Tag: two-kingdom theology

Act Two, Scene Two: Cheap Shot

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

Actually, the title should be plural since in one of his first reviews of VanDrunen’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms Nelson Kloosterman decided to insert a [sic] after VanDrunen’s phrase, “the Reformed tradition of natural law and the two kingdoms.” Kloosterman explained, “Because we are in danger of annoying our readers, we shall now desist from using ‘[sic]’ [which abbreviates the Latin sicut, which means ‘thus’ or ‘such’] as our way of identifying the author’s repeated, persistent, and unqualified use of the definite article to identify his construal as ‘the’ Reformed natural law and two kingdoms doctrine.”

Aside from the small-mindedness among the Dutch-American Reformed when they hear of a “Reformed” tradition that does not follow their way of doing and thinking, this is a petty remark and reveals the lengths to which Kloosterman will go in condemning 2k. I wonder when he will mention the typos in the book (if there are any). To younger writers out there, these are the sort of criticisms that should be left on the editing floor and any good editor would have it deleted it on grounds of impropriety and triviality – improper because the level of disagreement is already high and this detracts from the main point; trivial because the use of a definite article is not essential to Kloosterman’s argument.

But the pettiness continues in Kloosterman’s most recent part of his review — I guess he is really going to go through VanDrunen chapter by chapter. (Kloosterman better be hoping that Harold Camping is wrong about the date of Christ’s return and that a significant theological controversy does not prompt the editors of Christian Renewal to reserve inches for more important business.) In this stage of his response to VanDrunen – specifically, the chapter on Calvin – Kloosterman faults the Westminster professor for poor scholarship. VanDrunen uses John Bolt’s discussion of Calvin’s Christology to make a point about the difference between Christ’s rule as mediator and as creator. But because Bolt uses Calvin’s Christology to affirm Kuyper and because VanDrunen — who hasn’t tipped his hand on his own use of Calvin — uses Calvin’s Christology to understand Calvin’s views of the two kingdoms (views for which Kloosterman cannot account), Kloosterman judges VanDrunen to be a poor academic. He writes:

Bolt’s own application of the Christological distinction is the very opposite of the use to which VanDrunen puts it in his NL2K discussion of Calvin! Surely readers deserve better scholarship than this!

Since Bolt’s application of Calvin was not the point of VanDrunen’s argument, I don’t see what is shoddy about this scholarship. It surely seems that Bolt takes the extra Calvinisticum in one direction — the Kuyperian one — and VanDrunen and Calvin take it in another direction, namely, to distinguish between the temporal and spiritual realms. VanDrunen is simply using Bolt’s language to explain the extra Calvinisticum, not to claim Bolt as a proponent of 2k. But since Kloosterman cannot tell the difference between a work of description — which is what VanDrunen’s book is — and one of prescription, he can’t see the different purposes to which an author may use a quotation. Talk about overexcited.

The problem for Kloosterman is that he exhibits the very impoverished academic work of which he accuses VanDrunen. This comes in his complaints against VanDrunen’s conception of the kingdom of God. Kloosterman believes that VanDrunen should have consulted creedal and catechetical material, and if he had, he would have found in the Heidelberg Catechism, for instance, no such distinction between the redemptive and creational rule of Christ. Mind you, the logic here is unclear since Kloosterman affirms the Kuyperian distinction between the church as organism and church as institute. This dualism, though, is a good one that disallows distinguishing between the rule of Christ inside and outside the church. Apparently, for Kloosterman, Christ rules everywhere and everything through the church, both as institute and as organism. He goes on to quote John Bolt to show that the purpose of the church is to restore the world to its creational, God-intended course – as if that could happen short of judgment day. This is another way in which the church is part of the means by which Christ rules all things.

But the point that needs to be underscored is Kloosterman’s poor reading of Heidelberg:

. . . the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Q/A 50, deals with the session of Jesus Christ: “Why is it added, And sitteth at the right hand of God? Because Christ ascended into heaven for this end, that He might there appear as Head of His Church, by whom the Father governs all things.” Surely in the history of interpretation, the church has understood this answer to acknowledge that God the Father rules all things through Jesus Christ, the incarnate, risen, and ascended Savior of the church! Especially the Scripture references undergirding this answer, Ephesians 1.20-23, Colossians 1.18, Matthew 28.18, and John 5.22, teach us that this confession of Jesus as Lord of all is eminently biblical.

