Category: Apologetics

Recently, in the comments section David R. from Fla. has been mildly defending R2K theory by quoting Dr. Meredith Kline. I thought I would interact a little with David’s pull quotes. I hope to help pull back the curtain on the problems with this thinking.

Some people might remember Dr. Kline as the man who built a straw man out of Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s Theonomic position and then proceeded to destroy the straw man he had built, insuring before he wrote his unseemly attack piece that Dr. Bahnsen would not be able to respond to his attack piece in the same journal in which Dr. Kline attacked Dr. Bahnsen.

David R. writes,

In Kingdom Prologue, Kline has a very helpful discussion of the common grace city and its relationship to the kingdoms of God and Satan. He describes two aspects of the common grace city, that of religious antithesis and common grace, as follows:

David R. then quotes Dr. Meredith Kline,

“There is in the city a spiritual malignancy, the fatal consequence of the usurpation of the world kingdom by Satan and the prostitution of the city to demonic service. In the lurid expose found in the apocalyptic mode of Scripture, the satanically perverted urban power structure is seen as a beast savagely turned against the citizens of the city who refuse its mark…. The victims are not those disadvantaged in things temporal. It is rather a matter of religious antithesis, an ancient diabolical enmity. It is against the redeemed of the Lamb that the controlling powers of the world kingdom direct their hellish hostility.

“Yet in the face of the bestial aspect assumed by the city and the ensuing religious warfare that rages within it,
Scripture affirms the legitimacy of the city. One thinks of the historical context of Romans 13. The legitimacy of the city is affirmed not because the bestializing of the city is a relatively late historical development. As a matter of fact, the Beast-power is not just a phenomenon of the present church age. The founder of the city was himself the slayer of the first martyr-prophet…. Our positive affirmation of the city structure is not based on a mere chronological priority of positive to negative factors in the make-up of the city. It is due rather to the fact that fundamental structural legitimacy is a matter of divine ordinance, not of the nature of man’s administration of the institution. The frightful religious tension of the city belongs to the story of the apostate direction taken by the city potentates and should not be allowed to obscure the character of the city as a structure founded on the common grace ordinance of the Creator.

1.) Dr. Kline would have us believe that the city (common realm) is prostituted to a demonic service that is a beast that is turned against the redeemed of the lamb who are to endure the hellish hostility of an ancient diabolical enmity and yet despite the fact that these controlling powers have usurped the world kingdom so that common realm is implacably opposed to those who will not receive its mark Dr. Kline’s followers would have us believe that some kind of principled pluralism in the common realm can make it so Christians and non-Christians can function harmoniously despite all this hostility?

Well, I suppose some people can reconcile that position.

2.) Note that Dr. Kline mentions in these brief paragraphs both the idea of “religious warfare that rages within the common realm,” and again, “the frightful religious tension of the city.” This is fundamentally important to critiquing the disciples of Kline (the grand-daddy of R2K). Dr. Kline admits of this religious warfare that rages in the city and yet the disciples of Kline insist that the common realm, at least for Christians, is a religious free zone. Christians, according to the R2K acolytes are not to appeal to their Christianity (their religion) in the common realm but instead they are to appeal to natural law. I’ve even had one R2K supporter tell me that it is only natural religion that is to shape the common realm since Christianity was never intended to be a social order factor. Many of the R2K fellows communicate this same thing when they tell you that “there is no such thing as Christian culture,” or when they rail against the idea of Christendom. So, here is the question. If, in R2K thinking, Christianity is not to shape or impact the common realm, which is instead shaped by common grace and ruled by common law, how can it be that there will be “religious warfare that rages within” the common realm, and how can there be a “frightful religious tension?” If the common realm is common and Christianity does not exist in a public square sense in the common realm then whence this frightful religious tension? Whence this religious warfare that rages within the common realm?

Here we have one of the R2K disciples quoting Dr. Meredith Kline and yet Kline assumes to be the case what R2K insists can’t be the case.

