R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

From the Mailbag: R2K & The ICE Protests

Dear Pastor;

What would R2K think of the protesters interrupting the Minnesota church service?

I know liberals always love the separation of church and state and even though they take it out of context, but here they seemed to meld the two.

John from Canada

Bret responds,

Hello John,

Good to hear from you. You’re one of those chaps who refresh me given how much we share in our mutual faith and worldview.

A couple options here;

They might say that Christians, as private citizens, might well do that as protesters who are Christian organized a political club opposed to ICE, while those members claim that is what Jesus would want of them.

R2K advocates have said in the past that Christians as private citizens are welcome to join Christian organizations that take up this or that cause. R2K just doesn’t want to be put in the position of having to speak on the issue of protests one way or the other. R2K might well say, “that is the common realm and what happens in the common realm is not related to the lane (grace realm) that we are obliged by God to not abandon.”

So, theoretically, in this scenario, Presbyterian Church “A” has some members (B) that belong to a political organization in favor of protesting ICE while at the same time having members (C) that belong to a political organization that protest those protesting ICE. These Christians will have no problem worshiping together in Presbyterian Church “A” because the pulpit will remain silent on the subject. Christians in groups “B” and “C” will find themselves, for example, taking communion together in the same service even though on Monday they may be in each other’s face in terms of protests.

The point is that it is possible that a R2K church and clergy would silent on the whole thing

John presses the question and asks;

But if we looked Michael Horton in the eye or that poor Pastor in Minnesota asked, hey Mike, would you be on my side that they did a terrible wrong here? What would Michael Horton say?

Bret responds;

This is the other possible option as to what R2K would say in this situation.

It might be the case that Mike Horton (or any R2K clergy advocate) would say that this would be an instance where the protesters are coming in to the grace realm (the Church’s worship service) from the common realm and as such the protesters (Christian or not) are confusing the two realms (grace and common) and so shouldn’t be there. If that is the way that R2K would consider the matter then a R2K clergy may well speak from the pulpit against the vagrancy.

However, I am fairly certain that R2K fanboys would not say the same thing if the protesters descended on a private business the way they did that church. If the protesters were descending on private property that are not churches then I can see R2K thinking … “That protesting is taking place in the common realm and therefore I will not speak to it from the pulpit,”or, “as a Pastor. I am obliged, in order to honor God, to remain silent on the subject. The two-Kingdom theology demands my silence.”

Vos On The Implications Of The Image Of God In Man

“The man bears God’s image means much more than that he is a spirit and possesses understanding, will, etc. It means above all that he is disposed for communion with God, that all the capacities of his soul can act in a way that corresponds to their destiny only if they rest in God. This is the nature of man. That is to say, there is no sphere of life that lies outside their relationship with God and in which religion would not be the ruling principle. According to the Roman Catholic conception, there is a natural man who functions in the world, and that natural man adopts a religion that takes place beyond his nature. According to our conception, our entire nature should not be free from God at any point; the nature of man must be worship from beginning to end. According to the deeper Protestant conception, the image does not exist only in correspondence with God but in being disposed toward God. God’s nature is, as it were, the stamp; our nature is the impression made by this stamp. Both fit together.

Geerhardus Vos
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. II – pg. 13-14

1.) This quote proves that Vos would have abominated R2K with its teaching that there are spheres of life that lie outside the Christian’s relationship with God and in which the Christian religion is not to be the ruling principle.

2.) This quote also attacks the Thomistic Roman Catholic paradigm of Natural law. When Vos offers;

According to the Roman Catholic conception, there is a natural man who functions in the world, and that natural man adopts a religion that takes place beyond his nature. According to our conception, our entire nature should not be free from God at any point; the nature of man must be worship from beginning to end. According to the deeper Protestant conception, the image does not exist only in correspondence with God but in being disposed toward God.

