More 2K Hysteria

Published on by D. G. Hart307 Comments

Rabbi Bret apparently thinks he has another smoking gun to support his beef against 2k. Cornel Venema has written a review of The Law Is Not of Faith for the Mid-America Reformed Seminary journal and the good Rabbi is content to rely on reviews rather than actually read the book to bolster his vendetta against Westminster California..

What is worth noting is that the gun Venema shoots doesn’t smoke the way that Bret does. Compare the following quotations, from Bret about the toxic nature of 2k, Venema on the authors views of republication (of the covenant of works), and also the heated words of the Kerux review (which Bret adds for good measure).

First Bret, ever charitable and ever showing the effects of listening to too much Rush:

Even though R2K theology was disciplined in the Lee Irons’ case it has not yet been eliminated from the Reformed Church. This is due to the fact that R2K theology has many high profile Doctors (and at least one Seminary) who are dedicated to breathing life into this dismal theology. 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.

Now from Kerux, more like Michael Medved than Rush, but nonetheless guilty of fear-mongering:

The goal of Ferry and Fesko’s contributions was to position the idea that the Mosaic covenant is in some sense a covenant of works within the mainstream Reformed tradition. However, because of their misquotations, misrepresentations, and (at times blatant) misreading of the primary documents, their essays are both significantly flawed. Far from providing the Reformed churches a definitive settled word on the matter, they have only further muddied the already murky historical-theological waters on the Mosaic covenant in the Reformed tradition. Though both authors attempt to write with a detached, objective, and “historical” tone, careful analysis reveals that both authors are governed far more by their polemical interests than they let on. Their chief interest seems to be in legitimizing their own views on the Mosaic covenant rather than faithfully representing the consensus position of Reformed orthodoxy.

Curious that the waters of the Reformed tradition are murky, but Fesko and Ferry’s motives are not. I wonder what goggles you wear for that kind of vision.

And now Venema (thanks to Bret – I have yet to see the review):

Though Ferry cites Calvin as an example of this kind of formal republication (a forerunner to R2K Mosaic covenant as republication ‘in some sense’ of the covenant of works –BLM), I will argue in what follows that Calvin does not conceive of the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the covenant of works. Calvin’s view is much closer to what Ferry terms a ‘material’ republication view, (the view that in the Mosaic covenant we have a mere reiteration of the moral obligations that belong to the moral law of God in any of its distinct promulgations throughout the course of history) since Calvin affirms that the Mosaic Law reiterates the requirements of natural (moral) law that was the rule of Adam’s obedience before the fall. The position Ferry terms a ‘material’ republication view, is … the most common view in the Reformed tradition and hardly warrants being termed a ‘republication’ of the covenant of works in any significant sense. Ferry’s taxonomy here and throughout is rather confusing and, for that reason, unhelpful.

A couple of matters worth pondering: 1) if Venema had issued warnings akin to what Kerux published or what Bret opines, the Rabbi would have quoted them. So this is the best that Bret can do in finding ammunition against Westminster California. Since Venema doesn’t go near calling into question the faithfulness of ministers of the gospel, he is shooting blanks compared to Bret’s own toxic bullets.

2) Has Bret or the reviewers of Kerux ever considered that Brent Ferry, a good friend and former student, did not attend Westminster California? Now this could be proof the spread of the virus. It could also mean that people who read sources – not just reviews – learn a thing or two about the Reformed tradition and even its variety and pluriformity. In which case, Westminster California is not the font of these apparently objectionable views.

Another point worth making is that Bret and Kerux’s authors seem to think that Murray is on the orthodox side of matters covenantal. I myself believe that Murray got more right than he got wrong. But for a theologian, who questioned the reality of a covenant of works, to be held up as the standard of Reformed orthodoxy by which to bludgeon the contributors to The Law is Not of Faith is well nigh ironic. If Bret and Kerux’s reviewers can look past some of Murray’s quirks, why not Ferry and Fesko?

Finally, over at the Puritan Board Venema’s review has provoked discussion and Mark Van Der Molen, who is to Kloosterman what T. H. Huxley was to Charles Darwin, says that Venema’s review raises the same “red flags” that the Kerux review did. Well, not to put to fine a point on it – Venema does not. He does not hyperventilate about republication bringing down the witness of the Reformed churches. Instead, he engages in an academic review. Surely, an attorney should be able to spot the difference between a hostile witness and a lawyer’s summary arguments.

