Tag: two-kingdoms

Who is Responsible for Secularization?

Published on by D. G. Hart136 Comments

One of the Communing Callers came by yesterday and blamed Protestants for secularization. “Protestantism paved the way for secularism which is a battle the Catholic Church continues to fight. To ignore this truth is to ignore history.”

This is a curious point of view for those who claim to be standing in continuity with Christian history — especially that history BEFORE the Reformation. As the wonderful current three-volume study by Francis Oakley of medieval political theology is showing, secularization was hard wired into Christianity from the beginning:

The conception of the Kingdom of God, then, that Lies at the heart of the teaching of the Gospels on matters political is one that differs radically from that associated with the messianic views dominant in Jesus’s own lifetime. To that fact attests the evident bewilderment both of his own followers, at least one of whom appears to have been a Zealot (Luke 6:15), and of his Jewish opponents, who certainly were not but who at the end sough to convince Pontius Pilate that Jesus had at least to be something of a Zealot fellow-traveler. But Jesus’s negativity in matters political, his frequent disparagement of the kings and governments of this world and of their coercive methods, had little in common with Zealot attitudes. The less so, indeed, in that it was directed against all the governmental structures with which he had come into contact. Jewish no less than Roman. Nor should we miss the fact that that negativity was balanced, somewhat, by at least some measure of approval extended to governmental authority. Admittedly limited in scope, that approval finds practical expression in Jesus’s own obedience to the laws of the land and formal expression in his celebrated statement on the tribute money (“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”). If that statement evaded the trap being set for him by the Pharisees and Sadducees, it must certainly have scandalized the Zealots. For if the Things that were God’s had to be rendered unto God, the Tribute money, nevertheless, was identifies as Caesar’s, and Jesus indicated that it had to be rendered unto Caesar. That position was wholly in keeping with his insistence that the Kingdom whose advent he was preaching was “not of this world.” And both positions imply (in modern terms) an altogether novel separation of “religious” from “political” loyalties that stands out, in the broader context of the history of political thought . . . “Empty Bottles of Gentilism” (58)

Oakley goes on to quote approvingly Fustel de Coulanges (don’t worry, I didn’t know him either — a late nineteenth-century French historian):

Christianity completes the overthrow of local worship; it extinguishes the prytanea [sacred fire], and completely destroys the city-protecting divinities. It does more: it refuses to assume the empire which these worships had exercised over civil society. It professes that between the state and itself there is nothing in common. It separates what antiquity had confounded. We may remark, moreover, that during three centuries the new religion lived entirely beyond the action of the state; it knew how to dispense with state protection, and even to struggle against it. These three centuries established an abyss between the domain of government and the domain of religion; and, as the recollection of the period could not be effaced, it followed that this distinction became a plain and incontestable truth, which the efforts of even a part of the clergy could not efface. (59)

Oakley goes on to suggest that medieval churchmen played a substantial role in effacing the distinction that de Coulanges observed (and that Augustine elaborated in The City of God and was undone by the claims of a magisterial papacy):

. . . the Augustine whom one characteristically encounters in the Middle Ages is the Augustine of The City of God only insofar as that work was read or reinterpreted in light of what he had to say in his tracts against the Donatists. Medieval churchmen, after all, did not fully share his somber doctrine of grace; they rejected his sternly predestinarian division between the reprobate and the elect; they saw instead in every member of the visible Church Militant a person already touched by grace and potentially capable of citizenship in the civitas dei. More familiar with the anti-Donatist writings, in which Augustine had ascribed to the Christian emperor a distinctive role in the vindication of orthodoxy, than with the sober, limited and essential secular conception of rulership conveyed in his City of God, those churchmen were also apt, it may be, to assimilate the historical vision embedded in the latter to the optimistic Christian progressivism that Orosius had made (influentially) his own. They were led, accordingly, even while invoking Augustine’s authority, to depart from his mature and controlling political vision. That is to say, they broke down the firm distinction between the city of God and the Christian societies of this world that we have seen him draw so firmly in all but a handful of texts in The City of God itself. Instead, and what he actually had had to say about justice and the commonwealth to the contrary, they understood him to have asserted that it is the glorious destiny of Christian society — church, empire, Christian commonwealth, call it what you will — to labor to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and the reign of true justice in this world. (140-41)

This is why the CTC assessment of two-kingdom theology needs to go back to the drawing board and do a little historical investigation. Oakley’s interpretation of Christ and Augustine does sheds some light on CTC’s reading of the church fathers. They have precedent for seeing what they want to see.

