Thomas Jefferson, like Marcion, is legendary for taking out the parts of Scripture that were not agreeable with his outlook. After reading Nelson Kloosterman on the cultural mandate, I wonder what he does with Paul.
It’s not worship or witness, cult or culture. The crux of this entire discussion lies precisely in the word and. The word and is a word of integration. This conjunction proclaims not merely the intersection of worship and witness, but also the integration of worship and witness. Moreover, in order that both worship and witness conjoin effectively for the salting and illuminating benefit of the church for and among the nations, this worship and witness are corporate rather than individual, not at the expense of the private and personal, but for the enriching and deepening of them. This worship and witness are open to creation and its integration with redemption, refusing every dualism that segregates and isolates from the gospel’s grace and power any life experience within creation, but seeing every life experience as expressing one’s religious heart response. Stated clearly: to segregate cult from culture is suicidal, for both.
Now Paul:
though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:4-11 ESV)
Is it just me or do I detect a lot more or in Paul than Dr. Kloosterman’s and? What exactly about “rubbish” (or dung) does Dr. Kloosterman not understand (assuming that Phillipians is still in his Bible)?
John Calvin helps out by having us understand that the gospel does not require us to live as if culture is rubbish:
As to riches and honors, when we have divested ourselves of attachment to them, we will be prepared, also, to renounce the things themselves, whenever the Lord will require this from us, and so it ought to be. It is not expressly necessary that you be a poor man, in order that you may be Christian; but if it please the Lord that it should be so, you ought to be prepared to endure poverty. In fine, it is not lawful for Christians to have anything apart from Christ. I consider as apart from Christ everything that is a hinderance in the way of Christ alone being our ground of glorying, and having an entire sway over us.
I assume that we can include in Calvin’s notion of riches, neo-Calvinist notions of culture — math, science, Shakespeare, and Hegelian philosophy. In which case, believers should be willing to divest of our attachment to culture. We really do have to decide whether we are loyal to cult or to culture. Transforming culture won’t turn it into the equivalent of Christ. As Calvin says, we need to look at cultural goods the way that sailors look at cargo when trying to save the ship during a storm:
For those who cast their merchandise and other things into the sea, that they may escape in safety, do not, therefore, despise riches, but act as persons prepared rather to live in misery and want, than to be drowned along with their riches. They part with them, indeed, but it is with regret and with a sigh; and when they have escaped, they bewail the loss of them. Paul, however, declares, on the other hand, that he had not merely abandoned everything that he formerly reckoned precious, but that they were like dung, offensive to him, or were disesteemed like things that are thrown away in contempt.
In other words, cultural goods may be good, even pretty good, but not great or redemptive. In fact, trying to integrate them may be as suicidal to the gospel as Dr. Kloosterman thinks segregation is. Calvin himself warns:
Paul renounced everything that he had, that he might recover them in Christ; and this corresponds better with the word gain, for it means that it was no trivial or ordinary gain, inasmuch as Christ contains everything in himself. And, unquestionably, we lose nothing when we come to Christ naked and stript of everything, for those things which we previously imagined, on false grounds, that we possessed, we then begin really to acquire. He, accordingly, shews more fully, how great the riches of Christ, because we obtain and find all things in him. . . .
He thus, in a general way, places man’s merit in opposition to Christ’s grace; for while the law brings works, faith presents man before God as naked, that he may be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. When, therefore, he declares that the righteousness of faith is from God, it is not simply because faith is the gift of God, but because God justifies us by his goodness, or because we receive by faith the righteousness which he has conferred upon us.
Of course, clothing is a good thing and is part of culture. Just watch The Devil Wears Prada to see one of the great speeches on behalf of the fashion industry, not all that far removed from the brief for Pinot Noir in Sideways. But when it comes to the righteousness that God requires, Bill Blass and Robert Mondavi have nothing on Christ and the clothing and drink he provides through the means of grace.
To try to integrate human cultural goods and the work of Christ does not upgrade culture but trivializes the gospel. If Dr. Kloosterman wants to render a service to the church, instead of warning God’s people about the dangers of 2k, perhaps he could address how neo-Calvinists reconcile Paul’s notion of human accomplishments as rubbish with the Kuyperians’ promotion of the cultural mandate.
Old Life 
As in, faith AND works, no sola, not “merely” Christ’s death for the elect alone.
Why pick one, when you can have both? Co-instrumental…
“From this point forward, only the person who has read Ian Hewitson’s study deserves to speak and be heard.” –
NELSON D. KLOOSTERMAN; Ethics consultant and Executive Director, Worldview Resources International
Trust and Obey (Norman Shepherd and the Justification Controversy at Westminister Seminary)
“Indispensable … the best historical account of the controversy to date.” – JOHN M. FRAME, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary
“I enthusiastically recommend this book.” TREMPER LONGMAN; Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary (1980-1998), Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, Westmont College (1998-present)
——–
Engelsma, PR Journal, April 2014, p 86—“when the false gospel of an universal but ineffectual grace pretends that it is willing to peacefully co-exist with the gospel of particular sovereign grace, it is in fact ALL OVER FOR the gospel of particular sovereign grace. They are two contradictory gospels in antithesis to each other.”
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Not of Works: Norman Shepherd and His Critics, by Ralph Boersema, p 151 quoting Cornelius Venema—“Norman Shepherd’s strength is his insistence on the conditionality of the covenant. The covenant of grace is conditional in its administration. To view salvation in terms of God’s electing grace would make it impossible to do justice to human responsibility and to ward off antinomianism.”
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Here’s a thought experiment:
Could you be happy going to work in a factory each day, doing repetitive work, coming home to a small house that you live in with your wife & kids, spending some time with them, praying together, reading the Bible together, and then doing it all again the next day. And then the next month, and then the next year.
In the midst of that you try your best to be kind to others, to be a good steward over the minimal possessions you have, and to be a faithful member of your local church.
If you couldn’t, why not? If you could, why?
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Is Psalm 49 the opium of 2k religion?
Why should I fear in times of trouble,
when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,
6 those who trust in their wealth
and boast of the abundance of their riches?
7 Truly no man can ransom another,
or give to God the price of his life,
8 for the ransom of their life is costly
and can never suffice,
9 that he should live on forever
and never see the pit.
10 For he sees that even the wise die;
the fool and the stupid alike must perish
and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their graves are their homes forever….
Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
17 For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him.
18 For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed
—and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—
19 he will go to the generation of his fathers,
who will never again see light.
20 Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
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“Old Testament exegete, Arthur Pink”? Old Testament exegete?
Keep going in Philippians Three: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.” I’ll take Paul’s “in” and “from” over Kloosterman’s “and.”
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Erik,
This question stems from my limited understanding of the doctrine, but if we have a calling to a specific vocation, doesn’t that mean that, unless the calling includes working in that factory, in some way we ought to be dissatisfied there?
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Stephen,
That’s a good question.
What do you think it means to have a “calling” to a specific vocation?
How do you know God has called you to it vs. you just liking it and the perks (material & psychological) that come with it?
Steely Dan has a great song called “Razor Boy” that makes me stop and reflect on what’s important to me and why.
“Will you still have a song to sing when the Razor Boy comes and takes your fancy things away? Will you still be singing it on that cold and windy day?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9g-Z5nFg5Y
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Erik,
Afraid I probably can’t answer your question very satisfactorily.
If I’m good at something, enjoy it, can provide for my family and maybe even serve others, that seems like some evidence at least of calling. We likely won’t know with certainty, could well be called to something that entails suffering, and could agonize so long about God’s will and our calling that we fail to do much of anything, but inclinations, talents, and opportunities to serve seem like they should count for something.
(I say this as someone who has worked at a somewhat unenjoyable and low-paying job for the past couple years and am moving to something I hope to enjoy much more in the near future. Perhaps I’m too biased.)
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Erik,
What if you were being discriminated at that factory or saw coworkers being sexually harassed or company intentionally polluting and harming the community, etc? Should you silently endure or try to transform it? Obviously the factory is just an interchangeable example/microcosm for your local associations/church/orgs, neighborhood, city, state, country, world. Should you only try to transform it if you first assure yourself such efforts have no redemptive or sanctifying value? Is being kind to others as you say antithetical to transformation?
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Curiously, the word “or” never appears in that quite from Paul. And as we saw in your “I don’t spell union e-n-g-r-a-f-t” comment recently it’s either “or” or nothing.
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Erik, it would be the lack of initiative in the context of repetition that would get very old. If you put that scenario on a farm, where a farmer confronts a variety of tasks and requires a remarkable number of skills, I’d be tempted to say I should do this (whether I could actually feed myself and a family is another question — or pay taxes). I’ve often thought that farmers, by virtue of being tied to seasonal cycles and rigors of livestock, have to think about life and the meaning of their lives in ways very different from us industrialists who can take a three-day weekend or a night on the town or a two-week vacation whenever we want (and our employer allows). Farmers don’t have the flexibility and so don’t live for “weekend.” But they do have a lot more variety in their work.
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Maybe those on this forum so attached to TV, movies and alcohol should take Mr. Hart’s advice and stop trying to make them supplements and illustrations of the Gospel and Christian living…
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You all raise good questions. Maybe the ideal is to try/hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and try to be content with whatever you have.
The problem arises when people seemingly “have it all” and still aren’t happy and screw up looking for “something more” – a better job that really isn’t better, a crazy move, a younger woman, a prostitute, a happy-clappy church. These things happen to people at my point in life (40’s-50’s).
An interesting film to watch/ponder is “The Killing Fields”. How would we deal with Dith Pran’s situation? Admittedly that’s a worst case situation and we would probably try to get the hell out of there like he did.
What would we do if we were Walter White?
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Alexander, bitterness isn’t a fruit of the Spirit.
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No ORS in Paul?
Galatians 2:21 if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Christ died for a purpose (all for whom Christ died saved) OR righteousness is through our keeping the law. No synthesis possible, no overcoming of the antithesis in Christ.
Romans 3: 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Paul is not about “inclusive balance”. If by our works, then exclude faith in Christ’s finished work. If by faith alone in Christ’s death alone, then exclude our works. Faith means “not works”.
Gaffin, By Faith, Not By Sight, p 38—From this perceptive, the antithesis between law and gospel is not an end in itself. It is not a theological ultimate. Rather, that antithesis enters not be virtue of creation but as a consequence of sin, and the gospel functions for its overcoming. The gospel is to the end of removing an absolute law-gospel antithesis in the life of the believer
Gaffin, lectures on Romans, on 2:13:—-As that judgement decides, in its way, we’re going to wanna (sic) qualify that deciding, but as it decides the ultimate outcome for all believers and for all humanity, believers as well as unbelievers. That is, death or life. It’s a life and death situation that’s in view here. Further, this ultimate judgement has as its criterion or standard, brought into view here, the criterion for that judgement is works, good works. The doing of the law, as that is the criterion for all human beings, again, believers as well as unbelievers. In fact, in the case of the believer a positive outcome is in view and that positive outcome is explicitly said to be justification. So, again the point on the one side of the passage is that eternal life… depends on and follows from a future justification according to works. Eternal life follows upon a future justification by doing the law.
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D.G.,
Grain farmers (who don’t have livestock) work hard at planting and harvest and spend the other 10 months mostly farting around.
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Galatians 3: 12 But the law is NOT of faith, rather “The one who does them shall LIVE by them.” (Leviticus 18:5)
The logic of “if” is the logic of “or”.
Galatians 3:18 For IF the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise
Galatians 3:21 For IF a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
Galatians 5: 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take NO OTHER VIEW, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But IF I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
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Alexander, have you worn out everyone in Scotland? Are we the only people you have left to bother?
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Mm- Nope, didn’t read the word “or” in any of those quotes either. Seems like your fake Bible version fails you again.
Kent, Chortles- I’m sorry to rain on your antinomian parade but someone has to. Someone also has to try to counter your pathological hatred for a group of Christians who, whilst wrong in a lot of things, hardly deserve the snide, sneering, vicious comments issued by you lot. Ever heard of humility? Maybe if any of you actually adhered to the Regulative Principle, or actually subscribed the Standards then you might have a stronger leg to stand on. I just find it a tad galling to read people continually criticising some for not being Reformed who are themselves full of compromise.
But hey, go watch your Breaking Bad boxset and forget about it.
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Mm-
To paraphrase your leader: I don’t spell “or” I-F.
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Listen to this interview (substituted for a Sunday morning sermon) between a Keller protege and two uber-renewers and you can follow neo-Calvinism/tranformationalism/everything-must-be-renewed ideas to their logical conclusion. 11 minutes is enough to get the gist. And you’ll learn that showering is kingdom work and that your dog will be redeemed. No word on cats.
http://christpres.org/sermons/sermon/2014-04-27/interview-with-gabe-and-rebekah-lyons
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Alexander, if i could 1% believe all your bitter tirades are anything more than a joke then I would feel very concerned for your concept of love for your neighbour.
You play the troll very well.
So LOL again and jolly good hepatitis yellow commentary.
You rock.
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So what breaking bad character is Alexander most like on here?
I’m thinking Tuco, Alexander sits down to write here and takes on the character of Tuco after crushing meth with his big knife and aggressively imbibing.
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EC – I often come back to what Paul wrote to Timothy. It seems to have a 2K flavor.
“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” (1 Tim 6:6-9)
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Kent, can’t help here. Alexander’s slander notwithstanding I have never watched BB. It’s strictly Lawrence Welk, Touched By An Angel, and Scandinavian crime drama for me.
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If I were Walter White, I’d quit and see if David Simon needs any help.
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E.C. then that’s the farm for me, you know, Dr. Fart. tee hee hee.
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kent, I don’t know why Alexander comes to Old Life. Isn’t it the HBO of Reformed blogging? Am I overestimating myself? No. Zrim calls it porn.
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DGH, OL is a fun place to watch all the zanies and other zoo animals show how outraged they can be when they see people have a different view and and that others seem to be enjoying life
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If theology blog comboxxing is akin to golf, dgh is Pete Dye. But while we are getting all Meta about this place, The Metaphysical Club continues to entertain me on my commute, moving on to Pope and Mussolini next.
Fore..
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Which is what makes it so seminal. Sorry for that, Alex, but you have to know your take your personal holiness into your own hands (pun intended) when you stop by.
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When one comes out from beneath the big rock they live under, throwing little rocks at anything that moves, they should realize some kind of feedback will be returned.
And this isn’t even real life on the internet.
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I quote from an “and” person — “When the preponderance of my thoughts about my daily life with God are ONLY seen from the PERSPECTIVE of Christ’s substitution and my unworthiness to merit his favor, not only do I miss the joy and motivation of knowing my deeds today can actually please God, but I can be left with a distant, abstract, academic view of my relationship with him.”
I respond in this way—Like the Galatian false teachers, the “and works” teachers do NOT DENY anything, and do NOT DENY justification by imputation. But they do minimize justification by Christ’s death as only one “factor”.
We live in a day when there is little antitheses between law and gospel. It is being taught that law and gospel are the same thing, depending on the situation. In this way, you can say one thing, say another thing that contradicts the first thing, and then put them together as different “perspectives”. Change the world AND also keep the church separated from the world. Justification now by the blood AND justification in the day to come by God enabled works.
Galatians 5 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take NO OTHER VIEW… I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
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I have always wondered how neo-Calvinists can at once reject any form of dualism, while championing notions such as antithesis. Some might say it is their need to have their cake and eat it too, but I tend to think it is owing to the fact that the whole neo-cal project is founded upon a baptism of Kantian dualism. Of course my single track NL2K mind probably can’t understand how the phenomenal/noumenal distinction figures into the anti-dualism motif. Whatever the case may be, if it isn’t dualistic, maybe it’s just duplicitous, and we aren’t in on the joke.
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CW and all,
I am listening to that interview/sermon, and Mrs. Lyons actually says, “if we are the good news…. (then we have to do this, etc.)” If WE are the good news. Simple misspeak? Perhaps, but that is the point when one would wish the TE interviewer to provide some correction…. The PCA is literally two denominations (at least) within the same organization. Wat do?
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I heard that, Chris — hardly stood out in such a target-rich environment. Reminds me of candidate Obama: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Makes me want to break their brokenness.
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I have trouble figuring out who is against who in all this high-minded sarcasm. And isn’t everyone getting a bit off subject? It takes too long to figure out who is jibbing who and what all the comments mean. I guess you have to tune in more often to get it. It is kind of entertaining- some of the comments, that is.
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JohnnY, it all comes down to the transfos vs. 2k. And the occasional pissed pietist. It doesn’t help the average OLer has the attention span of a Jack Russell terrier, though.
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John,
I don’t understand most of the comments, sarcasm or inside jokes here either. DGH also likes to make his readers work to connect the dots, and sometimes I miss a dot or two in his thinking. But mostly I get what he’s after, which for me, is just a plain reading of the NT. God saves sinners.
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Erik, Iowa grain farmers heard that snark. Some Christian ones make mission trips during cold Midwest winters, though. DG is right about livestock producers’ intense schedules. Millions of baby pigs perished this past 12 months due to a new disease around North America–bacon may get pricey.
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Getting back to the topic at hand (since I can’t follow all the random sarcasm, jokes, and personal jibes), this seems awfully simplistic, but when Paul references rubbish/dung in these verses, isn’t he speaking about justification and how we can be right before God? Paul claims if anyone could be called a “good Christian”, it’d be him, but these he counts loss before God because they don’t factor into the equation. They are dung compared to the feast which Christ brings to the banquet table. Paul can’t be made right before God on the basis of his work much like none of us can be made right before God on the basis of our cultural works either (might I suggest you’d be hard-pressed to find a “neo-Cal” who wouldn’t agree. It’s a straw man to say any different, either that or it’s just picking on the most radical neo-Cals for an easy argument).
