Category: Adventures in Church History

Which Theologians Are They Reading?

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

While reading R. R. Reno’s lament about the Roman Catholic left, I went back and took a look at Joshua Lim’s account of his conversion:

It was during this time of doubt that I came across a few Catholic theologians at a conference on Protestant and Catholic theology. These were not the first Catholics that I had met; prior to this encounter, I had dialogued with a rather intelligent Catholic (though he knew very little about Reformed Protestantism–which, at the time, enabled me to ignore his arguments) at a nearby coffee shop over a span of about two years. Moreover, there were constant online debates with Catholics on different blogs that I participated in. Yet, perhaps because of my realization of the shortcomings of Reformed theology, it was at this point that I tried to really understand Catholic theology from a Catholic perspective — as much as this was possible for someone who was raised to distrust Catholicism. . . .

During the several months following this conversation, I kept in touch with these theologians and they provided answers to my numerous questions. For the next five months or so, I buried myself in books, Catholic and Protestant. I carefully read Peter Martyr Vermigli’s work on predestination and justification; Vermigli was an Augustinian friar prior to his conversion to the Protestant movement, and so his book represented something of a final vestige of hope. To my surprise, I came away from the book even more convinced of the truth of Catholicism. I read Heiko Oberman’s work on the medieval nominalism of Gabriel Biel and its immense influence on Luther’s theology. Through my study, I realized that much of my doubt and skepticism stemmed from certain philosophical assumptions that I had unwittingly adopted regarding knowledge of God and reality through Luther’s theologia crucis–and much of the philosophical issues that I had stemmed from my understanding of theology’s relation to philosophy. The inextricable link between philosophy and theology became evident to me. One cannot have a ‘pure theology,’ just as one cannot simply believe the Bible without simultaneously interpreting it; philosophy will always be there whether one acknowledges it or not–and those who claim to have no philosophy in distinction from their theology must necessarily elicit a certain sense of suspicion, much like the suspicion aroused by fundamentalists who claim simply to be reading the Bible.

The reason for looking at Lim’s conversion narrative owed to the distinctly different picture of Roman Catholic theologians that Reno gives:

There they go again. The usual gang of Catholic theology professors has signed a manifesto, “On all of our shoulders: A Catholic Call to Protect the Endangered Common Good.” It claims to warn us of the grave danger posed by Congressman Paul Ryan. The future of America is at stake! The integrity of Catholicism hangs in the balance!

. . . Serious people don’t pass off cheap, partisan rhetoric as substantive analysis. Why, then, would past presidents of the Catholic Theological Society of America hurry to support a manifesto that is largely an emotive exercise in partisan rhetoric?

The answer, at least in part, can be found in the changing character of the American Catholic Church. In the years after the Second Vatican Council, liberals thought that the future was theirs. They saw the way in which the hierarchy acquiesced to dissent in the aftermath of Humane Vitae. Their way of thinking seemed natural, inevitable. But it wasn’t so. During the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the Church slowly solidified around a vision more traditional than trendy. Liberals went from being presumptive heirs to embattled outcasts.

One sees as much in the episcopacy and priesthood. There are no more Hunthausens and Weaklands. The priests under fifty today see their ministry as counter-cultural, and the culture they are countering is the one ministered to by liberalism.

As a result, the academic Catholic establishment, which invested so heavily in liberalism, is now very much on the margins of the Church. Can anyone imagine one of the twenty or so past presidents of the Catholic Theological Society of America serving as trusted advisors for bishops today? Hardly. They’ve reorganized the CTSA into a trade union for dissent.

If Lim had run into the theologians who were Reno’s colleagues in the CTSA when he taught at Creighton University, would the former Westminster student have remained a Protestant or simply abandoned the faith altogether? And if Called to Communion were ever called to give an account of the state of Roman Catholic theology — despite the efforts of infallible and authoritative pontiffs to reign U.S. theologians in — their call might look more like a pipe dream.

Rematch?

Published on by D. G. Hart34 Comments

Now that Jason Stellman has become a Roman Catholic and Peter Leithart has moved his blog to the predominantly Roman Catholic First Things website, can round two be far away?

Jump In, the Post-Evangelical Water is Warm (even if the pond is small)

Published on by D. G. Hart75 Comments

First I am vinegary, now I’m crabby. This is the latest indignity from Scot McKnight who doesn’t care for my definition of evangelicalism. (Okay, he says I’m “a bit” of a crab. But as with pregnancy, how can you be a little bit of a crab?) My demeanor came up not with my wife but in discussion of McKnight’s post about David Schwartz’s new book on the evangelical left, which McKnight calls the best book he’s read this year.

To get that endorsement, McKnight rejects the older definition of evangelicalism that has haunted Reformed types, such as this common lament among evangelicals who prefer the First to the Second Pretty Good Awakening:

More specifically speaking, [an evangelical is] someone who believes the Gospel is centered on the doctrine of justification by faith and the principles of sola fide (by faith alone) and sola scriptura (by Scripture alone), he added. “The Gospel is a message about redemption, it’s a call to repentance from sin … and a summons to yield to the Lordship of Christ.”

Abuse of the term “evangelical” is not new. Nineteenth century preacher Charles Spurgeon had decried the fact that the modernists of his day wanted to be called evangelicals even though they abandoned all the evangelical principles, according to Johnson. Such a label would give them “instant credibility” and easy access to people who believed the Bible, he said.

