Tag: Abraham Kuyper

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.”

Suffer, Submit, and Suck It Up

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

One of the interlocutors at this site suggested that neo-Calvinism and biblical theology of an amillennial variety go together well, and that no reasons existed for suggesting tension between someone like Geerhardus Vos and Abraham Kuyper. He linked to an essay that Richard B. Gaffin wrote on theonomy and claimed that Gaffin, a marked proponent of biblical theology in the Vosian tradition, was on board with neo-Calvinism. He even supplied a quotation from Gaffin that showed his neo-Calvinist bona fides:

It will not do simply to dismiss this chapter as the ramblings of someone who has be-
trayed his Reformed heritage—with its ennobling vision of life itself as religion and the whole of life to the glory of God—for an anemic, escapist Christianity of cultural surrender. Without question, the Great Commission continues fully in force, with its full cultural breadth, until Jesus returns; “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” is the mandate of the exalted Last Adam to the people of his new creation. We can not measure the limit of that “everything” and its implications; of it we can only confess with the Psalmist: “To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless” (119:96). That mandate, then, is bound to have a robust, leavening impact—one that will redirect every area of life and will transform not only individuals but, through them corporately (as the church), their cultures; it already has done so and will continue to do so, until Jesus comes.

Not to pick nits but when this comment referred to this paragraph as the concluding one in Gaffin’s essay I decided to take a look. In point of fact, Gaffin concludes that essay on a decidedly different note, one that fits the allegedly wimpy profile of 2k as opposed to those world-beaters, the neo-Calvinists. Here is what Gaffin wrote in his conclusion:

The comprehensive outlook found in the Book of Hebrews provides a fitting close to
these remarks. Two realities dominate the writer’s marvelous exposition of God’s eschatological, “last days” speech in his Son (1:2). The one reality is Jesus, the high priest in heaven (e.g., 4:14; 8:1). Fulfilling Psalm 110, the exalted Christ is “priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (e.g., 5:6; 6:10; 7:17); the New Testament contains no more impressive presentation of the realized eschatological dimension of his person and work than this.

But for whom is the exalted Christ high priest? Who is served by his sanctuary service (8:2) of eschatological intercession (7:25)? The answer to that question is the other reality in view—the church as a pilgrim congregation, a people in the wilderness. Utilizing a broad covenant-historical analogy, the writer compares the church between Christ’s exaltation and return to Israel in the desert (see esp. 3:7-4:11): just as the wilderness generation delivered from Egyptian bondage (picturing realized eschatology) had not yet entered Canaan (a picture of still future eschatology), so the New Testament church, presently enjoying a real experience of the salvation promised in the gospel, has not yet entered into the possession of that salvation in its final and unthreatened form (“God’s rest”).

Two basic perspectives emerge with these two realities. On the one hand, the writer’s realized eschatology leaves no room for a premil position: Once Jesus “has gone through the heavens” (4:14) and “has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven” (8:1), his return for a provisional earthly rule, prior to the eternal heavenly order, would be retrograde for the writer, a step backward eschatologically. Christ’s return will be the return of the heavenly high priest, not the appearance of Christ temporarily exchanging heavenly ministry for earthly duties. That return will mean the appearance on earth of the heavenly order/sanctuary where Christ is “a high priest forever” (6:20), the manifestation on earth, without delay at his return, of the “heavenly Jerusalem” (12:22), the “lasting city” (13:14), the eternal “rest”-order (4:11).

But the writer is no less indisposed toward a postmil outlook: Until Christ returns the church remains a wilderness congregation; like the Patriarchs in the land of promise, believers are “aliens and strangers on earth” (11:13). That tension is an essential dimension of their identity — aliens in the creation that is theirs by right and whose eschatological restoration has already been secured for them by their high priest-king.

There is no “golden” age coming that is going to replace or even ameliorate these desert conditions of testing and suffering. No success of the gospel, however great, will bring the church into a position of earthly prosperity and dominion such that the wilderness with its persecutions and temptations will be eliminated or even marginalized. That would have to be the outcome if prosperity—understood, for instance, in the terms of Isaiah 65:17ff.—is to be at all meaningful. Such prosperity and blessing for the church are reserved until Christ returns.

