Category: Christian politics

Point of Order: Even for Covenanters 2k Is Confessional

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

The grenade that Tim Bayly tossed about the infidelity of 2k ministers sent a lot of shrapnel flying over at Greenbaggins where critics of 2k have repeatedly claimed that two-kingdom theology is outside the bounds of Reformed confessionalism. (So far Rabbi Bret has yet to weigh in directly. Since the Baylys treated him the way the Puritans treated Roger Williams, perhaps he has no dog in this fight.)

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

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

Original ch. 23.3

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

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

The American Revision

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whither Muslims In Doug Wilson's American Christendom?

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

The Kuyper of Idaho (you know, pastor, college founder, magazine editor, culture warrior – so far, no prime ministry) has spoken on the proposed mosque in New York City near Ground Zero. As complicated as the issue is, because of the delicate balance between legal freedoms and democratic politeness, Wilson has used the occasion to denounce – you guessed it – secularisim. (Thanks to the Brothers Bayly for the link.) Wilson concludes:

. . . Muslims know what they are doing. What is that exactly? They are exposing the intellectual, theological, and ethical bankruptcy of secularism, and they are doing it on purpose. . . . Someone really does need to tell secularist America that her gods are genuinely pathetic. And currently, the Muslims are doing this because the Christians won’t. And the Christians who won’t do this are not so much in need of a different kind of theology as they are in need of a different kind of spine.

According to Wilson, the problem with America’s gods is that all sectarian faiths need to go along with the president in order to get along. He doesn’t like what such accommodation means for those who protest abortion and gay marriage on religious grouds. But if the United States prohibited abortion and gay marriage, would Wilson be content? Would Muslims have a place in Christendom. Over at another site Doug and I went round on this one and he seems to argue that Christendom makes plenty of space for freedom of conscience. He allowed that Servetus would conceivably grow to a ripe old age in Moscow, Idaho, if Wilson were in fact prime minister, and that Muslims would be free to hold their views, just not to practice their faith in a Wilsonian Christendom. I am not sure that Wilson’s version of Christendom does justice to the actual history of Christian Europe, where the relations between Christians, Jews, and Muslims was hardly harmonious. So if you want the freedom to practice your faith in America, don’t you need to allow for the freedom of other religious adherents to practice? I guess you don’t have to if your religious group is the one holding keys to the White House. But if you are going to make the cult the basis for the cultus, you are going to have a few conundrums about how to handle those “poor” and “tired” “masses,” streaming to the United States, “yearning to breathe free.”

Just as thorny as Wilson’s ideal of Christendom is his denunciation of secularism. In his post he cites what he regards as an ineffective piece by Charles Krauthammer on the “hallowedness” of Ground Zero’s ground. I concede that the idea of sacred space in secular America is a puzzle and I also believe that more effective arguments can be made about the impropriety (as opposed to illegality), for instance, of putting a German Lutheran church across the street from the National Holocaust Museum. It’s just not right.

But Wilson is so intent to denounce secularism (in order to prove the merits of Christendom) that he misses other fine points in Krauthammer’s secular piece. The op-ed includes this:

Even New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who denounced opponents of the proposed 15-story mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero as tramplers on religious freedom, asked the mosque organizers “to show some special sensitivity to the situation.” . . .

Bloomberg’s implication is clear: If the proposed mosque were controlled by “insensitive” Islamist radicals either excusing or celebrating 9/11, he would not support its construction.

But then, why not? By the mayor’s own expansive view of religious freedom, by what right do we dictate the message of any mosque? Moreover, as a practical matter, there’s no guarantee this couldn’t happen in the future. Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won’t one day hire an Anwar al-Awlaki — spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and one-time imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists?

And not to be missed is what Wilson’s secular pal, Christopher Hitchens wrote about the mosque. Hitchen’s calls for a discussion of the matter based less on the feelings of both sides – whether the Muslims or the survivors of 9/11 – and more on reasonable premises of American law and knowledge or recent experience.

Even within Wilson’s own post he acknowledges that the Supreme Court of the United States, in its Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) decision was able to see clearly through the lens of secular reason that “that freedom of speech did not include the right to stand on the sidewalk outside the funeral of somebody’s mom in order to taunt the mourners.”

Which leads to the question: why does Wilson go out of his way to denounce secularism when secular people in the United States provide plenty of evidence that secularism has its moments. One of those moments is the distinction between public (involuntary) and private (voluntary) associations. According to this division, religionists have the freedom to maintain their own institutions and keep out those who disagree. But in the public ones, everyone has access, no matter what their faith. This was the arrangement of secular America and it has worked reasonably well for Christians since they still are able to worship freely (along with Mormon, Jews, and Muslims). And it is what Wilson rejects, as if not maintaining one’s private views in public settings is a form of bad faith.

Of course, a secularism that tries to impose public standards on private associations is a real danger and this has been a feature of court rulings for the last four decades where justices do not respect either private associations or the rights of states. I understand that this is partly responsible for the reaction of the Religious Right. Many evangelicals felt and still feel threatened by the federal government extending its reach into private associations. (I also think this is more a political than a religious problem.)