McKnight rejects this definition because it “wants evangelicalism to be old-fashioned fundamentalism, the kind that pre-Carl Henry and pre-neo-evangelicalism’s coalition and pre-John Stott” [sic]. For that reason, he prefers a definition like David Bebbington’s four-fold grid: “crucicentrism, biblicism, conversionism, and activism.”

It strikes this crabby Calvinist as odd that a person who identifies himself as an Anabaptist and who has identified with if not being a leader of the emergent church — that would be McKnight — would so readily approve Bebbington and Noll who read evangelicalism much more through the lens of the Puritans and the eighteenth-century awakenings than through Finney and radical reform the way Dayton and McKnight do. Where does crucientism come from after all if not from those hegemonic Calvinists and Puritans who were breathing the fumes of Dort’s Limited Atonement?

But the reason for bringing this up is not to define evangelicalism but to engage McKnight’s query about who gets to define evangelicalism. Apparently, McKnight thinks that he can decide who gets to offer a definition. Those who demur are crabby.

What McKnight misses by dismissing my critique of evangelicalism as stemming from a Reformed bias is that I actually took Don Dayton’s critique of George Marsden to heart. Almost twenty years ago, Dayton made a habit of pointing out how the evangelical historians associated with the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College had misrepresented evangelical history. He was particularly annoyed by George Marsden’s history of Fuller Seminary, which in Dayton’s estimate slighted the Holiness/Wesleyan side of Fuller for the sake of highlighting its Old Princeton/Westminster heritage. I see merit in Dayton’s point, at least regarding evangelicalism as something much bigger and broader (and more abstract and virtually meaningless) than the Puritans-to-Edwards-to-Hodge-to-Machen-to-Ockenga-to-Graham narrative. It is a partial reading of the New Evangelicalism to see it as a reiteration of New School Presbyterianism. It is also partial to see Finney and Wesleyanism all over the Fuller faculty and curriculum. But by acknowledging that everyone can look in the mirror of evangelicalism and see themselves and their predilections in it, in Deconstructing Evangelicalism, I was actually trying to liberate born-again Protestants, like McKnight, Dayton, and McLaren from their Calvinist captivity. You don’t like Reformed hegemony? Fine, you can have evangelicalism. We’ll keep our churches, thank you very much.

This is the thanks we get?

At the same time, I can understand why McKnight wants to hold on to evangelicalism as a movement. Chances are that he and his fellow “evangelical” bloggers would not have outlets at Patheos if each writer had to be identified by the particular communion to which he or she belongs. Would Patheos sponsor an Anabaptist, Wesleyan, or a Swedish-American pietist channel? I doubt it since the number of these “movements” are not as large as the broad and soupy category of evangelical.

So I see McKnight’s reasons for preserving his status in the evangelical movement. But I didn’t think evangelical radicals, emergents, or lefties were that invested in preserving the status quo. Radical reformation indeed (or in word only)!

A Word on Behalf of the Dutch

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

As much as Old Life gives grief to neo-Calvinists, readers should not take this criticism as a kind of ethnocentrism in reverse against the Dutch. In fact, in the temporal kingdom, the Netherlands has many attractions. And the history of the Low Countries is fascinating if not inspiring in ways that Abraham Kuyper presented it.

Here’s proof. I am teaching a seminar this fall on place and home and am assigning Witold Rybczynski’s very good book, Home: The History of an Idea. This astute architectural historian, who used to be my neighbor back in Philadelphia, devotes an entire chapter to the Dutch home and its importance for the history of domestication. He begins the chapter this way (and look, mom, Calvinists hands are tied behind Dutch backs):

The United Provinces of the Netherlands was a brand-new state, formed in 1609 after thirty years of rebellion against Spain. It was among the smallest countries in Europe, with a population one-quarter that of Spain, one-eighth that of France, and with a landmass smaller than Switzerland’s. It had few natural resources — no mines, no forests — and what little land there was needed constant protection from the sea. But this “low” country surprisingly quickly established itself as a major power. In a short time it became the most advanced shipbuilding nation in the world and developed large naval, fishing, and merchant fleets. Its explorers founded colonies in Africa and Asia, as well as in America. The Netherlands introduced many financial innovations that made it a major economic force — and Amsterdam became the world center for international finance. Its manufacturing towns grew so quickly that by the middle of the century the Netherlands had supplanted France as the leading industrial nation of the world. Its universities were among the best in Europe; its tolerant political and religious climate offered a home for emigre thinkers such as Spinoza, Descartes, and John Locke. This fecund country produced not just venture capitalists and the speculative tulip trade, but also Rembrandt and Vermeer; it devised not only the first recorded war game, but also the first microscope; it invested not only in heavily armed East Indiamen but also in beautiful towns. All this occurred during a brief historical moment — barely a human lifetime — which lasted from 1609 until roughly the 1660s, and which the Dutch call their “golden age.” (51-52).

Spheres are Sovereign but Kingdoms Can't be Distinct?