Meanwhile, Bret and Van Der Molen continue to ignore the CRC, the communion most worldviewish and Kuyperian. If denying positing two kingdoms is leading churches astray, what happened to Bret’s own communion where a world and life view is more synonymous with orthodoxy than the Canons of Dort.

If these guys can be so wrong about how to read texts and conditions within churches, why should we trust their analysis of the culture or politics? The answer is – no reason.

Social Gospel Coalition

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

I have sometimes wondered if the appeal of organizations like the Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, Acts 29 Network, Redeemer Global Network, Desiring God, and the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is their extremely chummy atmosphere. At the various blogs of these outfits, the posts are usually flattering of the other participants in the organization. If criticism comes, it is always as a punchline to a joke. Readers must conclude that only a fool would disagree with anything written at these blogs.

This makes parachurch organizations very different from the church where officers at synods and assemblies need to be on their toes and prepared to be challenged. A General Assembly is not a love-fest, though the sorts of activities that take place there are loving in the way that changing the oil in your Chevy is a form of care. Granted, I have never been to one of these organizations’ conferences (except for the initial launch of ACE in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1996). But the feel of these association from their blogs is one of encouragement, uplift, inspiration, earnestness, and occasional comic relief. You wouldn’t know from reading these cites that a Christian could actually grow through discouragement, criticism, and rebuke. (When will someone start the Iron-Sharpening-Iron Fellowship of Evangelical Whiners?) (Update: Justin Taylor may have the clue on the lack of criticism among the allies of the gospel.)

To Kevin DeYoung’s credit, he did take a modest swipe at one of the Gospel Coalition’s constituencies and, because members are not used to disagreement, he caused a minor imbroglio. DeYoung’s original comments came at a Desiring God National Conference about the difference between “mission” and “missional,” and later became part of a video and a post at the Gospel Coalition’s blog. What DeYoung had the temerity to do was suggest that social justice and neighbor love were not the same as building the kingdom of Christ. Word and Deeders from the Acts 29 Network took a measure of umbrage and DeYoung wrote a second post, trying to clarify and while sidestepping toes. He doesn’t want churches to abandon the social aspects of missional. He simply wants the proclamation of the gospel to be the basis for all the church does.

Most recently DeYoung interviewed Tim Keller on his new book on justice and even asked the New York pastor if he had misconstrued the relationship between word and deed. Keller’s response was to affirm an asymmetrical relationship. Keller said:

. . . the first thing I need to tell people when they come to church is “believe in Jesus,” not “do justice.” Why? Because first, believing in Jesus meets a more radical need and second, because if they don’t believe in Jesus they won’t have that gospel-motivation to do justice that I talk about in the book. So there’s a priority there. On the other hand, for a church to not constantly disciple its people to “do justice” would be utterly wrong, because it is an important part of God’s will. I’m calling for an ‘asymmetrical balance’ here. It seems to me that some churches try to “load in” doing justice as if it is equally important as believing in Jesus, but others, in fear of falling into the social gospel, do not preach or disciple their people to do justice at all. Both are wrong. A Biblical church should be highly evangelistic yet known for its commitment to the poor of the city.

Never mind if your church happens to be in the suburbs or the country. Move on to the next blog in your Google Reader account.

Now the confounding aspect of DeYoung’s valuable even if timid point about the priority of word to deed and Keller’s notion of an asymmetrical relations that prioritizes the gospel over justice is that nowhere does the Bible say that the church is supposed to do justice. Of course, a distinction may need to be made between the church as Christians and the institutional church, and I believe Keller needs to make this one the way contestants on “Wheel of Fortune” often buy vowels. But with that distinction in mind, where does Scripture talk about the corporate church as an agent of social justice or social anything? (Warning: if you appeal to the Old Testament you are entering a world of theonomic pain.)

Jesus and the apostles did not engage in social justice. Paul’s instructions to Timothy about preaching did not include telling Christians to do justice. In fact, the New Testament call to submit to rulers and to live quiet and peaceable lives is not the basis for social justice Sunday or word and deed ministry.

And what happens when we look at the creeds of the Reformed churches – nothing on the church as an instrument of social work? It is all about redemption 24/1.

Article 29 of the Belgic Confession says:

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it.