Moreover, such royal activity accords with what we confess in Lord’s Day 12, Q/A 31, that Jesus Christ is our eternal King, who governs and defends us. To my knowledge, no interpreter of the Heidelberg has argued that the incarnate, risen, and ascended Jesus Christ is eternal King 9 of 11 of the church only. Rather, this incarnate, risen, and ascended Jesus Christ is eternal King of the universe!

Well, VanDrunen (nor does any 2k advocate) say that Christ is lord ONLY of the church. What kind of reading skills do Christian day schools teach (and do they give refunds)? What 2k advocates argue is a distinction between Christ’s lordship over those who do not confess him as lord, who do not bend the knee in worship, and those who do trust in Christ and are members of his church. That would appear to be an important difference – for instance, how Christ is lord of both Tim Keller and Tiger Woods. 2k teaches that Christ is lord of each man, but not in the same way. And the different rule is apparently what the very author of the Heidelberg Catechism had in mind when he explained the second petition of the Lord’s prayer in his commentary:

A kingdom in general is a form of civil government in which some one person possesses the chief power and authority, who, being possessed of greater and more excellent gifts and virtues than others, rules over all according to just, wholesome and certain laws by defending the good and punishing the wicked. The kingdom of God is that in which God alone rules and exercises dominion over all creatures; but especially does he govern and preserve the church. This kingdom is universal. The special kingdom of God that which he exercises in his church consists in sending the Son from the Father, from the very beginning of the world, that he might institute and preserve the ministry of the church, and accomplish his purposes by it that he might gather a church from the whole human race by his word and Spirit rule, preserve and defend it against all enemies raise it from death, and at length, having cast all enemies into everlasting condemnation, adorn it with heavenly glory, that God may be all in all, and be praised eternally by the church. (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 632-33) [emphasis added for the reading impaired]

So contrary to Kloosterman’s claim that “we” know of no interpreter of Heidelberg who says that Christ is lord only of the church, I know of one author and interpreter of Heidelberg who does something very comparable to what Calvin does and what VanDrunen observes in Calvin. Surely, we could expect better theological scholarship than this.

And we find better theological scholarship in another Dutch-American Reformed theologian. Louis Berkhof follows Calvin and Ursinus in making a distinction between the universal lordship of Christ (Tiger Woods) and the special rule that he extends over his church (Tim Keller).

The Kingship of Christ over the universe is subservient to His spiritual kingship. It is incumbent on Christ, as the anointed King, to establish the spiritual kingdom of God, to govern it, and to protect it against all hostile forces. He must do this in a world which is under the power of sin and is bent onthwarting all spiritual endeavors. If that world were beyond His control, it might easily fustrate all His efforts. Therefore God invested Him with authority over it, so that he is able to control all powers and forces and movements in the world, and can thus secure a safe footing for His people in the world, and protect His own against all the powers of darkness. These cannot defeat His purposes, but are even constrained to serve them. Under the beneficent rule of Christ even the wrath of man is made to praise God. (Systematic Theology, pp. 410-11) [more emphasis added for neo-Calvinists]

Unless I missed something, Berkhof is talking about a rule by Christ that governs the works of all men outside the church (Tiger Woods) in such a way that nothing will ultimately harm those whom he governs as redeemer (Tim Keller). That sure sounds like a rule as creator that is universal rather than a rule as redeemer that is particular. After all, Tiger Woods does not know Christ as lord and redeemer (such as we can tell from the media). But Christ is still lord of him, the PGA, and Woods’ sponsors. That lordship is substantially different from Christ’s rule over Redeemer Presbyterian Church NYC (even if I wish that rule were a little more on the order of Reformed governance).

I don’t know why that is so hard to see. Calvin saw it. Ursinus saw it. Berkhof saw it. Kloosterman misses it. And that means that he is digging a deeper hole for himself the more he digs in against VanDrunen and 2k.

The 2k/Anti-2k Fault Line

Published on by D. G. Hart25 Comments

For the most part, the critics of 2k do not care for (to put it mildly) the work or arguments of Meredith Kline (who happens to be arguably the most original and creative of Old Westminster’s faculty – and still remained theologically reliable). Those who argue for a 2k-position have generally drawn from the biblical theology of Kline. In my own case, spooked from greater investigation of the Old Testament through my boot camp in seminary Hebrew, I found my way to 2k through a New Testament scholar, J. Gresham Machen, who followed the Old School Presbyterian tradition of the spirituality of the church.