The writer of Hebrews operates with a simple enough eschatological profile: the bodily absence of Christ means the church’s wilderness existence, his bodily presence, its entrance into God’s final rest. What he must confront in his readers is a perennial problem for the church, a primal temptation bound up with its wilderness existence: the veiledness, for the present, of messianic glory and the believer’s eschatological triumph; “at present we do not yet see everything subject to him” (Heb. 2:8), with the longing as well as the promise that “at present” holds for the church. All of us, then, are involved in a continuing struggle—against our deeply rooted eschatological impatience to tear away that veil and our undue haste to be out of the wilderness and see the realization of what, just because of that haste and impatience, will inevitably prove to be dreams and aspirations that are ill-considered and all too “fleshly.”

“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).

The point of this exercise is not to expose the error of an Old Life reader. It is to raise a question, though, about the way that 2kers and neo-Calvinists read. It strikes me that neo-Cal’s generally favor readings from texts that highlight a progressive and triumphant understanding of Reformed Protestantism’s effects upon the world. This extends to which passages of Scripture to highlight in exploring a believer’s identity as well as how to read the development of history and culture.

Abraham Kuyper established the model for this sort of reading when in his infamous Lectures on Calvinism he uttered inspirational prose such as the following:

The avoidance of the world has never been the Calvinistic mark, but the shibboleth of the Anabaptist. The specific, anabaptistical dogma of “avoidance” proves this. According to this dogma, the Anabaptists, announcing themselves as “saints,” were severed from the world They stood in opposition to it. They refused to take the oath; they abhorred all military service; they condemned the holding of public offices. Here already, they shaped a new world, in the midst of this world of sin, which however had nothing to do with this our present existence. They rejected all obligation and responsibility towards the old world, and they avoided it systematically, for fear of contamination, and contagion. But this is just what the Calvinist always disputed and denied. It is not true that there are two worlds, a bad one and a good, which are fitted into each other. It is one and the same person whom God created perfect and who afterwards fell, and became a sinner– and it is this same “ego” of the old sinner who is born again, and who enters into eternal life. So, also, it is one and the same world which once exhibited all the glory of Paradise, which was afterwards smitten with the curse, and which, since the Fall, is upheld by common grace; which has now been redeemed and saved by Christ, in its center, and which shall pass through the horror of the judgment into the state of glory. For this very reason the Calvinist cannot shut himself up in his church and abandon the world to its fate. He feels, rather, his high calling to push the development of this world to an even higher stage, and to do this in constant accordance with God’s ordinance, for the sake of God, upholding, in the midst of so much painful corruption, everything that is honorable, lovely, and of good report among men Therefore it is that we see in History (if I may be permitted to speak of my own ancestors) that scarcely had Calvinism been firmly established in the Netherlands for a quarter of a century when there was a rustling of life in all directions, and an indomitable energy was fermenting in every department of human activity, and their commerce and trade, their handicrafts and industry, their agriculture and horticulture, their art and science, flourished with a brilliancy previously unknown. and imparted a new impulse for an entirely new development of life, to the whole of Western Europe. (from Lecture 2)

2k proponents, in contrast, tend to take a more restrained even pessimistic view of Christian existence in this world. Believers have enough trouble overcoming sin in their own lives that taking on the entire world in a project of domination seems foolhardy and not the best use of spiritual resources.

This leaves 2k in a decided disadvantage with the Reformed rank-and-file. Neo-Cals can win people to their side because they are long on inspiration even if short on practical steps toward square-inch subjection. They can rally the faithful for all sorts of “yes, we can projects,” from taking back city hall to reclaiming the proper interpretation of the American or Dutch republics’ foundings. All 2kers can do is tell the faithful to cope; look to the Lord, count your blessings (name them square-inch by square-inch?), receive the means of grace, pray, and be faithful in your callings. This is not a project for changing the world. Most people – Reformed Protestants included – want to know “Can’t we do more!?!”

But if neo-Cals are better at inspiration, they are not so good at close reading. Not only do we fail to see in the New Testament exhortation for Christians to change the world, but we also read terms that 2kers are prone to use and neo-Cals to avoid. Peter and Paul refer to believers as strangers, aliens, and pilgrims. These are not the words that come to mind with neo-Calvinism. The mascot of neo-Cals is the crusader (retired recently by Wheaton College for obvious culturally insensitive reasons; but when have neo-Cals been sensitive to culture let alone people?)

But 2kers can take hope from the original Calvinist, John Calvin. He is hard to turn into a cultural transformer despite the efforts of Kuyper and H. Richard Niebuhr (has any neo-Cal ever asked why Kuyper’s reading of Calvinism is so similar to a liberal Protestant’s?). When you read Calvin you see the biblical themes of exile and pilgrimage. And when he comments on those favorite texts of cultural dominators, he is very short on the inspiration that typifies neo-Calvinism. Here are a couple of illustrations.

