kuiper? Vos? Knudsen? Maybe the Bible Presbyterians were right all along in saying that the “new church” had come under foreign influences.

    Me thinks Machen welcomed the neo-Calvinist perspective with open arms as a right expression of Calvinism in the world.

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30. Mark, Dave and I learned from the best church historian, W. Robert Godfrey. Look, I know it’s disappointing to you that VanDrunen and I made it into Godfrey’s festschrift and Kloosterman didn’t. But if you want to call Bob a latitudinarian on Kuyperianism, those are your words. Though I do think it is odd to raise Kuyperianism to a matter of orthodoxy (and that is just the issue).

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31. Terry, yes, north Beltline (Cornerstone University, broad evangelicalism) and south Beltline (Calvin College, neo-Calvinism) have significant distinctions and cannot be “equated.” But in the end it’s a distinction without a difference, really. One may want to consult the pyschologists and the other the philosophers, but they both agree that true religion has obvious bearing on the cares of this world.

    But “transformation” in the Kuyperian sense is similar to progressive sanctification in the personal sense.

    I think you are onto it here with this parallel. Much of what distinguishes the paleos from the neos revolves around an understanding of sanctification. Paleos think in terms of personal, not social. Neos seem to think grace oozes out the fingertips, while paleos think the sole targets of transformation (human beings) are a little more hermetically sealed. Neos can’t seem to wait for the sons of God to be revealed so that the rest of creation can be restored. Paleos are content to say that Jesus lived and died for his people, neos seem to want the program expanded to include more than just the imago Dei creation.

    And when it comes to it, paleos also conceive of personal sanctification as brutally slow, almost imperceptible, as in even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience (HC 114), that our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin (HC 62), that sanctification is yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part (WCF 13.2). Those sorts of statments don’t exactly seem to do much for getting too exuberant over personal sanctification.

    My point about Romans 12:1-2 had to do with what Paul is talking about with respect to what is our “true and proper worship.” It consists in offering our bodies as true and living sacrifices, not conforming to the world, being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Hardly any discussion of corporate worship there.

    And my point is that the Christian life is best construed as obedience, not worship. But the principle good work of the believer (individual and corporate) is worship. It’s not building schools and hospitals or otherwise transforming or redeeming all the facets of creation, it’s worship. Why, even Wolterstorff seems to understand the importance of corporate worship:

    Characteristically we Reformed people think of going to church as going to sermon. And we think of the sermon as marching orders. In what we do Monday through Saturday, we say, lies the proof and worth of Sunday. For us, the fundamental question to put to the liturgy is always: What did we get out of it?

    But in biblical perspective there is clearly a second fundamental reason to assemble for the performance of the liturgy. It is right and proper—in the words of the old Latin Mass, dignum et justum—for us to acknowledge God’s majesty and goodness’s right and proper to sing praises to God for his works of creation and redemption, and for our status as new creatures in Jesus Christ. It’s right and proper to confess our sins. It’s right and proper to continue celebrating the supper of our Lord in memorial of him until he comes again. I know of course that it’s also right and proper to care for the poor of society, to work for peace, to build bridges, to create paintings. It must be said to the Reformed person—emphatically, because he’s so much inclined to forget it—that it is also inherently right and proper to perform the liturgy. This too is obedience. There’s profound truth in speaking of what takes place in our assemblies as a worship service. Worship, let’s not forget it, is part of our rightful service to God. Not only is liturgy for building us up unto obedience. Liturgy is for acknowledging God, in a tone of chastened celebration.

    I said that one question to ask of the liturgy is: What did we get out of it? In light of what I’ve just said it’s clear there’s another, namely, How did we do? How did we do in our attempt to acknowledge God with praise and confession, with thanksgiving and intercession? Did we do it at all adequately?

    1979 conference on Liturgy in Reformed Worship at Calvin College entitled, “Choir & Organ: Their Place In Reformed Liturgy.”

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32. Mark, Dave and I learned from the best church historian, W. Robert Godfrey.

    Although one would think he had taught you boys better than that, we can’t necessarily blame the teacher for his pupils turning Reformed theology into a vaudeville act.

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33. Zrim, the world’s a bigger place than Grand Rapids. I lived there once (taught chemistry/biochemistry at Calvin for 10 years or so). And Reformed theology has a longer history than the past 30 years of controversy in the CRCNA. And it has a global presence that goes way beyond Hart vs. Kloosterman. The way Darryl talks sometimes, you’d think only post-war Machen really understood what it meant to be Reformed.

    As for worship–the Wolterstorff quote is great–I’m with you there. Corporate worship and liturgy is one of my passions, although as Darryl will be the first to remind me, I’m much more eclectic than he’s willing to be. I think if someone was really interested in understanding the neo-Calvinist view of worship they’d check out the relatively new English translation of Kuyper’s writings on worship. John Bolt has a great essay there warning Kuyperians of bringing their legitimate transformational concerns into the corporate worship of the church. Sphere sovereignty at its finest.

    Of course, obedience is important. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. To obey is better than sacrifice. That sounds like “all of life” jazz to me.

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34. Terry, what originally got my attention, and I’m not sure was answered, was your similtaneous claim that “the NT epistles go out of their way to make the case that all of life is worship” and “the necessity of corporate worship” (which I take to mean sabbath worship, stated and formal Word and sacrament service, etc.) Doesn’t “all of life” do more to undermine corporate worship?

    Put another way, if it’s true that all of life is worship then what special function does sabbath worship really have? I’m suggesting not much. It’s like saying to students that all of life is learning science but coming to your class is a necessity. Well, which is it? It sounds good in an after-school special-ish kind of way to tell me that all of life teaches me science, but I’m betting that you place special accent on attending your class on certain days at certain times.

    So, the neo chant that “all of life is worship” is the spiritual equivalent of seriously telling students that walking in the woods is at least as important as what they learn from you, if not more. In my book, and I’m hoping yours, that’s a really bad way to deliver scientific understanding; and contrariwise, the “all of life” jazz is a really bad way to practice and instill Christian faith. I fail to see why students seriously told that all of life is scientific learning would even bother to show up for class, unless you arbitrarily toss in that it’s necessary. The all of life jazz, in both cases, is a way to undermine the necessity of formal and special practice.

    P.S. yes, I know the analogy breaks down because learning science isn’t the same as worshipping God, but work with me.

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35. I’ve been howling at the moon like a slack jawed fool, in the infamous words of Ray LaMontaigne, over the holiday. This discussion was a good summary of the positions of the R2Kers and the neo-Cal cultural transformers, however, if fails to come to any resolutions or solutions to the matter. In fact, in makes the issues much more complex than they were to me. Maybe I should go back to howling. Life is one big and slow groan. Unfortunately, it does not seem like there is a way out of this reality in this life. So, we are allowed to pick our own poison. I’m still siding with the R2kers. It seems to line up more with the reality I experience in my daily life. And this is coming from someone who is prone to howling at the moon. Just putting in my two cents worth. It was an interesting discussion though.

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36. I guess I am still struggling with that part of getting doctrine into the innermost parts of my heart. The R2kers are a bit more pessimistic or realistic then the cultural and life transforming Neo-Cals seem to be. But I may be mis-stating, misconstruing and using R2K as an excuse for not being more single minded in my pursuit of the whole counsel of God.

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37. Darryl,

    Of course, I enjoy history. I’ve gotten A’s in all my history classes and also asked to consider switching my major. The topic isn’t challenging enough for me, though. Anyway, almost every neo-Cal I know would deny your ascriptions of them. Anyway, preaching the word isn’t the same as refuting non-Christian interpretations of all other endeavors. In the Machen quote I gave, he did not intimate that the casting down of strongholds saved people; in fact, he denied it—did you read him?

    Now, again, what is the problem with Machen’s first quote? Furthermore, where is the contradiction between the first and the second? He’s talking about two different things there, Darryl. So I have no idea what you think you’re demonstrating.

    Lastly, as my own blog attests, I enjoy both abstracts and particulars. Focusing on one to the exclusion of the other is problematic. So, you may speak about some you know who focus on abstractions alone, but that’s no worse than focusing on particulars alone. So pointing out that you have moles while the other side has warts isn’t an argument that you’re handsome.

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38. Paul, the tension, not contradiction, is Machen’s remark that Christian are to consecrate everything. I don’t know how many times the neo-Cal’s have trotted that out to try to prove Machen is on their side. But they never quote the other position, that ministers of the church are where the action is. The tension is between post-mill and amill. I believe Machen evolved into an amiller. Kuyper and neo-Cals and theonomists are post-mill; they really do think that consecration of culture establishes the kingdom. 2kers believe that only minsters ALONE do so.

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39. Mark, I can understand your not liking me. I’m a goyim. But VanDrunen is ons volk. Where’s the love?

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40. Darryl, where did Machen say “consecrate everything”? For my part, I agree with the best of Machen and the best of e.g., your stuff in Secular Faith. I don’t consider myself neo-cal and I think Machen isn’t saying anything different here than DVD or Horton say in their classes, especially in regard to Christian apologetics/philosophy. So, I’m sorry if those guys never quote the other position, I like and agree with both quotes, and I don’t think either are in tension or contradiction. Not all Kyperian/neo-Cal/and theonomists are postmills (in fact, Poythress is a big defender of Amill and you’d call him a Kuyperian worldviewer soft theonomist, right?), but many are. I am not. I don’t think demolishing strongholds and arguments establish the kingdom. So again, why when I quote Machen do 2Kers call me a Kuyperian. My view is Machenite. I read your bio on Machen, twice, and I’m wondering where the love is for a fellow Machenite? 🙂

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41. For the record, Darryl, here is someone who is deeply appreciative of the contributions of both Vos and Kline saying: 3 cheers for David VanDrunen!

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42. Darryl wrote: “Kuyper and neo-Cals …are post-mill”

    I think Darryl is confused. Who doesn’t know that Kuyper is (and neocalvinists are) amill?

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43. Baus, lots of people know that Kuyper was postmill. So was Warfield. Amill was an odd development in the middle decades of the 20th century.

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44. Pingback: Old Life Blog – Nelson Kloosterman May Not Be But I Am Thankful for David VanDrunen « Pilgrimage to Geneva

45. Mark, I can understand your not liking me. I’m a goyim. But VanDrunen is ons volk. Where’s the love?

    Darryl, it has nothing to do with personality or ethnicity, but everything to do with the theology. Makes no difference to me if it’s a Gordon, a Hart, or a Dutch boy like Van Drunen mangling Reformed theology. I even give a tip of the hat to a Godfrey and it gets me nowhere with you. So where’s your love??

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46. Paul, are you sure you get called Kuyperian when you quote Machen, or is it maybe when you lump all paleo-2kers together as more a problem than solution or otherwise blow whistles on 2k points?

    A tip of the ceremonial hat to “the best of 2k” is swell, but the interlocution, the place you spend most of your energies, seems to suggest that maybe not all the Kuyperianism has been shaken off. Is there something wrong with admitting that? I happen to think that the best of 2k (the paleo kind, not the neo) does well with an admixture of sphere sovereignty.

    But maybe you should read more Kuyper. He disagreed with “Calvin, our Reformed theologians and our confessions” that religious idolaters should be civilly punished (as in the revision of Belgic 36). It could be that that’s the mirror error of saying believers could be ecclesiastically disciplined for their political views.

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47. Zrim, shame on you! You need ginko biloba, or something. You know very well that I don’t lump all paleo-2kers together since I constantly am showing how you are at odds with many of them. 🙂

    I spend most my (public) energies on apologetical, theological, and philosophical-theological matters. You spend most of your energies on warring the culture warriors.

    I don’t need to read Kuyper to disagree with Calvin that religious idolaters should be punished. I’ll also say, AGAIN, that I don’t think (most) people should be disiciplined for their political views. Of course, as Todd and others admitted, it’s pretty easy to come up with possible scenarios where one could be ecclesiastically disciplined for their political views. But I have no clue why you’re trying to goad me into another debate on the matter (isn’t that what you were trying to do with your misrepresentation?), I don’t debate you anymore since debate and rational discourse presupposes rules of rationality and logic both sides will follow, and you’ve made it clear that you have no intention of following those rules if they don’t turn out your way (and you’ve done this by claiming everything Zrim believes is common sense; which, even if true, wouldn’t matter because common sense is not infallible). We should all just be thankful that baseball and football players don’t take your approach, because then we’d have messy and sloppy and disorderly games.

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48. Mark, I love Bob. I’m not sure how your calling a latitudinarian is loving.

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49. Given that I previously asked whether *you* were arguing that Bob was a latitudinarian on his Kuyperian convictions, kudos on accomplishing the impossible: confusing MVDM for DGH!

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50. Mark, is this the way you behave in court?

    I believe Bob is sane in his Kuyperian convictions. I believe that you and Kloosterman are not sane on this. Why you would describe tolerance for DVD or me as latitudinarian is further evidence that you cannot tell the difference between what is and is not important to the health of the church.

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51. Paul, the point was to wonder why you get confused for being called Kuyperian when quoting Machen. It seems pretty clear: Machen had some Kuyper in him. So what? But it also may have something to do with your antagonism toward 2kers for simply being 2k and not being Paul Manata.

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52. Darryl, calling with whom you disagree insane is how you behave at Westminster West seminary? Please don’t tell me Bob is tolerant of that too.

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53. Darryl,
    We all know the ‘labels’ are recent inventions. But so what?
    Kim Riddlebarger (and apparently Warfield) disagree with you. Kuyper is amill. :
    “virtually all historians of doctrine agree that what is now known as amillennialism is generally the eschatology of historic Christianity. Even B. B. Warfield, usually portrayed as postmillennial in his eschatology, remarked to his friend Samuel G. Craig, that amillennialism of the type held by his esteemed Dutch colleagues Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper “is the historic Protestant view, as expressed in the creeds of the Reformation period including the Westminster Standards.”

    http://www.reformedreader.org/amerpost.htm

    If you can produce a passage from Kuyper showing that he rejected amill in favor of postmill, then great. You should write an article about your discovery!
    In any case, I don’t really know of any postmill neocalvinists. Who else would you like to suggest?

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54. Darryl,
    We all know the ‘labels’ are recent inventions. But so what?
    Kim Riddlebarger (and apparently Warfield) disagree with you. Kuyper is amill. :
    “virtually all historians of doctrine agree that what is now known as amillennialism is generally the eschatology of historic Christianity. Even B. B. Warfield, usually portrayed as postmillennial in his eschatology, remarked to his friend Samuel G. Craig, that amillennialism of the type held by his esteemed Dutch colleagues Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper “is the historic Protestant view, as expressed in the creeds of the Reformation period including the Westminster Standards.” reformedreader[dot]org/amerpost[dot]htm

    If you can produce a passage from Kuyper showing that he rejected amill in favor of postmill, then great. You should write an article about your discovery!
    In any case, I don’t really know of any postmill neocalvinists. Who else would you like to suggest?