Because of the centrality of word and sacrament in establishing the kingdom of Christ, the Second Helvetic Confession (ch. 18) describes the duties of ministers without mentioning social justice:

The duties of ministers are various; yet for the most part they are restricted to two, in which all the rest are comprehended: to the teaching of the Gospel of Christ, and to the proper administration of the sacraments. For it is the duty of the ministers to gather together an assembly for worship in which to expound God’s Word and to apply the whole doctrine to the care and use of the Church, so that what is taught may benefit the hearers and edify the faithful. It falls to ministers, I say, to teach the ignorant, and to exhort; and to urge the idlers and lingerers to make progress in the way of the Lord. Moreover, they are to comfort and to strengthen the fainthearted, and to arm them against the manifold temptations of Satan; to rebuke offenders; to recall the erring into the way; to raise the fallen; to convince the gainsayers to drive the wolf away from the sheepfold of the Lord; to rebuke wickedness and wicked men wisely and severely; not to wink at nor to pass over great wickedness.

And, besides, they are to administer the sacraments, and to commend the right use of them, and to prepare all men by wholesome doctrine to receive them; to preserve the faithful in a holy unity; and to check schisms; to catechize the unlearned, to commend the needs of the poor to the Church, to visit, instruct, and keep in the way of life the sick and those afflicted with various temptations. In addition, they are to attend to public prayers or supplications in times of need, together with common fasting, that is, a holy abstinence; and as diligently as possible to see to everything that pertains to the tranquility, peace and welfare of the churches.

The word-and-sacrament character of the church is also part and parcel of the Gallican Confession:

27. Nevertheless we believe that it is important to discern with care and prudence which is the true Church, for this title has been much abused. We say, then, according to the Word of God, that it is the company of the faithful who agree to follow his Word, and the pure religion which it teaches; who advance in it all their lives, growing and becoming more confirmed in the fear of God according as they feel the want of growing and pressing onward. Even although they strive continually, they can have no hope save in the remission of their sins. Nevertheless we do not deny that among the faithful there may be hypocrites and reprobates, but their wickedness can not destroy the title of the Church.

28. In this belief we declare that, properly speaking, there can be no Church where the Word of God is not received, nor profession made of subjection to it, nor use of the sacraments.

Notable here is that social justice is neither a mark of the church nor of the Christian person.

One last example comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith which describes the purpose of the church without mentioning society, economics, or politics – at all:

Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto. (25.3)

I understand that the confessions do mention the poor as part of the diaconal work of the church, and I also understand that this is the crack through which most conservative Presbyterians will pour every conceivable faith-based humanitarian project. But diaconal work in a state-church environment is a very different animal in a secular society environment where the state has BILLIONS of dollars ready for the poor. Of course, if no one were attending to needs of the homeless, the hungry, widows, and orphans, then the church conceivably could step in and even extend diaconal care to non-believers. But unless I missed the federal government adopt a Weight Watchers regimen, I’ll need to be convinced that the church can match the modern state for social justice output.

Diaconal work aside, the conviction of the Reformed churches has always been that the church is a spiritual institution with spiritual means for spiritual ends. New School Presbyterians came along and tried to conceive of the church in activist terms. But the Old School Presbyterians shot back with the doctrine of the spirituality of the church, and the related teachings of the marks of the church and the keys of the kingdom. All those Presbyterians – Tim Keller included – who owe their conservatism to the Old School tradition as taught at Old Princeton, reiterated at Old Westminster, and carried into the OPC and the RPCES precincts of the PCA really need to be clear that the institutional church has no mandate from Scripture for social endeavors or activism. They may want to side with the New School. But then they will really need to explain how the contemporary asymmetrical relationship of word and deed will not turn out differently from the asymmetrical relationship maintained briefly during the nineteenth century by Union and Auburn Seminaries before blossoming into doctrine (word) divides but ministry (deed) unites.

Hey, wait a minute, that bloom may already be on the rose of interdenominational parachurch ministries where words about sacraments matter less than ministries about deeds.

Why Should Episcopalians Have All the Good Chants?

Published on by D. G. Hart29 Comments

What I am about to write will put me in awkward company since both James Jordan, the godfather of visions federal and David Koyzis, one of many keepers of the Kuyperian flame, have also advocated chanting psalms. But I am not afraid of the genetic fallacy that attributes guilt by association. I have very little sympathy for Jordan’s musings or for Koyzis’ opposition to dualism. But I do agree with them that chanting psalms is a better way to sing them than any available to the modern church.

But I don’t need to go Federal Visionist or neo-Calvinist to find support for chanting. The good and reliable singers of psalms, the Reformed Presbyterians, also include a page in their Book of Psalms for Singing on how to chant. Their reasons for chanting are as straightforward as their tips for singing are helpful. What is more, Reformed Presbyterian arguments don’t dabble in the exotic, trendy, or liturgical. For them, the point is to sing psalms as given in Scripture.

