I thought the Gospel Co-Allies were supposed to be nice. The only “mean” people in the American Protestant world are the seriously Reformed, supposedly. But a recent drive-by post by Justin Taylor about Ron Paul and racism demonstrates how appearances deceive.
If the sin of racism is indeed a gospel issue, and if Ron Paul is an evangelical, and if evangelicals were rightly bothered by the racist remarks of President Obama’s pastor—then wouldn’t it be a good idea for evangelicals, at the very least, to ask some questions about Ron Paul’s defense of his racist friends and racist newsletter that went out under his name?
That’s all the post includes. Justin is just wondering out loud, not taking a stand, just raising questions about Ron Paul and the implications of the Republican’s newsletters.
A couple of aspects are worthy of mention here:
First, Justin is not being very Matthew-eighteen-like. Are the followers of the Bible and nothing but the Bible supposed to raise suspicions about another believer’s reputation — even if only in the form of questions — so publicly?
Second, aside from the mean-spirited implications of this post, what indeed is up with sins rising to the level of “gospel issue”? I see that Taylor links to Piper’s book on race, once again hiding behind the earnestness of Minnesota’s Baptist alternative to Garrison Keillor’s Lutherans. But what does “gospel issue” mean? Is a sin that qualifies as a “gospel issue” so serious that sinners may not find comfort in the gospel? Is racism one of those sins? How about pederasty? How about other violations of the Decalogue? I was under the impression that one sin was just as bad in God’s sight as any other. So where do we find support for a special list of really, really — I mean really — bad sins? Is this what Taylor learned while studying with John Frame on the Christian life?
Or is this what happens when the gospel expands to include all of life? When it does so, does the gospel merely become law?
Just wondering out loud in response to Justin’s wondering. (Update: ironically Taylor’s next post was from Spurgeon on the sin of even listening to gossip.)
Old Life 
“I was under the impression that one sin was just as bad in God’s sight as any other.” Are you being sarcastic here?
WSC 83:
Q. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.
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I love how he frames this as a question, “Just wondering” instead of simply saying what he wants to say. While it might at times be useful literary device, someone with Taylor’s clout should take more of a stand. BUt I guess that would make him mean.
And, Matt, yes, he was being sarcastic. No need to hit us over the head with the Westminster Standards (with which I am sure he is familiar). He was quoting the usual evangelical line that all sins are equally bad. See, sometimes sarcasm is a useful tool.
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“Or is this what happens when the gospel expands to include all of life?”
No, methinks this is what happens when the gospel fails to expand to include all of life. I mean, loving your neighbor can’t mean for Justin that Ron Paul would allow a racist to think and speak for himself, would it? Apparently, political correctness with it’s demands of conformity to correct political thinking and speech is loving your neighbor in Justin’s w…v…….
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So…you criticize JT for abandoning Matt 18….can I do the same to you?
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I wonder what penance Ron Paul would need to do for the GC to grant gospel forgiveness for comments Ron Paul let others write 20 years ago, and has disavowed for years. Perhaps even their gospel does not allow such great sins to be forgiven.
I think the greatest sins are the ones that most offend the liberal establishment that certain folks want so much to be “relevant” to.
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Matt, heinous is not the same as offensive. If the whole enchilada of mankind fell because our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, then deceit deserves God’s wrath and curse as much as hate.
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GAS, why is it that whenever the gospel (which is forgiveness) expands to all of life it means telling other people (Christians and non-Christians) what to do? Declaration is not the same as exhortation.
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Dan, I’ve never confused criticism with preaching repentance. I don’t think Taylor sinned. I think he behaved inappropriately.
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Has JT payed any heed to Paul’s near constant insistence that a) he did not write the pieces in question, rather a staffer did, and b) he repudiates everything written in them. We could talk about how Paul should have been more careful by knowing what was being published in a newsletter that bears his name, and keeping objectionable material out. I am not sure how Taylor makes the jump from a political blunder to a gospel issue, but could it be that he has designs on another candidate, and is using his musings to steer the vote? You know, just wondering.
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“GAS, why is it that whenever the gospel (which is forgiveness) expands to all of life it means telling other people (Christians and non-Christians) what to do?”
DGH, if the gospel is forgiveness then the response is loving God and loving your neighbor. Loving your neighbor means not trying to impose your will over his. Shouldn’t that be our response in all areas of life?