But Wilson’s solution is not to return to the good secularism because for him only Christendom is good and secularism is always bad. In which case, his Christendom model is an effort to impose private rules of association on public institutions. That presents a problem not only for the construction of mosques but the presence (if you’re Reformed) of Roman Catholics and Anabaptists in the United States. One of the more perceptive readers of Wilson’s blog made this very point:

Interesting post, Douglas. But I’m not entirely clear about what you are saying. You say that building a mosque so close to ground zero should be prohibited because the existence of such a mosque would be “fighting words.” But using that standard, wouldn’t the building of any mosque be prohibited anywhere in the United States?

In fact, if we applied that standard, wouldn’t the establishment of New St. Andrews College in downtown Moscow be unconstitutional using the “fighting words” standard?

It seems to me that you should stay away from the constitution (you don’t like it much anyway, do you?) and stick to the Bible. The Bible is clear: permit only correct forms of worship (like Christ Church) and destroy all others.

In which case, the problem with the situation in New York City is not America’s gods but the nation’s feelings. Many officials are worried about offending the sensibilities of some aggrieved group, and they want to be sure to be seen as sensitive (as opposed to intolerant and insensitive). Now, if I were prone to the single-cause explanations as Wilson appears to be, I’d be tempted to blame the current predicament on evangelicals. After all, ever since Jonathan Edwards wrote Religious Affections, born-again types have been far more attentive to sincerity of motives than to formal expressions of doctrine or worship. If this is so, then the moral and political impasse to which this blessedly secular land has come could be the direct result of the success of Whitefield, Finney, Graham, and Rock the River Tours. But I am far too charitable to take the bait and blame it all on evangelicalism.

Two-Kingdom Tuesday: James Jordan for President (of the U.S.A.)

Published on by D. G. Hart30 Comments

A constant them in objections to two-kingdom teaching is that it fails to follow the Reformers even while claiming their imprimatur. As the Rabbi Brets, the Baylys, and the Wilsonians like to remind us, the magisterial reformation was just that – a reformation conducted by magistrates, some of whom were the ministers who were themselves agents of the state. The city council of Geneva called John Calvin to be pastor. So, two-kingdom theology must be wrong because it would have never put Calvin in Geneva.

Seldom conceded in this argument is that 2k critics are also a long way from the Reformers. To be consistent with the joys of a magisterial reformation, the critics should be calling for President Obama and Governor Rendell, among others, to reform the churches, call the right ministers, approve the proper liturgies, establish the right forms of church government. Well, the problem here is that Obama might appoint Jeremiah Wright to be his Archbishop Laud. Doh (I)!

That possibility should be a reminder that state-run churches have never preserved Reformed Protestantism (or any religion, for that matter). Even when the covenants with the king were long and exacting, the magistrates only made life more difficult for the good guys in the church and regularly backed the bad guys. This is why the good guys in church history, from Calvin, to the Contra-Remonstrants, to the Covenanters, to the PCUSA, to the Free Church of Scotland, wanted autonomy of the church from state-control in order to govern the church properly (and they argued, biblically).

So if anti-2kers want to be as consistent in their doing as they think they are in their saying, they need to persuade James Jordan, the Godfather of things Federal Vision, to run for the presidency. I assume he will need to run on a political platform very much contrary to the policies and laws that guided Geneva’s magistrates in their oversight of a reformed church. Small government, reduced taxes, vouchers for religious schools, maybe even reduction of the U.S.’s superpower footprint could Jordan’s candidacy off the runway. And then once in office, Jordan can implement the suppression of heresy, the closing of synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals, and the prohibition of usury. Politicians lie through their teeth all the time on the campaign trail. What would be the problem with one more? Wait a minute. Jordan believes in the law. Doh (II)!

Two Kingdom Tuesday: Transformational Vigilantism

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

I keep my finger of the pulse of anti-2k venom with the help of my CRC friend, Rabbi Bret. The easiest way is to use his handy subject category links. Bret’s designation of choice is “R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)” – when radical and viral alone will not do.

But sometimes Bret is revealing of 1k thinking when he’s not heaping scorn and antibiotics on 2k ideas. Here’s something that left me scratching my head under the title, “The Limits of Authority”:

The King is the King, the subject is the subject, only within the law. The husband is the husband, the wife is in subjection, only within the law. The Elder is the Elder, the member is in subjection, only within the law. No delegated sovereignty is ever absolute. All delegated sovereignty is only as legitimate as it acts within the constraints of God’s empowering and restraining law.

When delegated authority violates God’s revealed law by egregious measures and constant disregard then those called to be in submission are no more automatically obligated to submission but instead are required to first insist upon repentance of the governing authority. If those in authority refuse the calls for repentance by those called to subjection then those called to subjection are duty bound due to their higher loyalty to King Christ and His revealed law to either escape, or if escape is not possible, to overthrow such illegal authority when wisdom dictates that the opportunity for such overthrow is both ripe and advantageous.

There is only one authority that is absolute. All other authority only retains its legitimacy as it operates within the law.

Does Bret really mean this, or would he prefer to qualify – as he does – when he explained that every square inch does not include road surfaces? In fact, most of the rhetoric of transformationalists is bloated and needs serious but’s, if’s, and maybe’s.