Chanting has several advantages over metrical Psalmody, stemming from the fact that in chanting, the music completely serves the text. The music is not difficult or interesting in itself, but has character and meaning only in conjunction with the words. The meaning of the text is thus more immediate, and the parallel structure of the Hebrew poetry is more apparent. The difficulties of translating ancient non-metrical poems into sensible English rhyme are rendered unnecessary. Chanting encourages the use of entire Psalms rather than selections.

The one advantage that I’d call attention to is that chanting frees modern congregations from having to sing songs that rhyme. My own tastes in poetry are pedestrian, and I like poems that rhyme. I am particularly attached to the limerick and sometimes write them. My main challenge is finding words that rhyme. (Heck, I have enough trouble finding the right word when it doesn’t have to rhyme.) But I see no reason why the songs we sing in worship need to rhyme. And I sometimes see the toll that rhyme schemes take upon the constructions (or their translations) of poets for whom rhyming was unknown.

Adding to the burden of metrical psalms is the tune. Each song has a certain number of beats per line, which means that each turn has a specific meter. Modern hymnals devote one of their many indexes to meters, such as 7.7.7.8, so that you may find all tunes with that meter and sing texts with the same meter to any of the listed tunes.

This means that psalm translators for metrical purposes not only have to find words at the end of lines that rhyme, but must also use translations that have the right number of syllables per line. Which means that a metrical psalm is several steps removed from the genuine article.

Now, of course, the genuine article would be to chant the psalms in Hebrew, but that would prevent worship in a known tongue to anyone in the United States other than obsessive seminary students.

So why not remove the entire rigamarole of awkward translations fitted for conventions of modern poetry and find a good English rendition of the psalms to chant? The music of chants are flexible and, contrary to the RPCNA’s advice, are often beautiful. Four-part chants are down right stunning. And chants aren’t that hard. The conservative Presbyterians with whom I commune sing well any number of complicated tunes. If Episcopalians, a group hardly known for vigorous congregational singing, can chant, why can’t Presbyterians?

Talk About Justification Priority

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

Peter Leithart has posted an excerpt from his Reformation Day sermon. I suppose I should find this encouraging to see a man who does not wear tradition readily, but enjoys the “creative tension” that he learned at least while studying at Westminster Seminary, affirm the blessings of Protestantism. But like so much that Leithart writes, the points that lead to agreement are cheek-by-jowl alongside matters of serious contention.

So first for the encouraging bit. To the question, “Is the Reformation dead?” Leithart responds without hesitation:

We don’t believe so. We believe that the achievements of the Reformation are still worth defending, that the work of the Reformation is still worth preserving. The Reformation recovered biblical truths that had either been rejected or buried in late medieval Catholicism. In themselves, the Reformation slogans are just slogans, but they get at central biblical truth.

But then comes the contentious part. Standing for the Protestant Reformation may not mean maintaining the doctrines of the sixteenth century in a dogmatic way:

If defending the Reformation means nothing more than repeating the Reformation slogans or assenting to (or claiming to assent to) the Reformation confessions; if defending the Reformation means we carry on with business as usual, carry on in the way the Reformation churches have always carried on; if being Protestant means we stay still – then the Reformation has become a kind of tribalism.

If that is what being Protestant means, then the Reformation has been turned upside down and inside out. It began as a protest against fossilized and distorted tradition, and it will cease to be genuinely Protestant if it becomes another kind of traditionalism. The Reformers called for a reform of the church according to the word of God, but the Reformers knew that the work of reforming the church would not end in their generation, or ever.

If being Protestant means simply trying to preserve or recapture the sixteenth century, then the Reformation is already dead and deserved to die.

This hostility to tradition evokes similar words from John Frame with whom Leithart studied at Westminster. In his defense of biblicism, Frame wrote that “The notion that Scripture addresses, to some extent, every important human question, produced at Westminster a high quality of theological creativity. We often associate orthodoxy with stagnancy and traditionalism. But at Westminster, the commitment to sola Scriptura propelled it in the opposite direction.” Frame added:

During my student years, I was never asked to read any of the Reformed confessions, or Calvin’s Institutes, except in small bits. I never read any official standards of church government or discipline, not to mention Robert’s Rules of Order. We used Hodge and Berkhof in our systematics classes, but for the most part we were graded not on our reading but on our knowledge of Murray’s lectures. After graduation I became ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I confess I was rather surprised at the seriousness with which my fellow ministers took the Confessional Standards and Presbyterian traditions. Eventually I became more like my fellow Orthodox Presbyterian (and later Presbyterian Church in America) elders, but not without some nostalgia for the openness of theological discussion during my seminary years.