So one fault line in the contemporary debate is Kline and whether you draw from or trash his work.

The other fault line is Herman Dooyeweerd and the tradition of neo-Calvinism that he handed on to 20th-century Reformed Protestantism in the United States. Thanks to his understanding of worldview and the ascendance of neo-Calvinism among evangelical academics since 1960, Presbyterians and Reformed have lost touch with an older understanding of natural law and the two-kingdoms that was part and parcel of Reformed reflection from Calvin and Turretin to Witherspoon and Robinson. This is one of several useful points that David VanDrunen makes in his history of 2k thought in the Reformed tradition. After Dooeyweerd, arguments based on distinctions between general and special revelation, between civil and ecclesiastical realms, between Christ’s creational and mediatorial kingships sound foreign and un-Reformed. The reason is that dualism is bad.

And now to connect the dots comes a section from Meredith Kline’s Kingdom Prologue (thanks to our taller mid-western correspondent). Here we see the fault line clearly exposed even though Kline freely admits that his work is “most indebted” to the Kuyperians for developing a biblical world-and-life-view (after all, he studied with Van Til):

In backing away from the mistake of identifying the city per se with the kingdom of Satan, we must beware of backing into the opposite error of identifying it with the kingdom of God in an institutional sense, an error equally serious and even more common. In the midst of the threatening world environment to which man is exposed through the common curse, the common grace city offers the hope of a measure of temporal safety, but it does not afford eternal salvation. It should not, therefore, be identified with the holy kingdom of God, which is the structural manifestation of that salvation. . . .

Characteristically, members of [the neo-Dooyeweerdian school] have been critical of schematizations that distinguish between the city of man and the city of God. In particular, they would frown on the suggestion that the city of man is common, in the sense of non-holy. They believe that they detect a scholastic nature-grace dualism lurking in any such approach. . . . The Scriptures compel us to distinguish between the kingdom of God as realm and reign and to recognize that though everything is embraced under the reign of God, not everything can be identified as part of the kingdom fo God viewed as a holy realm.

. . . . Unfortunately, however, in a philosophical zeal for an abstract structural monism apparently, the neo-Dooyeweerdians commit themselves to a view of historical reality within which the Creator himself would not be allowed to respond to the Fall with appropriate modifications of the institutional structuring of the original creation. Specifically, he would not be free to introduce a structural dualism in which there coexisted legitimately both holy kingdom institution and non-holy institution. . . .

We must apparently assume that the neo-Dooyeweerdians are prepared to repudiate structural dualism anytime, anywhere in the divinely instituted order. Otherwise it is difficult to explain their out of hand rejection of any and all views that distinguish between the holy kingdom of God and a common sphere (including the state not identifiable as God’s kingdom as just so many examples of scholastic nature-grace dualism. But how fallacious such a stance is becomes manifest when the attempt is made to carry it through to the eschaton and apply it to the eternal abode of the damned. In dealing with the phenomenon we call hell it becomes evident how necessary it is to distinguish in God’s kingly rule between holy realm and sovereign reign. . . .

If philosophical theorizing is to remain under the control and correction of biblical revelation, the neo-Dooyweerdian assumption that all creation can be identified in monistic fashion with the kingdom-realm of God must be abandoned. . . . The sphere of the state, though not exempt from God’s rule and not devoid of the divine presence – indeed, though it is the scene of God’s presence in a measure of common blessing, is, nevertheless, not to be identified as belonging to the kingdom of God or sharing in its holiness. We may not deny to the Creator his sovereign prerogative of creative structuring and restructuring and authoritative defining and redefining. And least of all should we venture to do so in the name of honoring the universality of his kingly rule. (Kingdom Prologue, pp. 168ff)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Kline is saying that 2k is more biblical than anti-2k. He also argues that 2k does more justice to God’s sovereign rule – the Lord has the rights to create a common realm – than 2k’s critics do.

How do you like them apples?.

I Believe the Bible Requires Me to Avoid Movies, and If You Go See a Movie You Don’t Believe the Bible – Huh?

