Can Drinkers of Bad Beer Read Roman Numerals (even when sober)?

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

One of the blessings of being a sabbatarian is the removal of the temptation to watch the Super Bowl. Yes, if the home team happens to be there I may revert to the Jewish conception of the sabbath day ending at sundown. But the NFL has become so bloated (and mediocre along the way thanks to the salary cap), and the championship game has become such a venue for sports executives and television sports producers to think they can put on a show as good as people the people in Hollywood, that I’m just as happy to have a religious excuse for not wasting my time. Think about it, halftime is the worst part of any football game and the only reason to put up with marching bands. But now the NFL allots forty-eight friggin’ minutes to a silly attempt at extravaganza (silly because they still incorporate cheerleaders and baton twirlers — at least last time I watched). Can that much time really be good for the teams and their rhythm? Are people watching the game to see Bruce Springteen or Bono, or would they prefer to have their concert and their sports cheering as separate experiences, sort of like keeping rock ‘n’ roll out of worship.

But what strikes me as the best example of the NFL’s hubris is their tired and foolish tradition of designating each Super Bowl with a Roman number. This year is XLV, which if my ancient numbering is correct tallies up to 45. Yes, we have had forty-five Super Bowls. Big deal.

Does anyone know how many World Series Major League Baseball has conducted? Or what about the Stanley Cup? At least the other major leagues have the good sense to designate their annual championship by its equivalent year and not try to dress it up in something Ben Hur might see, though the NFL’s desperation may stem from their status as the newest kids on the championship block.

Here are the respective totals for baseball, hockey, basketball, and football.

World Series — begun in 1903 with a total of 106 championships (two years were cancelled).

Stanley Cup — begun in 1927 with a total of 84 championships.

National Basketball Association Finals — begun in 1947 with a total of 64.

Super Bowl — begun in 1967 with a total of 44 (and counting).

I do know that the NFL had championships before the Super Bowl. But those don’t count because they don’t have Roman numerals.

Introducing the Old School Presbyterians: Stuart Robinson

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

I’ve been wondering. Do contemporary Reformed Protestants read Old School Presbyterians — at all?

Over at Green Baggins where a fiesty exchange of slings and arrows — count ’em, over 1,300 comments and climbing — over 2k has diverted what could have been a good conversation about the value of polemical theology I posted the following excerpt from Stuart Robinson’s The Church of God An Essential Element of the Gospel. I have wondered for a while whether neo-Calvinists and transformers have actually ever considered what were standard argument and distinctions like the one that Robinson here makes. And if they had read the Old School, would they be flummoxed by today’s 2k arguments? Even more, what level of shock set in for neo-Calvinists and transformers to learn that they have more in common with New School Presbyterians like Charles Finney and Albert Barnes than with Charles Hodge or Samuel Miller. Although my pasting this quote has led the crickets to chirp very loudly, it is one worth highlighting here.

1. In that the civil power derives its authority from God as the Author of nature, whilst the power ecclesiastical comes alone from Jesus as Mediator.

2. In that the rule for the guidance of the civil power in its exercise is the light of nature and reason, the law which the Author of nature reveals through reason to man; but the rule for the guidance of ecclesiastical power in its exercise is that light which, as Prophet of the Church, Jesus Christ has revealed in his word. It is a government under statute laws already enacted by the King.

3. They differ in that the scope and aim of the civil power are limited properly to things seen and temporal; the scope and aim of ecclesiastical power are things unseen and spiritual. Religious is a term not predicable of the acts of the State; political is a term not predicable of the acts of the Church. The things pertaining to the kingdom of Christ are things concerning which Caesar can have rightfully no cognizance, except indirectly and incidentally as these things palpably affect the temporal and civil concerns of men; and even then Csesar cannot be too jealously watched by the Church. The tilings pertaining to the kingdom of Csesar are matters of which the Church of Christ as an organic government can have no cognizance, except incidentally and remotely as affecting the spiritual interests of men; and even then the Church cannot watch herself too jealously.