In this case, I wonder if Bret could actually be an accomplice to murder if he were the pastor to Tom Wilkinson’s character in the movie, “In the Bedroom.” I won’t spoil a terrific movie, but a parent, played by Wilkinson, confronts the dilemma of whether to let the local police and district attorney satisfy the demands of justice regarding his son, or whether to take justice in his own hands. Bret’s policy would appear to be to enforce divine law when God’s authorities will not enforce the law. (This is odd because Bret likes to quote Beza and others against 2kers, but here Bret finds no room for the Reformed notion of appealing to lesser magistrates – like police, congressmen, dog catchers.)

I appreciate the Rabbi’s candor. But the self-confidence is downright troubling. What happens if Bret is as wrong in the way he tries to enforce the law that the formerly legitimate authority failed to enforce? How does Bret, or anyone he might counsel to take authority into their own hands, know that he is right, that he has interpreted the law correctly, and that he is actually yielding a just punishment? And if God has ordained both the rain and the sunshine, both pain and pleasure, how does pastor Bret know when to accept divinely appointed pain in the form of enduring imperfect authorities, or when to reject such suffering as a circumstance contrary to God’s will? I mean, isn’t a implicit question here – who made Bret God?

I don’t write this to pick on Bret necessarily. But his point, as extreme as it may be, seems to afflict transformationalism more generally. The logic appears to be, we have faith-based ideas about how the world should be and we are going to make sure at least that other Christians hold them. If they don’t, we will call them unfaithful, viral, and possibly cowardly (all the while pretending we believe in Christian liberty). And while we’re at it, we’re going to see if we can generate enough enthusiasm among the faithful to generate a Christian movement that will take the legitimate authority of road paving, baking, banking, history writing, and especially legislating, into the hands of those saints that comprise the spiritual kingdom. Never mind that these saints are not authorities in these fields of cultural endeavor. They have God’s law on their side.

But I do see a potential upside, half-full guy that I am. lost. Perhaps Bret will run for and win political office in Michigan and then some of his progressive CRC peers will follow his advice and remove Bret from office after discovering that he and his office staff do not recycle. I know this is not a holy thought, but I do hold it.

The Colonies’ Secession was Smart, the South’s Was Dumb

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

Maybe it is poor form at the national holiday to bring it up, but has anyone noticed the resemblance between 1776 and 1861? Sure, you can say that the Civil War involved more than preserving the union. Many Americans think the fight between North and South was to abolish slavery and preserve the union. But 1776 saw a similar dynamic – a group of slaveholders asserting their independence from a sovereign nation. So what am I missing?

One important difference could be intelligence. I remember being struck by the stupidity of southerners about twenty years ago during Independence Day festivities. (Mind you, I’m bi-regional so I can get away with speaking about my people this way.) I was surfing cable television on a Sunday evening – back when we had cable (and stupid enough to pay for television) and when Sabbatarian convictions were not where they should have been – and I came across the Independence Day worship service where Charles Stanley’s congregation in Atlanta was waxing patriotic by singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Not only did this manifest a dumb reading of history since this particular hymn was written for a war fought almost a century after the Revolutionary War. It was also stupid because these residents of greater Atlanta were singing a song that the North had concocted to whoop up support for – among other military matters – General Sherman’s raid on central Georgia. To borrow Fosdick’s line, what incredible folly!

Now I see, thanks to one of our southern correspondents, that southern Protestants are still very patriotic and still lacking intelligence about which hymns go with which American wars. Greg Garrison of the Birmingham News writes the following:

Every summer on the Sunday closest to the Fourth of July, a vast array of churches breaks out the red, white and blue bunting and patriotic songs like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” with salutes to the military and civil servants.

He goes on to report on the activities of various local congregations.

More Than Conquerors Faith Church will have its “Freedom Celebration” on Sunday at 10 a.m. with patriotic music and a procession of flags.

Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church will have its “Can America Still Trust in God?” worship service with patriotic music at 10:30 a.m. Lunch follows on the church picnic grounds.

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church will have patriotic music by Bobby Horton, Bill Bugg and others starting at 5 p.m., followed by a reading of the Declaration of Independence at 6:15 p.m. Sunday. . . .

It’s the most dramatic Fourth of July celebration ever for the church, said the Rev. Barry Vaughn, the rector.

“It will be the most patriotic thing we’ve done and people seem to be pretty excited about it,” Vaughn said. . . .

Briarwood Presbyterian Church will have its “Christianity in America” service on Sunday at 6 p.m., with patriotic music and a salute to the armed forces.

It will feature a musical tribute to America by the Alabama Philharmonic Orchestra, and arrangement of armed forces songs.

“It’s a tribute to those who served,” said the Rev. Clay Campbell, minister of music and worship pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. “They enjoy putting on their uniforms and coming and being recognized.”

Campbell said that in the past, some have raised concerns that patriotic worship services are idolatrous and constitute worshipping the state.

“We’re not worshipping America,” he said. “We’re giving thanks to God for the blessing he’s placed on America.”

That may not be the way that some see it if Dinesh D’Souza is going to be your guest preacher tomorrow.

Dinesh D’Souza, author of “What’s So Great About Christianity,” will speak in the “Celebrate America” patriotic service at Valleydale Church on Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

D’Souza, a native of India who came to America at age 16 and became well-known as a political commentator and author of best-selling books on social issues, will talk about his love for his adopted country.