Vos is telling us that one can’t excise the natural man in order to place him in a natural law realm that isn’t conditioned by religion. Religion does not take place beyond man’s nature. Thomists (Roman Catholic and “Reformed”) are the ones who will advocate that the image of God in man only exists in correspondence with God. The Reformed always taught this was not the case but rather that the image of God in man was found in man being disposed toward God, when not in rebellion against God.

3.) Natural Law advocates work assiduously to make sure that religion is not the ruling principle in every area of life. Whether it is the stout Natural Law types like R2K, or whether it is the Amber Ale Natural Law types, both try to place some kind of buffer zone between religion and every area of life to the end of muting the impact of religion.

Historic Usage Of Doctrine Of “Spirituality of the Church” In USA

I am currently reading Daniel G. Hummel’s, “The Rise And Fall Of Dispensationalism; How The Evangelical Battle Over The End Times Shaped A Nation.”

I’m learning that the “Spirituality of the Church” (a doctrine repeatedly appealed to by R2K) was pursued by men like Rev. James H. Brooks, Rev. J. H. Thornwell and others as a means to avoid having to answer the political question of slavery that was dividing the nation. Thornwell, originally did not want to secede, and as such, he appealed to the “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine in order to teach that the Church did not have to take a position on the matter. Brooks did much the same. Thornwell, eventually, made known his opposition to freeing slaves, after secession became a fait accompli designating slavery as key to maintaining social order. (See his, “To All The Churches Of Christ.”) However, before secession actually occurred Thornwell tried to evade the secession he opposed by saying that the Church did not need to speak on it given the doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church.

Brooks, though privately opposed to slavery, carried out his allegiance to the “Spirituality of the Church,” by refusing to pray for the success of the Union Armies while in the pulpit serving his St. Louis Presbyterian church. For this omission Brookes was eventually tossed from his pulpit though a split occurred that resulted in Brooks taking the new congregation who was good with his doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” and his refusal to pray for the success of the Union Armies.

The thing to note here is that this “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine while insisting that it wants to avoid politics, embraces politics firmly. Not taking a position on a moral issue that the Scripture speaks to is taking a position against the Scripture.

The putative doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” was and is not so much a doctrine as it is a tactic in order to evade controversy where controversy is inescapable. If God’s word speaks to all of life then the church is not an institution that can evade the pressing issues of the time like slavery (which Scripture clearly regulates and so allows), political plans that promote socialism as seen in confiscatory taxation (which per the 8th commandment is theft), legislation that works to the end of weakening the family, etc.

In the end the appeal to the doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” as defined so to rule out the Church speaking from the pulpit where God has clearly spoken is a doctrine for cowards who do not want to deny themselves and take up the Cross. I have heard of accounts in NAPARC Presbyteries of a refusal to condemn an prospective ordinates’ clearly articulated socialism because “God’s word doesn’t speak to socialism.” This is all about the “Spirituality of the Church.”

Which Came First; The Way R2K “Reformed” Chaps “Reason” Or The Way Baptists Reason?

“Is it true that there is “no neutrality” in the cosmos? Here are several thoughts on the “Christ vs. Chaos” mindset:

1. Yes, Christ is Lord. Amen!

2. Yes, all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship.

3. At the level of the human person, we really are in either Christ or chaos, then.

4. But this does not follow for institutions and nations and stores and the public square. These entities are nowhere Christianized in the New Testament.

5. Jesus does not teach that Caesar is “neutral,” exactly, but Jesus does teach us to render to Caesar what is due Caesar (Matthew 22:21).

6. So too does Peter tell us to honor the emperor (1 Peter 2) in an era when the emperor was decidedly not Christian.

7. All this means that while the public square isn’t “neutral,” it’s also not savable like the human person is.

8. Nowhere in the NT do governments or stores or schools get saved.

9. We believers seek to influence the public square and the cultural order in a serious way; that’s what being “salt and light” means (Matthew 5:13-14).”

Owen Strachan
Provost – Grace Bible Theological Seminary (Baptist)

Bret Responds;

1.) For Owen, Christ is Lord except when Christ isn’t Lord. Christ is Lord over the individual but Christ can’t be Lord in any kind of Institution among men where the men in that Institution resolve together to operate that Institution as Christian Men.