4. They differ in that the significant symbol of the civil power is the sword; its government is a government of force, a terror to evil-doers; but the significant symbol of Church power is the keys, its government only ministerial, the functions of its officers to open and close and have a care of a house already complete as to its structure externally, and internally organized and provided.

5. They differ in that civil power may be exercised as a several power by one judge, magistrate, or governor; but all ecclesiastical power pertaining to government is a joint power only, and to be exercised by tribunals. The Head of the government has not seen fit to confer spiritual power of jurisdiction in any form upon a single man, nor authorized the exercise of the functions of rule in the spiritual commonwealth as a several power.

6. It is unnecessary to digress here into a discussion of the rationale of these fundamental distinctions. It would not be difficult to show, however, that they are neither accidental nor arbitrary, but spring out of those fundamental truths concerning the nature of the Church itself, and of its relations to the gospel, which have already been pointed out. These distinctions, therefore, are of a nature to forbid all idea of any concurrent jurisdiction, and to render certain the corruption and final apostasy of any part of the Church which shall persist in the attempt to exist as a governmental power concurrent with the State,—it matters not whether as superior, inferior, or equal. They are the two great powers that be, and are ordained of God to serve two distinct ends in the great scheme devised for man as fallen. The one is set up, in the mercy and forbearance of the Author of nature toward the apostate race at large, to hold in check the outworking of that devilish nature consequent upon the apostasy, and to furnish a platform, as it were, on which to carry on another and more amazing scheme of mercy toward a part of mankind. The other is designed to constitute of the families of earth that call upon his name, and into the hearts of which his grace has put enmity toward Satan and his seed, a nation of priests, a peculiar nation, not reckoned among the nations, of whom Jehovah is the God and they are his people. That not only the utter disregard of this distinction in the formal union of the Church and State—either merging the Church in the State or the State in the Church—is ” destructive of the Church, but that, also, any degree of confusion in respect of this distinction is proportionally dangerous and corrupting, the history of the Reformed Churches generally, and in particular of the Church of Scotland, is a most striking illustration. Nay, the entire history of the Church, from its first organization, testifies that his people must render to Csesar the things that are Caesar’s, as distinct from rendering to God the things that are God’s, or the Church suffers. (pp. 86-87)

How radical is this if the OPC has reprinted this book?

Hi, I'm A Christian So I Can Be Trusted

Published on by D. G. Hart57 Comments

Well, that’s actually a complicated assertion since the holders of 2k do not appear to be trustworthy people from the perspective of 2k’s critics. Let me explain.

A repeated contention against 2k is that it relies too much on general revelation or the light of nature. Not only is general revelation apparently insufficient for unbelievers who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. But supposedly the only way to interpret general revelation is through the lens of special revelation. In response to the assertion that Christ rules the kingdom of the world by the work of his Spirit through general revelation and common law, 2k critics objected as follows:

Are we to understand from this that Christ only rules the Church directly, by his Spirit and Word? And that He rules everything that is non-church (or the whole of culture itself) through an undefined work of His Spirit in general revelation and through the consciences of the unenlightened people of Romans 2:15? Is this the second kingdom of light? Incredible. . . .

To imply that a Biblically undefined work of the Spirit, and the enlightened consciences of the unconverted referred to in Romans 2:15 can “restraint eveil in those outside the church” . . . is a “stretch” unknown to the Reformers and to us. Therein lies the core problem of NL2KL. (Letter to the editor, Christian Renewal, Jan. 12, 2011, pp. 6-7.)

(NL2KL refers to natural law and two kingdoms of light, and implies that to hold to two as opposed to one kingdom of light is incredible.)

Like so much in the neo-Calvinist and theonomic schemes, this looks good on the screen and appears to make sense. But it’s a lousy philosophy for living in a world where we have neighbors who not only suppress the truth of general revelation but also can’t begin to fathom the teachings of Scripture apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. I mean, the critics of 2k don’t really intend to suggest, do they, that my unbelieving neighbor can open her curtains and see the glory of God and perceive some elementary principles of justice only if I give her a Bible and she begins to read it? Don’t 2k critics believe that a proper understanding of Scripture can only come from the work of regeneration? In which case, my neighbor will never see God’s glory until she believes.