Calvin on Romans 8: 37 (“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”)

We do more than conquer, etc.; that is, we always struggle and emerge. I have retained the word used by Paul, though not commonly used by the Latins. It indeed sometimes happens that the faithful seem to succumb and to lie forlorn; and thus the Lord not only tries, but also humbles them. This issue is however given to them, — that they obtain the victory.

That they might at the same time remember whence this invincible power proceeds, he again repeats what he had said before: for he not only teaches us that God, because he loves us, supports us by his hand; but he also confirms the same truth by mentioning the love of ChristAnd this one sentence sufficiently proves, that the Apostle speaks not here of the fervency of that love which we have towards God, but of the paternal kindness of God and of Christ towards us, the assurance of which, being thoroughly fixed in our hearts, will always draw us from the gates of hell into the light of life, and will sufficiently avail for our support.

Calvin on 2 Cor. 10:5 (“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”)

And bring into captivity I am of opinion, that, having previously spoken more particularly of the conflict of spiritual armor, along with the hinderances that rise up in opposition to the gospel of Christ, he now, on the other hand, speaks of the ordinary preparation, by which men must be brought into subjection to him. For so long as we rest in our own judgment, and are wise in our own estimation, we are far from having made any approach to the doctrine of Christ. Hence we must set out with this, that he who is wise must become a fool, (1 Corinthians 3:18), that is, we must give up our own understanding, and renounce the wisdom of the flesh, and thus we must present our minds to Christ empty that he may fill them. Now the form of expression must be observed, when he says, that he brings every thought into captivity, for it is as though he had said, that the liberty of the human mind must be restrained and bridled, that it may not be wise, apart from the doctrine of Christ; and farther, that its audacity cannot be restrained by any other means, than by its being carried away, as it were, captive. Now it is by the guidance of the Spirit, that it is brought to allow itself to be placed under control, and remain in a voluntary captivity.

So the lesson for 2kers is the same lesson for all Christians: suffer, submit, and suck it up. But is contrary to such sucking to wish neo-Cals were better students of the Bible’s and Calvin’s assigned readings?)

Nelson Kloosterman May Not Be But I Am Thankful for David VanDrunen

Published on by D. G. Hart219 Comments

The reason is that Dave is a Calvinist who knows his Bible and is turning up the heat on that turkey we know as neo-Calvinism.

Ultimately, however, neo-Calvinism needs to be questioned not because of its struggle to accomplish what it set out to do but because it is so foreign to the message of the New Testament. The idea that the heart and soul of Christianity consists in the transformation of existing cultures is arrestingly and glaringly absent from New Testament teaching. Time and again the New Testament emphasizes the present suffering of Christians, the transitory and fleeting nature of the things of this world, heavenly citizenship, and the hope of the age to come. The things that it says about broader cultural affairs are so infrequent and so sparse – basically, submit to legitimate authority and work hard – that it is quite incredible to think that Christ and his apostles intended to instill a vision akin to the neo-Calvinist world and life view. The neo-Calvinist case from the New Testament rests upon a handful of scattered verses – the kingdom as a leaven, the groaning of creation, every thought captive, the kings of the earth bringing their glory into the new Jerusalem – that sound inspiring out of context but do not make the case intended. The burden of the New Testament is about as far away as imaginable from imparting an agenda of cultural transformation. . . .

Redemption does not put Christians back on track to accomplish the original goal of the First Adam through their own cultural work – Christ has already done that on their behalf perfectly and finally. Misunderstanding this point is perhaps the fatal flaw of neo-Calvinism. Until the day when Christ returns he has ordained that his people be pilgrims in this world and be gathered together in the church.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of the fact that the church was the only institution that the Lord Jesus established in this world during his earthly ministry. . . . Christ came, in other words, not to transform the cultures of this world but to win the kingdom of God, the new creation, which will be cataclysmically revealed out of heaven on the last day, and to establish the church for the time being, as a counter-cultural institution that operates not according to the cultures of this world but in anticipation of the life of the age-to-come. (from Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey, pp. 148-49)

I know, I know, many who have read the Reformed tradition anachronistically through the lens of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd will say that VanDrunen sounds like an Anabaptist or a fundamentalist. In point of fact, he sounds exactly like Calvin. That’s why Calvin has all that language of suffering, enduring, and looking for the world to come. (I do wonder when the Vossians will finally rally to VanDrunen’s side.)