Postscript: Orosius was an early fifth-century Spanish theologian who set out to do “nothing less than demonstrate “in every respect that the empire of Augustus had been prepared for the advent of Christ.” (Oakley, 116)

Spirituality of the Church and the Physicality of the Body

Published on by D. G. Hart43 Comments

For all of those who think that two-kingdoms theology overly spiritualizes the Christian life, Martin Luther to the rescue:

Commenting on Mark 7:33 (“And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue.”)

He singles out these two organs, ear and tongue, because the kingdom of Christ is founded upon the Word, which cannot be perceived and comprehended except with these two organs: ears and tongue. The kingdom reigns in the human heart by faith alone. The ears comprehend the Word and the heart believes it. Therefore if tongue and ears are taken away, there remains no marked difference between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world.

For in the outward life a Christian goes about like an unbelieving man: he builds, tills the ground, and ploughs like other men. He does not undertake any special tasks, neither as regards eating, drinking, sleeping, working, nor anything else. These two organs alone make a difference between Christians and non-Christians: that a Christian speaks and hears in a different manner and has a tongue which praises God’s grace and preaches Christ, declaring that He alone can make men blessed. The world does not do that. It speaks of avarice and other vices, and preaches and praises its own pomp. (Sermon from 1534 reprinted in Day By Day We Magnify Thee)

We get true spirituality in ensouled bodies. And those bodies and their activities are no different from the bodies and activities of non-believers, except when it comes to sacred affairs like prayer as opposed to plumbing.

The Bible's Forked Tongue?

Published on by D. G. Hart415 Comments

Put simply, the Bible speaks narrowly to the church but broadly to believers. This, at least, is the unexamined logic of neo-Calvinism.

Two-kingdom proponents and neo-Calvinists both distinguish between the institutional church and its members. This distinction allows us to recognize that Christians properly do things that the church can’t do. Christians work as artists, parents, plumbers, bankers, and bakers. The church does not produce or rear children, lacks its own currency, uses bread from common sources for the Lord’s Supper. So far so good.

But the hiccup for neo-Calvinists comes when they insist that Christians must have biblical warrant or use the lens of Scripture for all that they do. In Kingdoms Apart, Timothy R. Scheurers, puts it this way:

Where . . . proponents of the Two Kingdoms perspective go wrong, however, is in their failure to distinguish adequately between the work of the church (as an institution) and the cultural activity of Christians who are simultaneously citizens of heaven and earth (church as an organism). The Two Kingdoms doctrine neglects the biblical command that in every area of public living, believers should apply the principles and values that shape their distinctiveness as Christians. If fails to provide a biblical and helpful paradigm for cultural living by limiting the unique identity and spirituality of believers in this world. . . .

Scripture nowhere hints that we are to live a compartmentalized life in which we relegate our Christian convictions to Sunday observance only. Romans 12:1 declares that for those who have been renewed by the Spirit of God, it is entirely reasonable and fitting for them to offer up to God their whole person, both body and soul, in an act of worship. . . . If we accept the Two Kingdoms assertion that the Christian’s secular activities are “thoroughly common,” and that it is improper to “apply” the gospel to our work in the common realm, it would seem a type of Sunday Christianity remains for us. However, if we are transformed by the gospel, then it is profoundly relevant for how we conduct ourselves as Christians in the civil realm, for “the very essence of Christian faith includes a grace-produced identity that comes to manifestation in the way we live our lives every day of the week.” (144-45)

And thus we see another example of neo-Calvinism’s bloated rhetoric for admirably pious reasons.

Here is the rub: if the essence of the Christian faith is a grace-produced identity for every area of human existence, then the church (institute or institutional) lacks this Christian essential. After all, the corporate church does not take stands on matters in which Christians engage throughout the week — plumbing, baking, banking, gardening, ditch-digging. No Reformed church has produced a chapter or chapters in its creeds about algebra, Greek, or photosynthesis. That does not seem to bother neo-Calvinists since the work of the church is different from that of the believer.

But if neo-Calvinists are content with churches that lack the essence of Christianity, why do they demand more of believers than of the church? Churches don’t confess articles of faith about hydrogen or dangling prepositions because the Bible does not speak to such matters. The Reformed creeds summarize biblical teaching and if Scripture taught trigonometry or Asian history, churches would be expected to teach what God’s word reveals.