Would Leithart say the same of his years at Westminster? The answer is anyone’s guess. But the idea of theological creativity is one that links Leithart to Frame and Westminster Seminary of a certain era. As valuable as questioning and creativity may be in Reformed theology, the Federal Vision is not a very good way to carry on the tradition of the Reformation. I would assume that Frame agrees with that assessment. Leithart obviously does not (though I am not sure that even the Federal Vision capture and tame the footloose and highly original Leithart).

The oddest and least successful part of Leithart’s sermon comes in his paean for justification by faith:

For Paul, justification is not only a work of God but a work of all of God, a seamless work of the Father, Son and Spirit, like all God’s works.

When we do that, we find that justification by faith includes or implies everything that we want to say about a twenty-first century Reformation.

Justification means being made right with God through Christ, through the faithful death of Christ.

Justification by faith means that righteousness is given to us, not through the law but through the cross, which we receive by faith.

Justification means that Christ lives in me, and I no longer live and the life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God.

Justification means that God has created a community of the justified, a community united without division of Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, Lutheran or Methodist, Baptist or Catholic.

Justification means that righteousness has come, the righteousness by which God will restore the world.

Justification means that God’s promises to Abraham have been fulfilled, and that we are swept up in that fulfillment.

Justification means that God is blessing the families of the earth through the seed of Abraham.

Justification means that the Spirit has been given to those who hear with faith, the Spirit that fulfills the promise to Abraham, the Spirit of righteousness and justice, the Spirit of life and renewal.

Justification, finally, means that this is all God’s work, and that all of God has done all this. The Father sent the Son whose death brought righteousness, which is the gift of the Spirit. The Father counts as righteous those who are in the Son, and shows His acceptance of us by giving us the Abrahamic promise, the Spirit. Justification means that the Triune God is God, Just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.

Justification means that in Christ’s death and resurrection, the Triune God has revealed His righteousness, the undying commitment of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit to their own eternal communion, the eternal, undying, triumphant commitment to incorporate us, the seed of Abraham, into that communion.

Maybe, but why can’t justification simply mean an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us and received by faith alone?

That is a whole lot clearer than Leithart’s list of meanings, and it indicates why some of us still prefer the era of Reformed orthodoxy to the one of Reformed biblicism – it’s just better.

Worldview Humor for Voters

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Thanks to Jeffrey Polet over at Front Porch Republic.

But this isn’t as good as this classic from the BBC men who put sophistry into philosophy.

Worldview Demagoguery

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

One of Dr. K’s fans posted here part of a letter by a Reformed pastor who is also in agreement with the good doctor on the threat that 2k supposedly poses to vigorous and full-fledged Reformed Protestantism. That excerpt read:

We agree with Dr. Kloosterman’s assessment of what will happen in the Reformed community, as we know it, if these natural law, two-kingdom views espoused by Dr. Van Drunen and others, take root. We urge every reader of this magazine to exert the mental energy that will be required to follow the lines of argumentation that Dr. Kloosterman will present in upcoming articles. It is necessary for the peace of the church and survival of the Reformed faith with its Calvinistic world and life view. Please do not underestimate the importance of the struggle we are facing.

What is curious about this understanding of 2k’s threat is that again it does not accord with reality (or in denial, if you will). To be sure, Dr. K has also been guilty of construing the debate over Christianity and culture in fidelity-to-the-gospel proportions. But when you least expect it, he also provides evidence that undermines his very claims about the stakes of 2k. In an article for Christian Renewal where he discussed the Federal Visionists’ identification of baptism with regeneration, Dr. K appealed to one of those communions allegedly on the verge of losing its Reformed soul to the trickery of 2k:

Our purpose here is to warn readers about the inevitable deformative effects, within confessionally Reformed churches, of correlating a child’s physical birth (to believing parents) with that child’s spiritual birth from above. This view is an over-correction of another, admittedly deficient and non-covenantal, “revivalist paradigm” so common among evangelical Protestants, which denies to a child of believing parents any status or blessings different from those enjoyed by a child born to unbelieving parents. For a helpful analysis of these and related views, see the “Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification” presented in June, 2006, to the 73rd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Important to note here is that David VanDrunen chaired the committee responsible for this report and he contributed significant sections to it. Had Dr. K known this, he may not have cited it so favorably.