3.) Dr. Kline refers to the city (common realm) as “bestial.” By what standard are we defining the common realm as bestial? Naturally that standard has to be the Scripture. Dr. Kline, looking to the standard of the Scripture, insists that the common realm is “bestial.” So, if the common realm is “bestial” it seems like it would be fair to say that the common realm is also evil. (Bestial and evil do kind of go together.) However, the R2K lads insist on telling us that Dr. Kline’s bestial common realm is NOT evil — not bestial — but rather is merely “common.” The common realm can not have in it a Christian culture the R2K lads tell us and yet their mentor, Dr. Kline tells us that the common realm must remain decidedly non-Christian. (After all, if the common realm remain bestial in hardly seems a stretch to insist that a bestial realm yields non-Christian cultures.)

The reason this is so important is that it was the Anabaptists who insisted that the realms outside of their communes were inherently evil. Dr. Kline’s position, like the R2K position, does sound Anabaptist at this point. Note that Dr. Kline seems to be saying that the common realm is animated by “the Beast power.” One wonders how that common realm can be considered common if it is, by definition, animated, shaped, influenced by “the Beast power?”

Dr. Kline continues

“Over against every tendency to identify the city at its essential core with those demonic powers that seize and manipulate the power of the state we must assert the biblical testimony to the goodness of this postlapsarian institution as an appointment of God’s common grace, beneficial and remedial in its functions.”

So, despite all the apocalyptic language earlier used to describe the common realm, the goodness of this common realm is asserted. This is akin to Alexander Solzhenitsyn writing about the horrors of the Gulag Archipelago and then concluding by asserting the goodness of the gulag.

Biblical Christianity, contrary to R2K dualisms, does believe that there is a present evil age that is every bit as wicked as Dr. Kline describes. However, Biblical Christianity doesn’t teach that the present evil age is good or dualistically permanent. Biblical Christianity teaches that this present wicked age is being incrementally pushed back by the age to come that was inaugurated by the coming and triumph of the Lord Christ. God’s Christ, being victorious over this present wicked age, and having bound the strong man is now, by the work of His Spirit and through the Spirit given obedience of the Church and through His providential orchestration of all things, is going from victory unto victory. The age to come is not yet in all of its manifested authority and will not be until the consummation of all things but the fact that the age to come is not yet seen in all its coming brilliance does not mean that it can not, will not, or should not be incrementally and increasingly turning the desert of the present wicked age into the Oasis of the already present and ever increasingly present age to come.

God’s common grace is seen in the reality that the present wicked age is not perfectly consistent with its own Christ hating presuppositions. God’s common grace keeps the present wicked age from nihilistic destruction so that the age to come, of our Lord Christ’s delegated authority to the Church, has the time and opportunity to be about the mission of teaching the nations to observe all things so that age to come goes from glory unto glory over this present wicked age which resists it at every turn.

Dr. Kline continues,

“Summing up then, the meaning or essential identity of the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the kingdom of Satan or with the kingdom of God. Nor is it to be explained in terms of a dialectical seesawing between the demonic and the divine. This divinely appointed institution exists within the sphere of common grace, which is the corollary, the counterpoise, of the common curse. The fundamental shape of the city is the resultant of the interplay of these two correlative principles of divine action, a divine wrath and a divine grace that restrains that wrath according to the measure of sovereign divine purpose. Such is the biblical conceptual framework for defining the basic meaning of the city.” (pp. 168-172)

Dr. Kline has thus given us two dualisms.

1.) The first dualism is the dualism between the City of God and the City of man. (Let’s not even venture into the fact that Dr. Kline’s followers uses these in a non-Augustinian sense.)

2.) The second dualism is the dualism that is found in the second duality of the first dualism. In the City of Man Dr. Kline has suggested that there is a dualism that exists between the ying of common grace and the yang of common curse.