Published on by D. G. Hart284 Comments


I learned 2k from J. Gresham Machen. If 2k critics were to spend a little time with the chief founder of Westminster Seminary they might be less alarmed. They might also see in the mirror staring back at them the liberal Protestants who tried Machen for breaking his ordination vows.

Here is where 2k critics might see some resemblance between themselves and liberals (you can also throw in fundamentalists for good measure but you need to fight alarm with alarm). In 1926 Machen was up for promotion at Princeton Seminary to become the professor of apologetics and ethics. General Assembly needed to approve this promotion because Princeton was (and still is) an agency of the Assembly. At the gathering of 1926 Machen’s foes reported that he had voted against a motion in his presbytery (New Brunswick – yes, the one established for the Tennents and other “white hot” Presbyterians) that called for the church to support the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act – that is, Prohibition. Mind you, Machen believed drunkenness to be sin and he believed the church had a duty to call people to repent of such sins.

But that wasn’t good enough. Because he did not support the 18th Amendment, his foes believed he was antinomian. And an antinomian should never be allowed to teach ethics, which has historically always been part of the apologetics division at Princeton and Westminster.

So the Assembly denied Machen his promotion.

Critics of 2k do the same when they say:

1) We are antinomian. Actually, we believe in the law, and may actually do a better job upholding the First Table than those 2k critics who don’t have an evening service and use praise songs in their morning assemblies.

2) We favor abortion. Actually, we oppose the shedding of innocent life. But some of us may not feel called to march at abortion clinics or to engage in political discussions from the pulpit. (Some say we don’t oppose it earnestly enough, but those people don’t actually know us to be able to see how earnest we are.)

3) We favor gay marriage. Actually, 2k advocates believe homosexuality is sin and homosexual sex is not the kind of intimacy to be practiced in marriage. But again, following the example of Machen, favoring an amendment to the Constitution is not the same as regarding homosexuality a sin.

4) We don’t believe in Christian education. Actually, we do. But we don’t believe that only one form of delivery (or two) is lawful. We believe that parents should make that call under the oversight of elders who have no jurisdiction to declare that certain kinds of schools are unlawful (because the Bible doesn’t say so). We also have reservations about Christian interpretations of biology, Shakespeare, and U.S. history. Much of the time, these “Christian” interpretations are as far fetched as appeals to Scripture for prohibiting beer.

5) We take Christian liberty too far. Actually, we don’t. As I have indicated, I don’t shop at chain stores partly because of the 8th commandment, which tells me (along with help from Wendell Berry) that the love of neighbor requires me as much as possible to support local businesses owned by my real neighbors, not by distant corporations. Can I require members of the church where I am an elder to follow my practices? After all, I believe Scripture calls me to this form of economic behavior. Isn’t Scripture binding on all Christians? Well, it is, but Scripture also isn’t air tight about the businesses we patronize. I may suggest the value of shopping locally, and how this seems to encourage love of neighbor. But it’s my application of Scripture and my wife’s cross to bear (especially when traveling); it’s not warrant for declaring other Christians who shop at Walmart to be in sin.

6) We deny the Lordship of Christ. Actually, we affirm it and recognize it everywhere, all the time. We so believe in the Lordship of Christ that we think it exists even when bad rulers occupy office, when non-Christian scientists denounce Christianity, or when evangelicals go to see a Woody Allen movie. Who among us could unseat Christ’s sovereign rule?

7) We deny the authority of the Bible. Actually, we don’t. All the 2k advocates I know believe that Scripture is infallible, inerrant, and the only rule for faith and life. What sometimes gives us the creeps is the identification of God’s will with a person’s interpretation of Scripture. History has shown that people make mistakes when interpreting the Bible. 2kers cannot be forced to submit to faulty interpretations of the Bible. After all, 2k appeals to Scripture for its truthfulness and that appeal doesn’t seem to convince the Brothers Bayly or Rabbi Bret’s of the world. According to their logic, they don’t believe the Bible because they disagree with my interpretation of it.

As I say, huh?

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).

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.