Published on by D. G. Hart98 Comments

I have for some time wanted to offer a little response to Matthew Tuininga’s first (and good) piece on two-kingdom theology for the confessing evangelical allies. The essay is not all about me — shucks — but he does interact with several of my arguments. The reason for responding now is that Matt observed a tendency in my writing that has also recently spawned criticism of Dave VanDrunen (by none other than Cornel Venema in the book that has anti-2kers breathless in anticipation of its imminent release). The criticism that Venema and Tuininga (note all of the Dutch Reformed genes at play here) register is 2k theology’s fault of bifurcating the religious and political realms. Here’s how Matt describes a tendency in my work:

Part of the reason that Hart’s version of the two kingdoms doctrine is somewhat controversial is that at times Hart has pressed the distinction between the two kingdoms to the point of separation. Indeed, if the classic two kingdoms doctrine denoted the difference between two ages and two governments, Hart has often written about it as if it amounted to a distinction between two airtight spheres, one the sphere of faith and religion, and the other the sphere of everyday life. While it is clear that Hart views these two spheres as expressions of the two ages, by speaking of them in terms of separate spheres he ends up downplaying the overlap between the two ages. This tendency becomes all the more marked in Hart’s more polemical moments.

Venema detects a similar weakness (or is it error?) in VanDrunen (via the international Calvinists):

For Calvin, the spiritual and the civil government of God do not stand independently alongside each other. The civil government or jurisdiction, although it is not to usurp the distinct spiritual government that Christ exercises through his Spirit and Word, has the task within God’s design to secure the kind of public order and tranquility that is indispensable to the prosecution of the church’s calling. In this way, the civil jurisdiction serves the redemptive purposes of God by protecting the church and ensuring its freedom to pursue its unique calling under Christ. Furthermore, as servants of God, civil magistrates have the task of ensuring that both tables of the law – the first table dealing with the service and worship of God, the second table addressing the mutual service of all human beings to each other – are honored and obeyed. Although the civil magistrate is not authorized to usurp the distinctive prerogatives of the spiritual kingdom, namely, the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word in renewing human life in free obedience to God’s law, it does serve to advance the redemptive purpose of the spiritual kingdom by requiring an outward conformity to the requirements of God’s moral law.

In case I am missing something, both objections apparently stem from the neo-Calvinist aversion to dualism. As one recent graduate of a neo-Calvinist college summarized the problem of dualism:

“Dualism” is an incredibly dirty word. Why? For two reasons: A) Dooyeweerd’s non-dualist and non-monistic, non-reductionistic philosophy of modal spheres, B) Kuyper’s insistence that all things be reclaimed under the Lordship of Christ, which means there is no such thing as a dualism between “sacred” and “secular.” All spheres of life should be reclaimed under the dominion of Jesus Christ.

I for one continue to be stupefied by the reflexive dismissal of dualism since distinctions between the physical and spiritual, secular and sacred, temporal and eternal appear everywhere in the Christian religion, not to mention the history of the West. Jesus himself seemed to justify some kind of differentiation between sacred and secular matters when he spoke about what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. He did not immediately qualify himself by saying “of course, everything belongs to God,” but let his assertion dangle. Neo-Calvinists, of course, won’t, suggesting an apparent discomfort with the very words of Christ.

Then there is the apostle Paul and that two-age construction which distinguishes between the eternal and the temporal (secular) so much so that he could say “to die is gain.” Paul also wrote: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:17-18 ESV) If Paul affirms dualism, it’s okay but if 2kers do then it’s bad? Or maybe neo-Calvinists don’t read Paul outside those cosmic “all things” passages.

And then there is the classic distinction between the earthly and the spiritual in the Belgic Confession:

Now those who are born again have two lives in them. The one is physical and temporal– they have it from the moment of their first birth, and it is common to all. The other is spiritual and heavenly, and is given them in their second birth; it comes through the Word of the gospel in the communion of the body of Christ; and this life is common to God’s elect only.

Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all as life itself also is. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten– that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith.

To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls. (Art. 35)

The distinction between things secular and sacred is everywhere in the history of the West, even if its usage does not always match. Augustine had his two cities, Gelasius his two swords, and Christendom its pope and emperor. Some kind of dualism is writ large in the Christian tradition. Neo-Calvinists may not like it but that’s too bad.

But what makes this suspicion of 2k all the more annoying is that the language employed to describe the neo-Calvinist idea of sphere sovereignty places church and state and family in separate realms with their own — get this — sovereignty. The two kingdoms can’t be distinct but need to bleed into each other lest dualism surface. But the spheres can be as distinct as Holland, Michigan and Pella, Iowa.

In the introduction to Kingdoms Apart, the book that will be the kinder, gentler version of John Frame’s Kuyper warrior-children manifesto, describes sphere sovereignty this way: “God has created distinct social, economic, cultural, and political spheres that have their own unique functions. . . (xxvi)” Then follows a quote that describes sphere sovereignty as “each sphere possess[ing] its own authority within itself.” Shazam! That’s a lot of distinct authority. The introduction goes on, “state, church, business, family, and academic institutions . . . ‘have the liberty to function on their own according to the divine ordinances God has established for each one.” (xxvi-xxvii) Because neo-Calvinists say that these sovereign, liberated, and autonomous spheres receive authority from God, I guess the distinctions are somehow permissible. But when have 2kers ever said that the temporal kingdom is independent from God? Straw man comes to mind. But divine sovereignty notwithstanding (never thought I’d write that) it is remarkable that sphere sovereigntists can divide the world up into such tidy spheres but won’t give 2kers the same freedom. And, by the way, the 2kers claims go much deeper than late nineteenth-century Netherlands.

What makes 2k superior to sphere sovereignty is that 2kers are really willing to live with distinctions. For sphere sovereigntists the distinctions are only skin deep. The spheres exists, but they are all under God, so religion needs to inform all the spheres thus raising important questions about which members of which spheres are introducing religion into a sphere since religion won’t do it by itself. Do I bring religion to bear on politics as an elder, husband, historian or citizen? In other words, does my functional identity change when I go from one sphere into another? It may, especially Scripture’s claims on me as citizen are thin compared to its teaching about overseeing the flock. But I don’t hear neo-Calvinists talking about these bugs in their system. Maybe it’s because they are too busy looking at the bugs in the paleo-Calvinist’s eye.