Are you suggesting Kloosterman wouldn’t cast aside his cultural activities for the sake of knowing Christ and Him crucified? My suggestion is that in terms of justification and how he (and we) are made right with God, he and we both would cast them off as rubbish before Him, acknowledging they don’t gain satisfaction with him.
“we really do have to decide whether we are loyal to cult or culture” — that’s like saying we really have to decide whether we are loyal to grace or law…true in justification and in sanctification in the sense that law-keeping is only made possible through the Spirit’s work of applying grace but not true because for the Christian who flees to grace, the law becomes their friend (at least that’s how I read the psalmist and his love for the law). That is the integration of the cultural mandate/great commission. With the premise of sin in the world, man must first see how their works are as rubbish before God and that they can’t be made right before Him. Then with that knowledge, they go out into the world and be the light of the world and salt of the earth. Those actions that they do in the world don’t make them any more right with God and they’d be the first to cast that cargo off the ship in the courts of justification, but this isn’t justification or trying to be right with God.
Just some thoughts…I’m likely missing the point or something, especially given that my mind usually shuts off about an hour ago. I just don’t see how how Kloosterman’s original quote has anything to do with not seeing his works before God as filthy rags in the courts of justification.
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Thanks, Jason. Surely the Philippians 3 logic suggests an either–or. If we do not count as loss salvation by works, then we will not be found in Christ, and Christ’s death will not be that which satisfied the law for us. We cannot simply “add on” some more reforms, without ever repenting of anything.
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law….
Romans 10: 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did NOT submit to God’s righteousness.
Either submit to Christ’s righteousness OR seek to establish one’s own righteousness
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
OR for everyone who does NOT believe the gospel, Christ is NOT the end of the law, and therefore there is no end of the law for those who do NOT believe the gospel
5 Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. 6 But the righteousness based on faith …..
The logic of “but” is the logic of either-or.
And even the “catholic” exclude the “sectarians” for the sake of inclusiveness. The transformationists always reject any command to “love not the world”. ( I John 2:15)
It’s a dualism against dualism.
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Alexander and Greg the Terrible need to meet for brunch.
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“Alex, I’ll take ‘Public relations disasters for your church’ for $100′”….
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Jason, I do think Dr. K would choose the gospel over Bach. But he wants to have both and that’s what is so appealing about neo-Calvinism and tranformationalism — you can have it all, Jesus and Bach. Of course, 2k says the same. But 2k doesn’t look at Bach as redemptive. Music is part of the created order which was created good. But it won’t help us on judgment day, and we don’t need to make it sacramental to justify listening to it.
Neo-Calvinism is just another version of fundamentalism — still divided between the holy and the profane with nothing in the middle of common.
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mboss,
Good comment.
Don’t tell Terry Gray you’re prooftexting, though (other thread).
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Chris,
These folks think they’re such good news that they don’t even feel the need to spray Lysol after using the can at work…
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John,
Spend 23 hours a day here for 2 years at it will all make sense.
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nocable – Some Christian ones make mission trips during cold Midwest winters
Erik – Hey, I get it. Vegas needs the gospel, too.
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Speaking of using the can, there are two kinds of men (but only one kind of woman) when it comes to using the can at work.
Man number one goes out of his way to do his business at home, to the point of tailoring his daily routine to make sure his body cooperates either before or after work. All women fall into this category. I have a relative who runs early in the morning year round for this reason.
Man number two makes a ritual of taking the sports page into the can for 15 minutes each workday.
Yesterday I went to a bank to get something notarized. The teller said, “X can do it but he’s using the restroom so it will be a few minutes.” I knew instantly that he was someone I could do business with.
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We have a local guy who would make a good Old Life antagonist (roughly 28 minutes in):
http://ames.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=107
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John, Chris-
Yes, a lot of what passes for theological discussion here is ad hominem attacks on those who dare to question the self-styled “truly Reformed” position promulgated here, which seems to be based purely on whatever Machen did.
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Mr. Hart-
As far as I can tell Bach wasn’t around in the Garden of Eden. Have you ever heard of a little thing called the Fall? Do you seriously believe that everything and anything that is created is good, because it’s “part of the created order”?
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So, Erik…are you disputing the validity of the old slogan “haste makes waste” by favoring the approach of man #2?
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Bill Evans— there is in 2K a persistently DISJUNCTIVE impulse—separating sanctification and justification, Law and Gospel (another Lutheran distinctive), the transformatory and the forensic, the kingdom of the world and the institutional Church. Thus Mike Horton rejects the older Reformed scholastic notion of the infusion of gracious habits in regeneration found in the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Confession (Dordt III/IV, Arts. 11, 12, Rej. Par. 6; WCF 13.1), which denominated a real and lasting change intrinsic to the Christian, and he challenges the distinction between regeneration and effectual calling (see his Covenant and Salvation, 230-242). Horton thinks the older infusionism subverts forensic justification: “Infusionism has never created a forensic space in its ontology” (Covenant and Salvation, 215). He also rejects the traditional participationist option—another historic way of articulating real change in the Christian—as too Platonic (see, e.g., his “Participation and Covenant,” in Smith and Olthuis, eds., Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition (2005), 107-32). Consistent with his prioritizing of the forensic, Horton argues that the forensic decree of justification results in sanctification via what he calls a “covenantal ontology…. At the end of the day, despite Horton’s … clear desire to affirm that a change in the Christian’s behavior takes place, his explanations of how this works never get much beyond the extrinsic. It seems that he simply does not have conceptual apparatus at his disposal to say much of anything about a real change or transformation intrinsic to the Christian.”
https://theecclesialcalvinist.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/whats-wrong-with-2k/
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Alexander, be fair. You can attack with the best of them.
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Alexander, do you really think that everything humans do are bad, or that post fall the heavens don’t declare the glory of God?
Good works of unbelievers are good to themselves and to us.
(see no attack.)
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DGH: “But 2k doesn’t look at Bach as redemptive. Music is part of the created order which was created good. But it won’t help us on judgment day, and we don’t need to make it sacramental to justify listening to it…. Neo-Calvinism is just another version of fundamentalism — still divided between the holy and the profane with nothing in the middle of common.”
CH: I thought this was a very helpful summary. So…. Fundamentalists have only two categories and do their best to separate from all that is not holy (in their view). Neo-Calvinists (and most neo-evangelicals for that matter) have only two categories and seek to make everything holy NOW. No wonder they feel like they have to be experts in everything, such that the message of Christ and Him crucified can barely be heard through the clutter of the Church speaking to all things.
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Alexander, do you seriously believe that some things in the created order aren’t very good? But WCF sees it differently:
It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good.
So does the Second Helvetic:
GOD CREATED ALL THINGS. This good and almighty God created all things, both visible and invisible, by his co-eternal Word, and preserves them by his co-eternal Spirit, as David testified when he said: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6). And, as Scripture says, everything that God had made was very good, and was made for the profit and use of man. Now we assert that all those things proceed from one beginning…Therefore, we condemn the Manichaeans and Marcionites who impiously imagined two substances and natures, one good and the other evil; also two beginnings and two gods contrary to each other, a good and an evil one.
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Sorry to hit the rewind button…I think I remembered why I don’t post here anymore, because by the time I’m able to get back to it, you guys are already a couple pages past. Anyways, here we go…
Mark, agreed that Philippians 3 is an either-or in terms of where to find our righteousness – it’s in Christ or nowhere. My point was that Kloosterman wasn’t arguing any different in his quote, in fact he wasn’t talking about where our righteousness is found. Dr. Hart posted a quote from Kloosterman and then followed up with Philippians 3 and suggested they were at odds with Kloosterman having more “and” while Paul had more “or”. My suggestion is that it’s a false dichotomy to suggest you can’t have both because they are speaking of different things. It’s like law and gospel vs. law or gospel. In terms of salvation Paul leaves us without a doubt that it is law “or” gospel, granted the gospel needed the law for Christ to fulfill, but we’ll set that aside. However, moving to Christian living, its law “and” gospel”, granted again you could have an abundance of footnotes there. My suggestion is the either/or becomes the both/and for the Christian and so Kloosterman and Paul can co-exist. Dr. Hart sets them Maybe I’m missing your point.
DGH: I’m confused. You said Dr. K would choose gospel over Bach but then you go back to saying how he wants to have both and how Bach won’t help us on judgment day. Who is saying it will help us on judgment day? You just said Dr. K wouldn’t say that, but then suggest he would. What I said to Mark above applies here as well. Kloosterman isn’t speaking about judgment day where we stand before God. It seems you keep suggesting he is. Maybe I’m missing something. Also, not sure who is suggesting that music should be sacramental before we start listening to it. Maybe it depends on what you mean by sacramental.
I don’t think I’d say Neo-cals see nothing as common. They would acknowledge areas where unbelievers and believers work together (that’s what I mean by common). The difference is more of a matter of what we do with the common. Neo-cals would say how can we shine the light of the gospel on this common area or pour some salt on that area (Matt. 5 — and not just for the preservative intent)? Whereas 2k would probably look at the common area and say “this can’t be touched by the gospel” because it’s common. Is that a fair analysis? I’d go into an example of movies or music, but then we’d get sidetracked.
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Jason, if Dr. K isn’t talking about judgment day, why does he use the language of salvation and redemption? Easy fix. Talk about Bach in creational terms. But for neo-Cals that’s not good enough. Not enough inspiration. If we do something it must count for eternity. Just look at this: “I think I’d consider a “secular” career to be a waste of time and life if I thought it were all going away.”
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Mr. Hart-
Indeed. But those are good works. What about the bad works?
Zrim-
That’s my point- on what day did God create the movie industry? Is violence inherently good? Is murder? Theft? Promiscuous sex? These are all the fruits of man, ergo by your reasoning they are part of the created order and good. What’s the ndiffetence between these and dancing?
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Glad to see that my comments are even getting quoted. Darryl, you win your argument simply by assuming it to be true. Do you see that you simply assert that Creation is going away? If Neo-Cals would talk about Bach in creational terms, you’d be happy. (But only if creational terms means it’s going away–your view!) Neo-Cals should argue that Bach is part of the created order. Music and art are not the work of the church as institution. In the neo-Cal position the good of Bach (and the good of all Creation) will be part of the Age to Come (as it already is). It will be purged of it’s rebellion. Bach was a sinner like the rest of us. I doubt that just tagging SDG to his works kept the fallenness of this world out. So I’m happy to keep to the language of Creation. But just because it is labeled “Creation” doesn’t mean it’s not going to part of the New Creation. God made us for eternity, you know. To glorify and enjoy him forever. It’s not just some idolatrous grasping at significance. We (and the rest of Creation) were made for his good pleasure. (Your piece about God enjoying human works the way he enjoys squirrels…or something like that…comes close to the idea.) But I don’t see any reason to think that it’s going away. It will be consummated. Established in perfection. Unable to Fall in the future. (But since it did Fall under Adam, it’s now brought back to its original intent in Christ.) Regained and consummated. But, He’s not starting over. No hint of that. Just a judging of the rebellion and a renewing of all creation. Hence a New Heavens and a New Earth not just a New People of God.
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Terry, “I don’t see any reason to think that it’s going away.”
Marriage.
I know you get tired of that one, but since it was such a big part of the created order and your favorite cultural mandate, it’s hard to take your thoughts about continuity in the new creation seriously if the lack of marriage never comes up in your consideration. I mean, if you wanted to say the lack of marriage suggests that continuity will be modified or of a different kind or something, then I hear you. But so far, all you can do is bring up that we bring up marriage a lot.
Again, because of its crucial part to creation — you know, biology, procreation, filling the earth, familial relations, God as father, yadayadayada — continuity between a world where creation is central and marriage vanishes is really hard to imagine.
But I know, you’re sticking to the business plan. Investors will be upset.
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Alexander, who brought up bad works? We were talking about good.
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Cale Horne– “and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own.” I assume there were plenty of materially poor believers present in this scene, but they would have known that they were not being made rich by this redistribution of goods, but because of the apostles’ witness of the resurrection of Jesus.
http://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=421&cur_iss=Y
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Were we? What works were we talking about? I was referring your pint about classical music, and more generally the view put across on this forum that things like movies are ok because they’re part of the created order. I think our fundamental disagreement is over what constitutes a good work.
I agree that good works benefit- in a temporal sense- all who do them.
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Alexander, instead of distinguishing between “all things in the created order” and “everything that ever happens within the created order” you’re collapsing them. No wonder the daintiness and soft legalism on substance use and worldly amusements. Push the collapse button on revival and revivalism.
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See you at National Day of Prayer observances today, Old Lifers. What, you’re not going?
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Alexander, I think any human action could count as a good work — that would include cooking a meal, watching a movie, or giving up your seat for your child. Why so narrow?
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nocable, what are they serving? humble pie?
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Darryl, the antecedent to “it” is Creation. I welcome whatever discontinuities are indicated by scripture. Including the end of marriage and giving in marriage. But biology isn’t all about sex and pro-creation, you know. If there are bodies, there is matter, chemistry, biology, neurology.
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Terry, “I welcome whatever discontinuities are indicated by scripture.”
But far be it from me if I ever readjust my w-w, understanding of the cultural mandate, or bromance with Abraham Kuyper.
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nocable, we OLers are busy at work during the week, and May 1st isn’t filled with nostalgia for patriotic Christian Americans.
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Even though many at old life speak of the “good works” of non-Christians, at least some of them are cautious enough to refer to “providence” instead of “common graace”.
David Engelsma: “Confusing providence and grace is serious error. Far worse is the use of the theory of a common grace of God to introduce the doctrine of universal saving grace. History shows that the common trajectory. The Arminians at the time of the Synod of Dordt employed common grace on behalf of their doctrine of universal, resistible saving grace (see the Canons, III, IV, Rejection of Errors/5). Claiming to confess the Kuyperian common grace of rain and sunshine, the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 adopted the doctrine of a universal, resistible saving grace of God in the preaching of the gospel.”
de: “Richard Mouw does the same in He Shines. He wrote the book, as he himself tells us, to defend and promote culture-forming common grace. We find him concluding that common grace may well be universal saving grace. He ascribes common grace to the “Spirit of the reigning Lamb”… active in our world, not only in gathering the company of the redeemed from the tribes and nations of the earth, but also in working mysteriously to restrain sin in the lives of those who continue in their rebellion, and even in stimulating works of righteousness in surprising places.(p 87).
Hope of what? Hope for whom? Mouw–“While I am no universalist, my own inclination is to emphasize the “wideness in God’s mercy” … For all I know – and for all any of us can know – much of what we now think of as common grace may in the end time be revealed to be saving grace (p. 100″.
de: “It is impossible to restrict a favorable attitude of God towards men to this life. It is impossible to confine a divine power that delivers from sin and produces good works to the life of earthly culture. Such a favorable attitude and divine grace demands to be viewed, and proclaimed, as saving grace – universal saving grace. And this is the destruction of the Reformed faith, either in the direction of universalism, or in the direction of conditional salvation.”
http://www.prca.org/pamphlets/pamphlet_89.html#Editorial9
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Zrim-
I don’t understand your point. How am I collapsing those two categories? Surely you are doing so, and that’s how you can justify the things you do. I do distinguish: between that which God has created and that which is the fruit of man: some of which is (a qualified) good and some of which is bad.
Dr. Hart-
Can rape be considered a good act? Can the Holocaust?
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Alexander, I justify “the things I do” by the doctrine of liberty. The Bible doesn’t condemn drinking beer and watching movies. What I mayn’t do is steal my beer or sneak into the cinema. But God didn’t create the nebberwet, Al Gore did. So what are you doing here?
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I save my comments on movies for those special occasions when I want to cause pants wetting, bed wetting, anorexia nervosa, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and a general sense of rage and hysteria among many of the Old Life commenters…
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Tom Cruise……Boo!
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I’ve recently shifted my work-time listening/viewing from movies to hours and hours of City meetings — City Council, Planning & Zoning, Zoning Board of Review, Historic Preservation, Library, Cultural Affairs, Human Relations, Budgeting, etc. etc. Endless drama, comedy, and politics…and very educational. Plus, no boobies flashing on the screen while a secretary walks by my office. It’s been an excellent move.
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The best is going to be Board of Review when people go in to protest their property tax assessments. Something like 10,000 higher assessments went out, many to long time homeowners. That is going to be interesting.
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Dr. Hart,
I think we are speaking of two different things. When I referred to judgment day in my post, I was specifically talking about our standing before God and how we can’t look to anything except for Christ for our obedience, even our cultural works aren’t an acceptable obedience that could make us right before God. There is nothing in Kloosterman’s quote that would suggest any different. Additionally, we should be ready to cast any cargo necessary when we get to heaven. Indeed, if we are ever presented with the option of having Christ or anything else (even cultural things), we must choose Christ. This is the attitude that Paul is describing when speaking of rubbish and what Calvin is elaborating on and is what you quoted and why I speak of it in that way. (I think I hear an echo…). You seem to extend it to mean it is either we pursue Christ, or we pursue cultural things and that we must always choose Christ because cultural things aren’t going with us anyways. I think that presents a false dichotomy and to suggest that it is a false dichotomy, which is what Kloosterman does as well, gets the response from you that we misunderstand Paul and I don’t understand why. Why does pursuing cultural things, or trying to create Christian flavors of them) automatically get the label of trying to add to Christ or not being considered rubbish when standing before God? I agree with you that in some Neo-Cal circles it does seem to mean that, but not all of them and not in this quote. That’s not a fundamental characteristic of Neo-Cals. If you wanted to counter that strain of Neo-Cals, my suggestion is to choose a better quote and I’d agree with you.