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55. Mark, since you are the world-and-live-view-is-of-the-essence-of-the-faith guy, your question is really for yourself. What do you do with a Kuyperian like Godfrey who employs guys like DVD and me? It must be that Bob is a problem, according to your powers of analysis. So when are you Kuyperians ever going to clean up your own house? Or maybe you’ll finally see that the one in which you live is inhabitable.

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56. Baus, every neo-Cal who talks about redemption as re-creation is implicitly post-mill. And that explains why you so often read progressive accounts of historical and cultural development in their writings, like Smith’s remark on oakey and buttery Napa Chardonnay. And it also explains why neo-Cals have such trouble talking about suffering as part of redemption, and why Gaffin needed to correct such progressivism in his chapter for the book on theonomy.

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57. There are some excellent video’s at the Westminster West site which are all about the Christ and culture debate. Taken at a recent forum at the Westminster West campus I believe. The Reformed forum also has an excellent series on the topic.

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58. Mark, since you are the world-and-live-view-is-of-the-essence-of-the-faith guy, your question is really for yourself.>

    Darryl, you know very well that not all confessional errors are the “essence of the faith” type. I’ve not claimed you deny the “essence of the faith”, and specifically told you such even recently. I can call Lutherans and Baptists brothers in the faith, even while I believe they are in significant error as measured by the Reformed confessions.

    I know you often appeal to the southern tradition of “spirituality of the church” and you also urge us to look at the “historical trajectory” of ideas. So to put some historical flesh on this, perhaps you could favor us with your thoughts on whether chattel slavery is Biblically defensible and what, if anything, the church could have/should have to say about it.

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59. I keep re-reading that Calvin passage that Darryl posted. That is a very powerful passage and one I have printed and posted on my wall. I challenge anyone to come up with a passage in Calvin that would have an equally powerful impact on the Neo-Calism view of life and culture transformation. God seems to hold our glory in check in this life with all sorts of problems, suffering, tribulation,etc., but on occasion teases us with some glory filled experiences at the right moment when we most need it to keep us keeping on so to speak. That is how I have experienced reality in this life. That passage fills me with hope, endurance, patience and the ability to be long-suffering. Neo-Calism is unable to produce this in me.

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60. I should say the passage will fill me with hope during periods of trial, suffering and tribulation and keep me from a love of this world even while God still allows me to enjoy the good gifts of this creation from whatever the source.

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61. I also have a hard time thinking I deserve any glory in this life (and the next too). Underlying a lot of Neo-Cal thinking is the notion that we are better than the unbeliever and therefore we have a right to dominate the institutions of this world. That seems like a dangerous way to think to me. The only thing that I am confident about is that God promises us to forgive us (through the Gospel) and deal with us according to Word and Sacrament. We really have no justification in complaining about our circumstances in this life. We should know how to act when abased and how to act when abounding. God knows how to get us there.

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62. Calvin’s material on the Christian life in the Institutes, book 3 is far and away the most helpful and devotional stuff I’ve ever read on the subject. I continually go back to it when I’m feeling really miserable and also take the opportunity to pass it on to others in their times of trial.

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63. Thanks David- It may be time to get out my copy of the Institutes again. I will be sure to delve into Book 3.

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64. John, it’s all brilliant, but I always go back to chapter 8, “Of Bearing the Cross–One Branch of Self-denial.”

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65. Mark, then perhaps you can explain why you posted Tom Vanden Heuvel’s letter to Christian Renewal about how 2k was destroying the church. Sheesh, you guys throw grenades and then don’t want to watch the explosion.

    Good point though about slavery. What’s next, Nazism and the German Lutheran church?

    But before you think you have scored a point, why don’t you explain for the readers here where the Bible condemns any kind of slavery. Maybe you could also explain why Scripture refers to Christians as chattel slaves — that is, slave who have been bought with a price.

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66. Darryl, your point about suffering is silly. You’re demanding of a scholarly essay, for example, on questions about general revelation to be “devotional.” C’mon.
    Redemption as re-creation is inherently post-mill? Why? So, Kline and Ridderbos and Vos are all postmills?! Hm, interesting.
    And I think you’re confusing ideas of historical change (which can certainly be “regressive”) with an Enlightenment idea of “progress” that neocals certainly critique.

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67. Baus, so now you’re defending Smith (I’m not sure because your second sentence is mystifying)? I haven’t seen too many neo-Cals actually take account of the down sides of liberty, democracy, capitalism, medicine. In fact, it’s hard not to read Kuyper’s Lectures as anything but whiggish.

    As for Kline, I’d be glad for instruction on where he talks about redemption as re-creation. That’s not the way I read him. But Ridderbos and Vos are infected with the Kuyperian bug. Vos is very good on the church, for instance, in his book on the kingdom but he does go wobbly at one moment thanks to the elixir of neo-Calvinism.

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68. Mark, then perhaps you can explain why you posted Tom Vanden Heuvel’s letter to Christian Renewal about how 2k was destroying the church. Sheesh, you guys throw grenades and then don’t want to watch the explosion.

    Darryl, it was a salient observation by a man who from his experience knows what he’s talking about. Note too that Rev. Vanden Huevel said NL2k threatens the Reformed “world and life view”. Given your unapologetic campaign against Reformed “world and life view”, you should be in happy agreement with Rev. Vanden Huevel instead of whining about it. Also, to borrow your metaphor, Vanden Huevel simply pointed out the R2k grenade tossed into the tent and he’d like people to notice before it blows up.

    Good point though about slavery. What’s next, Nazism and the German Lutheran church?

    But before you think you have scored a point, why don’t you explain for the readers here where the Bible condemns any kind of slavery. Maybe you could also explain why Scripture refers to Christians as chattel slaves — that is, slave who have been bought with a price.

    So are you saying the Bible’s silence in terms of explicit condemnation, plus the positive spiritual imagery of Christians as chattel slaves, makes the South’s chattel slavery Biblically defensible?

    If so, should the southern churches have been vocally opposed to the “Northern aggression” or just prayed quietly for Lee’s success?

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69. Mark, so is VanDenHeuvel saying that world-and-life view is of the essence of faith? I’m confused about how destructive you think 2k is. You’re speaking dualistically.

    And while you’re thinking about slavery, maybe you should consider Kuyperianism and apartheid.

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70. Darryl, Rev. Vanden Huevel’s letter did not say it was the “essence of the faith. I suppose you could ask him for clarification yourself. As for my measuring the level of potential destruction, that is hard to gauge at this stage in history. It certainly has lots of potential, given the number of theological areas it touches on. My hope though is since sober minds are now alert to it, that it should not cause widespread destruction, and in the near future R2k will become a curious museum piece along with other passing theological novelties.

    So am I correct that you think the South’s chattel slavery is Biblically defensible? And if so, what should the southern churches have said during the war, if anything?

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71. MVDM:

    Should the church have condemned slavery as practiced in the 19th Century American South? As you know, that was hotly debated at the time in the Presbyterian Church, North and South. Machen, a SOTC advocate, argued that the church has no business taking a position on a political issue about which the Scriptures are silent (e.g., prohibition). As a 2K advocate, I agree with him. So it seems to me the issue is whether the Scriptures are silent on slavery. Charles Hodge, the Northern Presbyterian, initially argued that slavery (of the 19th Century American variety) was not in itself a sin, but by 1846, before the Civil War, had changed his mind and was convinced that slavery as practiced in the South was morally wrong in light of Scripture. In The Princeton Review (April 1846), he wrote:

    “Slavery is a heinous crime; it degrades human beings into things; it forbids marriages; it destroys domestic relations; it separates parents and children, husbands and wives; it legalizes what God forbids, and forbids what God enjoins; it keeps its victims in ignorance even of the gospel; it denies labor its wages, subject the persons, the virtue, and the happiness of many to the caprice of one; it involves the violation of all social rights and duties, and therefore is the greatest of social crimes. It is as much as any man’s character for sense, honesty or religion is worth, to insist that a distinction must here be made; that we must discriminate between slavery and its separable adjuncts; between the relationship itself and the abuse of it; between the possession of power and the unjust exercise of it. Let any man in some portions of our country, in England, in Scotland, or Ireland, attempt to make such distinctions, and see with what an outburst of indignation he will be overwhelmed. It is just so in the present case.”

    I believe a strong biblical case can be made against slavery of the 19th Century American South, and that therefore the church may and should have condemned the practice of it notwithstanding that it was a political issue. In my opinion, Hodge erred by not condemning slavery sooner, and erred in making a tepid condemntation of it later. Dr. Hart can speak for himself, but I believe he’s on record taking a different position. Most 2K proponents whom I know, however (as WSC), take the view that Scripture would condemn 19th century American slavery and that the church would be correct to condemn the practice. Not all 2K advocates apply the doctrine in the same way.

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72. Mark, since Vanden Heuvel talked about the “survival” or Reformed Christianity depending on the defeat of 2k, I’d say the essence of the faith is in view. He could have lowered the stakes and talked about something to monitor. But with the language of survival, we have entered the realm of something basic to life.

    I’ll answer about slavery if you either tell me where the Bible condemns slavery or defend apartheid on Christian world-and-life-view grounds.

    Is this the way you argue in court?

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73. CVD,

    I do not think of slavery as a political or social good.

    I do not think that Israelites or Christians owning slaves was a good way of ordering society or employing labor.

    But I don’t think the Bible condemns slavery. And what is particularly striking is that Paul and Jesus did not condemn slavery.

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74. I’ll answer about slavery if you either tell me where the Bible condemns slavery or defend apartheid on Christian world-and-life-view grounds.

    Is this the way you argue in court?

    Yes, that is the way it normally goes. I ask a question. The witness answers. The witness is not permitted to pose questions back to me as a condition of answering my question. If someone behaved in court the way you do here, he’d be enjoying three squares of baloney sandwiches by now.

    But I see you have supplied the answer in response to CVD. {seems you play favorites in deciding which Dutch lawyer you’ll answer…..hmmm}. So you think the Bible does not condemn slavery, even though you think it is not a social good. Curious as by what standard you define it “not good”.

    Ok, my answers to your questions: Yes, the Bible condemns the ethic of chattel slavery as it was practiced in our history. And no, I would not defend apartheid on Christian world/life grounds, although I’d be interested to hear if you might think Biblical worldview thinking was responsible for apartheid. Or perhaps you just think Dutch folk are bad news?

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75. Steve Zrimec,

    Machen wasn’t being Kuyperian. He was being Calvinian, who was being Augustinian, who was being Pauline.

    I get along fine with several 2Kers and have no “antagonism” against 2kers for simply being 2k, that’s slander. (funny how it’s a big unified group when it suits you, but when I point out you part ways with several 2Kers, you point out that part of being 2k is allowing disagreement).

    Of course, it is also slander to assert that any disagreement I have with your own idiosyncratic brand of 2k is because it isn’t Paul Manata. I view myself as standing within a braoder tradition, and I view you as departing from it at several key junctures. Can’t it be that I find your arguments lacking? Or is it just your sophistry that needs to make everything personal. If you turn everything personal, then you don’t actually have to argue and use logic, you can just emote and get emoted at. Sorry, Zrim, not playing your games anymore. Why aren’t you getting this?

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76. Mark, worldviewers practiced apartheid. Spirituality of the churches practiced slavery. You brought up slavery either to demean spirituality of the church or to show its unwholesome effects. Apartheid does the very same for Dutch Calvinist worldviewers.

    I thought you guys were supposed to be smart.

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77. Darryl,

    Of course you’re the sharpest knife in the drawer in your mind, but let me spell it out slowly so you can follow.

    SOTC/slavery was raised to ask your belief on whether chattel slavery was Biblically defensible and whether the church could speak to it. You confirmed your agreement with folk who thought chattel slavery is not condemned by the Bible and that the church should not have spoken to the issue. A theological construct {SOTC} was historically used {erroneously, I might add} for a practice {SOS: Silence On Slavery}.

    You haven’t shown me yet where Apartheid folk appealed to their theological construct {Reformed Worldview} for their practice {Apartheid}.

    And even assuming that were the historical case, you would find me in current day disagreement with their misapplication of it.

    Which is unlike your current day agreement with church Silence on Slavery{SOS} arising from Spirituality of the Church {SOTC}.

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78. Paul, I suppose it’s true to say that mine is a narrower 2k than your broader 2k. But you’re also the only one I know who has ever suggested that my articulation “departs from it at several key junctures.” I have different views about how to go about living in the civil realm that seem to diverge here and there from fellow 2kers. You seem to think this means I “depart from 2k at several key junctures,” when all it really means is that I’m with Hunter in his scathing analysis of “the turn to politics” as a way of engaging our neighbors. I’m understand you don’t like that assessment of civil engagement, but I fail to see how that means I “depart from 2k at several key junctures.” I also understand that you are quite unsatisfied with me opposing someone’s politics in a voting booth instead of through the communion table, but again, how this means I “depart from 2k at several key junctures” remains a mystery to me.

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79. Mark, a clarifying question: would it have been enough for a southern Presbyterian to have preached against the evils of chattel slavery, or do you see an imperative to specifically address the concrete situation of that time? A similar question today would be whether it is sufficient to preach against abortion or whether the preacher must specifically address concrete legislation, elections, etc.

    Regarding knives in the drawer I don’t claim to be any more than a butter knife.

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80. But Mark, we’ve already established that you disagree with Kuyper on Article 36 of the Belgic Confession. You think the Bible should tell the magistrate what to do. The Bible says that idolatry should not be tolerated. So you are in a quandry. Either you agree with Kuyper who believed the magistrate should not punish idolatry. Or you agree with the original Belgic.

    Either way, you are as much implicated in the disagreements or agreements with parts of the Reformed tradition as I am. So when are you going to let me into your Reformed club? Your reasons for inclusion sure look arbitrary — not supporting Dutch Christian schools? Sheesh.

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81. Darryl, come now, you’ve been told repeatedly {about 6x by my count} that I *agree* with Kuyper on the *revised* Belgic. It is you who disagree with Belgic 36 even in its revised form. Is this how you like teaching history, making it say whatever you want it to say? I know you and Van Drunen could take your puppet Calvin ventroliquist act on the road, but I don’t think you should try propping me up on your lap.

    Nonetheless, I’d love to have you come into the Reformed club. There you might enjoy seeing the necessity of Christian education arising from those Reformed convictions. You will come to see many, many other beautiful principles, such as the normative standards of God’s Word on all men, the covenant of grace not admixed with the covenant of works, etc. etc.

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82. Zrim, I said you departed from “the broader [Christian] tradition” not “2k.” However, if we want to wax “2k,” surely you note that 2k is very old and that your view parts with versions of 2k at several key junctures (read your O’ Donovan, Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present, as well as From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought 100-1625).

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83. Michael, it would suffice to say that the church can preach against the evil in the civil realm {eg. chattel slavery or abortion today} but I’d leave the specificity of how much/what is said in a concrete situation to the Biblical wisdom of the minsters/elders.

