R2K acolyte writes,
It remains a mystery to me how anyone could have the sort of trouble with VanDrunen that Mark does. My own suspicion after years of reading and engaging 2k interlocutors like Mark is that the push back owes at least in part to a sense that 2k isn’t very useful for the culture wars. In fact, it suggests more caution and the possibility of common ground and life than warriors are comfortable with. In this way, the interesting thing is how the Reformed culturalists seem to parallel the Protestant liberals. The 2k critics will balk at such a comparison, but it remains unclear what keeps anybody from slouching toward some form or another of cultural Christianity without the doctrines of the two kingdoms and the spirituality of the church.
1.) “2k isn’t very useful for the culture wars”
Keep in mind that (R)2K sells itself as Reformed Theology. What the acolyte is telling us is that R2K theology is a theology that is unrelated and unconcerned with matters cultural. There is such a separation between theology and culture that R2K theology can exist without creating culture. This reinforces what I’ve heard from R2K chaps before that Christianity is not a culture creating belief system. This is why R2K chaps insist that there is no such thing as Christian culture. R2K desires to isolate and compartmentalize Christian theology from impacting culture, cultural institutions, and academic disciplines. Because they believe this they hurl epitaphs at those who understand that culture is some theology externalized. For R2K Christian theology is supra, trans or a-cultural. R2K theology is a plant that can be transplanted into any cultural environment and is specifically designed to not have any impact on the culture where it is transplanted and grows. For R2K Christian theology exists for individuals but as those Christian individuals cooperate unto cultural enterprise Christian theology is mute.
2.) The acolyte mentions disdainfully culture warriors and yet seems to miss the irony that he, himself, is a culture warrior against cultural warriors. This gent will go all warrior on anyone who insists that Christianity looks like something particular in the common realm. So the acolyte is not comfortable with Christians who are cultural warriors but he is perfectly fine with the contradiction that finds him being a warrior for culture that is denuded of any explicit manifestation of Biblical Christianity.
3.) The acolyte insists that those who advocate for culture that grows out of Biblical Christianity are parallel with those who advocate for a culture that grows out of Liberal Christianity. One thing that R2K doesn’t seem to realize that Liberal Christianity is not Christianity, not only because it denies certain Biblical-Theological truths but also because in doing so it advances anti-Christ culture. What R2K seems to conclude is that because Biblical Christianity and Liberal Christianity both create their own unique culture, and as such are at cross-purposes, therefore the answer is to insist that Christianity has nothing to do with culture. R2K, by such an approach, believes it clears the ground to advocate a Christianity that is set free from the encumbrance of having to deal with issues cultural. However, R2K Christianity when it takes this tack plants itself squarely in the Liberal Christianity camp as their refusal to resist Liberalism (a resistance that Machen advocated in his book “Christianity and Liberalism”) clears the field for the advance of anti-Christ theology which produces anti-Christ culture.
4.) R2K acolyte believes he has avoided “slouching towards some form or another of cultural Christianity,” but he doesn’t realize that his R2K theology is just another form of the cultural Christianity he despises. Liberal Christianity slouches towards Liberal culture. Biblical Christianity slouches towards Biblical Culture. And, R2K Christianity slouches towards whatever culture happens to be the majority report at the time. R2K slouches there because the refusal to resist is a tacit means of support for whatever theology is in the ascendancy creating the prevailing culture.
2nd R2K acolyte chimes in,
I think a major challenge facing the church today is the need to adjust to a post-Christendom mindset. The task of ethicists such as VanDrunen, myself, and Nelson Kloosterman (who taught ethics at Mid-America) is not to teach us how to conquer culture, but how to witness to Christ in a culture that is often hostile to the Gospel. The primary way in which we do that is by preaching the Gospel clearly, and acting with loving service, not by proclamation of a law or cultural-political conquest.
1.) Here the surrender to pagandom is explicit. Christendom has sashayed off the scene and what R2K is intended to do is to help Christians acquiesce to the reality of social order being organized by a theology other than Biblical Christianity. Some people might call that mindset cowardice.
2.) I’ve never once took any class on “how to conquer culture.” However, I have studied plenty on how to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ, and I’ve found that as thoughts are made captive to Christ that leads inevitably to be accused by these types as being only concerned with conquering culture.
3.) Notice how “preaching the Gospel clearly” and “acting with loving service,” is set in dichotomous opposition to the ministry of “proclamation of law.” One might ask, “How do we preach the Gospel without setting the table by preaching law?” One might ask, “Isn’t advocating a culture of life (political-cultural conquest) acting with loving service towards those living in cultures of death?”
4.) Notice also how “acting in loving service,” is seemingly cordoned off from God’s law that provides the content for what loving service means. Can a Christian “act in loving service,” towards those outside of Christ without God’s law defining for them just exactly what that loving service might look like? Is there a dichotomy being created here between the “law of love,” and God’s law that defines the content of love?
5.) R2K is forever complaining that Christianity doesn’t conquer in post-Christendom by proclamation of a law. R2K apparently thinks it wrong to have a proclamation of the law for pagans in post-Christendom and yet R2K does have a proclamation of the law for Christians in post-Christendom and that law is, “Thou shalt not appeal to the politicus usus of the law for the public square or in order to reinvigorate Christendom. So, R2K does have a public proclamation of the law but the proclamation is to Christians and that proclamation says, “don’t proclaim law to the pagan.”
“However, R2K Christianity when it takes this tack plants itself squarely in the Liberal Christianity camp as their refusal to resist Liberalism (a resistance that Machen advocated in his book “Christianity and Liberalism”) clears the field for the advance of anti-Christ theology which produces anti-Christ culture.”
Hilariously ironic!
Given that DG Hart is Machen’s acclaimed biographer, and how much Machen was against Liberal “Christianity”, it’s so ironic to see DG Hart aid and abet and enable Liberal “Christianity”.
Bret,
Seeing how you have interpreted one statement that I made in a blog discussion suggests you have no clue what I think about anything. Numerous positions you attribute to me (“the second 2k acolyte”) here are directly refuted in articles on my blog. I would encourage you to take your opponents seriously enough to read them sympathetically and try to understand them, rather than post hit-and-run analyses that do not even direct your readers to the discussion you are criticizing. If nothing else, Christian charity demands it.
Matt,
On one had you say that
But on the other hand you say the RCUS was right for speaking against homosexual marriage.
How, according to your template, is the RCUS speaking to the Magistrate regarding Homosexual Marriage helling the church adjust to this post-Christian mindset? Such speaking to the Magistrate by the RCUS, which you endorse, is hardly helping that church “adjust,” to the new realities. In point of fact one might contend that such speaking shows that the RCUS is failing in the necessity to adjust.
Because of this I find contradiction in your thinking. How can I have a clue what you’re thinking if your words are contradictory? How can I try to read you sympathetically or with understanding when I see contradiction?
Please believe me when I tell you I do take you seriously. I have a BILLION things I could write on. All screaming for my attention. But I took you seriously enough to write on what you wrote.
Finally, I did not see the necessity to direct my readers since I did not cite names. When I cite names I do direct.
All the best,
Matt,
Over at Gnosticoi’s blog you wrote,
Now, tell me Matt, is this an example of taking your opponents seriously enough to read them sympathetically while trying to understand them or is this an example of your version of “hit and run analysis?”