The 2K position is hung up on how everything is going away, but that doesn’t negate the need for salt. Salt can be flavorful, even if everything is going away. In fact, when you put salt on your food, it is to give it taste even though that taste will only really be there for a couple seconds while you chew it and then it’s gone, but salt still is flavorful and beneficial to those around it and it’s called to be that. I don’t really see how you would disagree with that. Maybe I’m misinterpreting his quote?
By the way, I wouldn’t generalize Terry’s quote to be representative of all Neo-Cals. Really, we shouldn’t care about the secular career itself and what happens to it, it is the people that are affected by that career that we should focus on. Whether the career stays or goes away, you have affected others through it. That is the point.
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Jason,
Do you think the gospel is:
(A) God is renewing all things
(B) Jesus died for your sins
(C) The magistrate should promote Christ
(D) All of the above
(E) Some of the above
If (E), which ones?
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Alexander, are you for real? We were talking about good and Bach.
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Jason, ” Why does pursuing cultural things, or trying to create Christian flavors of them) automatically get the label of trying to add to Christ or not being considered rubbish when standing before God?”
Well, if Christ doesn’t tell me to pursue cultural things — he says whatever I do is to glorify him, that’s not culture as the neo-Cals have it — then you have added to Christ if you think that the cultural mandate is now binding on me. Taking captive every square inch is not an option, I’ve heard. How is that not like adding circumcision to faith in Christ?
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The only thing making sense about Alexander is that he a troll, treat him as a comedy.
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Erik,
You had to ask that question…I’d have to say it depends on what way you are talking about. You can talk about the gospel in a very narrow sense, which is what you are looking for and that is C. I firmly believe that one.
I don’t agree with A just because you put the word “all” in there. I do think that redemption shouldn’t be thought of only in terms of salvation. Romans 8 says how creation will be set free from its bondage even as it groans. Leviticus 25 speaks of the land itself having a Sabbath rest. What those things exactly mean, I’m not sure but they suggest that redemption shouldn’t only be limited to salvation. Christ came to break the bonds of sin and its effects, not just in humans. Again, I’m not ready to say too much there yet. How about you, would you say that redemption is only to be thought of in terms of salvation? Is the freeing of the earth’s bondage that it is destroyed? I ask, not as one with the answers, but as one who is studying this topic.
Finally, B is not the gospel. The magistrate is commanded by God to obey God, much like every Christian is, and that would mean “promoting” Christ, but that is not the gospel.
Dr. Hart, ok so Christ doesn’t tell us to “redeem everything” as some neo-Cals would put it. I’m curious what does it mean to be the light of the world and salt of the earth then? Do you only believe we are to be salt in terms of its preservative effect? Or its flavorful effect as well? What is the reason why we are called to be salt and light? What benefit does it have?
Also, in terms of the cultural mandate, couldn’t we view the cultural mandate much like the law of God? We don’t follow the law to achieve our righteousness and similarly we don’t pursue the cultural mandate as a covenant of works like Adam did because Christ has already done that. We are agreed there. I’m wondering though because we also called to follow the law of God as a law of gratitude for one, but also to “be ye holy as I am holy”. Couldn’t we view the cultural mandate in a similar light? Just because Christ has fulfilled the cultural mandate, much like the law of God, that doesn’t mean we just abandon it. What is the difference between the cultural mandate and the law of God that we can’t follow one, but we are called to follow the other? I’m curious.
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Jason,
I think you flip-flopped B & C in your answer, but I get what you meant.
You say: “Also, in terms of the cultural mandate, couldn’t we view the cultural mandate much like the law of God? We don’t follow the law to achieve our righteousness and similarly we don’t pursue the cultural mandate as a covenant of works like Adam did because Christ has already done that.”
In your experience are Neocalvinists and Transformationalists big on making distinctions between Law & Gospel, though? In my experience they tend to want to wrap them together.
This is why they accuse us 2K guys as sounding more Lutheran than Reformed.
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Erik,
Thanks. You are correct. I should refrain from posting late at night…
Regarding your question, depends what you mean by wrapping them together and it depends on what you mean by Law & Gospel. The law/gospel distinction isn’t solely 2K. Calvin along with a majority of the Reformers believed in it as you well know I assume. The distinction is very helpful, but it depends on how it is defined. I don’t like “the law says do and the gospel says done”, because that confuses justification with the call for holiness in sanctification and denies the third use of the law. I might argue that I think some of 2K takes the distinction too far and in so doing, they might tend toward the Lutheran camp, but the distinction itself isn’t Lutheran.
So, yes, we believe in the law & gospel distinction, but we also see where it can be divided too much so that when you read Scripture you have to fit everything into either one category or the other. Do you believe in the third use of the law? I should have predicated my question in my previous response with that because I guess that is foundational to the question I asked. In my opinion, the law/gospel distinction is taken too far when the third use of the law is denied.
Distinctions are very useful, but they always have caveats and thus should be used with care.
I have answered your questions, can you please answer my question above of what the difference is between the cultural mandate and the law of God in terms of following one and not the other?
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Mr. Hart-
You said that you thought any human action could be considered good. I was seeing if you conceived of any sort of limit to that statement. If I were a member in you church I’d have no idea what if anything you would consider wrong for a Christian to do. You seem to give liberty for anything not explicitly condemned in the Bible- and by that I mean mentioned by name. That’s biblicism.
Zrim-
That’s your problem too. You’re a biblicist. The Bible doesn’t forbid watching movies in those words because movies didn’t exist back then. You actually have to take the principles taught in Scripture and apply then to the particular circumstances of today. As I’ve said before your notion of liberty does not adhere to the teaching of Scripture and the Westminster Standards.
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Erik, lets read what the Reformed confessions say about sanctification and good works (even Zrim’s favorite–that we don’t get very far).. That’s where transformationalism comes in. It’s not the gospel. It’s the fruit of the gospel. The gospel is Christ’s work for us imputed to us. Good, old-fashioned neo-Calvinists are as Confessional as any of you. I will fully agree with you all that some who call themselves neo-Calvinists have drifted from the Reformed confessions. This is a distinction that I have tried to make all along. Many so-called modern neo-Calvinists (and evangelicals who are influenced by neo-Calvinsim) take the transformationalism without the confessionalism. Historical neo-Calvinism kept them together.
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Jason, redemptive history matters. The cultural mandate came before the fall. Is it repeated? Yes, in a modified way in the Noahic covenant, but it is generalized or universalized — not something for believers only. You should look at Keele and Brown, Sacred Bond.
We are salt and light because we delay God’s judgment. Salt doesn’t reverse the process of meat rotting. It delays it.
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Alexander, I believe the 10 commandments are true and I use them to know what to do. I also use the 9th to judge whether you are being charitable to me and (all about) my good name. Moralize up. Love me.
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Alexander is the sandwich-board-dude of OL for now
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And maybe Paul and Dr. Kloosterman aren’t even talking about the same thing(s)!? And maybe their true statements are not mutual exclusive?
Paul seems to be quite clear that he’s speaking about the acts of the flesh and worldliness.
Dr. Kloosterman, on the other hand, is talking about walking in step with the Spirit, in obedience.The Bible is clear that all we do is worship either of the one, true, living God and creator of us all or to idols and false gods. So all that we do is an act of worship.
There appears to be no actual contradiction, but rather two different discussions that are interdependent regarding how we Christians are to live while we are in this world. (ref: 1 Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:17)
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Greenville Theological Seminary is “Neo-Calvinist”?
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Jason – Do you believe in the third use of the law?
Erik – I do, but I think of the law in the same way the Heidelberg does. Guilt-Grace-Gratitude. The law falls in the third (Gratitude) section.
I see far too many in Reformed circles taking the “Grace” section for granted and putting their focus on the “Gratitude” section. As in, “Yeah, of course we accept the gospel, but all the important action revolves around our piety, politics, how we are to reshape society, and what the magistrate should be doing to bring society in line.” I just don’t buy it. The emphasis is all wrong.
We used to have a couple in our URC church. The wife grew up in the CRC. Her dad was still in the CRC and was a retired faculty member from a Christian college (I think maybe he taught sociology). He was working or had worked for the CRC doing relief or something along those lines. When he came to visit our URC he was disgusted that we were a bunch of navel gazers and weren’t out “doing” like he was. Now his perspective was from the left and most of our URC transformationalists are on the right, but I think it’s the same error.
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I think we lose sight of the fact that if God doesn’t like what someone is doing or what some group or nation is doing, he can remedy the situation on His own and there will be nothing left but a greasy spot and scorched earth. When he wanted to deal with Israel he didn’t need righteous people to go in and clean the place up, he used unrighteous pagans to get the job done quite nicely.
As Calvinists we should know better. God does not need us and the direction of society and human history is not in our hands.
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Jay – The Bible is clear that all we do is worship either of the one, true, living God and creator of us all or to idols and false gods. So all that we do is an act of worship.
Erik – The problem comes when no room is left for what is “in between”, as in, what we spend 90% of our day-to-day lives doing. This leads to mindsets like “Christian Schools – good, Public Schools – bad” or “Republican Party – good, Democratic Party- bad”. In actuality we need to realize that everything in the common realm is tainted with sin to some degree and we should not put too much stock in them. Hold to Word & Sacrament with full assurance. Be skeptical of everything else.
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Alexander, wait, we’re the Biblicists in this show? Don’t pull any muscles making that reach. Are you actually serious with the “movies weren’t around back then” line? But agreed that biblical principles are to be applied in every time and place. That’s why Paul gave us who have no meat sacrificed to idols but other particular activities some want to use to lord it over Christian consciences these instructions:
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience—I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.
And how do you figure my notion of liberty does not adhere to the teaching of Scripture and the Westminster Standards, which says:
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.
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Zrim; Alexander, wait, we’re the Biblicists in this show? Don’t pull any muscles making that reach. Are you actually serious with the “movies weren’t around back then” line?
He’s kind of lame compared to some of the firebrands we have enjoyed over the last few years.
And that’s not a (death)wish for them to return, at least no more than one at a time…
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Kent,
I was actually hoping for a reunion picnic this summer. Hopefully in a park with a lot of underfed bears.
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This all or nothing—no inbetween— “dead or alive” fundamentalism.
Luke 16:15— That which is highly esteemed among humans is abomination in the sight of God.
Hebrews 6:1– “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from DEAD WORKS, and of faith toward God”
Hebrews 9:14–”How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from DEAD WORKS to serve the living God?”
http://www.prca.org/pamphlets/pamphlet_89.html#Editorial5
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Jay Ryder: “The Bible is clear that all we do is worship either of the one, true, living God and creator of us all or to idols and false gods. So all that we do is an act of worship.”
GW: Sorry, Jay, but I must respectfully disagree with your assertion that the Bible “clearly” teaches that “all” we do is worship. It simply ain’t so, for it confuses the holy and the common, the sacred and the secular (in the legitimate sense of “secular,” not in the illegitimate “secular humanist” sense). Examples: Holy Baptism is a sacrament and hence a holy act of Divine worship. My morning shower is not a holy act of worship, but a common (non-holy) activity. The public reading of Holy Scripture in the covenant assembly of corporate worship on the Lord’s Day is a holy act of worship. Reading a classic work of fiction in my home may be a good and wholesome activity, but it is not an act of holy worship.
Scripture clearly distinguishes between the holy, the common, and the profane (sinful). Divine worship as regulated by Scripture falls into the category of the holy, and clearly not all activities are holy activities. While we should do all that we do for the glory of God (including creation-based “common” activities like eating and drinking – 1 Cor. 10:31), engaging in “common grace” activities for the glory of God is not the same thing as participation in holy acts of personal, family, or corporate worship.
http://lakeopc.net/2012/the-holy-and-the-common/
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Jay, I don’t understand. If everything we do is either an act of the flesh or an act of worship, doesn’t this raise the stakes for all cultural endeavors? Doesn’t this mean that a symphony or a painting or a book is either for or against God?
But then how does that fit with the liberty that Paul recommends when he says we can eat meat offered to idols?
I don’t think you’re squared the circle just yet.
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Mr. Hart-
My question as a member in your church then becomes: how do I know how you and the session apply the Ten Commandments? Do you subscribe to an objective statement on the application of them? Well it just so happens you do: the Westminster standards. So, if I want to know if I have violates the 2nd Commandment I can turn to the WCF on religious worship and the Sabbath, or to the LC’s explication; if I want to know what are violations of the 7th Commandment- such a issue today- then I can turn to the LC’s explication of that commandment.
But then I have a problem: the practise of my session is not in accord with the teaching of the standards which they claim to subscribe. So I’m left at the whim of the private interpretations and arbitrary applications of individual men, rather than a written, ecclesiastically agreed upon constitution. It’s one thing that the session no longer holds to the original understanding of the Establishment principle or the Church of Rome- at least your westminster confession reflects that. But here there is not even such an official amendment: there’s merely the personal opinions of individual office bearers.
Do you see my conundrum?
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Erik – The problem comes when no room is left for what is “in between”, as in, what we spend 90% of our day-to-day lives doing. This leads to mindsets like “Christian Schools – good, Public Schools – bad” or “Republican Party – good, Democratic Party- bad”. In actuality we need to realize that everything in the common realm is tainted with sin to some degree and we should not put too much stock in them. Hold to Word & Sacrament with full assurance. Be skeptical of everything else.
Jay – If all of life is an act of worship, there is no “in-between”/neutrality – so that’s what I’m arguing.
“This leads to mindsets like”… maybe some people misappropriate Biblical teaching, but that’s no excuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m in total empathy with you with regard to disdaining those who create “Christian ghettos” in the public realm. Not something that you’ll ever see me argue for, because I believe it goes against the whole in the world, not of the world teaching that we’ve been given.
When the Bible says to submit ourselves as living sacrifices to worship God with our hearts, minds and souls in all we do, that sort of rules our “putting too much stock” in the tainted things of creation.
So, I think you’re working from several false premises.
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Alex, I subscribe as an officer.
I don’t think you are actually OPC, but are drawing a hypothetical. I can’t see how your particular scruple would fail to be addressed adequately given the OPC’s wonderful polity, but as you know, synods and councils do err, on occasion.
But the answer to your question is our appellate system. Higher and lower courts, all that jazz.
Does that help?
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Zrim-
I think it has to be restated that when Paul says all things are lawful he’s clearly not intending all to mean “all things conceivable by man”. There’s such a thing as the law! So yes you are a biblicist and this is a prime example of it.
I think what Jay was saying that every person either serves God or serves Satan; we are either followers of the one true God, or of the evil one. In whatever we do. I don’t think he was saying that we spend our entire time engaged in religious duties but rather that our lives are ordered by the god we serve.
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D.G. -“Doesn’t this mean that a symphony or a painting or a book is either for or against God?”
Absolutely.
We don’t see it, but the Lord most certainly does.
D.G. – “But then how does that fit with the liberty that Paul recommends when he says we can eat meat offered to idols?”
Because we know there is no such thing as idols and that when we eat, we to the glory of God, not as pagans.
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AB-
Thank you for your gracious reply. You’re right: I’m not OPC, it was hypothetical. I’m afraid though I find your answer, while helpful, unsatisfactory. If I want to know what my church (the one I’m actually a member in) believes regarding the teaching of any of the Commandments I can turn to the LC and read it there. If I want to know what it believe regarding justification, sanctification, election, I can turn to the Westminster standards.
And when issues have arisen not expressly dealt with in the standards- such as use of public transport on the Sabbath, or the watching of TV and the use of the Internet on Sabbath- then our synod addresses that issue and gives direction to the church.
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Alex, no problem. I’ve been OPC long enough (since 2001, I married in) and an officer long enough (was ordained in 2007 a deacon) to have even seen major church controversy and how we resolved. And I’m only 32.
Anyway, I read out here what I can. Take care.
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Alexander, who is saying all things conceivable? Not me but you. You’re the one who has conflated ‘all things” with “all things conceivable.” I’m the one saying we are free to watch movies and drink beer but not steal either.
If you and Jay are right then how in thee heck do Christians honor the emperor and show submission to civil authorities? Neither are Satan or God. Neither am I, so how do my kids serve me? Your dualism needs some serious triadalist tempering.
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GW: Excellent comments and questions! That’s exactly where my beef is with Neo-Cals.
Unlike Kloosterman or Greenville Seminary, these are the ones who completely flatten out and co-mingle the sacred and profane.
Referring back to the original article of this post, Kloosterman is addressing GTS and asking for an integrated approach to the concept of a CM (Cultural Mandate) and the GC (Great Commission). He is primarily discussing the activities that we participating in outside of the sacred assembly and in the normal, everyday vocational callings that we who are not full-time, ordained leaders live in.
My comments were primarily directed toward that end.
However, now that you’ve brought up this excellent distinction, I heartily agree that the sacraments and the collective divine worship performed within the communion of saints is qualitatively different than our ordinary, individual acts of worship, beyond the formal assembly.
I agree 100% with you, when you wrote, “engaging in “common grace” activities for the glory of God is not the same thing as participation in holy acts of personal, family, or corporate worship.” Amen to that! And I appreciate the fervent desire to protect from some of the shenanigans that happen in churches that are being stained by the profane. (I actually attended a church plant service to be supportive one time where they “open” from the “stage” with an AC/DC song!)
