Category: Apologetics

Egalitarianism, Multiculturalism, Multifaithism and R2K

The premise of egalitarianism is that all men and all cultures are equal in value and worth. R2K embraces that premise when it comes to religion for the public square. Now, clearly R2K believes that Christianity is superior when it comes to providing individual salvation, but as it concerns the Christian faith influencing the public square, the Christian faith is not superior to any other faith. In the sense of faith influencing the public square all faiths are equal according to R2K theology and no faith is to be prioritized or favored over other faiths. R2K is egalitarian as it comes to religious influence in the public square. This is so true that R2K could be referenced as “religious public square egalitarianism.”

Actually, this religious public square egalitarianism (R2K) fits right in with the religious agenda of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism really can’t get off the ground unless it comes in tandem with multi-faithism. R2K supports multi-faithism by advocating that the public square should be equally common to all equally valid religious expressions. It is only by the public square being equally common to all equally valid religious expressions that all cultures can then be likewise embraced as being equally valid for a society. Multiculturalism teaches that no culture is superior to another culture and if that is true then it must likewise be true that no faith is superior to another faith, as it relates to the public square. Since culture is only the outward manifestation of an embraced faith multiculturalism (all cultures are equal) necessitate multi-faithism (all faiths are equal in the public square). R2K is a “Christian” theology that readily accommodates multiculturalism because it actively supports multi-faithism for the public square.

R2K then tells leaders of public squares that there is no necessity to Kiss the Son because there is no possibility that they will perish in the way since the Son desires leaders of public squares to throw off His explicit bonds. Egalitarianism, multiculturalism, public square multi-faithism they are the necessary offspring of R2K.

An Egalitarian Advocate vs. A Covenantal Ordering Advocate Conversation

Egalitarian wrote,

I’ve heard a lot of these arguments from patriarchalists, and I’ve still concluded that egalitarianism is the way to go. A sharp eye to culture and language is key to understanding Paul, and Jesus’ treatment of women was always inclusive and equalizing.

Response

Really?

Is that why Jesus chose 12 male disciples?

Secondly, Are we to believe that for the last 500 years the Reformed Church has failed at having a sharp eye for language and culture and only now are we being brought into the promised land of the Egalitarian hermeneutic?

Thirdly, the 5th commandment forbids all egalitarian readings of Scripture. The Scriptures at every turn are opposed to egalitarianism.

For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith clearly eschews egalitarianism as seen it is treatment of the 5th commandment with all its languages about inferiors and superiors.

Question 126: What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?

Answer: The general scope of the fifth commandment is, the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in our several relations, as inferiors, superiors, or equals.

Question 127: What is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors.?

Answer: The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is, all due reverence in heart, word, and behavior; prayer and thanksgiving for them; imitation of their virtues and graces; willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels; due submission to their corrections; fidelity to, defense and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks, and the nature of their places; bearing with their infirmities, and covering them in love, that so they may be an honor to them and to their government.

Question 128: What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors?

Answer: The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required toward them; envying at, contempt of, and rebellion against, their persons and places, in their lawful counsels, commands, and corrections; cursing, mocking, and all such refractory and scandalous carriage, as proves a shame and dishonor to them and their government.

Note — What else could we conclude but that the Westminster Divines would have seen feminism as a sin since feminists, like the one we are dealing with here, rebel against the person and places of their Covenant Head husbands?

Question 129: What is required of superiors towards their inferiors?

Answer: It is required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God, and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors; to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body: and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary carriage, to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God has put upon them.

Question 130: What are the sins of superiors?

Answer: The sins of superiors are, besides the neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful, or not in the power of inferiors to perform; counseling, encouraging, or favoring them in that which is evil; dissuading, discouraging, or discountenancing them in that which is good; correcting them unduly; careless exposing, or leaving them to wrong, temptation, and danger; provoking them to wrath; or any way dishonoring themselves, or lessening their authority, by an unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behavior.

Question 131: What are the duties of equals?

