Some chap named “Jackson Stead” showed up in the comments section to dispute my take on R2K. I’m always in for a good polemical go.
Jackson Stead wrote,
This critique (against R2K) misrepresents both the metaphysical and theological framework of Reformed Two Kingdom (R2K) doctrine.
1. Christ’s Kingship is Not Denied
R2K affirms Christus Rex. Christ rules all things, including the civil and ecclesial spheres. The distinction is not between realms of truth but of office: church and state are both under His providential kingship, but exercise different delegated authorities. The state bears the sword for justice; the church administers Word and sacrament for salvation. These are real, divinely ordained institutions with distinct final causes.
Bret responds;
1.) R2K DOES deny Christ’s Kingship by muting it for the common realm and placing it under a different sceptre. Christ does not rule explicitly in the common realm per R2K but only implicitly via Natural Law. This whole R2K conception of Natural Law has been disputed not only by us Presuppositionalists/Theonomists but also by the non-R2K natural law guys like Stephen Wolfe. So, both you chaps and the Wolfe chaps appeal to this obvious Natural Law but you cannot agree on the reading of this putatively obvious “Natural Law.” It seems Natural Law is not as obvious on this matter as you would like it to be and Christ’s ruling “by His left hand” in the common realm by Natural Law is quite up for dispute.
Of course the preferred understanding is that there is one Kingdom with different jurisdictions wherein we find Christ’s appointment as stewards over those differing respective jurisdictions. In such a way these realms are both independent and yet interdependent. Independent because they each have been assigned different roles and responsibilities (Church = grace [Keys]/ Civil Social = justice [sword] / Family = discipline [Rod]).
You’re reading and all Natural Law readings creates a Gnostic dualism. It ends up giving us a Gnostic Jesus ruling over a Gnostic Kingdom.
Jackson Stead wrote,
2. Preaching and the Limits of Office
The pulpit is the instrument of the Church’s office. It declares the gospel and moral law as illuminated by Scripture and natural reason. That includes denouncing injustice—but within its mode and end. The Church does not legislate, prosecute, or campaign. It witnesses. Confusing the offices—making the pulpit a political stump—usurps the state’s vocation and undermines the Church’s own.
Bret responds,
2.) The Keys are the instrument of the Church’s office. Via the Keys the Kingdom of God is opened and closed. Via the Keys Word and Sacrament are given to the end of building up the body of Christ. The whole idea of natural reason is a piece with Natural law. Natural reason is fallen and so only redeemed reason as considering the Word and the good and necessary consequences from the Word instructs and guides God’s people. The Church clearly has a role in speaking to the State as seen throughout Scripture. (John the Baptist denounced Herod for His crimes, Jesus called Herod “that Fox,” The proclamation that “there is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved” was a challenge to the Worldly authorities as the usual proclamation of Caesar was “there is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved” referring to Caesar.) Then there was the accusation against Jason and the Christians,
Acts 17:6 But when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”
You may not think that the Church should speak to Caesar but these chaps in Ephesus sure thought that was what was happening.
The Church does indeed not prosecute, except on those rare occasions when it has to practice interposition, but it does campaign for righteousness. This is something we read about during the run up to the War of American Independence with all those Reformed Pastors prosecuting in the Pulpits the injustice of the Crown against God’s Word. Of course, part of the Reformed clergy’s complaint at the time was the intent of the Crown to place a Anglican Bishop over the Colonies.
Your understanding empties the office of the Minister of his needed prophetic voice under sovereign Christ. You accuse me of confusing the offices. I accuse you of neutering the office.
Jackson Stead wrote,
3. Historic Examples Misapplied
Ambrose confronted Theodosius as bishop on moral grounds, not as a rival magistrate. Likewise, the Black Robed Regiment often overstepped. Charles Hodge, cited, explicitly distinguished the Church’s spiritual voice from civil action. His warning was about silencing moral witness, not collapsing jurisdictions.
