You really need to watch this.
Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane
Bret,
Rev. McAtee?
That video is fascinating & not terribly surprising. I think even Saturday Night Live got that one right.
I thought you might be interested in the as yet on-going discussion I’ve been having with Dr. Hart, and also, Zrim since you dropped out:
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/why-is-john-calvin-still-important/#comment-54797
It is a lot of reading to catch up on, but any thoughts you might have would be appreciated.
Kyle,
Call me Bret.
I have been keeping up with that thread.
My opinions are
1.) Predominant ideologies (Marxism, Two Kingdomism, Feminism, etc.) do functionally operate as Religions and should be consider as such.
2.) I never ever let people like Hart and Zrim get away with using the word “secular” without nailing them on the presupposition of neutrality that usually lies behind that usage.
3.) Schools are Churches in our pagan culture. Schools serve as the cult to our culture. The culture that grows out of the cult (school) remains religious but it is not “the religion” per se.
4.) When children are in schools 7 hours a day and then in extracurricular activities beyond that in the context of the school life, school has become the family and is doing the work of the family. The real actual family becomes a mere addendum to the school. Don’t let Zrim get away with his ongoing nonsense about the school being intellectual and not affective while the home is affective. If the school was not affective the liberal ideologues (modern day theologians) wouldn’t be trying to take it over. This point that Zrim keeps pushing may be the goofiest of them all.
5.) Hart couldn’t get away with his sarcasm on any forum except one that protects him. That’s why I left.
6.) Vandermolen’s nailing Hart on thinking people can be religious without systems being religious was classic.
7.) Hart keeps saying that Judges in a pagan culture can still judge. He needs to be asked … “By what standard?” His answer will be “Natural Law,” which begs a whole lot of questions.
9.) I think you’ve clearly held your own. There are a few things in your arguments I would tweak but overall I think you’ve acquitted yourself well. And, I agree with your observation that the Church goes wrong when it thinks that transformation can be achieved apart from a clear and continuous presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Yeah, Vandermolen and Kyle really got me on my duty to pay taxes that support the state schools. Man, why didn’t I think of that. I can rail against state schools and think that I am free of any whiff of neutrality or the secular, even if I also submit to the magistrate who is the bishop of those defacto state churches. If only I had realized how to package the 2k virus, and the anti-state school, pro-secular state vitamin.
Darryl,
First, there is no such thing as secular, if by secular, you mean a view that isn’t driven by faith assumptions.
Second, the reason that we can rail against state schools while paying taxes is that there is a time and a season to everything under the sun, and the time for civil disobedience may come when God is pleased to raise up lesser magistrates to oppose state schools. Until then we bear God’s just judgments.(Living in a Manse, I am blessed not to have to pay taxes that support the State Church.)
As to help with the inherent contradictions in your system … well, I can only point them out. I am unable to help you package, market, and cram down everybody’s throat your defective product.
Regarding taxation, I think the accountability in this case rests with the magistrate. They apportion the funds. I cannot direct where my tax money goes and taxes are not exactly voluntary today. This is an area where we render to Caesar, yet Caesar is accountable to God for use of the money. And we should be indignant because our firstfruits are confiscated and used to support the cult of the state.
So isn’t a stop sign driven by the faith assumptions of a god-denying regime that also mandates public schools and that requires your church members to pay property taxes that support those wicked school teachers? Please don’t tell me that you don’t stop at traffic signals.
Darryl,
You keep objecting with the same objections, and I keep answering your objections with the same answers.
No worldview is perfectly God hating. Every worldview uses Christian capital to get their god-denying worldview off the ground. When living in a Christ hating culture that embraces a god denying world view Christians can still stop at stop signs because such signs are indicative of the Christian capital that has been stolen in order to prop up the god denying worldview.
I’m surprised such a expert on Van Til as yourself wouldn’t understand this.
As far as stopping at stop signs … well, yeah, I’m pretty conformist when it comes to that.
Thanks for asking,
Bret
It can be argued that general traffic laws are legitimate concerns of civil government and do not usurp roles of family or church.
Obedience to the magistrate (Romans 13) is NOT necessarily tantamount to acceptance/promotion of a secular political sphere.
Bret,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your #3 in particular is a good point.
Dr. Hart,
I think I already adequately defended the reasons for paying taxes. These are things rendered to Caeser. Joshua above is right to point out that Caesar bears the responsibility for how the taxes are used. Otherwise Paul was guilty of participating in Roman state idolatry by paying his taxes.
Hart asks, “Man, why didn’t I think of that.”
It’s because you’re not smart enough.