“Patriotism is entirely appropriate on this day,” D’Souza said in a phone interview. “The Christian foundation of America is that the root ideas of America are based on Christian influence and assumptions. You hear people talk about did Thomas Jefferson go to church regularly or did Ben Franklin believe in the Trinity. I don’t care if Jefferson believed in miracles. He sat down and asked where do rights come from. He could think of only one source, the Creator. That’s in the Declaration of Independence.”

Of course, there is an easy way for southerners to be smart about all this – it is the spirituality of the church option of psalm singing. Especially when Sunday coincides with July 4th, Psalm 146 is fitting:

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

2 I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.

4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,

6 the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.

7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,

8 the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.

9 The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

10 The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

Do They Really Want What They Want?

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

Steven Wedgeworth over at Credenda Agenda has registered a critique of two-kingdom theology that uses David VanDrunen’s new book on natural law and the two kingdoms as the object of critique. Some of the usual federal vision suspects have lined up to promote Wedgeworth’s piece. Rabbi Bret writes:

Wedgeworth also spends time exposing how the Two Kingdoms, as defined by the Magisterial Reformers, covered different realities then the Two Kingdoms of Escondido fame. For the Magisterial Reformers the Two Kingdoms were defined as such that there was a diversity in unity. For Escondido the Two Kingdoms are defined in such a way that there is diversity (Nature realm vs. Redemptive realm) with no unity. (Hence the constant charge of Dualism.)

So you know it must be good.

Wedgeworth has two main complaints – one is that the idea of a spiritual and a temporal kingdom (or Augustine’s two cities) do not correlate with the church and the state. Wedgeworth writes:

It was precisely because the visible church existed in the temporal kingdom that Christian magistrates had a duty to protect and reform them. The princes were not to personally involve their office in crafting doctrine or worship, but they surely were involved in financing, defending, and promoting certain visible churches to the exclusion of others. Since all Christian laypersons were priests, the Reformers saw no problem with allowing princes to function as Christians in their particular vocation and to make use of their superior ordering abilities in the visible church. All of the Reformed confessions are in agreement on this point, as well, and so it seems impossible to remove this feature from the ecclesiology of the Reformation.

What Wedgeworth fails to acknowledge (aside from an inordinate fixation on Calvin as the standard of all things Reformed) is that Zurich and Geneva differed over the respective powers of the city council and church authority. Zurich was much closer to (if not guilty of) an Erastian model, with the magistrates reserving the right of excommunication, while Geneva worked hard to gain for the church the spiritual power of excommunication. In other words, the responsibility of the state to preserve the true religion is much more a legacy of Zurich than of Geneva and the difference is evident in the way that the Geneva Confession (1556) and the Gallican Confession (1559) refuse to attribute ecclesiastical powers to the magistrate the way, say, that the Westminster Divines did when in the original version of their Confession (subsequently altered by American Presbyterians in 1787) gave the magistrate the right to call and preside over synods and councils of the church. Can anyone imagine George Bush or Barack Obama presiding over the General Assembly of the OPC? (For that matter, can anyone imagine why a president would care to preside over a gathering of 160 pastors and elders?) And yet, that was the kind of power that a Zurichian arrangement bequeathed to one side of the Reformed brain.

(By the way, for the record this would make the Federal Visionaries pro-Zurich on political theology but pro-Geneva on the Lord’s Supper. Can you say “dualism”? Sure you can.)

While Wedgeworth’s point that the spiritual and the temporal do not equate to church and state, it’s pretty hard to read Calvin on the two kingdoms and not think that the civil and ecclesiastical polities lined up pretty neatly with the visible church and the visible state.

Therefore, to perceive more clearly how far the mind can proceed in any matter according to the degree of its ability, we must here set forth a distinction: that there is one kind of understanding of earthly things; another of heavenly. I call “earthly things” those which do not pertain to God or his Kingdom, to true justice, or to the blessedness of the future life; but which have their significance and relationship with regard to the present life and are, in a sense, confined within its bounds. I call “heavenly things” the pure knowledge of God, the nature of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the Heavenly Kingdom. The first class includes government, household management, all mechanical skills, and the liberal arts. In the second are the knowledge of God and of his will, and the rule by which we conform our lives to it.

Of the first class the following ought to be said: since man is by nature a social animal, he tends through natural instinct to foster and preserve society. Consequently, we observe that there exist in all men’s minds universal impressions of a certain civic fair dealing and order. Hence no man is to be found who does not understand that every sort of human organization must be regulated by laws, and who does not comprehend the principles of those laws. Hence arises the unvarying consent of all nations and of individual morals with regard to laws. For their seeds have, without teacher or lawgiver, been implanted in all men. (Institutes, II.ii.13)

Since Calvin puts government and household management – and not the church – under earthly things, it looks like the distinction between church (spiritual) and state (temporal) was in Calvin’s mind (and not just VanDrunen’s or Luther’s). Heck, it was even in the minds of the Westminster Divines when they wrote:

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. (WCF 31.5 original)

In other words, even in an Erastian environment with a king or parliament calling the church’s shots, Reformed churchmen were able to distinguish the differences between the civil and the ecclesiastical in ways that leave today’s Christendomians (read: theonomists) tripping.

