Tag: neo-Calvinism

The Limits of Theology and of Those Who Use It

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Our favorite theonomic pastor in the Christian Reformed Church has ranted yet again on the infection he diagnoses as the “radical 2k virus.” The good pastor’s comments are useful for showing what the two-kingdom view actually says and does not say, and also for showing the inherent weakness of those who overrealize Christ’s Lordship in this life.

The pastor in question is responding specifically to the claim made here that the teaching of history should differ little if taught in a class at a secular university or a Christian college. The point being that the standards governing historical scholarship do not come from Scripture – since the Bible as little to say about the use of primary and secondary sources or about the polity of nation-states and the relations among them – but from organizations like the American Historical Association.

The really right reverend comments:

Can Darryl be so thick as to miss the decided difference between the Marxists Charles and Mary Beard teaching a survey of American History and a R. L. Dabney teaching a survey of American History? Darryl assumes his position and then goes on to act as if the standards of “secular” history proves his position. Talk about circular reasoning! What Darryl has forgotten is that Theology is the Queen of the Sciences. Biblical Christians would insist that History is but Theology clothed in a different discipline, but this is not the way Darryl reasons. For Darryl, Theology resides in the Church and each compartmentalized discipline is Lord over its own realm. Talk about creating sacred and profane realms. By Darryl’s standards a student could become a Marxist historian, complete with all that implies, and still be a Christian as long as he could navigate the gross contradiction.

A couple of points show how convoluted this reaction is. First, hello! Robert Louis Dabney was not a historian and simply being a theologian does not grant proficiency or expertise in every single academic discipline, secular vocation, or square inch (Kuyper even knew this). If it did, then theologians would function in western society the way Imams do in Islamic societies – that is, as interpreters of God’s word they have authority over everything. So, I would likely trust the Beard over Dabney on interpreting American history – though I might give Dabney extra credit on the South.

Second, why does being a Marxist invalidate one’s credentials as a historian? Why even some very good Christian historians such as Carl Trueman have been known to have affection for Marx and the usefulness of Marxist analysis not only for secular but also church history. Our CRC pastor is apparently aware that sometimes Christian historians apply the insights of Marx but rejects outright the compatibility of Christianity and Marxism.

So as in all good circular reasoning, what goes around comes around. We trust the Pastor will not become so dizzy about two-kingdom theology that his mind explodes. Here’s the trick: take two aspirin (get it?) and keep your theology in the appropriate kingdom.

Caritas in Flagrande

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

Caleb Stegall over at Front Porch Republic has already asked a good question about a recent evangelical statement, “Doing the Truth in Love,” that commends the pope’s recent encyclical Caritas in Vertate to the wider evangelical world. Caleb asked, “how many evangelicals does it take to comment on an encyclical?” The answer is a whole lot more than the teamsters it takes to change a lightbulb. The answer to Caleb’s question is 68, the number of evangelicals who signed “Doing the Truth in Love.” The answer to the question about the teamsters is “10, you gotta problem with that?”

Maybe it is oldlife’s current obsession with neo-Calvinism, but we couldn’t help but notice a strong attraction of Kuyperians to Benedict’s encyclical. The Protestant statement backing the pope originally stemmed from a Center for Public Justice effort, and a number of neo-Calvinists added their signatures, among them our favorite Byzantine-rite Calvinist. The convergence of neo-Calvinists and the Roman church’s pontiff does not prove our repeated contention here that a preoccupation with worldview turns the confessional and ecclesial lobes of one’s brain into jello. But it does add to the mix of examples that show neo-Calvinists to be promiscuous in their discernment.

Meanwhile, the neo-Calvinist theological interpretation of Benedict is not reassuring. DTL states:

In Christ’s death and resurrection, God removes all that stands in the way of right relationships between God and the world, among humans, and between humanity and the rest of creation. Human development is included in this restoration of all things to right relationship.

This is the typical neo-Calvinist cosmological rendering of redemption, the license that tells Christians they need to save the world – not just the lost tribes in Africa, but also the kitchen sink. Is it really possible that Benedict is a neo-Calvinist? What would Abraham Kuyper, who thought Rome had nothing to offer the modern world, say?