Answer: The duties of equals are, to regard the dignity and worth of each other, in giving honor to go one before another; and to rejoice in each other’s gifts and advancement, as their own.

Question 132: What are the sins of equals?

Answer: The sins of equals are, besides the neglect of the duties required, the undervaluing of the worth, envying the gifts, grieving at the advancement of prosperity one of another; and usurping preeminence one over another.

Clearly, the Scriptures are diametrically opposed to the strictures of egalitarianism.

Egalitarian wrote,

He also appeared to women first in a culture in which they were not considered court-worthy witnesses. Paul also mentions many women he refers to as partners with him in his work, including Priscilla, who took a man aside and taught him to be a better teacher.

Response,

No … actually it was both Priscilla and Aquila who took Apollos aside. You failed to mention Priscilla’s male covenant head. Second the fact that Jesus and Paul have women as supporters (though clearly not leaders) in the ministry only reveals that Christianity is not, unlike feminism, misogynist.

Secondly, if one follows the narrative of the Bible one is not surprised that Jesus appears first to women after the resurrection just as the angels appeared first to Shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus. In both cases those who were first engaged were not court-worthy witnesses. So, in light of the fact that the Shepherds and women have in common this low ranking on the scale of the social order we must conclude that the purpose of this is not tied to sexuality (after all the Shepherds were male) but rather it is tied to a theme that we find throughout Scripture and that is God uses the weak to confound the wise. However, that God uses the weak (shepherds and women) to confound the wise in the Scripture cannot be used as a proof that women should be leadership roles. Also we need to keep in mind that the descriptive accounts in historical narrative are not necessarily prescriptive. It is a strange way to argue that because Jesus appeared to women after the resurrection, as presented in a historical narrative, that therefore proves we should have women Pastors and Elders. The explicit texts I cite later in this response reveals that the clear didactic teaching of the Scripture is clearly opposed to what you are advocating.

Egalitarian writes,

As many women and men can attest, gifts are self-evidently not gendered, and I don’t think there’s anything in the passages about gifts to suggest such a thing.

Response,

Self evident to who? Not to me. Not to many Reformed people I know. Allow me to suggest that they are only self evident to egalitarians because you begin with egalitarian presuppositions — presuppositions that I believe can not be supported by the weight of Scripture.

In terms of the passages about gifts… well, those have to be read in conjunction with the passages on leadership and those passages expressly and self-evidently prohibit women serving as leaders.

Egalitarian,

Much of the “usurp authority” language is used in the context of a culture in which goddess-worship was prominent (Ephesus) and many egalitarians think the specific problem here was false teachers in a city in which women were already more involved religious work than men, and so were possibly causing problems in the Church with pagan teachings. It is necessary to remember these are letters.

Response,

This is a fine theory but it really doesn’t hold water. In other passages, such as Jude and Timothy, the Apostles go out of their way to warn against heretical men. If it were a problem in the Churches where both men and women were the problem then the Apostles would have given a warning that was more generic in terms of gender silencing all false teaching as opposed to just silencing women. However, as the problem is clearly women usurping authority (as Eve did in the Garden when she usurped Adam’s authority and ate the fruit) so the Apostle forbids women from usurping proper covenantal authority.

And to be precise … they are inspired letters. This is God speaking in these letters.

Egalitarian,

As to patriarchy being instituted in the Garden of Eden, Tessa is saying, I believe correctly, that that verse IS a part of the curses of sin. It comes right after pains in childbirth–it’s a result of the fall.

Response,

The curse of sin is found in Eve desiring the position of her husband. The promise that God will not let the curse overwhelm is found in God’s statement …”But he shall rule over you.” This promise is reinforced in the NT where wives are clearly and explicitly told to “obey their husbands.”

Egalitarian,

In the poetic form of Chapter 1, the liturgical piece that begins the book, it talks about the creation of man and then of woman, but the recap in the following chapter just says God created man in his own image, male and female he created them. Again, it’s a matter of literary style.

Response,

First … Genesis 1-11 is not Poetic genre. It is Historical genre.