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84. Paul, yes 2k is as old as Romans 13 and Daniel. But maybe what you mean to say is that there is a 2k that is borne of Constantine and then there is a 2k borne of the post-Constantinian era. The latter necessarily departs from the former. You act as if that’s a problem.

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85. I ask, Mark, because it seems to me that is the line between “yea” and “nay” on the sprituality of the church – not whether to condemn moral evil but whether to give specific application of that condemnation to pending political issues. It’s a seemingly small distinction but it has extensive repercussions on the church and its members.

    So, then, you have no position on the spirituality of the church?

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86. Mark, this is more an observation (with perhaps some latent commentary), but you press about what are two issues that have very real civil or political manifestations. That is to say, you wonder if the church should maintain opposition to certain evils that at one point or another in history have enjoyed civil legalization, slavery and abortion. But I find it interesting that nobody really ever asks whether the church should do the same against other moral evils she doesn’t tolerate but are also legalized, like fornication, adultery and divorce.

    For whatever reason, fornication and divorce don’t have the third rail effect that slavery and abortion do, and I can’t help but wonder if that is why they are never employed by you guys. It almost begins to look like the point is as much to discredit 2k-SOTC as it is to appeal to those things which get the blood boiling in the modern psyche, or to appeal to things the modern psyche deems as socially and politically relevant. Some might say that is an instance of the world setting the church’s agenda.

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87. Zrim, Mark can answer for himself, but in the past, as you know, I have raised the issues of Christians publicly opposing slavery and abortion not to discredit 2K/SOTC, but because as a law professor I have the mental habit of raising hypotheticals to test the limits/boundaries of any doctrine. Applying a principle to “third rail” issues is a time-tested way to test the theory, to expose weaknesses in the theory, and even to force others, and even ourselves, to think precisley and clearly about a position. If a general proposition remains general, we can remain ignorant of its infirmities.

    Applying 2K to issues like slavery and Nazism concentrates the mind wonderfully.

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88. True, CVD, hypotheticals are helpful to find the outer limits of theory. But, at the same time – as you know – “hard cases make bad law.”

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89. Michael, I think it’s more often the case that hard cases improve the law. One thing is sure. Without testing the limits against the extremes, it’s too easy to hide behind vague palaver.

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90. Michael, it depends on how one defines “SOTC”. If that means the church uses spiritual means vs. wielding the sword, then I concur with it. If it means the church must remain mute on everything in the civil realm as R2k argues, then no, I don’t concur. As to applying those spiritual means to concrete political issues, I believe a proper understanding of SOTC does not preclude such application, and in clearly egregious cases, would even compel the church to speak to it.

    Zrim, those egregious issues are the ones that highlight the divide between the Reformed and R2k. As for issues of fornication and divorce, I agree that they don’t have the same third rail effect, which is to our shame, but R2k is unwilling to prescribe any Biblical remedy for it.

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91. CVD, I am going to make every effort to find an opportunity to say “vague palaver” this month. It’s an expression that’s too good to waste.

    For the sake of others who are not familiar with “hard cases make bad law,” the idea is that a ruling may be made based on the heart-tugging (or otherwise idiosyncratically compelling) nature of a particular case, but then the basic law-residue of the case really doesn’t work well when applied to garden-variety cases. An example might be the question of preaching against the Nazi government, in which the moral evils of that time seem to beg for specific rebuke, but, arguably, that case does not serve well as an ongoing model for the church.

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92. Zrim, no; and please pay closer attention:

    * You said I said you parted ways with 2k.

    * I corrected your missreading.

    * I then said that your misreading would be true too insofar as it was ambiguous (i.e., not distincguishing between models of 2k).

    * You then came back and acted as if I had been trying to say that your departing with 2k was a problem when (a) that’s not what I originally said, and (b) my claim was a descriptive one rather than a normative one.

    Can you you see one reason I’ve cut off rational discourse with you (note, not all discourse, we can talk about the weather or baseball)? Not only do you deny the rules parties to rational discussion tacitly agree to follow, you have a hard time grasping the points your interlocutors make (causing endless unnecessary debate), and you frequently manufacture “points” your interlocutor made and then “refute” them, no matter if the interlocutor never made the point.

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93. CVD, it seems to me that there can be various reasons for raising hypotheticals. Certainly one is to test theories, etc. as you suggest. But it seems also possible there can be others, as I suggest. And I’m suggesting that one danger is that we can fall into the ditch of political relevancy as the world defines it.

    Mark, so SOTC means that the church cannot wield a physical sword but should wield a metaphysical sword?

    And the church should also be known for speaking to the questions of divorce and fornication as political issues? So the answer is that, to the extent that those issues are not ones that add to even more civil polarization and divisiveness, the church should feel ashamed that she hasn’t added more fuel to the fire? How is that pursuing the peace of the city? But 2k doesn’t think it’s the church’s calling to prescribe remedies to political ills, rather to take care of her own.

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94. Here’s a good antidote from B.B. Warfield from a piece describing Calvinism. He’s got Calvin as a neo-Calvinist:

    I believe that disciples of Jesus Christ are called to be His witnesses in the world, proclaiming the justice and mercy of God to all men, and making evident His wise and righteous rule over every aspect of human culture. Therefore it is my obligation to search the Scriptures with all the skills God has allotted me, and to seek, within the bounds of my calling, to apply my understanding of His Word to the entire created order, and to all the outworkings of His most wise providence. And I believe that it is my privilege and duty to pursue a vocation in this world that employs my gifts to the glory of God, and for the good of my family, my congregation, my community, and, as God brings opportunity, to any who may be in need.

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95. So Zrim and DGH:

    As you know, the Fugitive Slave Laws (1793, 1850) required that citizens return runaway slaves, and liable if they did not.

    Suppose a pastor were to tell his congregation that the Fugitive Slave Laws contradicted Deut 23: If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

    Would that pastor be violating the “SOTC”?

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96. Mark, why do you think I disagree with the revised Belgic Confession. It says: “And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society
    that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God’s law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship. They should do this while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them, with the means belonging to them. They should do it in order that the Word of God may have free course; the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress; and every anti-Christian power may be resisted.”

    You are the one who insists that the magistrate should uphold both tables of the law. The Bible gave magistrates in the OT the power to execute idolaters and adulterers. The Belgic Conf. does not give the magistrate that power. So the Belgic does not give the magistrate the power to uphold both tables. You are not confessional.

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97. Zrim, yes, the church wields the spiritual sword of the Word of God. Political issues have moral dimensions that can be addressed by that Word. That Word will always cause strife with those unwilling to hear it, but that doesn’t change the truth of it, or our duty to speak it.

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98. Look out, Mark. Let the historians do the history. When we assign Calvin, we read Calvin, who wrote something that you don’t actually care to hear, that Christians should mind their own business and be content with the part of creation where God has placed them — not to try to take the world captive:

    The last thing to be observed is, that the Lord enjoins every one of us, in all the actions of life, to have respect to our own calling. He knows the boiling restlessness of the human mind, the fickleness with which it is borne hither and thither, its eagerness to hold opposites at one time in its grasp, its ambition. Therefore, lest all things should be thrown into confusion by our folly and rashness, he has assigned distinct duties to each in the different modes of life. And that no one may presume to overstep his proper limits, he has distinguished the different modes of life by the name of callings. Every man’s mode of life, therefore, is a kind of station assigned him by the Lord, that he may not be always driven about at random. So necessary is this distinction, that all our actions are thereby estimated in his sight, and often in a very different way from that in which human reason or philosophy would estimate them. There is no more illustrious deed even among philosophers than to free one’s country from tyranny, and yet the private individual who stabs the tyrant is openly condemned by the voice of the heavenly Judge. But I am unwilling to dwell on particular examples; it is enough to know that in every thing the call of the Lord is the foundation and beginning of right action. He who does not act with reference to it will never, in the discharge of duty, keep the right path. He will sometimes be able, perhaps, to give the semblance of something laudable, but whatever it may be in the sight of man, it will be rejected before the throne of God; and besides, there will be no harmony in the different parts of his life. Hence, he only who directs his life to this end will have it properly framed; because free from the impulse of rashness, he will not attempt more than his calling justifies, knowing that it is unlawful to overleap the prescribed bounds. He who is obscure will not decline to cultivate a private life, that he may not desert the post at which God has placed him. Again, in all our cares, toils, annoyances, and other burdens, it will be no small alleviation to know that all these are under the superintendence of God. The magistrate will more willingly perform his office, and the father of a family confine himself to his proper sphere. Every one in his particular mode of life will, without repining, suffer its inconveniences, cares, uneasiness, and anxiety, persuaded that God has laid on the burden. This, too, will afford admirable consolation, that in following your proper calling, no work will be so mean and sordid as not to have a splendour and value in the eye of God. (Institutes, 3.10.6)

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99. Jeff, the pastor would not be doing his best exegesis. He would need to read Philemon.

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100. Au contraire, Darryl, I love to read Calvin. Your Calvin quote fits just fine with the Warfield quote. But you don’t like reading that same Calvin who wrote in his commentary on Daniel 6 on the command found in 1 Peter 2:17: “Fear God, honor the king”:

     The two commands are connected together, and cannot be separated from one another. The fear of God ought to precede, that kings may obtain their authority. For if any one begins his reverence of an earthly prince by rejecting that of God, he will act preposterously, since this is a complete perversion of the order of nature. Then let God be feared in the first place and earthly princes will obtain their authority, if only God shines forth, as I have already said. Daniel, therefore, here defends himself with justice, since he had not committed any crime against the king; for he was compelled to obey the command of God, and he neglected what the king had ordered in opposition to it. For earthly princes lay aside all their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy of being reckoned in the number of mankind. We ought rather utterly to defy than to obey them whenever they are so restive and wish to spoil God of his rights, and, as it were, to seize upon his throne and draw him down from heaven.

     You really can’t pick and choose to re-fashion Calvin to fit your R2k imagination. Do you know any good historians that could help you out with this?

     Also, you don’t agree with revised Belgic 36 {or Calvin} because you don’t believe the Word of God sets normative limits on the magistrate.

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101. Mark, you really think bringing up Daniel works in your favor? Daniel submitted to and ran the government for a pagan state. Daniel is the poster boy for 2k. Thanks for helping the cause. Subscription information to the NTJ is available at this website.

     As for the word of God setting normative limits on the magistrate, so why doesn’t the magistrate need to stone adulterers or execute idolaters. The word of God requires this, Mark. And YOU serve a pagan government — Indiana — through the vows you’ve taken to be an attorney in the state.

     BTW, you still haven’t gotten Calvin’s point, that the Christian is not called to conquer the world.

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102. Good quote, Mark! Proverbs 18:17, “the first one seems right ’til the other comes and examines him.” As for DGH’s “let the historians do the history” that may sound like Machen’s “specialization” idea but it sure does not go along with his criticism of the tyranny of the experts. I hope you’re not saying we all need Ph.D.’s in history to understand it.

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103. Daniel is the poster boy for 2k

     I know– which is why Calvin’s commentary is such a sweet and concise corrective to R2k’s mash of him.

     The revised Belgic removed the requirement of “suppression of idolatry”, Darryl, and yet retained the Word’s normative limits on the magistrate. You say you agree with the revised Belgic. So what’s your problem?

     Yes, I do understand Calvin’s point about not conquering the world. You miss Calvin, Warfield, and Belgic’s point about our use of scripture in making God’s justice and rule evident to all men in every endeavor. You confuse this with “conquering”. We are ambassadors for the already ruling King. This side of the eschaton lesser earthly magistrates may issue ungodly edicts, but like Daniel, we look to, follow, and testify of the express commands of our King.

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104. As you know, the Fugitive Slave Laws (1793, 1850) required that citizens return runaway slaves, and liable if they did not. Suppose a pastor were to tell his congregation that the Fugitive Slave Laws contradicted Deut 23: If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

     Jeff, not only Philemon, but how about Romans 13? How does a pastor’s call to disobey the magistrate’s law square with Paul’s call to obey him? But your problem might be applying a theocratic text to an exilic era.

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105. …the church wields the spiritual sword of the Word of God. Political issues have moral dimensions that can be addressed by that Word.

     Mark, I’ve always agreed that not only do political issues have moral dimensions but also that they can be addressed by Scripture.

     The rub, however, is understanding that there are two ways of being political, otherworldly and this-worldly, a distinction I don’t see your side of the table ever really make. That is, until the brand of this-worldly politics you oppose are championed by the church—then all of a sudden SOTC is invoked to oppose political liberalism in the church (Falwell did this in 50s over civil rights, then the 60s came and out went SOTC and in came the Moral Majority). I say it should be also invoked to oppose political conservatism in the church. This is a way of being political in an otherworldly way, which is to say opposing a political this-worldliness of whatever stripe in the church. This is why you and Jim Wallis hate 2k more than each other, because you both have a this-worldly understanding of being political, even if you apply it in different ways. Your shared enemy is old school 2k-SOTC

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106. DGH, I’m aware that the exegesis can be contested, but that wasn’t my question. Is the said pastor violating the SOTC proper, or is he merely incorrect in his exegesis? (if incorrect he is, which is debatable).

     Zrim: Rom 13 still allows Christians to disobey laws contrary to Scripture. That’s the issue under consideration.

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107. Zrim, since you say that political issues CAN be addressed by Scripture, then in all seriousness, this is a very happy day in my book. It is the denial of this simple principial {yes, Darryl, that’s a word} point that has been and continues to be the focal point of my criticism of R2k.

     Now, when you move on to the *application* of that principal, e.g., now let’s compare Falwell vs. Wallis, then I’ll also happily engage that discussion and I may likely agree with you on their various *mis*applications of the Word to political/moral issues.

     Blessings, Zrim.

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108. Rom 13 still allows Christians to disobey laws contrary to Scripture. That’s the issue under consideration.

     Jeff, slaveholding isn’t contrary to Scripture. It might violate our shared Yankee sensibilities, but that’s not the same as biblical law, which I suspect is the confusion often at root in these debates.

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109. …since you say that political issues CAN be addressed by Scripture, then in all seriousness, this is a very happy day in my book. It is the denial of this simple principial {yes, Darryl, that’s a word} point that has been and continues to be the focal point of my criticism of R2k.

     Mark, not to be a grouch, but don’t celebrate just yet. What I mean to say is that a moral issue that has found its way into political consideration hasn’t found its way out of a moral consideration. It can be addressed morally, but not politically. So if the state legalizes no-fault divorce the church doesn’t tell the state it’s wrong, rather she continues to exhort her members on the virtues and duties of marriage. When it legalizes abortion, she doesn’t tell the state it’s wrong, she continues to exhort her members in virtuous sexuality and against that which tends to beget certain situations (have you considered how the NT is more concerned with the sexual ethics of believers than with proclivities toward murder?).