The underlying premise of Justin’s question is that group thinking (banning the thoughts and speech of racists) is the way to achieve neighborliness. But groupthink necessarily reduces the individual. Instead of loving the person created in the image of God we will only love those who conform to a certain criteria of groupthink and impose the groupthink on individuals who think otherwise.
So Jeremiah Wright’s racism doesn’t bother me. Jeremiah Wright calling for a form of groupthink bothers me.
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JT should also ask these blacks if they are hung up on Paul’s alleged racism:
Ron Paul is like MLK. Black Voters Support Ron Paul
Is my vote for Ron Paul slip showing yet?
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GAS, since you’re an all-of-lifer like Taylor, but one who evidently likes Paul, unlike Taylor, it’s beginning to look like whatever else it means all-of-life means that the gospel implies not only politics and how to do it but also how to talk about it. But when will all-of-lifers grasp that it’s law that drives this, not gospel? When you guys say it’s gospel it ends up sounding not only like Jesus has an opinion of Paul but that you know what it is.
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GAS, loving neighbors is not the gospel. Jesus died for sinners (who don’t love neighbors is).
You’ve been reading the GC blog too much.
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Or is this what happens when the gospel expands to include all of life? When it does so, does the gospel merely become law?
Yes and yes.
The gospel doesn’t tell me what to do or how to do what I should do or what I am doing wrong. That is the law’s job. The gospel simply and powerfully tells me what is done – what Jesus Christ did , what that means and how that changes everything for me.
I love using quotes from Machen, so I’ll take opportunity to quote him from Christianity and Liberalism, the chapter on Doctrine:
That is what Paul called “the foolishness of the message.” It seemed foolish to the ancient world, and it seems foolish to liberal preachers to-day. But the strange thing is that it works… Where the most eloquent exhortation fails, the simple story of an event succeeds; and the lives of men are transformed by a piece of news.”
So I would say that the sin of racism is a law issue, not a gospel issue. Shouldn’t Christians promoting the Gospel (sinners saved by grace) keep the two separate?
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GAS, when I vote no and my neighbor votes yes that is trying to impose my will over his. And I do this ever day in many other ways. Am I being un-Christian?
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Is it just me, or does JT make it seem like the “if” statements are obviously true? What world does he live in?
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Zrim, methinks you fail to see the antinomy between me and JT.
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DGH, I didn’t say loving your neighbor was the gospel, I said it was the response. If Jesus forgave me for no merit of my own then I shouldn’t likewise forgive my neighbor. Is there a time when I shouldn’t forgive my neighbor for doing me harm?
(I barely read the GC blogs)
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Zrim, depends on what you’re voting on.
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Darryl, yes, of course. But you didn’t use the word “offensive” in your entire post.
Sorry I misunderstood.
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GAS, whatever the antithesis between you and JT it’s nothing compared to that between all-of-lifers and 2kers. But you said that “loving your neighbor means not trying to impose your will over his.” I assume that includes political will, but I fail to see how what we’re voting on makes much difference.
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Perhaps a “thus commands the Lord” would be better than a “just wondering about you”.
Paul Zahl, Grace in Practice, p87–“I am not helped by compounds of grace and law. Law is good because it shows me how things really stand. Law obiterates my illusions and shows me the truth. But law is also a stress from which there is no release. Nothing I am able to do endows me with peace if its aim is in any way to appease the force of law…
“You tell me that the criticism that you dole out to be for my good. You tell me that there is really love beneath the lecture. But all I can hear is the lecture. Tell me one thousand times that your law is in the service of love. I will even tell you that I believe you. But I don’t.”
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Zrim, it doesn’t include a political will, that was my point. The only political will I want to impose is to allow you to be free to do as you wish as long as the activity does not harm someone else. It’s the difference between the tyranny of the majority versus respecting each person individually. It’s the refusal to love your neighbor as an individual that leads to tyranny. If a group of people get together and freely decide to subjugate themselves to some form, fine. I don’t want to stop them. But if that group, through the process of the tyranny of the majority, then decide they want subjugate all people to that form without their consent then they have lost respect for the person individually.
You and Hart want Reformed folk to subjugate themselves to the Confessions. Fine. Each person gets to decide whether they want to do so. But you guys don’t seem to want to allow that in the political realm. Instead of a two kingdom philosophy it appears more like a one kingdom philosophy… subjugation all the way.