Hebrew narrative always starts with a QAL (past tense) verb, and from then on, all the main verbs are VA-YIQTOL (future tense converted to past tense by the vav-conversive). That’s exactly how Genesis 1 is structured.

In the beginning, God created (QAL) the heavens and the earth. (Verse 2 is made up of 3 disjuctive clauses…i.e. they begin with a vav on a noun, not a verb…so they aren’t part of the main verbal chain)

Then:

Verse 3 – And God said (VA-YIQTOL)
Verse 4 – And God saw….and God separated…both VA-YIQTOL
Verse 5 – And God called…and there was…both VA-YIQTOL

etc. throughout the passage.

That’s just factually and objectively how narrative is constructed in Hebrew. Pick any OT Bible story that’s taken as history, and it’s structured exactly the same way. Poetry is never structured this way.

Second, the flow of the narrative makes it clear that woman was made for Adam to be his help-meet. The rest of Scripture confirms this as I cite below.

Third, the fact that the serpent went to Eve for the temptation reveals that even the Serpent understood he was bypassing God’s covenantal ordering. Instead of going to the covenant head, the serpent bypasses Adam’s headship and overturns Adam by overturning Adam’s helpmeet. (There also may be a hint in the Genesis record that Adam failed in His covenant responsibilities by not protecting and serving his wife by keeping the serpent out of the garden.)

Egalitarian,

As for Ephesians 5, there’s an arbitrarily added subject heading that says ‘wives and husbands’, but the verse immediately preceding this says “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The following verses are dependent clauses–wives and husbands submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, here’s why (marriage is a big deal). We’re partnering to show something.

Response,

This is an inaccurate understanding. What is going on in Ephesians is that Paul gives a general command (“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”) and then he follows that with particular examples of what that submission to one another out of reverence for Christ looks like. What “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ,” looks like is, “wives submitting to husbands, servants submitting to Masters, and children submitting to parents. Any attempt to universalize the submitting so that husbands submit to wives and masters to servants and parents to children does severe violence to the text and to God’s original intent.

Egalitarian

I don’t think the Bible ever suggests “women should submit to men”. Even if you don’t agree with my reading of Ephesians, I think you can only take it as far as wives and husbands. As far as Galatians 3:18 goes, “there is no Jew or Greek” obviously doesn’t mean ethnicity doesn’t exist or shouldn’t be celebrated, but it DOES mean those with different ethnicities are absolutely equal in the family of God.

Response,

No … Galatians 3:28 does not mean that different ethnicities are absolutely equal (i.e. — the same) in the family of God. Galatians 3:28 isn’t teaching that. Gal. 3:28 is teaching that when it comes to access to a right standing with God through Jesus Christ none of the very real social order differences that exist in Church and culture bar anyone from having that access. Both genders, all ethnicities and both servants and masters can come to Christ. Your reading of this text has origins that are very recent.

Some texts that deal with the issue at hand.

1 Cor 14:34-35,37 — Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.

1 Cor 11:3-10 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. …

Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Bavinck On R2K

“Scripture is the Book of the Kingdom of God, not a book for this or that people, for the individual only, but for all nations, for all of humanity. It is not a book for one age, but for all times. It is a Kingdom book. Just as the Kingdom of God develops not alongside and above history, but in and through world history, so too Scripture must not be abstracted, nor viewed by itself, nor isolated from everything. Rather, Scripture must be brought into relationship with all our living, with the living of the entire human race. And Scripture must be employed to explain all of human
living.”

Herman Bavinck,
“The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good”

HT — Mark Van Der Molen

The Need To Be Sensitive To Transgenderism?

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4646

http://thinkchristian.net/lana-wachowski-transgender-and-stories-we-need-to-hear2

These two links should be read back to back. The first one doesn’t pretend to be Christian and offers,

Event director Giuliana Berry ’14 told Campus Reform in an interview on Monday that the workshop was brought to campus to teach students not to automatically judge people who may have engaged in these sorts of activities, but rather to respond with “understanding” and “compassion.”