     Still happy?

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110. Zrim, you may have missed the original question in the flurry. The question was not whether slavery is contrary to Scripture, but whether a pastor was violating SOTC by preaching that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was contrary to Scripture.

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111. Mark, not to be a grouch, but don’t celebrate just yet. What I mean to say is that a moral issue that has found its way into political consideration hasn’t found its way out of a moral consideration. It can be addressed morally, but not politically. So if the state legalizes no-fault divorce the church doesn’t tell the state it’s wrong, rather she continues to exhort her members on the virtues and duties of marriage. When it legalizes abortion, she doesn’t tell the state it’s wrong, she continues to exhort her members in virtuous sexuality and against that which tends to beget certain situations (have you considered how the NT is more concerned with the sexual ethics of believers than with proclivities toward murder?).

     Still happy?

     Well, not as much. But let me ask: when the church exhorts its members on the virtues of marriage, may it address–to the members– the evil of the no-fault divorce statute as a counter-example? IOW, does the fact that the moral issue {ethics of marriage}, having found manifestation in the political realm {no fault divorce law}, preclude the church from mentioning it?

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112. Jeff, I didn’t miss it; I do think the question of slavery is in the mix though. But the scenario raises a different question for me than yours. If a pastor is saying that the state calls for runaway slaves to be returned and the Bible says the opposite then the obvious and more interesting question isn’t whether the pastor is violating the SOTC, but rather what should I do if I find runaway slaves in my shed? And what I am saying is that we live in the new covenant and exilic era, not the old and theocratic. And the corresponding text, Romans 13, says to obey my magistrate. And Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon. I guess I wonder why a pastor is pointing me back to an old covenant theocratic law instead of new covenant exilic one.

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113. Mark, strictly speaking, no. But my point in all this isn’t to quibble about what exactly the church may or mayn’t say in relation to the happenings in the wider world. My point is to be much more cautious about the church getting led around by the cares and headlines of this world. Maybe you think this is a form of escapism, but the church is a sanctuary from the world. If every time the world does something contrary to biblical morality the church thinks she needs to address it with an equal if not greater volume then what happens to the notion of sanctuary? And what happens to the idea of living quiet and peaceable lives if the church thinks she’s the world’s moral and political police?

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114. All: From my experience the majority of 2K advocates who are scholars would say the church qua church (e.g., pastor from the pulpit) may/must condemn a state law that mandates or encoruages an egregious and flagrant violation of God’s law. If the church could preach-teach against persons returning slaves to slave holders (e.g., under the general equity of OT law) before passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the church is not under a gag order to remain mute after passage. I know that Zrim and Dr. Hart disagree as they would, as I understand their position, impose a blanket, across-the-board gag order on the church qua church to speak to any issue of government law or policy under any and all circumstances. But I have found most mainstream 2K proponents to take a different view (putting aside lay persons, who are often quite confused about 2K.)

     Zrim, Romans 13 has to be read with the rest of scripture, and scripture admits of many exceptions to the general rule laid down in Rom. 13.

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115. Zrim: I guess I wonder why a pastor is pointing me back to an old covenant theocratic law instead of new covenant exilic one.

     That’s a worthwhile question, and it’s next on the list here. But first an answer, if you please! Whether you disagree with the pastor’s exegesis or not, is he violating your understanding of SOTC to argue in the form

     The state commands X
     The Bible forbids X
     Therefore, you should not do X

     ?

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116. CVD, I know you aren’t convinced when I plead it, but my point isn’t to impose gag orders. Rather, it’s to ask where is there any biblical warrant for the church qua church to condemn state law? I do think of it in terms of the prescriptive and regulative rule, as in where God is silent so are we. So I’d rather say, instead of imposing gag orders, it seems to me that the onus is on the one who wants to pipe up and not the one who wants to remain silent. And that seems quite a burden, since whatever else it includes it seems to include the burden of showing how this law over here is an egregious and flagrant violation of God’s law, but that one over there not so much.

     Re Romans 13, yes, I agree that there are exceptions to it. When the magistrate compels us to remain silent about the gospel or when he demands we directly break the clear moral laws of God, we are to disobey.

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117. Jeff, I’m not trying to circumvent you. But I’m not sure that the exegesis and the question about the SOTC are mutually exclusive, so I’m not sure the question is as simple as you suggest. IOW, I’m not sure it’s a very good question, sorry. I will say that what the state is commanding doesn’t seem to be at odds with the moral law of God. I’d also say that since the church is directly addressing her own and not the state it seems unlikely that it is a violation of the SOTC. Then again, when I think of denominational position papers on things like abortion I tend to think these are creative ways to address worldly concerns under the guise of pastoral care.

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118. when he demands we directly break the clear moral laws of God, we are to disobey.

     I’m getting happier. This sounds harmonious with revised Belgic 36’s confession of the Word’s normative limits on the magistrate’s actions.

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119. Zrim: But I’m not sure that the exegesis and the question about the SOTC are mutually exclusive, so I’m not sure the question is as simple as you suggest.

     I think what you’re suggesting is that if the exegesis is sound, then No; if the exegesis is unsound, then Yes. Is that fair?

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120. All: From my experience the majority of 2K advocates who are scholars would say the church qua church (e.g., pastor from the pulpit) may/must condemn a state law that mandates or encoruages an egregious and flagrant violation of God’s law.

     CVD, really? An elaboration on this would be helpful, because if we are using the same meaning of terms, my reading of the current state of the discussion is contrary to this.

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121. Mark, the blososphere is perhaps not the most reliable index of scholarly 2K attitudes as most seminary professors and pastors who have sympathies for 2K/SOTC do not blog, at least not on 2K/SOTC. My take comes from lectures from and conversations with seminary professors primarily, and pastors secondarily. Nearly all do not proscribe on 2K grounds individual
     Christians in their capacity as private citizens engaging in political or cultural enagement of the proper kind. In addition, a majority with whom I’ve discussed it or heard from posit circumstances where official church statements addressing public policy are appropriate. Admittedly the circumstances are exceptional.

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122. “Christians in their capacity as private citizens engaging in political or cultural engagement of the proper kind. In addition, a majority with whom I’ve discussed it or heard from posit circumstances where official church statements addressing public policy are appropriate. Admittedly the circumstances are exceptional.”

     It seems to me that there is a single principle that unites the reluctance to proscribe personal engagement and the reluctance to make political pulpit pronouncements: liberty of conscience. Or, to state the same thing from a different perspective, an institution speaking on behalf of God must take care to stay within his bounds. The nature of social and political involvement is usually sufficiently complex that it resists obvious application of the scriptures.

     I am not trying to say “peace, peace” where there is none, but if the debate here is between rarely intervening in these circumstances and never intervening, perhaps the difference between the disputants here is not as extensive as the rhetoric makes it seem. I tend toward “rare, very rare,” (spoken like “Bond, James Bond.”)

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123. Michael,
     Yes of course, liberty of conscience. The pulpit should be primarily about Law and Gospel. But my 2K convictions are quite comfortable with preaching/teaching in the church where the intersection of God’s law and public policy is a complete overlap. For now that’s the extraordinary case. But as our government grows more aggresively secular, and applies non-discrimination laws against Christians and churches, the exceptional may become the commonplace. That prospect is not remote.

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124. CVD, thanks for the elaboration. What I believe you are describing is the difference between 2k and R2k. I suspect that in the blogosphere is where see the more Radical Two Kingdom fellows advancing the argument to silence any church address of God’s Word to the magistrate or other cultural institutions. The major exception is non-blogger Van Drunen, who in my view is probably one of the more dangerously extreme R2k-er on the so-called scholarly scene.

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125. Zrim, the reason that I like my question is that it gets at this issue. Earlier, I asked whether any political issue could ever be so one-sided, Scripturally, that the Christian would not really have any liberty.

     Todd (who is a sensible fellow) said, No, political issues are always complicated enough so that there is liberty. So he seemed to be using SOTC as a kind of “shortcut” to the Good-and-Necessary Consequence issue. The argument seemed to be paraphrasable as “IF it is a political issue, THEN there will never be a Good-and-Necessary Consequence that can be drawn from Scripture that restricts our choices.”

     I was surprised; it seemed to me that there might be a few political issues which were Scriptural no-brainers. I think the fugitive slave law is probably one of those. Some of the apartheid laws might qualify also (the Group Areas Act of 1950, for example).

     So I was pushing to find out whether this SOTC-as-shortcut is legitimate, or whether it is overly optimistic.

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126. I have to disagree, CVD: the prospect of commonplace complete overlap is very remote. In situations where the overlap seems extensive, the substantive evil can be preached against without application to political specifics. Like, if you can imagine no-fault divorce to be a matter of the ballot, divorce could certainly be a topic of a sermon. Those who think the courts should not be burdened with knock-down, drag-out smear wars to determine who is at fault could then consider those factors along with preaching on the morality of divorce and then make their ballot decisions free from ecclesiastical compulsion, i.e., with liberty of conscience.

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127. CVanDyke says:
     December 3, 2010 at 1:04 pm

     [snip]

     That’s right, CVD. Even Michael Horton says as much in Christless Christianity re: the church qua church and slavery.

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128. About the use of Deut 23: The issue concerning our hypothetical preacher centers around whether the command not to return runaway slaves is properly considered a specific law to Israel, which expired with Israel, or a part of the general equity of the OT law.

     There are several factors in favor of the latter.

     First: the slave laws in the OT were commonly used to think about how slaves ought to be treated, and were in fact used in defense of slavery as an institution. It is instructive to consider Dabney’s Defense of Virginia and Hodge’s The Bible Question of Slavery (here, pp. 841 ff.) Both of these works make clear and extensive use of the OT in defense of slavery, and do not consider such use to be a violation of SOTC. Likewise, the provision against man-stealing in the OT law was considered by all hands to be normative, and was the reason for the outlaw of the slave trade in both the US and England.

     Second, there is no evidence of a new tack being taken in the New Testament. DGH, you mentioned Philemon without observing a basic fact: Paul returns Onesimus no longer as a slave (v. 16). So it’s hardly to the point to suggest that Philemon proves something about a change in OT law.

     Third, even if we say that specific OT law concerning slavery has expired, the general equity of not mistreating one’s slaves surely continues on. And the fact is that the Fugitive Slave Law required US citizens to return slaves to a situation where they would likely have been mistreated.

     So while I admit that our pastor’s exegesis is not incontrovertible, I think the weight of evidence lies heavily on his side.

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129. Jeff wrote “Todd (who is a sensible fellow) said, No, political issues are always complicated enough so that there is liberty. So he seemed to be using SOTC as a kind of “shortcut” to the Good-and-Necessary Consequence issue. The argument seemed to be paraphrasable as “IF it is a political issue, THEN there will never be a Good-and-Necessary Consequence that can be drawn from Scripture that restricts our choices. I was surprised; it seemed to me that there might be a few political issues which were Scriptural no-brainers.”

     Jeff, I appreciate the compliment – Internet compliments are like good golf scores – rare. One could argue that any ruler desiring to do pure and violent evil does not put it to a vote; he just does it. I don’t recall a tyrant putting his murderous ways up for a vote. If there is a vote, then there is some level of democracy, thus there are always variables that allow for freedom of conscience for believers.

     On the slavery issue, one of the reasons many Christians were not persuaded by those abolitionists calling for immediate emancipation along clear moral, biblical grounds is the widespread belief that the blacks would be so angry there would be chaos and bloodshed across the land in retribution for how they have been treated. The Nat Turner Rebellion didn’t help to assuage those fears. Now, it is a credit to the black slaves that no such uprising occurred after their freedom, but the point is – it was a complicated political issue whether emancipation should be immediate or better dealt with by gradually letting the institution die slowly. Christians held different views and it is only the more radical abolitionists who saw all Christians who did not promote immediate emancipation as sub or anti-Christian.

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130. CVD, I am wondering if you think a legal analogy is helpful. What do you suppose the burden of proof should be on a church before it declares a specific action (or inaction) to be sin? I am thinking that before the church speaks on behalf of God it should be something like “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Then of, course, each element of a sin needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The more elements you have, the more difficult it is to conclude that there is complete overlap between political acts and biblical prohibitions.

     So, in the the hypothetical of a ballot initiative to change a state from fault divorce to no-fault divorce (just go along with this), one would need to establish not only that it is sin to divorce for no reason, but also that it is the role of the state to enforce that morality, that the use of resources toward dealing with the morality does not diminish from more compelling roles of the court (perhaps criminal prosecution), that fault divorce actually does tend towards more biblical divorces, that courts are competent to determine biblical fault, etc. Prove each one beyond a reasonable doubt and you can preach on that ballot initiative. But I don’t think you can do that, and I think that is the case with most political issues.

     If you think this analogy is not helpful, I would be curious to hear why.

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131. Eliza, history is not rocket science. But it often helps to know a few particulars. And if Mark is going to invoke Calvin, why won’t Mark own up to Servetus? I mean, history can teach some very different lessons and it’s usually historians who remind those who invoke it for the purposes of an agenda that they need to do justice to the entire history.

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132. Mark, Daniel fails to meet your man-made ideal of what Christians are called to do. He did not make God’s justice and rule evident to all men in every endeavor. He actually lived and let live with pagans who were practicing religions that never would have been tolerated by OT law. Daniel did draw the line at practices that forced him to worship a god other than the God of Scripture. But you are no Daniel. You want this nation to conform to God’s law. You are not living as an exile in a foreign country. You want this country to conform to the Netherlands (which actually never practiced religious conformity). Go figure.

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133. Jeff, a pastor is called to minister God’s word. Instructing church members in their duties is part and parcel of a minister’s responsibilities. But a minister may misapply Scripture. Applying Scripture to member’s lives is never in violation of SOTC. But because the Bible is silent — I know, contested language — a minister does not have authority to speak to all of life. The issue, as I see it, is not SOTC. The issue is what does the Bible reveal. SOTC follows from that.

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134. Third, even if we say that specific OT law concerning slavery has expired, the general equity of not mistreating one’s slaves surely continues on. And the fact is that the Fugitive Slave Law required US citizens to return slaves to a situation where they would likely have been mistreated.

     Jeff, Deut. 23 also includes laws about not letting the castrated and illegitimately conceived into the assembly. What is the general equity there that should continue on? So I’m just not as convinced that going to Deut. 23, theocratic law, is the way to interact with present day circumstances at all.

     What would satisfy me a little more is if someone would simply admit that we are under new covenant law, which demands obedience to the magistrate, and admit to some real tension in obeying his magistrate who is demanding something that bothers his conscience, instead of reaching back into theocratic law as a way to relieve his tension. For my part, I could conceive of returning a runaway slave (or at least not aiding and abeting him) but not being too happy about it. Isn’t that a measure of a truer obedience, to obey a law you’re not particularly wild about instead of one you adore? Or even admitting that one is defying God by defying his magistrate in this case. As much as I disdain disobedience, even that would be more welcome in its honesty than a method that frankly puts oneself back under the old covenant and theocratic laws.