To illustrate how complicated religion’s relationship is to the various spheres, I appeal to a review I wrote for Ordained Servant:

Life in modern society is tough. In any given week, an average American may have to decide which is the best and prettiest paint for the exterior of his house, what are the best and most affordable tires to put on his car, whether to replace a deep filling with another filling or with a crown, whether to diversify the investments in his retirement portfolio, and which candidate from the Republican Party is the best to run against a Democratic incumbent in the upcoming presidential election. No single American has sufficient knowledge to make all of these decisions simply on the basis of his own learning and reading. In addition to confronting these dilemmas, this person likely has a full-time job that occupies much of his time, and a wife and children that take up most of his spare time—not to mention incredibly difficult choices about bad influences on his son at school, whether his daughter should play field hockey, and consulting with his wife about his mother-in-law’s declining health and the best arrangements for her well being. If he is a Christian with responsibilities at church, he may need to wade through files of applications for a pulpit search committee, or consult with architects and engineers about plans to expand the church’s parking lot.

Complicating further this average American’s decisions are the accompanying choices to be made over which advice to follow. For in addition to life’s complicated questions are a bevy of advisors, available on the radio and television, folks such as Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, and Dave Ramsey—people who seem to have a lot of insight into life’s difficulties. But which of these advisors to heed raises an additional layer of decisions.

Throw the Lordship of Christ and biblical interpretation into these various decisions and related evaluations and you have the potential for nervous breakdown (maybe that’s what happened to Abraham Kuyper). For negotiating the regular world — the temporal kingdom, that is — I’ll take 2k any day. Neo-Calvinism leaves me with sphere schizophrenia.

How Silly Do Protestants Sound When Pining for Christendom?

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

The cadences coming out of Moscow, Idaho (we will know that Doug Wilson is the victor when the city changes its name to Constantinople — it is available) invariably carry appreciation for Christendom. Peter Leithart has a biography of Constantine in which he defends a Christian empire and a Eusebian political theology. Doug Wilson himself has a series of posts under the tag Mere Christendom. And recently, Steven Wedgeworth reviewed John Frame’s book on the so-called Escondido Theology by also invoking Christendom.

In my estimation, this makes no sense and is borderline loopy. Christendom, as I understand it, was something that developed in the Middle Ages and is largely the intellectual property of Roman Catholics. You can follow Christopher Dawson on the decline of Christendom to find reasons other than the Reformation for Christendom’s decline. But Protestantism was not a welcome development for Christendom — duh. Here’s the take from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Such speculation is, however, as idle as it is fascinating, instead of the reform, of the renewal of the spiritual life of the Church round the old principles of Christian faith and unity, there came the Reformation, and Christian society was broken up beyond the hope of at least proximate reunion. But it was long before this fact was realized even by the Reformers and indeed it must have been more difficult for a subject of Henry VIII to convince himself that the Latin Church was really being torn asunder than for us to conceive the full meaning and all the consequences of a united Christendom. Much of the weakness of ordinary men in the earlier years of the Reformation, much of their attitude towards the papacy, can be explained by their blindness to what was happening. They thought, no doubt, that all would come right in the end. So dangerous is it, particularly in times of revolution, to trust to anything but principle.

The effect of the Reformation was to separate from the Church all the Scandinavian, most of the Teutonic, and a few of the Latin-speaking populations of Europe but the spirit of division once established worked further mischief, and the antagonism between Lutheran and Calvinist was almost as bitter as that between Catholic and Protestant. At the beginning, however, of the seventeenth century, Christendom was weary of religious war and persecution, and for a moment it almost seemed as if the breach were to be closed. The deaths of Philip II and Elizabeth, the conversion and the tolerant policy of Henry IV of France, the accession of the House of Stuart to the English throne, the pacification between and Spain and the Dutch, all these events pointed to the same direction. A like tendency is apparent in the theological speculation of the time: the learning and judgment of Hooker, the first beginning of the High Church movement, the spread of Arminianism in Holland, these were all signs that in the Protestant Churches, thought, study, and piety had begun to moderate the fires of controversy, while in the monumental works of Francisco Suárez and the other Spanish doctors, the Catholic theology seems to be resuming that stately, comprehensive view of its problems which is so impressive in the great Scholastics. It is not surprising that this moment, when the cause of reconciliation seemed in the ascendant, was marked by a scheme of Christian political union. Much importance was at one time attributed to the grand dessein of Henry IV. Recent historians are inclined to assign most of the design to Henry’s Protestant minister, Sully, the king’s share in the plan was probably but small. A coalition war against Austria was first to secure Europe against the domination of the Hapsburgs but an era of peace was to follow. The different Christian States, whether Catholic or Protestant were to preserve their independence, to practise toleration, to be united in a “Christian Republic” under the presidency of the pope, and to find an outlet for their energies in the recovery of the East. These dreams of Christian reunion soon melted away. Religious divisions were too deep-seated to permit the reconstruction of a Christian polity, and the cure for international ills has been sought in other directions. The international law of the seventeenth century jurists was based upon national law, not upon Christian fellowship, the balance of power of the eighteenth century on the elementary instinct of self-defence, and the nationalism of the nineteenth on racial or linguistic distinctions.