2.) For Owen all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship until they start to work together in some kind of corporate endeavor. Once you put more than one person together with another person to sell widgets or Lemonade then the requirement to submit to Christ’s Lordship ends.

3.) Agreed, as far as Owen goes here.

4.) First here, note that Owen restricts his Bible to the NT. Quite to the contrary of Owen we note that the Scriptures are comprised of both the OT and NT.

Second, if “institutions and nations and stores and the public square” are not to be Christianized then what is left? Does Owen realize that Mooselimbs, Bagels, and Hindus are not going to reason that “institutions, and nations, and stores and the public square” are not to be Islamicized, Judaized, or Hinduized. So, Owen, like R2K, would argue for a religiously naked public square but will provide no answer to the conundrum that Mooselimbs, and Bagels, and Hindus, and Atheists will pursue with definite conviction a public square, a nation, and Institutions that are beholden to their demon gods?

Frankly, as I have said repeatedly in connection with R2K this kind of reasoning is not just off, it is monumentally stupid and worse yet it is dangerous because if pursued by all Christians as living in a multicultural setting it means the success of Mooselimbs, Bagels, Hindus, etc. to roll Christ off the throne in the public square. It means the persecution of the Christian faith. It means Dhimmitude status.

Look, the hour is late and we no longer can just smile and shake our heads at these R2K/Lutheran/Baptist idiots. Their theology is a theology of absolute abject surrender. It is a theology that is embraced by people who hate their children, hate their neighbors, and worse of all hate their God.

5.) It is true that Jesus said to render unto God the things that are God’s and to render unto Caesar the things are Caesar’s. This, by necessity, means that we, as Christians, must render Caesar and all he claims to God since Caesar is a thing that belongs to God. If Caesar can find anything that is uniquely is and not God’s and I will be sure to render that thing unto Caesar.

6.) It is true, that we are to honor the King. However, that honor due to the King does not exceed our responsibility to honor the King of Kings and so if it is the case that the Emperor becomes in his duties an “Anti-Emperor” then Christians are duty bound to honor the office of Emperor by throwing him out on his keister.

7.) If the public square is not neutral then the public square must be rendered unto Christ as King since the public square belongs to Him. We are sinning if, as Christians, we do not render the public square unto Christ. If Christian men and women render the public square unto Christ, I’ll be glad to let Christ worry about whether or not the public square is salvable.

8.) Christianity has such an effect that when it is introduced into the bloodstream of a nation, public square, or Institution it completely turns that nation, public square, and Institution on its head. See the account in Ephesus recorded in Acts 19:23f. There we see a city fighting against being saved.

9.) It seems that Owen desires Christians to salt and influence the public square much like the seasoning oregano season a tomato dish. Owen can’t envision where the salting and influencing rises to the point to be the dish served and not merely the seasoning.

I suspect that, like R2K, Owen is not postmillennial and so is retrofitting his theology to fit his a-priori eschatology.

Rev. Chris Gordon Advises Christians That The Public Square Does Not Belong To Christ

“Your premise here is that the public square is ours to take back. Prove that. I don’t see how the public square is ours to take back for our purposes in light of Belgic 13 (on God’s Providence).”

Rev. Chris Gordon
Interview w/ Wilson & Gordon
48:00f time stamp

1.) So Gordon’s premise here is that the public square belongs to another god and the people of another god and so God’s people shouldn’t be concerned since the public square does not belong to Christ?

2.) Gordon’s required proof is found in Psalm 2.

3.) Belgic 13 is on God’s providence and really has absolutely zero to do with whether we should or should not take back the public square. Whether or not Christians should or should not take the back the public square is answered by the fact that the public square is Christ’s public square.

4.) Keep in mind that Gordon’s counsel here is counsel of surrender to the false gods who will arrange the public square in their image if Christ is not publicly acknowledged once again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.