“The ecclesiasticizing of religion necessarily calls into being the profaning of the non-ecclesiastical area …. the ecclesiasticized church calls into being a secularized world… The more church becomes ecclesiasticized, the more it will profane life outside the church and abandon it to profanation… The more the Church profanes life, the less it becomes the humble servant of Christ and his spiritual world dominion… people lament, certainly not without justification, about the ongoing secularization of life in the lands populated and governed by Western peoples. Concurrent with this secularization comes the distressing problem…and oppressive reality of human emancipation as the self-liberation out of the bonds to God and his Word… This is a problem which, unless it leads man to retrace his steps in this emancipation, will irretrievably abandon us to nihilism and the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…”
Communication and Confrontation
1.) Ecclesiasticizing of religion = Christianity existing only for the sake of the church. This is the goal and object of Radical Two Kingdom “theology.”
2.) This is merely the admission that if Christianity is to retreat from the public square the consequence will be a vacuum that is filled by some other prevailing religion that shapes and informs the public square. The public square can never be “neutral.” The public square is always the incarnation and thus expression of some religion. The public square only exists as being animated by religion.
3.) It is true that the public square because of secularization becomes increasingly profane. However, the profanation of the secular realm for the Christian is the divinizing or sacralizing of the public square as consistent with the tenets of the false religion that is shaping and informing the public square. In other words the profanation of the public square according to the standards of the Christian religion becomes the sacralizing of the public square according to the standards of whatever religion replaces Christianity. It’s not that the public square is no longer set apart as belonging to the God of Christianity. It is that the public square is set apart as belonging to the god of some other faith system (religion).
4.) Radical Two Kingdom Theology (R2Kt) is doing the devil’s work and as such ministers who imbibe R2K theology are of their Father the devil, intentionally or unintentionally. They are doing the work of the devil because in their work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith they are de-Christianizing the public square in favor of some other religion which will fill the vacuum that their de-sacralizing the public square has done.
5.) When the Christian religion is ecclesiasticized the consequence is that men are released from the guiding ethos of the Christian faith. Being thus “liberated,” from Christianity in their everyday living because of the clergy’s work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith men instantly experience bondage to some other false demon god. If men will not have the freedom that comes from living in the constraints of God’s Word then they will live in bondage to false demon gods who promise absolute libertinism. How free is a goldfish who has been set free from their fish bowl? How free is a train that is free from it’s tracks? The R2K false religion, because it ecclesiasticizes the Christian religion is guaranteed to be the greatest engine of bondage ever invented by Satan’s engineers.
6.) Unless the Lord Christ grants Reformation and renewal and delivers us from this sulfur laden doctrine of R2K that ecclesiasticizes the Christian faith mankind will continue to de-man themselves in pursuit of ever greater expressions of “freedom.” This in turn will lead to the nihilism that Zuidema speaks of, as well “as the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…” If the public square will not be ruled by the standards of a vibrant Christianity that informs and applies to the public square then the consequence will be the loss of true meaning and then the loss of the manishness of man. Finally, the coup de grâce will be the loss of Christianity in the ecclesial (the Church). If all that surrounds the Church is a public square that is being governed by the impulse of a false religion then the inevitable consequence is that the Church itself will fall to the public square god that was given hegemony by a Christian Church that had ecclesiasticized the Christian faith.
7.) This is not some kind of children’s game. If we cannot arrest this demonic work of ecclesiasticizing the Christian religion we will have reached a pivot in the history of mankind wherein we will find a great descent of darkness falling upon mankind.
This is just another push against the simple notion that grace restores nature.
In this age, Christians are “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Eph 2:10
In the age to come, “there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him”.
We’re not going to be in one big choir and only singing. We will be doing engineering, building things, revealing and developing all the potentialities God placed within creation, all in perfect harmony with one another as the fully united and coordinated body of Christ. In short, it’s supremely centered around the Creator and His creation being fully united in will, function, execution, and result, all to the glory of God. And the earnest of that is to be revealed in this age by the church seven days a week, not just one just as if Adam never sinned.
Well said Graham. I agree 100%!
Thank you for commenting.
I am not trying to be a smart-arse here, but being sincere when I say that even the medieval popes could be “right,” or partly right, in this subject against (liberal) Protestants. Even those who were clearly displaying Antichrist pride with their arrogant pretensions.
This was like God could use even false prophet Balaam or apostate high priest Caiaphas to make objectively true statements, against their own intention.
Case in point: I believe the pope Benedict VIII, in his bull “Unam Sanctam,” where he notoriously declared that “we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff” – still made a quite valid theological point in a certain regard.
Namely in saying that attempts to deny the Christian church influence in “secular”, everyday life were sheer Manichaeism – the separation of church and state tries to divide the worlds of spirit and flesh, or tell the Christian spirit (whose representative the pope pretended to be) that it has no business in interfering in earthly affairs:
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm
“For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. … Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1].”
Secularism, or the notion that “those preachy bigots have no business pushing their noses into public affairs,” is indeed applied Manichaeism.