In other words, the genie is out of the bottle and blog posts, magazines, conferences, and colleges won’t put it back together, especially if you (as a Protestant) were one of the ones responsible for upending Christendom. But that won’t stop Wilson who recently showed the folly of his own defense of Christendom. The first came when he defended blasphemy laws:

In Scripture, blasphemy is railing, vituperative, incendiary, and inflammatory language. It it not mild disagreement — even if the disagreement is registered on a very important topic. In my book 5 Cities That Ruled the World, there is a sentence that noted at one point in his career Muhammad was a marauder and a pirate (which he was), and this sentiment was treated in Jakarta as if it were blasphemous, and the book was burned. But according to a biblical definition, it was not blasphemous at all.

Also in Scripture, blasphemy is defined by what is going on — the manner or content of speaking — and not defined by whether or not it is directed against divine things. For example, blasphemy is the word that is used for simple slander against others (Col. 3:8). In addition, it would be possible to blaspheme false gods, which Paul’s pagan friends in Ephesus were glad he had not done (Acts 19:37).

So in my ideal Christian republic, would it be legal for someone to say that he did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Of course. Would it be legal for a bunch of rowdies to parade outside a Muslim’s home, taunting him with insulting descriptions of Muhammad? Of course not. The reason is that the civil magistrate is charged with keeping the peace, and such fighting words are inconsistent with that. The gospel overthrew the worship of Diana in Ephesus, and not incendiary taunts. In my ideal Christian republic, slander would be against the law — and it would be against the law even if directed against pagans, heathens, antinomians, or congressmen.

But having said this, it is crucial to note again that the prohibition of fighting words is to be defined by the Bible, and not by the hypers. Christians ought to have complete freedom to hand out Christian literature, even if they live in Dearborn. Cartoonists should have the freedom to draw pictures of Muhammad. Robust debate, satire, give and take, parry and thrust . . . all good.

So what we have is an an Americanized Third Commandment. It is, somehow, an affirmation of God’s law and a celebration of freedom of speech. I don’t know about Wilson’s interpretation of biblical teaching on blasphemy (the Baylys who generally approve of all things Moscow weren’t buying), but I have a pretty good idea that even mild denunciations of Yahweh in Israel could get you executed. So what Wilson does, in order to preserve Christendom, is define blasphemy down, which is similar to what the Protestant mainstream did in the United States in the era of the Social Gospel, namely, whittle Christianity down to morality and abandon doctrine. I am not saying that Wilson is abandoning doctrine (though his teaching on justification could be a lot better). I am saying that Wilson is doing something similar to what mainline Protestants did in order to preserve a Christian culture — make biblical norms fit a social agenda.

The second instance Wilson’s questionable invocation of Christendom came when he responded to Old Life about the comparison of the Religious Right to political Islam. His general point, that Christianity is true and Islam is false, works pretty well, though I’m not sure how the assertion of one’s faith as true over against other citizens who don’t believe your faith gets you a society with lots of protections for free speech and freedom of religion. Wilson seems to believe that Christian intolerance will yield civil liberties (and yet he seems to know where that position led in Europe when states balkanized according to their various Christian confessions and thus made Christendom impossible). And he ups the ante when he gets huffy about secular governments.

I know. Let’s worship the bitch goddess of neutrality. That fixes everything. I think.

Maybe his problem is thinking that we can “fix” anything this side of the new heavens and new earth. Two kingdom doesn’t pretend to solve anything. It does attempt to come to terms with a world where Christians live side by side with non-Christians. Mere Christendom won’t fix anything in this time between the comings of Christ. It either forces the removal of non-Christians (a la Christendom, which wasn’t all that great for Jews and Muslims, in case Doug didn’t notice) or it waters down Christianity for the sake of the political order. Two-kingdom theology differentiates the worlds of the church and politics so that the church can remain faithful and so that the state can provide some order for a people of diverse religions.

It sure seems that Wilson would be better off to own up to the end of Christendom and recalculate his cultural program along the biblical lines of pilgrimage and exile instead of trying to make this world and this age home to the eschaton.

Without 2K It's All A Muddle

Published on by D. G. Hart78 Comments

The response to last week’s post about the similarities between the religious right and political Islam is in (at least from the person who inspired the comparison) and it seems to be to deny the point about the ways in which Christians and Muslims object to secular society simply by stamping feet harder and louder. Bill Evans is back with this rejoinder (though it is not all about me):

Some are opposed to Christian political involvement on theological grounds. Here we think of the current proponents in Reformed circles of the so-called “two-kingdoms” doctrine (2K). According to this way of thinking, Christians have no business involving themselves as Christians in the political process, nor of proclaiming that there is a Christian position on the issues of the day. Such political activity, it is argued, fails to recognize the essentially spiritual mission of the Church, and to acknowledge that the task of the Church is to prepare people for the hereafter, not to work for political or social transformation. Some 2K advocates (e.g., here) have recently upped the rhetorical ante, suggesting that there is no essential difference between Christians who seek cultural transformation and Muslims seeking to impose Sharia law.

Although my main point here is not to provide an extended critique of current Reformed 2K thinking, I do have significant reservations about it. I tend to agree with the standard objections—that it has rather little connection to the two-kingdoms theme in Calvin and the earlier Reformed tradition (Calvin certainly thought that Geneva should be governed in accordance with broadly Christian principles), and that it confuses the Kingdom of God and the Church (biblically speaking, the Kingdom involves the Church but is not coextensive with it). Moreover, its working assumption that there is no middle ground of principled pluralism between theocracy and 2K is certainly open to question, and I sense that what traction 2K is getting stems largely from the fact that it provides a theological fig leaf for the evangelical culture-war fatigue referenced earlier.