Dr. Kline says that the essential identity of the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the kingdom of Satan or with the kingdom of God. Another way of saying that is that the postlapsarian city is found in identification with both the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God. After all, remember the descriptors earlier that was given to us by Dr. Kline. The City of Man was “Bestial.” The City of man had a spiritual malignancy. The City of man The World Kingdom had been usurped by Satan and the city of Man was prostituted to Demonic service.

After saying all this, how can Dr. Kline turn around and say “the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the Kingdom of Satan or with the Kingdom of God?

Yet at the same time Dr. Kline now says that this city of man is a divinely appointed institution. This is why I say that Dr. Kline is saying not only saying that the City of man’s identity is not to be found either with the Kingdom of Satan or the Kingdom of God, but Kline is also saying that the city of man’s identity is found both in the Kingdom of Satan and in the Kingdom of God.

Notice also, that with Kline’s assertion that the city of man is not to be identified with the Kingdom of Satan we are still left asking, “Where exactly is the Kingdom of Satan in Radical Two Kingdom theology?

Finally, note that Dr. Kline can deny his creation of a dialectic in the City of man all he wants but that is exactly what he has given us. In a very Hegelian manner Dr. Kline has given us, for the City of Man, a thesis which is the Kingdom of God and a antithesis which is the Kingdom of Satan and Dr. Kline has left the synthesis to only be arrived at with the consummation. It strikes me then, that the city of man for those who accept this thinking (R2K), is a Manichean reality. The common realm is a place where ultimate good and ultimate evil are perfectly counter-poised so that neither will have conquest over the other. This is perfectly consistent with Amilliennial eschatology that insists that good and evil grow together and evil only begins to triumph finally on the brink of Christ’s return.

Now keep in mind that this is the quote that was given to me by David R. I have only dealt with that quote which I was given.

Christ’s kingdom is not just sitting alongside Satan”s kingdom (dualistically!), but Christ is in the process of defeating Satan (the usurper) and his kingdom. Sphere sovereignty has to do with how power and authority are limited/distributed and how culture is built. Properly understood, it is not to be used as a way of declaring certain domains “neutral” or outside the authority of Christ and His word

In the Scripture, we are not taught to think of the kingdom of God in some abstract fashion, like a circle in a diagram. The kingdom is described in dynamic and militant terms, as a mountain that fills the earth, or a stone that breaks in pieces all opposition. The kingdom doesn”t float down like a UFO, it breaks into the present order with power and permeates all.

This all seems so obvious but the really frustrating part of this is that in R2K “theology” I can’t really find the Kingdom of Satan. The Kingdom of Satan can’t be in their “Redemptive Realm,” for that is, according to their “theology,” uniquely Christ’s Kingdom. The Kingdom of Satan can’t be in their “Common realm” for that is, according to their “theology,” uniquely the neutral realm, public square that is owned by neither Christ nor Satan. The R2Kt lads have two Kingdoms but no Kingdom for Satan, no place where I can conceptualize a “present evil age,” resisting the leavening effect of the currently invading “age to come.”

Over at the “No Life” blog of Dr. Darryl Gnostic Hart we find my name being invoked. Darryl just can’t seem to get enough of me. Dr. Hart insists that two quotes he gives from Dr. David Van Drunnen could, in no way, elicit objection from myself or others who are opposed to Radical Two Kingdom Theology (R2K).

Unfortunately, I do object. I strenuously object. Why, even my Objections Object.

Let us consider why,

Here are the quotes Darryl offers from R2K Kingpin Van Drunen

“I like to describe the two kingdoms doctrine briefly as the conviction that God through his Son rules the whole world, but rules it in two distinct ways. As creator and sustainer, God rules the natural order and the ordinary institutions and structures of human society, and does so through his common grace, for purposes of preserving the ongoing life of this world. As redeemer, God also rules an eschatological kingdom that is already manifest in the life and ministry of the church, and he rules this kingdom through saving grace as he calls a special people to himself through the proclamation of the Scriptures. As Christians, we participate in both kingdoms but should not confuse the purposes of one with those of the other. As a Reformed theologian devoted to a rich covenant theology, I think it helpful to see these two kingdoms in the light of the biblical covenants. In the covenant with Noah after the flood, God promised to preserve the natural order and human society (not to redeem them!), and this included all human beings and all living creatures. But God also established special, redemptive covenant relationships with Abraham, with Israel through Moses, and now with the church under the new covenant. We Christians participate in both the Noahic and new covenants (remember that the covenant with Noah was put in place for as long as the earth endures), and through them in this twofold rule of God—or, God’s two kingdoms.

