“This is the difference between theonomy and Christian orthodoxy, one of continuity and discontinuity between the OT and the NT. For a good statement of the discontinuity I suggest you read WCF ch. 7. God’s people no longer have a state.”
The first sentence is so correct that some (not originating with me) have referred to Hart’s form of Reformed thinking as “Reformed Dispensationalism.” The discontinuities in the R2Kt school seem to be every bit the equal of the discontinuities you find in Dispensationalism.
The second statement is of course nonsense. WCF ch. 7 does not say of what Hart thinks it says. In order to find Hart’s conclusions of WCF ch. 7 you must begin with Hart’s presuppositions for the text itself gives him no support. This statement by Hart also reveals his inability to understand that every nation is a theocracy of one type or another. If justified, regenerated people who are being transformed by the renewing of their minds gather together to live in community what they will produce, by God’s grace, under the Spirit’s illumination, as guided by the Scriptures is a Christian nation. This is no different then saying, on a smaller scale, that if a justified, regenerated people who are being transformed by the renewing of their minds are gathered together by God to live under one roof what they will produce, by God’s grace, under the Spirit’s illumination, as guided by the Scriptures is a Christian family. If Christian families can exist then so can Christian nations.
It is only Hart’s presuppositions that force him to say that the common realm is neutral and so cannot be Christian. The reality of like minded people of the undoubted catholic Christian faith gathering and organizing together to build a Sate and live in concert with God’s Word suggest that the common realm is not neutral. Certainly the reality of this simple idea can be seen in differences in common realms as built by Muslims, Hindus, Secular Humanists as compared to those built by Christians.
“The only Christian state in the history of the world was Israel. When Christ rose from the dead, that state ended and transferred her rule to the church, an institution that knows no national boundaries or governmental regulations. The church is a spiritual institution with spiritual weapons for enforcing her standards and prosecuting her mission. I know some don’t like that loss of outward glory. The Corinthians were among the first. But since we are called to be content, being content with the church’s means is what we should do.”
First, note is admitting that the Old Covenant had a greater outward glory then the new and better covenant brought in by the Lord Jesus. This constant denigrating of the quality of the new covenant is passing strange in light of the reality that it is described in scripture as a new and better covenant. (See a previous post that examines how public square ethics in the new and better covenant are of an inferior nature to the public square ethics in the old and worst covenant according to R2Kt thinking.)
The next problem is how Hart uses the word “spiritual.” For Hart the Church is superior because it is spiritual while the realm of nature (common realm) is inferior (yucky) because it is not spiritual. This sure sounds gnostic to me.
Third the state did not end with the resurrection of Christ. Where is the scripture that would ever suggest such a thing? Israel, as God’s people had a Church and State (among other institutions). When Christ died He insured that His redeemed Churched people would organize redeemed cultures, part of which is laboring to build states that are infused with the spirit of redemption precisely because they are animated by a redeemed people. Hart, quite apart from any textual considerations, simply asserts that “the State ended.”
Fourth, no one disagrees with Hart when he says that the church is “an institution that knows no national boundaries or governmental regulations. The church is a spiritual institution with spiritual weapons for enforcing her standards and prosecuting her mission.” I would merely say that when by God’s grace a spiritual institution (Church) is successful at prosecuting her mission so that the elect are brought in by droves to King Jesus one result will be that the elect will want to build Christian culture which includes building Christian states. In other words the spiritual presence that empowers the Church for its mission when successful always incarnates itself into the corporeal world thus revealing that while the spiritual is always prior and primary the incarnation of the spiritual as seen in the corporeal cultural outworking remains God’s working and so is not “yucky.” Just as God gave dust the spiritual breath of life and so it lived, so when God makes a people spiritually alive in great enough numbers in any given culture so they live and that living is seen by their building of culture that is in obedience to King Jesus. Neither the dust or the culture is anything in itself until God breathes in in the breath of life and then it is to be prized as being touched by God.
Finally, nobody is arguing against being content with the means that the Church has been given for its spiritual work as Hart implies. Conversions do not happen by the sword.