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135. CVD, is this a gag order (from Machen’s The Responsibility of the church in the New Age)?

     There are certain things which you cannot expect from such a true Christian church. In the first place, you cannot expect from it any cooperation with non-Christian religion or with a non-Christian program of ethical culture. There are those who tell us that the Bible ought to be put into the public schools, and that the public schools should seek to build character by showing the children that honesty is the best policy and that good Americans do not lie nor steal. With such programs a true Christian church will have nothing to do. . . .
     In the second place, you cannot expect from a true Christian church any official pronouncements upon the political or social questions of the day, and you cannot expect cooperation with the state in anything involving the use of force. Important are the functions of the police, and members of the church, either individually or in such special associations as they may choose to form, should aid the police in every lawful way in the exercise of those functions. But the function of the church in its corporate capacity is of an entirely different kind. Its weapons against evil are spiritual, not carnal; and by becoming a political lobby, through the advocacy of political measures whether good or bad, the church is turning aside from its proper mission.

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136. Jeff, where has the American state required X? The State did not require holding slaves. Jesus and Paul did not require holding slaves. The state required returning slaves to their owners? Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon.

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137. But Mark, when you say your reading would question CVD, we have already raised questions about your reading skills.

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138. CVD, on this question of God’s law intersecting with public policy, would you concede that your interests and duties as a lawyer are different from the average worshiper. It strikes me that you want the church to address matters that you may need to address in your calling. But most matters of public policy are far from my everyday experience. In which case, introducing them into worship is a distraction.

     Your point would seem to be analogous to my wanting a pastor to speak on the religious meaning of the election of 1828. Why can’t I simply do that on my own time as a Christian who is called to be a historian.

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139. Mark, on DVD’s danger, please again check your reading skills and consider the yeoman’s service that DVD has performed in standing for the gospel. Worldview is not the gospel.

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140. And if Mark is going to invoke Calvin, why won’t Mark own up to Servetus? I mean, history can teach some very different lessons and it’s usually historians who remind those who invoke it for the purposes of an agenda that they need to do justice to the entire history.

     Darryl, you’ve misplaced your glasses again. I’ve told you Servetus is answered by subscription to revised Belgic 36 on the removal of the magistrate’s coercive suppression of heresy. The question at hand is why you and DVD won’t own up to Calvin’s belief in the normative Word of God in the civil realm, just like the revised Belgic does?

     Agree completely we should look to historians that do justice to the entire history— and don’t use Calvin for an agenda like Van Drunen does.

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141. Mark, I would take issue with your assessment of Dr. VanDrunen. I am in sympathy with his views on 2K and so of course believe he has articulated the biblical position.

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142. Michael, I sincerely wish you were right that the prospect of increasing overlap between biblical norm and public policy were remote. I agree that the church qua church should be about Law and Gospel and sacrament and not ordinarily speak about the political. It should fearlessly proclaim God’s Law, however, even if that proclamation is inimical to public policy (e.g., homosexuality is sinful behavior even if the state policy is otherwise). And ordinarily the church qua church should refrain from commenting on the particular of policy. But there are execeptions where the overlap is complete, in whiche event no Christian conscience could come to another conclusion than to oppose the state law.

     The tide is turning. For example, I have several religious freedom cases on my desk where a school district is requiring a high school student to take a class in which she is required to give the “correct” answers in essays and speeches. Specifically, she is required to affirm that the gay lifestyle is healthy and normal, that gay marriage is a positive social good, and that opposition to either is pathological and “hate speech.” Failure to affirm the “correct” answers results in a failing grade, and failing the class would result in various academic penalties, including, potentially, failure to graduate. She is an honors student bound for Princeton. I’ve had her pastor and elders sign a letter requesting she be exempted from affirming these propositions on the ground that they are contrary to God’s Word to which her conscience is captive. Additionally, the pastor, who will be an one expert witness on the theology of his church, has publicly answered questions in the media decrying the school district’s requirement that Christian students affirm what by conscience they cannot affirm. He is a humble man who is not out to change the secular order, but just speaking out against a state policy that he disagrees with.

     Here is an instance where, IMO, there is a complete overlap between the biblical norm and the public policy. The public policy is not complicated. No Christian conscience could say that this public policy — to require Christians to affirm that what God says is sin is acceptable and normal — is defensible. If a Christian said otherwise, the elders need to have talk with him or her.

     Michael, this is not an exceptional case.

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143. CVD, in addition to Kloosterman’s dissection of Van Drunen, I’d encourage you to read Dr. Cornelis Venema’s piece in the latest Mid America Journal of Theology where in part he examines Van Drunen’s view of the law. Once you’ve read it, I’m not sure how you can reconcile what you wrote to Michael above and yet maintain sympathy with Van Drunen’s R2k. Venema shows that Van Drunen has no stable theological basis to affirm the third use of the law.

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144. Mark, thanks for the recommendation. I will look for Professor Venema’s piece. VanDrunen does not take issue with what I wrote to Mark, nor does Dr. Michael Horton or other
     WSC faculty to my knowledge. Most have no trouble reconciling 2K with the church, in exceptional cases, addressing the particulars of public policy, and none have a problem with individual Christians in their private capacity doing so.

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145. DGH: Jeff, a pastor is called to minister God’s word. Instructing church members in their duties is part and parcel of a minister’s responsibilities. But a minister may misapply Scripture. Applying Scripture to member’s lives is never in violation of SOTC. But because the Bible is silent — I know, contested language — a minister does not have authority to speak to all of life. The issue, as I see it, is not SOTC. The issue is what does the Bible reveal. SOTC follows from that.

     I’m fine with all of this, except for the word “silent”, and the conclusion you draw from it. I would say rather that because Scripture does not give all details concerning life, that the minister does not have the authority to supply details beyond what good and necessary consequence would allow.

     DGH: Jeff, where has the American state required X? The State did not require holding slaves. Jesus and Paul did not require holding slaves. The state required returning slaves to their owners? Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon.

     Sloppy, my friend, on all counts.

     (1) The American state required sending slaves back to their masters.
     (2) No-one is talking about the holding of slaves, but the narrow and sole issue of the Fugitive Slave Laws.
     (3) Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon no longer as a slave. (v. 16). Notice that Paul did not have any obligation to return O. (v. 13), but was returning him for the sake of the relationship with Ph. Notice further that he is making a request of Ph. that he has the right to order him to do (vv. 8-9). What is that request? Many commentators agree that v. 16 encapsulates the request: free Onesimus.

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146. Todd: If there is a vote, then there is some level of democracy, thus there are always variables that allow for freedom of conscience for believers.

     I don’t understand the flow of thought here. For example: In Maryland in 1992 (my first election!), there was a proposition to allow abortion up to the moment of birth. Which proposition passed, I should say, by a 2-1 margin.

     It seems to me that a vote for this proposition is an action that “tends towards the taking of the life of another” (as the WLC puts it) and therefore is not a matter of liberty.

     Granted that this is a rare case, still: How would that fit into your theory?

     Also, please note that I’m not talking about general abolition wrt slavery, but only the narrow issue of the Fugitive Slave Laws.

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147. Zrim: Jeff, Deut. 23 also includes laws about not letting the castrated and illegitimately conceived into the assembly. What is the general equity there that should continue on? So I’m just not as convinced that going to Deut. 23, theocratic law, is the way to interact with present day circumstances at all.

     I can see your point, but it might be a bit anachronistic for these purposes. At the time in question (1850), everybody on both sides seemed to believe that OT law had some bearing on slavery, either in defense or opposition to it. Even Dabney (who, incredibly, cites the curse on Ham and Canaan as a defense of slavery!), and Hodge also, who used the OT law to slice finely between slavery in general and slavery as practiced in the South.

     The idea of completely disallowing consideration of the OT law is a much newer phenomenon, and I’m not sure that the jury has fully returned a verdict on it. It does smack a bit of dispensationalism, no?

     But in any event, listen to Calvin on the matter:

     Wherefore, as I briefly slated before, God inculcates humanity upon His people, lest, by the extradition of fugitive slaves, they should be necessary to the cruelty of others; because their masters would have been their executioners; and, since He forbids the people from ill-treating them, He implies, by these words, that He only so far provides for the safety of these wretched beings, as to allow them to defend their innocence in a court of justice; wherefore I have thought fit to place this law amongst the Supplements of the Sixth Commandment. — Calv Comm Deut 23.16-17.

     We notice the the Fugitive Slave Law forbade the accused slave from receiving a hearing in the court.

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148. DGH, yes, my calling requires me to focus on public policy and legal issues more than the average Christian, but my desire to have Christians address these issues springs only from a desire to see Christians be faithful and helpful, to do good to all, especially but not limited to the household of faith.

     Where I disagree with you and Zrim is that I don’t see scripture calling Christians to be substantially withdrawn from and uninvolved in the civil and political realm as you. IMO a vigorous involvement is entirely compatible with 2k/SOTC and with “pilgrim theology.”

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149. Pingback: Old Life Theological Society » Blog Archive » Suffer, Submit, and Suck It Up

150. DVD, I appreciate your point about your current case and trends you are able to observe. The particular circumstance you mention is a situation in which the Christian is compelled by the state to sin, which is in an entirely different category than the hypothetical I offered.

     And, by the way, if that case is typical of the work you do, thank you for your labors. I neither understand nor have sympathy for any theory that would condemn what you do for your vocation.

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151. Where I disagree with you and Zrim is that I don’t see scripture calling Christians to be substantially withdrawn from and uninvolved in the civil and political realm as you. IMO a vigorous involvement is entirely compatible with 2k/SOTC and with “pilgrim theology.”

     I really wish you could get this right, friend. The difference isn’t between those who withdrawal and those who are involved. The difference is between those who are skeptical of relating to their neighbors politically and legislatively (me) and those who are more optimistic (you). I understand that your vocation is legislative, and I respect that. But when Christian lawyers start telling Christian non-lawyers they should be more optimistic about relating legislatively I get nervous. If you haven’t yet, you might pick up Hunter’s To Change the World and pay particular attention to what he assesses as “the turn to politics”:

     If modern politics is the sphere of leadership, influence, and activity surrounding the state, politicization is the turn toward law and politics—the instrumentality of the state—to find solutions to public problems…Institutions such as popular and higher education, philanthropy, science, the arts, and even the family understand their identity and function according to what the state does or does not permit. Groups (women, minorities, gays, Christians, etc.) have validity not only but increasingly through the rights conferred by the state. Issues gain legitimacy only when recognized by law and public policy. It is only logical, then, that problems affecting the society are seen increasingly, if not primarily through the prism of the state; that is, in terms of how law, policy, and politics can solve them.

     In short, the state has increasingly become the incarnation of the public weal. Its laws, policies, and procedures have become the predominant framework by which we understand collective life, its members, its leading organizations, its problems, and its issues.

     …Now, of course, the commonly accepted view is that everyone must be involved because the primary means to get anything done in society or to effect change in any area of social life, is through law and politics…

     …In this turn, we have come to ascribe impossibly high expectations to politics. As I noted before, we look to politics as the leading way to address our common problems and implicitly hope that politics, broadly defined, will actually solve those problems.

     …When one boils it all down, politicization means that the final arbiter within most social life is the coercive power of the state. When politicization is oriented toward furthering the specific interests of the group without an appeal to the common weal, when its means of mobilizing the uncommitted is through fear, and when the pursuit of agendas depends more on the vilification of opponents than on the affirmation of higher ideals, power is stripped to its most elemental forms…The politicization of everything is an indirect measure of the loss of a common culture and, in turn, the competition among factions to dominate others on their own terms. Our times amply demonstrate that it is far easier to force one’s will on others through legal and political means or to threaten to do so than it is to persuade them or negotiate compromise with them.

     …Slowly, often imperceptivity, there has been a turn toward law and politics as the primary way of understanding all aspects of collective life. Nothing catalyzed this tendency more than the Depression-era New Deal. The tendency now effects conservatives every bit as much as it does liberals; those who favor small government as it does those who want larger government. It has effected everyone’s language, imagination, and expectations, not least conservatives who, like others, look to law, policy, and political process as the structure and resolution to their concerns and grievances; who look to politics as the framework of self-validation and self-understanding and ideology as the framework for understanding others.

     …I don’t want to overstate the case—clearly what I describe here are not fully and comprehensively established realities; all is not power and ressentiment [resentment that involves a combination of anger, envy, hate, rage, and revenge as the motive of political action]. What makes it more complicated (and interesting) is that there are genuinely public-spirited people on all sides of all issues. Indeed most people are not resentment-filled and power hungry. But consistent with my view all along is the fact that the motives of individuals and the structures of culture are not the same thing. In terms of the structures of our political culture, these dynamics are clearly present and represent increasingly significant tendencies.

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152. Jeff,

     Even the abortion and fugitive laws are matters of freedom. Some matters are just left for God to judge. We are talking about offenses disciplined by ecclesiastical courts. There would be situations where individual Christians may vote for these rather extreme and seemingly evil measures for reasons that may be convoluted, confused, or strange. But their hearts may still be right before the Lord, unlike say, fornication and adultery, which are not committed with clean hearts before the Lord. If there is no history of any Reformed church disciplining members for certain political votes, doesn’t that prove our point?

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153. Todd, I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree.

     You and I agree that murder cannot be committed with pure motives (though one might deceive oneself); I find it how to understand how one could take an action “tending to the destruction of life of others” and which fails to “protect and defend the innocent” (WCL 136, 135 respectively) that could be taken with pure motives also.

     I guess where we part company is that you seem, pragmatically, to make the wall between sacred and common into an impermeable wall.

     Todd: If there is no history of any Reformed church disciplining members for certain political votes, doesn’t that prove our point?

     Is there really such a history? I’m not well-versed enough in the history of Reformed discipline to be able to evaluate your statement.

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154. Jeff, I’m not “completely disallowing consideration of OT law,” so much as suggesting that the new covenant supercedes the old. There is continuity and discontinuity. Otherwise I don’t know how we may baptize our infant daughters. But at the very least, consider that the laws of Dt. 23 concern the theocratic and geo-political nation of Israel. The new covenant church is the exilic and non-geo-political Israel. I don’t know how one applies geo-political rules to a non-geo-political entity. If it’s general equity you want to plead, then what is the general equity of laws concerning the castrated and illegitmate?

     But you are onto it with the anachronistic point. It seems as vain as indulging certain hypotheticals.

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155. Mark, do you simply think whatever Kloosterman writes?

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156. Mark, come on, think this one through. The revised Belgic would be wrong on Calvin’s reading of Scripture. The magistrate is to enforce both tables. In the OT, heretics were executed. So if the Bible is your norm, why are you going with the revised Belgic? Because the revisers were Dutch?

