Quote of the Day (too long to tweet)

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

This came in the further discussion between PCA and URC ministers about a footnote in the revised Belgic 36 (June 17, 11:50pm):

But in the end, I agree with all “sides” (I hate to use that term regarding brothers who agree on far, far more than they disagree) that this particular issue will not solve the Two Kingdoms-Neo Calvinist discussion one way or another. I found what Herman Kuiper said in his minority report to the CRC Synod in 1946 very helpful on this issue: “it must be said that there is no communisitic [one agreed upon] opinion in Reformed circles as to what the precise duty of the State with reference to the first table of the law may be, nor as to what the reciprocal obligations of Church and State are, and that is reason enough why it is unwise at this time to try to incorporate any deliverance touching these matters in our confession which should be the expression of our common faith.”

All About Calvinism (and me)

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Self-promotion alert!

Today Calvinism: A History is available in stores (including on-line sellers). To mark the occasion the good folks at National Review Online (courtesy of John Miller) have posted a podcast interview that John did with me a week or so ago.

And to sustain the Calvinism momentum, the editors of Engaging with Keller have encouraged us contributors to publicize the book’s publication. To that end, an excerpt from my chapter (I don’t have access to the others, really):

. . . Tim Keller would hardly be the first Presbyterian pastor not to follow the conventions or strictures of Presbyterian polity. But his popularity and especially his influence within the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) make his Presbyterian identity worth closer scrutiny. On the one hand, Keller has strong connections to leading figures in the world of young Calvinism through the Gospel Coalition. His presence among this mix of leaders, such as John Piper and D. A. Carson, greatly encourages evangelicals to think of themselves as Reformed even when they do not belong to Reformed churches. On the other hand, Keller’s highly visible parachurch activities and interdenominational cooperation has diminished the influence of Old School Presbyterianism, at least among younger ministers and church planters, within his own denomination, the PCA. In each of these cases Keller’s impoverished ecclesiology, combined with the success of his congregation in New York City, has encouraged many Protestants in the United States to conceive of Reformed Protestantism as something distinct from ecclesiology, an irony to be sure considering that the church government term, Presbyterian, always finds its way into Keller’s biography thanks to the name of his congregation.

In the Peace of Bryan

Published on by D. G. Hart288 Comments

Bryan Cross does not apparently understand that effective blogging includes short posts (as opposed to publishing essays), but his latest encyclical (in word processing this piece ran to ELEVEN!! single-spaced pages) is not only a tad wordy but also tendentious. The bias comes in the typical Cross manner — affirming virtue, peace, charity, and sincerity, while missing how such an affirmation calls attention to your own righteousness (and so misses your own bias). Anyone who has seen The Big Kahuna knows that Bryan is the perfect on-line embodiment of the character, Bob.

The post in question is about ecumenicity and how dialogue should transpire. Since the Callers seem to direct their call to Protestants, I suppose the dialogue Bryan has in mind is that between Roman Catholics and Protestants. I suppose if conversations went this way, perhaps they would be more beneficial. (Beneficial for what is the big question. Is the dialogue supposed to bring Protestants into the Roman Catholic fold? If it is to identify differences, the interactions that seem to lack Cross’ virtues have been highly beneficial.) Here’s one sampling from the high minded and pietistic world of virtuous dialogue:

Each person entering into genuine dialogue must therefore intend to enter into this shared activity with its singular telos, together with those who disagree with him or her, not merely attempt to defend or oppose a position or argument. If a person merely intends to advance, defend or oppose a position or argument, he is engaged in his own activity, not yet having entered into the dialogue. In order to enter into the dialogue, he must take up as his own not only the goal of the dialogue, but also enter into the particular social activity by which this goal is pursued in dialogue, namely, the mutual pursuit of agreement in the truth through a cooperative process of evaluating the evidence and argumentation. So entering into dialogue requires not merely embracing the goal of “agreement in the truth,” which any lecturer or apologist could make his own goal, but also entering into a shared singular activity in which agreement in the truth is pursued together with other persons with whom one disagrees. Being an apologist is insufficient for entering into dialogue, because the activity of dialogue requires virtues and skills in addition to the ability to defend one’s own tradition. Apologetics can be done in the mode of debate, but dialogue cannot, for reasons I will explain in the next section below. Similarly, being a journalist is insufficient for entering into dialogue because the journalist can offer criticism or praise from a disengaged third-person distance, while dialogue requires the transition to self-invested and self-disclosing second-person engagement.