In which case, the anti-2k complaint against the sufficiency of general revelation goes much deeper than a point about the relationship between the two books of revelation. That deeper level is that unregenerate people cannot be trusted. They don’t have the Bible or the Spirit and so cannot see the truths and order God has revealed in creation or their consciences.

One implication of this at the level of everyday life is how Christians can summon up enough trust to venture on to the roads and highways with unbelievers? Will the unregenerate or biblically illiterate see the signs and obey traffic laws? Do Christians go to the public library and expect to find the books placed on the shelves incorrectly because of a disbelieving shelver? How could unbelievers ever pull off such quotidian conduct without interpreting general revelation first through the lens of Scripture? And how could they do this apart from saving faith?

At the upper ranges of human existence – those having to do with justice – could Christians ever allow for non-saved police, judges, legislators, governors, or presidents? In fact, doesn’t this way of understanding the relationship between general and special revelation force 2k critics to require a religious test for holding public office? In which case, do 2k critics ever vote for non-Protestant politicians? And do they inquire of Protestant candidates if they have really been saved? Gilbert Tennent wanted accounts of conversion experience from prospective pastors. Now we want them from political candidates?

Well, actually, at one time in U.S. history we wanted some sign of regeneration for citizens to be able to enter into the simplest aspects of life as a citizen – and this is another one of those implications the 2k critics don’t seem to consider. In a very good book on church-state relations in nineteenth-century America, The Second Disestablishment, Stephen K. Green reminds readers of the barriers to the judicial system posed by distrust of non-believers:

. . . for a witness, juror, or declarant to be competent to testify or undertake a legal obligation, he had to assert a belief not only in God but also in the accountability of his soul after death for swearing falsely. The rule was far-reaching, extending beyond the competency of judicial witnesses to include all forms of oath taking, including will execution and office holding. In contrast to the federal Constitution’s ban on religious tests, all of the original thirteen state constitutions had imposed or retained various religious requirements for public office holding and civic participation that included oath taking. The oath requirement was viewed, according to one advocate, as a “means of divine appointment for securing faithfulness in official station.” Because of these requirements, religious nonconformists could not aspire to public office, enter into many legal agreements, bequeath property, or file suit and testify to enforce their legal rights. . . . nonconformists were barred from testifying as witnesses or serving as jurors. Many of the important attributes fo citizenship were thus closed to non-Christians. (p. 178)

So in an ideal world, where the magistrate did not tolerate blasphemy or idolatry, not only would non-Christians be prevented from worshiping but also from participating in public life. Is this the kind of society that anti-2kers want? This would, of course, be heaven, but haven’t 2k critics heard of the dangers of immanentizing the eschaton?

And just to make my complication complete, how do 2k critics deal with those who hold the 2k position? Some of the reception that 2k receives is great distrust. In fact, the distrust heaped upon 2kers seems to exceed that held against politicians in the Democratic Party. One explanation could be that 2kers don’t begin political and cultural reflections with appeals to the Bible. But another could be that 2kers are actually unregenerate.

I don’t mean this as a joke. It is a serious matter. And the reverse is just as serious. If I am regenerate, then the 2k position disproves the anti-2k argument because 2k shows that regeneration does not require beginning and ending reflection on the natural order with Scripture. If regenerate people can appeal to general revelation instead of the Bible for understanding some matters of morality and social relations, then how can 2kers be untrustworthy? Obviously, the anti-2k position is that 2kers should not appeal to general revelation without starting with special revelation? But if 2kers are regenerate and therefore, from the anti-2k perspective, trustworthy, they why the distrust? Shouldn’t regeneration make 2kers trustworthy?

The easy answer to that riddle is to say 2kers are not regenerate. And that may explain the Gilbert Tennent-like histrionics that so often greet 2k.