And yet, under the logic of the comprehensive sweep of Christianity and biblical testimony, neo-Calvinists claim powers for believers what the church lacks, namely, the ability to apply biblical norms to all walks of life. We do not let ministers preach sermons on tax rates, rotation of crops, exercise, or television game shows. But now along come neo-Calvinists to tell us that any Tom, Dick or Mary, who has no training in biblical exegesis or may not even be catechized, is going to tell us how the gospel transforms cat litter, Alfred Hitchcock movies, and meteorology?

And people wonder why the institutional church ends up suffering in neo-Calvinist contexts, or why the convoluted notion of kingdom-work has given every member a ministry.

As I say, neo-Calvinists intentions may be admirable. But Calvinists, who put the T in TULIP, were not supposed to be suckers for good intentions.

Kingdom (and weapon) Confusion

Published on by D. G. Hart44 Comments

A fairly common observation (and sometime criticism) is that two-kingdom teaching is simply a reiteration of Anabaptist notions about the separation of church and state. Because 2k is ambivalent if not in denial about the kingdom work supplied by the magistrate, the modern version of two-kingdom theology supposedly stands closer to sixteenth-century Anabaptists (who rejected ecclesiastical establishments) than to the magisterial reformers (who looked to the state to uphold the true religion).

Here is one reason why 2k is not Anabaptist, and it comes from the unlikely source of Alan Jacobs’ Christmas-day reflection on gun control:

I’m a Christian, and as such I am enjoined to pray and hope for the coming reign of the Prince of Peace. Christians might disagree about how and when that Kingdom is going to come about, but we must pray for it and seek it without all our hearts. We should look forward always to the the reign of shalom, as laid out in Isaiah 65. It is not, then, intrinsically desirable that we should be armed; it is, rather, intrinsically desirable that we should all live in the Kingdom of God where no weapons are needed because we live in mutual love and have our needs provided by the Lord.

Maybe that doesn’t even need to be said; maybe nobody really thinks an armed society is ipso facto a better society, even though some folks can sound that way at times. If so, then please just take this post as a reminder that if it is, or becomes, necessary for Americans to be regularly and publicly armed, that’s a sign of the tragic brokenness of a world populated by fallen people.

Aside from the fairly obvious point that Jacobs is blurring lines between society and God’s people with his invocation of “we” in connection with the kingdom of God, he fails to recognize that the peaceable kingdom for which he longs is evident every Lord’s Day when believers gather at the Lord’s Table and only need the spiritual discipline of fencing the table — not guns — for communion. Also troubling is the implicit logic that fewer guns in society is an indication of the arrival of God’s kingdom. (Readers may want to keep in mind that some neo-Calvinists invoke shalom the way Jacobs does as an indication of the arrival of God’s kingdom.) That kind of logic is what leads the hip urbano-Calvinists to regard more artists and chefs and fewer police and soldiers as evidence of the coming kingdom. In fact, the signs of Christ’s kingdom are more ministers, more church members, more congregations (disciplined, of course), and more fruit of the Spirit.

But with careful distinctions between the kingdoms and the sorts of weapons used in each, two-kingdom proponents can see the problems that come with police enforcing the true religion (as Anabaptists did) while rejecting pacifist and non-violent social norms (as the magisterial reformers did). The church doesn’t need guns. It enforces God’s law and proclaims the good news through spiritual means. But until Christ’s return and the ultimate sorting out of the wheat and the tares, society will need guns. Rules for owning, manufacturing, and selling guns will come not from God’s word (which is silent about such matters) but the shifting sands of human reflection.

How Protestants Read

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

John Fea a while back posted this as his quote of the day:

“Good God! The People of Pennsylvania in seven years will be glad to petition the Crown of Britain for reconciliation in order to be delivered from the tyranny of their new Constitution.” John Adams on the democratic, unicameral 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution that gave all male taxpayers the right to vote. (Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 October 1776).

I can imagine three major Protestant approaches to interpreting this remark.

1) The nationalist Protestant: “See? This proves the founders really were orthodox Christians.”

2) The experimental Protestant: “See? This proves the founders were not regenerate since they took the Lord’s name in vain.”

3) The two-kingdom Protestant: “See? This shows how fragile the American founding was (and what’s wrong with democracy).”

In other words, what is political should stay political. We don’t have to insert religion everywhere.

Of course, I left out the neo-Calvinist response: “See what happens when you legalize gay marriage? What’s that you say, gay marriage didn’t come along for another two centuries? Two centuries, two kingdoms, what’s the difference?”