Entering into the mutual pursuit of a singular goal within a singular activity requires not only a choice but a disposition of sociability and a stance of willingness to collaborate to achieve that goal. . . .

In addition to the virtue of sociability, in order to enter into genuine dialogue one must also believe that the other persons entering into the dialogue are capable of engaging in the activity of mutually exchanging and evaluating evidence and argumentation for the purpose of reaching agreement concerning the truth of the matter under dispute. And one must believe that the other persons sincerely intend to enter into this very same activity. In this way a good faith belief about the capacities and intentions of the other persons is necessary, and this belief itself requires the stance of charity toward those who would participate.

By contrast, a stance of suspicion and distrust concerning the motives of the other persons, or an assumption that the other persons are incapable of pursuing the truth in dialogue or rightly evaluating evidence and argumentation prevents the one having this stance from entering into dialogue with those he distrusts or assumes to be so incapacitated. If, for example, I believe that the other persons are only out to convert me, I cannot enter into dialogue with them, because I do not believe that they are engaged in dialogue. Similarly, if I believe that the other persons are blinded by sin or the devil, I cannot enter into dialogue with them, because I believe them in their present condition to be incapable of doing that which is essential to dialogue, namely, sincerely examining the evidence and argumentation with an aim to discovering and embracing what is true. To be sure, if in the course of attempted dialogue the other persons show themselves to be intending only to advance their own position, or to be incapable of evaluating evidence and argumentation, they show themselves to be incapable of entering into dialogue. If, however, one begins with this assumption about others, one cannot enter into dialogue with them.

Of course, what makes this rich is that anyone who has been run over by Bryan’s rules of logic, or his failure to understand why some just don’t get motives of credibility would say — check out that log in your own eye, Dr. Cross. Even if the Callers are not trying to convert Protestants (yeah, right), when has Bryan shown the least capacity to enter into a Protestant outlook or see that his formulaic citing of church dogma or flag-throwing on logic’s rules is preventing dialogue (as he defines it)?

And anyone who has heard from Bryan that he (that would be I) does not have the right paradigm, has to be scratching his head about Cross’ picture of entering into dialogue since Bryan has not once in my interactions allowed for the validity of another paradigm (even for the sake of conversation — watch, I’ll be told that conversation is not the same as dialogue and that I just committed some logical fallacy). Paradigmatic thinking does come up, but I am hardly sure what to make of it:

Participation in genuine dialogue requires in addition the disposition to listen so as to understand accurately the positions and perspectives of the others participating in the dialogue. In speaking of the disposition to listen, I am referring not to the unqualified disposition to listen, and not to the disposition to understand-so-as-to-criticize, but rather to the disposition to understand-so-as-to-come-to-agreement-in-the-truth. This disposition is an intellectual virtue that corresponds to empathy. By it at the proper time one silences not only one’s tongue, but also one’s mental movements directed toward any activity other than receiving the communication of one’s interlocutor, so that one can represent more accurately and thereby more perfectly achieve the view from within his paradigm, ordering each newly discovered detail in its place in that paradigm. Through this virtue one restrains even the internal movement to critical evaluation until the other paradigm has been fully comprehended and perceived from within. Rooted bitterness or deep animosity toward the other position or person does not allow the development or exercise of this virtue. Similarly, the vice of a “short attention span” prevents its possessor from developing and exercising the disposition to listen deeply.

If this means that I am supposed to find empathy from Bryan when discussing, say, papal infallibility, I’m not holding my breath.

But one smart reader wondered about Bryan’s commitment to paradigmatic thinking when she (maybe he) commented:

You consider the intention to “come to agreement concerning the truth regarding a disputed question” as a prerequisite of dialogue rather than debate. Yet this dispisition seems to be easier if you exercise private judgment on each issue (i.e. in the protestant paradigm), so that you can easily change it in view of new evidence or logical reasoning. We, Catholics, once we accept the Church’s claim to true teaching (Catholic paradigm), we follow the Church teaching rather than forming our own private judgment on particular matters. Hence, we are often accused by our protestant cousins that no dialogue is in fact possible with us, as we will ex definitione not change our views if such a change would go against the Church teaching. How can you reconcile strict adherence to the Church teaching (rather than private judgment) with the true intention to consider arguments to the contrary and “come to agreement concerning the truth” (as we Catholics believe that the Church already knows the true answer on a great number of subjects)?