Well said.
FWIW, I believe that we as Protestants have to embrace much of the Church prior to the decline of the Church in the 14th century with the Conciliar debates. At that point the Church was off the rails and merely waiting for Reformation. The Popes disregarded the Conciliar movement to their own hurt.
I’ve been saying for some time that Christians are not called to “go to church” they are to be the church. Organism, not organization.
People just look at me strange…
Hebrews 10 I believe does call us to attend worship… if we can find a church that has the three marks of the Church (or even two out of three).
Church indeed is organism but if it has not organization (Institutional aspect) it will find it tough sledding to remain organism.
Thanks for commenting here Jimi.
True enough, but the church doesn’t have life in itself, and without that, what is it, precisely, that you’re organizing?
Bojidar Marinov said something awhile back concerning people leaving “the church.” Said they were taking the church with them.
When you’re busy organizing something it furthers one to have somewhere to go with it.
Someplace besides a statist disaster, anyway.
Inasmuch as there is always in many visible churches the existence of the invisible Church there we find life from the Holy Spirit.
But, you’ll get no argument from me that dead churches aren’t worth organizing.
I am not anti-Institutional Church. I am anti dead Institutional Churches, and our Lord knows there are boatloads of them out there.
Yes. And hey man, l appreciate your replies.
I check out the lron lnk regularly, along with Matt Trewhella and Chuck Baldwin. I began readingRushdoony about 10 years or so ago, and my perspectives began to change on just about everything . What a long, strange trip it’s been!
You’re one of the goodguys on my list, along with the above-mentioned renegades (l know you guys are off the reservation because so many people react like they’ve been kicked when your names are mentioned) and l’m grateful for the likes of yas.
I have two friends who keep up with you boys as well; we’re trying to get a group started where people are actually learning what the Word teaches about Everything as over and against sugar-coated Nothing at All – you know what l’m talking about.
Keep it up, Pastor Brett, there aren’t many preachers that God has called to preach.
Thanks Jimi!
You can’t go wrong reading Rushdoony. Have you heard of http://www.pocketcollege.com? At that site you can listen to thousands of Rushdoony lectures as well as read and search the transcripts.
Keep up the good work of searching out the truth. Give me a holler whenever you like.
Blessings and thank you for your kind words,
Bret
I went thru the pocket college Rushdoony just about in it’s entirety several years back when l was recovering from an injury. Great stuff!
It was entertaining reading the transcript of the home-schooling trial in Texas where Rush was an expert witness for the home-schoolers.
The man was sharp. About the only thing l can recall disagreeing with him about was an article he wrote on the issue of voting for the “lesser of two evils”. I agree with Trewhella and Jerry Garcia(!) on that one: don’t do it. But then I don’t agree with Baldwin on the Natural Law business either, what the heck, l guess everybody’s got some weird blind spot somewhere. I don’t have the problem with such men as those who are wrong about things l can live with as l do with the likes of Wilson and MacArthur who don’t seem to understand the meaning of “cast out the bondwoman and her son”. That’s not a minor issue, judging by the fruit of it.
The churches in my area are full of the Judaizers, and l expect that bible belt evangelicals are the one group who are just about totally immunized to the Gospel, as the Fire Breathin’ Christian pointed out somewhere.
They’re all on a cruise on the Love Boat and the ensign you salute as you cross the quarter deck is the star of Remphan. Can’t tell you how much this is bugging me.
And l kinda get the feeling that the God Emperor Elect might be a cosmic set up. Never mind.
I was a drunkard for 40 good solid years.
I’ve been sober for a little over 3 years now – l see church folk who have never been drunk a day in their life; they’ve never been sober a day in their life either.
Sometimes l wonder should l blame it on Providence or is it just plain Bad Joss?
Interesting… I don’t agree with RJR on the “voting for the lesser of two evils” thing either.
I also HATE Natural Law theory as it falls from the hands of Aquinas. I am a gold-minted presuppostionalists who sees the weaknesses and strengths of both CVT and Gordon Haddon Clark and their respective systems.
Someday, I’ll figure out where my blindspot is. Until then I keep insisting I have none. 😉
I get how much it bugs you. It bugs me the same way. And, like you I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop on the whole God Emperor Elect. I also am inclined to also think it to be a NWO set up.
What’s bad joss?
Haven’t seen any blind spots on ya yet, wouldn’t worry too much about that.
Joss is a Chinese term. It’s sort of fate, fortune, luck, good, evil, magic, sunshine and rain and just about anything else you can think of all together.
Anyway, I was bein’ a wise guy- so sorry, never mind. Providence I believe. Joss is a private joke that I use mostly to annoy my postmillennialist friends.
There are three of us in Hardin and McNairy counties that we know about. If it wasn’t for yourself and a few others like those I mentioned earlier on the internet I don’t know what we’d do. Discovering Rushdoony, North, Bahnsen, Chilton, Gentry and all the rest of the postmil theonomist gang was… Good Joss indeed.