Continuing to examine Lee’s mid-term Election piece located here,
http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html
The great challenge for Christians is that we are called to live faithfully as citizens of both these kingdoms.
With the Apostle Paul, we can say that we are citizens of Rome, or the USA, by physical birth (Acts 22:28), and we can say that by the new birth we have been made fellow citizens with the saints in the household of God (Ephesians 2:19). Our citizenship therefore is in heaven, from which we await a Savior (Philippians 3:20). Christians therefore have dual citizenship. The Two Kingdom view is not schizophrenic, as some critics believe, but faithfully reflects the tension between our earthly and heavenly citizenships that is inherent in the New Testament.
Because the future heavenly kingdom of grace is breaking into our current time and place, these two kingdoms overlap. By his heavenly citizenship, Paul was free at the same moment his Roman citizenship kept him in chains. When the new heavens and new earth arrive—suddenly and violently, from above, and not by our doing—this duality will cease.
Given these distinctions, should the church publicly weigh in on ballot issues? I believe not.
1.) And the great problem for R2K Christians is that living faithfully as citizens of both these Kingdoms puts them in the position of being full of contradictions. In their personal lives they must not steal but in their lives in the common realm they can vote for people who would legislate theft via redistribution of wealth. In their personal lives they must not practice abortion, but in the common realm, as “Rev.” Lee tells us in his article, Christians can support abortion with their vote. In their personal lives they must not have sex with animals but in their public lives, according to Rev. Todd Bordow, a R2K advocate, it is perfectly acceptable for Christians to vote for Candidates who support repealing Bestiality laws. So, Lee calls for Christians to live faithfully as citizens in both Kingdoms but his theology makes that requirement an impossibility.
2.) The only tension that is inherent in the New Testament is the tension that R2K imposes on the New Testament. We find zero examples in the New Testament where the Apostles write that 1st century Christians are allowed to bifurcate their personal lives from their public square lives.
3.) Notice also Lee’s repeated references to the New Testament. This is because for R2K the Old Testament ethic was lifted into the heavenlies when Israel failed. This is the famous R2K “Intrusion Ethic.” This “Intrusion Ethic” teaches that the ethic of the OT is voided upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This bifurcating of the OT ethic from the post Ascension world accounts for why R2K has often been long referred to as “Reformed Dispensationalism.”
4.) Lee’s protestation notwithstanding, his “theology” (R2K) is schizophrenic in the worst way possible. Lee demonstrates that schizophrenia supremely when, as a minister of the Church, he opens his mouth on the subject of politics (i.e. — writes an article) insisting that ministers must not open their mouths on the subject of politics.
5.) Notice Lee’s “Transcendentalizing of the Eschaton.” For Lee, the age to come awaits to have impact on this current wicked age until the violent coming of the Lord Christ. For Lee the “age to come” does not slowly grow as a mustard seed in the common realm. For Lee the “age to come” does not leaven its way slowly though the whole common realm loaf. For Lee the Eschaton is a locked away reality, only to have impact upon the common realm once it comes violently from above. This again reveals the R2K dualism. The “age to come” is only a spiritual (nee-Platonic) reality that shows up in the Church realm. For the common realm the “age to come” Eschaton is “up there,” while “this wicked age” is “down here.” What wonders how this is not Gnostic?
6.) Lee says, “(because) the future heavenly kingdom of grace is breaking into our current time and place, these two kingdoms overlap.” But, for R2K they only overlap if one attends Church or if one is part of the Church realm. There is zero overlap between the Kingdom of grace and the common realm in the common realm. The eschaton is completely Transcendentalized and Platonized. This is why he can say that the Church should not weigh in on public ballot issues. The Church should not weigh in because the church belongs to another realm. For Lee, for the Church to weigh in on public ballot issues in our cultures and social orders would be like Peruvians voting in Taiwanese elections. For Lee Christ has to do with the common realm the way that Peruvians have to do with Taiwanese elections.