Bret, if borrowed Christian capital applies to stop signs, why not to pubilc schools?
Darryl,
Because some dynamics in a Christ hating worldview are CHRIST HATING.
Go figure.
Stop signs fall under “Thou Shalt Not Murder.”
Tell me Darryl, where do you put humanist education pursued in direct opposition to a Christian worldview that presuppose the sovereignty of God in every discipline?
The analogy doesn’t work. Nobody, yet, is forcing Christians to send their children to heresy breathing dens of iniquity where children are taught that planned parenthood is a good thing. No, Christians are voluntarily giving their children to Molech.
The magistrate is forcing us to pay taxes and to date we must bear God’s punishment until He raises a lesser magistrate to speak, just as he did in the 1st and 2nd wars of American Independence.
Has anyone yet asked the pointed question of why there is such a desire to promote acceptance for sending children to public school? The only reasons I’ve ever heard either don’t consider Scripture, or try to deny what is easily inferred from it:
1) It saves money to send children to public school
2) I already have my kids in public school and wish to justify my decision
3) My friends have their kids in public school and I wish to justify their decision
4) My parishoners have their kids in school and I’m not willing to upset them by saying it is wrong to do as they are doing
5) Public school is a great opportunity for kids to learn to evangelize
6) The Bible doesn’t speak about how education should proceed, so I am free to do as I please with my child’s education
Are there others?
So is Darryl trying to get you to admit that because you don’t advocate sending children to the government schools you love anarchy??? Good grief.
The salt and light argument is one that I always hear – and it comes in many forms
1. If all the Christians pull out then they will get REALLY bad
2. We don’t want to create holy huddles
3. You are sheltering your children
4. They won’t learn how to interact with people
5. Your children have the burden to spread the gospel to the pagans
1.) Are Christians doing anything to mollify the wickedness of these schools?
2.) Actually, I do want my children growing up in Holy huddles.
3.) I also feed and clothe my children.
4.) What, are their parents and siblings not people?
5.) Absolutely! But I’d like them to learn the Gospel from me before they attempt to share the Gospel with those who want to destroy their faith.
Actually, the easiest response to the “salt and light” argument is to suggest that your interlocutors send their children to someplace like Zimbabwe to be missionaries. I mean, after all, if your children are to be missionaries to a bunch of pagans without their parents in the government schools at 5 – 11 years of age why not send them to Zimbabwe to do the same thing?
Mr. Butcher,
Another is: “Some parents lack the capacity to teach their children adequately.”
Kyle,
I’ve met a great number of parents. I’ve yet to meet one who did not have the capacity to teach their children adequately. Now, I know that is completely anecdotal, but I suspect that the number of adults who have children who are not adequate to educate them in the basics is quite miniscule.
“3. You are sheltering your children”
I always get a kick out of that one. I always respond “What next, are you going to accuse me of feeding and clothing them”.
Its always nice to visit this blog and be reminded that there are still some sane people left in the church.
Scott,
Two things we have in abundance here.
1.) Sanity
2.) Accusations that we are insane
But Heldveld, God doesn’t have anything to do with History (See Gordon Clark’s, “Historiography, Secular or Sacred) or Mathematics (See James Nickel’s, “Mathematics: Is God Silent”) or Economics (see any number of Gary North books) or Education (see Berkhof’s and Van Til’s Foundations of Christian Education) or Law (see Harold Bermans books or John Witte’s books) or Sociology (see Os Guiness’s books on the Subject or David Wells) or Philosophy (see Van Til or Gordon Clark’s works).
No, Heldveld, all of these are neutral areas where believers and unbelievers can look to natural law and figure out together, (quite in defiance of the idea of the antithesis) what God’s truth is.
Keep up will you … there are two hermetically sealed kingdoms after all and you really musn’t confuse them by thinking that your children will be harmed by being trained by the pagans.
Pastor Bret, I’d put a humanist education in opposition to a Christian worldview right where Calvin did — in a in a state school. You see, Calvin favored state schools — it wasn’t called the Geneva Academy for nothing. And Calvin recommended for the state school curriculum not simply secular humanists but even pagan humanists — that would be Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca.
Man, was Calvin nuts or what?
Dr. Hart,
Well, even Calvin was wrong occasionally. He did believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary as well after all.
But what Calvin did in terms of state schools proves my point and not yours. And that point is, is that schools are hopelessly religious and will always teach from a particular religious worldview, thus inculcating children in a specific faith.
I think you just shot yourself in the foot. Does it hurt?