To see how much the Reformed tradition identified Christ’s kingdom with the church you only need to look at the way that the Reformed catechisms treat the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer or Christ’s kingly office. Here is the Larger Catechism’s rendering of Christ role as kind:

WLC Q. 45. How doth Christ execute the office of a king?
A. Christ executeth the office of a king, in calling out of the world a people to himself, and giving them officers, laws, and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel.

In other words, the Reformers, whether influenced by Zurich or Geneva, were jealous to preserve the spiritual rule of Christ from being confused with the rule of the state, and to locate the spiritual rule of Christ with officers of his visible church.

Wedgeworth’s other objection to VanDrunen’s book is the distinction between Christ’s mediatorial (i.e. redemptive) and his creational rule. Wedgeworth believes this sets up an impossible scenario of a divided self where a Christian is “guided by his cultural spirit and imagination at certain moments of his life and by his religious spirit and imagination at others.” Why this is so hard to imagine I do not know. After all the Christian father who is also an elder treats his son differently when appearing before the session or when addressing him in the home, just as a Christian gynecologist treats a naked woman differently depending on whether he’s married to her and he’s her physician. Christians make distinctions of office and vocation all the time. If we can imagine doing it, why not someone who is more adept at juggling human affairs and diverse responsibilities than we are – namely, Jesus Christ.

But not to be missed is that if Wedgeworth wants to collapse the mediatorial and creational rules into one power, he is guilty of Roman Catholicism. At least, that was how David McKay explained it when expounding Samuel Rutherford’s account of church-state relations. McKay writes:

. . . Rutherford does maintain that Christian magistrates have a duty to promote the well-being of the church. He also insists, however, that “the Magistrate as a Magistrate is not the Deputie of Jesus Christ as Mediator,” a view that he goes on to describe as “the heart and soule of Popery.”(McKay, “From Popery to Principle: Covenanters and the Kingship of Christ,” in The Faith Once Delivered, p. 136)

Later in this essay, McKay also quotes George Gillespie to the following effect: Christ has all power “by the eternal generation, ad by the declaration of him to be the Son of God with power, when he was raised from the dead, Rom. 1:14.” According to McKay, Gillespie agrees that Christ has power to subdue the enemies of his church, but “as Mediator he is only the church’s King, Head, and Governor, and hath no other kingdom” (p. 139).

So while the Federal Visionaries and neo-Calvinists keep figuring out ways to redeem all of life – with the aim, I guess, of putting Christians in charge of everything so believers can be the ones calling synods and councils – they should remember first that the magisterial reformation started with the magistrate, not the church. Zwingli, Bucer, Calvin, Ursinus served at the good pleasure of the state; they did not call a church council and send petitions to the magistrates to adopt pro-Protestant policies. And if Federal Visionaries want the same circumstances today as those that informed the Reformation, they better start working on getting Doug Wilson or Neil Plantinga to run for office – preferably with a little more clout than the district superintendent of public recreation.

Or they could simply follow Calvin’s advice and remember that the effects of salvation are first, foremost, and ultimately, not cultural, political, legal, medicinal, or agricultural but spiritual. As Calvin put it at the beginning of his discussion of the magistrate, the problem with Federal Visionaries and neo-Calvinists is their addiction to the Judaic Folly:

But whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct. Since, then, it is a Jewish vanity to seek and enclose Christ’s Kingdom within the elements of this world, let us rather ponder that what Scripture clearly teaches is a spiritual fruit, which we gather from Christ’s grace. . . (Institutes, IV.xx.1)

If George Washington Is Orthodox, What About Barack Obama?

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

Glenn Beck and Peter Lillback have teamed up again to keep the sacred fire of a civil religion burning, a strange fire that appeals to both Republican Mormons and Republican Presbyterians. Soon after his appearance on the Glenn Beck show, Lillback posted an article for the host’s website on whether or not the founders were religious. (Lillback is responding to a post at Media Matters that contends that Lillback has distorted Washington’s views.)

To make his case, the president of Westminster (Philadelphia), much like he did in his book on Washington, quotes extensively from America’s first president and other founding era worthies. Here are a few of the proof texts for the importance of religion to the original United States government.

Lillback cites a 1776 resolution from the Continental Congress that called for a national fast:

In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publickly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God; to confess and deplore our offences against him; and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened danger, and prospering our strenuous efforts in the cause of freedom, virtue, and posterity.

Lillback also offers evidence from Ben Franklin to support the idea that the founders believed in the power of prayer:

In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection – Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.

To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we image we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured sir, in the Sacred Writings that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it (Ps. 127:1).’ I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builder of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning. . .and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Where does all of this material lead? The point of this exercise, at least for Glenn Beck’s audience is to point out bias in both the media and academy against the idea that religion was important to George Washington and company. Lillback writes: “if truth matters to the media, and it must if Media is to really Matter, then the truth of George Washington’s words must really matter as well” He adds that “it is unmistakably clear for those who will read the original sources, and not blindly rely on the unsubstantiated historical revisionism that so often passes as scholarship today, that faith mattered greatly to our Founders.”