No, the profane has no place within the sacred worship service. However, that does not mean that the sacred has no place going out and influencing the profane. In fact, I believe that is EXACTLY what distinguishes the Reformed from the Roman Catholic church. When we partake of the sacred on the first day of the week, it is precisely for the purpose of equipping us to be about the Father’s work in the ordinary, day to day callings that most of us (who are not full-time, ordained church leaders) live. Our calling to be obedient, diligent, God-serving, God-fearing, people-loving, people-serving, Saints out in the world is *a reflection* of who are becoming as we collectively gather before the face of God in our formal gatherings. The sacred MUST go out to the profane.
What I thought Kloosterman was saying is that our going out must be both witness and worship, because witness without worship will be merely worldly. And that our going out consisted of the Great Commission (witness) — and — the Cultural Mandate, which he seeings as Christians being obedient to the Lord (worship) in their various callings.
I’ll have to check back with you, though, because I need to get ready for a conference.
Heading out to Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology. “Profaning the Sacred: Beauty and Holiness of the Bride of Christ”. …I expect to learn — a lot..
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Zrim drops a hammer: God alone is Lord of the conscience,.
Our sweet sweet standards.. Those guys thought of everything!
Lates.
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AB- Uh, What hammer?
This is my point.
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
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Jay – If all of life is an act of worship, there is no “in-between”/neutrality – so that’s what I’m arguing.
Erik – While you’re at it, see if you can locate the Ark of the Covenant, The Holy Grail, and the Wood from Jesus’ Cross…Oh, and Noah’s boat.
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http://www.alliancenet.org/CC_Content_Page/0,,PTID307086_CHID568266_CIID,00.html
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Sorry, bad link. It’s the conference Jay is headed to. It worked for me.
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Jay, are you unfamiliar with those words?
I’m still pondering what you are saying about the exact difference we reformed find ourselves against Rome, is about. Freedom of conscience had shown itself to me, at least, while learning these things, to be a pretty big deal (dividing line? dropping a hammer? Luther could do no other?). Enjoy your conference, I’ll be reading.
Nice to “meet” you.
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GW, Keller protege Scotty Sauls says taking a shower (by yourself, I assume) is kingdom work. Yeah, I know.
http://christpres.org/sermons/sermon/2014-04-27/interview-with-gabe-and-rebekah-lyons
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When we partake of the sacred on the first day of the week, it is precisely for the purpose of equipping us to be about the Father’s work in the ordinary, day to day callings that most of us…live.
Jay, from where I sit, it’s actually about preparing not for this world but the world to come. Yes, we are sent out into this world after being temporarily lifted into the heavenly places by Word and sacrament, but that’s not the purpose of the Sabbath day and its inherent exercises. Even Wolterstorff sees that:
http://confessionalouthouse.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/sabbath-as-discipline/
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CW: “Sauls says taking a shower (by yourself, I assume) is kingdom work.”
Reminds me of an add I saw in an old 19th century magazine which quoted Rev. Henry Ward Beecher promoting a brand of soap, “If cleanliness is next to godliness, then soap is a means of grace.”
No kidding.
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You guys are arguing against Jay by linking to an “Outhouse Confessional” and the PCAUSA website.
His comment to Geoff was well done, whether you agree or not. But then you regulars have the nerve to insult him by telling him to go search for the Holy Grail and Noah’s Ark? Oh, and of course, let’s not forget to throw in a Keller insult for good measure.
Really. How old are you “old life” boys?
Perhaps if the site changed its name to “Old Truth, New Life” that would make for a better dialogue.
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Jay, so to teach a Xian w-w in a Xian day school, how do you justify teaching texts (like Shakespeare) as great literature when they have been written from an anti-Christian w-w?
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Lou, I knew we could get you to come out of the woodwork.
Whoever any of us are out here..
fore
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Lou, and Geoff’s comment to Jay was better — nah nana nana nana nah.
Do you see a difference between the common and the holy, or do you think baking bread in a worship service is proper?
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But just because something is common doesn’t make it neutral. Whilst most of us may not have jobs which have a direct reference to our faith, thy still play a pivotal role in our life of faith. When we work in a lawful job, diligently and honestly; when we refrain and even speak out against the profane and coarse language we hear about us everyday; when we refuse to work on the Sabbath we are giving glory to God. We don’t need to Christianise our jobs but we need to do our jobs as Christians.
There is no such thing as spiritual neutrality: no one is neutral before God.
Zrim- We honour God by submitting to the authorities He has put over us- whether that be the government or our parents- but not to the point of sinning in order to obey a command.
But again where do you get your justification that movies and dancing and taking drugs is acceptable for a Christian? That’s what we’re disagreeing on.
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Alexander, do you drink coffee? Do you take aspirin? What’s your biblical justification?
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Alexander, nobody is defending sinning in order to obey–aren’t you following the conversation with CvD who thinks it’s a form of legalism to promote civil obedience and eschew disobedience? And I don’t have to justify doing what is indifferent. The onus is on you to show why I mayn’t do what isn’t expressly forbidden. Just what do you think legalism and binding consciences without warrant is?
But you’re the one (and Jay) saying we can only serve either God or Satan. Again, the magistrate and parents aren’t either, so now what?
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Lou – Really. How old are you “old life” boys?
Are you talking in chronological years?
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Alexander – “But again where do you get your justification that movies and dancing and taking drugs is acceptable for a Christian? That’s what we’re disagreeing on.”
How about farting in public? Good (natural body function) or bad?
If us carrying out our daily tasks bring glory to God, what is your theology of farting?
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When everything is either “holy” or “unholy” (no in-between) the whole notion of Christian liberty is meaningless and it becomes very difficult to have a visible church without splitting into sects containing about 12 people each.
Even Fred Phelps was excommunicated from his own church in the end.
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For my work I am often defending people accused of a crime, often exposed to the evil things that bad people do (and some is vomit-worthy…)
Am I engaging in evil activity by even allowing their misdeeds to enter my mind and thoughts?
Isn’t this fun?
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When people have this mindset it is very difficult for them to have productive relationships with other people (maybe even especially other Christians) because eventually they will disagree over some area of doctrine or life with that person and fall out. They end up pretty much alone, bitter, and seeing everyone as their enemy who doesn’t understand the truth of God. It’s a tragic side effect of Calvinism and Reformed theology misunderstood and misapplied.
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Geoff’s writing on his webpage is fantastic. Basically explains the issue concisely and accurately. I’m saving it to my list of favorites, for sure. Thanks, Geoff.
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Yes Erik, jesus-juking is hard to stop when it takes over 99% of one’s communications.
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Zrim- I just said that we honour God when we obey the lawful authorities he sets over us. However, only if we are regenerated can we be said to be following the true God. The natural man- however “good” his outward works may be- is a servant to Satan for he is at enmity towards God. I only mentioned not obeying if it requires one to sin to be more precise in my statement- I wasn’t referring any conversation or point in particular.
This is why I call you a biblicist: you want an express prohibition against something otherwise you deem it indifferent. Well of course there’s no express prohibition against watching movies because they weren’t around then. There’s no express prohibition against abortion- does that make it indifferent too? I- along with the Reformed tradition- apply the principles of the Christian life put down in Scripture to modern day issues.
Mr. Hart- I do drink coffee and take aspirin- well I prefer paracetamol. These substances are not considered dangerous or intoxicating the way many other substances- legal and illegal- are. I personally do not drink alcohol but I don’t consider tee-totalism to be required in the Christian.
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Erik-
I didn’t say everything is either holy or unholy but rather that every person follows either God or Satan But there are many actions which are lawful but not necessarily holy, and a person either performs then to the glory of the one true God or in rebellion against Him. It is the disposition of the heart that matters. After all, it is not the blood of bulls and of goats which will please God but the sacrifices of a broken and a contrite heart.
So a person is never in a neutral position before God; but a person can perform actions which are lawful but not inherently holy.
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Neos, theos, Newcs, Redeemerites, and legalists — do you see how complicated and impossible your programs are? How difficult to defend and implement? Do you every get dizzy? Try taking Paul and the standards at face value. Things will get simpler. And you might get happy. Heck, you might even be as cheerful as we are some day. (Not you Alexander, dour FCC Scot that you are — but you might get better.)
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Chortles-
I’m not an FCC. Considering you can’t even get my denomination right I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to be able to follow the standards.
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Alexander, which denom are you, if you don’t mind?
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Dr. Hart: Redemptive history matters. The cultural mandate came before the fall. Is it repeated? Yes, in a modified way in the Noahic covenant, but it is generalized or universalized — not something for believers only.
Jason: Sure, but do believers and unbelievers promote this cultural mandate in the same way? You could say it was given in a modified way to both, but do they go about it in the same way? With the same purpose? Is the Noahic covenant and administration of the covenant grace still, or is it a separate covenant altogether? With how starkly 2K contrasts it with the Abrahamic covenant, one might begin to wonder. Seems there is a large part of the Noahic covenant that is strictly redemptive and spiritual too and I find that missing in the 2K approach. As I said before, distinctions (such as Noahic vs. Abrahamic) are helpful, but sometimes they can do damage as well if you place them in their own buckets completely separated, much like I think 2K can be very helpful in some respects, but can also do damage because these kingdoms can overlap and then it becomes difficult.
Dr. Hart: We are salt and light because we delay God’s judgment.
Jason: Sounds like you only believe Matthew 5 to be speaking of salt as a preservative, not a flavoring. What is so damaging about salt being a flavoring that you don’t want to admit that? I have already mentioned how salt can still flavor even if what it is flavoring is passing away (or in terms of your steak, being eaten). Please answer this question: Is the ONLY benefit of us being salt and light in the world that we delay God’s judgment? If not, what other benefits are there?
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Alexander, sorry — Freep, right? Suffice it so that no one here but me has every heard of it. You should be flattered…a little.
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“suffice it say” — when I think “tiny, nutty Scottish micro-denom” I think FCC.
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Erik: We used to have a couple (neo-Cals) in our URC church.
Jason: Really, only a couple? Or were you just using an example of one couple. I realized that could be taken either way. If you only have a “few”, that would surprise me given the history of the URC church and it’s heritage as coming out of the Dutch Reformed church. I think it largely depends on where you live and the history of the church.
Erik: I think we lose sight of the fact that if God doesn’t like what someone is doing or what some group or nation is doing, he can remedy the situation on His own and there will be nothing left but a greasy spot and scorched earth. When he wanted to deal with Israel he didn’t need righteous people to go in and clean the place up, he used unrighteous pagans to get the job done quite nicely.
Jason: I largely agree with what you said. Might I suggest though that God does use the church and Christians as prophets speaking out against the world (or they should be at least). Here, I think of Ezekiel talking about if the watchmen doesn’t sound the trumpet when danger is nigh, he will be blamed, but if the watchmen does sound the trumpet and they don’t listen, it’s on them You don’t hear it talked about much, but in the office of believer, we are prophets as well and we are called to speak out against evil, are we not? Seems like you are advocating sitting back and letting God judge. I suggest we are called to warn the unbeliever.
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Hello Jay,
As I said I would, I further pondered over your words about what separates the reformed from Rome, in your view. I believe Zrim’s words help clarify, but that’s no surprise. Since finding the existence of Oldlife, I’m a bit of a fan of Darryl and the crew I found defending him, here.
I thought I would link and quote the following, since you broached that subject. I found the reformed / catholic dialogue on the internet an intriguing once, because I had only ever been a protestant (was raised indepdent fundamentalist baptist, turned reformed in my freshman year of college due to my spouse’s having been raised reformed). Anyway, enjoy:
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I thought the difference between the Reformed and the church of Rome was that the former is Christian and the latter isn’t?
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Alexander
Posted May 2, 2014 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
Chortles-
I’m not an FCC. Considering you can’t even get my denomination right I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to be able to follow the standards.
AB
Posted May 2, 2014 at 6:26 pm | Permalink
Alexander, which denom are you, if you don’t mind?
Alexander, any answer can and will be used against you. First and foremost, this is a tribal thing.
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Tom, are you suggesting I asked Alexander his church affiliation so as to attack him personally?
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Bring Tom your tired, your poor, your huddled outliers yearning for fellowship and understanding. And new frenemies.
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AB
Posted May 2, 2014 at 9:03 pm | Permalink
Tom, are you suggesting I asked Alexander his church affiliation so as to attack him personally?
I said any answer he gives can and will be used against him. Bank it.
By you? As for how you personally handle the rampant tribalism hereabouts, Andrew? At this point, frankly my dear, I trust you can find the relevant YouTube clip.
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Chortles weakly
Posted May 2, 2014 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
Bring Tom your tired, your poor, your huddled outliers yearning for fellowship and understanding. And new frenemies.
Dude, that’s you guys. Tired, poor, huddled outliers. And frenemies to all, O warrior child.
http://www.frame-poythress.org/machens-warrior-children/
You guys are like irony-proof. I’m one of your best friends in the world.
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Tom, so you actually think I was asking Alexander about which denomination he is in, so that I might turn to attack him with that information.
Got it. Thanks.
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Alexander, how are abortion and watching movies even in the same ball park? You haven’t engaged any of the Scripture of Confessional citations that deal with liberty of conscience, so what do you mean you “follow the Reformed tradition and apply the principles of the Christian life put down in Scripture to modern day issues”? All you actually do is imply something impious about watching movies and consuming substances. We get it, your personal holiness exceeds. Good for you. But you’re so far no advocate for freedom in Christ. Why do you call unclean what God has made clean?
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Jason, “do believers and unbelievers promote this cultural mandate.”
This may be where your rhetoric is telling. If the cultural mandate is akin to the law, as I think you already asserted (and as some claim who say it is part of the covenant of works), how do sinners “promote” the law? How especially do unbelievers “promote” the law? Are there three uses of the cultural mandate?
I wouldn’t worry too much about stark contrasts between OT covenants. Paul sure does seem to make a pretty stark one between Abraham and Moses in Rom 8 and Gal 3.
As for salt as a flavoring ingredient, I’m not sure that’s how the Jews or ancient Christians used it.
I’ll admit there are other benefits to our being in the world as long as you admit with the writer of Ecclesiastes that everything in this world is folly.
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You guys are like irony-proof. I’m one of your best friends in the world.
I chortle weakly in your general direction.
Outliers? Exactly. So why is anyone threatened by us? Or offended we won’t join their little culture war.
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vd, t, why do you care? Have you been kicked off another blog?
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Tom has been betrayed by yet another libertarian board that was just a front for the Commies
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If we’re a tribe, Tom is Aguirre floating down the Amazon on a raft.
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Thanks for the interactions Dr. Hart. I’m in the process of learning myself, and am seeking to be sharpened in my thinking, so I appreciate your help in that.
Dr. Hart: As for salt as a flavoring ingredient, I’m not sure that’s how the Jews or ancient Christians used it.
Jason: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” – Matt. 5:13. What does this verse mean when it talks about taste then? It actually doesn’t even suggest the preservative use. I have no problem saying that everything in this world is folly, although that should come with caveats. Would you say our worship is folly? I’m still curious what benefits the salt and light have on those around it.
Maybe we should start back at the beginning. In the garden, man was given the cultural mandate, a command from God, as one part of the law of God. In the garden, man had the ability to fulfill the cultural mandate, but failed. As you said, that cultural mandate is now given to both believer and unbeliever alike and both are commanded to obey it and the rest of the law perfectly. The believer recognizes his inability and flees to Christ. The unbeliever is still called to fulfill this cultural mandate and the rest of the law of God, is he not? He can’t, but he is still called to.
The reason I brought that up and phrased it like I did was in regards to if the unbeliever and the believer sought to fulfill this modified cultural mandate given in the Noahic covenant the same way and for the same purpose? Kloosterman proposes that the Noahic cultural mandate was given on the basis of the covenant of grace while the Adamic cultural mandate was given on the basis of the covenant of works. This creates a distinction in its purpose. It isn’t to gain salvation, but to express gratitude for salvation gained, much like Noah had just been saved and was called to respond accordingly. Thus all Christian cultural obedience would be done from grace alone, by faith alone, and seek the glory of God alone. The question here is if Christ’s obedience has in any way allowed us to give this expression of gratitude or not? Bringing it full circle, this is why Kloosterman refers to worship and witness. That is our purpose in the cultural mandate, given the premise of sin. This is what I was trying to get at with my questions of what the purpose was of a believer obeying the modified cultural mandate vs. an unbeliever trying to obey the modified cultural mandate. That question you didn’t answer. From my understanding, in the 2K view, the purpose is the same because that is the common realm and their actions don’t look any different.
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Zrim-
I used both as examples of things not mentioned in Scripture. I assume we all agree abortion is wrong, but it’s not expressly mentioned in Scripture. We know it’s wrong because it violates certain principles which are in Scripture. But you said that what isn’t specifically forbidden by Scripture is indifferent. So by your reasoning abortion is a thing indifferent.
That’s what I’m trying to say but you can’t seem to get it! I’m not saying they’re of an equivalency I’m merely exposing your double standard.
Re: Christian liberty: I don’t deny this can be a hotly contested issue. However, in my thinking you give too much latitude in this area. I think that the confessional teaching on this is much narrower than you think. It is primarily concerned with freedom from servitude to Satan; freedom in serving Christ. For the Christian liberty is being free to follow Christ; it’s not being free to do whatever one wants. Yes where Scripture is silent there is freedom, but we disagree on what Scripture is silent upon. I think the laws laid down in Scripture for the governing of moral behaviour apply wider than you: and so did the divines, as evidenced in their explication of the 7th commandment.
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Alexander, abortion is expressly forbidden, as in the sixth commandment. It’s not my double standard, it’s your being wooden and literalist. There’s that untempered dualism again–liberty to follow Christ entails not only a freedom from servitude to Satan but a freedom from the commandments of men (WCF 20.2). And championing that liberty does not mean license or “being free to do whatever one wants” because “They who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty…” (WCF 20.3).