Exactly. Jason and the Callers are always following church teaching even when they “dialogue” with Protestants, though I wonder if they are more successful with pietistic Protestants who fall for the earnestness and professed sincerity of such “dialogue.” Jason and Bryan always tell us how private opinion is what is wrong with Protestantism. So how is it that Cross could ever give up his paradigm to entertain the outlook of his dialogue partner? Turns out it is easy peasy for those with the right virtues.

I agree with you, of course, that Catholicism comes as a whole package, and that we [Catholics] cannot treat each particular doctrine as if it is something we can pick or choose while in the Catholic paradigm. But that doesn’t make it impossible for Catholics to enter into dialogue with Protestants regarding particular Catholic doctrines that Protestants do not accept. One doesn’t have to believe that one’s present beliefs are false in order to be committed to following the truth, even the truth that comes to light through dialogue. This is why I said in the post, “The intention to hold on to what is true and the intention to reach agreement in the truth through the mutual exchange and evaluation of evidence can both be maintained simultaneously without contradiction.” In my experience, this is not easy for some people to see, and so they see dialogue as presupposing a sort of skepticism about the truth, and/or a willingness to compromise regarding the truth. But I’m claiming that one can enter into genuine dialogue (as defined in the post above) without believing that one’s present beliefs are false, and while firmly intending not to compromise what one believes to be true.

There you have it. Bryan Cross engages us thinking he does so empathetically, believing he is having genuine dialogue, but never once compromising his beliefs, always pointing out our dogmatic and logical flaws. It is like having a dialogue with a wife after a party where you decided to hang with the guys for most of the night. But in Bryan’s world, it is genuine, peaceful, and from the heart.

What's In Your Wallet?

Published on by D. G. Hart54 Comments

Will it still be there after the resurrection? Will you still have a wallet?

I do not think it is gnostic to believe that Christians will not have access to their pre-resurrection savings accounts in the new heavens and new earth. In fact, countless Christian organizations and ministries solicit donations precisely because practically every Christian on this earth knows that what he now owns he will not possess once he dies. Now, maybe we get it all back (with interest?). But since wills and other legal arrangements see every believer make provisions to zero out his books, so that all his possessions go to someone else, does the idea of redeeming the material world indicate that most Christians need to reconsider how they prepare to meet their maker?

Believe me, when Matt Tuininga argues for continuity between the pre- and post-resurrection world, I am tempted. After all, if the books I have written (which are part of the material world) will survive the end of the world, perhaps I’ll have a chance to present a copy of Defending the Faith to J. Gresham Machen (not to mention being able to show my parents what I wrote since they went to be with the Lord). But I have no more confidence that the circumstances of the new heavens and new earth will include the contents of my curriculum vitae any more than that of my wallet.

Maybe Matt’s case for environmentalism only extends to God’s possessions and not to mine. So the fields and streams and cattle and trees, which all belong to the Lord, may show up in the world to come because they are God’s. What belongs to those who won’t be glorified, remains with those who need no glorification. But since much of the world that ultimately belongs to the Lord, provisionally belongs to farmers, developers, and investors, then the material world to survive the world’s end may be reserved to those remotest parts of Canada, Brazil, and Siberia, where ownership does not apply.

But if the point is that the human body, which is part of the material world, will be resurrected and so functions as an example of other material things that will be saved, redeemed, or resurrected, then why not my cash, credit cards, books, cats, house, and herb garden?

Or maybe we only see through a glass darkly.

Should Muslims Try to Legislate Their Morality?

Published on by D. G. Hart490 Comments

For most residents of the United States, the idea of Sharia law establishing the standards for civil law at the state or federal level (even before 9-11) is unthinkable. But lots of Protestants and Roman Catholics in the U.S. hardly blush when someone puts the question the way the Allies recently did — Should Christians Try to Legislate Their Morality?

On the ordinary playing field of fairness and equality before the law, the notion that Muslims and Jews and Roman Catholics should not try to legislate their morality but evangelicals may is nonsensical. The only way the premise behind the Allies’ question makes sense is if you think either that only the true religion may be legislated (say hello to 1650 Europe and goodbye to 1776 Philadelphia), or that the United States belong to the people who first settled it (say hello to Peter Marshall and David Barton and goodbye to David Hackett Fischer).