Bret Responds,
3.) Historical examples were properly applied. You just don’t like the implications. The idea that Ambrose didn’t confront Theodosius as a rival magistrate is just ludicrous. Do you think anyone would have listened to Ambrose if he had not been wearing that Bishop vestment? In terms of Hodge maybe we should go w/ A. A. Hodge since you have misinterpreted Charles;
“Christianity should be recognized publicly by this country. Christ should be recognized in the law of our land as the Supreme Ruler of our nation. I am a member of a society striving for this end; the principle is right, whatever our success may be. We should insist that if the State has a right to educate she must not educate in infidel history and philosophy, but, in assuming the educator’s function, must obey the Scripture injunction regarding that function — to train the young in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord.’”
A. A. Hodge (1823 – 1886)
19th Century American Reformed Theologian
Jackson Stead writes,
4. The Charge of Cowardice Is Baseless
The claim that R2K exists to “build large churches” is speculative and malicious. R2K theology arises from coherent metaphysics: natural ends, secondary causes, and the ordered distinction of powers. It is not pragmatism but principled realism grounded in classical Christian metaphysics and federal theology.
Bret responds,
4.) R2K is a completely novel way of reading Scripture not discovered and developed till Meredith Kline and his chief Romanist – Jesuit trained popularizer David Van Drunen. Van Drunen himself has admitted that it is a novel way of reading Scripture. Just go away. I’ve gone round and round with you poor souls so often that I can age myself in terms of the years I have been over this. If you guys aren’t cowards, you do a fine job of acting like cowards. R2K is coherent the way that Open Theism is coherent. R2K is coherent the way that men being born in women’s bodies is coherent. R2K is coherent the way that Vatican II Papists are coherent.
Finally, your metaphysics are not Christian in the least but are Gnostic and Dualistic. That explains why D. G. Hart (R2K aficionado par excellent) is always talking about living the “hyphenated-life.”
R2K is pure heresy.
Jackson Stead writes,
5. The Real Issue Is Providence and Ends
Civil authority is a temporal good, real and bounded. The Church’s end is eternal. R2K insists that while truth is one, offices are distinct. Denying this confuses grace with nature, eschatology with politics, and risks clerical overreach.
Bret Responds,
5.) No one denies offices are distinct. However, R2K does not make for distinctions but rather makes for divorce with it Gnostic Dualism. R2K is so worried about clerical over-reach that it touts clerical under-reach which is to say that R2K advocates for cowardice. It takes no courage at all to watch the broader culture burn all the while saying, “I am going to stay in my lane.” It takes no courage at all to tell yourself that you won’t preach on the anti-Christ ideologies of the age because you want to remain holy and above it all. All the while those anti-Christ ideologies are swamping your people so that they reinterpret all of Scripture and all of life through those anti-Christ ideologies that you’re too pure to get involved with. You and your kind are destroying the Church in the West.
And don’t even get me started on your precious militant amillennial eschatology.
Jackson Stead writes,
Summary:
R2K is not cowardice, relativism, or heresy. It is a metaphysically coherent and confessionally grounded doctrine affirming that Christ rules all, but through distinct means. It guards the integrity of both church and state by preserving their God-ordained vocations.
Bret responds,
Dude … I wrote and had published a book on this subject. This is not my first rodeo. You guys are coherent the way that Open Theistis are coherent. You guys are coherent the way that II Vatican Papists are coherent. You guys are coherent the way that a guy who says he was born in a woman’s body are coherent. You are dualistic and Gnostic. Your dualism is seen in the R2K aficionado Dr. D. G. Hart’s love of the phrase, “living the hyphenated-life.” That just a pleasant way of saying that y’all are living the Dualist-life.
Confessionally grounded? LOL … you certainly can’t be serious. I suppose if you chaps are allowed to twist the confessions.
R2K is cowardice, relativism, and heresy. It is a dualistic gnostic soup that is metaphysically incoherent denying the explicit ruling of Jesus Christ over all as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
You chaps are so cowardly the only time you demonstrate any courage is when you are fighting for the position that the Church should be irrelevant. Should your false system ever win out it will be the destruction of both church and state.
Excellent Bret !
Thank you Steve!