Spheres are Sovereign but Kingdoms Can't be Distinct?

Published on by D. G. Hart98 Comments

I have for some time wanted to offer a little response to Matthew Tuininga’s first (and good) piece on two-kingdom theology for the confessing evangelical allies. The essay is not all about me — shucks — but he does interact with several of my arguments. The reason for responding now is that Matt observed a tendency in my writing that has also recently spawned criticism of Dave VanDrunen (by none other than Cornel Venema in the book that has anti-2kers breathless in anticipation of its imminent release). The criticism that Venema and Tuininga (note all of the Dutch Reformed genes at play here) register is 2k theology’s fault of bifurcating the religious and political realms. Here’s how Matt describes a tendency in my work:

Part of the reason that Hart’s version of the two kingdoms doctrine is somewhat controversial is that at times Hart has pressed the distinction between the two kingdoms to the point of separation. Indeed, if the classic two kingdoms doctrine denoted the difference between two ages and two governments, Hart has often written about it as if it amounted to a distinction between two airtight spheres, one the sphere of faith and religion, and the other the sphere of everyday life. While it is clear that Hart views these two spheres as expressions of the two ages, by speaking of them in terms of separate spheres he ends up downplaying the overlap between the two ages. This tendency becomes all the more marked in Hart’s more polemical moments.

Venema detects a similar weakness (or is it error?) in VanDrunen (via the international Calvinists):

For Calvin, the spiritual and the civil government of God do not stand independently alongside each other. The civil government or jurisdiction, although it is not to usurp the distinct spiritual government that Christ exercises through his Spirit and Word, has the task within God’s design to secure the kind of public order and tranquility that is indispensable to the prosecution of the church’s calling. In this way, the civil jurisdiction serves the redemptive purposes of God by protecting the church and ensuring its freedom to pursue its unique calling under Christ. Furthermore, as servants of God, civil magistrates have the task of ensuring that both tables of the law – the first table dealing with the service and worship of God, the second table addressing the mutual service of all human beings to each other – are honored and obeyed. Although the civil magistrate is not authorized to usurp the distinctive prerogatives of the spiritual kingdom, namely, the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word in renewing human life in free obedience to God’s law, it does serve to advance the redemptive purpose of the spiritual kingdom by requiring an outward conformity to the requirements of God’s moral law.

In case I am missing something, both objections apparently stem from the neo-Calvinist aversion to dualism. As one recent graduate of a neo-Calvinist college summarized the problem of dualism:

“Dualism” is an incredibly dirty word. Why? For two reasons: A) Dooyeweerd’s non-dualist and non-monistic, non-reductionistic philosophy of modal spheres, B) Kuyper’s insistence that all things be reclaimed under the Lordship of Christ, which means there is no such thing as a dualism between “sacred” and “secular.” All spheres of life should be reclaimed under the dominion of Jesus Christ.

I for one continue to be stupefied by the reflexive dismissal of dualism since distinctions between the physical and spiritual, secular and sacred, temporal and eternal appear everywhere in the Christian religion, not to mention the history of the West. Jesus himself seemed to justify some kind of differentiation between sacred and secular matters when he spoke about what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. He did not immediately qualify himself by saying “of course, everything belongs to God,” but let his assertion dangle. Neo-Calvinists, of course, won’t, suggesting an apparent discomfort with the very words of Christ.

Then there is the apostle Paul and that two-age construction which distinguishes between the eternal and the temporal (secular) so much so that he could say “to die is gain.” Paul also wrote: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:17-18 ESV) If Paul affirms dualism, it’s okay but if 2kers do then it’s bad? Or maybe neo-Calvinists don’t read Paul outside those cosmic “all things” passages.

And then there is the classic distinction between the earthly and the spiritual in the Belgic Confession:

Now those who are born again have two lives in them. The one is physical and temporal– they have it from the moment of their first birth, and it is common to all. The other is spiritual and heavenly, and is given them in their second birth; it comes through the Word of the gospel in the communion of the body of Christ; and this life is common to God’s elect only.

Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all as life itself also is. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten– that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith.

To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls. (Art. 35)

The distinction between things secular and sacred is everywhere in the history of the West, even if its usage does not always match. Augustine had his two cities, Gelasius his two swords, and Christendom its pope and emperor. Some kind of dualism is writ large in the Christian tradition. Neo-Calvinists may not like it but that’s too bad.