To say that Christians should not try to legislate their morality (if the followers of other religions may not) is not to affirm that civil society without religion as the social glue will be easy. Current debates about marriage are indicative of the problems that the American founding set into motion. But neither was life in Christendom easy for Muslims, Jews, and Protestants. So Americans tried to separate religious considerations as much as possible from civil society in establishing a constitutional republic. That led to secular society, a novos ordo seclorum (new order for the ages). Does such a society imply disrespect for God? Perhaps. But its explicit aim was not to deny God’s dominion but to make room for people from diverse faiths (or no faith) to try to live together (and please remember that even the Puritans did not welcome Baptists or Presbyterians). Legislating one religious group’s morality upsets the original agreement. Why Christians still don’t see this hurts my head the way drinking a curry squishee too fast does.

To be fair, I did not watch the Allies’ video. I’m a text guy when it comes to blogging. But if the discussion did highlight “the question of final authority” or as the post puts it: “As Christians, how do we help people find an authority outside of themselves?”, then I’m not sure the Allies are doing justice to the diversity of the American people (or to the United States’ law for that matter). We the people are sovereign through our representatives. This constitutional republic was established as a rebuttal to “final authorities” who dominated people and abused power. I understand that finding an authority outside ourselves is a proper basis for a w-w, a good philosophical way to refute secularism, and a habitual response of Roman Catholics and neo-Calvinists to the French Revolution. But the way I read the United States, we were not a philosophical republic but a polity that adapts pragmatically for the sake of protecting the security, peace, and legal standing of all its citizens (no matter what their faith). As for those citizen’s morality, they needed to conform to the laws that their representatives enacted, and those legislators represented people of diverse faiths.

In which case, we have moral problems in the United States and advocates of Christian morality (from the Baylys to the Allies) are not helping.

Postscript: I understand that Apu is likely not a Muslim.

Tim Bayly Does His Impersonation of Joseph Stalin and Alger Hiss (all in one)

Published on by D. G. Hart67 Comments

Tim thinks this exchange between Erik’s brothers’ Darryl/ell proves that 2k advocates are using theology for a political agenda. What it actually reveals is that Tim is afraid his followers will read the other side (e.g. Stalin). And worse, he cannot answer the question (e.g. Hiss) of why he supports the magistrate enforcing the sixth commandment but doesn’t apparently care about laws to preserve the first, second, third, and forth commandments.

R2K men aren’t Christians with a certain political argument but libertarians with a certain Christian argument by which they hope to shore up their political philosophy of each man doing that which is right in his own eyes.

And he thinks 2k advocates hide a political agenda behind Reformed theology?!? In the words of Tom McGinnis, “are you kidding me?”

What's Good for the Turks is Good for the Protestants

Published on by D. G. Hart24 Comments

Part of what makes studying the Ottoman Empire and Turkey fascinating is that you see aspects of civil society and political development that we in the West mostly take for granted. It is like studying a foreign language. I never understood English grammar as well as when taking Greek and Hebrew in seminary. To use English I never really needed to know the grammar. Not true for reading Greek (and faking my way through) Hebrew. The same goes for understanding the way western societies operate. We may take a civics class, but that doesn’t mean we understand the history behind or the choices made that resulted in a democratic and federated republic.

This is a way of introducing a poignant comment by Walter McDougall about the Turkish republic’s origins:

[Ataturk] set out to separate the state from Islamic religion, liberate women, define Turkish citizenship by residence rather than ethnicity, Westernize the legal system, promote economic development, and pursue peaceful relations with all of its neighbors.

In other words, Turkey accomplished in the 1920s what the United States did in the late 18th century. And Turkey also carried out some of the political outcomes that prevailed in Italy in 1870 when the papacy lost temporal authority over the Papal Legations. What was crucial in all three cases was for the laws of Turkey, Italy and the United States to be separated from the laws of Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism respectively.

But apparently, some Protestants have not learned this lesson politics. They still insist that the state enforce God’s law. They also insist that they have no resemblance to Islam or Pius IX. In fact, one of the great ironies of U.S. history is that Protestants used a high-wall conception of the separation of church and state against any Roman Catholic attempts to receive state funding for parochial schools. When the courts then applied that same argument to public schools and removed prayer and Bible reading, Protestants (mainline, evangelical, and fundamentalist) cried foul. Apparently, separation of church and state is needed for Muslims and Roman Catholics, but not for our team.

Of course, the contemporary opponents of the secular may be right. The Bible may require a union of religion and politics and a return to Old Testament Israel. But are those contemporary critics of 2k and the secular willing to identify themselves as anti-American (not simply opposed to the U.S. of Obama but also to the republic of George Washington)? And are they willing to admit that they are anti-Western (in a way similar to political Islam)? Or do they want all the benefits of a constitutional republic in the West with whining rights about godless secular societies?