“People do engage in some of these activities that we believe only for example perverts engage in,” she said. “What the goal is is to increase compassion for people who may engage in activities that are not what you would personally consider normal.”

The second link is written by an ordained Christian minister with whom I am an acquaintance. He writes,

“Here in the absence of words to defend myself, without examples, without models, I began to believe voices in my head – that I was a freak, that I am broken, that there is something wrong with me, that I will never be lovable.”

Hearing those words from anyone ought to give us pause.

The deep-seated pain and hours of tormented anxiety that lead one to devalue one’s own life and to consider oneself unlovable ought to cause our heart to break. It ought to move us to do what we can to protect the vulnerability of one who has felt ostracized from society.

Put these words into the mouth of a transgender individual, however, and all too often our response is less Christ-like.

But what if we were to put these words into the mouth of a pederast or of a necrophiliac or of someone who likes bedding farm animals? Should we then be moved to do what we can to protect the vulnerability of the pederast, necrophiliac or beastie who has felt ostracized from society or should we thank God that they are ostracized from society? Certainly our hearts should break but should they not break because of the affects of sin on image bearers and not because somehow those who God considers perverts are ostracized from civilized society? Sure, we must have compassion on Transgender people but compassion comes in the form of pleading with them to repent of their sin and not in normalizing their sin.

And all of this is said with a full understanding of a condition called Klinefelter syndrome, where the phenotypically male patients have an extra X chromosome, making them XXY, and they are known to exhibit strange behavior. This chromosomal aberration related to gender has serious complications, and it is no surprise that those who insist in wanting the other gender as their own sexual identity will have their own mental and emotional problems too.

Still, having acknowledged that some of these medical abnormalities arise this is hardly reason to want to normalize for society what is clearly aberrant non Klinefelter behavior. Our Christ-like response has to not only consider the feelings of Transgenders but also the mind of God who has made His mind known regarding male and female roles.

My pastoral acquaintance writes,

Many Christians are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with transgender. When the city of Gainesville, Fla., proposed and later passed an ordinance in 2008 guaranteeing freedom from discrimination for transgender individuals, the response of the Christian community was to run a sensationalized media campaign about the dangers of lecherous men using the women’s restroom.

“What if, instead of responding out of our fear or anxiety, we learned to listen to the heart of those who make us uncomfortable?”

Why would one assume that being concerned for the safety of other people was a response driven by fear and anxiety and not one driven by love and compassion for people who are not Transgender? Consider that though gay and transgender youth represent just 5 percent to 7 percent of the nation’s overall youth population, they compose 13 percent to 15 percent of those currently in the juvenile justice system. Apparently there are reasons for the community at large to be concerned about mainstreaming transgendered people.

Secondly, I hope my acquaintance will see that in responding to his article I am listening to the heart of one who makes me uncomfortable. I’m sure I make him uncomfortable in this response. Will he listen to my heart?

My acquaintance writes,

When we refuse to give space for those who struggle with gender identity, when we draw clearly demarcated lines of male and female and demand that everyone fit within those boxes, when we try to ignore the very real questions of so many young people, we force people like Lana to live in invisibility, in a world where death can seem preferable to life, where being loved by another is an unattainable ideal.

Bret responds,

Understand that the Lana in question was born a man and is now transgendered. She is in a relationship with another man. The Church used to call that sin. Now we are being asked to “give space,” and to not “draw clearly demarcated lines of male and female and demand that everyone fit within those boxes.” How is it love or loving to allow someone created in the image of God to go on attacking the image of God place upon him by not pleading with compassion that such a person repent?

What of the lack of compassion towards other little boys and girls in society who will grow up seeing Transgenderism in our culture as normal and as one option that they may now choose from? How is it loving to those little boys and girls to allow them to think that there is something healthy and normal about Transgenderism? Are we not at that point causing the little ones to stumble?