The contest is between those who grasp what liberty means and doesn’t mean and those that use an indifferent thing called the internet to imply impiety on the parts others who also use it for their use of other indifferent things.
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Jason, the Noahic covenant is not gracious. It is given to all people. It doesn’t take grace to fulfill (it does take providence). It doesn’t save.
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Zrim-
Yes abortion is a form of murder and looking at a naked body of a person one is not married to is a form of adultery as yet you’re happy to watch films and tv shows which contain such things and a lot worse. So, there you go.
How do you account for the divines writing what they did on liberty and also what they did on the 7th commandment? The only way you can is through revisionism. Which I arbitrary and no basis for objective governance. So, there you go.
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Alexander: “I think that the confessional teaching on this is much narrower than you think.”
Doh!
But the hiccup in your thinking is that the confessions don’t say anything about alcohol. When Bible Presbyterians proposed total abstinence, it split the church.
Go ahead. Disparage Machen. I dare ya.
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Alexander, I’ve heard you can lust after persons who even wear clothes. Shall we all retreat to Alberta?
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Alexander, you just put illicit images in my head via the indifferent webbernet. You are culpable. Boy, legalism sure is hard, innit? So there you go.
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Involuntary water baptism sometimes need to be part of the mission of Christianizing the world. If the true churches don’t accept some assistance from the magistrates, then some sectarians will inevitably think that water baptism is optional and that church is voluntary. These gnostic individualissts need to be taught that the water torture is God’s work and not a human work, and if takes magisterial torture to get that done, so be it. And if we can find certain “redemptive” practices in common, that’s good also, because religion is a benefit for the entire culture.
Collectivism allowed for a certain amount of laxity in the Spanish Roman Catholic conversion of the Indian population in Mexico, because many outward practices were similar. Both systems practiced a type of baptism with subsequent renaming of the child and the practice of communion had parallels with eating replicas of Aztec divinities with blood. Franciscan and Dominican studies of Indian culture and language led to a certain amount of appreciation. It was definitely different from the Islam they had to deal with before .
Indigenous Mexican religion was branded as paganism, but as an authentic religious experience corrupted by demonic influences. Many parallels could be drawn between the gods and the cults of the saints as well as the Virgin Mary. For this reason, evangelization did not result in a direct onslaught against indigenous belief but was rather more an attempt to be realistic about that which had come about with the passing of time, so instead of repenting of their former baptismal practice, they shifted (more or less) the paradigms which justified the practice of involuntary baptism. .
While in theory Christianity was to have absolutely supremacy in all things religious, in practice, the Church did not oppose many common habits, like killing for one magistrate against another magistrates or taking interest even from other Christians,as long as it was for the common good, which is what business is….
Let your leaders decide what religion the masses will be, and if the conquered masses have a leader with whom the conquering leaders can negotiate, so much the better….
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Mr. Hart-
I think you’ll find that I addressed the issue of alcohol a few posts back.
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Alexander, what about Paxil?
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This just in. vd, t reads a book (apparently).
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Darryl, your excerpt from the OPC history and the McIntire reference reminds me of what I always considered to be the genius of the OPC: the amalgamation of historic American Presbyterianism (Old Light/Old School leaning rather than the New Light/New School/Fundamentalism leaning Presbyterianism of McIntire), Scottish Presbyterianism through the influence of John Murray, and Americanized Dutch Reformed (Vos, CVT, RB Kuiper, Ned Stonehouse, etc.). It seems that her genius comes from the cosmopolitan and international synergy. I think Machen was fully aware of this and surely endorsed it as this was the flavor with which he started WTS nearly a decade before the beginning of the OPC.
Was Machen really a teetotaler?
Did I once read that B.B. Warfield used to carry a glass of wine around at parties even though he didn’t really care for it, just to promote Christian liberty on the question of alcoholic beverages? Or is that an urban legend?
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Dr. Hart, you side-stepped my question of what Matthew 5:13 means, particularly its reference to salt as its “taste”. You had said you didn’t think the Jews and ancient Christians used salt as a flavoring ingredient. Seems to me that if that were the case, this verse would be quite confusing to the Jews, wouldn’t it? Because they would have no clue as to salt having a taste. I’m not sure why you are so hesitant to admit that salt also has a flavoring aspect to it and isn’t just for preservation. I haven’t pressed you on all the questions I had that you didn’t answer, but this is one I’m curious on your answer to. Please answer.
Dr. Hart: the Noahic covenant is not gracious. It is given to all people. It doesn’t take grace to fulfill (it does take providence). It doesn’t save.
Jason: “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.” Genesis 6:18. How is this not gracious? When 1 Peter references the flood, it is in redemptive terms. Could it be that you are focusing too narrowly on Genesis 9 and ignoring what Genesis 6 might have to say about it? The interesting thing about the Noahic covenant is that Noah is that you restrict Noah to being just the head of the entire world at that time (where you get your “common grace covenant”), but at the same time he stands as the head of the church. Could it be that when we read Genesis 6 and 9 together, we realize that the covenant given in Genesis 9 was that the entire creation partakes of the blessings and salvation of the elect since the Noahic covenant in Genesis 6 was gracious. That is to say, that they don’t receive that salvation, but they receive some of the effects of it, much like the salt and light that we are talking about. That salt and light has its effects on the world, on every creature, and no it’s not just preservative. The example of salt and light is truly a great picture of the Christian’s life in these “two kingdoms”. The Noahic covenant, along with the modified cultural mandate, is given for the sake of the elect.
I might refer you to an article written by Professor Cammenga in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal here http://www.prca.org/prtj/apr2007.pdf. He wrote this:
“For the sake of God’s covenant. This is application that must be drawn from the history of Noah. The Christian must press everything in the creation into the service of God’s covenant and into the service of the God of the covenant. This is how God’s people must live in and make use of the creation. They enjoy all things and make use of all things with a view to God’s covenant and for the sake of the covenant God. This was man’s sin before the Flood! It was not so much his violence and immorality. It was that God was not in all his thoughts. He lived in God’s world and made use of God’s creation for himself. Everything stood in the service of man and the exaltation of man. This is the desperate wickedness of man apart from God’s grace, covenant grace. This will be the characteristic, too, of the antichristian world before the final judgment, of which the Flood was only a type. The antichristian kingdom will center in man, will be the exaltation of man, everything in God’s creation put into the service of man and man’s ambitions. But with God’s people, God’s covenant people, it is different. The grace of the covenant makes the difference. According to that grace, everything is for the sake of God’s covenant, for the glory of the covenant God.”
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AB
Posted May 2, 2014 at 10:16 pm | Permalink
Tom, so you actually think I was asking Alexander about which denomination he is in, so that I might turn to attack him with that information.
Got it. Thanks.
Actually I was saying I don’t care, Andrew. When push comes to shove you can be counted on to take sides along tribal lines regardless of the merits.
As for the rest, yes, I am saying that, with a few exceptions. When they’re losing, there’s no limit to what they’ll use as a weapon. Word up, Alex.
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 3, 2014 at 8:18 am | Permalink
Alexander: “I think that the confessional teaching on this is much narrower than you think.”
Doh!
But the hiccup in your thinking is that the confessions don’t say anything about alcohol. When Bible Presbyterians proposed total abstinence, it split the church.
Well, technically, Dr. Hart, it split YOUR church within the first year of its formation—if it can be called a “church” and not a denomination, a sub-denomination, or a micro-denomination. Calvinism, a history.
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 3, 2014 at 3:11 pm | Permalink
This just in. vd, t reads a book (apparently).
VD? As in “venereal disease?”
Dr. Dirty Mouth, I had hoped to find an honest Calvinist historian to check on things like American Founder Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon’s sermon on political liberty as religious liberty.
http://www.lsu.edu/artsci/groups/voegelin/society/2008%20Papers/Jeffry%20Morrison.shtml
so far you have not proved to be that person.
Perhaps you will someday become that honest Calvinism historian. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, least of all yourself.
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Jason, you are making the claim about salt and flavor. Is that the way Jesus or Matthew thought about salt? Did they have it in a shaker next to the dining table? I don’t know. I do know that salt as a preservative or light as a beacon have preservative or safety functions. That’s how I take Matt. 5. It’s who I am.
On Noah, if you are going to read Gen 6 and 9 together then your understanding of gracious is going to have to include the condemnation and destruction of the entire human race (except one family). And since you invoke Peter, he’s the one to argue that the whole creation will be consumed. That doesn’t sound like salvation to me.
I don’t know what Prof. Cammenga has to say about Israel, but the Israelites sin was not merely using creation to exalt themselves. God judge them and sent them into exile for worshiping false gods. But then again, it could be that those who want to “redeem” creation are exalting themselves by establishing a new law (in Judaizing fashion). “The Christian must press everything in the creation into the service of God’s covenant and into the service of the God of the covenant.” As the Dude said, “that’s like your interpretation, man.”
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vd, t, been there, done that. (Do you read books or simply j—–ss? Yes, vd, t. You’ve embodied a new verb.)
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victor delta, tango, I understand the adage about tricks and old dogs, so I doubt this will have any effect. But at some point you may want to consider that the world is not a game show — as if it is there to show how smart (or dumb in many cases) you are.
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Sure, Tom. They’ll all become golfers, if it’s the last thing I do..
fore
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Tom,
Try sleeping in the middle of the night.
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Erik, for some reason, OLTS is in Tom’s head. I suspect it’s because he doesn’t go to church.
Just a hunch.
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Tom, and all those who refuse to say their denomination (cause they don’t have one), don’t go to church
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 4, 2014 at 7:39 am | Permalink
vd, t, been there, done that. (Do you read books or simply j—–ss? Yes, vd, t. You’ve embodied a new verb.)
The Sacred Cause of Liberty
“The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men” was arguably the most important Witherspoon argument the Princeton president ever made. It was a sermon, based on Psalm 76:10 (“Surely the wrath of men shall praise thee; the remainder of Wrath shalt thou restrain.”), and delivered on Friday, May 17, 1776, a day designated by the Continental Congress to be set aside for prayer. That Witherspoon delievered this sermon on behalf of American independence on a Friday, as opposed to Sunday, or the Lord’s Day as Presbyterians called it, was a concession to the differences between the affairs of men (politics) and the ways of the divine (piety). He even admitted in the sermon that his bringing politics into the pulpit was odd. “You are my witnesses,” Witherspoon declared to the Princetonians gathered in the town’s Presbyterian church, “that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit.” Even so, the sermon which must have lasted for over an hour proved to be so useful for the purposes of independence that it was published the next month in Philadelphia where the Continental Congress was then meeting. Its popularlity also accounts for Witherspoon’s election in late June of 1776 to serve in Congress as a representative from New Jersey, a post that placed him in good stead to sign the Declaration of Independence. The timing of the sermon in Witherspoon’s own career and in the conception of a nation about to be born no doubt accounts also for the decision to make it the first text included in the multi-volume edition of Witherspoon’s works. Still, for all of the circumstances that help to explain the legendary status this sermon achieved, the logic of Witherspoon’s devotional discourse was equally powerful in giving voice to a conception of liberty that would prove to be enduring among American Protestants.
On the surface, the text from Psalm 76 was an odd one for the points the Presbyterian college president would hope to make. In the first part of the sermon Witherspoon wrestled with the idea that human evil, “the wrath of men,” could in fact glorify God. Without addressing the question of theodicy directly — the defense of divine goodness in the light of human wickedness and suffering — he did attempt to do justice to the paradoxical character of divine will, that is, how ultimate good could emerge through proximate evil. Some of his examples were unimaginative, such as the idea that without suffering people tend to grow complacent, or the even more obvious notion that the wrath of men noted in the Psalm “clearly points out the corruption of our nature,” a point seldom missed by ministers of Calvinistic persuasion like Witherspoon. But when he turned to the positive effects of suffering the relevance of the sermon to the cause of American independence became more difficult to discern. For instance, the death of Christ and its larger theological significance as a triumph over sin and death was for Witherspoon indicative of the lesson that “Persecution has been but as the furnace to the gold, to purge it of its dross, to manifest its purity, and increase its lustre.” Not only was the martyrdom of the early church “the seed of Christianity,” but at the time of the Protestant Reformation “nothing contributed more to facilitate its reception and increase its progres than the violence of its persecutors.”
The trouble with these illustrations and the reasoning behind them was that the paradoxical quality of suffering could work against independence as much as for it. If the wrath of man actually contributed to divine glory, and if the parliament and king were treating the colonists unfairly by taxing them without adequate political representation, could not the difficulties caused by such treatment be interpreted as adding to God’s praise? Or if suffering and persecution had historically increased the resolve of Christians, would not the slights from London endured by believers living in the British colonies bolster their trust in and dependence upon God? To be sure, Witherspoon’s reasons for appealing to this biblical text made some sense; he was, after all, trying to nurture the resolve of patriots about to enter a difficult struggle with one of the more powerful nations on earth. Still, attempting to employ the logic of Christian suffering to justify political rebellion was an argument that could easily backfire.
Even more strained was Witherspoon’s logic when he turned to the topic of religious liberty. In the second part of the sermon, where he applied the meaning of the text to the political situation in the colonies, Witherspoon attempted to inspire his listeners to patriotic greatness by exhorting them to trust in God and hope “for his assistance in the present important conflict.” [549] The patriots could, he believed, have confidence in divine assistance if their cause was just, their principles pure, and their conduct prudent. Although the character of the patiots’ principles and conduct gave Witherspoon room to conclude the sermon with admonitions to greater selflessness and virtue, he had little doubt about the nature of their cause. “[T]he cause in which America is now in arms,” he declared, “is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature.” Witherspoon explained this assertion by noting that the colonists had not been motivated by “pride, resentment, or sedition.” Instead, the desire for independence from England arose from “a deep and general conviction” that religious and civil liberty, as well as “the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our society” depended on political autonomy. Here Witherspoon was not simply regarding religious liberty as one part of a broader set of civil liberties, as if civil liberty would guarantee freedom of conscience. Instead, he had a more precise relationship between civil and religious liberty. “The knowledge of God and his truths,” Witherspoon further elaborated, “have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely, confined to those parts of the earth, where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen . . .”
In effect, Witherspoon was articulating the logic of many American Protestants after him which assumed that true religion, that is, Protestant Christianity, only flourished where civil magistrates protected civil liberties. The flip side of this assumption was the similar belief that Protestantism was the best soil from which civil liberty could grow. Witherspoon made this relationship crystal clear when he asserted that “There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.” For this reason, if the colonists were to “yield up our temporal property” to parliament through unfair taxes, they would also be delivering their consciences “into bondage.”
The religious basis for political freedom allowed Witherspoon to end his famous sermon with a call for greater religious and moral zeal. “[H]e is the best friend to American liberty,” the Presbyterian concluded, “who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind.” This did not imply political preference for the theological descendents of John Calvin. Witherspoon’s brief for true religion did not include great concern for the “circumstantials of religion, or the contentions of one sect with another about their peculiar distinctions.” Debates then about the mode of baptism, the frequency of observing the Lord’s Supper or even the extent of Christ’s atonement were not at issue in this notion of “true and undefiled religion.” Roman Catholicism would eventually emerge as a problem for the advocates of religious and civil liberty in part because the papacy would reveal itself fairly hostile to those notions as they developed in Europe after the French Revolution. But most Protestants were welcome — the Church of England being an obvious exception — as long as they were morally upright or, in Witherspoon’s words, felt “more joined in spirit to a true holy person of a different denomination, than to an irregular liver of his own.” In effect, the combination of moral integrity, fear of God, obedience to divine law, and the resistance to the temptations of vice, was the religious recipe for civil liberty. What this list meant for the nonreligious was of course a problem that Witherspoon avoided, especially when signing Thomas Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence.” But a month or so before the distribution of that document, the difficulties raised by the presence of non-orthodox Protestants could be set aside.
Of course, Witherspoon’s assertions were explicitly political in the sense that his understanding of the relationship between religious and civil liberty had a direct bearing on the issue of political independence from Britain. But his ideas had much broader significance for the way that Anglo-American Protestants would understand the place of faith within the political and cultural institutions of the United States. Witherspoon was just one voice in a much wider development that characterized Congregationalists in New England, Presbyterians in the middle colonies, and that eventually would permeate Baptists and Methodists who were setting up churches as fast as the frontier pushed south and west. In particular, Witherspoon’s ideas on Christianity liberty were foundational for what Mark A. Noll has recently called Christian republicanism. Politically, this constellation of ideas featured two main themes, according to Noll: “fear of abuses from illegitimate power and a nearly messianic belief in the benefits of liberty.” As such the best form of government was one that preserved freedom, which would in turn nuture human flourishing. The obvious corrolary to the ideal of liberty was that any form of political interference with freedom would degrade persons and prevent national prosperity. As Noll writes, the “critical oppositions” in Christian republicanism were “virtue against corruption, liberty against slavery.” Of course, the danger of liberty was libertinism and that is why religion was so crucial to liberty’s success. As much as Witherspoon the Calvinist might have registered reservations about giving sinful human beings unprecedented political freedom, as long as these free citizens were devout the excesses of liberty did not need to be feared. For the logic of Christian republicanism concluded that virtue (“defined as disinterested public service”) promoted freedom and social harmony, while vice (that is, “luxury, self-seeking, idleness, and frivolity”) yielded tyranny and social unrest.
Did you skip this key piece of American Calvinist history in Calvinism: A History yet included it in your polemic “Review: A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State”?– argues the opposite of what Witherspoon, a major founder of your own original church [before it schismed] taught?
Sort of my point about your use of history. As your theological manifesto, fine, leave out what you want. But not a history.