The “transformationist” approach to Christ and culture is embraced by so many people and used in so many different ways that I often wonder how useful a category it is. If by “transformation” we simply mean that we, as Christians, should strive for excellence in all areas of life and try to make a healthy impact on our workplace, neighborhood, etc., I am a transformationist. But what people often mean by “transformationist” is that the structures and institutions of human society are being redeemed here and now, that is, that we should work to transform them according to the pattern of the redemptive kingdom of Christ. I believe the two kingdoms doctrine offers an approach that is clearly different from this. Following the two kingdoms doctrine, a Christian politician, for example, would reject working for the redemption of the state (whatever that means) but recognize that God preserves the state for good purposes and strive to help the state operate the best it can for those temporary and provisional purposes.”

Your Honor I strenuously object for the following reasons,

1.) VanDrunen has Christ ruling the common realm according to a common grace by a common revelation (Natural law). The upshot of this is that VanDrunen (and his chief disciple Hart) does not allow God’s revealed word to norm this common realm.

2.) VanDrunen’s two Kingdoms does not account for a third Kingdom that needs accounting for.

VanDrunen’s two Kingdoms are

a.) The Redemptive realm
b.) The Common realm

But what about “this present wicked age?” Where is the Devil’s Kingdom at in all of this R2K “theology?” Certainly Christ’s Kingdom in the Church is not the Devil’s Kingdom. And certainly neither Dr. VanDrunen or his main disciple Dr. Hart would posit that the Devil’s Kingdom equals the common realm for that would be classic Anabaptist doctrine. So where exactly do our twin spin Doctors put the Devil’s Kingdom? Non R2K minds want to know.

3.) VanDrunen asserts without proving that the Kingdom of Christ is restricted in its identification to the Church. That is a tenuous supposition that has been debated for centuries in the Church.

4.) God’s ultimate purpose in Scripture is save both the common realm and the redemptive realm. God’s purpose is to “save the world” (Psalm 2, Romans 8:22, I Corinthians 5:19, I John 2:2,), thus gaining great glory for Himself. Because this is true, Dr. VanDrunen’s statement that God has different purposes for different realms is just not true.

5.) Is Dr. VanDrunen saying that the Christian’s purpose in the common realm should not be to Glorify God? I mean, if God has a different purpose for each of the Kingdoms then it would seemingly stand to reason that we should only seek to glorify God in the Kingdom that was created for that purpose. If both the common realm and the redemptive realm exist for the purpose of glorifying God then it would stand to reason that we should live in terms of His unique revelation so as to glorify Him in those respective distinct but related realms.

6.) God promises Noah that he would preserve the cosmos so that the elect may be drawn into the Church. God’s preserving of nature is bound up with His collecting and preserving of the Church, and as such we dare not form the Gnostic type dualism that R2K always does.

7.) Revelation 21:24 suggests that there is a relationship between VanDrunen’s (and his chief disciple, Hart’s) two Kingdoms that is so impermeable that the glory of Kings from the putative common realm is brought into the eschatological Kingdom. John the Revelator was not being very R2K with that inspired Scripture.