And finally, if Transgenderism is mainstreamed is it not I and other Biblical Christians who will be now forced to live lives of invisibility as our convictions about the abnormality of Transgenderism is squelched so that we dare not come out of the closet? As what heretofore was considered sexual perversion comes out of the closet and is mainstreamed what was once mainstreamed (Biblical Christianity) is that which is now the oddity and must be shoved into the closet.

My acquaintance writes,

What does it look like for the church to have a theology of gender that leaves room for those who struggle with gender expectations? What does it look like for the church to have a doctrine of humanity that incorporates not only “standard” XX and XY chromosomal men and women but also those whom we regularly deem anomalies? What does it look like for the church to be a place that welcomes the discussion over gender identity? Are our churches a place where a man or a woman can share their struggles to fit in to cultural expectations of gender norms? What would it look like for the church to stand up to the gender stereotypes in marketing and advertising that help to perpetuate gender roles and cause inner turmoil for those who don’t somehow fit in?

I suspect that if we’re going to get there, we first need to learn to listen. We need to hear what Lana and others like her are saying.

Bret responds,

My acquaintance asks all questions in the blockquote immediately above. I wish he had answered his own questions so that we would know what he thinks the answers to those questions are, thus giving us a better idea of both his Theology and anthropology.

Question #1 – Certainly the Church should allow sinners to continue to learn to put off the old man and put on the new man. The early Church had these kinds of people in their churches.

I Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

However, clearly note that St. Paul notes that this is what they once were but now that they are in Christ they are no longer that. Former Transgenders may be in the Church and may still struggle with the besetting sin of Transgenderism and the Church may have need to be patient with that and loving through that, but the expectation is that the old man of Transgenderism will be put off and the new man of heterosexuality will be put on.

Question #2 — Here we come up against the doctrine of anthropology and by extension human sexuality. The premise of my acquaintance’s question seems to be the Church is responsible to incorporate what our Fathers called “perversion.” Also, except for the medical oddity that will arise in a very low percentage of cases, God made all people either as XX or XY. It is a very postmodern mindset that thinks that we can create categories that are other then male or female. I see nowhere in the Scripture where such a postmodern move is considered normative. Clearly in the Corinthians 6 passage above the Holy Spirit’s expectation is that Transgenders in order to be incorporated into the Church must repent of their Transgenderism and be washed, justified and sanctified in the Lord Christ.

Question #3 — What kind of discussion does my acquaintance want to have about gender identity. Does he want a discussion where the conclusion could be that God was wrong about these matters and the Church must give up their centuries long objection to such behavior, or does he want a discussion where the Church welcomes those confused about gender identity and holds out the Gospel of Jesus Christ which can deliver them from their alienation from God, self, and others as expressed in Transgenderism?

Question #4 — I would hope our churches are safe places where repenting sinners can share their struggles with their besetting sins. The Church is a hospital where recovering sinners can look for the tonic of grace to help them in their recovery.

Question #5 — It would help to know just exactly what gender roles my acquaintance is protesting against in our marketing and advertising. Is he protesting women being displayed as sex objects? If so, who couldn’t agree with such a protest? Or is he protesting men and women being displayed as men and women? It is hard to address this question until one knows the exact gender misrepresenting that is going on in advertising and marketing.

Still, all in all it sounds as if my acquaintance has been caught up in the postmodern gender bending craze that insists that gender is merely a social construct. If that is the case then I can only offer that it is my conviction that the whole idea of nearly everything being a social construct is itself a social construct.

In closing, I can’t believe it has come to the point where an apologetic has to be provided for this kind of thing inside the Church.

Hart’s “Easy Peasy” Leaves Me Feeling Queasy, Sneezy, and Sleazy

I’ll start this post by referencing one of the comments on the thread from which this fisking comes. One of the comments insinuated that I was a uber Republican. Just, FYI … I haven’t voted Republican in 20 years. Just one continuous stream of errant assumptions flows from R2K’ers.

Darryl wrote,

The good Rabbi posits once again that I am a dunce (along with all 2kers) for not recognizing that the church and the state are all part of one cosmic government under the authority of God. (One of his fans suggests I am not regenerate.) Actually, I do understand this. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of divine sovereignty and powers delegated to parents, churches, and magistrates knows that God’s rule extends to the secondary means by which he orders all things.

