Wolfe keeps trying to isolate theology from politics as if they are two different unrelated realities. This is the same dualism that you find in R2K. Now, to be sure, one can argue that politics is not the same as theology (that would give us a kind of monism) and so we cannot identify the two as being one in the same. And yet, all politics is shaped and informed by some theology. Politics (or economics, or education, or family life, or the arts, or history, etc.) are not and cannot possibly be a-theological.
If we believe that grace restores nature (as Wolfe himself admits in his presentation today) than we have to admit that the grace that is restoring nature is in point of fact, in this case, a Christian theology (grace) that is informing nature (politics).
Think about it. Theology deals with epistemology, anthropology, ontology, axiology, teleology, etc. Can we really argue that politics likewise doesn’t have to deal with these same questions? If both theology and politics have to deal with the same questions and provide answers for these questions then it is painfully obvious that theology and politics cannot be cordoned off from each other.
Now, we fully agree that there are distinctions that the Scripture makes. The church has a particular jurisdiction in which it operates. It handles the keys. The Civil-social Magistrate has a particular jurisdiction it which operate. It handles the sword. But even in this distinction theology is informing the Magistrate for what purposes and in what instances the Magistrate may use the sword. Similarly, the Church is informed by theology as to how to handle the keys. And in both instances, upon the principle of interposition each may have to, when one or the other Institution goes sideways, interpose to correct a Civil Magistrate gone rogue or to correct a Institutional church gone rogue.
If we really believe that grace restores nature than we have to believe that theology restores politics, economics, family life, education, arts, history, etc. because thinking rightly about God and His Word impacts every area of life.
Wolfe, like his R2K counterparts, has fallen into a dualism. Now, to be sure Wolfe’s dualism is not as shocking or impermeable as the R2K dualism, but it remains a dualism all the same. One way we know this is by Wolfe’s constant plea that the clergy shut up about politics. The man, having divided grace from nature, insists that clergy only talk about “spiritual,” or “eternal” things and since politics et. al. are, in Wolfe’s world not “spiritual” or “eternal” therefore the clergy should not speak on these matters. Similarly, I suspect, that Wolfe would never have a Constantine call a Synod for the church to solve some contentious problem.
Wolfe has been better than R2K but it is only the kind of better that finds us saying that a terminally ill man is better than a dead man.
On another front Wolfe said he doesn’t think that there’s that much difference between R2K and theonomy/postmillennialism.
However, allow me to say in response that there is that much difference between Wolfean 2K and Radical Two Kingdom theology. Both are amil in eschatology. Both use Thomistic Natural Law as their epistemology. Both have a teleology of final defeat for the church in space and time. Both deny total depravity by insisting that autonomous fallen man, starting from himself,by the use of right reason can arrive at moral truth.