8.) As a Reformed Pastor and Theologian devoted to a rich covenant theology, I think it is helpful to see these two kingdoms in light of the biblical covenants. In the covenant with Noah after the flood, God promises to preserve the natural order and human society with the purpose that out of that natural order and human society He would redeem a people who were called to be a light to the nations and who were envied for having God’s law — a law that covered every area of life. God then also established special, redemptive covenant relationships with Israel through Moses and now with the Church but that God intended that special, redemptive covenant relationship to have ramifications beyond the cult was seen in the ministry of Jonah who demanded repentance from the Assyrians for their sins committed in the common realm. Notice also that God judged the Canaanites for their sins in the common realm by sending His redemptive people to exterminate them. All this suggests that God has the same purpose of submission to His revealed law-word among all Nations in the common realm. Hence, we can see a distinction between two Kingdoms perhaps but not a Gnostic separation of them.

9.) Dr. Van Drunen says that the “state is preserved for good purposes.” By what standard are we judging “good purposes.” I would say that State’s good purpose is to provide justice and I would say that justice can only be defined by God’s revealed word. But, Dr. Van Drunen will have none of this.

10.) If Redeemed people are creating and manning social order institutions how can it not be the case that those institutions will themselves be Redeemed. Keep in mind that by Dr. VanDrunen’s reasoning there can be no such thing as a Christian family, Christian Education, Christian law, Christian culture etc. because those are not redeemable institutions.

The second:

“I don’t think the church has any different responsibilities in an election year from what it has at any other time. The church should proclaim the whole counsel of God in Scripture (which includes, of course, teaching about the state, the value of human life, marriage, treatment of the poor, etc.). But Scripture does not set forth a political policy agenda or embrace a particular political party, and so the church ought to be silent here where it has no authorization from Christ to speak. When it comes to supporting a particular party, or candidate, or platform, or strategy—individual believers have the liberty to utilize the wisdom God gives them to make decisions they believe will be of most good to society at large. Politics constantly demands compromise, choosing between the lesser of evils, and refusing to let the better be the enemy of the good. Christians will make different judgments about these things, and the church shouldn’t try to step in and bind believers’ consciences on matters of prudence. It might be helpful to think of it this way: during times when Christians are bombarded with political advertisements, slogans, and billboards, how refreshing it should be, on the Lord’s Day, to step out of that obsession with politics and gather with God’s redeemed people to celebrate their heavenly citizenship and their bond in Christ that transcends all national, ethnic, and political divisions.”

1.) The Scripture does speak to areas in which the State, aspiring to be God, aspire to overthrow. For example, the Scripture teaches “Thou Shalt Not Murder,” and yet the State pursues policies where Murder is legitimated (i.e. — Abortion, Death Panels, Euthanasia, etc.) and so the Church must speak against the State or Party Politics that support these matters. However, according to R2K Dr. VanDruen the Church must be silent on these subjects. Indeed, Dr. VanDrunen is teaching us that it would be unbiblical to speak to these matters.

2.) Dr. VanDrunen tells us that the individual Christian may advocate for what they believe is a Biblical position but what Dr. VanDrunen doesn’t tell us is that such a anarchistic approach leaves us with the possibility of individual Christians insisting that God supports Abortion, or that God supports Bestiality, or that God supports Cultural Marxism and there is no way that these people could be disciplined since it is not the Church’s business to speak to these matters. The Church must be silent. Each Christian is left to do what is right in His own eyes and the Church must countenance that.

3.) Dr. VanDrunen writes, “Politics constantly demands compromise.”

So does this mean that a Christian who is a politician may compromise on issues that God has clearly spoken to? Must he compromise when God says, “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” and advocate for laws that will countenance adultery?

In the end Dr. Van Drunen repeating his assertions does not just settle the matter:

1. Civil kingdom ruled by common grace

2. Civil kingdom not to be transformed according the pattern of the redemptive kingdom

3. Redemptive kingdom is essentially equivalent to the church.

3. The civil kingdom’s standard is one of “excellence”.

The objections still stand:

1. Civil kingdom is normed by principles of the Word of God.

2. Civil kingdom transformed more and more according the pattern of redemption, i.e, submission to God

3. Kingdom of God is more than just the church.

4. “Excellence” is defined by what? Natural law? Common grace? What about the standard of righteousness defined by the Law?

