Category: Apologetics

From the Mailbag; Pastor Can You Provide A R2K for Dummies?

Thank you Colin for the question. I think I can do that. In examining R2K (Radical Two Kingdom “theology”) we must understand that what drives it first and foremost. The answer to that is its eschatology.

1.) R2K is a eschatology (doctrine of the end expected) of defeat. Their eschatological model teaches that Christianity can not to be triumphant in this world beyond the Church (grace) realm. Indeed, defeat is hard baked into their eschatological model inasmuch as their eschatology doesn’t even allow Christianity to contend in the common realm against the various other gods and religions. If Christianity can’t even contend anyplace but the Church then obviously defeat is the eschatological consequence.

2.) When we consider the ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) of R2K it is absolutely essential to keep in mind that for R2K “the Church,” and “the Kingdom of God” are exactly synonymous. The Church and the Church alone is where one finds the Kingdom of God. Now one could fix this as the Roman Catholics do by bringing in everything from the common realm into the Church in order to make it ‘Holy’ but R2K doesn’t make that move. Instead R2K does just the opposite of Rome and keeps everything else outside the Church restricting the Kingdom to being the Church and the Church alone. Everything outside the Church (Kingdom) is called “common.” So, this means

1.) family
2.) civilization
3.) culture
4.) education
5.) law
6.) arts
7.) science
8.) civil-social (Government)

each and all are not in any way related to the Kingdom of God but are to be considered “common.”

Now, R2K makes a smooth seldom noticed move here. What I have just described is almost the position of the Anabaptist. The difference is that the Anabaptist insisted that all these were “worldly” except as they existed inside the Anabaptist community of faith. So, the only difference between the Anabaptist and R2K here is that while the Anabaptist called these Institutions “worldly,” R2K calls them “common.” One wonders if there is some linguistic legerdemain going on here? Is the R2K word “common” just a fig leaf covering their Anabaptist “worldly?”

3.) Also touching ecclesiology R2K is adamant about the “Spirituality of the Church.” Now when this doctrine was used by Reformed types like the covenanters the purpose was to keep the snout of the Magistrate out of controlling the Church. R2K has flipped that so that the purpose of the Spirituality of the Church is to keep the Church’s snout out of influencing the Magistrate.

The spirituality of the Church teaches that given the unique calling and teleos of the Church under the mediatorial Kingship of Christ the church is limited in its authority to handling the keys of the Kingdom and is tasked differently than the State. The Church is tasked with the ministry of grace while the State is tasked with the ministry of justice. This is interpreted by R2K as a cone of silence upon the Church as Institution when it comes to speaking to Caesar. There is truth in this but the way R2K handles the “Spirituality of the Church” does not allow for the nuancing necessary when the State begins to speak authoritatively via legislation in a manner contrary to God’s speaking in Inscripturated Revelation. In my estimation we need to return to a doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” that is a tool to keep the State from seeking to usurp the unique authority of the Church.

The impact of this doctrine of the spirituality of the Church the way that R2K handles it means that you will seldom if ever hear a R2K minister speak to social issues like Marxism, Abortion, Just War, Sodomy, redistribution of wealth plans, etc. For R2K society could be burning down around us and the pulpit would be silent about the Lordship of Jesus Christ on these issues.

4.) R2K calls it “the hyphenated life.” A less diplomatic way to put it would be R2K is characterized by a Gnostic type dualism. Because R2K divides all of life between the church realm (upper story) and common realm (lower story) the consequence is that there are dualisms everywhere in R2K.

For example, in R2K there are two authorities. There is the authority of God’s Word for the Church realm and then there is the authority of Natural Law for the common realm. God rules explicitly by His Word in the realm of grace but does not rule explicitly in the common realm but rather rules by Natural law. As such the Clergy should keep only to the Church realm issues not preaching or teaching on issues taking place in the common realm.

For example, while the Church might forbid homosexuality in the Church, outside the Church, Church members could freely state that they could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.