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Owen:
The law guides, directs, commands, all things that are against the interest and rule of sin. It judgeth and condemneth both the things that promote it and the persons that do them; it frightens and terrifies the consciences of those who are under its dominion. But if you shall say unto it, “What then shall we do? this tyrant, this enemy, is too hard for us. What aid and assistance against it will you afford unto us? what power will you communicate unto its destruction?” Here the law is utterly silent, or says that nothing of this nature is committed unto it of God: nay, the strength it hath it gives unto sin for the condemnation of the sinner: “The strength of sin is the law.” But the gospel, or the grace of it, is the means and instrument of God for the communication of internal spiritual strength unto believers. By it do they receive supplies of the Spirit or aids of grace for the subduing of sin and the destruction of its dominion…. (A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace)
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GAS, but don’t the people who have subscribed the confessions have to abide by the confessions’ teaching on the role of the church and the state — which indicates that the church is spiritual in nature, and the state is temporal. That’s a distinction that goes all the way back to Augustine. What am I saying? Christ taught that his kingdom is not of this world.
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DGH, your statement, taken a face value, would lead us directly into hyper-calvinism, would it not?
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GAS, I’ve made more than one statement. What do you mean?
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GAS, why does loving-your-neighbor-means-not-trying-to-impose-your-will-over-his not include our political wills? What sort of will does it include? But like I also said, I try to impose my will all the time on others. I try to impose it upon everyone from my wife and children to my work staff to my grocer, and vice versa. So how refraining from imposing my will on others constitutes my loving them, and so how doing so must mean hating them, I am left with two options: either this formula is bogus, or it’s not and I am behaving unchristianly. I’m leaning toward the former because I thought the Christian life was defined by doing unto others as I’d have them do unto me. Maybe I’m off, but I wouldn’t have anyone stop trying to impose his will on me but rather do so lawfully (and preferably with less whining, in the case of my kids). Besides, what a boring world it would be with everyone not trying to impose his will on others. Now the “warrior children” epithet makes a little more sense, since all-of-lifers seem to think the Christian life is more about passivity than obedience.
I’m afraid you lost me on the subjugation point. What do you mean here?
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DGH, If Christ’s kingdom is not of this world there’s no need to evangelize. The Elect will merely wake up. The temporal reprobates will perish. Secondary means?… BAH!
(Hey! I grew up around the PRC.)
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Zrim, go ahead and go to your grocer and take some nice juicy steaks without paying and let me know how imposing your will works out for you. Of course you could negotiate with your grocer but he doesn’t need to comply. If he does comply to negotiate he does so freely by weighing costs versus benefits, unless you use some form of extortion.
So there you go. Lack of extortion is loving your neighbor. Do unto others (don’t use extortion) as you would have them do to you (not use extortion against you).
As to subjugate… you can make yourself subordinate to the dictates of the Church and the State but who can tell which has the greater authority? I prefer to obey God rather than man.
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Re: Justin is just wondering out loud, not taking a stand, just raising questions about Ron Paul and the implications … Taylor links to Piper’s book on race
I’m curious. Has JT ever wondered and raised questions about Doug Wilson’s pamphlets on slavery and his rewrite because of being criticized for faulty citations in his original pamphlet? Apparently, historians are still not satisfied with his rewrite: http://hnn.us/articles/23113.html Has JT ever wondered and questioned Piper’s inclusion of Wilson as a speaker at this conferences including the one coming up in 2012? I’m just wondering if there is consistency here.
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Looks like Ron Paul’s racism was proven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv0Z5SNrF4 😉
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GAS, I’ve heard of weak interpretation but this? Christ did say this, right? Or are you questioning the reliability of the Bible? Why can’t it simply mean that Christ’s kingdom doesn’t come by kings (but the keys of the kingdom)? Otherwise, the other shoe to drop is that Christians should commit suicide in order to join the spiritual kingdom.
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Lily, I suspect JT wonders arbitrarily.
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John 18 doesn’t say that Christ’s kingdom is not in this world. It says that the source (authority, power) of Christ’s kingdom is not FROM this world. For the life of me, I can’t understand why one’s view of Christ’s kingdom inherently would lead to denying our need to proclaim the gospel to everybody. Everybody needs to know that Christ died for the elect alone. Since most people around us don’t know that, we need to tell everybody that all for whom Christ died will come to believe the gospel and will be forgiven all their sins.
We don’t know who the elect are. Not only that, but we do know that no elect person will be justified apart from hearing the true gospel. We don’t bring faith to the gospel. The power of the gospel brings hearing to the elect.