But since he did, Dr. K has proven the worried letter writer quoted above wrong. One of the communions where 2k is on the loose has not abandoned the Reformed faith but has actually stood remarkably well for the doctrines of grace (among others). What is more, in the case of VanDrunen himself, the logic of 2k does not lead to an abandonment of Reformed orthodoxy.

Not to be missed either is the 600 pound gorilla in the room of worldview triumphalism and lamentation. That would be the beast known as the Christian Reformed Church. Much as I enjoyed my time in that communion and regard highly many of its pastors and scholars, the CRC is emerging precisely as the communion that the fervid letter writer fears—a communion where the peace of the church and the survival of the Reformed faith are up for grabs. Now, the reasons for this state of affairs may not be solely the effects of worldview thinking and overreaching. But isn’t it a tad curious that the one communion where worldviewism is alive, well, and bursting at the seems (from neo-Calvinist steroids?) is the CRC? So where is the evidence that 2k leads to infidelity? And where is the acknowledgment from 2k critics that worldviewism also goes wobbly and is no guarantee of Reformed faithfulness?

At the very least, the critics of 2k should consider the evidence before predicting the effects of 2k on Reformed churches. But more helpful would be for the worldview critics of 2k to consider why a Reformed world-and-life-view has prompted former conservatives in the CRC to leave for other denominations or federations (out of respect to our good friends in the URC).

Freedom for Home Schoolers, Tyranny for Infidels

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

In the category of harmonic convergence, Rabbit Bret and Brothers B recently huffed and puffed about a PCA pastor from Richmond, Indiana who had the temerity to write a letter to the local newspaper editor in which he argued for more government oversight of homeschooling.

In his 19-point reply (with subpoints, no less) the good rabbi makes this not so subtle rejoinder:

Tom, the chief person you’ve offended is Jesus Christ in heaven above. You have advocated the State to usurp the prerogatives that God has given to the parents in order that the State might play God to the family. Your advocacy for increased State control is an advocacy that leads to the deterioration of the family and the enhancement of the State. A State, I might remind you, which is hostile to Biblical Christianity.

Weighing in for the Baylys is brother Tim who has this reasoned response (though, a drive-by snipe at Covenant Seminary ended up provoking the most discussion):

It takes a village? Actually, no: that village is a gang or a group home.

What it really takes is a home. It takes a father and mother. It takes God and the natural sovereigns He’s put over sons and daughters–Papa and Mama.

Those authorities that undermine or remove the authority of fathers and mothers by transferring their authority to the state are rebels against God.

Keeping the cosmic convergence on a roll, I too would come down on the side of Bret and Tim. I affirm limited government and the value of mediating institutions, starting at the very basic, natural law, level of the family. On matters of policy, I might favor some kind of interaction among families and local school authorities, just at a meet and greet level so that both sides actually function as neighbors, another association that yields mediation. So I understand and approve generally of their concern about the state controlling more and more of daily life.

What I call attention to though is the contradiction between these pastors’ call for limited government regarding the family and their frequent requests for the state to uphold and defend the true religion. To put this matter graphically, would Bret and Tim be so willing to see a Wiccan family conduct home schooling? Maybe they would given their opposition to big government.

But how big a government would you have if the Westminster Assembly was right about the powers of the civil magistrate and Hilary Clinton as the next president of the United States had the power and duty to call and preside over the PCA General Assembly or the CRC Synod? At this point I believe Bret and Tim might finally come around to a 2k outlook (mind you, I know longer speak of worldviews).

A Reformed Protestant by Any Other Name Has to Be Shorter

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

From my trip to Geneva last summer for the festivities to celebrate John Calvin’s 500th birthday I still recall the indignation of a professor from the University of Zurich during his plenary presentation. He complained about Calvinism as the designation for Protestants who come from the Swiss Reformation. Obviously, he has a point since the Reformed churches started well before Calvin was a Protestant. What is more, Geneva was a bit of an outlier in the Swiss Confederation, not joining until the 19th century (though it was an ally of Bern which brought Geneva in closer relationship to Switzerland). And during the Reformation itself, Geneva and Zurich were not always on the best of terms. The Consensus Tigurinus (1549) is one indication of an effort by Calvin and Bullinger to bury the butter knife.

The primacy of Zurich to Geneva and of Zwingli to Calvin means that Calvinism is a misnomer. Should the better name be Zwinglian? Well, the Lutherans might find that agreeable – as in the Reformed finally own up to their real convictions on the Lord’s Supper. But Zwingli died in 1531 and hardly spoke for a body of churches that were just emerging (Geneva had yet to reform its church).