1.) I never posited that Darryl was a “dunce.” I said he was out of his element. I got that line from Darryl himself as he addressed Mr. Doug Sowers saying,

“… Doug, you’re out of your element.”

A little “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander treatment in my previous title.

2.) Still, I do believe that Darryl is out of his element. The element is Historical traditional Reformed understanding of Church State relations per the original Reformed Confessions. Even Darryl admits that his reading is nouveau. Darryl wrote in his post “If Theonomy, Then No Machen (or United States),”

Or maybe theonoomy and the original Reformed confessions’ teachings about the magistrate lost when the Reformed and Presbyterian churches embraced the politics associated with a certain eighteenth-century republic founded in North America.

3.) Darryl has a funny way of expressing God’s cosmic sovereignty when he insist that the Magistrate has naught to do with God’s law. (See previous post on Iron Ink, “Straight to the Hart.”)

Darryl continues

The problem for the Rabbi is that he goes back and forth between this cosmic government and the specific relations between nations and their churches. Talking about divine sovereignty and human institutions in the abstract is one thing. Talking about the relations between church and state in a particular polity is another.

The signs of this confusion come when the Rabbi concludes:

1.) Darryl is saying Calvin was wrong and that Geneva was a unbiblical model. Sinful Calvin. Sinful Geneva. I’m sure glad we have a clearly superior model working for us now in these uSA that we can look to for an example.

2.) In an ideal social order the Pastors serve God by obeying God’s revelation for the Church and civil magistrates serve God by obeying God’s revelation for the Civil realm. The Pastors don’t work for the Government and the Magistrates don’t work for the Church. Both, however are subject to God in His revelation. This isn’t that difficult.

First, I am wrong to challenge the superiority of Geneva even though Christ and Paul did not establish a polity anything like Geneva. This would suggest that the Rabbi is not pleased with the early church that did nothing to make sure that the magistrate was following God’s law. Personally, I’d rather be in the camp of criticizing Calvin than the one that questions Christ. But most critics of 2k never really look at what’s happening in Acts to understand what the church’s mission properly is. Instead, they pine for the days when pontiffs in Rome were christening Holy Roman Emperors.

1.) And The problem with Darryl is because he gets it wrong in the abstract he also gets it wrong in the concrete. Darryl has it wrong in both abstract and concrete.

2.) We have on record that Darryl thinks that Calvin was wrong. Obviously Darryl would also have to disagree with Knox also when Knox referenced Geneva as, “the most perfect school of Christ that was ever on earth since the days of the apostles.”

3.) Of course Darryl’s hermeneutic of discontinuity differs from my Reformed hermeneutic of continuity that allows me to see that God’s word does teach a polity like Geneva. When it comes to questions like these I don’t start with the NT. I start with all of the Scripture. Also, keep in mind that the implication of what Darryl writes above is that Calvin’s position was in defiance of Christ’s position.

4.) The early Church did do something to make sure that the Magistrate took seriously God’s law. The martyrs of the Early Church died to force the first commandment on the Magistrates. In their deaths they made sure the Magistrate took seriously God’s law, and eventually, by their Martyrdom, the civil realm became Christendom.

5.) Darryl obviously skips Acts 19 when he reads the book of Acts. In Acts 19 we see the effect on the common realm when Reformation visits a people. St. Paul spends two years reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus and as a result of that teaching and Miracles occurring confirming the Gospel, God was pleased to give Reformation. This turned everything upside down in Hart’s common realm. The common culture of occult was extinguished. The economics of the common realm was so threatened that there was riots by those whose livelihood was threatened by the advance of the Kingdom of Christ. Indeed, because of the success of the Gospel, the religion that drove the culture was threatened to be overturned in favor of a Christ informed culture. Diana, the Queen of Ephesus was on the ropes as King Christ, via Reformation, was overturning everything in the common realm.