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AB
Posted May 4, 2014 at 10:25 am | Permalink
Erik, for some reason, OLTS is in Tom’s head. I suspect it’s because he doesn’t go to church.
Just a hunch.
kent
Posted May 4, 2014 at 1:05 pm | Permalink
Tom, and all those who refuse to say their denomination (cause they don’t have one), don’t go to church
You don’t know anything about me. Neither am I going to tell you, because you just proved my point, that you have no compunctions against using personal information as a weapon.
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Tom,
We know more about you than you do.
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Tom, here’s the facts. Our host, and little ol’ Price is Right boy (moi), have taken subscription vows that hold us to this:
You came here with, what appears to me to be, the express intent to warn an interlocutor here that for him to answer my question as regards his church affiliation was dangerous, because such information would be used against him, most certainly.
I truly don’t know why you have such a fascination with this website, and I suggested it was because you don’t attend church. If you take personal offense at that, I apologize. But given that:
I see little purpose to our conversation here, and you seem to only want to attack and disparage me and my words with others, by your presence on this thread. Good luck in accomplishing whatever it is you seek to accomplish by spending time reading and commenting here. Take care.
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Tom:You don’t know anything about me. Neither am I going to tell you, because you just proved my point, that you have no compunctions against using personal information as a weapon
I know plenty about you Tom. There’s a lot to admire. In terms of arguing about Reformed theology you are basically useless, no offense remotely intended, it’s a plain fact.
Unless you’ve been deliberately hiding knowledge and playing a long-standing role of quirky questioning, which I doubt.
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We just know where one stands on the fundamentals of Reformed theology. You will ooze it if you have it. So much is ingrained in one’s soul if they have gone through it all to join a church or take office.
If you have it you will easily communicate it. If you don’t, you can’t fake it. We know it when we see it.
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Dr. Hart, again thanks for the help as I try to understand your position. I appreciate your willingness and time you devote to this blog and helping others understand more clearly your beliefs.
I guess I’m not following your line of thinking regarding Matt 5 and how salt as a preservative and not as a flavor follows from what the text says. You say that is how you take, it I simply am trying to understand why. When I look at the text, I see how it talks about salt have a taste and that taste is the reason it is used. If it loses its saltiness, which in this context seems to refer to its taste mentioned in the preceding part of the verse, then it should be thrown out because it is of no use.
Regarding the Noahic covenant, I just want to clarify so I understand you correctly. Would you separate the two covenants described in Genesis 6 and 9 where one is an administration of the covenant o grace, the other is not? Or would you say Genesis 6 is not describing the covenant of grace and that the only covenant is in Genesis 9? Or are the two covenants speaking of the same covenant, but addressing different things? Your comments, as well as the focus given solely on Genesis 9 by 2K proponents, seem to suggest nothing about Genesis 6 or 9 has to do with the covenant of grace. If I remember Sacred Bond correctly, I think the same position was advocated that, but I can’t remember exactly. I just wanted to clarify that.
Hope you had and have a blessed Lord’s Day today.
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victor delta, tango, like me.
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Jason, I don’t think Jesus had salt in a salt shaker. If that’s so, then if you’re going to appeal to the text you may want to analogize from how the original hearers thought about salt.
I want to be like Tabasco.
I don’t know of anyone who looks at Gen 6 as part of the Noahic covenant even though it is part of the narrative.
Either way, I look at that covenant not as gracious but as neutral (in the 2k sense).
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 4, 2014 at 4:08 pm | Permalink
victor delta, tango, like me.
Too late for that. I understand you. My only choice now is to love you, which I do, brother. But do not think you’re the only one who gets to wield the sword.
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victor delta, tango, not even my hairdresser understands me.
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Dr. Hart: I don’t think Jesus had salt in a salt shaker.
Jason: “Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” (Job 6:6) — It appears Job did, but maybe Jesus didn’t. I find no evidence which suggests that salt wasn’t used for its flavor, in fact I find evidence to the contrary, but we can disagree on that.
Dr. Hart: I don’t know of anyone who looks at Gen 6 as part of the Noahic covenant even though it is part of the narrative.
Jason: I find this astonishing since this is the first instance of the word “covenant” in Scripture and ties very nicely into the broader covenant of grace. Why in covenant theology, is this covenant (the first time covenant is used in Scripture and a very vivid picture of salvation by Christ), not included?
Last question, did you mean you don’t believe the covenant of Genesis 6 is gracious or were you referring to the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9?
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 4, 2014 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
victor delta, tango, not even my hairdresser understands me.
The highest folly of all is to fancy oneself to be misunderstood.
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Jason, I don’t Gen 6 is a covenant. God says he’ll make a covenant with Noah — full stop.
Calvin writes this about salt:
So you have your flavoring. But I don’t see this as transformational exception through the ordinary means of word and sacrament, not television or plumbing.
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victor detla, tango, that’s not what the apostle Paul says.
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 4, 2014 at 9:40 pm | Permalink
victor detla, tango, that’s not what the apostle Paul says.
Oh. You’re the apostle Paul, speaking with divine authority? If you’re part of the Calvinist magisterium, my apologies. I give a wide berth to theological truth claims. I don’t even hassle the Mormons. Pentecost, Road to Damascus, Angel Moroni, whathaveyou.
I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
As Darryl Hart, putative human being, I suspect your greatest fear is to be not misunderstood, for then your fig leaf drops. I appreciate the lifetime investment you’ve made in your thesis, and as Rorty said of “professional” philosophers, why you can’t back down. That’s what this grenade toss is about: it’s too late for you to dialogue. You [and thus your crew] have gone to the mattresses.
We understand the other just fine, DogGeorgeHow. This was always our problem. Jn 8:8. Your move, not mine.
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Dr. Hart,
In Genesis 6, God says he’ll make the covenant with Noah and then tells Noah the stipulations. He commands Noah to come into the ark and to bring both the animals and the food into the ark. It is then, that they would be saved from the floodwaters. The description of the requirements for the ark which precedes it could also be seen as stipulations. The ark was necessary for its building. The punishment for not doing this is implied that Noah too would be killed in the floodwaters. The reward is salvation from the floodwaters. This seems like your basic covenant described in the Bible to me, but I guess we can disagree on that.
Thanks for the quote from John Calvin. I said to you from the beginning that by saying salt had flavor didn’t imply that the earth wouldn’t be destroyed. Salt can still add flavor to things that are going away. That salt is the word of God, as Calvin says and its goal is the salvation of souls. The gospel, the word of God, has transforming effects on the people it touches and that it comes in contact with. Transformation doesn’t happen through the act of plumbing itself. The people that are doing the plumbing, who have been affected by the gospel, can live/speak/respond in such a way that beckons people to ask what makes them act like they do and that is when the power of God’s word can take over as they join a church and sit under the preaching of the gospel. Both ministers and the entire flock, that is the Church is called to season the world with their salt which is the word of God.
“Since it is the will of God that the earth shall be salted by his own word, it follows, that whatever is destitute of this salt is, in his estimation, tasteless, how much soever it may be relished by men. There is nothing better, therefore, than to receive the seasoning, by which alone our tastelessness is corrected.”
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Jason, what about hiding the gospel under a bushel? That’s what happens with transformationalism–the gospel becomes aligned with the interests and traditions of men and thus hidden. With 2k, the gospel is freed up to shine before men.
Tom, why do you not put your comments into the form of a question?
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victor delta, tango, yes, victor delta, tango, you are ever the interlocutor:
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victor delta, tango, You’re a Thomist?
Why didn’t you jack–s so.
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AB-
I am a member in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. I did not reply to your question at first because I have given my denomination a number of times here and yet people still confuse it with others so I feel it a waste of time to keep saying. I am only answering you now because I don’t want you to think that I believe Tom’s insinuation that you had malicious motives in asking and also as an indirect response to Kent- to whom I refuse to engage directly- who clearly is here to cause division but I won’t be slandered as to my attendance to the means of grace.
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Mr. Hart-
Matthew 5:13
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
What does savour mean there? It doesn’t mean preserve. Savour is to do with taste. That is the clear, plain reading of that text.
Zrim- How can you say 2k promotes allowing the gospel to shine when this blog is filled with attacks on Christians who attempt to have their faith be shown in how they live their lives? Clearly confusing the gospel with the Republican Party does veil the gospel. But since even sanctification is attacked on this forum, as well as examining one self for evidences of grace, I wonder how exactly you do shine forth the gospel in your life?
I must say that I do not see the influence of Scottish Presbyterianism in the OPC. John Murray clearly failed in that endeavour: maybe that’s why he abandoned you?
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Alexander, you use salt? Don’t you know it’s bad for your temple of the Holy Spirit?
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Alexander,
Thanks. I have met one other online, who is in your church. Anyway, greetings from across the pond. Regards, Andrew
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Alexander, how is drawing attention to the sanctified self a way to let the gospel light shine? Doesn’t Paul seek the diminishment of self for the exultation of Christ? Even when Paul examines himself, all he finds is sin (Ro 7). The HC 114 confesses that no one can keep the law perfectly and that even holiest of men make but the smallest beginning of obedience in this life. Maybe you think it possible to exceed Paul and that you are counted among the holiest, but some of us are more inclined to think sin abides hard.
Useless, self-centered and hyperspiritual introspection is attacked, not Christian sanctification. Those are two very different things.
ps not just the Republican Party but any intermeddling with civil affairs which have no direct bearing on the conscience of the church:
http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36:same-sex-marriage-a-faithful-warning-unheeded&catid=19&Itemid=135
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But it adds flavour!
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Saint Thomas Aquinas Van Dyke?
A Thomist who doesn’t go to a Christian church, kind of like Mortimer Adler before his late in life conversion to Catholicism.
From now on I will address him as “Thomist Van Dyke”.
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The regenerated person, who is being gradually sanctified, will bear fruit in the life he lives, in his dealings with others, in the things he says and does, and doesn’t say and do. That is how the Christian brings the gospel out into the world: through his witness. Thus he is salt.
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Alexander, so the believer is the gospel? This must be the same tick that gives us “all of life is worship.”
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Alex, I got it right when prompted — Freep it is.
I am a member in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. I did not reply to your question at first because I have given my denomination a number of times here and yet people still confuse it with others so I feel it a waste of time to keep saying.
Since you’re all about fault finding the above quote implies that maybe,maybe you need to work on that patience/longsuffering thing. Just a thought. And remember, you have to forgive us 70 times seven.
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Here’s my take-away: This site, whilst claiming to support a classical reformed two kingdoms view, instead seems to have unwittingly (due to many exegetical errors) grown up into neo-2K or what I would more properly call, “Three Kingdoms” theology:
Sacred – Profane – Common. Three Kingdoms. Gotcha.
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JohnnY: “I have trouble figuring out who is against who in all this high-minded sarcasm. And isn’t everyone getting a bit off subject? It takes too long to figure out who is jibbing who and what all the comments mean. I guess you have to tune in more often to get it. It is kind of entertaining- some of the comments, that is.”
CW: JohnnY, it all comes down to the transfos vs. 2k. And the occasional pissed pietist. It doesn’t help the average OLer has the attention span of a Jack Russell terrier, though.
CH: I don’t understand most of the comments, sarcasm or inside jokes here either. DGH also likes to make his readers work to connect the dots, and sometimes I miss a dot or two in his thinking. But mostly I get what he’s after, which for me, is just a plain reading of the NT. God saves sinners.
Erik C: John, Spend 23 hours a day here for 2 years at it will all make sense.
JohnnY: I get the transfo’s vrs. the 2K’s and the pissed pietists. I have not read enough of Tom Van D posts to get where he is coming from. What miffs me the most is how McMark’s posts get ignored by Neo-Cals and Confessionalists alike. It is not really a cult and culture conflation that Paul was talking about but a law and gospel conflation that was the main issue. That seems to be getting totally ignored in the ensuing discussions. God saves sinners as long as they are making adequate efforts to meet the conditions of the Covenant. Are those undefined efforts of meeting the conditions of the covenant conflating law and gospel? Those type of issues are really not being addressed and those may be the ones Paul was really talking about in Philippians chapter 3. Can someone be trying to establish his own righteousness by “meeting conditions of the covenant?” Or, is that just how covenant is administered?
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Lou, I thought for a second that you had OL figured out. Now, if you had simply linked to youtube, you would have sold me.
Move along..
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Alexander, and it increaces blood pressour.
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Lou, if the true neo-Calvinists can have three spheres . . .
You got nothing. But if you want to discuss this have at it.
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DG – “Lou, and Geoff’s comment to Jay was better — nah nana nana nana nah.”
Me – ……um really… ?
DG – Do you see a difference between the common and the holy, or do you think baking bread in a worship service is proper?
Me – Do you see a difference between the common and the profane?
If so, then it seems you have invented a “Three Kingdoms Theology” here.
DG – “if the true neo-Calvinists can have three spheres . . .”
Me – neither one of us agree with neo-Cals, so what’s your point?
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Lou, you’re not showing much awe of his grace.
What is your point? The teaching of my church on the Lord’s Day involves a basic distinction among the profane, holy, and common:
The only way to make sense of this is to differentiate the holy, common, and profane.
Does that mean the divines were 3k? By your logic, yes.
Does a distinction among those categories make me odd? Not really (plenty of other reasons).
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Although this quote by Bill Evans has been discussed on previous posts it still spells out most clearly the differences between the 2kers and Neo-Cals. Is transformation something we really should be concerning ourselves with? Horton tries to take a middle position between forensic justification priority and ethical transformation in the Christians life through this idea of a covenantal ontology. I find it hard to follow though as he tries to reconcile seemingly conflicting positions in order to meet his underlying presupposed positions regarding mystical union with the person of Christ and his sacramental beliefs. And then this idea of administrating the covenant really throws me for a loop. Here is the Evans quote again that was ignored too:
Bill Evans— “there is in 2K a persistently DISJUNCTIVE impulse—separating sanctification and justification, Law and Gospel (another Lutheran distinctive), the transformatory and the forensic, the kingdom of the world and the institutional Church. Thus Mike Horton rejects the older Reformed scholastic notion of the infusion of gracious habits in regeneration found in the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Confession (Dordt III/IV, Arts. 11, 12, Rej. Par. 6; WCF 13.1), which denominated a real and lasting change intrinsic to the Christian, and he challenges the distinction between regeneration and effectual calling (see his Covenant and Salvation, 230-242). Horton thinks the older infusionism subverts forensic justification: “Infusionism has never created a forensic space in its ontology” (Covenant and Salvation, 215). He also rejects the traditional participationist option—another historic way of articulating real change in the Christian—as too Platonic (see, e.g., his “Participation and Covenant,” in Smith and Olthuis, eds., Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition (2005), 107-32). Consistent with his prioritizing of the forensic, Horton argues that the forensic decree of justification results in sanctification via what he calls a “covenantal ontology…. At the end of the day, despite Horton’s … clear desire to affirm that a change in the Christian’s behavior takes place, his explanations of how this works never get much beyond the extrinsic. It seems that he simply does not have conceptual apparatus at his disposal to say much of anything about a real change or transformation intrinsic to the Christian.”
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AB – following back up with the question of the Roman Catholic church doctrinal distinctives on vocation, as contrasted with Reformed teaching, I’ll quote from Gene Veith:
“The priesthood of all believers means, among other things, that one does not have to be a pastor or to do pastoral functions in order to be a priest. John Pless shows how the medieval Roman Catholic view, which considered callings to the religious orders to be the only holy vocation from God, is replicated in American evangelicalism:
‘Medieval Roman Catholicism presupposed a dichotomy between life in the religious orders and life in ordinary callings… American Evangelicalism has spawned what may be referred to as “neo-monasticism.” Like its medieval counterpart, neo-monasticism gives the impression that religious work is more God-pleasing than other tasks and duties associated with life in the world. According to this mindset, the believer who makes an evangelism call, serves on a congregational committee, or reads a lesson in the church service is performing more spiritually significant work than the Christian mother who tends to her children or the Christian who works with integrity in a factory. For the believer, all work is holy because he or she is holy and righteous through faith in Christ.”
Luther documented his teaching on the universal priesthood several ways in his writings, the most notable of which was, ‘To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation’ (German: An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation). It was the first of three tracts written he wrote in 1520. In this work, Luther defined for the first time the signature doctrines of the Priesthood of all believers and the theology of two kingdoms.
How does this idea allow for, permit or address your (and DG’s) concerns about Christian Liberty?
Well, Luther also wrote later in 1520, in his work called ‘On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church’:
“How then if they are forced to admit that we are all equally priests, as many of us as are baptized, and by this way we truly are; while to them is committed only the ministry and consented to by us? If they recognize this they would know that they have no right to exercise power over us, in what has not been committed to them, except insofar as we may have granted it to them.”
Calvin in now way overrode any of Luther’s teachings in these ways, but rather expounded them even greater eloquence in The Institutes.
Peace.
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John,
Thanks for the quote from Bill Evans. I’m not sure which of Dr. Horton’s books or writings he’s using for his source material; however, I am reading his book on the Institutes, called “Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever” in which he much clearer on the issue of sanctification and how it ties to our “chief end”.
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Lou, one good quote deserves another, and you brought this to mind. The man who founded the church I go to, says:
Have a nice day, friend.
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You do know that the man who your man is referring to when he wrote, “but God then raised up a man who read this Epistle with his own eyes, and the Reformation was born”, is in fact the same man that I quoted, right? Martin Luther.
LOL.
Have a great day., Peace.
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Of course, I know that, Lou. I read Darryl’s books. Later.
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It would be a lot of fun to have DG Hart and Gene Veith duke it out over the doctrine of vocation.
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DG – “The only way to make sense of this is to differentiate the holy, common, and profane.”