Not to be missed is that Evans’ main point is that Christians have an obligation to engage the culture war (say, hello to Abraham Kuyper):

Simply put, a refusal to engage the cultural and political issues of the day is no longer an option for thoughtful conservative Christians in America. The battle has been forced upon us. Reasons for this have to do with current political realities, especially the wholesale shift of administrative power to a technocratic elite with a rather clear progressive social agenda. Wesley J. Smith of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism has recently explored this development in an insightful article in The Weekly Standard. Smith writes, “Liberals today seek to create a stable, and what they perceive to be a socially just, society via rule by experts—in which most of the activities of society are micromanaged by technocrats for the economic and social benefit of the whole. In other words, social democracy without the messiness of democracy, like the European Union’s rule-by-bureaucrats-in-Brussels. This is the ‘fundamental transformation’ that President Obama seeks to implement in this country.” . . . If Smith is correct, and I think he is, culturally conservative religion and religious believers are in the crosshairs of these secular, culturally progressive technocratic elites.

This is a remarkable misreading of 2k and American politics. First the theology bit.

Evans, who is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, should know something about J. Gresham Machen who advocated the church staying out of politics (a 2k view) but then turned around and testified before Congress against the Department of Education, for instance. The lesson Machen taught me at least is that 2k is not opposed to Christian political involvement. What 2k opposes is the blurring of categories and confusion of arguments that so often afflicts Christians who either want to redeem the world or fear the world is out to get them. What is more, 2k actually follows the categories supplied by Reformed orthodoxy, such as the Westminster Confession.

Notice that within the Confession Christian involvement in politics has three possible expressions — believers, church officers, and Christians who hold political office.

On the involvement of Christians: It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate, when called thereunto: in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth; so, for that end, they may lawfully, now under the new testament, wage war, upon just and necessary occasion. (23.2)

On the involvement of church officers as members of assemblies (and all Presbyterian pastors are members of presbyteries, not congregations): Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. (31.4)

On the involvement of the magistrate, well here you may get a difference of opinion, but the revised confession says: It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. (23.3)

I believe this would apply to Christian magistrates protecting Muslims even though Islam is not Christian. Even the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, for which Evans works (at Erskine Seminary) allows the possibility of Christian magistrates in a secular country protecting Muslims:

Christian magistrates, as such, in a Christian country, are bound to promote the Christian religion, as the most valuable interest of their subjects, by all such means as are not inconsistent with civil rights; and do not imply an interference with the policy of the church, which is the free and independent kingdom of the Redeemer; nor an assumption of dominion over conscience. (23.3 ARPC Confession of Faith)

Since the United States is not a Christian country (just ask the Covenanters), the part about promoting the Christian religion is off.

What this adds up to is that 2k is once again tried and true according to the confessional heritage of the Reformed churches. I don’t suppose that Evans faults 2k for teaching that Christians may participate in politics (whether we turn into a Kuyperian holy duty is another matter but that sacred cause of politics is not something that Reformed Christians have adopted as part of their confession). Evans may disagree with 2k for arguing that churches should not meddle in politics. But that’s an issue he should likely take up with the Westminster Divines.

Perhaps the real disagreement comes over the nature of the magistrate. Here comes the political part of the post. Again, I wish that 2k’s critics would just once notice how practically all of the Reformed churches, liberal and conservative, have revised the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chapters on the duties of the civil magistrate. But let’s go one step farther. Let’s say that Evans wants the kind of magistrate taught by the Westminster Divines, the one who can call councils and synods, be present at them, insure that they follow the word of God in Constantine like fashion, not to mention have the power to abolish heresies and blasphemies. If that is the kind of magistrate Evans wants, isn’t that what he has with today’s “technocratic elite” who are increasingly regulating more and more aspects of human life? Of course, the problem for him is that today’s politicians are not Christian and are not implementing Christian orthodoxy and morality. But if his fear is of a powerful state that can interfere with all parts of our affairs, wouldn’t the magistrate envisioned by the original Westminster Confession of Faith be the kind of big government that Evans believes Christians should oppose?

This is why if you want small government you should spend more time reading not the Bible but the debates between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Bible has virtually nothing to say directly to check and balances, constitutions, executives, legislatures, and judiciaries. But the framers of the U.S. Constitution and their critics did.

2k gives a better reason to oppose the technocratic elites than Evans’ dismissal of 2k does on the way to a call for culture war (jihad?). It frees Christians to take their cues politically from non-believers. Evans appears to be left with either the Bible or the sixteenth-century Constantinian order which give him no grounds for a constitutional republic. Aside from a different religion, how is that different from political Islam?

Will Piper, Carson, and Keller Alone Be Left Standing (or why don't rappers rap about Native Americans)?

Published on by D. G. Hart229 Comments

Readers at Old Life know that Puritanism is not on the A-list of favorite topics (unless it is to kvetch about experimental Calvinism). But the recent discussion of Propaganda’s song, “Precious Puritans,” has me reaching in my apologetics tool box (as if John Frame taught me nothing or that I ever heard of Propaganda before).