And the Solution Is?

Published on by D. G. Hart36 Comments

Prizes and Consumables: The Super Bowl as a Theology of Women
Seminar Speaker: Dr. Matt Vos, Professor of Sociology, Covenant College

The Superbowl is the most watched event in American culture. Along with millions of other Americans, Christians make elaborate plans for watching the event. Despite its popularity, the Superbowl—both the action on the field and in the surrounding activities and advertising—sends the message that American culture is for men only. The roles for women are limited to those that serve the interests and desires of men. This seminar will consider the ways that the Superbowl reinforces and extends an American understanding of the value of women. It will also ask what role the church should be playing in counter-narrating the convictions and values advanced by this central event in American life.

How about two services on the Lord’s Day, and no employing professional football players on Sundays for a Christian’s amusement?

Personality Disorder Is No Fun

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Today is the anniversary of my mother’s birthday (I never called her mom or mum, though dad was fine for my father — perhaps Paul Weston could help me with that one). Aside from June 15 reminding of Ellen Marie Hart’s (nee Jones) birth, technical problems with Netflix last night were the circumstances for our viewing (with Isabelle) The United States of Tara, which provided another reminder of mother. We had begun our Roku experience with Parenthood, a series that the Mrs. has enjoyed when I travel. But when we moved from the Pilot to Episode One, Netflix wouldn’t cooperate. In searching for an alternative — we had partial access to Netflix on-line streaming, we came up with UST. It is about a middle-class interior designer, wife, and mother of two adolescents, who has a personality disorder. The posters for the show reveal four different Tara’s. We only saw three in the Pilot, which was plenty. In addition to the “normal” Tara, we saw T, a raunchy, drug-taking, sex-seeking floozy, and Buck, a Tom-woman who cross dresses as a working-class carpenter-like figure.

Weird.

As much as I admire Toni Collette, her skills could not over my discomfort with how nonchalantly the show treated psychiatric “challenges.” The children, one in high school, the other in junior high, were never phased by the arrival of the floozy or seeing their mother as a beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed, get-er-done ruffian. For them it was fun to have mom show up in different characters. And dad was not any more help. The versions of his wife caused no ripple in his countenance and the possibilities of amour with T made him wish (though he knew he shouldn’t) that Tara had more gitty-up in the boudoir.

Are you kidding? My mother was bi-polar, God bless her. For the last 43 years of her life, starting with a hysterectomy, she varied between highs that saw uncontrolled and unexplained spending, and lows that parked her in front of a steady stream of bad network television, including news about murders in Philadelphia that made her think her son was always in danger. As an adolescent, college and graduate student, young husband, and even middle-aged man, those swings were never easy to take. At first they were embarrassing. Over time they produced sorrow for the torments my mother had to endure (though she never wanted to take her meds).

If two versions of my mother were hard to handle, I don’t think doubling the trouble would have made mood swings or multiple personalities pleasant, entertaining, or life spicier. Disturbing is the notion that people in Hollywood or somewhere connected to it can trivialize psychiatric disorders in the way that this show does. I can imagine some genuine comedy material here if writers and producers explored the genuinely funny moments that come with manic-depression, say the way that Whit Stillman does in Last Days of Disco. But UTS doesn’t cut it. Meanwhile, Parenthood is premised on the family angst that comes with the discovery that a young son has Asperger’s. Go figure.

Van Der Molen Pulls Up and Chats A While

Published on by D. G. Hart292 Comments

Our typical interactions with the Indiana attorney and URC elder, who appears to be anti-2k all the time, have been of the drive-by variety in comm boxes at various blogs. But now Mark Van Der Molen has outdone himself and provided a substantial rendering of the history of the revision of the Belgic Confession, Article 36, on the civil magistrate. Particularly intriguing are the revisions’ emergence in the context of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod, an international Reformed ecumenical body that offered to churches like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a “conservative” alternative to either Carl McIntire’s International Council of Christian Churches or the liberal Protestant World Council of Churches. Readers should check Van Der Molen’s account on their own. They should also be aware of the debate over whether confessional subscription to the revised Belgic extends to footnotes.

Instead of weighing in on another communion’s internal debates, I want to challenge several implications that follow Van Der Molen’s narrative:

First, he claims that 2k advocates have used the revision of Belgic 36 to:

1. remove the magistrate’s concern with the first table of the Law,

2. remove the magistrate’s subjection to the authority of the Word of God, and

3. remove the magistrate’s purpose in the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.