Of course, in R2K, that isn’t supposed to happen. In R2K, souls are saved, but culture, by definition, can’t be Christian.

So, in short Darryl … yes I read the book of Acts and yes I know that the theme of the book of Acts is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Do you read the book of Acts?

Darryl writes,

Second, the Rabbi takes as soon as he gives. Geneva by his reckoning was not an “ideal” social order because the pastors did work for the government. So Brett is no fan of Calvin’s town either, but this leaves him with no historical home (maybe that’s why he kvetches so much).

This from David Hall’s “The Geneva Reformation and America’s Founding,”

“One of Calvin’s demands before returning to Geneva in September of 1541 was that a presbytery … be established. When it came to replace ineffective centralized structures, rather than opting for an institution that strengthened his own hand, this visionary reformer lobbied for decentralized authority, lodged with many officers. He also insisted that the church be free from political interference — separation of jurisdictions helped to solidify the integrity of the church too — and his 1541 Ecclesiastical Ordinances specifically required such a separation….

Calvin’s and Farel’s first priority upon their return was the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances which allowed the Church to supervise morals and teaching of its own pastors without the hindrance from any other authorities. The sovereignty of the Consistory to monitor the faith and practice of the Church was legitimized by this Ordinances. This arrangement marked a departure form the traditional union of Church and State under Roman Catholic auspices…. With the establishment of the Ordinances, Geneva created a unique Christian commonwealth whereby church and state cooperated in preserving religion as the key to their new identity….

What is special about Geneva is the assumption of both church and state conformed to the will of God, and each had its proper sphere in the Christian commonwealth.”

Maybe Darryl should read Hall’s book before he implies that Geneva was a Protestant version of Roman Catholicism’s union of Church and State?

I know where my home is Darryl … and it’s not Paris, circa 1789.

Darryl plods on,

Third, this is easy stuff. Yes, despite the long and troubled history of relating religion to politics, from Israel to Kuyper’s Netherlands, it’s not difficult. Pass the mints.

It’s not difficult since the heavy lifting has been done by Calvin, Bucer, Ponet, Viret, Althusius, Beza, Buchanan, Bullinger, Daneau, Goodman, Farel, Hotman, Knox, Rutherford, Vermigli, the authors of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, and a host of others. The problem that Darryl and the R2K’ers are having is that,

a.) they don’t seem to be familiar with these men
b.) they are trying to reinvent the wheel.

So, no… this isn’t that difficult. Certainly there continues to be disagreements, but it is not that difficult when dealing with R2K’ers when they are making this stuff up as they go.

Darryl finishes,

One last point to notice is this notion of an “ideal social order.” The Rabbi presents himself as a true-blue political conservative and loves to deconstruct the social engineers on the Left who are trying to usher in the kingdom of justice and equality. He should know then that conservatives don’t believe in ideal social orders. They refuse to immanentize the eschaton. It’s the Stalins of the world who actually believe ideal social orders are possible. Conservatives simply endure the infirmities and woes of this world.

Turns out life in this world is difficult.

It is true that conservatives don’t seek Utopias but to speak of an “ideal social order,” in my jargon, is only to speak of that social order towards which God’s renewed people should be aiming. It is no different then to speak of sanctification in terms of reaching an “ideal character.” Darryl tries to read to much into the phrase in order to try and discredit me. It is a clever but unsuccessful ploy.

And I do believe that God’s ideal social order is possible. Not because men are going to usher in it — sans the techniques of the Stalins of this present wicked age. But I believe it is possible because the Holy Spirit is going to continually, incrementally and progressively bring to pass what is already true in principle and shall be one day true consumatively. I am a postmillennialist. This is what the Scriptures teach. This is what I confess.

So, it is not I, nor my ilk, who will immantize the eschaton, but the Lord Christ who will as, His will is increasingly done on earth as it is in heaven that His already present Kingdom comes.

For He must reign til He has put all enemies under his feet. As such, the day is coming in space and time history where the Kings will kiss the Son.

And yes life in this world is difficult. Living with R2K is enough to make the strongest of Reformed men weep.