The issue so far seems to be whether or not to criticize heroes. Anthony Bradley, defender of Propaganda, argues for a sensible outlook on historical actors:

Those who would reject the Puritans because of their white supremacy will themselves struggle to find much of anyone in Western Christianity to embrace. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God in some way (Rom. 3:23), including all of those we hold in high esteem. There is an obvious “no” because this is not how the Bible teaches Christians to engage in cultural and historical analysis. We are to eat the meat and spit out the bones. This includes those who are both inside and outside the tribe. There is much meat in the Puritans but there are also massive bones.

Thabiti Anyabwile concurs at his Gospel Coalition blog (though the irony is rich since TGC is pretty averse to criticism of its theological celebrities):

That’s why we need people less infatuated than ourselves to tell us the plain truth we miss. As I read the exchanges, the folks who seem to have the greatest difficulty with the song are the folks who seem (sometimes they say so) to have the highest appreciation for the Puritans. That’s the pedestal Prop mentions. By definition, raising someone to a pedestal means lifting them beyond critique and realistic assessment. If we “pedestalize” our heroes, we’re bound to miss things and we need others to point to it. But, we don’t like to have people kicking around our pedestals. Our idols may topple and fall. For instance, I don’t like people kicking around the pedestal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I grew up with a grandmother who kept a cheesy painting of Jesus, King, and Kennedy hanging on her living room wall. Jesus was elevated in the center of the picture, with the requisite soft yellow halo, while King and Kennedy appeared on his left and right. Makes you wonder if the painter ever heard King’s “Drum Major Instinct” sermon. But many evangelicals have the habit of mentioning plagiarism and adultery and “liberal theology” whenever Dr. King’s name is raised. And there’s something in me that kicks back, defends, guards the pedestal and remembers the painting.

2kers, Matt Tuininga and Scott Clark, approve generally the points made by Bradley and Anyabwile. First Tuininga:

. . . we need to ask what it was about Puritan piety that made them so vulnerable to the vices and injustice of racism and exploitation. Of course, the Puritans were not unique in this.

And Clark:

If nothing else, this is yet another reminder of the folly of the “golden age” approach to history, the idea that says “if only we could get back to period x.” Such a program will always disappoint because it always depends on a mythologized view of a past, a story about a past that never really existed. Colonial America was not a golden age, not if one was an African bought and sold by “godly men” who, as creatures of their time, were unable to criticize the peculiar institution of American slavery.

What is missing from this discussion is not a defense of the Puritans or of slavery — though I would suggest it is possible to defend the Puritans without defending slavery — but what is lacking is a critique of the holier-than-thou anti-slavery meme. Of course, slavery is unjust and of course, racism is despicable. But is it possible to see problems with the anti-slavery? The charge of slavery, like that of racisim, paints with a broad brush. It lacks nuance. It renders the world manichean, akin to the old line about pregnancy — you can’t be a little bit with child. In which case, if you owned slaves or are guilty of racism, no need ever to consider anything you have to say. You will forever be known as a slaveholder and racist the way that we now know Jerry Sandusky as a one dimensional pervert.

For instance, is it possible to make distinctions between orthodox slaveholders and Unitarian ones? If so, is it possible to say that the orthodox slaveholder’s theology is better than the Unitarians? In which case, is it possible to read slave holders’ theology and benefit from it? Can we separate aspects of historical actor’s life or does his wickedness go all the way down? The differences between Reformed confessionalism’s 2k posture, which separates holy, common, and profane matters all the time contrasts here with Reformed pietism which disdains all such distinctions under the canopy of “all is religious.” Of course, if we can’t separate matters, then readers should avoid Old Life at all cost not because I own slaves but because I — can you believe it — sin.

In other words, inherent in the anti-slavery position is not a form of genuine Christian reflection but one of perfectionism. This is a one-strike and you’re out scorched earth policy, with certain sins achieving red-letter status. If you break those, we’ll never hear from you again. This has happened with the American founders, slaveholders and chauvinists that they were, among large sectors of the academy. It also explained why mainline churches don’t read older theologians — the PCUSA’s awkward attitude to Princeton Seminary’s bi-centennial is an example. This trend seems to be afflicting evangelical Protestants. No surprise there since nineteenth-century evangelicals fell prey to this binary perfectionism back in the antebellum era.

And if a similar cultural perfectionism is seeping into the evangelical world, when will denunciations of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and the West more generally follow? The lyrics of Propaganda’s song point out the problem.

Pastor, you know it’s hard for me when you quote puritans.
Oh the precious Puritans.
Have you not noticed our facial expressions?
One of bewilderment and heartbreak.
Like, not you too pastor.
You know they were the chaplains on slave ships, right?
Would you quote Columbus to Cherokees?
Would you quote Cortez to Aztecs?
Even If they theology was good?
It just sings of your blind privilege wouldn’t you agree?
Your precious Puritans.

So what is the pastor to do? If he says, “the English theologian,” before quoting doesn’t he bring up all the enormity that went with English colonialism? What will the Native Americans in the congregation think? Or how about “the Calvinist theologian”? All monarchists who think well of the Stuarts will be put off with that nasty business of regicide. Or how about if the pastor quotes a male theologian, will feminists quiver and melt?

Are all of these offenses equal? Probably not and it would be hard to find any monarchist these days. But other minorities do have their list of offenses and if we only listened to the pristine, we’d be left quoting Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Keller, and Mrs. Carson.

Perhaps the best way out of this dilemma is to toughen up. After all, how happy were the early Christians hearing the apostle Paul quoted in their worship services? Wasn’t he the guy who helped kill Christians? In fact, if we apply our standards of social justice all the way through the past, we will have to close the good book altogether. The reason is that none of the Bible’s saints could withstand our moral rectitude.