Give 'Em A Break

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

A story from the world of higher education caught my eye and started me thinking about the nature of Sunday observance among Roman Catholics. Inside Higher Education reported on a meeting of Roman Catholic bishops and university presidents to consider how their colleges and universities may preserve academic freedom while also remaining faithful to church teaching. That is a riddle that has long affected most Christian institutions of higher learning – not particularly helped by world-viewitis or the notion that the Bible speaks to all of life. But Roman Catholics have faced this difficulty more acutely of late owing to John Paul II’s encyclical, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which calls upon Roman Catholic schools to remain faithful to church teaching at least in theology departments if not more widely across the campus. (If some of the statements expressed at the conference are indicative of Roman Catholic fidelity, the problem of adjusting church dogma and academic freedom will likely be easy. The first principle adopted by this group – we welcome “all students into a vibrant campus community that celebrates God’s love for all” – won’t force timid administrators and faculty to double down on the church’s catechism or much reason to refuse conclusions from most faculty.)

But aside from the intellectual work of the conference’s participants, what was fairly remarkable was that the meeting the reporter covered took place on Sunday. Granted, Roman Catholics have never been as anal about the Lord’s Day as Reformed Protestants (some say the real anal-retentive award for the fourth commandment belongs to the Puritans, but we all know that no can define Puritanism). At the same time, well before Willow Creek offered services for seekers and those sensitive to them, Rome was providing the Mass at different times during the weekend to accommodate the faithful who preferred other activities on Sunday morning.

Even so, if Rome is not sabbatarian as Reformed understand that notion, the Roman Catholic church does teach about the sanctity of Sunday and the need to set it aside for worship and rest. According to the Catechism:

2189 “Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Deut 5:12). “The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord” (Ex 31:15).

2190 The sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.

2191 The Church celebrates the day of Christ’s Resurrection on the “eighth day,” Sunday, which is rightly called the Lord’s Day (cf. SC 106).

2192 “Sunday . . . is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church” (CIC, can. 1246 § 1). “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass” (CIC, can. 1247).

2193 “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound . . . to abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord’s Day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body” (CIC, can. 1247).

2194 The institution of Sunday helps all “to be allowed sufficient rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives” (GS 67 § 3).

2195 Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day.

This is not as strict as the Shorter Catechism on the fourth commandment – “spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy.” But it does tell Roman Catholics that the should attend Mass on Sunday – a rite of obligation – and that they should not work or make demands on others to work (like buying a new flat screen television to watch oversized and overpaid men play football in an oversized bowl). In addition, this teaching would certainly be a tonic for Sabbath-challenged evangelicals.

In which case, why couldn’t the Roman Catholic bishops and presidents have conducted their meetings and delivered their papers on Saturday? If they still had business, they could likely have reconvened on Monday and devoted Sunday to worship and rest. Since they were not Puritan and were meeting in Washington, D.C. they may have even taken in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. But surely they could have rested from their weekday activities for the holy day known as Sunday.

With A Little Help from Our Experimental Calvinist Friends

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

Some of the critics of 2k have created the impression that it is a radical or non-mainstream position in the history of Reformed teaching. David VanDrunen’s recent publications suggest otherwise. Sometimes it seems that the debates are merely conflicting interpretations of history, with theology and exegesis, not to mention the church’s confession, waiting on the sidelines for their turn to enter the match.

Often lost in the discussions is the point that the neo-Calvinist understanding of Christ and culture is confused and confusing. Kuyperianism is long on inspiration but it fails on a number of fronts – what is a Christian view of the election of 1828? or what is the Christian interpretation of As You Like It? or what is the Reformed position on national health care? The lack of obvious or even complex answers to these questions does not stop, however, lots of evangelicals and New School Presbyterians from appealing to the PRIME MINISTER!!!! of the Dutch Republic for justification to go out and vote, raise heart rates, conduct experiments, lobby Senators, and fix toilets.