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GAS, yes, obeying God is better than obeying men, but there is also no governing authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God and therefore whoever resists those authorities resists what God has appointed. Is this what you mean by “subjugation all the way,” and that misguided? But 2k has a high view of both ecclesial and civil authority since Jesus is lord of both, even as he governs each differently. How can that be 1k?
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DGH, heretics take a line out of scripture and blow it up out of proportion all the time… you did see where I said, “taken at face value”, right?… I mean, Gnostics and Hyper-Calvinists were/are actual phenomenon… why the guffaw?
I’m happy with keys and secondary means.
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Zrim, I believe we’ve plowed this ground before and yet you continually ignore the fact that Paul is specifically speaking of good government. It specifically mentions those rulers who are not a terror to the good work.
I hate to do this… but I’m afraid I need to paddle you with the Nymeyer stick to teach you obedience:
“We have also showed the only sound basis for any human
authority, namely not a direct pipe line from God to men, but an
indirect channel, namely conformity to the revealed will of God
in the Decalogue. The Law of God is the channel, the intermediate
means, for properly exercising authority. The interjection of that
intermediate requirement binds governments, and all those who
exercise authority, to a good and obvious standard. All such
authority may be and will be obeyed by good citizens because it
is a beneficent authority. All contrary authority may and should
be resisted legally and illegally; we say legaly and illegally because
it is necessary to obey that basic requirement of the Christian
religion, towit: “We must obey God rather than men.” What is
mere human legality versus scriptural morality!” -Progressive Calvinism, Volume I, Number 8.
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GAS, I don’t know of any decreetal theologian who looks for predestination in Christ’s reply to Pilate. But I give you high marks for novelty in responding to 2k.
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Wait a minute! I thought I was the 2k.
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GAS, as Van Drunen points out by enlisting Calvin, there is no such qualification made by Paul:
Calvin’s convictions on this subject [civil disobedience] were, on the whole, strikingly conservative. In an extended series of discussions toward the close of the Institutes, he hailed the honor and reverence due to magistrates as a consequence of their appointment by God [ICR 4.20.22-29]. Calvin exhorts Christians that they must “with ready minds prove our obedience to them, whether in complying with edicts, or in paying tribute, or in undertaking public offices and burdens, which relate to the common defense, or in executing any other orders.” [ICR 4.20.23]. He goes on to make clear that this applies to bad rulers as well as good: “But if we have respect to the Word of God, it will lead us farther, and make us subject not only to the authority of those princes who honestly and faithfully perform their duty toward us, but all princes, by whatever means they have so become, although there is nothing they less perform than the duty of princes.” [ICR 4.20.25]. “The only thing remaining for you,” Calvin adds shortly thereafter, “will be to receive their commands, and be obedient to their words.” [ICR 4.20.26].
David VanDrunen, “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms” (pg. 121)
A plain reading of Paul reveals the same. Or are you saying that when Paul says there is no authority except that which is appointed by God he has his fingers crossed, i.e. except if your ruler is Stalin or Mao or King George, then those are not worthy of submission but rebellion? But neither Jesus’ nor Paul’s civil magistrates obeyed the revealed will of God; they even thought they were deities, not good. And yet in both Mark 12 and Romans 13 we are told to submit and obey. Why do you think they were so amazed in Mark 12? I’m guessing it had something to do with the fact that Jesus was trampling all over their assumptions that the gospel applies to all of life.
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GAS, ever since Augustine everybody is “2k.” The difference is in how you understand the nature of and relationship between the two kingdoms that makes all the difference. Kind of like law and gospel. Actually just like law and gospel.
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Joel,
Loved the link man!
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Zrim, zring zring zring zring!!!!
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Everybody is 2 k since Augustine? The next thing you know you will be telling me that we are all anabaptists now, when it comes to church and state! I have heard it said.
I have even heard tell that all of us were always credobaptists (at least on the side, in the first generation).
I certainly agree that John Calvin was not “theonomic” in the way Leithart and Wilson want to be. But if John Calvin was 2 k, then there must be a mighty wide spectrum of ways to be 2 k.
Of course I realise that what we “anabaptists” say about that second kingdom (don’t participate in what belongs now to Satan) might just make you think we are not even on that wide 2k spectrum.