And you’ll be glad to know that I likewise have my students read the pagan humanists as well. After all, if we are to interpret them through a biblical grid we must read them to see where they brought in christian capital and where they’ve brought in anti-christ presuppositions.
I always get a kick out of that one. I always respond “What next, are you going to accuse me of feeding and clothing them”.
That one made my day. Laughed right out loud I did.
“Man, was Calvin nuts or what? “
What do you think kids read in homeschools? Obviously just the Bible and Elsie Dinsmore. Anything else would be so utterly shocking that participants in extra reading should be labeled “nuts.” Which is obviously what Bret and his readers think of the world beyond the Bible and Elsie Dinsmore. It’s so obvious.
Bret, I missed. One of the advantages of living in two kindgoms is that I can never hit myself as a target — first I’m there and then I’m not there. I suspect your aim is equally bad.
Anyway, Calvin didn’t have students read the ancients to see if they could pin the Christian tail on the pagan donkey — they read the ancients for wisdom and eloquence. He actually thought Christians could learn from them. Imagine that, non-Christians getting somethings right without the upgrade of regeneration.
Yes, the multiple personality dynamic of Two Kingdomism does indeed give you a leg up Darryl.
(Is it Darryl I’m speaking to now, or is it Darren?)
I quite agree that the ancients could be wise and eloquent. Shoot Darryl / Darren, I think you can be wise and eloquent at times. Further, I likewise have read you and learned from you … how much more should we therefore believe that we should be able to read and learn from the pagans?
All playful kidding aside, though, I quite agree that the sons of darkness can be wiser than the sons of light at times and as such an even wiser person can glean a great deal from them when he reads them. It simply is the case after all, that wherever the pagans get things correct in their writing, it is a consequent of their embrace of stolen Christian capital — stolen Christian capital that the wise Christian then steal back from them.
By the way … it sure sounded like you were mocking the great advantages of regeneration in ones thought life. Am I to understand that you deny the noetic effects of sin? What are we to do with the scripture that teaches that the carnal mind is hostile to God?
Finally, it is clearly the case that Calvin did read the ancients critically. The reason he could do so is that he had a standard by which he could critique the pagans he read. Developing this standard in my students is what I am after.
You know, I finally realized that given your theology you would have to deny that there is such a thing as a Christian mind, except for how that mind works in the context of Church life. Ever read any of Harry Blamires stuff?
Bret
Does Dr. Hart wish for us to strain at gnats and swallow camels?
Calvin used the ancients, and recommended them in state-run schools. Ergo, Calvin was two-kingdom and winsomely submissive to human wisdom. The generation of this conclusion follows as logically as flies generating from rotten meat.
Was it not the same Calvin who rejected Platonic, Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian wisdom (not to mention Ciceronian eloquence) in favor of the humbler example of Pauline plainness of speech and rigorously faithful (to the Scriptures) thought?
But of course, since Paul quoted Stoic philosophers we ought to have our kids follow the prophet of modern education, John Dewey. Our goal is simply to save people’s souls, why worry about their minds? I think I hear Schleiermacher’s voice singing romantic ballads in the background.
One wonders where the application of logic fits in with all these suppressed premises. Perhaps Dr. Hart has been reading too much Gorgias and Lysias? Or perhaps pouring over Protagoras and Demosthenes? Perhaps a dose of Socratic midwifery would warmly expose the mangled mess breaching from his brain?
I always though Schleiermacher was a Heavy Metal kind of guy.
Really? I would have pegged him as a soft rock fan, maybe even R&B.
“Imagine that, non-Christians getting somethings right without the upgrade of regeneration.”
Dr. Hart,
I would like to know how we are to determine what is right or wrong in any case (whether proposed by Christian or non-Christian).
Do you suppose that Calvin thought well of Aristotle’s logic or Cicero’s principles of rhetoric because of their authority, because of scientific observation, or because he compared it to the Word of God?
A few Church fathers recommended plundering the Ancients as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians in their Exodus. However, Augustine was more perceptive when he discerned that the Ancient plundered God’s Truth and that the Teacher of all men was Christ alone (cf. De Magistro).
If we believe Paul when he says that the unregenerate mind is hostile to God, how could we ever expect the truth the rely upon for their intellectual conclusions to be acknowledged as such? Indeed, how are the regenerate to discern truth from error without a standard by which to evaluate what is being expressed?
It is as though you forget that Hegel, Nietzsche, and Dewey all read the Ancients as much if not more than the Reformers. Why were their conclusions so vastly different, and what was it that led Calvin to corral the Ancients into conformity within his own view (as everyone necessarily must, in one way or another)?