     In other words, is the Bible the norm for the magistrate or not? If so, how does the magistrate tolerate idolatry and heresy?

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157. Jeff, are you really going to hang this on the use of silence again? Okay, the Bible doesn’t reveal all of life. So the minister can’t speak to all of life.

     As for sloppiness, you may want to clean up yourself. The passage in question reads:

     I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.

     Perhaps introduces verse 16. I don’t see that as a revocation of O’s slave status. And if O were not a slave, why would Paul return him?

     I also don’t see how you get from this that Paul had no obligation to return O. He says he would have liked O to stay with him. That doesn’t mean “by good and necessary inference” that Paul was under no obligation.

     So, we’re talking about the Fugitive Slave Law. Why is that special? A minister who thinks a war is unjust cannot tell me not to pay my taxes.

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158. CVD, and so is a less active role in public life compatible with 2k. I concede your calling. Why won’t you concede the callings of others who are not involved in legal or policy matters. It does seem that Christ and the apostles were pretty withdrawn. That’s pretty good company.

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159. Jeff, if the wall between the sacred and secular is permeable, then how do you decide when and where pastors instruct their members on how to live their lives? You seem to view the pastor almost like the priest, the one who instructs the conscience of his parishioners. But a minister’s conscience may differ from a church members on any matter — say whether to watch R-rated movies or not. What does the word of God say? It says to think on lovely things. I don’t know of any church court that would make a blanket condemnation of someone watching an R-movie.

     So what exactly are you proposing?

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160. DGH, my point is not about callings. No one need make a living as a policy wonk, lobbyist or attorney. My point is that Christians should be mindful that they live as a citizen of two kingdoms, and not just the kingdom of God. I’d like Christians to remember that they have rights and responsibilities as citizens of this particular earthly kingdom, and that therefore full-throated participation in civic and cultural life of this common realm is appropriate, and not to be criticized on “two kingdoms” grounds. So much of your and Zrim’s rhetoric, with your call to passivity and disengagement, and criticism of any participation in public life beyond voting and family, is more congenial to Mennonite and Amish theology than Reformed. I find the argument from silence (“Jesus and Paul didn’t advocate petitioning therefore it’s wrong) unpersuasive and hardly dispositive of the matter. My other point is a reminder to those who read this blog to remember that the view point expressed on this blog is not representative of 2K/SOTC as most 2K advocates find robust involvement by Christians in the public square compatible with 2K/SOTC. I respect your views, but respectfully disagree with your call to such extensive disengagement from the world.

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161. DGH: Jeff, if the wall between the sacred and secular is permeable…

     Take it up with Zrim. That’s his terminology.

     Your terminology has been that, yes, the Scripture does apply to individual Christians in their common lives. And the clear implication is that the sacred book does have some things to say about common affairs (as you also have granted) — which means that the wall is not impermeable.

     Please don’t tell me you’re going to take all of it back!

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162. DGH: …As for sloppiness, you may want to clean up yourself. Perhaps [15?] introduces verse 16. I don’t see that as a revocation of O’s slave status. And if O were not a slave, why would Paul return him?

     NICNT (Stonehouse, Bruce, and Fee): Whatever their earthly relationship might be from now on, henceforth Onesimus was Philemon’s “forever” (and equally Philemon was Onesimus’s). Was Onesimus still Philemon’s slave?… In law, yes; unless Philemon took steps to end that relationship. But Paul commends Onesimus to Philemon “no longer as a slave.” He writes as one who assumes the Philemon will do the decent thing — that he will take legal steps to change the master-slave relationship. He could exercise his apostolic authority and direct Philemon to free Onesimus, but he could not compel him to do so; the responsibility and initiative must lie with Philemon … if Philemon set Onesimus free as the spontaneous expression of the grace of God working in his heart, he would derive real joy from the act, and the joy would be shared by Onesimus. (Col., Philemon, Eph., p. 217).

     There are other commentators that do not see emancipation in view, to be sure. Gabelein is cagey, saying that “The apostle’s suggestions for the handling of the matter are difficult to determine because of his obscure and deferential words.” (Expositor’s, p. 454). But he allows that Knox saw the request as a request for freeing Onesimus.

     Hendriksen denies emancipation altogether.

     But the real question is, how does one render “not as a slave” as anything other than “not as a slave”? If Paul had wanted to say “still as your servant, but as something more as well: a brother”, his Greek was certainly up to that task.

     How do you account for “not as a slave”? And what then is Paul’s appeal (v. 11), and where does it occur in the letter? And what do you make of “welcome him as you would welcome me”? (as a slave?!)

     If you want Philemon to prove that runaway slaves were returned as slaves, you’ve got some work still to do.

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163. CVD, um, since there aren’t that may 2kers out there, this blog is indeed representative. So I’d appreciate it if you took your warnings elsewhere. Criticize all you want. But let the readers decide.

     The reason why I (I can’t speak for Zrim) respond to you often with a call for something less than “full-throated” participation is that often here you have identified a particular policy matter as of vital interest to Christians, as if the welfare of Christianity were on the line. When someone demurs, you play the expertise card, as in you’re attorney and engaged in the front lines.

     It very well could be that you don’t recognize other forms of engagement as engaged because the are not “full-throated.” I agree that Christians have responsibilities as citizens and my arguments are always about getting Christians to think more like citizens and less like Christians when entering the civil polity. But I also know how the kingdom is coming. It is coming not by policy, votes, or legislation but by word, sacrament, and discipline.

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164. Jeff, I’ll take it back if you use it to justify Christians walking up to the magistrate and telling him to enforce Scripture in common areas.

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165. Jeff, remember that my term is rigid but permeable.

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166. CVD, I see you haven’t picked up Hunter’s book yet. But, for my part, I’m not saying “full-throated participation is wrong.” I’m saying that some of us (apparently quite a minority) aren’t persuaded that the turn to politics is the wisest or most humane way to engage our neighbors. You can petition your neighbor all you want and I promise, as in cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye, that I won’t bring charges. But I’d rather enagage them at a much more human level than political. I don’t know what is so Mennonite or Amish about that, since if they mow down my daughter’s classroom I will bring legal charges against them instead of turn the other cheek.

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167. DGH: Jeff, I’ll take it back if you use it to justify Christians walking up to the magistrate and telling him to enforce Scripture in common areas.

     I wasn’t doing that. I was exploring a pastor telling his congregation about the lawfulness of obeying a particular statute. Sheesh, man, you tell me to be careful and all and then … 😉

     Zrim: Jeff, remember that my term is rigid but permeable.

     Noted.

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168. DGH, with all respect, your 2K views are an outlier among the small band of 2K proponents, which you must surely be aware of. You are a good historian, but your views on how 2K should be applied are utterly extreme, or at least not shared any scholars I’ve consulted. That doesn’t make you wrong necessarily, and you’re entitlted to your views. I respect your consistency, even though I disagree.

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169. But Mark, when you say your reading would question CVD, we have already raised questions about your reading skills.

     That’s sort of like Helen Keller raising questions about Ann Sullivan’s eyesight.

     Mark, do you simply think whatever Kloosterman writes?

     No, but do you simply think whatever Kline and Van Drunen write?

     Mark, come on, think this one through. The revised Belgic would be wrong on Calvin’s reading of Scripture. The magistrate is to enforce both tables. In the OT, heretics were executed. So if the Bible is your norm, why are you going with the revised Belgic? Because the revisers were Dutch?

     Darryl, I know you haven’t forgotten our extended discussion on Greenbaggins, or on your acolyte’s Hidelawblog, or here on Old Life. We’ve plowed this ground. I don’t know why I expected anything different this time around, but it’s disappointing that you reduce it to Dutch affinity that has me agreeing with revised Belgic’s confession of the Word of God as norming the magistrate. Of course, that doesn’t explain my view of Dutch boy Van Drunen’s work. But if your ethnic slur theory is what floats your boat, then it might be best to let you engage with your own fancies.

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170. CVD, at the risk of tooting my own vuvuzela, what scholars are you consulting? You apparently approve of DVD. DVD cites me as one of the small group of 2k proponents. So what are you talking about other than that you disagree with me? Please also explain how my views are extreme. You have plenty upon which to draw. But extreme?

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171. Good, Mark. As I thought, you don’t have an answer to why Belgic was revised. You don’t have any grounds for your revision because the magistrate should punish heretics and idolaters. But somehow, my revision, as in the American WCF, is flawed.

     Can you bring a little more to the table than charges of an ethnic slur? And can you show your reading capacity by acknowledging that Kline wrote OT theology, VanDrunen writes historical theology, and I write American history.

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172. Jeff, the very quote you supply answers the question. “Was Onesimus still Philemon’s slave? . . . In law, yes;”

     That’s what we are talking about here. The law of the land. And the apostle’s teaching does not cancel the law of the land. As Everett says in “O Brother Where Art Thou” after Pete and Delmar’s baptism, “that might square you with the Lord but Mississippi is a lot more hard-nosed.” And 2k is all about juggling both laws, both revelations, both identities, as citizens of 2 kingdoms.

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173. DGH, I don’t think that analysis nearly does justice to the issues at hand.

     Yes: Paul returned Onesimus. Yes, technically, he returned him under law as Onesimus’ slave. BUT, he also returns him with the expectation that Philemon would free him. And Paul states clearly that he *could have* ordered this, but wanted Philemon’s willing cooperation in this matter.

     Why could Paul have ordered it?

     You haven’t addressed this question at all; merely said “Onesimus got returned, so there.” That’s exactly the kind of wooden fundamentalism you decry, grasping at phrases without relating them to the whole. Under what circumstances is he returned? For what reason is he returned? What does Paul mean by “no longer as a slave, but as a brother”?

     Put short: you’re assuming that since Paul is sending O from here to there, he’s returning him to his position as slave. But the book doesn’t support that reading.

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174. Jeff, technicalities are not merely the province of fundamentalism. Lawyers and citizens also pay attention to words, as well as acts. Technically O is a slave. Paul returns him to his master. Why? I don’t think your reading does any justice to that act or technicality. It sure looks like Paul is paying deference to the law in returning O. And it sure looks like Philemon would be a hard text to use to argue against returning slaves — unless you want to pull the liberal hermeneutic of appealing to the spirit of the NT.

     The point stands that Jesus and Paul did nothing to liberate slaves or to speak against the practice. Philemon would be a great case to argue for Christians taking law into their own hands. If only Paul hadn’t returned O.

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175. DGH: The point stands that Jesus and Paul did nothing to liberate slaves or to speak against the practice.

     That point stands alone, utterly unconnected to the question at hand. We aren’t talking about liberation, abolition, or speaking against slavery.

     We’re talking about this question: Can Christians rightfully send *alleged* slaves back to their masters, without a trial to even establish their status, into situations in which they will likely be harmed?

     You say that Paul sending Onesimus back to Philemon proves they can and should.

     Apples and oranges, I say. Nothing of the particulars in Philemon resemble any of the particulars here, save for the words “slave” and “return”, neither of which mean the same thing in this context.

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176. Jeff, speaking of the fundamentalist tack to hang a lot of weight on a particular text without relating it to the whole, if you think the book of Philemon suggests that Paul held abolitionism down in the depths of his heart then what do you make of all the “slaves obey your masters” commands in Ephesians and Colossians? It’s a fair point that Paul refrained from using his powers of apostleship to command Phil to release O and relied instead on love, but by the same token his commands in Ephesians and Colossians apply to O–something not conducive to the spirit of abolitionism. And maybe his appeal to Phil to release O (a brother versus a slave) had more to do with making a spiritual point instead of a temporal one.

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177. Zrim: …if you think the book of Philemon suggests that Paul held abolitionism down in the depths of his heart

     OK, this has hit silliness. I’ve stated clearly at least three times now (Dec 4 1:01, Dec 4 12:57, Dec 7 10:27) that we aren’t talking about abolition here. Sometimes I feel like you are just trying wind me up (and so fun it is, I know).

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178. And guys, the point is not that Paul endorses anything whatsoever in Philemon. The point is that the OT slave laws, which were a part of the civil law, had a general equity that underlay them. Namely: do not mistreat slaves, and protect ones who are mistreated. Calvin admits such in his commentary, even while upholding the general right to slave-holding.

     The Fugitive Slave Laws required a Christian to disobey that general equity.

     And the appeal to Philemon as a counter-example founders on the shores of irrelevance. O’s situation with Philemon was nothing like what the law required in 1850.

     Now, you may come back and ask, “How do we know the general equity of the slave laws?” And I would say, “You are champions of common sense. Use it!” Is there any actual reasonable doubt that the Fugitive Slave Laws asked citizens to perpetrate patent injustice on their fellow men? In short, to sin against them?

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179. But, Jeff, you can assert “that we aren’t talking about abolition here,” but, first, that’s a fairly tenuous claim when talking about slavery. And second, I simply disagree. Maybe we haven’t arrived at explicit discussion about abolitionism, but I find it really hard to believe that isn’t in the mix.

     And, so far as I understand it, the Fugitive Slave Laws did not require a Christian to disobey the alleged general equity about the mistreatment of slaves, they simply required the return of slaves to their masters. I think you’re conflating return with mistreatment. And I think you’re probably doing that because you have abolitionist tapes (read: reels of “Roots”) playing in your head, tapes you don’t seem ready to admit. But my common sense tells me that to return a slave to his master is not the same thing as mistreating him. It seems to me your bald assertion that Fugitive Slave Laws asked citizens to perpetrate patent injustice on their fellow men and to sin against them is a function of the underlying and unacknowledged abolitionism that believes slavery is a basic moral evil. But if that were the case, wouldn’t Paul have commanded Phil to cease and desist?

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180. Jeff, it is odd that you think the Bible speaks to all things under the rubric of God’s glory. But when it comes to a particular instance of someone in slavery, a pastor, and a slave owner, you say they are apples and oranges. But I’m not allowed to say that about plumbing.

     As for context, I do think you should consider that the debaters of the 19th c. kicked this one around a great deal and the Unitarians and Quakers — the radicals — said the context was different, while the people who were not egalitarian in principle noted that lots of contextual details were similar.

     It does seem to me that if your position is that slavery is always and everywhere wrong, the performance of Jesus and Paul would give you the willies.

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181. Jeff, you have yet to say why slavery in 1850 was unjust but was fair and equitable in 70 AD or 1500 BC. So your bluster about committing sin in 1850 is begging the question.

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182. Zrim, this is where I would criticize your 2k stance a bit.

     On the one hand, when it comes to examining potential conflicts with God’s law and man’s law, you require a bar that is so high that it cannot be met.

     Consider:

     (1) The Fugitive Slave Law required citizens to assist any man who *claimed* that a black man was his slave. No proof was required, and blacks could not request a court hearing. “Slavecatching” became a cottage industry.

     So we aren’t talking merely returning slaves to their masters, but handing over people *alleged to be slaves* to others *alleged to be their owners*, without process.

     (2) A runaway slave had a high probability of being tortured.