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GAS,
I don’t know if this would interest you. Issues Etc. recently had a program on our vocations as citizens under civil authorities. In the later half of the program, they deal with the questions of living under bad governments and engagement with the world. Pastor Wilken’s comments at the closing of the program are very good too. It can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/br4oucc
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Zrim,
Van Drunen’s pacifism is obviously creating a bias in his interpretation of Calvin. Here’s from Calvin’s 1536 edition of the Institutes:
I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV. xx. 31)
And here’s a footnote from John Witte jr on this section of the Institutes:
64 Ibid., chap. 6.55-56. Calvin did allow for “magistrates, appointed by the people to restrain the willfulness of kings” — a text which became a locus classicus for later Calvinist theories of resistance, revolution, and regicide. See generally Julian H. Franklin, Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969); Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965); Ernst Wolf, “Das Problem des Widerstandsrechts bei Calvin,” in Wiederstandrecht, ed. Arthur Kaufmann & Leonhard E. Backmann (hrsg.), Widerstandrecht (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972), 152-169.
Oh Lily!… Thank God for those Lutheran resistors at Magdeburg and the Magdeburg Confession. From Calvin onward history shows us what great liberty Reformed resistance brought to the world. So Van drunen is out of the mainstream of Reformed 2k thought. Saying Van Drunen is 2k is like saying the Gospel Coalition is Reformed! You guys need to get on the Reformed 2k bandwagon or join the Gospel Coalition.
As to plain reading… Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc… were ministers of God for the good?!… ya got to be kidding me!
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GAS, you’re in good company. In his Stone Lectures for 1998 (the 100th anniversary of Kuyper’s), Nick Wolterstorff admitted that he had to abandon belief in God’s eternal decree because of the pacifism advocated by Calvin. Just think. VanDrunen’s book wasn’t even out yet.
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How very odd, GAS. Are you a fiction writer?
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Mark, I said “2k,” as in ever since “The City of God” made the case for two kingdoms. Everyone, even Anabaptists, thinks there are two kingdoms. But what is said about them is what makes the difference.
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GAS, I understand you seem to think DVD unreliable to interpret Calvin, but he does address that very same section, recognizing it as “a rather narrow exception to a strict, general rule.”
He goes on to point out that Calvin, when elucidating on the topic of civil disobedience and resistance qualifies his words by saying, “I speak only of private men,” then goes on to show how Calvin made some interesting stipulations about the less private and more extraordinary men known as lesser magistrates, typically the doctrine invoked to justify rebelling against a magistrate who says some people can’t sit at lunch counters or on certain sides of buses. Not only may “lesser magistrates curb tyrants,” but “only magistrates who have already been appointed for such a task.” In other words, there are no exceptions for ordinary Christian citizens like you and me when it comes to civil dis/obedience, and even when Calvin makes exceptions for extraordinary citizens known as lesser magistrates to resist tyrants, they are dressed in pretty conservative strictures.
Re Stalin & Co. being ministers of God for the good, you sound amazed in a Mark 12 kind of way. But if per Paul there really is “no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God” then you sound like you take exception to Paul.
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David Engelsma writes: “In the fascinating speech that Prof. Nicholas Wolterstorff gave earlier this year at a conference commemorating the centennial of Kuyper’s Stone Lectures, the Christian Reformed philosopher and teacher offered the judgment that the sad decline of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and of the Free University was due to their stress on common grace at the expense of the antithesis. To my surprise, Prof. Wolterstorff reminded his largely Christian Reformed audience that for Kuyper there was another doctrine in addition to common grace that is basic to the life of the Christian in the world. That doctrine, according to Wolterstorff, is the antithesis.
Engelsma continued: “The trouble is that Wolterstorff supposes that common grace and the antithesis can and must be held ‘in balance.’ This is impossible. Biblically, theologically, and logically, they are contraries. History has proved that they cannot and will not share the field of thought and conduct. When in the question-period Wolterstorff was asked for guidelines to hold common grace and the antithesis ‘in balance,’ he frankly answered that he could not give any.”
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Sigh… the best way to clear up the confusion on evil governments is to listen to the program. I’m too tuckered to refute peasants with pitchforks.
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Mark, you beat me to it! No luck with a quick search finding the speech. Maybe DGH can flash a link if he has one. But isn’t it interesting that the PRC is in agreement with Wolterstorff. Let’s see if we can map this out. Rejection of common grace is a rejection of w…v…., the PRC rejects common grace ( and consequently w…v….) and is pacifistic. Van Drunen rejects w…v… and is pacifistic. Wolterstorff, while not rejecting common grace, apparently emphasizes the antithesis, yet apparently rejects pacificism.