Is it just me or does Lillback raise the stakes of truth and impartiality in ways that may be a tad uncomfortable for himself? After all, can the media really be faulted for following the work of historians who have taught and written about eighteenth-century British politics instead of a Presbyterian parson whose own training was in sixteenth-century theology? (By the way, for an interesting, civil, educational, and religiously sympathetic discussion of the American founding, readers should go to American Creation.) Of course, Lillback has a 1,200-plus page book behind his claim. But doesn’t it seem a tad biased for this book to be published by Lillback’s own book imprint? So if Lillback wants to avoid the error of media bias or historical revisionism, then shouldn’t he found an outlet for his historical scholarship a few steps removed from his own editorial control?

This problem of bias becomes even trickier when you consider that Barack Obama has spoken favorably about Christianity and his own faith in ways even more Christo-centric than Washington. Recall, for instance, the current president’s words at the White House Easter prayer breakfast. (For the entire speech, go here.)

Of all the stories passed down through the gospels, this one in particular speaks to me during this season. And I think of hanging — watching Christ hang from the cross, enduring the final seconds of His passion. He summoned what remained of His strength to utter a few last words before He breathed His last breath.

“Father,” He said, “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words were spoken by our Lord and Savior, but they can just as truly be spoken by every one of us here today. Their meaning can just as truly be lived out by all of God’s children.

So, on this day, let us commit our spirit to the pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord. And when we falter, as we will, let redemption — through commitment and through perseverance and through faith — be our abiding hope and fervent prayer.

If you were as inclined to read Washington’s generic affirmations of providence as charitably as Lillback does, wouldn’t you also be inclined to view Obama as an evangelical Christian? Well, the reply might be, “Obama tolerated Jeremiah Wright and so that indicates the flaws in his devotion.” But Washington’s associations were not always so clean or holy. As the folks over at American Creation have explored, Washington made favorable comments about the Universalists. One could also point out that Washington was a Freemason. So it’s not as if Washington’s faith is squeaky clean compared to Obama’s.

In which case, the reason why Washington gets an orthodox grade and Obama fails has more to do with politics than religion. Why a Federalist is more attractive to Republicans than a Democrat is not entirely obvious since the political antagonisms that divided Federalists from Democratic-Republicans during 1790s about how to be a republic free from European political pressures are a long way from issues that divide today’s Republicans and Democrats over how best to be a superpower – an entity that the founders would hardly recognize. I for one would prefer Washington’s politics to the current convictions that dominate the city named after him. But Lillback’s point is not supposed to be about politics. It’s supposed to be about taking religion seriously. So then shouldn’t we take Obama’s religion seriously? And shouldn’t Obama’s assertions indicate that the bias of secular, liberal America is not nearly as partial as Lillback and Beck assume? Or that there is plenty of bias to go round?

But if Lillback’s point is finally about the need for the media and academy to take religion seriously, perhaps he could have pointed the way by not making too much of the civil religion that went with being a colonial white Protestant of British descent. In fact, one way to take religion seriously would be to follow the counsel of the psalmist who advised not putting our trust in princes. This was the instruction that led Martin Luther to write, “That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth.” If the psalmist and Luther were right, then a serious approach to the religion of the Bible might well teach that the search for a Christian America is a foolish enterprise the fortunes of the kingdom of grace don’t depend on presidents, senators, or monarchs.

Taking religion seriously might also mean taking irreligion seriously. Part of the point of the exercise of finding a devout and orthodox George Washington appears to be to discredit those Americans who are not as inclined to think about Christianity the way that our first president did. If we can show that the American republic was originally much more friendly to religion than the current regime, the logic seems to go, then Christians have the upper hand over secularists when it comes to understanding the character and identity of the United States.

The problem with this debating tactic for Presbyterians who live in the United States – aside from the religious freedom granted by the Constitution – is that American Presbyterians’ own confession of faith recognizes a similar responsibility of the magistrate to protect the religion, as well as the irreligion, of all citizens. About a decade after John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence, he helped to revise the Presbyterian Church’s confession of faith in a way that went like this:

Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. (WCF, 23.3)

One way to read this piece of Lillback’s own confession is to suggest that Westminster’s president has not taken religious seriously enough. Not only does he seem to conflate civil religion with the genuine article, but he appears to have neglected his own communion’s teaching about the freedoms for believers and unbelievers that the state should protect. Rather than scoring points in the culture wars against liberals, Lillback’s argument boomerangs on everyone who thinks that taking religion seriously applies only to the “other” side.

Another Reason Why Evangelicals Aren't Conservative

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

Gordon McDonald, the evangelical pastor and now Leadership editor at large (do editors ever work at medium?) has written in support of the Obama health care bill (hat tip to John Fea). His reasoning has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with Jesus. McDonald is glad for the bill “not because I am a Democrat or a Republican but because I think that Jesus, who seemed to take great interest in health issues, is glad. Looking back on his life among people like us, he often acted as a healer. He seemed to delight in curing diseases, restoring disabled people to wholeness, and rewiring damaged minds. You cannot divorce these encounters from the rest of his public ministry. Health-care was in his frame of reference.”

Methinks McDonald’s humanitarianism gets in the way of his reading of the New Testament. Sure, Jesus healed people. Had he lived longer and not gone to the cross, he could have healed a lot more. And had he yielded to Satan’s temptation to reign over everything, he might have instituted a health care plan better than our president’s. It very well could be that his healings, like his raising of Lazarus, weren’t the point of his ministry but only a sign of the everlasting wholeness and well being that will come in the new heavens and new earth for all who trust in him – healthy and sick, insured or not, Republican and Democrat.