The difficulties of neo-Calvinism have not been lost on other Calvinists. I do not presume to know where Geoff Thomas, a pastor in Wales and regular contributor to Banner of Truth, stands on 2k. I still recall and have a very kind letter he wrote to me upon the publication of my book on J. Gresham Machen. But since I only believed in the spirituality of the church then, and had not blossomed into a full-blown 2k proponent, perhaps Geoff did not notice 2k implications of my biography and so wrote a gracious note.

No matter his assessment of 2k, he did write a series of articles for Banner of Truth on Klaas Schilder, the hero of Dr. Kloosterman and often the standard by which 2k is brought up short for not having a Reformed world-and-life-view. What is interesting to see in this four-part series is that Thomas not only offers some pointed reservations about Schilder, but he sees similar defects in Kuyper. For instance, here is Thomas’ take on the debate between Kuyper and Schilder over common grace:

Schilder opposed the concept of common grace. After man falls into sin life in a fallen world goes on and there is music, poetry and various skills mentioned in the line of Cain. Kuyper says that that is due to God’s goodness to all mankind, and is not that, we ask, God’s common grace? Is the phrase that inaccurate or offensive? Schilder does not accept the phrase but simply accepts that some men in the Cainite civilisation, as God’s servants, used their time wisely and others did not. Dr Jan Douma gently differs from Schilder in places, and, though he does not support Kuyper, he commends going back to John Calvin and his view of common grace. But the actual difference between Schilder and Kuyper in their attitude to the achievements of the non-Christian is confusing. According to Kuyper there cannot and should not be a Christian culture. Christ adds his particular grace to the culture of Greece or Rome as a result of common grace. Therefore Christians should not try to make a specific Christian culture. They should further ‘Christianise’ Western culture. Schilder says that there should be Christian culture, for Christ regenerates people to renewed obedience to the original mandate and this results in a Christian culture. But what of all the work in which we are involved with people who are not Christians? Schilder states that we are building different pyramids, but are we not often co-operating with unbelievers in building the same pyramid, but from different convictions? Think of a non-Christian and a Christian scientist who co-operate together in a research programme and the publication of a joint-paper. It frequently happens. What of the two women in Matthew 24:41:- “Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left”? Are they not co-operating in the same cultural work even though one believes while the other does not?

Then Thomas follows with a comment on the small difference between Kuyper and Schilder, with speculation on the Dutchness of the entire matter:

Our concern with Schilder is that he did not go far enough from Kuyper’s views. In practical terms there was scarcely a membrane between those leaders. The views of both men tended to externalise the doctrines of grace, especially justification and regeneration. Schilder shared in the judgment of Kuyper that the pietists had a too rigid view of the Christian’s separation from the world. The Reformed faith as a result of theie convictions became more hollowed out. They did not give enough attention to the needs of the individual heart and soul. This lob-sided emphasis on culture was encouraging a Christianity that was speculative and abstract, rather than one that focused upon the sovereign, spiritual, inward working of the Word. Almost a hundred years ago Herman Bavinck wrote an introduction to a Dutch translation of sermons by the Erskine brothers of Scotland, and he said, “Here we have an important element which is largely lacking among us. We miss this spiritual soul-knowledge. It seems we no longer know what sin and grace, guilt and forgiveness, regeneration and conversion are. We know these things in theory, but we no longer know them in the awful reality of life” (quoted by Cornelis Pronk in “Neo-Calvinism”, Reformed Theological Journal, November 1995, pp.42-56). Those sermons are still revered in Holland today. Whether it was in the name of ‘common grace’, or ‘Christ and culture’ the ‘Christianising’ of the cosmos became the deeply optimistic enterprise on which both men and their followers set out. There is a triumphalistic note in Kuyper’s Stone Lectures at Princeton on ‘Calvinism.’ It seemed to be saying, “look what we’ve done in Holland. Next … the world!” That is a fantasy. Twenty years later began the first of two world wars which came in quick succession, and the rise of Marxism and humanism which was to devastate Europe and make the Netherlands known as much for being the home of moral anarchy as it is for the European centre of the doctrines of grace. The drug culture of Amsterdam would have been something which Kuyper could never have envisaged. Yet his doctrine of the dreadful wickedness of the heart of man, the hostility of the world to Christ and his church, and the activity of the powers of darkness should have made him alert to the bleakness of the future.

