R2K Channeling German Hegelians

Christian Ernst Luthard wrote in 1867: “The Gospel has absolutely nothing to do with outward existence but only with eternal life, not with external orders and institutions which could come in conflict with the secular orders but only with the heart and its relationship with God. . . . It is not the vocation of Jesus Christ or of the Gospel to change the orders of secular life and establish them anew. . . . Christianity wants to change man’s heart, not his external situation.”

Rudolf Sohm (1841–1917), speaking to a convention on the main Christian social action group, the Inner Mission, asserted: “The Gospel frees us from this world, frees us from all questions of this world, frees us inwardly, also from the questions of public life, also from the social question. Christianity has no answer to these questions.” The issues of public life, he wrote, “should remain untouched by the proclamation of the Gospel, completely untouched.”

Wilhelm Hermann declared in the 1913 edition of his book on ethics that the state was a product of nature and that it could not be love but only self‑assertion, coercion, and law. . . . Once the Christian understood the moral significance of the state, then “he will consider obedience to the government to be the highest vocation within the state. For the authority of the state on the whole, resting as it does upon authority of the government, is more important than the elimination of any shortcomings which it might have.”

Robert Benne makes the following good points on the effects of this type of thinking:

“There are two serious theological problems here. For one, the affirmation of the Sovereign God as Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of all is forgotten. The God whose will is revealed in the commandments and in his involvement in history is somehow expunged from the political world. Along with this denial of God’s involvement in history is the elevation of the gospel to such a height that it has no relevance to ordinary life. The gospel addresses only the inner man about eternal life, not the whole man who is embedded in God’s history.”

Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/15001/self-neutralized-church-rise-adolf-hitler/#J0K7voCexIzAPiP4.99

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