For example, in the Church Christ is Lord but outside the Church in the common realm Caesar is Lord. Here is a quote from a R2K devotee that demonstrates this dualism,

“Nero did not violate God’s law if he executed Christians who obeyed God rather than man. If Paul continued to preach after the emperor said he may not, then Nero was doing what God ordained government to do.” ~ D.G. Hart

The Gnostic part of the dualism is seen in the denial by R2K that anything in this life (family, culture, civilization, etc.) follows us into the Kingdom of God. Also, inasmuch as nothing but the Church (grace) realm can be Christian there seems to be a despising of the corporeal by R2K theology. The Creational realm is not renewed but is destroyed. This is Gnostic.

5.) The soteriology (doctrine of salvation) of R2K is hyper individual to the point of being atomistic. We might say that for all practical purposes it is Baptistic. Individuals get saved but the whole idea of covenantal categories that include children in salvation is negated by R2K’s insistence that the family can not be Christian. Also R2K’s denial that family follows into the New Jerusalem is a denial of covenantal categories. Next, in terms of soteriology, while Reformed theology has typically taught that God’s salvation is cosmic so that as salvation comes to peoples and nations so it comes to their Institutions, cultures, and civilizations. R2K denies all of this insisting that salvation is only personal, individual, and private.

There is more that could be said Colin but if you look for these five categories when you listen to or read Reformed ministers you can begin to get a sense when you are cheek by jowl with a heterodox R2K “theologian” or “minister.”

In the end R2K is a “theology” that is contrary to the Three Forms of Unity and if the R2K lads had integrity they would step forward and ask for exceptions to the Heidelberg catechism on this score. The Heidelberg Catehcism explicitly teaches that Christ is,

“our eternal King,7
who governs us by his Word and Spirit,
and who defends and preserves us
in the redemption obtained for us.”

But R2K teaches that Christ does not govern us by His Word and Spirit in the common realm but rather in the common realm we are governed by Natural Law.

Those who are R2K are outside their confessional vows and should step forward to take exceptions.

 

In Praise of Hatred

“Hate that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.” Romans 12:9

“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

Edmund Burke


Hate gets a bum rap. Here all hate is doing is being the visceral counter-reaction to all that is loved and hate gets hated on. Hate gets maligned with ideas of “hate-crimes,” and “hate-speech,” and “hate-facts.” No one ever faults love when it is invoked for lust and yet hate takes it on the chin by receiving all the bad press and that even when employed properly.

You literature fans… where would you be without hate? How could you have a five star novel without the nobility of hatred in the building conflict? Could Dicken’s, “A Tale of Two Cities” ever have gotten off the ground without building our hatred for Madame De Farge? Would you have ever read Tolkien without Gollum? What would be Beowulf without hatred for Grendel? Even in the Scriptures we keep turning the pages to finally see the Serpent’s head fully crushed.

And what of history? History would be boring if there weren’t people to justly hate. Whether it is Vikud Quisling or Benedict Arnold. Whether it is Judas or Julian the Apostate. Whether it is Pope Francis or Bloody Mary, history wouldn’t be history without a proper hatred for the proper people.

For these reasons alone I think hatred should be toasted. Love gets all the credit but without hated hatred love would just be another ho hum passion losing the ability to be repulsed by what contradicts it.

Consider, for a second, the consequences to our culture because so many have decided that hate is bad. Because we are seeking to ban hate that which fills the vacuum of its absence is tolerance. The consequence of embracing tolerance in place of a full on loving of hate is not that hate disappears but rather is subtly re-directed. We are taught hate is bad and tolerance is good with the result that we now hate ourselves all the while telling ourselves how loving we are being. We used to properly hate those who were seeking to overthrow our the values of a culture that was, at least in part, Christian. Now, we are convinced that it is horrid to hate the opposite what we used to love. It used to be noble to hate sodomy, hate abortion, hate LGBTQ’ism, hate the stranger and alien whose cultural baggage promised the overthrow of our own beloved cultural values. So, hate hasn’t gone away. It has merely changed zip codes. We used to hate the opposite of that which we loved. Now we merely hate ourselves as we tolerate that which is destroying us. We once hated sodomy but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our sons as we created a culture wherein they could more easily embrace sodomy. But… hey, it’s all good because we now have the ability to tolerate our sodomite sons. We once hated abortion but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our daughters as we created a culture wherein they could more easily secure that needed abortion. We once hated tattoos but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our sons and daughters as we created a culture wherein they could more easily ink themselves up. Again… hatred, being an inescapable concept, hasn’t really gone away, it’s merely relocated itself so that we hate ourselves and our kin.