Me- Only if one follows the RC church’s teachings (see above post). Neither the scriptures, nor the reformers, ever set out to create a blended middle category. I don’t see anything more than two kingdoms in Q. 60 and 61.
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Zrim-
This would be a lot easier if you didn’t intentionally misrepresent everything I say. I was talking about how the believer witnesses to the world. I’m trying to have a conversation with you but all you’re interested in is point scoring and making sarcastic comments.
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Alexander, some might say you’re discerning my motives, but I’d do what I could to protect you against that kind of fruit inspection. But I’m being serious, not sarcastic. From where I sit, you are justifying self promotion under the guise of witness and saying “this is how the Christian brings the gospel out into the world.” But with all due respect to St. Francis of Assisi, grateful and obedient lives lived in light of the gospel is not the gospel.
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Zrim, there are only so many ways you can try to sugarcoat telling someone to stop being a total dick on Old Life.
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Kent, 70 x 7!
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Lou, what’s to duke out? I’m not one of those Presbyterians who goes ape over being compared to a Lutheran.
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Alexander, FYI, this is the other fellow of your church that I found in my wilderness wanderings around the webernet. Just sharing for good measure. Take care.
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Lou, of course the Reformers didn’t created a middle category. God did.
I know you’re a fan of Keller and all, and so your Sabbath observance is probably not in overdrive. But if you actually do follow the Shorter Catechism, the good (not holy) work of banking on Monday is wicked if done on the Lord’s Day. That means, banking is good but not holy, wicked on the Lord’s day but not profane.
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Alexander – That is how the Christian brings the gospel out into the world: through his witness. Thus he is salt.
Erik – My piety is the gospel? I thought the gospel had something to do with Jesus dying on the cross.
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John – . I have not read enough of Tom Van D posts to get where he is coming from.
Erik – Good luck on that project since even he does not know where he is coming from.
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DG – Ridiculous. You’re barking up the wrong tree, bringing up Sabbath observance with me. I’ve been called pharisee and all manner of slander for my attendance to the weekly Church services, morning and evening, sunday school and under-shepherd. I’m not the right person to attack on this note, because I’ve been attacked far more fiercely by the millennials who believe they can be obedient in their slackness. Yes, you struck a nerve on this one – you’ve obviously got me 100% wrong.
Back to the discussion at hand. Did you read the quotes from Veith?
The doctrine of vocation does not ascribe holiness to the acts of the work themselves -ie, banking. Rather, the vocation becomes a holy calling by the believer’s faith in God, as we Glorify God in all that we do, as the #1 – The Chief of Man states.
Do you deny the Priesthood of All Believers? Or are only the ordained ministers of the church engaged in Holy Vocations? That is the Roman Catholic/ Medieval teaching.
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Lou, of course I don’t deny the priesthood of myself or you. But my priestly status isn’t turning tonight’s dinner into a sacrament.
What is so hard to understand about that?
And I’m glad to know you are a Lord’s Day guy. It must trouble you that Keller isn’t.
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John Y-” What miffs me the most is how McMark’s posts get ignored by Neo-Cals and Confessionalists alike”
Miffed might not be the word I would use, otherwise Ding! Ding!
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McMark is an army of one. I believe he’s happy doing his thing. He gets dings from me now and then, but I don’t think he’s looking for anyone’s approval.
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CW, that more or less squares with what I have gathered from observing the flow of things around here.
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Chortles,
I think you are wrong about McMark being an army of one but I also think he likes it that you might think that he is. The history of the perspective he is coming from that gets ignored is an interesting one. It might bode well for a new David Simon mini-series. Not so many Dickensian characters involved though- mostly subtle and intelligent scholar/theologian types who have a lot of vested interest in their perspectives. A willingness to dialog about perspectives that may conflict with the deeply rooted magisterium just gets ignored. At least that is what it seems like to me. But I may be wrong.
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Dan,
I don’t think we have met- do you tune in at old life a lot? I don’t remember reading any of your post either. Are you Calvinist, Arminian, pietist, transformationalist, 2ker, theonomist or a combination of many different things. Perhaps you are a bit confused like me when it comes to sorting it all out at old life. Of course, you do not have to answer- just my attempt at internet hospitality. Really, I just liked that you dinged me because I never get dinged at old life- maybe once or twice!!
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Dan,
So what word would you use besides miffed? I like miffed and I use it a lot.
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JohnnY, that’s odd. I don’t see a comment from McMark in this thread.
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DGH,
There are many, or is that just some more high-minded sarcasm. I don’t get it.
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Careful, Mr. Yeazel. He can make those comments disappear with the click of a button!
Here’s a
dingfrom me to you. I won on the Price is Right when I was a kid (though Erik is an unbeliever). So I have some of that to spare with all. Let's teach victor delta, while we have nothing better to do (another game show guy like me).Enjoy!
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JY- “Dan,
So what word would you use besides miffed? I like miffed and I use it a lot.”
John, I am 64 years old, have been told by two Board Certified Neurologists in different practices that while they didn’t think I had ALS, they couldn’t rule it out (turned out they weren’t even close), and have also dealt with heart problems for about 20 years. It takes a ton for me to be miffed.
I guess I would use “puzzled” instead. Just when I think I have McMark pinned down, he comes up with something from a theologian that I don’t think he has any business knowing about and uses it in a way that makes it clear to me at least that he isn’t just quote mining.
As for all about me, I would label myself as a traditional Baptist. If I had to be more specific than that, the members of the church I grew up in and the one I now belong to would say they didn’t have any serious disagreement with the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message. I would agree.
I have studied political theory to a much greater extent and more systematically than I have theology. One political theorist that has influenced me is Eric Voegelin, who several of the regulars here like. I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t amillenial, since I was raised that way, and 2K is of course a natural fit. I am active in my church, and we try to maintain good relations with other churches in the community, so things like the resurgence of Baptist Calvinism and the influence of various strains of Kellerism are topics of current interest. Oh, and I have been involved in politics, including getting paid for legal work in campaign finance compliance and lobbying, for most of my adult life. I just don’t think the church has anything to say about how I should vote, nor is caring about how we are governed and who governs us a matter that Christians and non-Christians shouldn’t be concerned about. Just spare me the Utopianism, or what Voegelin would call Gnosticism. That 2k necessitates quietism is just bizzare to me, though some of my Anabaptist friends would disagree.
I have read OL for maybe 9 months now, having found it after having read DGH’s Calvinism. I try to be kind of low key in interacting with the younger folks I meet up with locally, and OL has been a good source of pertinent questions to use with those who are periodically on fire with one sort or other non-gospel trendy substitute for the real thing. (At their age I was on fire for anything that wore a skirt, an obvious problem for a good Baptist boy. Progress?)
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JY, I didn’t mean to hijack so much of the thread with all about me stuff, but I don’t do Facebook so I couldn’t figure out where else to respond.
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JohnnY, I didn’t see the ones way back at the beginning. But I’m not sure how to respond to someone else whom mcMark is quoting.
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That’s okay Dan, the only bad thing to do on here is claim to be Reformed and then do nothing but point one’s finger at us in self-and-works righteousness
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Kent, I am not smart enough to credibly claim to be Reformed, so no worries there
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That’s okay Dan, a lot of us ended up Reformed after other Evangelical decades.
Gratitude that someone like DGH has set up a free and open forum for discussions is never far from my mind
Take care of yourself, I also have an illness that has been debilitating for the past 25 years.
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Kent- “That’s okay Dan, a lot of us ended up Reformed after other Evangelical decades.”
Too much about me, but I have never self identified as an Evangelical, either. I have long thought that post WW II Evangelicalism was just something made up so fundamentalists could claim intellectual credibility and cultural relevance. Kind of like putting whipped cream on a hot dog. I’m one of those rare non-fundamentalst Baptists who had serious reservations about Billy Graham, starting from when I was first exposed to Bellah’s concept of the American Civil Religion back in the very early 70’s.
Appreciate the good wishes, best to you.
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 5, 2014 at 6:02 am | Permalink
victor delta, tango, yes, victor delta, tango, you are ever the interlocutor:
“Wow Tom, you sound so angry!
To answer your question, I am (the hell) a Christ-follower and a child of the King 🙂
You are right when you say Driscoll is not my pastor, but if he follows Christ, that makes him my brother. And I believe my brother is in error in using worldly ways which contradict Christ’s own words.”
Tom Van Dyke:
Why would you call me angry, brother? Mostly I don’t give a spit. I’m not a Calvinist let alone a “neo-Calvinist.”
As for Brother Driscoll being your business because you claim to be a “Christian,” I don’t know anything about that either.
If you’re his brother in Christ, I suppose you need to approach him as a brother in Christ, not in some internet blog comment section. Who the hell are you?
D. G. Hart
Posted May 5, 2014 at 6:04 am | Permalink
victor delta, tango, You’re a Thomist?
“Cathy, you can’t have it both ways. FTR, I’m a Thomist [Aquinas]. 😉 I have no dog in this fight.”
Why didn’t you jack–s so.
Trolling the internet in search of moi. I’m moved, Darryl. I have looked you up on occasion too.
Dunno what “Why didn’t you jack–s so” means, though.
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Dan, I wish I could like Voegelin. I actually do, but I’m not sure I understand. You need a glossary. I give him credit for being original. I continue to be baffled that he ever acquired a following in the U.S.
If I may, where do you go to church — denomination?
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What keeps a Supreme Court approved public prayer before the town council meeting from being “sectarian”. Does the out loud prayer need to be one that could also be used (without changing a word) in the local synagogue? Does this “common good” (but not profane) prayer also be edited to remove “denigrating to others” content? Can the Psalms be used?
Pslam 139: 7 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand…
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!….
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Was pope Billy’s prayer at the White House before the Bush war holy, or common, or profane? What would the Supreme Court say?
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Psalm 49–Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
17 For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him.
18 For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed…
19 he will go to the generation of his fathers,
who will never again see light.
20 Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
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DGH- Voegelin’s Science, Politics and Gnosticidm is his most accessible book, and it still takes a glossary to really understand it. I was introduced to him in a senior poly sci seminar that read his The New Science of Politics under a prof that got his Phd at LSU when Voegelin was there. Hardest course I ever took. That professor warned us of the risk of understanding Voegelin too well and becoming Gnostics ourselves. I’m not sure of all the reasons for his following, but it is much less than it was back in the 70’s, whereas that of his contemporary Leo Strauss has at least not diminished, at least until recently
I attend a downtown Baptist Church that is now part of the Cooperatve Baptist Fellowship. Around here, we would be considered the right wing of the Mainline. We try mightily to keep the culture wars out of the church. The most consequential decision we have made in the 40 years I have been a member is when we decided back in the 70’s to not sell our real estate and move to the suburbs. Now, our downtown is growing again and folks– particularly young families- seem to appreciate that we have been a faithful presence all these years.
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AB-
I’ve come across Mr. Hausam before. He is not a member with is and nor- as far as I’m aware- is he connected to us in any way. He may be in contact with our congregation in Texas but I wouldn’t know.
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I appreciated Mark’s work, here if you are interested. I’ll look more into your church, was sharing my experience, is all. Take care.
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mcmark, the Court doesn’t matter, the church does. Civil religion is blasphemous unless you happen to be an Israelite.
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DGH- Having had my morning coffee, I can perhaps give you a better answer as to why Voegelin acquired a following in the US. Back in the day, The Problem was totalitarianism. The most serious thinkers who grappled with it (without advocating more of it- think Marcuse) were German émigrés such as Arendt, Strauss and Voegelin. Voegelin was at least not hostile to Christianity. I went to college from 1968-72, and by the time I graduated Cold Warriors, or anyone who coiuld be caricatured as such, were already going out of fashion.
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Dan, thanks. Overall, I find the rigors of political theory amusing — as if any American politician or campaign manager cares. Machiavelli rules, but that’s heresy with the philosophical types (I think).
Kudos on staying downtown. Now reform your church. You may be old enough to have some leisure time.
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DGH, wherever there is rigor there is amusement to be found.
Reform my church? Have you heard of Roger Williams? Multiply by 500.
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Of course SCOTUS threw the ReligiousRight their frikin’ bone.
They gave them their posturing prayers because such activity doesn’t matter!
“You get your prayer. Aaaaand we remove yet another serious Constitutional protection. After all, compromise is what makes politics work. Remember to VOTE today!”
If voting made a difference, it would be illegal.
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On the issue of public prayer, there was an interesting piece in USA Today this weekend on Doc Rivers vs. Mark Jackson on the issue:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2014/05/03/nba-clippers-warriors-doc-rivers-mark-jackson-monty-williams-religion/8658755/
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Should the Civil Magistrate Support/Advance the Gospel? Be Careful What You Wish For – The Implications of Belgic 36
http://literatecomments.com/2014/05/06/should-the-civil-magistrate-supportadvance-the-gospel-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-the-implications-of-belgic-36/
In the American context of freedom of religion one has to ask what the benefits of the Civil Magistrate supporting “the advance of the gospel” are. The problem arises as soon as we ask the question, “whose gospel?”. The Protestant gospel? The Roman Catholic gospel? The Mormon gospel? The Jehovah’s Witness gospel? If the Protestant gospel, is that the liberal Protestant gospel? the evangelical gospel? The Reformed gospel? If a Protestant gospel is advanced, where does that leave Roman Catholics whose worship Reformed people consider to be idolatrous? If a Roman Catholic gospel is advanced, where does that leave Protestants whose beliefs Catholics declared to be anathema at the Council of Trent?
And then there’s the question of whether or not the Civil Magistrate’s “help” is even good for the church. Is it good that the Civil Magistrate refrain from killing us for our beliefs? Yes it is. Is it good that the Civil Magistrate actually helps us advance our beliefs? Maybe not.
What happens when the Civil Magistrate decides to favor something (i.e. subsidize it)? People are attracted to the subsidy and people, not always through pure motives, attempt to cozy up to whatever the Civil Magistrate approves of in order to gain the Civil Magistrate’s approval in order to advance his own ends. History has shown that, rather than being beneficial to the health of the church, this actually damages the church by promoting nominalism.
One example of this in American history was the Half-Way Covenant promoted by Reverend Solomon Stoddard in 1662:
“The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church membership created by New England in 1662. It was promoted in particular by the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, who felt that the people of the English colonies were drifting away from their original religious purpose. First-generation settlers were beginning to die out, while their children and grandchildren often expressed less religious piety, and more desire for material wealth.
Full membership in the tax-supported Puritan church required an account of a conversion experience, and only persons in full membership could have their own children baptized. Second and third generations, and later immigrants, did not have the same conversion experiences. These individuals were thus not accepted as members despite leading otherwise pious and upright Christian lives.
In response, the Half-Way Covenant provided a partial church membership for the children and grandchildren of church members. Those who accepted the Covenant and agreed to follow the creed within the church could participate in the Lord’s supper. Crucially, the half-way covenant provided that the children of holders of the covenant could be baptized in the church. These partial members, however, couldn’t accept communion or vote.
Puritan preachers hoped that this plan would maintain some of the church’s influence in society, and that these ‘half-way members’ would see the benefits of full membership, be exposed to teachings and piety which would lead to the “born again” experience, and eventually take the full oath of allegiance. Many of the more religious members of Puritan society rejected this plan as they felt it did not fully adhere to the church’s guidelines, and many of the target members opted to wait for a true conversion experience instead of taking what they viewed as a short cut.” (Wikipedia)
Whether you agree with Puritan theology or not, the point to be gleaned from the Half-Way Covenant is that as soon as you link the Civil Magistrate and church life/membership there is a temptation toward nominalism — driven both by the church because of a desire to “maintain some of the church’s influence in society” and by the Civil Magistrate because he has an incentive to have as many people “inside” the church as opposed to “outside” the church as possible — after all, in a democratic society these are voters who he seeks to please as much as possible. Telling someone they are a sinner and unable to take communion is not pleasing to people.
So having the Civil Magistrate on your side may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Hopefully the delegates to URCNA Synod Visalia 2014 will consider this in discussion Belgic Confession Article 36.
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Dan,
Thanks for the brief bio. I enjoyed reading about your background and you seem like you will fit in well here, i.e. you have a good sense of humor and are old enough to not take yourself too seriously anymore. Since no one seems to want to pursue my grips any further I will wait for another appropriate time to continue the dialog. There are major themes that keep repeating themselves here so you can tune out for months at a time and then return and pick it right back up again.
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Dordt was about the unity of “the church”. But the unity of “the church” was about the unity of the nation-state against Spain.
“When the United Provinces had declared their independence from Spain, the Reformed Churches were supplied with ecclesiastical funds from the government, out of confiscated Roman Catholic holdings. Political leaders were to be members of these churches. Meanwhile, the churches had to allow civil representatives to attend their assemblies. These policies were aimed at unifying the nation against Spain. The Reformed Churches held a privileged position, but this also attracted members to it who otherwise would not have joined these churches.
“Between 1586 and 1618, a growing number of clergy was upheld contrary to the wishes of the congregations and decisions of ecclesiastical assemblies. The churches called for a National Synod to resolve the issues, but the States General feared the growing influence of the Reformed Churches. For years, they refused to grant the request.
http://spindleworks.com/library/vandergugten/arminian_c.htm
When we are told that “if my people” meet the covenantal conditions, the most important problem is NOT asking if the people means the church or the nation…..
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Stan Hauerwas– “I am NOT convinced that freedom of religion has been good for churches or society in America. It has tempted Christians in America to think that democracy is fundamentally neutral and, perhaps, even friendly toward the church.”