More for Called to Communion to Consider before Taking the Call

Published on by D. G. Hart74 Comments

The recent death of Cardinal Carlo Martini, Archbishop of Milan, prompted a piece at First Things that has me wondering again about the arbitrary differences between liberal Roman Catholics and Protestants, not to mention the solidity of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the magisterium it professes to represent. (Though I must add that if gin without tonic water agreed with my tender stomach, I might be called to a communion that has a bishop named Martini.)

Here is the run down of the spectrum of thought in Roman Catholic circles, all within one high ranking official’s thought and service. First, there’s the Christocentric and exegetical side of Martini that sounds reminiscent of Luther:

At the heart of Cardinal Martini’s spirituality was an intense devotion to Christ. Understanding the Lord, drawing closer to him, and becoming his faithful servant, was what directed Martini’s exegesis. Of course, he knew that in order to be a disciple of Christ, one first had to accept the Incarnation, and truth of the Gospels, which is often a struggle for those contending with modernity. It is a trial Martini experienced himself. . . .

Longing to find the truth, Martini plunged himself into studying the New Testament, and read everything he could on “the historical Jesus”—including Christianity’s fiercest critics. Only after testing the Church’s claims against the most rigorous demands did he see “more and more clearly the solid basis for what we can know about Jesus” and that “there were significant and decisive sayings and events in his life that could not be eliminated by any criticism.” Having liberated himself from his fear of embracing Christ fully, he did so, and was inspired to evangelize others. . .

If Martini sounded like an evangelical when it came to Christ and the Bible, the other aspect of his career also echoed Protestant sensibilities (especially mainline and some born-againers):

Cardinal Martini was not merely “open” toward homosexuality, he approved civil unions for same-sex couples. He often praised the family and Christian love, yes—but did so in the context of assailing Humanae Vitae, and advocating the use of condoms to fight AIDS. He challenged the Church’s position on bioethics. Most seriously, he wrote that there was a “positive” aspect to legalizing abortion, and referred to this crime euphemistically as a “termination of pregnancy.”

The Cardinal’s defenders say these statements shouldn’t be isolated, but viewed in a broader picture, alongside his strong statements in favor of life, traditional marriage, and the papacy. . . . The biggest disappointment here is that the Cardinal’s persona as a public commentator was often at odds with his strengths as a biblical interpreter. Serving as the latter, he stressed the need for interior conversion, a renunciation of worldly values, and deeper obedience to Christ. Yet his outreaches to the world became not so much pastoral as fashionable. There was a reason he was “respected among nonbelievers and lapsed Catholics,” as the Washington Post put it, and it wasn’t because he challenged his secular audiences: it was because he accommodated them.

What is striking here is that such a prominent figure in the church was not known for defending the papacy, venerating Mary, or adhering to church tradition. Was he to Rome what Brian McLaren is to Protestantism?

Sure sounds like Called to Communion folks might want to add a page or two about the breadth and diversity of the church to which they are calling Protestants.

Comparing J. Gresham Machen and Mustafa Kemal

Published on by D. G. Hart22 Comments

I did in fact compare Machen’s effort to purge Christian political activism from American Protestantism to Ataturk’s secularization of Islam in last night’s lecture. Here is an excerpt, well before the comparison:

The intervening history of Enlightenment and secularization is what makes the Religious Right and political Islam stand out. Both groups in different ways oppose secularization. Both also do so by appealing to the sacred texts of their faith. These similarities are what invite comparisons of activist evangelicals and political Muslims, no matter how unflattering or inflammatory. In fact, although born-again Protestants have not blown-up any buildings – wrong headed associations with the Christian militia and Timothy McVeigh notwithstanding – evangelicals’ continued reliance on older religious foundations for civil authority may look odder than political Islam considering that American Christians have so much more experience with alternatives to confessional states (or theocracy) than Muslims do. The United States, a secular nation hallowed by evangelicals, has almost 250 years under its belt and it stands as one of the chief alternatives to Christendom’s political theology. In contrast, the break up of the Ottoman Empire is still less than a century old and places like the Republic of Turkey are still trying to figure out the nature of secular democracy in a Muslim society. Evangelicals’ experience with secular politics may explain their reluctance to use violence. But it makes all the more unusual born-again Protestants’ appeal to the Bible as the norm for politics and social order. To unpack this anomaly a brief comparison of Christian and Muslim understandings of secularity may be useful.

As Bernard Lewis, among many others, has written, secularity in its modern sense – “the idea that religion and political authority, church and state are different, and can or should be separated – is, in a profound sense, Christian.” The locus classicus of this idea is Christ’s own instruction, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” [Matt. 22:21]. This was directly the opposite of Roman and Jewish conceptions where either Caesar was God or God was the monarch. For Muslims, God was the supreme authority with the caliph as his vice-regent. What makes the contrast with Islam all the more poignant is that Christianity stood between Judaism and Islam chronologically such that Muslims could well have appropriated Christian notions of secularity. As it happened, Islam followed theocratic models of the ancient near east. Christianity, of course, made social order a lot more complicated as later disputes between popes and emperors demonstrated. Indeed, discomfort with secularity often arises from a legitimate desire for greater moral and political coherence. But for whatever reason, Christ himself apparently favored a social arrangement that differentiated spiritual matters from temporal ones.

No tomatoes thrown, but the ones served during a pleasant meal with UTC faculty were appetizing.