Bret: if I have a regenerate mind, and you have a regenerate mind, why am I wrong?
Darryl,
Surely, you agree that not all Christians obtain the same sanctification level in their thinking in every subject.
In the end the reason you’re wrong is the same reason why Lloyd Jones was wrong on the doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit even though he had a regenerate mind.
Darryl, there really is no reason to continue this. You keep coming up with silly objections while continuing to ignore the mighty objections that I and others have offered. As such, until you answer some of these I see no need to post your further comments.
Besides, I’m doing you a favor in this. I’ve already received one offline e-mail from a reader promising he’ll never buy another of your books due to what he perceives as your obtuseness.
Mind hiring me as your book agent?
Josh B.: the point wasn’t that Calvin is 2k or that he agrees with me. He wouldn’t agree with you or pastor Bret either. The point though has to do with the relationship between Christ and culture in the inter-advental era. Bret thinks my view is a betrayal of Calvin. I think I actually am indebted to Calvin on some things, especially on the wisdom of the ancients and the nature of regeneration on the intellect. I also think Calvin has a spiritual view of Christian’s kingdom which is different from endorsing a state church.
Wow, my first visit to this post.
I haven’t heard this addressed by 2kers yet. In Ps 78:1-7 we are told to teach our children the praises of YHWH, YHWH’s might & strength, and YHWH’s wonderful works (His creation of all things and the subsequent redemptive history thereof)Ps 78:4. In Psalm 78:5 we are commanded to teach our children YHWH’s law.
We are told in verse 7 that we should do these things so “That they should put their confidence in God And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments”
Not only that but verses 2-3 tell us that this is nothing new but these are “sayings of old”. God expects us to know these things. It is nothing new.
Now given YHWH’s (YHWH: Our God who makes and keeps promises) promise in Pr 22:6 that what we teach our children they will follow, why would we want to send our children to a public school to be taught that God is not to be praised, that He created nothing (and by implication that He is sovereign over nothing), and also His law(word) is relevant to nothing. Given God’s promises why would we do that to our children?
I haven’t heard this justified by the 2kers at all. YHWH keeps His promises. Only through His mercies could we expect to disobediently educate our children like that and have them walk with Him with all of their heart.
This doesn’t even touch on Deut 6 and the commands there of what is to be in front of our children.
Given Dr Hart’s hatred of a Kuyperian worldview I have to think that this might have infiltrated his writings and should I spend my money on his excellent writings considering his obvious prejudice in his thinking
Also Dr Hart posted elsewhere that he hadn’t seen an Emily Post blog posting guide. What ever happened to Christian charity from the Scriptures?
Darryl,
Actually my point isn’t that you are being unfaithful to Calvin but rather that you are being unfaithful to Christ.
Though, I fully concede you have the best of intentions.
Wow, Jerry, your post on this was very encouraging… thank you brother.
“Josh B.: the point wasn’t that Calvin is 2k or that he agrees with me. He wouldn’t agree with you or pastor Bret either. The point though has to do with the relationship between Christ and culture in the inter-advental era. Bret thinks my view is a betrayal of Calvin. I think I actually am indebted to Calvin on some things, especially on the wisdom of the ancients and the nature of regeneration on the intellect. I also think Calvin has a spiritual view of Christian’s kingdom which is different from endorsing a state church.”
Dr. Hart,
Arguing that the State should be beholden to the moral law is not identical to endorsing a State church. The Law of God governs Church and State, but the Church as an organization does not govern the State, nor does the State govern the Church. Yet both are subjects of the Lord and King Jesus Christ, and to His Word of Law.
How you can surmise that the principles of the Law find no application, indeed no regulative authority over the State sphere seems in direct conflict with Romans 13 and numerous Old Testament passages where God is explicitly said to govern the nations and its leaders according to His good pleasure. And by what else could He hold them accountable to in His governance than His own revealed Law?
I’m not sure what your view on the regeneration of the intellect is, but as for the wisdom of the ancients, one may rightfully appreciate their eloquence and erudition in various fields of study, but one needs only to examine their political writings to see how totalitarian their ideas become. Plato and Aristotle both argued for an elite ruling class, and Cicero believed that the power to persuade gave men the right to willfully lie in order to reach their desired end (assuming they were men of a rather loosely defined integrity).
It seems that so many Christians fear to repeat the historical errors of Rome, but have they really taken the time to consider the alternative? The principles of our country began in the Purtian desire to govern by the Law of God, and were adulterated by the framers of the Constitution, though not so much as to have destroyed what the Puritans had been building.