“Throughout the nineteenth century in the United States there was an unstable synthesis of intense private religion and a public order that officially recognized no god except the people…. Public life was left to the realm of nature, while grace was reserved for private life. This arrangement of private religion and public irreligion produced religious peace for the most part, while American society slowly became secularized….Nature was slowly devouring grace. In other words, the parts of life governed by autonomous human reason expanded, and the areas devoted to Jesus Christ contracted. Worst yet those parts of life left outside of Jesus Christ tended to become hostile to Him.
Dr. William Edgar — Reformed Theologian
God And Politics — pg. 187-188
Immediately we want to note that the one place we disagree with Dr. Edgar is his statement that “American society slowly became secularized. American society did not become slowly secularized. Instead American society became slowly de-Christianized in the direction of the religion of secular humanism.
With that caveat though this is an excellent quote since it so ably exposes the problem of Radical Two Kingdom virus theology. What the R2Kt virus does is to create realms of nature and realms of grace that men occupy. In the realms of nature belongs most of where we do our living. The realm of grace is occupied by the Church and our individual immortal souls. In the realm of nature truth comes through unaided reason as that unaided reason, starting from itself, reads natural law and implements upon the common realm the conclusions reached. The realm of nature is putatively a-religious and is a realm of neutrality where the regenerate and unregenerate can build a common culture.
The problem with this way of reasoning is that it can only work where a people have a shared worldview to begin with. It is the nadir of a disordered ratiocination to think you could slam people from a Hindu culture together with people from a Muslim culture and think that a functional culture could arise due to the variant peoples reaching the same conclusions in the common realm as instructed by Natural law.
And yet that is exactly what R2Kt virus theologians think can happen in our culture as they appeal to Biblical Christians and Secular Humanists to work out their common realm differences by an appeal to Natural law. All this can produce is either conflict in interpretations of Natural law or surrendering by Christians on Secular Humanist interpretations in order to accommodate the Secular Humanists so that they can live quiet and peaceful lives of capitulation to the crown rights of King Jesus.
What always happens in absolutist dualism approaches is that the dualism seeks to resolve the tension. What happened in our history is that we tried to follow the R2Kt paradigm, and as Edgar notes, it worked for awhile, but it only worked as long as it did because Americans shared a common heritage. That common heritage has dissipated as the secular humanism in control of the realm of nature, increasingly uninformed by an increasingly deteriorated public Christianity has expanded to create its own anti-Christian heritage, its own anti-Christian traditions and its own anti-Christian culture. The R2Kt paradigm that was employed by America with success in its early life no longer can provide peace because secular humanism has expanded at the expense of a now contracted Christianity.
Please note, it is not to the blame of the Christian community that this arrangement is ending, unless, of course, you blame wild game for resisting being torn alive by the resident carnivore. Further, more R2Kt as solution will not solve the problem of the massive expansion of the Secular humanist realm of nature combined with the massive contracting of the Christian realm of grace. Such solutions were accepted in the Germany of the 1930’s and we all know how well that worked out.
We continue to insist that while the distinction of Holy and common need to be maintained the way offered by R2Kt is a recipe for destruction of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Bret, so how is the common worldview working out for you in the CRC? Look at how well the one-kingdome worldview has worked out among Dutch American churches. I think you need to go back to the drawing board with your analysis.
Henry,
First, I’m not entirely comfortable labeling what I am speaking of as “One Kingdom.” I have said consistently that I understand Reformed people have embraced two Kingdom language for quite some time. It’s just that many of the Reformed understood that God was sovereign over each Kingdom and expressed His mind on each Kingdom in His word either by way of explicit reference or by way of necessary inference.
That which your speaking of which owes its development to Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooeyweerd and others and which is sometimes articulated as principled pluralism would not be an understanding that I would countenance.
The fact that some people and some churches got some things wrong on what you are calling “One Kingdom” doesn’t mean that the idea itself is wrong.
I will promise you though, that I will always go back to my drawing board. Reformed and always Reforming and all that.
Thanks for stopping by Henry M. Lewis.
Anybody ever tell you that your writing style resembles D. G. Hart?
Bret,
Am I off in my observation, or are you in better spirits since the election is over?
Joshua,
Thanks for asking.
It’s the whole adolescent thing. You know you’re going to get the tar knocked out of you for something you did. But the waiting for the beating is more worrisome then the beating itself. Once the beating is finished there is a sense of relief regardless of the bruises that are left behind.
Yes, I’m probably in better spirits.
Of course R2Kt guys continue to test the spirits.
Bret,
Very well met, and I do take joy in hearing it!
The analogy of the adolescent beating is apropos. Thank God for providing periodic ebb in the continual flow. At least I know my overactive (and underachieving) thoughts would self-destruct without it.
Joshua,
Amen.
Bret, The CRC was the biggest promoter of a Reformed world and life view on all aspects of life at the same time that they ordained women. A distinction between secular and sacred spheres could have allowed them to see that the norms of civil society do not apply to the church. But by trying to force conformity over all institutions they wound up having to do in the church what they believed was okay in the world.
1.) Many in the CRC, as it pertains to worldview, are influenced by Dooeyweerd. Near as I can tell in many respects they agree more with R2Kt virus types then they do with anybody else. Have you read Dooeyweerd or are you familiar with him so that you aren’t confused regarding your accusations?
2.) The ordination of women in the CRC is an error that is completed by the CRC by thinking that God’s created order allowed for female leadership in the family, political realm or corporate America. In other words their mistake of allowing ordination of women is consistent with their mistake of not holding to God’s created order in all realms. I see nothing in Scripture that allows norms in civil society to include female leadership as a norm.
So, your objection pings harmlessly off of me here.