Another disadvantage of Calvinism is that it abstracts a doctrine of salvation from the church and sacraments – as in John Piper is a Calvinist. Piper may share Calvin’s view of the five points, but does he follow Calvin on church polity or the Lord’s Supper? And why would the doctrines of grace determine the nature of Calvinism more than worship or the church?

Of course the advantage of Calvinist is that it is shorter than Reformed Protestant. At three syllables, Calvinist weighs in right there with Lutheran and Anglican, meaning you don’t have to exert yourself to identify as a Calvinist. Reformed Protestant is a five-syllable mouthful; Reformed Protestantism is no quicker to say. RP might work but the Covenanters already have that moniker cornered.

So we may be stuck with Calvinism. But all Reformed Protestants, that is, those Protestants different from Lutherans and the Church of England, who identify with like-minded saints in places like Hungary, Poland, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, and the Palatinate, should feel a pang of remorse when identifying their ecclesial heritage as Calvinist – sort of the way readers of Wendell Berry feel guilty when turning the ignition of their car and burning more fossil fuel.

Two-Kingdom Tuesday: The Hollowness of Article 36

Published on by D. G. Hart220 Comments

Critics of two-kingdom theology from Dutch backgrounds often cite the Belgic Confession’s teaching on the civil magistrate as grounds for rejection. For those who don’t have a copy of the confession handy, Article 36 reads:

And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.

What said critics fail to mention is that Article 36 has been soundly rejected by the Dutch and the Calvinists among them.

First, the North American descendants of the Dutch Reformed church would revise the article to remove the magistrate’s responsibility for upholding the true religion and destroying all infidelity. The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1958 called this affirmation of Article 36 “unbiblical” and substituted the following:

They should do it [i.e., remove every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to divine worship] in order that the Word of God may have free course; the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress; and every anti-Christian power may be resisted.

That may give the magistrate more sway over religion than 2k folk would like, but it is far removed from the original language of the Belgic Confession. What is more, the modern Dutch churches regard the standard by which many neo-Calvinists critique 2k as “unbiblical.”

Second, Abraham Kuyper himself, the Calvinist than whom no Calvinist is more neo, rejected Article 36’s assertion of the magistrate’s power to punish infidelity. As pointed out in a previous post, Kuyper wrote specifically and candidly about his disagreement with Article 36. Among the assertions he made were:

We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics.

It is our conviction: 1) that the examples which are found in the Old Testament are of no force for us because the infallible indication of what was or was not heretical which was present at that time is now lacking.

2) That the Lord and the Apostles never called upon the help of the magistrate to kill with the sword the one who deviated from the truth. Even in connection with such horrible heretics as defiled the congregation in Corinth, Paul mentions nothing of this idea. And it cannot be concluded from any particular word in the New Testament, that in the days when particular revelation should cease, that the rooting out of heretics with the sword is the obligation of magistrates.

3) That our fathers have not developed this monstrous proposition out of principle, but have taken it over from Romish practice. . . .

I do wish that Dr. Kloosterman would pay attention to the master of all worldview and world transformation and cease from using an article against 2k that no Dutch Calvinist uses (except himself and his fans).

Finally, the Dutch magistrates themselves rejected Article 36 even in the glory days of the Dutch Reformation. Here is how Philip Benedict concludes his chapter on the Dutch Reformation:

The place of the Reformed church came to assume within the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands was different from that of any other established church in Europe. On the one hand, the Reformed church was the public church. Its ministers were paid from the tithe and the proceeds of seized church property. It provided the chaplains who accompanied the republic’s armies and navies. . .

On the other hand, across the republic as a whole the Reformed enjoyed neither the numerical preponderance nor the degrees of ideological hegemony that Europe’s legally dominant churches normally exercised. For every author who likened the Dutch struggle for independence to the liberation of ancient Israel from the yoke of Egypt, another depicted the long war for independence as a battle to preserve the traditional liberties of the region against tyranny, including ecclesiastical tyranny. . . . The consistories and synods learned before long to moderate the severity of their demands for moral purity, and the measures regulating public morals generally fell far short of the strictness of those promulgated in Zurich, Geneva, and Scotland. Last of all, ecclesiastical discipline was not backed up by civil sanctions as in Geneva and Scotland. The revolutionary reformation of the Low Countries was thus revolutionary for its reconfiguration of the relation between church and state and for the degree of freedom it obtained for inhabitants of this region to live their lives outside the institution and ritual of any organized church, even while it gave birth to a Reformed church that was at once privileged and pure, an established church and a little company of the elect.