Hard to say about Wolterstorff without reading the speech.
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Zrim, as my footnote from Witte shows, whether or not it was a “a rather narrow exception to a strict, general rule” to Calvin, subsequent Reformers used it as the basis for resistance. And lesser magistrates are rather useless without the foot soldiers to support them.
Re Paul: Sure, you could rip any portion of Scripture out of context and come up with all kinds of things. I have no problem with providence but that’s not Paul’s point.
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GAS, not to get lost in the Dutch glossary, the point was that Wolterstorff reads Calvin similarly to VanDrunen.
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Engelsma (the Protestant Reformed Church) was NOT agreeing with Wolterstorf. I don’t think he would agree with DVD either. GAS, you sure have a funny notion about what “pacifism” means. It makes it difficult to understand what you write when you use words in your own special way.
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Mark, would it be more helpful if I termed it: Ana baptists in calvinist clothing… instead?
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GAS, I’m not sure what your point is about the PRC and WV, but since the PRC has formally decided in its 2009 Synod that the only form of day schooling acceptable is denominational schools then she hasn’t in fact rejected WV. Christian day schooling is the laboratory for WV, so to compel officers upon pain of discipline to send their kids to them is a major yee-haw for WV.
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You can say that Christianity is possible even when there are no Christians running the nation-state without being “anabaptist”. Not all exiles are anabaptists. The Israelites in disapora after the demise of their kings were not “anabaptists”.
Being anabaptist is first of all about ecclesiology, about the nature of local congregations.
Being anabaptist is second of all about a refusal to participate in the “second kingdom”, while submtting to all that God has ordained.
It’s simply absurd to call Calvin a pacifist or an anabaptist. Have you not read any of his diatribes against the anabaptists? I only wish Calvin had engaged them on the important topic of the extent of the atonement, like some of his Reformed colleagues did. But Calvin put all anabaptists under the category of “seditionists”, even though he married the widow of an anabaptist.
Now you seem to return the favor by putting Calvin under the category of “pacifist” simply because he rejects the need for the state to enforce the divine legislation given by the angels through Moses.
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Zrim,
Re the surprise of Mark 12: Why should I be surprised in that manner? I’m not a Jew living in the time of Christ expecting a worldly jewish kingdom. Your unstated underlying premise is that any time a Christian petitions the government to respect his/her natural liberties that somehow means they’re advocating Christian dominionism. Mularky! I want all people to enjoy their natural liberties: Atheists, Muslims… even Lutherans! Equal justice under the law is the brotherly love the Scriptures demand.
Re the PRC: Instead of all what you think it means could it possibly mean they don’t want their elect children soiled by temporal reprobates?
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GAS, if you want all people to enjoy religious liberty then you’re going to have to edit your approval of Nymeyer whose progressive Calvinism wants the Decalogue civilly enforced. For when that is the case nobody gets to openly and freely practice false religion. Conservative Calvinism, as in 2k spirituality of the church, is way better for what you want to see for your neighbors.
Re the PRC and educational legalism, when will P&R realize they talk about education the way Nazarenes talk about beer? But the basic categorical confusion you demonstrate in your last blustery comment is one between catechesis and curriculum. I’d have my kids learn their three Rs from Catholics (curriculum), but the three marks only from Heidelberg (catechism).
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Mark, if being “Anabaptist” is first and second about ecclesiology then what gives with a name that suggests it’s all sacramentology? “Presbyterian” seems to suggest it’s all about ecclesiology. But the beauty of “Reformed” is that it’s so encompassing that, like Ragu, it’s all in there.
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To me, “sacramentology” is inherent in ecclesiology. I don’t think you would have “sacraments” unless you had institutional authorities to dispense them. You claim that God does the sacraments and thus creates “the church”
To say it positively, the reason WE (not God) credobaptists don’t baptise infants is that the promise of the gospel is to as many as the Lord calls (Acts 2) and we don’t who that is until believers are ready to take communion. We are waiting for understanding and assent to the gospel, since we think that is the result and not the condition of effectual calling.
In other words, a gathered “called out” congregation is the goal, and the rejection of infant baptism is only a means to that end.
As for “what’s with the name’, you guys gave it to us. We don’t even agree that it’s “again”, since we don’t recognize what Calvin got from Rome as baptism.