Because of the Christian accommodation to the principles of liberal democracy which provide freedom of religion, we have failed to notice that we are no longer a people who make it interesting for a society to acknowledge our freedom. The question is not whether we have freedom of religion to preach the gospel in America, but rather whether the church in America preaches the gospel as truth. Because we think it is the church’s task to support the state, we have lost the critical skills formed by the gospel, to discern when we have voluntarily qualified our loyalty to God in the name of the state.” After Christendom, p 71
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mcmark, but would Stan say that Christendom was good for churches? Was persecution by the emperor? The onion loses its layers.
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I think Stan thinks that the next Christendom will be better. Because Stan theoretically doesn’t think there should be “churches” but only “the one church” with the clergy to enforce its narrative, in God’s name guiding history in the anti-liberal direction. Because Stan hates the gospel of penal substitution in which Christ died for elect individuals. Despite his theory Stan is still in one of the churches, at least until the one pope ordains females to administer the sacraments. Yoder also hated the gospel, but at least he knew that churches being in charge was not going to fix things. Anti-liberalism was not Yoder’s gospel.
John H Yoder–Some argue (and some take for granted as not even needing argument) that the price of “involvement” in public life is that one must filter out, or reserve to the private realm, or “compromise” the particular identifying value commitments of a faith community, in favor of common-denominator moral language. Yet if in order to “be involved” you commit yourself to values less clear or less imperative than your own, which are more acceptable because the “public” out there already holds them, then your involvement adds nothing to the mix but numbers. Joining the majority on grounds that others already are committed to, in favor of policies which others already support, winds up having the same effect as abstention; it lets the values of the others be decisive.
http://brandon.multics.org/…/John…/notincharge.html
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JohnY- ” There are major themes that keep repeating themselves here….”
No kidding. As an outsider to Reformed churches, I do find the whole OL atmosphere fascinating, but kind of off center. Having read through the Westminster Confession (as adopted in the US) and the 3FU, I have to remind myself that DGH and the regular posters here are, on the ground, a minority. You would have your work cut out for you if you tried to convince me they didn’t support 2K. All about my opinion, but I think the Kuyperians and Kellerites simply don’t have very deep roots.
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Erik—Then there’s the question of whether or not the Civil Magistrate’s “help” is even good for the church. Is it good that the Civil Magistrate refrain from killing us for our beliefs? ,,,,What happens when the Civil Magistrate decides to favor something (i.e. subsidize it)? People are attracted to the subsidy ….History has shown that, rather than being beneficial to the health of the church, this actually damages the church by promoting nominalism.
mark— Why would we have to be citizens of a second kingdom to be faithful to Christ’s kingdom? In order to have political influence, Protestants have to ignore any practical differences they have with Jews or Roman Catholics. So why not think about the lessons John Yoder gives us from the Jewish diaspora?
A) They would have said that since God is sovereign over history, there is no need to seize (or subvert) political sovereignty in order for God’s will to be done. God’s capacity to bring about the fulfillment of His righteous goals is not dependent upon us, and certainly not dependent on our needing to make exceptions to His Law in order to make things come out the way He wills them.
B) They would have said that establishing the ultimate righteous social order among nations will be the mission of the Meschiach and should be left to him. To do his work for him would be presumptuous if not blasphemous. This is what the critics of Zionism said a century ago, and of the State of Israel today.
C) They would have said that the efforts of the Maccabees, the Zealots, and Bar Kochba to restore a national kingship had not been blessed by God, and that three failures should have been enough to teach us that lesson. The Maccabees and the Zealots have a larger place in the Christian memories of those centuries than they do in the thought of the rabbis.
D) They would have said that if an all-righteous God wanted to chastise US for OUR sins, our self-defense would interfere with that purpose. The notion that God’s own people are especially subject to having their sins exposed, by virtue of the special privileges of their election, may have become more weighty in the Jewish thought of a later age than it was in the canonical period, but it is already present in the prophets. As soon as that attitude toward one’s own sufferings is possible, the injustices suffered by God’s people take on a different meaning, and seeking to prevent them becomes impious.
E) They would have said that the death of the righteous “sanctifies the Name” i.e. makes a doxological contribution, on the moral scales of history, which our avoidance of suffering (even if unjust) would obviate. We cannot be clear that “Your name be sanctified” in the “Our Father” already meant that, but clearly that phrase soon became the technical label for martyrdom as a positive contribution to the achievement of God’s purposes
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mcmark, yoder sounds like my parents — though more polished.
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DGH, if your parents figured out that it wasn’t their responsibility to make history turn out right, which is the best short summary of Yoder I’ve heard, then mega dings to them.
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Dan, my folks weren’t Reformed, but they had an intuitive sense of God’s sovereignty and their own limits. Not a bad form of catechesis.
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Darryl’s parents sound like great people. Most of our parents who stayed married, worked hard, and took us to church were pretty great people, too. It’s hard to not be thankful for mom & dad.
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Yoder sounds like Danny’s Rabbi Father in Chaim Potek’s book THE CHOSEN.
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Dan,
I would not try to convince you that the regular posters here were anti-2K. 2K is close to the Anabaptist views of government and culture but tries to contend that there is a neutral ground of common grace that the Anabaptists would have no part of. That theme sometimes pops up but I have not seen it adequately resolved. Those who oppose the idea of common grace would opt for Providence. From what I can tell common grace has its roots in how some interpret covenant theology. I still don’t get a lot of the arguments from both sides regarding these matters but I do think it is important to sort out.
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JohnnY, “2K is close to the Anabaptist views of government and culture but tries to contend that there is a neutral ground of common grace that the Anabaptists would have no part of.”
Correction: 2k is Reformed Protestantism without Constantinianism (or an ecclesiastical establishment). It is nothing unusual since most Reformed churches have also had to revise their confessions to accommodate ministry in a pluralistic, voluntary setting.
Why is that so hard? Why describe it as Anabaptist with neutrality thrown in?
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DGH,
Because it was the Anabaptists who were the first to oppose the new sort of Constantinianism of the Reformers. That gets blurred in most of the discussions here. It is hard for the Reformed to admit that they made big blunders (to be gracious) in Church/State relations.
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JY, but the 2k around here subscribes WCF 23 and Belgic 36 (the current squabble over footnotes notwithstanding). How can anyone read those statements which have the seditious Anabaptists in mind and say 2k in these parts is AB, not to mention the eschewing of civil disobedience and getting all sorts of flack for it (hi, CvD)? When it comes to a view of government, Anabaptism is the mirror error of theonomy.
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JY, where have you been? 2k readily admits with Kuyper that the theocratic Calvin (and the Confessions and our esteemed theologians) was plain wrong.
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Zrim-
You don’t subscribe chapter 23 of the WCF. You subscribe an altered version.
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DGH” Why is that so hard?
it’s amazing how people with an interest in theology, with a putative 3-digit IQ, can completely fail to grasp the basic basic basic fundamentals of 2K, Doctrines of Grace, or any conservative Reformed views.
this wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes of sitting down and reading and thinking about it
we do it constantly to understand the “other sides” and showing some courtesy to them if we want to discuss differences
maybe they just sit there and go DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and then reload their mental rifle to make more useless attacking posts.
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John, I must agree with the others that there is nothing “anabaptist” about intra-Reformed debates about the magistrate, or between “common grace” and “providence”, or between “the covenant” being conditional or not. They all agree that it’s good for everybody (Christian included) to be part of “them” (the magistrates) to whom ‘we’ are to submit. Even when they disagree about what standard guides these magistrates, they all agree with each other that the magistrate must NOT imitate the incarnate Lord Jesus. They argue from the uniqueness of Christ to His ethical irrelevance for us common folks in this age. And this is true even of the Reformed (and baptists) who remain pessimistic about the possibility (or importance) of “Christianizing” the majority coercive cultures.
John, it’s NOT “with some neutrality thrown in”. It’s NOT Anabaptist. We are NOT all Anabaptists now. Indeed, very few of “the reformer’s stepchildren” EVER made a distinction between God’s sovereignty over the powers and the “legitimacy” of those powers. And very few do today. Even when they are careful (as 2 k people) NOT to confuse this age with the age to come, they prefer “natural law” to the anabaptist notion that all the nation-states are in rebellion against God when they presume to make human sacrifices to enforce their claims.
You see, John, we who are anabaptists think that it’s the nation-states which are in sedition against Christ, and it does not make us seditionists to say so. God uses the state, and visits the wrath of man with the wrath of man. To not agree that the state is our “benefactor” does not mean that we fail to submit to the powers providentially placed against us.
Being more or less against religious tolerance (liberal democracy) does NOT make one more or less anabaptist. Being anabaptist is not only saying something negative about all nation-states but is also about saying something about the distinction between professing parents and persons professing to have been effectually called by the gospel.
In his Confession of Faith in the Name of the Reformed Churches of France, Calvin: “since baptism is a treasure which God has placed in His Church — all the members ought to partake of it. Now we doubt not that little children born of Christians are of this number, since God has adopted them — as He declares. Indeed, we should defraud them of their right — were we to exclude them from the sign which only ratifies the thing contained in THE PROMISE. Wherefore, we reprobate all Anabaptist fanatics who will not allow little children to be baptized.”
In the French Confession of 1559, Calvin : “as some trace of the Church is left in the papacy, and the virtue and substance of baptism remain, we confess that those baptized in it do not need a baptism….Are we independently of baptism cleansed by the blood of Christ and regenerated by the Spirit?”
In 1561 Calvin asked: “What affinity with Luther had the Muensterians, the Anabaptists? … Did he ever lend them his support? Nay, with what vehemence did he oppose them — in order to prevent the spreading of the contagion! He had the discernment at once to perceive what noxious pests they would prove. We believe that God has put the sword into the hands of magistrates to suppress crimes against the First Table.”.
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Zrim,
I am not so sure Anabaptism is the mirror error of theonomy. There is the whole problem of continuity and discontinuity of Old and New Testament Law. Is the Mosaic civil law of the Hebrew nation in the Old Testament the same thing as the law given by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount? I don’t think so. So, the issue becomes less clear. Is there a proper way for individuals or groups to confront civil government in a “pluralistic and voluntary” setting? I hear conflicting opinions about that from advocates of 2k. One of the main criticisms I hear all the time about 2K is that it is passive in regards to being vocal about governmental and cultural controversial issues.
And yes, 2K does readily admit that the theocratic Calvin was plain wrong but I do not hear 2K advocates addressing some of the cultural issues that McMark keeps pressing here. That was the point I was trying to get at. His posts usually get ignored.
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Alexander, the altered version pertains to 23.3’s original theocratic nature. But I’m responding to JY’s assertion about 2k’s alleged AB view of government. Does this sound AB (as in seditious):
23.1: God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under Him, over the people, for His own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evil doers.
23.4: It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honour their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’ sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates’ just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less hath the Pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretense whatsoever.
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I see that McMark posted while I was trying to post again. I have not spent as much time sorting out the cultural and governmental implications of 2K as others have here. So, I am learning as I can find the time. I just notice that a lot of Mark’s points of view get frequently ignored and I have not been able to figure out why.
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Why would we have to be citizens of a second kingdom to be faithful to Christ’s kingdom?
There MIGHT be some Reformed folks on this list who would agree that it’s not sin for some individuals (conscientious objectors) not to agree to the legitimacy of the second kingdom. But not many are so tolerant (or patronizing). But most would argue that it’s a sin for Christians not to support the legitimacy of the nation-state (no matter what the standard). Others would argue that there are no persons who in practical reality who do not benefit (and thus collaborate) from the second-kingdom killing done in our name.
It’s a catch 22. We are parasites. But to the extent that we are not parasites, our lack of collaboration is sin.
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Mark,
I am still a bit confused about how you differ with the 2K point of view in regards to governmental and cultural issues. I think what you are saying is that the sacraments and Constantinianism are integrally tied together in a way that the Reformers did not really see. Am I right about that or am I misinterpreting? However, I do not really see the connection either.
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John, don’t worry about it. I think I have been treated very kindly here. It should be no surprise that a Reformed site like this would attract mostly Reformed folks. Even though anabaptists and 2 k people have a common opponent in those who want to take the Mosaic covenant as a standard for the magistrate, there is no reason folks on this site should be interested in my ethical or ecclesiastical agendas.
And when I have joined to talk about what I have in common from the WCF (justification, atonement, election), there have been many useful conversations. At least for me, helpful.
How warm is it in Johnson City today? Go Spurs…
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Mark,
So it is mostly a matter of the State still having the power of the sword that you most object to- right? I am still unclear about the sacramental issues. And you really do not believe that there are Two legitimate kingdoms- only the kingdom of Christ- right?
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Mark,
I was more interested in actually learning about a different point of view from the ones you normally get here, i.e. the neo-Cal, theonomist or 2K points of view. And since the Anabaptist view does not get represented adequately, or misinterpreted, I was wanting to learn more about it. I just get frustrated when it is not adequately argued about. That was my main gripe.
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It has been very pleasantly warm (not too humid yet) in Johnson City the past week and half and it looks like it will continue for awhile. Thinking of moving to Asheville, Greenville or even back to Savannah if I cannot get into the manufacturing program I went to get into here. Got a surprisingly hefty tax return back (with the help of my son’s accountants and tax guy I met here) so things are looking much brighter on the financial end.
I am leaning towards Miami winning it all again- they are looking healthy and motivated again. I don’t think anyone can stop them when they decide they want to play hard again. I am enjoying watching the Blackhawks play more than the NBA now that the Bulls are out of it.
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John, Anabaptism is the mirror error of theonomy because while they both conceive of the civil magistrate as mainly in sedition to Christ and thus ground his legitimacy in his relative religious felicity (continuity), the former measures that by his embodiment of NT ethics whereas the latter does so by his embodiment of OT codes (discontinuity).
Contra both, 2k says that while the CM can tend toward evil, he is mainly the servant and minister of God per Romans 13: 1-7. He is to embody neither NT ethics nor OT code but natural law in the carrying out of his office.
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JohnnY, I think 2kers are among the most critical of the Reformers’ politics (maybe just me). But to conceive of Anabaptism as an option in the 16th c. without a boat to the New World is to have no historical imagination.
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Alexander, you don’t subscribe Chapter 31, the one about councils erring. Don’t turn popish on me.
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mcmark, well said, but pay your taxes.
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mcmark, this may be why people don’t respond to you sufficiently — you’re too darned nice. Do you attribute that to sanctification?
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Mark just fits in well with other guys like him here that don’t shower much and have at least spent some time living in vans by rivers. That and we’ve all walked downtown streets wearing sandwich boards warning people about the end of days.
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Thanks for your responses Zrim, DGH, Erik and McMark. All of your comments were helpful in making me see the differences, a bit more clearly at least, between the Anabaptists, the Reformers of the 16th century and the modified Reformed confessional position. That is, their differences in regards to social thought. I am still struggling to get how the soteriological differences, and the differences in views of covenant theology (or lack thereof) and sacraments fits into the whole scenario.
And I enjoyed the humored ribbing too- nice Erik and DGH.
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The stereotypes don’t fit that well. I know some 2 k people who seem very nostalgic for the “good old days” of Protestant Christendom. I also know some 2 k people who reject the antithesis between law and gospel. But I also have some theonomist friends who know the gospel well enough to reject all “conditionality” in the matter of justification before God. They even think that the concept of “covenant” is determined by “election”.
So it’s difficult to sort out. Being agreed about eschatology certainly does not mean being agreed about the gospel. And being convinced that Christ (not the Mosaic covenant) is the standard for ethics ( no more other sacrifices remain) does not make all “anabaptists” agree about how God is sovereign over the powers. Some of them think that killing is “legitimate” for non-Christians. Some of them even think that killing is “legitimate” for non-anabaptists!.
That “true for me but not for you” attitude even makes some of them accept those watered in infancy to the Lord’s take. (This is my way of talking about how liberal most Mennonites are today. But it doesn’t matter—they have always been wrong about imputed sin and the gospel.)
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John- I think I wrote a convoluted sentence, as I am prone to do with com boxes, that you might have responded to. I meant that (a) the regular posters here are 2k; (b) that the WCF and 3FU at least as adopted in America seem, to an outsider, to support a 2K position. What I then meant to get across is that it seems that these regulars are in a minority position in at least some of their own churches, and I just find it odd. I mean, the subtitle of this blog is “reformed faith and practice” and it just seems to me that if you wanted to debate about 2K here and described yourself as Reformed, you might want to root your argument in one or another Reformed Confession. Few of the anti 2K types that post here do.
For all about myself, i don’t feel the need to get into these weeds because I have been amillenial for essentially forever (due to some pastors and teachers who were militantly ant- pre mil dispy) and 2K just seems to fit. But I do recognize that there is a strength and value to Confessional Protestantism, but damn it, why ignore your confessions? There are procedures to change them.
It looks like the thread has moved on and I see that some of your issues are being addressed, though I haven’t caught up yet.
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Oops, the above comment was from Dan. Long day. Before I retired, there was such a thing as leisure time.
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So I guess I am not that far off when I find it all difficult to sort through. I am back to being miffed, or puzzled or perhaps baffled again. I did learn some things today so it pays to try to work through your confusion.
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JohnY, have you read DGH’s Calvinism? He’s pretty good on this confessional history stuff. There is a good bit in this thread to chew on. I’ve been in a meeting all afternnoon and I am pretty sure I’m too tired to understand it.
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I did find this song by Arcade Fire on McMark’s website with a puzzling comment underneath it too. So what exactly is the point of the song? It might be kind of like trying to sort through Reformed social thought:
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Dan,
No I have not read DGH’s book on Calvinism yet. I do plan on reading it sometime soon though. I have lots I want to read so it may be awhile before I get to it.
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