Maybe I’m finally understanding the purpose of worldview thinking. It is a way of seeing the entire globe and ignoring reality.

Act One, Scene Two: Kloosterman on Luther as Neo-Calvinist

Published on by D. G. Hart19 Comments

I would not have thought it possible. “It” in this case is an effort to disassociate Martin Luther from two-kingdom theology. Most Reformed Protestants beyond the age of accountability understand intuitively, it seems, that Lutheranism goes wobbly in its Christian teaching because of the dualism that haunts it, thanks to Luther’s two-kingdom theology. Furthermore, when Reformed Protestants, like David VanDrunen, come along and speak favorably of 2k, they usually have to duck or else get hit with the epithetical cream pie of “Lutheran.”

But our good Dr. Kloosterman, the keeper of the neo-Calvinist flame (he likely prefers Calvinettes to GEMS as the name for Christian Reformed girls clubs), will have none of such a conventional understanding of Luther. In the third installment of his review of VanDrunen’s book on natural law and the two kingdoms (the second was on VanDrunen’s handling of Augustine), Kloosterman takes issue with VanDrunen on Luther. VanDrunen’s presentation is hardly controversial; he links Luther to previous developments stemming from Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities, and Gelasius’ teaching on the two swords. VanDrunen doesn’t even try to claim Luther as a proto-Reformed theologian.

But Kloosterman is so opposed to VanDrunen’s project that he will not even let VanDrunen’s discussion of Luther stand. For instance, Kloosterman accuses VanDrunen of a selective reading and quotes from the 1523 essay, “Temporal Authority,” where Luther writes of the Christian prince:

What, then, is a prince to do if he lacks the requisite wisdom and has to be guided by the jurists and the lawbooks? Answer: This is why I said that the princely estate is a perilous one. If he be not wise enough himself to master both his laws and his advisers, then the maxim of Solomon applies, ‘Woe to the land whose prince is a child’ (Eccles. 10:16). Solomon recognized this too. This is why he despaired of all law-even of that which Moses through God had prescribed for him-and of all his princes and counselors. He turned to God himself and besought him for an understanding heart to govern the people (I Kings 3:9). A prince must follow this example and proceed in fear; he must depend neither upon the dead books nor living heads, but cling solely to God, and be at him constantly, praying for a right understanding, beyond that of all books and teachers, to rule his subjects wisely. For this reason I know of no law to prescribe for a prince; instead, I will simply instruct his heart and mind on what his attitude should be toward all laws, counsels, judgments, and actions. If he governs himself accordingly, God will surely grant him the ability to carry out all laws, counsels, and actions in a proper and godly way.

Kloosterman seems to think that this adds up to a brief for his own position – namely, that special revelation must interpret natural revelation. On this basis Kloosterman has argued that a magistrate needs to take his cues from Scripture to rule in a truly just manner. Curiously enough, Luther did not answer his question – where should the prince look for wisdom? – as Kloosterman would, by pointing the prince to the Bible. The archetypal Lutheran in good 2k fashion merely speaks of the prince’s need for a godly attitude in discerning his duties.

This misinterpretation of Luther extends throughout Kloosterman’s installment and it is particularly ironic since Kloosterman’s point is that VanDrunen misinterprets Luther. Be that as it may, Kloosterman insists that Luther must not be chalked up on the side of dualism:

Our point is simple: When one surveys the breadth of Luther’s voluminous writings, the overwhelming impression is that for Luther, the Christian faith and the Christian religion did not exist alongside public life, but came to expression and functioned within public life. Whether speaking at the Diet of Worms or serving as mediator among the German princes, whether opposing public unrest and public heresy or defending good quality education, whether commenting on war and peace or on trade and money—in all of these roles, we meet Luther the preacher of the gospel and pastor of the German people. Yes, Luther knew how to distinguish the “spiritual” regiment from the “temporal” regiment, but he never separated them, nor did he retreat from entering the world’s domain in the name of God, with the Word of God.

There we have it – Luther the proto-Kuyperian. This surely will be news to the historians, theologians, Lutherans, and Reformed Protestants, who knew and know Luther to be 2k. Kloosterman’s reading is not at all unusual for a Kuyperian since neo-Calvinists, from Kuyper to the present, have a habit of reading the past in a way that always vindicates them and their world-and-life-view. Even so, his review suggests less a stroke of genius than a move of desperation to save the neo-Calvinist movement that used to have a monopoly – world dominators that they were – on what it means to be Reformed.