But what makes this suspicion of 2k all the more annoying is that the language employed to describe the neo-Calvinist idea of sphere sovereignty places church and state and family in separate realms with their own — get this — sovereignty. The two kingdoms can’t be distinct but need to bleed into each other lest dualism surface. But the spheres can be as distinct as Holland, Michigan and Pella, Iowa.

In the introduction to Kingdoms Apart, the book that will be the kinder, gentler version of John Frame’s Kuyper warrior-children manifesto, describes sphere sovereignty this way: “God has created distinct social, economic, cultural, and political spheres that have their own unique functions. . . (xxvi)” Then follows a quote that describes sphere sovereignty as “each sphere possess[ing] its own authority within itself.” Shazam! That’s a lot of distinct authority. The introduction goes on, “state, church, business, family, and academic institutions . . . ‘have the liberty to function on their own according to the divine ordinances God has established for each one.” (xxvi-xxvii) Because neo-Calvinists say that these sovereign, liberated, and autonomous spheres receive authority from God, I guess the distinctions are somehow permissible. But when have 2kers ever said that the temporal kingdom is independent from God? Straw man comes to mind. But divine sovereignty notwithstanding (never thought I’d write that) it is remarkable that sphere sovereigntists can divide the world up into such tidy spheres but won’t give 2kers the same freedom. And, by the way, the 2kers claims go much deeper than late nineteenth-century Netherlands.

What makes 2k superior to sphere sovereignty is that 2kers are really willing to live with distinctions. For sphere sovereigntists the distinctions are only skin deep. The spheres exists, but they are all under God, so religion needs to inform all the spheres thus raising important questions about which members of which spheres are introducing religion into a sphere since religion won’t do it by itself. Do I bring religion to bear on politics as an elder, husband, historian or citizen? In other words, does my functional identity change when I go from one sphere into another? It may, especially Scripture’s claims on me as citizen are thin compared to its teaching about overseeing the flock. But I don’t hear neo-Calvinists talking about these bugs in their system. Maybe it’s because they are too busy looking at the bugs in the paleo-Calvinist’s eye.

To illustrate how complicated religion’s relationship is to the various spheres, I appeal to a review I wrote for Ordained Servant:

Life in modern society is tough. In any given week, an average American may have to decide which is the best and prettiest paint for the exterior of his house, what are the best and most affordable tires to put on his car, whether to replace a deep filling with another filling or with a crown, whether to diversify the investments in his retirement portfolio, and which candidate from the Republican Party is the best to run against a Democratic incumbent in the upcoming presidential election. No single American has sufficient knowledge to make all of these decisions simply on the basis of his own learning and reading. In addition to confronting these dilemmas, this person likely has a full-time job that occupies much of his time, and a wife and children that take up most of his spare time—not to mention incredibly difficult choices about bad influences on his son at school, whether his daughter should play field hockey, and consulting with his wife about his mother-in-law’s declining health and the best arrangements for her well being. If he is a Christian with responsibilities at church, he may need to wade through files of applications for a pulpit search committee, or consult with architects and engineers about plans to expand the church’s parking lot.

Complicating further this average American’s decisions are the accompanying choices to be made over which advice to follow. For in addition to life’s complicated questions are a bevy of advisors, available on the radio and television, folks such as Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, and Dave Ramsey—people who seem to have a lot of insight into life’s difficulties. But which of these advisors to heed raises an additional layer of decisions.

Throw the Lordship of Christ and biblical interpretation into these various decisions and related evaluations and you have the potential for nervous breakdown (maybe that’s what happened to Abraham Kuyper). For negotiating the regular world — the temporal kingdom, that is — I’ll take 2k any day. Neo-Calvinism leaves me with sphere schizophrenia.

How Silly Do Protestants Sound When Pining for Christendom?

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

The cadences coming out of Moscow, Idaho (we will know that Doug Wilson is the victor when the city changes its name to Constantinople — it is available) invariably carry appreciation for Christendom. Peter Leithart has a biography of Constantine in which he defends a Christian empire and a Eusebian political theology. Doug Wilson himself has a series of posts under the tag Mere Christendom. And recently, Steven Wedgeworth reviewed John Frame’s book on the so-called Escondido Theology by also invoking Christendom.