Quakers answer to the name Quaker, but they didn’t give themselves that name.
Maybe this raises a question somebody can answer for me. Which persons first called themselves “presbyterian” or “reformed”? What did the papists call you guys?
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Mark, we are waiting for understanding and assent to the gospel as well, which is why we are credo-communionists.
And to the extent that credo-baptism and paedo-communionism are mirrors errors, and speaking of how anybody gets their names, I’m still wondering why there aren’t as many (paedo) Communionists as there are (credo) Baptists. Maybe the CREC, which claims Reformed and gives cover to paedocommunion, will deliver to us one day the first Communionist denomination? I mean, if there are Reformed Baptists then why not Reformed Communionists?
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I am still trying to find some Lutheran Baptists. Only I want the kind who agree with me about the real absence! And then we could proclaim together NOT by our works…..
If you are just thinking parallels, symmetry would make credo-baptism go with credo-communion, and paedo-baptism go with paedo-communion.
But maybe a thing or two did change between the covenants.
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Mark, the thing about mirrors is that they don’t have symmetry. So just as you hold up print in a mirror and it reads backwards, when you hold up credo-baptism in a mirror you see paedocommunion. And vice versa.
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Point well taken, Zrim, you definitely wouldn’t see msitpab-oderc.
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Mike, you’ve been reading to much Dr.P.
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This is the cover story of the Jan 2012 issue of D-Magazine. D-Magazine is a major regional magazine in North Texas. Imagine at every grocery store check out line in North Texas: Time, Newsweek, TV Guide, Various Women Magazines, D-Magazine, and the Tabloids.
The Chosen One: How First Baptist’s Robert Jeffress Ordained Himself to Lead America.
http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2012/January/The_Savior_Robert_Jeffress_of_First_Baptist_Dallas.aspx
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Zrim: “GAS, if you want all people to enjoy religious liberty then you’re going to have to edit your approval of Nymeyer whose progressive Calvinism wants the Decalogue civilly enforced. For when that is the case nobody gets to openly and freely practice false religion. Conservative Calvinism, as in 2k spirituality of the church, is way better for what you want to see for your neighbors.”
Methinks you haven’t really read Nymeyer. In fact, he was writing against the Neo-Calvinists of his time. You and Freddy are of the same ilk. Besides, there are no inherent conditions that require pacficism towards the government to ensure the spirituality of the church. That’s a false dichotomy.
(blustery?)
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GAS, I read the Nymeyer you paddled me with:
“We have also showed the only sound basis for any human
authority, namely not a direct pipe line from God to men, but an
indirect channel, namely conformity to the revealed will of God
in the Decalogue. The Law of God is the channel, the intermediate
means, for properly exercising authority. The interjection of that
intermediate requirement binds governments, and all those who
exercise authority, to a good and obvious standard. All such
authority may be and will be obeyed by good citizens because it
is a beneficent authority. All contrary authority may and should
be resisted legally and illegally; we say legaly and illegally because
it is necessary to obey that basic requirement of the Christian
religion, towit: “We must obey God rather than men.” What is
mere human legality versus scriptural morality!”
If this is writing against neos, I shudder at what writing against paleos looks like. BaylyBlog!
And by blustery I mean, “Re the PRC: Instead of all what you think it means could it possibly mean they don’t want their elect children soiled by temporal reprobates?”
Lemme guess: secular education is like handing your children over to Molech, too, right? What if I said public schools should be thoroughly secularized and Xian kids should be in them? Feel the legalistic bluster now?
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Zrim,
I thought you held to Republication… natural moral law… Romans 1? You’re just assuming that Nymeyer has a position on the first table that looks like the Baylys.
No, my point wasn’t that the PRC thinks it would be like handing them over to Molech… the children are elect regardless. It’s more of a piety issue… The Elect don’t hang with reprobates.
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GAS, please show me how Nymeyer doesn’t paint himself into a theonomic corner by basing the legitimacy of any governing authority on its application of the Decalogue.
But even a true church has wheat mixed with chaff, so what in thee heck does it mean that elect don’t hang with reprobates? Making it a piety issue is exactly how Fundamentalists speak when they bar substance users from office. Here the PRC bars public schoolers (and homeschoolers, mind you, which is how the whole thing got started) from office. Balk all you want at the Fundies, but when it comes to another matter indifferent–how to deliver the three Rs–your words on behalf of the PRC sound just as silly and legalistic.
