Doug Wilson is a clever fellow and arguably as much fun as a beer-drinking companion as Mike Horton. But his wit may have gotten ahead of him when he responded to Dane Ortlund’s request for a one sentence answer to the message of the Bible (thanks to Justin Taylor). Wilson wrote:
Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City.
Not only is this reply a little more literary than theological, but it also shows the besetting problem of neo-Calvinism’s attachment to this world, the limits of transformationalism, and the trend to regard redemption as re-creation.
Plus, it demonstrates a cultural insensitivity to those of us who live in the East and have to contend with the New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway. Simply slapping “Garden†in front of a polity, whether city of state, does nothing to transform a Garden City or Garden State’s six-lane highway into streets of gold. That will only come with glorification.
Old Life 