In my estimation, this makes no sense and is borderline loopy. Christendom, as I understand it, was something that developed in the Middle Ages and is largely the intellectual property of Roman Catholics. You can follow Christopher Dawson on the decline of Christendom to find reasons other than the Reformation for Christendom’s decline. But Protestantism was not a welcome development for Christendom — duh. Here’s the take from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Such speculation is, however, as idle as it is fascinating, instead of the reform, of the renewal of the spiritual life of the Church round the old principles of Christian faith and unity, there came the Reformation, and Christian society was broken up beyond the hope of at least proximate reunion. But it was long before this fact was realized even by the Reformers and indeed it must have been more difficult for a subject of Henry VIII to convince himself that the Latin Church was really being torn asunder than for us to conceive the full meaning and all the consequences of a united Christendom. Much of the weakness of ordinary men in the earlier years of the Reformation, much of their attitude towards the papacy, can be explained by their blindness to what was happening. They thought, no doubt, that all would come right in the end. So dangerous is it, particularly in times of revolution, to trust to anything but principle.

The effect of the Reformation was to separate from the Church all the Scandinavian, most of the Teutonic, and a few of the Latin-speaking populations of Europe but the spirit of division once established worked further mischief, and the antagonism between Lutheran and Calvinist was almost as bitter as that between Catholic and Protestant. At the beginning, however, of the seventeenth century, Christendom was weary of religious war and persecution, and for a moment it almost seemed as if the breach were to be closed. The deaths of Philip II and Elizabeth, the conversion and the tolerant policy of Henry IV of France, the accession of the House of Stuart to the English throne, the pacification between and Spain and the Dutch, all these events pointed to the same direction. A like tendency is apparent in the theological speculation of the time: the learning and judgment of Hooker, the first beginning of the High Church movement, the spread of Arminianism in Holland, these were all signs that in the Protestant Churches, thought, study, and piety had begun to moderate the fires of controversy, while in the monumental works of Francisco Suárez and the other Spanish doctors, the Catholic theology seems to be resuming that stately, comprehensive view of its problems which is so impressive in the great Scholastics. It is not surprising that this moment, when the cause of reconciliation seemed in the ascendant, was marked by a scheme of Christian political union. Much importance was at one time attributed to the grand dessein of Henry IV. Recent historians are inclined to assign most of the design to Henry’s Protestant minister, Sully, the king’s share in the plan was probably but small. A coalition war against Austria was first to secure Europe against the domination of the Hapsburgs but an era of peace was to follow. The different Christian States, whether Catholic or Protestant were to preserve their independence, to practise toleration, to be united in a “Christian Republic” under the presidency of the pope, and to find an outlet for their energies in the recovery of the East. These dreams of Christian reunion soon melted away. Religious divisions were too deep-seated to permit the reconstruction of a Christian polity, and the cure for international ills has been sought in other directions. The international law of the seventeenth century jurists was based upon national law, not upon Christian fellowship, the balance of power of the eighteenth century on the elementary instinct of self-defence, and the nationalism of the nineteenth on racial or linguistic distinctions.

In other words, the genie is out of the bottle and blog posts, magazines, conferences, and colleges won’t put it back together, especially if you (as a Protestant) were one of the ones responsible for upending Christendom. But that won’t stop Wilson who recently showed the folly of his own defense of Christendom. The first came when he defended blasphemy laws:

In Scripture, blasphemy is railing, vituperative, incendiary, and inflammatory language. It it not mild disagreement — even if the disagreement is registered on a very important topic. In my book 5 Cities That Ruled the World, there is a sentence that noted at one point in his career Muhammad was a marauder and a pirate (which he was), and this sentiment was treated in Jakarta as if it were blasphemous, and the book was burned. But according to a biblical definition, it was not blasphemous at all.

Also in Scripture, blasphemy is defined by what is going on — the manner or content of speaking — and not defined by whether or not it is directed against divine things. For example, blasphemy is the word that is used for simple slander against others (Col. 3:8). In addition, it would be possible to blaspheme false gods, which Paul’s pagan friends in Ephesus were glad he had not done (Acts 19:37).

So in my ideal Christian republic, would it be legal for someone to say that he did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Of course. Would it be legal for a bunch of rowdies to parade outside a Muslim’s home, taunting him with insulting descriptions of Muhammad? Of course not. The reason is that the civil magistrate is charged with keeping the peace, and such fighting words are inconsistent with that. The gospel overthrew the worship of Diana in Ephesus, and not incendiary taunts. In my ideal Christian republic, slander would be against the law — and it would be against the law even if directed against pagans, heathens, antinomians, or congressmen.