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Zrim,
If the moral law is written on the conscience of everybody, and the second table of the Law is the denotation of that, how would that lead to theonomy?
I’m not defending the PRC, I’m just showing the results of pacifcism to things secular.
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GAS, theonomy is the civil enforcement of both tables. How does “The Law of God is the channel, the intermediate means, for properly exercising authority” not lead to theonomy?
You sure have a funny way of not defending the PRC’s educational legalism by tying it to piety (really, nothing but pietistic defense and no sober criticism?). But I’ll take the Roman Church’s Catechism 2229 over the PRC’s 2009 Synodical decision and even the URC’s Article 14:
As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.
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Zrim: “GAS, theonomy is the civil enforcement of both tables. How does “The Law of God is the channel, the intermediate means, for properly exercising authority” not lead to theonomy?”
Because our duties to man is written on our conscience. When government enforces any duty we owe to men outside of the law then tyranny reigns. Your logic seems to suggest the absurd:
1. If government/society enforces any part of the Law then they observe the entire law
2. All governments/societies have enforced laws against murder and theft.
3. Therefore, all governments/societies are theonomies.
“You sure have a funny way of not defending the PRC’s educational legalism by tying it to piety (really, nothing but pietistic defense and no sober criticism?).”
The piety was the criticism. Pacficism as piety, like you advocate, has consequences.
“Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.”
I’m not sure what “concrete conditions for its exercise” is supposed to mean but it sounds like Romanistspeak for using governmental means to establish Romanist schools. If governments stayed out of the business of educations then the conditions would exist whether they were concrete or not.
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GAS, if one wants to avoid implications of theonomy then one (like Nymeyer and you who quote him so approvingly) need to be much more careful when saying the Decalogue should rule society and distinguish between the first and second table. How is anyone supposed to know that by “the Decalogue” you mean the second table? Especially when plenty of folks who say “the Decalogue” mean both tables.
I’m not sure what pacifism has to do with the education point. How does pacifism lead to educational legalism? After all, if I share the alleged pacifism you seem to see in the PRC then how do I end up calling their Synodical decision a form of legalism?
And I think you’re way over-reading the Catholic statement, perhaps to align with a more ignoble form of anti-Catholicism. But try some conventional Reformed hermeneutics when reading the Catholics: if you’re not sure what the last sentence means then try reading in light of the previous and more clear statements. Do you really think “As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators” means that the Catholics are trying to manipulate the “government schools” to be “Romanist schools”? Some might call that pretty tortured at best, pretty paranoid at worst. But the plain reading of the statement is that there is liberty of conscience for individual parents to choose the best course of education for their kids.
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Zrim, I suppose if I could have published his entire works here so that he could not be misconstrued but I have a feeling DG might not appreciate that. You may well want to consider that in your quest to slay theonomy devils there is the opposite problem of those who wish to base their authority outside of any foundation besides their own power.
You started out with the absurd claim that the PRC was worldviewish. The PRC was formed on the basis of the rejection of Kuyper. Do the Amish have their own schools because they say yee-haw to worldviewism? These are forms of trying to isolate the church from the world to protect it’s spirituality.
I’m not sure how my words could be manipulated into saying I said that Romanists “are trying to manipulate government schools to be Romanist schools” when I said there should be no such thing as government schools. Romanist doctrine does however advocate a strong central government. That’s the anathema.
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You started out with the absurd claim that the PRC was worldviewish. The PRC was formed on the basis of the rejection of Kuyper. Do the Amish have their own schools because they say yee-haw to worldviewism? These are forms of trying to isolate the church from the world to protect it’s spirituality.
GAS, the PRC’s rejection of common grace goes to the charge of hyper-Calvinism. Its raising of day schooling to the fourth mark of the true church by making any who employ anything other than the denomination’s day schools goes to the charge of legalism. I understand the reasoning that day schooling is a way to fulfill covenantal promises, but this only helps show again the categorical confusion of curriculum and catechesis. The Bible prescribes the latter for passing own and nurturing Reformed spirituality. How the intellect is trained another issue altogether and is liberty.
I’m not sure how my words could be manipulated into saying I said that Romanists “are trying to manipulate government schools to be Romanist schools when I said there should be no such thing as government schools.”
It’s not. It’s when you said, “I’m not sure what ‘concrete conditions for its exercise’ is supposed to mean but it sounds like Romanistspeak for using governmental means to establish Romanist schools.”
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