I’m sorry that Darryl finds my objections so objectionable.

We continue to consider Dr. Darryl Hart’s article in “The American Conservative,” where he insists that a naked public square, bereft of the religious impulse, is true conservatism. And of course his insistence on this is made quite apart from any religious impulse arising within him in the way of influence.

Hart’s essays seems to suggest that since different competing religions in the public square results in “a political urge is to blend religions together.” On this score I quite agree with Dr. Hart. The impulse is always towards religious syncretism in public square when you open it up to all religions (public square polytheism). However, Dr. Hart’s solution to strip the public square of religion (public square atheism) leaves us in a place that is just as bad. Dr. Hart has not reckoned with the reality of what happens when one attempts to have a religion-less public square. What happens is not the disappearance of religion in the public square but rather what happens is that a vacuum is created in which, at least in our setting, the Idol-State fills and becomes the defacto established religion. This is what we have today in spades. The Government schools, putatively stripped of religion, are now factories producing humanist citizens to work in our humanist social order. Dr. Hart’s ideas for a naked public square would yield the same results that have been produced in our “naked public square” government schools. This is not a conservative view.

It is interesting to note that it appears that one aspect in which Hart’s essay can find application, is in finding a way to eliminate the balkanization of America’s public square. Is there belief by “Augustinian Christians” that if we extracted religion (an impossible task as we have already noted) from the public square then the citizenry (or at least Christians) would be far less inclined to be divided over sectarian lines as those sectarian positions express themselves in the public square? At the very least they would certainly be less divided in Church as such public square issue would never come up in Augustinian Churches since, according to Radical Two Kingdom advocates, the Church is not the place to speak on what is happening in the public square. Dr. Hart’s “Conservative views” have the felicitous effect of silencing the Church’s voice in a public square that is wrestling over issues like “abortion,” “Homosexual marriage,” and state sanctioned theft.

It is of note that Dr. Hart, as a Augustinian Christian, is advocating for the public square the putative Augustinian Christian position that he lays out in his article. Apparently Hart finds no contradiction or irony in trying to bring his Augustinian Christian influence to bear on the issue of the public square, all the while insisting that Christians should not influence the public square.

Hart continues his article by comparing and contrasting “Republican Christianity” (Hart’s villain in his write up) with Augustinian Christianity (Hart’s champion in his piece). Dr. Hart suggests that “Augustinian Christianity” is more virtuous because it spoke up least in the public square for King Christ and did not try to have a relevant or influential impact on Dr. Hart’s “common realm.” Hart even tells us, “don’t let appearances deceive: the Americans who are the most devout may be the ones least likely to talk about their faith openly.” We learn here that those who are most mute in the public square for the cause of Christ are the ones who are the most pious.

There is another matter here that we must turn to, and that is Dr. Hart’s appeal to the “secular.” Dr. Hart seems to believe that there is some realm or sphere that is not normed by faith convictions. For Hart, as for most R2K advocates, the common realm is a realm that is, by definition, not shaped nor having the capacity of being shaped, by Christianity. It is a secular (neutral) realm that exists and moves by impulses that are not faith defined or faith conditioned. According to Hart, because this is so, we must not try to introduce faith into this common realm. Hart speaks of the problem of Protestantism being “secularized,” or of “secularization,” and yet Protestantism wasn’t secularized, but rather it became syncretistic — which is to say that it imbibed the presuppositions of other non-Christian faith systems and so incrementally surrendered the faith. Similarly the problem has never been secularization — as if the Christian faith moved from Christianity to neutrality — but rather the problem has been “paganization,” where the Christian faith moved from Christianity to humanism. Dr. Hart’s analysis is weak because Dr. Hart’s categories are fallacious.

Dr. Hart then turns to a historical treatise that describes, in his opinion, where America went wrong by embracing Republican Christianity vs. Augustinian Christianity. In Part III we will take up Dr. Hart’s historical analysis.