“‘Radical two kingdoms'” is radical only in separating nature/grace, general/special revelation, first-table/second-table, secular/sacred, and nature/scripture. The Reformed distinguished these without separating, and so they could affirm Christian nations, Christian magistrates, and Christian laws. In political thought, r2k is the least radical option. It is nothing but modern conservatism established as fixed, timeless principle rather than something prudential. Late 20th century conservatism is made the timeless politics of Jesus.
Otherwise intelligent people bought into this recent iteration of “two kingdoms” looking for some theological and tradition-based justification for their modern secularist political ethos.”
Dr. Stephen Wolfe
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In political thought R2K is the most radical option because it embraces the classical liberal world & life view born of Enlightenment categories and reasoning and insists that such a libertarian view is Jesus normative for all times and places. R2K isn’t even Reformed, instead really being Anabaptist. If you will recall the Anabaptist movement was that movement now called the Radical Reformation.
Secondly, we would say that the Reformed did distinguish and not separate but they were only able to do so because they were living in a context that already presupposed Christianity as the starting point. The West no longer presupposes that and so political theory, like Stepen Wolfe’s “Thomism” will not be able to provide a unified theory of what it is that Natural Law teaches about political thought in the context in which we live today. This is proven by the fact that Wolfe here is warring against those who share his same Thomistic starting point. Both Wolfe (with his historical 2K view) and Escondido (with its R2K view) both are appealing to Natural Law and two Kingdom thinking and both are coming to diametrically different conclusions. Wolfe is here insisting that R2K has unnaturally divorced nature/grace, general/special revelation, first-table/second-table, secular/sacred, and nature/scripture but of course Dr. David Van Drunen and the R2K lads will just insist that Wolfe’s historical 2K school is unnaturally not seeing the proper distinguishing that must be done.
This battle between Wolfe and Van Drunen really is a sight to behold. They are each suffering from an unbiblical dualism and yet Van Drunen is essentially saying to Wolfe that Wolfe’s problem is he is not consistent in his dualistic world and life view.
In the end it is better to speak of One Kingdom, One Lord, with varying Christ ordained jurisdictions. This delivers one from this hopeless warfare of how much dualism is enough dualism while avoiding a monism that might arise without recognizing any jurisdictional distinctions ordained by the Sovereign God and His Christ.