At the same time that McDonald’s compassion clouds his reading of the New Testament, it also harms his discernment about American government. He concludes the piece with several points, numbered presumably to give the effect of policy items:

1. Any effort that is made to bring health benefits to more people (especially the weak, the poor, the children) is an effort with which I want to identify.

2. Anyone whose argument is based simply on the notion that we cannot afford making medical benefits available to more people does not get my ear. The fact is that our country—we the people—can afford it, even if it means that each of us surrenders a few more bucks that we would have spent on things for ourselves. We just have to conclude that compassion in the face of human need is a greater value than accumulating more stuff.

3. Any initiative that makes it possible for the common person to have the same access to medical science as the rich appear to have is one I want to hear about.

On the surface, these ideals look benign. But does he really mean “any” in each of these cases? Certainly, he would not countenance legalizing prostitution as a way to pay for health care insurance. Some restrictions will obviously need to come from the moral law.

And does McDonald really mean to say that the price tag is no object? Has he no sense of the debt that his and my generation is passing on to the next? Usury used to be a sin. Can printing money to balance the books – or at least reduce the debt – be a virtuous enterprise, or healthy for a government that depends on the assent of the governed?

And can McDonald really mean he is willing to level the wealth playing field so that I enjoy the same medical care as Ryan Howard, all-star first baseman for the Phillies? Um, either Howard gets easy access to orthopedists and the Phillies make the playoffs, or he and I both wait in the same waiting room, my knees get the same attention as his elbow, and the Phillies miss the playoffs? That’s an easy decision.

But whatever the difficulties in McDonald’s idealism, his haste to evaluate political events by the What-Would-Jesus-Do standard obscures the political and economic realities of universal health care within an American form of government. A better measure of Obama’s policies – or any president’s – is what would Abe do, or what would Jefferson do, or what would Wilson do? Only by asking secular and political questions first, can believers be faithful to their ultimate Lord. Conversely, by asking the religious and ethical questions first, evangelicals wind up, in Christ’s name (of all things) making a mess of this world.

Has President Obama Been Reading the Baylys?

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

Sometime ago, to ridicule two-kingdom theology even more, the Baylys ran a post on whether the resurrection has any public policy implications. Apparently, Obama took the bait and issued remarks at the White House Easter prayer breakfast that outlined the implications of the resurrection for civil society. (By the way, how do you spot the difference between a religious and a political prayer meeting? Depends on whether they are serving eggs.)

Obama said (thanks to Touchstone):

I can’t shed light on centuries of scriptural interpretation or bring any new understandings to those of you who reflect on Easter’s meaning each and every year and each and every day. But what I can do is tell you what draws me to this holy day and what lesson I take from Christ’s sacrifice and what inspires me about the story of the resurrection.

For even after the passage of 2,000 years, we can still picture the moment in our mind’s eye. The young man from Nazareth marched through Jerusalem; object of scorn and derision and abuse and torture by an empire. The agony of crucifixion amid the cries of thieves. The discovery, just three days later, that would forever alter our world — that the Son of Man was not to be found in His tomb and that Jesus Christ had risen.

We are awed by the grace He showed even to those who would have killed Him. We are thankful for the sacrifice He gave for the sins of humanity. And we glory in the promise of redemption in the resurrection.

And such a promise is one of life’s great blessings, because, as I am continually learning, we are, each of us, imperfect. Each of us errs — by accident or by design. Each of us falls short of how we ought to live. And selfishness and pride are vices that afflict us all.

It’s not easy to purge these afflictions, to achieve redemption. But as Christians, we believe that redemption can be delivered — by faith in Jesus Christ. And the possibility of redemption can make straight the crookedness of a character; make whole the incompleteness of a soul. Redemption makes life, however fleeting here on Earth, resound with eternal hope.

Of all the stories passed down through the gospels, this one in particular speaks to me during this season. And I think of hanging — watching Christ hang from the cross, enduring the final seconds of His passion. He summoned what remained of His strength to utter a few last words before He breathed His last breath.

“Father,” He said, “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words were spoken by our Lord and Savior, but they can just as truly be spoken by every one of us here today. Their meaning can just as truly be lived out by all of God’s children.

So, on this day, let us commit our spirit to the pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord. And when we falter, as we will, let redemption — through commitment and through perseverance and through faith — be our abiding hope and fervent prayer.

To borrow a line from Tonto, who is this “we” and “us” to whom President Obama refers? Does it include Jews, Buddhists, and non-Christians, does it merge Mormons into generic Christianity, and does it speak for Roman Catholics and Protestants? This is the sort of universalism in which civil religion always traffics if Christianity is going to serve a religiously plural society.

And what of the theology behind these remarks. As much as I like the priority of the forensic, when Obama says that redemption makes for virtuous character, for the president grace simply seems to be the door prize for contestants who don’t live up to be good and decent folks. People rightly faulted President Bush for trivializing Christianity when he used it in public speeches. Obama may be more eloquent but he is just as guilty of taking something that is sublime and holy and reducing it to having us all get along. Getting a long is a good thing. Christianity is profounder than that.