I hope that by mentioning this fine series Dr. K. will not take it upon himself to open up a thirteen-part series on Christ and culture in Great Britain through the lens of the Banner of Truth. But if he does, he may also wake up to the possibility that it is more than a few kooks in the OPC or at a certain California institution of higher learning that have reservations about neo-Calvinism.

That Tears It, I'm Joining the Gospel Coalition

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

There I may be appreciated finally (since it is all about me, after all).

First it was Bryan Chapell video”>saying something very 2kish about the United States as a Christian nation. His answer was essentially, no. And that answer goes well with the 2k idea that the only Christian nation that ever existed was the state of Israel before the coming of Christ. Since that political order is no longer part of God’s redemptive plan, and since the institution God is now using to establish his kingdom — as in the WCF’s assertion that the visible church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ (25.2) — Chapell seems to give 2kers room to maneuver within the Gospel Coalition without fear of being fear mongered.

Now comes an interview with Tim Keller where he encounters “This is Your Life” in a long interview. Part of his reflections on his theological formation includes the influence of Meredith Kline’s covenant theology for a redemptive historical understanding of justification by faith alone. Of course, Keller’s testimony is not solidly 2k since he also affirms Richard Lovelace’s scientific historical explanations of how revivals happen and Jack Miller’s pastoral practices in the New Life Presbyterian movement. But he does not flinch from affirming an Old Testament scholar who will in some conservative Reformed circles merit a thirteen-part series on how some Reformed authors are abandoning the faith once delivered to Kuyper.

So in conservative Reformed circles denying America’s Christian origins and affirming Meredith Kline’s teaching can get you sentenced to neo-Calvinist jail, but over at the Gospel Coalition the allies seem to think such ideas are neat.

Have I found a home, or what?

Common Sense Burial

Published on by D. G. Hart302 Comments

Does the Bible require that when Christians die their bodies should be buried? An article over at Front Porch Republic makes a pretty good case for the Christian practice of burial, along with the not so felicitous implication that cremation is of pagan derivation. But we have no explicit instruction from Scripture, only examples. According to Andrew Harvey:

Our burning discussion keeps returning to the word “tradition.” And most Christian churches . . . had no established doctrine to address the issue of modern cremation. The only fact was convention: Christians simply had never cremated before. But burial is indisputably the rule throughout the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. God’s people in every covenant prefer interment. Everyone on God’s side gets buried eventually. From Adam to the Beloved Disciple John every saint who falls asleep in the Lord finds a grave as a bed. (Moreover, cremation is reserved in the Old Testament for the wicked and apostate: see Josh. 7:25, 2 Kgs. 23:20, Amos 2:1.) The only time where one of the Lord’s anointed is unfortunately cremated (King Saul, defiled by the Philistines) – it is through burial that his remains finally rest in peace. Additionally this hard and fast “orthopraxy” also correlates to a theology, an “orthodoxia.”

In the Gospels the burials of John the Baptist and Jesus allude to a new meaning for burial—baptism. Christ’s burial and resurrection are the physical, material, corporeal events that reveal the typology of Passover: Christ becomes our Passover because when we are baptized we are buried in his death and rise from the waters in newness of life having been set free from our spiritual Egypt—the bondage of sin and death—and set into our Promised Land of righteousness.

Of course, this does not add up to a slam dunk of the good and necessary variety. I am not sure that one can actually be made. Nor do I think cremation makes any sense as a fitting way to treat the human body. (My wife and I even refused to cremate our beloved cat.)