But having said this, it is crucial to note again that the prohibition of fighting words is to be defined by the Bible, and not by the hypers. Christians ought to have complete freedom to hand out Christian literature, even if they live in Dearborn. Cartoonists should have the freedom to draw pictures of Muhammad. Robust debate, satire, give and take, parry and thrust . . . all good.

So what we have is an an Americanized Third Commandment. It is, somehow, an affirmation of God’s law and a celebration of freedom of speech. I don’t know about Wilson’s interpretation of biblical teaching on blasphemy (the Baylys who generally approve of all things Moscow weren’t buying), but I have a pretty good idea that even mild denunciations of Yahweh in Israel could get you executed. So what Wilson does, in order to preserve Christendom, is define blasphemy down, which is similar to what the Protestant mainstream did in the United States in the era of the Social Gospel, namely, whittle Christianity down to morality and abandon doctrine. I am not saying that Wilson is abandoning doctrine (though his teaching on justification could be a lot better). I am saying that Wilson is doing something similar to what mainline Protestants did in order to preserve a Christian culture — make biblical norms fit a social agenda.

The second instance Wilson’s questionable invocation of Christendom came when he responded to Old Life about the comparison of the Religious Right to political Islam. His general point, that Christianity is true and Islam is false, works pretty well, though I’m not sure how the assertion of one’s faith as true over against other citizens who don’t believe your faith gets you a society with lots of protections for free speech and freedom of religion. Wilson seems to believe that Christian intolerance will yield civil liberties (and yet he seems to know where that position led in Europe when states balkanized according to their various Christian confessions and thus made Christendom impossible). And he ups the ante when he gets huffy about secular governments.

I know. Let’s worship the bitch goddess of neutrality. That fixes everything. I think.

Maybe his problem is thinking that we can “fix” anything this side of the new heavens and new earth. Two kingdom doesn’t pretend to solve anything. It does attempt to come to terms with a world where Christians live side by side with non-Christians. Mere Christendom won’t fix anything in this time between the comings of Christ. It either forces the removal of non-Christians (a la Christendom, which wasn’t all that great for Jews and Muslims, in case Doug didn’t notice) or it waters down Christianity for the sake of the political order. Two-kingdom theology differentiates the worlds of the church and politics so that the church can remain faithful and so that the state can provide some order for a people of diverse religions.

It sure seems that Wilson would be better off to own up to the end of Christendom and recalculate his cultural program along the biblical lines of pilgrimage and exile instead of trying to make this world and this age home to the eschaton.

What Makes the Religious Right Different from Political Islam?

Published on by D. G. Hart62 Comments

I (all about me) will be in Chattanooga this week to speak at the University of Tennessee in the LeRoy Martin Distinguished Lecturer Series. I will be drawing on recent reflections about Islam and Turkey to consider the assets and liabilities of Christian political engagement in the United States. Here is the description from the Philosophy and Religion Department, which is hosting the event:

D.G. Hart’s comparison of Political Islam to Christian activists in the United States is a provocative and even inflammatory juxtaposition. Aside from obvious and significant differences between political activism and the use of violence, conservative Muslims and evangelical Protestants do register significant objections to secular understandings of society and the state. They also seek to have secular governments recognize, if not implement, the morality taught in sacred texts. In sum, both groups are raising important questions about the secular politics and whether efforts to bracket religion actually end up imposing a secular version of morality on citizens. And yet, some political observers in the United States do not find the Religious Right to be as threatening as political Islam. On the other hand, other commentators see no difference because all politically motivated religious groups are at odds with the norms of liberal democracy. These considerations raise important questions about whether Christianity is more compatible than Islam with liberal democratic societies, and whether secular constructions of public life owe their existence the developments of Christianity in the West. D. G. Hart will explore these questions in the light of his recent book From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism (Eerdmans, 2011).

The event is scheduled for Thursday, September 27, 2012, Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 5:00 pm in the University Center’s Raccoon Mountain Room (269). The public is welcome. Rotten tomatoes are not.

Who's Afraid of the Means of Grace?

Published on by D. G. Hart108 Comments

Well, Dr. K. has done it. His interminable review of VanDrunen’s Natural Law and Two Kingdoms has terminated and is now available as a booklet, free to anyone who cares to download it (even if you don’t have a w-w). I have heard of review essays, not review books.