     So regardless of how one might think about the theoretical question of slavery, complying with the Fugitive Slave Law entailed sending a man into likely harm on the basis of dubious evidence. (Which again, is so far removed from Onesimus’ situation as to make any comparison meaningless).

     It is reasonable to say that a Christian, even a non-abolitionist one, should not comply with such a law.

     But no, you say, unless there is a specific command in the New Testament, it’s not enough for you. The letter of the law! (just not The Law.)

     So on the one hand, you apply not merely a Strict Scrutiny test, but a Letter of the Law test when it comes to applying Scripture to common life.

     But on the other hand, when it comes to analyzing the supposed tendencies of other’s views, you have a free and generous hand. Chance phrases lead to implications lead to tendencies lead to latent views.

     So what is it, Zrim? Are we to treat the world in a flat and literal manner? Or should we think a bit?

     If the latter, if you admit just a smidgen of thinking to be allowed, I can’t see how you would resist the conclusion that complying with the Fugitive Slave Law was wicked.

     And if that appeal doesn’t sway you, then I’ll go for the low blow: Does 2k really want to send us down the road of neo-Confederacy?

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183. DGH: Jeff, you have yet to say why slavery in 1850 was unjust but was fair and equitable in 70 AD or 1500 BC. So your bluster about committing sin in 1850 is begging the question.

     Come on, man. For the fifth time: This is not about slavery in the 1850s. This is about a specific statute.

     DGH: Jeff, it is odd that you think the Bible speaks to all things under the rubric of God’s glory. But when it comes to a particular instance of someone in slavery, a pastor, and a slave owner, you say they are apples and oranges. But I’m not allowed to say that about plumbing.

     Hodge thought a good deal about this issue, and he drew a careful line between slavery in general and the specific treatment of slaves. I am following in his footsteps here.

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184. Jeff, I’m not as versed as you are on the historical intracacies or either bad law written or good law abused, or the specific fallout from The Fugitive Slave Law, etc. But that seems to always be the nature of things, doesn’t it? So if you’re wanting to say that you don’t think certain laws are or were very good, fine. But you still have to deal with biblical commands to obey your magistrate. Have you considered the option of working within the system to change laws you don’t think are very good instead of leap-frogging to civil disobedience?

     Re the low blow, I think you’re thinking of Doug Wilson who writes kooky books on how wonderful slavery was. And I fail to see how 2k could possibly send us down the road of neo-Confederacy. Maybe you need to read Hunter’s book, which suggests that cultural change is brutally complicated and is not the result of any one man or theory, etc. Heck, one of his theories is that it’s a top-down project (not bottom up) on the part of elites (not the masses), and in case you haven’t noticed, 2k is exactly the opposite of that.

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185. Zrim: Have you considered the option of working within the system to change laws you don’t think are very good instead of leap-frogging to civil disobedience?

     Well, yes; you’re right that it’s clearly better to to do that if possible.

     But if a law is passed in 1850 and isn’t repealed until 1865 (or later, if a certain bloodbath doesn’t ensue), what is the pilgrim-exile supposed to do until then?

     And that was the point of raising this issue. It seems to me that on the fringes — not in the main — there are some rare circumstances in which the Christian must obey God rather than man.

     And while the bar for that call is very high, it is not so high as to be a mere hypothetical.

     Zrim: I think you’re thinking of Doug Wilson who writes kooky books on how wonderful slavery was.

     Close enough: Steve Wilkins. And I don’t seriously think you are neo-Confederate, but I thought you could use a bit of “latency by proximity” in your direction. 😉

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186. Jeff, isn’t the bar pretty high when the apostles tell Christians to submit to the emperor, and when civil society in the Roman Empire is steeped with cultic innuendo? So where is the biblical warrant for disobeying civil law? The only case we have it in the New Testament is preaching. The apostles defied authority in order to proclaim the gospel. I do not think that is the basis for civil disobedience in all other cases.

     So then what makes the Fugitive Slave Law a special case? What about Stellman’s point about the civilians killed — not enslaved — but killed by U.S. Armed forces relatively regularly. I don’t say this to slight the military. Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are in no-win situations. It’s the politicians who put them there that are the problem. So does that mean I don’t pay my taxes because they go to the slaughter of innocents? Maybe.

     So what is your theory of civil disobedience?

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187. Jeff, if the laws don’t shake out the way you want to for a long stretch then you take Bork’s advice and come back another day to try and win. In the meantime, you endure with patience. You know, as in you win some and you lose some, but when you start talking about your wins and losses in terms of evil and righteousness, you can count me out. I know that’s not inspiring, but if you think about it this is actually the way most of us live most of our lives every day. You’d be surprised just how much losing you actually do all the time. And, sorry, I don’t think Fugitive Slave Laws qualify for the obey God rather than man category. It’s still liberty. There’s nothing fundamentally evil about returning slaves. If you want to say so then my returning them isn’t liberty. I’m not saying your aiding and abeting is wrong, just that I don’t know how you get around calls to obey magistrates when they haven’t commanded you to directly and personally break a clear moral or ecclesial code of God.

     And I know you’re half-jabbing with the neo-Confederate jazz, but my point is about civil obedience and institutionalism over activism (activism in this case is the political version of religious revivalism, btw). You wanted to test it by way of, surprise-surprise, the American legacy of slavery. Meh. So I’m just answering your questions. If I really wanted to pave the way back to the antebellum South I wouldn’t hate this predictable test case so dang much. And the Third Reich stuff. And for the record, no, I think the Third Reich was really bad.

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188. DGH: Jeff, isn’t the bar pretty high when the apostles tell Christians to submit to the emperor, and when civil society in the Roman Empire is steeped with cultic innuendo?

     Yes, it is.

     DGH: So where is the biblical warrant for disobeying civil law?

     When the civil law requires disobedience to God’s law.

     I would actually say that’s a fairly complete theory.

     I guess my question to you is this: Your theory appears to be that civil disobedience is only warranted for violations of the first table; specifically, preaching. Why? Isn’t violating the second table of the law a sin?

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189. Zrim: Jeff, if the laws don’t shake out the way you want to for a long stretch then you take Bork’s advice and come back another day to try and win.

     Sure, if it’s just a matter of laws not working out the way I want. For example, I think the current health care law is ill-advised and detrimental to the country. So I will do my part to get it changed; but I’ll still obey it.

     But the situation under discussion is not a matter of preferences, but of conflicting laws. On the one hand we have man’s law, saying “Return the slave.” On the other, we have God’s law, which says “Don’t return the slave.”

     You’re treating that as a simple matter of politics, but it isn’t.

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190. Jeff, then you still have the problem of saying someone’s obeying of man’s law to return the slave is not liberty, that it’s tantamount to worshipping an idol when God says not to. Sorry, but they’re just not the same.

     And if you want to force certain political questions into purely moral terms then ok, but as you know I have a thing against moralizing politics, not least because it easily morphs into politicizing faith. But I wonder what you’d say to those who follow that same course and claim that the current health care law isn’t a simple matter of politics but is really a moral question and that the government is forcing her citizens into stealing? Why do you get to speak like a 2ker on current politics but I can’t on past politics?

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191. Jeff, it is. But you have to prove that returning slaves is a sin. And while you’re there, what do you make of the fugitive slave’s actions? Are they righteous?

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192. DGH: But you have to prove that returning slaves is a sin.

     Right, I agree. I think in this particular situation, that the case is not absolutely air-tight, but is overwhelmingly strong.

     DGH: And while you’re there, what do you make of the fugitive slave’s actions? Are they righteous?

     Probably not. But we’re not talking about advising the slave here.

     That’s the world that presents to us: other folk do bad things, and we have to do the right thing in response.

     One of my big criticisms of Moral Majority is that they use the sin of others to descend into the pit.

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193. Slavery, by the way, was a morally tortured situation all around. Aside from the basic economic issues (not paying a fair wage, for example), there were also human issues that you are quite familiar with. It’s unsurprising that situations like this breed moral quandaries. Everything’s easy when everyone does the right thing.

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194. Jeff, on the one hand you say to me, “I can’t see how you would resist the conclusion that complying with the Fugitive Slave Law was wicked.”

     Then on the other you say to dgh, “I think in this particular situation, that the case is not absolutely air-tight, but is overwhelmingly strong.”

     Can you see my confusion? You seem to to suggest that to return slaves is an obvious and absolute moral evil, but then you equivocate. If you want to say that complying with the Law bothers your conscience, fine. But then stop binding mine. If I’m setting the bar too high then you keep moving the target.

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195. Jeff, slavery was morally complicated and down right despicable (not to mention that it was race based eventually). But what too many Christians fail to recognize is that a host of other situations were morally complicated. One of the most intelligent and creative defenses of the South was George Fitzhugh’s Cannibals All which exposed the wretched conditions confronting “free” laborers in the North’s industrial centers (and this was before the era of large-scale industrialization).

     In which case, all of life is surrounded by not less-than-ideal but approaching-the-worst conditions. Anyone who has seen The Wire knows this. That means it is not useful to cherry pick instances like slavery from history to show that one position or person is off (I’m not accusing you of this but explaining why I react to appeals to slavery and the Nazi’s the way I do). All positions and persons are off.

     A further implication is that if all of life is close to worst of conditions, what the heck are the cultural transformers looking at that makes them think they can improve things? They don’t seem to be looking at the world we inhabit.

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196. Zrim: Can you see my confusion? You seem to to suggest that to return slaves is an obvious and absolute moral evil, but then you equivocate.

     Yes, I can understand. On the one hand, I’m coming on strong about the FSL; on the other hand, I’m admitting some space. So what’s up with that?

     What I’m trying to drive at is that in a real-world situation, it may be the case that our exegesis might be imperfect. Our hypothetical pastor, for example, is working off of OT slavery regulations, which means that he cannot with 100% certainty say that Deut 23 carries over in general equity, as opposed to being a statute of Israel that expired with the nation thereof.

     But still and all, he has to make a call. And the choices are serious ones: If he’s wrong on the one hand, he disobeys the magistrate. If he’s wrong on the other hand, he sets aside God’s law in favor of man’s.

     What I’m pushing at is this: in your zeal to remind us all that we must obey the magistrate (quite true!), don’t forget that the magistrate may command wrong things, and not just in the first table.

     And it may be that the magistrate’s command is not contrary to the exact letter of the law, and yet is contrary to the implications of the law.

     Big picture, I’ve tried to establish the following:

     (1) In the Catechism, we see that the Reformed view is that the Law is to be treated not merely according to the letter, but also according to its inferences. Thus the sixth command is held to restrict over-eating.

     (2) Also in the Catechism, we see that the Reformed view is that the Law regulates common affairs.

     (3) But in balance to this, we see that Christian liberty extends to those matters not prescribed in the Law.

     My basic method is to take (1)-(3) together, trying to neither over-regulate nor yet be wooden-headed about the Law.

     Does that make sense?

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197. DGH: All positions and persons are off.

     Agreed there.

     DGH: A further implication is that if all of life is close to worst of conditions, what the heck are the cultural transformers looking at that makes them think they can improve things? They don’t seem to be looking at the world we inhabit.

     I wonder whether all cultural transformers mean the same thing by “transformation.” I don’t consider myself a “transformer” (robot in disguise!), but I know some Kuyperian types. They don’t have a gung-ho change-the-world postmillennial optimism, but a serious and sober Calvinism that leads them to attempt their common calling with conviction. I can’t really fault that.

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198. Jeff, yes, I can see what you are trying to do. But I think dgh’s point about cherry picking from historical instances sort of trumps it, not least because I think that when the usual suspects are pressed into the service of enagaging certain points there seems to be an unacknowledged premise that a whole raft of things are obvious. That is to say, let certain things across time and place simmer long enough in the cultural pan (like the American legacy of slavery or the Third Reich) and they become easy pickins. Choose things current or not so historically cooked to perfection and all of a sudden it becomes complicated. And this is my point: why do some want to speak like pc-2kers when it comes to here and now politics but new schoolers when it comes to then and there politics?

     What I’m pushing at is this: in your zeal to remind us all that we must obey the magistrate (quite true!), don’t forget that the magistrate may command wrong things, and not just in the first table.

     I understand the caveat, which is part of the point of saying we can do nothing but disobey when he commands of us personal violation of clear religious and/or moral commands (both tables).

     But, my sense of it is that when most Americans, nurtured on the virtues of civil disobedience, say the magistrate may command wrong things what they really mean is that he commands things they really don’t like. They confuse “what they really don’t like” with “something obviously morally evil.” I can see how that makes the complications and inherent tensions easier to live with, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of integrity. And frankly, as long as we’re talking big picture, I don’t think it’s in the American DNA to do civil obedience very well. I think the default setting is on finding the loophole to obedience. The Bible clearly defaults to obedience in all our earthly callings and vocations, up to and including our civil and political lives. So, as much as I appreciate your formulation above, it might also be that it is a good example of emphasizing this default setting. Maybe it’s more like, “what I am pushing at is this: in your zeal to remind us that the magistrate may command us wrong things (quite possible), we must obey the magistrate.” I’ll admit, my inner American recoils at this emphasis, but that’s the point if the inner Christian is supposed to trump him.

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199. Zrim: And this is my point: why do some want to speak like pc-2kers when it comes to here and now politics but new schoolers when it comes to then and there politics?

     I don’t see why this should trouble you much. Aren’t you concerned about people who talk like new-schoolers about here and now politics?

     Zrim: My sense of it is that when most Americans, nurtured on the virtues of civil disobedience, say the magistrate may command wrong things what they really mean is that he commands things they really don’t like.

     Then teach them the difference, instead of denying that there is such a thing (as the first). Get the issue on the table, admit that there are instances when the magistrate must be disobeyed, and then carefully circumscribe those instances.

     Keep in mind that many Americans — esp. American Christians — also have a default to submit to legalism and control structures. Thus we have to deal with wives who will not stand up to abusive husbands, or congregation members who think it normal for pastors to keep tabs on their giving patterns.

     I don’t see anything (beyond some concessions, for which I am grateful) that articulates the twin dangers we face here, and helps us steer away from both, instead of just one.

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200. Jeff, I’d like to see more 2k takes on then and there and here and now. I guess that’s a little greedy, so I’ll settle for here and now, but only if critics promise to stop bringing up the tired templates for evil.

     So is 2k really supposed to say everything before it can say anything? But how much more do you want from me than to consistently admit that there is a place for disobedience (e.g. we can do nothing but disobey when he commands of us personal violation of clear religious and/or moral commands)? And do you really think I have missed the penchant for legalism? I think I have said before that legalism is the natural default setting over antinomianism, and I get booed by even fellow 2kers when I suggest that URC CO Article 14’s language on day schooling makes things safe for educational legalism, or that P&R talk about education the way Baptists talk about substance use.