Here’s an example I once used on friends at Touchstone. If we wanted to save room on the planet by disposing of bodies in more efficient ways, we could always chop of the remains of the deceased so that we could actually fit more bodies into a cemetery. I suspect that most people would find repugnant the idea of having a spouse, or parent, or sibling cut up for any reason, efficiency likely several rungs down on the rationale ladder. So why would incinerating a body be any less offensive?

So could it be that the light of nature is clear even where Scripture refuses to say “thou shalt” (or for the King James challenged, “you should”)?

Silence is Leaden

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

I am detecting a parallel among critics and questioners of 2k. On the one hand, opponents have trouble with the idea (sorry Jeff, I’m not going ad hominem intentionally) that the Bible is silent on a range of subjects and activities. At the same time on the other hand, critics feel free to draw conclusions about someone’s views simply by virtue of their silence upon a subject. I don’t necessarily believe these are at root the same. But I also sense a high degree of affinity.

The latest example of this phenomenon comes yet again from the Baylys in their reaction to a 2k post by Brian Lee over at the Daily Caller. He writes, for instance:

Christianity is not politically conservative or politically liberal — though Christians may be either. Christianity is not political at all. It is in a sense politically agnostic. But in another sense it calls into question the basis of every earthly power, including politics.

The entire article is worth reading as a healthy summary of biblical argument that goes by the name 2k but is really an expression of a redemptive historical reading of the difference between Israel and the church.

But Brian’s silence about abortion is not golden from the vantage of mid-western conservative Presbyterianism. According to the Baylys:

What Pastor Lee needs to think about is that obedience to the call to suffering, to our Lord’s command to take up our cross and follow Him, is at least as applicable to his parishioners as they exercise political authority and power as it was to Herod as he considered the call of John the Baptist, and the Areopagus as they considered the call of the Apostle Paul, to repent. Which is the call it appears Pastor Lee studiously avoids–unless, that is, his call to repentance is aimed at his fellow URC churchmen and women from Grand Rapids and Friesland who pray and write letters and vote, hoping their legislators will, for instance, bear the sword against those slaughtering the unborn across our land.

One wonders when the Baylys will listen to what folks like Brian Lee say rather than simply calling them up short for what they don’t. Maybe the Baylys actually need to cogitate upon pastor Lee’s own views about Christianity and politics as much as they are certain of their own. After all, Lee is a minister of the gospel just like they are. He may know the Bible as well as the Baylys and may actually know what to do when the Bible is silent – namely, remain silent.

A Proposal On Which All Anti-2kers May Unite

Published on by D. G. Hart43 Comments

I know that not all anti-2kers get along. Heck, the Baylys seem to have banned Rabbi Bret from participating in all the fun over at their free wheeling discussions. Meanwhile, Dr. K., who may be the longest winded of 2k critics has appeal to Bret but may be too Dutch for the Baylys. Then there is the transformer of transformers, Tim Keller, who is not outspokenly critical of 2k but whose theology confuses the kingdoms on route to the polis. And despite Keller’s desire to Christianize the culture, it does not measure up to the standards set by the Baylys, Rabbi Bret, or Dr. K.

So I propose the following statement as a basis on which all transformers, left or right, theonomic or benevolently imperial, Geneva or Big Apple, may unite (no fair doing a Google search to look for its origins):

God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ embraces the whole of man’s life; social and cultural, economic and political, scientific and technological, individual and corporate. It includes man’s natural environment as exploited and despoiled by sin. It is the will of God that his purpose for human life shall be fulfilled under the rule of Christ and all evil be banished from his creation.

Biblical visions and images of the rule of Christ such as a heavenly city, a father’s house, a new heaven and earth, a marriage feast, and an unending day culminate in the image of the kingdom. The kingdom represents the triumph of God over all that resists his will and disrupts his creation. Already God’s reign is present as a ferment in the world, stirring hope in men and preparing the world to receive its ultimate judgment and redemption.

With an urgency born of this hope the church applies itself to present tasks and strives for a better world. It does not identify limited progress with the kingdom of God on earth, nor does it despair in the face of disappointment and defeat. In steadfast hope the church looks beyond all partial achievement to the final triumph of God.