Of late the good doctor seems to be backing away from some of his fear mongering. He wants to promote a “reasoned” discussion of 2k. He even tries to credit 2kers with some positive contributions. The latter is evident in the following quotation from this book:

Numerous fears can lead us to a fear of engagement with today’s culture. Fear of worldliness, fear of losing our very souls, fear of accommodation, fear of losing our children. Our NL2K friends are rightly trying to warn us against triumphalism—thinking and acting as though we are bringing in the kingdom of God. They seek properly to warn us against biblicism—throwing Bible verses at people, at issues, at opponents without regard for careful interpretation and proper use of Scripture. They seek passionately to warn us against devaluing the institutional church—minimizing worship, denigrating the means of grace, and falling for the religious gimmickry used for marketing today’s religious associations that go by the name “church.”

But fear can never be the source of power. Only faith can provide power.

Here Dr. K. misidentifies the fear associated with 2k. The 2kers I know are not afraid of engaging the culture. We do so daily in the variety of callings God has granted. The fears that lurk around 2k are those of its critics who seem to be afraid that the kingdom will not come without the culture wars or the redemption of “all things.” Surely, neo-Calvinists of Dr. K.’s stripe would have us believe, Christians can do more to contend against the forces of evil than by simply going to church, worshiping God, attending the means of grace.

In point of fact, the gates of hell will not prevail against word, sacraments, prayer, discipline, and offerings. Saddam Husseins come and J. S. Bachs go. 2kers are confident (though doubts afflict us all) that God’s word will abide. It is 2k’s critics who can’t seem to fathom that God is prevailing even when his people do not appear to be, as if they have not read or reflected on that Word.

Keeping it Eschatologically Real

Published on by D. G. Hart256 Comments

Some time back I wondered about the lack of support for 2k among Vossians. Recently over at Reformed Forum Jared Oliphint seemed to give some eschatological encouragement to 2kers when he wondered about the possibility of redeeming the stuff of creation:

What about the rest of creation? Is it being redeemed? Did Christ accomplish redemption for the rest of creation when he died and was raised?

For those who believe that all of creation is currently being “redeemed” in the eschatological sense, there’s a very simple test to see whether that is in fact the case. As a friend of mine puts it, you are tasked to find a single atom, molecule, object, anything that has the permanence of the everlasting, eternal new heavens and new earth. Such a thing would be indestructible, and would most likely exhibit characteristics that literally indicate an other-world. That would be quite a find.

Or take the language we sometimes find within evangelical circles of “redeeming the city”, for example. Is this appropriate language given what we know of the biblical use of redemption? That depends. People are redeemed by the Holy Spirit regenerating their hearts, having faith in Christ, repenting of their sins, and receiving Christ and his saving and renovating benefits from his accomplished work in history. Christ did not directly accomplish redemption for buildings, neighborhoods, cities, towns, or any other particular group or entity whatsoever. Christ’s benefits do not apply to a local diner or run-down gym. They do not apply to capitalism, to philosophy, to Wal-Mart, to the Icelandic courts of law, or any other non-human not made in the image of God.

Oliphint backs away from some of the implications of this point, but his assertion is one that should prompt the critics of 2k (it is dispensationalist, it is Lutheran, it is defeatist, it doesn’t lead to rallies in the nation’s capital) to pause and reflect. The powers that redemption and its means opposes are not poor working conditions, undrinkable water, economic inequality, or unimaginative artworks. The powers of this age that Christ continues to subdue are those of Satan and his kingdom.

Luther himself deflates any hope for transformationalism in a sermon from 1544:

For [the devil] seeks at all times to take possession of the Kingdom of God and to become lord of Christendom. He will to be seated and to rule, in the pure and holy Temple of God.

What, then, shall we do to him? This we, and especially those who preach the Word of God, should joyfully consider, that we must hope for no peace here, but should recollect that we are Christ’s warriors, in the field, always equipped and ready, for when one war ends another immediately begins.

For we are called by christ and already enroldled (in Baptism) in the army which shall fight under Christ against the devil. For He is the God who is a Prince of war and a true Duke who leads His regiment in battle, not in heaven above among the holy spirits where there is no need of battle, but here on earth in His Church. Yes (even though He is seated at the right hand of the Father) He is Himself with His warriors leading them against the enemy, whom no human power and weapons can withstand, resisting and restraining him with His Word, which He has given to His men.

If culture warriors (i.e., neo-Calvinists, theonomists, and social conservatives) think that reforming society or teaching a biblical w-w of botany are a part of the kingdom coming, then they have forgotten how powerful the enemy is that they battle and they have lost sight of who is responsible for winning the battle.