If the God of the Bible hates (Ps.139:22; 119:63; Prov. 6:16-19) , and if we are supposed to aspire to character of God as seen in Christ then hate should be lauded. We see the hate of our Lord Christ in the way He spoke to His enemies and in His expertise in driving out the Bankers out of the Temple. Hate, glorious hate.

Indeed Scripture presses upon God’s people to properly hate.

Ecclesiastes 3

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Psalm 139

Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

Proverbs 8:13

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

And yet we are still told my our clergy corps that Christians ought not to hate instead of being taught that Christians ought not to hate unrighteously and so improperly. In being taught not to hate by our Clergy what we are being taught, by force of inevitability, is the virtue of tolerance, which, as we enumerated above, merely re-locates the address of the inescapable hate so that we become self-haters.

Ironically, in the Church’s “war on hate,” as led by our emasculated clergy, what ends up happening is that Western Christians are having their auto-immune system shutdown so that everything that would have been rejected by the glorious work of auto-immune hate is now slipping through and sickening the Christian faith unto death. Instead of our hate energized auto-immune system spitting out the Aimee Byrds, Greg Johnsons, and Sean Michael Lewis instead without Biblical hate we are infected by their viruses.

No other faith system is doing this to itself. It seems that Western Christians alone have decided that Christians need to love everybody in a multicultural orgy which is promissory of the death of Western Christianity since it can no longer resist the death viruses of a border-less world, New World Order globalism, and the diminution, disappearance or enslavement of the Occidental Christian race which Christ has been pleased, as seen in history, to retain as the carriers of His faith across the world.

Another way this demented war on haters is seen is in the rabid opposition against opposition. The only thing that can be strongly opposed is strong opposition. To strongly oppose is to be “too intense,” or “not morally sensitive,” or even “Fascist.” It is just not good form or socially acceptable to bare one’s teeth at anybody or anything. It is possibly acceptable to be pro-life, pro-borders, pro-marriage, pro-truth in media, pro-just hiring practices but just try being anti-baby killers, anti-immigration, anti-sodomites, anti-lugenpresse, and anti-race quotas. Just see how the invitations to the societal soirees begin to decline. We are so afraid of rabid and reasonable opposition that we will not tolerate plain speaking and insist on circumlocutions in order to avoid being labeled (gasp) “haters.” Of course being “anti-racist,” and anti, “anti-Semite” still is considered acceptable hate and will get you a pass into all just the right parties.

Whence comes this war on hate? Let me offer a few guesses,

1.) A few days ago a friend of mine who is one of the sharpest laymen I know wrote me and reported,

“Yesterday morning we tuned into the church webcast to learn that it doesn’t really matter what you know (those were his words) because all you need is LUV. He then spent 20 minutes expounding on that theme.”

I have no empirical data but I suspect that this kind of preaching is not that uncommon in Churches (conservative and liberal) across the nation. If all you need is LUV then hating hate is the preeminent virtue for any Christian.

2.) The ubiquitous conviction by dumbed down Americans that “all is well.” Despite the fact that we are living in an epoch that never called more for hatred of the best vintage we remain convinced that “all is well,” and anybody who says to the contrary is to be shunned. Dr. Andrew Joyce says it well,

“Merely sharing your feelings of intense dislike, now termed “inciting hatred,” has been deemed criminal conduct in scores of Western countries. Criminal conduct! This despite the fact there has never been a point in our history more deserving of the deepest loathing, the most scathing contempt, and the most vicious hatred.”

Here we are living with effeminate Churches, chaste queer clergy in skinny jeans and sleeve tattoos, mass immigration of strangers and aliens for whom toilets are a novelty, public library Tranny reading hour, the enstupidification of America’s students, and we are being told that it is just so gauche to express the finest hatred, loathing, barbs of detest, rancor, enmity, and bitterness, that one can find within them. If there was a time for Menckenian opprobrium this is it. If ever we should marshal the sarcasm of Ambrose Bierce, this is it. Let us call down the giftedness of skewering as found in Nock, Johnson, and Chesterton. Our great love for the pure makes this properly a “time for hatred.”