Gobble, gobble.

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.

This Is Not a Program for Changing the World

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

The discordant note in the Kuyperian and Niebuhrian conceptions of Reformed Protestantism is to turn Calvinism not into the little engine that could but the big combine that did and did it some more. Aside from the lack of humility inherent in pointing to Reformed Protestantism as a world-transforming faith that affects every aspect of human existence (and is prone to take credit for all the blessings of the modern world — mind you, without ever taking responsibility for global warming or congested highways), this understanding is also false, at least when it comes to Calvin himself. The following quotation from Calvin’s Institutes (II.9.6) suggests the kind of moderation and restraint that is becoming both to a serious profession of faith and to a sober estimate of one’s place in the world:

Therefore, lest all things should be thrown into confusion by our folly and rashness, he has assigned distinct duties to each in the different modes of life. And that no one may presume to overstep his proper limits, he has distinguished the different modes of life by the name of callings. Every man’s mode of life, therefore, is a kind of station assigned him by the Lord, that he may not be always driven about at random. So necessary is this distinction, that all our actions are thereby estimated in his sight, and often in a very different way from that in which human reason or philosophy would estimate them. There is no more illustrious deed even among philosophers than to free one’s country from tyranny, and yet the private individual who stabs the tyrant is openly condemned by the voice of the heavenly Judge. But I am unwilling to dwell on particular examples; it is enough to know that in every thing the call of the Lord is the foundation and beginning of right action. He who does not act with reference to it will never, in the discharge of duty, keep the right path. He will sometimes be able, perhaps, to give the semblance of something laudable, but whatever it may be in the sight of man, it will be rejected before the throne of God; and besides, there will be no harmony in the different parts of his life. Hence, he only who directs his life to this end will have it properly framed; because free from the impulse of rashness, he will not attempt more than his calling justifies, knowing that it is unlawful to overleap the prescribed bounds. He who is obscure will not decline to cultivate a private life, that he may not desert the post at which God has placed him. Again, in all our cares, toils, annoyances, and other burdens, it will be no small alleviation to know that all these are under the superintendence of God. The magistrate will more willingly perform his office, and the father of a family confine himself to his proper sphere. Every one in his particular mode of life will, without repining, suffer its inconveniences, cares, uneasiness, and anxiety, persuaded that God has laid on the burden. This, too, will afford admirable consolation, that in following your proper calling, no work will be so mean and sordid as not to have a splendour and value in the eye of God.

Lest neo-Calvinists and other Reformed Protestants addicted to activity think this the exception that proves the rule of Calvin’s transformationalism, they should also look at the Reformer’s prayers where the same sense of moderation, restraint, and looking up to heavenly realities is part and parcel of the Reformer’s piety. Here is one example:

Grant, Almighty God, that since under the guidance of your Son we have been united together in the body of your Church, which has been so often scattered and torn asunder, — O grant that we may continue in the unity of the faith, and perserveringly fight against all the temptations of this world, and never deviate from the right course, whatever new troubles may daily arise; and though we are exposed to many deaths, let us not be seized with fear, such as may extinguish in our hearts every hope; but may we, on the contrary, learn to raise up our eyes and minds and all our thoughts to your great power, by which you quicken the dead, and raise from nothing things which are not, so that, though we be daily exposed to ruin, our souls may ever aspire to eternal salvation, until you at length really show yourself to be the fountain of life, when we shall enjoy that endless felicity which has been obtained for us by the blood of your only-begotten Son our Lord, Amen.

When conservative Protestants pray this way, the neo-Calvinist response is usually to hurl the epithet of fundamentalism. But if Calvin himself was so other-worldly, how come other-worldliness is not more basic to Reformed Protestantism than changing the world?

How Tim Keller Reasons

Published on by D. G. Hart233 Comments

John Piper has a new book on thinking that I wonder if Tim Keller has read. (Do the celebrity figures of organizations like the Gospel Coalition have enough time, apart from their own writing, speaking, and travel to read the work of each other?) The reason for wondering is a tendency that Keller exhibits in many of the pieces I have read – namely, to avoid extremes in favor of a middle way. You don’t need to be Barry Goldwater, the guy who said “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” to know that both-and solutions are often impossible. To keep the Lord’s Day holy you need to avoid work on Sunday (for starters). You don’t work a little, rest some, and work a bit. And to honor your Reformed convictions, you don’t cooperate in ministries with Arminians. You can’t have the five points of Dort and the four points of the Remonstrants. You can’t ordain men only and have deaconesses. Sometimes the truths you profess require a choice.