I can’t speak for all 2kers (particularly Scott Clark and Mike Horton, who have subscribed the Three Forms of Unity), but I am not sure that Van Der Molen describes accurately their motives or the consequences of their position. This construction is again a common tactic among 2k’s critics, that somehow 2kers want to see God’s word flouted, and Christ’s kingdom reduced, and the gospel denied. In point of fact, and an attorney should know this, the arguments of 2kers do not prove what their motives are. Also, important to note, is that 2kers have denied explicitly having such anti-biblical, antinomian, and anti-kingdom motivations. Instead, they have repeatedly affirmed that they promote 2k for the good of the church, the defense of the gospel, and the rule of Christ among his people. Doesn’t such testimony count for anything with an officer of the court (I guess not when he is prosecuting alleged offenders)? Of course, 2kers could be confused, foolish, or simply wrong about the effects of 2k. But Van Der Molen once again engages in the overreach common among 2k’s critics (not to mention Rush Limbaugh or Fox News).

Second, Van Der Molen has a Netherlands-centric reading of Reformed history. For instance, he accuses 2kers of re-writing history to make it fit their view (meanwhile he does not notice how 2kers have written a great deal about the larger history of Reformed Protestantism than his narrow topic of revising Belgic 36):

What is not legitimate is a “two kingdoms” re-writing of history to suggest the entire first table has been entirely removed from the magistrate’s purview. Kuyper did not argue for a “table 1-ectomy”. More importantly, neither did our Reformed forbears when they revised the confession. Until we see a “two kingdoms” proponent successfully overture for a second-table-only revision, our confessional subscription today yet stands with the churchmen who adopted the RES Declaration and the revised Belgic 36 which retains the principle that the magistrate’s tasks are subject to both tables of God’s law.

This is a questionable reading of history on several grounds. First, Van Der Molen shows no awareness of the revisions that American Presbyterians made to their confession 150 years before the Belgic revisions. Last I checked, Presbyterians were part of the Reformed churches. The American revision includes this language, which I admit is different from the Belgic revisions:

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. (23.4, emphasis added)

But in narrowing his historical analysis to the Belgic’s revision, Van Der Molen gives the impression that the Presbyterians don’t count (or that when he cites VanDrunen or me, Orthodox Presbyterians are not bound by Belgic as church officers).

Also troubling about Van Der Molen’s references to the Belgic’s revision’s context is a complete disregard for what happened to the RES or its member churches. The GKN, one of the big players in establishing the RES, no longer exists, having run out of confessional steam in 2004 to join the national generically Protestant church of the Dutch monarchy. Nor does Van Der Molen observe that the RES itself no longer exists, having in2006 voted itself out of existence when it joined the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a body dominated by liberal Reformed and Presbyterian communions. So if Van Der Molen wants his church brethren to respect their forefathers, he may want to specify which forefathers they might be. The GKN? The CRC? The RES? Is Van Der Molen really pinning his hopes on that group of Reformed churches? Talk about re-writing history.

Third, and relatedly, Van Der Molen ignores the ecumenical relations that governed the churches that revised the Belgic Confession. He concludes by stating it is time now “for the Reformed churches to recover the Reformed confessions, Belgic 36 incuded.” Well, how about the American revisions to the Westminster Confession? Does Van Der Molen really want to recover that confession? Or how about the ecumenical relations that may bring tensions between the existing Belgic 36 and OP Confession 23? Did the CRC or GKN (or the Covenanters, for that matter) ever make teaching on the civil magistrate the basis for fraternal relations? Have the URC and OPC objected to the other communion’s teachings on the civil magistrate in attempting to produce a psalter-hymnal? Has Westminster California or Mid-America Seminary ever required its Orthodox Presbyterian ministers to own the Belgic’s teaching on the magistrate and forsake their own communion’s confession?

To my knowledge, the answer is no. But Van Der Molen seems to think that Belgic 36 now needs to govern all the Reformed believers. Why? Three syllables, two words: culture wars. Theonomy, the religious right, and certain varieties of neo-Calvinism (including the Federal Vision) are all reactions to the perceived secularization of the United States in a period known as “Post-Protestant America.” Conversely, 2k is a set of arguments with the aim of steering the churches away from “putting their trust in princes.” Both have developed at the same cultural moment. One has a very narrow reading of Reformed history. The other does not.