“But you also seem to suggest that we should live quiet and peaceful lives only under Christian magistrates. Is that correct? But Paul and Timothy weren’t living under Christian magistrates. The rulers the Bible is concerned with raging against are the Christian ones, first in Israel, now in the church. So if you have a bad pastor, rage away. But a bad magistrate? Submit. Having to endure non-believing rulers reminds me of Gaffin’s great piece about theonomy, that it had no room for suffering because of its inherent theology of glory.”
Christians should live quiet and peaceful lives under magistrates of any faith as long as those magistrates don’t insist on them obeying man rather than God.
Second, Gaffin was quite wrong in his piece that Hart references. Theonomy has tons of room for suffering since those who desire the rule of God suffer, among other things, the calumnies of those like Gaffin and Hart. Further, they suffer physically with persecutions when they refuse to pinch incense and say “Caesar est Kurios.” To be quite honest I would say given our times it is only theonomist who suffer because it is only theonomists who are resisting wickedness in high places and so represent a threat to the anti-Christ authorities. The R2Kt crowd doesn’t worry about suffering because nobody has any reason to persecute them because they are not a threat to anybody. You want suffering? Come be a theonomist.
I am beginning to wonder, given Dr. Hart’s advice to submit, if he isn’t descended from a long line of Tories. King George III would have loved to have had him in a Presbyterian pulpit around 1775.
Bret, here’s that quote from Rushdoony that I mentioned to you. It sort of fits in with this post. Hart and his R2K buddies need to actually read theonomists instead of simply mischaracterizing their views:
“We must note that the modern mind sees “good” in all religions, supposedly, while denying them in favor of the autonomous mind of man. To deny Christianity and its exclusive truth, the modern mind professes to find truth in all religions. The Bible, however, has no such tolerance for a lie. The psalmist summed up the matter: “For all the gods of the nation are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.”
Without qualification, all other religions are condemned by the Bible. The modern mind, while fully religious, is not institutionally religious, and so it can offer contemptuous toleration to all religions. But the modern mind is politically religious; that is, it regards the political order as its ultimate and religious order, and this leads us to a second observation, namely, political intolerance is basic to the modern mind, and it denies the validity of every other order than its dream state, and of all law and order alien to its own whims and will, because it regards all these orders as fearful lies.
The Bible, on the other hand, extends a limited tolerance to other social orders. The only true order is founded on Biblical law. All law is religious in nature, and every non-Biblical-law order represents an anti-Christian religion. But the key to remedying the situation is not revolution, nor any kind of resistance that works to subvert law and order. The New Testament abounds in warnings against disobedience and in summons in peace. The key is regeneration, propagation of the gospel, and the conversion of men and nations to God’s law-word.
Meanwhile, the existing law-order must be respected, and neighboring law-orders must be respected as far as possible without offense to one’s own faith. The pagan law-order represents the faith and religion of the people; it is better than anarchy, and it does provide a God-given framework of existence under which God’s work can be furthered. The modern perspective leads to revolutionary intolerance: either a one-world order in terms of a dream, or ‘perpetual warfare for perpetual peace’.”
— Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 113-114
So that’s why we obey stop signs and don’t start riots outside our local public schools.
But that’s also why we don’t trust non-believers to come to an adequate, neutral compromise in the so-called secular sphere. To them, it’s not secular, even though they may talk like it is. Why should I act in church as if they are depraved but act in the public sphere as if they are enlightened?
Thanks Joshua,
That is very appropriate, especially given how Hart keeps asking how can you be consistent by advocating what you advocate while not seeking to overthrow this current social order.
I hope people will read the R.J.R. quote.
Bret
Good point. Sad that not many get it. Even more sad that many of those that actually do get it, are offended and disagree.
It blows me away when our R2Kt brethren constantly argue from silence that in the NT they don’t see Paul and the others inciting revolution, thereby mischaracterizing theonomy and at the same time completely missing the historical context that to confess “Jesus is LORD” was to risk the death penalty.
kazooless
Jeff,
Paul may not have incited Revolution but in Acts 19 we see that his teaching did lead to social and cultural unrest. This will always be true in a culture that is being overthrown by the Gospel.
Bret,
Amen! If turning the world upside down is called “transformationalism,” then I guess you can call me a “transformationalist.”
🙂
Praise Him,
kazoo