Two-Kingdom Tuesday: The Roman Catholic Version

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

The contemporary vocal critics of modern 2k often remark that everyone is 2k, meaning that it is wrong for modern 2k advocates to paint them as 1k. The Roman Catholic expression of 2k doctrine qualifies that claim in important ways. First, it suggests that not everyone is 2k since the Eastern Church allowed itself to be absorbed by the state in the form of Caesaropapism. Second, it reveals that Roman Catholics also believe in the two-kingdoms, especially the idea that the church is and should be free from the state. (Rome would apparently not favor the language of the original Westminster Confession which gives the magistrate power to ensure that church counsels follow God’s mind.) In which case, if part of the point of the 2k doctrine is to separate the church and the state, and the papacy was an important institution for introducing and preserving that autonomy in the West, then the critics of modern 2k may want to explain how their 2k avoids the problems pointed out in the following (i.e., a Leviathan state) without also embracing the papacy. Of course, the other alternatives are Constantine or King David, but not if you want to be 2k along with everyone.

. . . the Church, always maturing as she groped for a just balance in her relations with the state for eight hundred years, finally broke in two, each part exhibiting a possible alternative solution to the problem. In the Eastern half of the Christian empire, in the new Rome founded by Constantine, divided from the West by her inheritance of Hellenistic culture and continuing the division of the empire into two blocks existing from the time of Diocletian to that of Theodosius, the Church succumbed to the States. Or would it be more exact to say that the state succumbed to the Church? . . . The other alternative has had even a greater historical role to play. In the Latin West, the Church, under the guidance of the Pope and her bishops, vindicated her freedom before the state. In this she was helped by a variety of external developments. Not the least of these is the fact that in the West, the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, and the papacy remained the only rock of cultural unity among the states that rose in the aftermath of the invasions. It is often said that the freedom of the Western Church was built only on the ruins of the civil power; but the Church had in fact defended her freedom against the Emperor Constantius and later against Byzantine despotism, which weighted heavily on Rome and the West from the sixth to the eighth century. What favored the Western Church’s victorious struggle for her freedom was, above all, the fact that in Latin culture the sense of human freedom, especially religious freedom, had deeper roots than in the East. . . . But the most important internal resource from which the Western Church drew renewed strength in her struggle for freedom was the guiding role of the papacy, growing increasingly conscious of the rights granted to it by Christ as it sought to respond to the needs of a Church basically solid but ever struggling even in a Christian empire. It is a fact grasped not only by faith but also seen in history that all the churches who wish to withdraw from the unity of the Church dogmatically first of all seek refuge with the state but soon are absorbed by the state and fall with it. (Hugo Rahner, Church and State in Early Christianity [1962], pp. xiv-xvi)

Make My Joy Complete?

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

After last night’s Phillies’ 1-0 victory over the Braves — their tenth in-a-row — it is hard not to feel down-right gleeful as a Phillies fan. Not only have the Phils seemed to work out many kinks from an injury ridden season and a poor first half, but they are doing this without Jimmy Rollins who was 2007 MVP of the National League. (Does Phil’s GM Reuben Amaro get enough credit for acquiring Wilson Valdez, even while receiving accolades for picking up Roy Oswald to make up for the indiscretion of giving up Cliff Lee?)

The problem with my joy is that it comes with knowledge of friends’ grief. Back in 2008 when the Phils won it all, they owed part of their success to the Met’s failure. Granted, the Metropolitans’ September ’08 performance was not as bad as 2007 when the Phils came from 7 1/2 games back to win the division (and then get crushed by the Rockies in the first round). But the Mets did have a 3 1/2 game lead in 2008 with three weeks to go. Normally, a Philadelphia fan gets a huge kick from seeing the home team win and any New York team lose — yes, Philadelphia does not always wear its inferiority complex with aplomb — who does? But in this case, my sidekick at Old Life is a Mets fan. So I couldn’t celebrate as heartily as I wanted because I could well imagine some of John Muether’s pain. By the way, one way I have found to like Mets fans — it is very hard, after all — is to remember that these are New Yorkers who decided not to root for the Yankees. That makes their value go way up.

This year the Metropolitans have not been a factor since the All-Star game, so my mirth could find outlets even in the company of Mr. Muether. But now comes my empathy for a friend who is a fairly strong Braves fan. He will remain nameless, but knowing his own hopes for the Braves and how the Phils may have seriously hurt Atlanta’s chance to make the playoffs, my step today has been a little heavier than it would be if say the Phils had just swept Blue Jays. (Does Canada even deserve a baseball franchise? Why not Canadian baseball with only 2 outs per inning and bases 100 meters apart?)