     So, it’s hard to keep up with your demands, but rest assured that I hear your points and I think they are good ones. I know, the paleo temperament can be less than inspiring to those who want it all right now, but one thing at a time.

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201. And, Jeff, as far as undue submission to ecclesial power strictures, I think I’ve also made the point somewhere that a Presbyterian view of authority is not an authoritarian view. Whatever else can be said of it, the former welcomes dissent of its ecclesial leadership (the latter quashes it), which is an interesting contrast to the point about civil obedience. Paul got in Peter’s face about seating arrangements, but nary a word about getting all up in Caesar’s grill.

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202. Zrim: Paul got in Peter’s face about seating arrangements, but nary a word about getting all up in Caesar’s grill.

     But completely unshy about Agrippa, saying “except for these chains, I wish all men were as I.”

     So it’s hard to parse the data properly here. Paul does seem to think that the magistrate ought to convert, but does not deny his validity if he does not.

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203. Jeff, it’s worth noting that Paul was in something of a defensive posture toward Agrippa, not an offensive one as with Peter. And the civil polity that put him in that posture was 1k. But I’m not sure what’s so hard to parse: magistrates are as subject to the gospel as milkmaids, and their denial doesn’t negate one’s authority anymore than turn the other’s milk sour, and that’s because the gospel is a personal call which doesn’t take into account a person’s vocation. Again, the speaks-to-people-not-their-stuff point.

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204. Darryl G. Hart says:
     November 27, 2010 at 10:36 pm

     Mark, I can understand your not liking me. I’m a goyim. But VanDrunen is ons volk. Where’s the love?
     _____

     Darryl G. Hart says:
     November 29, 2010 at 4:22 pm

     Mark, is this the way you behave in court? I believe Bob is sane in his Kuyperian convictions. I believe that you and Kloosterman are not sane on this. Why you would describe tolerance for DVD or me as latitudinarian is further evidence that you cannot tell the difference between what is and is not important to the health of the church.

     _____

     As Mark van der Molen points out, the issue isn’t being non-Dutch. I’m no more Dutch than you are, and furthermore, I spent a great deal of time fighting against a narrow ethnocentric Dutch approach of how to “do church.”

     I have a long history of polite sparring with Dr. Kloosterman and his supporters on that issue, almost always out of print because I think both “sides” in that debate realized that fighting Christian Reformed liberalism was far more important than fighting each other. In fact, I used to get invited to preach in ex-CRC congregations on the grounds that I was the most non-Dutch person they could think of to invite to their pulpit and prove that you could be a Calvinist without being a Hollander.

     Now that I’m down here in the South, when PCA people ask if I’m Dutch because I’m a Calvin graduate, I still laugh a little at how totally impossible that question would ever be in my hometown of Grand Rapids. Maybe the fact that I wear a black suit and polished shoes to church and the fact that I can sing a lot of the Psalms makes me look and sound Dutch? If so, I guess I plead guilty to being the shortest Hollander ever made — perhaps Ellis Island made a mistake and my family name is actually Vander Marinus from Rotterdam rather than Maurina from Spormaggiore in Italy.

     Let’s cut the ethnic stuff, Dr. Hart. The issue is whether your theology is inherently Anabaptist and therefore un-Refomed or whether Kuyper’s political views are unbiblically triumphalist and therefore un-Reformed because they minimize total depravity. I’m very willing to criticize Kuyper and you’ve got a point that transformationalism can transform the church rather than the world, and historically it did exactly that when the emphasis was lost on the importance of the antithesis and of total depravity.

     But perhaps you’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

     As I’ve written over on CO-URC:

     “Not only are there lots of people in the United Reformed Churches who will see the irony of DTM defending Dr. Nelson Kloosterman, those who are aware of how profoundly disgusted I became with Calvin College’s transformationist garbage know that it takes a lot for me to come to the defense of **ANYTHING** called ‘neo-Calvinism’ or ‘transformationism.’ I saw firsthand how the ‘transformationalist’ language was used by Calvin College professors to transform the church into the image of the world, not the other way around …

     Furthermore, on the three-groups taxonomy of the Dutch church world into Reformed Scholasticism, Reformed Pietism, and Kuyperianism, I am most emphatically in the Puritan camp. If I had lived in the Netherlands in Kuyper’s day, knowing my own views on ecclesiology and soteriology, I’d probably be one of Kuyper’s opponents helping organize the Gereformeerde Bond or perhaps would be in the CGKN (equivalent to Free Reformed), and I would be fighting Kuyper tooth and nail on his presumptive regeneration.

     However, the stakes here are too high to stay silent. What we’re seeing from the “Two Kingdoms” people is not a legitimate Old School opposition to social action in the name of the church.

     We’re not fighting over whether to allow use of alcohol or some other issue on which the Scripture speaks very little or not at all. We are fighting over issues of sodomy, of baby-killing, and of gross immorality called good by our government. Furthermore, we are fighting those battles while a resurgent Islam stands poised to take over much of Europe with the next generation, and has showed itself very willing to use the power of the sword against the “infidels,” i.e., us. …

     I’ve said for a long time that Ronald Reagan may have been the last good thing to come out of California; that state is falling apart and reaping the rewards of decades of outright rebellion against God in its government, its schools, and its popular culture, and with Gov. Moonbeam (Jerry Brown) back in office, it will only get worse. I can sympathize with a group of conservative Calvinists in Southern California who have decided the culture has gotten so bad that they need to retreat, give up, and leave the world to the Devil. Okay, fine. Go do that if you feel you must. It might even be what God wants you to do in your circumstances, much like persecuted Christians in China, Iran, or other anti-Christian societies.

     But don’t go attacking those of us who still have a chance to stop the persecutors from wrecking what remains.

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205. Darrell (funny spelling that), I don’t buy that the sky is falling now any more than it was in the days of King Herod or Emperor Nero. When faced with those circumstances, what did our Lord and the apostles do? They did not try to save California, New York, or Iraq. Granted, our circumstances may allow us greater opportunities as citizens than theirs did. But that is the point. I’m more than willing to try to defend the West as a culture, and to stand up for morals, manners, and propriety. But I do so less as a Christian and more as a resident of this fair republic.

     Meanwhile, as you grouse about my retreat, please keep in mind the “conservatives” in the PCA and evangelicalism who promote Christian rock and rap as great expressions of devotion (post is coming). The point being, that morality, a high view of the Bible, and a commitment to soul-winning is no inoculation against barbarism. 2k would have more Christians read Aristotle on the culture wars than Kuyper.

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206. Dr. Hart — I agree about the irony of the names. It’s probably good for both of us that I spend most of my time dealing with murder, mayhem, government incompetence and corruption, car crashes, fires, and — last but most certainly **NOT** least — the War on Terror and its human consequences back on the homefront. Otherwise, if I were still on staff at Christian Renewal, there’s a good chance we’d find ourselves trading ink back and forth more often, and somebody would call it the “War of the Daryls.”

     You know, one of the real problems with the “Two Kingdoms” stuff is how often I agree with you and your friends on lots of other things. I don’t like arguing with fellow Calvinists. I live and work in the Bible Belt. The local Baptist and Pentecostal pastors are charitable enough not to call me a “D— Yankee” (lots of them respect Dr. D. James Kennedy and some have even attended his conferences or listened to his preaching on television, so they know Calvinists aren’t totally nuts) but virtually nobody has any idea what I’m talking about when I argue that most Christian music stems from emotion disguised as devotion, and a few of them who know a little bit about Iowa ask if I’m one of those “frozen chosen” types. You’re absolutely right about the PCA nonsense with worship — there are reasons I fought hard to keep my local church out of the PCA when the URC was no longer an option (it’s in process of joining the ARPs, by the way, which does understand Southern distinctives and will be a much better fit than the URC).

     As recently as a decade ago I used to rail against the “culture transformation” garbage being taught at Calvin and say that we need to focus on preaching and teaching the gospel in our churches with the goal of personal conversion (not merely historical faith) of our covenant children and those brought into our churches through evangelism.

     Then I moved to the South and saw what firsthand what kind of damage is caused by lack of Christian nurture in families and lack of doctrine-based discipleship in churches which truly are evangelical and believe the basics of the gospel, contra liberalism.

     The Dutch got a lot of things wrong — no doubt about it. But raising kids to know their catechism and how to apply doctrine in their home, church and business life was not on the Dutch list of mistakes.

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207. Darrell,

     I don’t see the connection between nurture and catechesis, and applying doctrine to business and plumbing. In fact, it was when the CRC made worldview more important than catechesis that business enterprises trumped doctrine.

     In other words, you can have a catechetical Reformed church minus the transformationalism.

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208. We have no disagreement that you **CAN** have a catechetical Reformed church minus transformationalism. Reformed churches have existed under persecution for centuries.

     Furthermore, there are lots of places in the United States where a good Dutch Reformed officebearer or confessing churchmember is going to be known to the outside community mostly for working very hard, raising a large family of well-disciplined children, donating lots of money to Christian causes, and being very frugal otherwise with his personal and business checkbook. Hopefully (but not always) he’ll also be known not only for his work ethics and personal thriftiness but also for his high quality of workmanship. If there aren’t enough Reformed people in a community to affect the broader culture, Reformed people aren’t going to waste their political campaign dollars trying to do so.

     The question is whether that is all that a Reformed person is called to do. In some places, it is; I don’t doubt that.

     In other places, Reformed people are a large minority or even a majority of the population. Do they have a civic responsibility in such cases? If so, what is it? Does the Reformed faith tell a candidate for civil office what he should do if elected? Does the Reformed faith tell a candidate how to run a political campaign?

     You and I are going to disagree on the answers to those questions. However. I don’t think we disagree that former Westminster-Philadelphia professor Dr. Rick Gamble had the right to run for and serve on the city council. I think he’s the only Westminster professor or Orthodox Presbyterian minister to ever serve in elected office while serving in church office, and I’d be interested to know if he’s ever written on the subject.

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209. But Darrell, even the Puritans, who fused church and state in ways thick, insisted that a person needed to give up his ecclesiastical office to hold a public one.

     And I don’t think the circumstances — a large minority to a majority of the population — should determine the right thing to do. My issue is with the normativity implied by your view that the Reformed faith should tell a politician what to do. Where’s Christian liberty on matters political?

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210. Dr. Hart, as you know, the rule that ministers did not have civil voting rights was established English common law dating back to the medieval concept of the three estates of nobles, clergy and commoners. The Puritans had no choice if they were to claim that their ministers were still part of the Church of England. It is my understanding that the same was true for Abraham Kuyper so long as he was a minister in the Dutch state church, which under establishment rules in the 1800s still had the same bar on ministers voting; he had to resign his ministerial ordination to run for office and did much of his work as an elder, not as a minister.

     I’m not sure how that applies to a modern state in which ministers are ordinary citizens and not part of an established church, and therefore not barred from voting in civil elections.

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211. Dr. Hart wrote: “My issue is with the normativity implied by your view that the Reformed faith should tell a politician what to do. Where’s Christian liberty on matters political?”

     Where Scripture and the Reformed confessions are silent is where Christian liberty exists.

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212. Sorry for not elucidating more. I’m sitting at the scene of a two-alarm fire writing my article on the blaze; earlier today I spent hours at the courthouse dealing with our local prosecutor who is suing the county for allegely not paying her enough. When I get back to my office I have a ton of work to do on other stories. I want to keep this up, but it may be difficult at times.

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213. DTM, I’m not talking merely about voting. I’m also talking about a minister holding public office. If, as I think many would agree, that a minister should demit from the ministry if he takes on duties as a public official — not to mention how does he have the time — then why would we also not expect ministers to refrain from making assertions about matters that are the work of public officials? Reminding Christians of their duties to God’s law is one thing, telling them or cheerleading them to make a difference in society is another.

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214. DTM, so Christian liberty would extend then to assessing the times a strategies of cultural influence. If I don’t agree with you that the times are witnessing a falling sky, or if I dissent from the effectiveness of your suggestions about Christians making a difference in the culture, then I have liberty. But surely you must realize that biblically assertive times, folks like Kloosterman and the Baylys are banging 2k precisely for not jumping on both their diagnosis of the times and their remedies. I don’t see much Christian liberty in that, nor much exegesis showing their arguments are biblical.

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215. DGH,

     Time notwithstanding, why would a minister be required to demit the ministry if working bivocationally as a public official? Is it necessarily more conflicted than running a business?

     This is half-devil’s advocate, as I would be terrified of anyone using the “R2k” epithet trying to balance it. But it’s because they can’t manage an exclusively ministerial calling without summoning legions of angels over legislation or taxation. I would be no less terrified were they also working in education or homeopathy. otoh, some preach Christ and Him crucified consistently apart from personal interests or opinions in common matters.

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216. Mike, because our standards and church order are careful to distinguish church power from civil authority, my sense is that a minister holding public office is dicier than running a business. Make him a father and he is the triple-crown winner of Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty!

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217. In dealing with this question of ministers serving in public office, it’s important to remember that nearly all elected officials are part-timers or unpaid.

     I am not aware that Dr. Rick Gamble serving on the city council of one of the Philadelphia suburbs harmed his work as a seminary professor, at least from a time perspective, any more than most other type of community involvement. Serving as a youth sports coach or on the board of a Christian school would probably have taken up far more of his time.

     Again, I do not know whether Dr. Gamble believes that serving in elected office was a good or a bad thing. My original question is whether, as the only OPC minister or Westminster professor who (to my knowledge) has ever served in elected office, he has written or spoken on the subject. I would be interested in what he has to say and the biblical basis for it, either way.

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218. For whatever it’s worth, I live in a community where it’s pretty common for Baptist and Pentecostal ministers to run for or actually be elected to office — and that’s from both political parties.

     Among them:

     * A former Richland city alderman was an Assemblies of God pastor.
     * A current St. Robert city alderman is a Missionary Baptist pastor.
     * The 2010 Democratic nominee for county treasurer was a Campbellite pastor.
     * One of three 2010 Republican candidates for county treasurer was an independent charismatic pastor.
     * The 2006 Republican nominee for circuit court clerk was a Southern Baptist pastor’s wife (ok, not exactly the same thing, but pretty close)
     * The current Republican county prosecutor is a Southern Baptist pastor’s wife.
     * The 2006 Democratic nominee for county collector was a Southern Baptist pastor.

     This is not a new development. On a wall of our courthouse, there’s a newspaper article written by our current sheriff on the last legal hanging in our county a little less than a centry ago, before all death penalty cases were subject to Missouri Supreme Court appeal and were carried out by the state rather than by counties. In that case, the county prosecuting attorney was also a well-known Baptist minister.

     I realize that none of these churches are Reformed (although one of the pastors mentioned is an an associate pastor position in a very large Baptist church that has attracted some people from a Reformed background,and apart from views on baptism, is pretty close to a middle-of-the-road PCA). I raise this simply to indicate that from what I’ve seen of the rural South, any objection against pastors running for political office seems to have pretty much disappeared.

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