But Keller does not seem to like being confined to either-or’s and he also apparently thinks that many of the errors in church history stem precisely from binary situations. His foreword to a new book by former Bush administration staffers on Christianity and politics (posted at the Gospel Coalition blog) exhibits precisely the tendency to identify extremism and run to the other side – but only so far, of course.

Here is Keller’s take on H. Richard Niebuhr:

In the mid-twentieth-century, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote his classic Christ and Culture, which helped mainline Christian churches think through ways to relate faith to politics. In the end, Niebuhr came down on the side of universalism, the view that ultimately God is working to improve things through all kinds of religions and political movements. The result of his work was to lead mainline Protestant churches to become uncritical supporters of a liberal political agenda (though Niebuhr himself opposed such a move).

Now, as the recent Pew Forum poll indicated, most Americans do not know their nation’s church history that well and Keller should not be faulted for getting Niebuhr wrong. At the time that the older brother of Reinhold wrote Christ and Culture, mainline Protestants were firmly in the Republican fold and also very bullish on maintaining a Christian America and a Christian world order. After all, H. Richard’s brother was a prominent supporter of the Cold War and one of the architects of anti-communist foreign policy in the Eisenhower administration was the Presbyterian, John Foster Dulles. In fact, the folks in the orbit of Union Seminary (NYC) were so bullish on a Christian America that their rhetoric foreshadowed that of Jerry Fallwell some thirty years later.

In which case, if Keller is going to use history to avoid its mistakes, he should try to avoid mistaken readings of history.

But this is not Keller’s only appeal to history. He goes on in the foreword to answer the objections of evangelicals who say that politics is “a distraction, that we should concentrate fully on the only important things—the defense of orthodox doctrine and the evangelism of the world.” I wish I knew of such evangelicals. I doubt Keller comes across many of them in New York and you can’t even find them at Bob Jones University these days where Keller’s rhetoric of transformationalism has more appeal that the school’s former fundamentalist denunciations of worldliness. Still, to counter the fundamentalist argument, Keller appeals to the errors of history:

. . . as the authors point out, in 1930s Germany, a faulty understanding of how Christianity relates to the political contributed to the disaster of Nazism, which in turn meant the loss of the German Lutheran Church’s credibility, evangelistic witness, and even orthodoxy. Something similar happened in South Africa, where an orthodox Reformed theology, invoking the views of Abraham Kuyper, created a civil religion that supported apartheid, and as a consequence has suffered incalculable loss to its standing in the eyes of the people. Ironically, the Lutherans followed a two-kingdom approach to Christ and culture, in which Christians are not to bring their faith into politics, while Reformed Christianity has been characterized by a view that Christians are supposed to transform culture. Both approaches, when not applied thoughtfully and wisely, have led to cultural, political, and ultimately spiritual disaster.

Several oddities stand out in this historical judgment. Just how many Americans after fighting a war against Germany twenty years earlier were sitting by their wireless, waiting to hear what the Lutheran Churches in Germany were saying about anything, let alone National Socialism? Lutherans never had a lot of credibility with Anglo-American Protestants, not even the American Lutheran communions.

But even odder about the assessment of Lutherans is the juxtaposition with Kuyperians. Keller does well to remember that the political failings of Protestants have been not simply on the Lutheran side. Reformed Protestants have to answer for their own performance.

And yet, Keller’s conclusion does not follow. He says that Lutherans lost their credibility for National Socialism and Dutch-African Reformed for apartheid. And yet, where has Kuyper lost any credibility with American Protestants – even Keller himself – who still rally under the banner of “every square inch”? In other words, if the German churches’ acquiescence to Hitler makes 2k theology suspect, why doesn’t neo-Calvinist support for apartheid make Kuyperianism suspect? And yet, it is the Kuyperian-flavored transformationalism that Keller himself consumes and that also accounts for some of the more vigorous critiques of 2k.

So instead of trying to avoid the errors of the past, perhaps Keller and others who appeal to history for directions in the present should understand that the past is complicated, its actors flawed, and that bad things happen to good causes. 2k theology did not create Hitler any more than neo-Calvinism is responsible for apartheid. History has no single causes. History also yields no consequences that disprove ideas. If Keller wants to argue against 2k theology or fundamentalist otherworldliness, fine. But guilt-by-association is not a good form of thinking. I suspect that even Piper agrees.