It may be a stretch, but I find an analogy here in the realm of debates about 2k. The opponents appear to be very quick and ready to celebrate apparent contradictions, failure to answer questions, and departures from Reformed worthies. The spirit that informs anti-modern 2k proponents is one of a Philadelphia fan after an Eagles defeat of the New York Football Giants — strident and ungracious. I am not one to play the 1 Cor. 13 card. Sometimes debate gets personal and feelings get hurt. It comes with the territory and certainly the blogosphere encourages bluster. But I cannot figure out why anti-2k folks feel the urge not only to win but to subject the other side to humiliation.

Of course, they haven’t won any more than another Phillies pennant will somehow make up for the losingest franchise in professional sports history.

Point of Order: Even for Covenanters 2k Is Confessional

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

The grenade that Tim Bayly tossed about the infidelity of 2k ministers sent a lot of shrapnel flying over at Greenbaggins where critics of 2k have repeatedly claimed that two-kingdom theology is outside the bounds of Reformed confessionalism. (So far Rabbi Bret has yet to weigh in directly. Since the Baylys treated him the way the Puritans treated Roger Williams, perhaps he has no dog in this fight.)

The argument about the confessional status of 2k can take several forms. One is that 2k is not the position of the original Westminster Confession, or of the other Reformed confessions for that matter. Another is the idea that the Bible calls the magistrate to uphold both tables of the law. And with this duty comes the magistrate’s responsibility to punish blasphemers and idolaters since the first table clearly forbids these sins and since God instructed the Israelites to execute those guilty of such sins.

The problem with this argument is that American Presbyterians revised (see all the revisions here) the original Westminster Confession and churches such as the PCA and the OPC continue to accept the revisions from 1787-1788. For those unfamiliar, here are a few highlights of the original and the revision:

Original ch. 23.3

The civil magistrate hath. . . authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.

This is fairly standard language in the Reformed confessions with some invoking Old Testament penal codes and some simply saying the magistrate should enforce both tables of the law.

The American Revision

. . . no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

Not to be missed is that the revision not only drops entirely the magistrate’s responsibility for suppressing heresy and blasphemy, but it raises the stakes by forbidding laws that would prefer any denomination and insisting that magistrates protect the good names of all people no matter what their religion or their infidelity. It is an amazing change.

But lest some conclude that this was simply the whacky action of liberalizing and Enlightened Presbyterians who were still high on the fumes of revolution, the case of the Covenanters is especially noteworthy. Reformed Presbyterians are the keepers of the torch for the National Covenant, a view of religion far closer to the one that informed the Westminster Confession than any other in Scotland or North America. That is to say, that Covenanters still insist, as their Constitution indicates, “Every nation ought to recognize the Divine institution of civil government, the sovereignty of God exercised by Jesus Christ, and its duty to rule the civil affairs of men in accordance with the will of God.” The RPCNA Constitution adds, the nation “should enter into covenant with Christ and serve to advance His Kingdom on earth.” If a nation fails, it sins, “makes the nation liable to the wrath of God, and threatens the continued existence of the government and nation.”

This is the logic not only of the establishment principle but the reasoning behind the Covenanters refusal throughout most of their U.S. history to participate in elections or serve in the military.

So you would think that the language of suppressing blasphemy and heresy from the original Westminster Confession is just fine with the RPCNA. It turns out that Covenanters, at least confessionally, no longer have the stomach for the language of 1640s London. In their Testimony, which is part of the communion’s Constitution and runs along side the Confession, the RPCNA has this to say about paragraph three of chapter twenty-three: “We reject the portion of paragraph 3 after the colon:” (emphasis theirs). This means, for the confessionally and grammatically challenged, that even the logic of national covenant no longer sustains the idea that the magistrate has authority

. . . and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. (Original WCF)

For the literacy challenged, that means that critics of 2k who insist 2k is outside the bounds of the confession would not even find a home in the RPCNA under the very Blue Banner at least on this point.

Now some have tried to say that the revisions still assert the magistrate’s duty to suppress blasphemy and heresy. But given what the American divines said and did not say, and given that the Covenanters no longer insist on magisterial responsibility for punishing idolatry, this argument is even less believable than the one about George Washington being an orthodox Protestant.