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Hide the Women and Children!

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

As I suspected, the review that Cornel Venema wrote of The Law is Not of Faith is not nearly as damning as various and sundry critics of Westminster California have let on. I figured that if Venema had written anything really juicy – like this is view that needs to be purged from our churches – Rabbi Bret would have quoted it by now, especially that – ahem – his Advent and Christmas duties are well behind.

Although Venema criticizes the book, its arguments and authors, he actually writes sensibly and in a guarded manner (unlike some on his faculty):

Here are some examples, all from the conclusion:

Viewed against the background of the history of Reformed covenant theology, the particular question of the distinctiveness of the Mosaic administration posed by the authors . . . is a legitimate one, and one with a long pedigree in the history of Reformed theology. That some contemporary Reformed theologians find the question itself to be puzzling or problematic does reflect, as the editors . . . observe, a loss of historical awareness and appreciation for the complex history of Reformed reflection on the covenant.

So some of the reactions to the book could actually be ignorant.

Though my review . . . offers a number of criticisms of the author’s arguments, I fully concur with the authors’ aim to uphold and teach the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone upon the basis of the righteousness of Christ alone. As I put it in my description . . . on the book jacket, the “authors ably refute recent attacks on the classic Reformed understanding of the grace of free justification on the basis of the entire obedience and sacrifice of Christ alone.”

Yes, that’s right, Venema wrote a blurb for the book that he supposedly found devastating in review.

Rabbi Bret and others seemed to miss that Venema actually did recommend this book for publication and to readers to read – that’s why the publisher printed this on the back cover by the president of Mid-America:

This provocative volume makes a historical and biblical-theological case for understaning the Mosaic administration in the covenant of grace as in some sense a “republished” covenant of works, which teaches that only perfect obedience to the requiremetns of the law is sufficient to secure the covenant promise of life in communion with God. The authors ably refute recent attacks upon the classic Reformed understanidng of the grace of free justification on the basis of the enire obedience and sacrifice of Christ alone. Though I am not persuaded by every forumulation here, this volume deserves the careful attention of anyone who prizes the bilical teaching that the believer’s justification rests not on any works of his own, but solely on the full obedience of Christ.

What is curious is that Venema could endorse a volume that he would later critique for over seventy pages. The ethics of endorsing and reviewing hold that once you add your name to a book’s set of endorsers, you refrain from reviewing the book – since your review would not be credible as representing an impartial judgment (oh, that’s right, no neutrality). What we have here is a case of recommendation followed by critique, which is one of the odder turns in the publishing world. The endorsement is also a fact that critics of Westminster California have selectively left unnoticed.

Venema also adds in the conclusion of his review:

. . . while I recognize the manifest diversity of opinion on the question of the distinctive nature of the Mosaic economy in the history of Reformed theology, my primary objection to the arguments of the authors . . . is to what I have termed an “accommodated” reading of the sources.

In other words, this is a debate among historical theologians. On the matter of correctly exegeting Paul, Venema comes to no conclusion. Last I knew, a minister’s historical theology was not the basis for his standing in the church.

. . . in my critical assessment of the republication thesis . . ., I have intimated that the historic Reformed distinction between the “three uses” of the law provides a better answer to the complexx question that this thesis aims to resolve.

So we are in the realm of a better explanation of the Mosaic administration, not a heterodox point of doctrine.

The implication of the republication thesis, as is stated by some of the authors, seems to undermine the positive function of the law within the administration of the covenant of grace.

“Seems to undermine” is a long way from this by Rabbi Brett:

Dr. Venema’s work in the Mid-America Journal of Theology is one more effort to pull back the curtain to expose a committee of Ozzes who are working overtime to infect the whole Reformed Church with their virus theology.

But when you are prone to seeing the world populated not by people who study and teach but either by angels or demons, Communists or the liberated, you think that evaluation of an argument is the same thing as drawing up charges.