“Calvin opposed the Roman concept of “perfectio” as well as that of the Anabaptists. He contended for an ethos that bound both the Christian and the world by the same set of requirements, so that the way of the Reformation did not result in a church segregated from the world. Although Calvin also recognized a two-kingdom doctrine, his exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount revealed that he did not let this antithesis lead him to a basic dualism.”
Calvin & The Anabaptist Radicals
Willem Balke
Unlike Calvin, R2K contends for a different ethos for the Christian and the world. The Christian is to be ruled by the ethos of Scripture in the Church realm and Natural law in the common realm, while the ethos for the world in the common realm is Natural law. Unlike Calvin the R2K “Divines” give a different ethos to the world and to the Christian. Now, there might be overlap between those two different ethoi but they are different ethoi. It is also true the R2K segregates the Church from the world though it does not segregate the Christian from the world like the Anabaptists did and do. R2K, like the Anabaptists of old do not allow the Church as the Church to be concerned with what happens in the non Church realm. (For R2K that realm is called “common,” while for the Anabaptists that realm was evil. Still, regardless of what each call that realm, the Church as the Church is segregated from it considering it “the world.”)
R2K “theology” is a tweaking of a historic theology but it is a tweaking of Anabaptist theology and not a tweaking of Historic Calvinist theology. R2K’s tweaking, as that tweaking is happening in the Reformed community, is a tweaking that pulls contemporary Calvinism more towards Anabaptist categories. Consider the R2K tweak of Anabaptist theology in its nomenclature. Historically Anabaptist theology called the non-Church realm evil. R2K doesn’t do that. Instead, R2K tweaks Anabaptist nomenclature and calls the evil realm “common,” but all the while insists that it is impossible for the R2K “common” realm to be Christian, insisting on calling it “common.” Now, one might observe that if it is impossible for the “common” realm to be “Christian” (per R2k) then all that is left is for the common realm to be not Christian. If the common realm is not Christian then how is it also (using Anabaptist nomenclature) not a evil realm? The R2K acolytes reply that the common realm is neither Christian nor evil but in doing so they have given up their Reformed credentials by creating a realm where the antithesis does not apply and they have completely given up on Van Til’s denial of neutrality. The R2K lads can say till they’re blue in the face that common does not equal neutral but saying that it is not so, does not make it not so.