We do not want to suggest that Benedict or any other pope cannot be read for insight and wisdom. In this case, oldlife has yet to read the encyclical. But would the evangelical signers of DTL also be willing to draft and sign the books by other authors who possess a lot of wisdom about the economy and globalization – say Niall Ferguson or P. J. O’Roarke?

And what about Wendell Berry? Is he chopped liver? Almost twenty years ago he wrote:

Properly speaking, global thinking is not possible. Those who have “thought globally” (and among them the most successful have been imperial governments and multinational corporations) have done so by means of simplifications too extreme and oppressive to merit the name of thought. Global thinkers have been and will be dangerous people. National thinkers tend to be dangerous also: we now have national thinkers in the northeastern United States who look on Kentucky as a garbage dump. A landfill in my county receives daily many truckloads of garbage from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This is evidently all right with everybody but those of us who live here. (“Out of your Car, Off Your Horse,” 19)

So why no statement recommending The Unsettling of America to evangelical readers. Berry had some of us thinking about the problems of globalization a while ago. It didn’t take the Bishop of Rome to get us to do it. And we didn’t have to issue a declaration and seek signatures to call attention to our debt to Berry.

Mind you, if Benedict actually agrees with DTL when the statement says, “globalization has indeed lifted millions out of poverty, primarily by the integration of the economies of developing nations into international markets. Yet the unevenness of this integration leaves us deeply concerned about the inequality, poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, social exclusion—including the persistent social exclusion of women in many parts of the world—and materialism that continue to ravage human communities, with destructive consequences for our shared planetary habitat” – if that’s what the encyclical affirms, then maybe a Berry declaration is in order. As Stegall notes, “Take it from me, sitting in the belly of the beast, when Evangelicals ask you for a ‘serious dialogue’ about ‘new models of global governance,’ reach for your gun. Or your rosary.”

Beyond globalization, Benedict, and Berry is the cringe produced by watching low church Protestants jump on the papal bandwagon. Could it be that evangelicals get more mileage out of siding with the pope than even a popular American author? Impugning motives is always unwise, but why don’t these evangelicals worry just a little bit about coming off as Vatican groupies?

Sorry for the cynicism, but any good Protestant knows something is wrong when those who are not in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome, and who remain tarnished by the condemnations of Trent, are so eager to recommend the chief officer of the church whose jurisdiction their communions have purposefully renounced.

Losing the Keys and Finding a World View

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

David Koyzis, over at Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist, takes issue with the two-kingdom critique of neo-Calvinism. The particular piece that provoked him was first published here.

Koyzis is not moved by arguments about what the Bible does and does not reveal, or by what properly belongs or does not belong to the church’s authority. He concedes that the Bible does not speak to a host of matters, and that the church as institution should not regulate a wide swath of human endeavor. But because the Bible teaches that everything we do should be done to the glory of God, and because Scripture also prohibits idolatry, something that clings to everything human beings touch, the neo-Calvinist project is still in order. We still need, Koyzis argues, to find a Christian outlook on politics, the arts, economics, and the rest of subjects taught and studied in modern learning. He writes, “Disparage as he might the supposed pandemic of world-and-life-viewitis amongst evangelical Christians, Hart’s approach does not represent a workable alternative.” If we want discernment “with respect to the idolatries afoot in ‘secular’ areas of life,” Koyzis recommends turning away from two-kingdom thought to neo-Calvinism.

Part of the basis for this critique is the drift of secular culture, its influence upon universities, and neo-Calvinism’s apparent capacity to remedy the situation. (One point that neo-Calvinists don’t seem to understand about two-kingdom thought is that the two-kingdom view is not a solution to this world’s problems; two-kingdom folk actually don’t believe solutions will come in this fallen world until the consummation.) So Koyzis complains about the toxic mix of secularism, idolatry, and Christians who simply stand back and watch the accident happen.

Continue reading “Losing the Keys and Finding a World View” →