And yet, if Obama were on the right side of gay marriage and abortion, I suspect readers of the Baylys would be happy to see such policy implications of the resurrection.

The Bible and the Politics of Sex

Published on by D. G. Hart81 Comments

Discussions about the relative value of special (i.e. the Bible) or general revelation (e.g. natural law) for politics and society often bog down on the politics of sex. What about abortion? It is a heinous practice that cannot be outlawed on as flimsy a basis as natural law or private conscience. What about gay marriage? The Greeks were pretty good at natural law sorts of arguments but not necessarily reliable on same-sex relationships. Or what about women in the military? (I actually think nature is far more instructive here than God’s word, having seen some of the tortured reasoning from Presbyterian communions on women serving in the military.) The idea that most Americans will rally around an argument from general revelation to ban women from the armed services seems far fetched.

And of course beyond whether or not natural law will be more effective than Scripture in public debate is the issue of what’s right. If God requires certain kinds of holiness from his people, and believers are implicated in a host of immoral activities by virtue of their citizenship and taxes at work, then shouldn’t Christians object to laws and policies on the clear grounds of the Bible?

The problem for sufficiency-of-Scripture advocates, though, is that government these days involves a lot more than sex. After all, the president’s health care legislation is more than 1,000 pages. I haven’t seen it. I know many believers are concerned about the potential for government-funded abortion. But can this piece of legislation simply be boiled down to pro-life implications? At stake are questions about the power of the federal government, the private sectors of medical insurers, drug companies, the livelihoods of physicians, and even public health. In other words, I’d bet that 99 percent of the document involves matters that Scripture won’t resolve. And yet, Christians only seem to react to those aspects of law that pertain to abortion while insisting that the Bible is the standard for public life.

An article in the New Republic recently about copyright laws and Google’s attempts to make all books available on line illustrates the weak link in the Bible only argument. The author, Laurence Lessig, starts with the case of Grace Guggenheim, the daughter of a successful documentary film maker who wanted to reproduce digitally all the films made by her father. But Guggenheim could not complete the task. Lessig explains:

Her project faced two challenges, one obvious, one not. The obvious challenge was technical: gathering fifty years of film and restoring it digitally. The non-obvious challenge was legal: clearing the rights to move this creative work onto this new platform for distribution. Most people might be puzzled about just why there would be any legal issue with a child restoring her father’s life’s work. After all, when we decide to repaint our grandfather’s old desk, or sell it to a neighbor, or use it as a workbench or a kitchen table, no one thinks to call a lawyer first. But the property that Grace Guggenheim curates is of a special kind. It is protected by copyright law.

Documentaries in particular are property of a special kind. The copyright and contract claims that burden these compilations of creativity are impossibly complex. The reason is not hard to see. A part of it is the ordinary complexity of copyright in any film. A film is made up of many different creative elements–music, plot, characters, images, and so on. Once the film is made, any effort at remaking it–moving it to DVD, for example–could require clearing permissions for each of these original elements. But documentaries add another layer of complexity to this already healthy thicket, as they typically also include quotations, in the sense of film clips. So just as a book about Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Jonathan Alter might have quotes from famous people talking about its subject, a film about civil rights produced in the 1960s would include quotations–clips from news stations–from famous people of the time talking about the issue of the day. Unlike a book, however, these quotations are in film–typically, news footage from CBS or NBC.

The point of Lessig’s example is that reproducing documentaries becomes impossible because of the fees necessary to secure permission (again) to use footage contained in the original product. For instance, one documentary on the Civil Rights movement, considered the most complete visual chronicle of the events, will never be seen again because the original permissions have expired and the company that made the film no longer exists.

Lessig goes on to raise questions about the recent settlement of Google’s plans to reproduce books on-line. He believes that a similar set of hurdles has entered the realm of books that once only applied to other media. He concludes:

I have no clear view. I only know that the two extremes that are before us would, each of them, if operating alone, be awful for our culture. The one extreme, pushed by copyright abolitionists, that forces free access on every form of culture, would shrink the range and the diversity of culture. I am against abolitionism. And I see no reason to support the other extreme either–pushed by the content industry–that seeks to license every single use of culture, in whatever context. That extreme would radically shrink access to our past.

Instead we need an approach that recognizes the errors in both extremes, and that crafts the balance that any culture needs: incentives to support a diverse range of creativity, with an assurance that the creativity inspired remains for generations to access and understand. This may be too much to ask. The idea of balanced public policy in this area will strike many as oxymoronic. It is thus no wonder, perhaps, that the likes of Google sought progress not through better legislation, but through a clever kludge, enabled by genius technologists. But this is too important a matter to be left to private enterprises and private deals. Private deals and outdated law are what got us into this mess. Whether or not a sensible public policy is possible, it is urgently needed.

This is a long article, well worth reading for those interested in law and the future of the book. And this post hardly does justice either to the article or issues involved. But the article does illustrate a point: most of what magistrates do pertains to matters far removed from the clear moral teaching of Scripture about sex and marriage. So if some are going to fault natural law for not performing a slam dunk on the hot button topics of the culture wars (abortion and gay marriage), when will those advocates of a biblical approach to politics admit that Scripture won’t resolve important questions like this one about the copyright of words and images?