3.) Post-modernism disallows us to characterizes anything as objectively bad. Nothing is intrinsically virtuous and so to be loved and nothing is intrinsically vile and so to be hated. We can handle hearing people say, “I love this or that,” because post-mondernism and deconstructionism teaches us that these kinds of value statements are person variable. However to say, “I hate this or I hate that,” we immediately recoil since that has the ring of a universal statement. How care anybody hate anything since nothing is intrinsically hateful.

4.) We hate Christ. Christ had no problem hating that which was hateful but since we hate Christ we refuse to hate what His Word identifies as hateful.

Conclusion

We have need to understand that there is an effect to this cause. When we choke off our ability to hate we, by necessity diminish our ability to love since love and hate are but the same emotion as pointed in opposite directions. We hate that which contradicts what we love and we love that which reverses or suffocates what we hate. If we cannot hate our capacity to love will be stunted and deformed. Indeed so related are love and hate that should you ever meet someone who tells you they don’t have a bone of hatred in their body, you can be sure you are talking too either a sociopath or a psychopath. Run for your life.

Godfrey Disembowels Van Drunnen & Quite Without Realizing It Enervates R2K

This below linked rebuttal of Dr. Van Drunnen by Dr. Godfrey is uneven and isn’t everything I might want it to be but it is enough to unravel the whole R2K project.

In this conversation / interview with Robert Godfrey, David Van Drunnen’s R2K ideas were exposed, not merely as weak, but as fatuous. Godfrey really bored in on Van Drunnen’s claim that there is no such thing as a Christian family and exposed Van Drunnen’s weakness in this claim.

Listen to Godfrey here,

“Is the family a common institution in every way? It seems to me that the Bible say’s “no, it is not a common institution in every way.” If it were a common institution in every way how could the Apostle Paul talk about the children of belivers as ‘holy?'” Children, it seems to me, must be seen on a Two Kingdoms approach, as Dr. VanDrunnen expresses it as a cultural product of a common grace institution, and cultural products of common grace institution are never taken over into the new heavens and the new earth.”

Now, keep in mind that if Van Drunnen’s R2K fails at any point along the line of everything the man says is common (in this case family) Van Drunnen’s whole project fails and Godfrey has completely, by a withering enfilade of probing unanswerable questions, revealed the failure of the R2K project by leveraging the issue of family.

The reason that the whole project fails is if anything outside the Church is considered distinctly Christian then there is then no stopping point. If families can be considered Christian families then there is no reason to say that, “well, one way a Christian family is distinctly Christian is by offering Christian Education.” If there is such a thing as Christian family then one reason why must be christian Education and if Christian families are made, in part, by Christian education, then R2K fails again since the whole premise of R2K is that Family, Education, Law, Politics, Arts, Civil-Social, etc. can never be distinctly Christian but are neutral and so common.

Van Drunenn sought to prove too much with his R2K project and with Godfrey’s exposure of the emptiness of VanDrunnen’s position on Christian family in relation to R2K Godfrey (perhaps without intent) destroyed the whole R2K project for those with eyes to see.

It seems upon reflection that Van Drunnen and the R2K boys have made the mirror opposite error of old Rome. Old Rome said that if anything was to be Holy it had to come inside the Church. Van Drunnen and the R2K punch drinkers are saying that nothing is Holy except the Church therefore everything is outside the Kingdom of God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agwVVqiAr9A&fbclid=IwAR3CnpiO9tG0bkv-mZo48J4dHV31N84hEU0dpDqRO73kSm_upEJHJZEa6CA

 

McAtee vs. DeGroot; Does Secularism Exist, etc.?

Recently, I had an exchange with a chap whose claim to fame is writing for a Libertarian publication.


Christopher DeGroot wrote,

So, wars per se are driven by “secular powers”? How very convenient for one’s religious bias! Is it also true that everything good in the world derives from religion? And everything bad from secular types (and perhaps also Democrats?)

  • Bret L. McAtee

    Yes, it is true that everything good in the world derives from Biblical Christianity. And yes everything bad in the world derives from a secularism that is driven by religions other than Christianity. (Secularism, being a myth and all, it has to first be posited upon and driven by some alien religion.) Finally wars are always driven by religion. There is nothing that exists that isn’t driven by religion.


  • Christopher DeGroot

    Dazzlingly brilliant comments! How the goal posts shift with all the comfort and convenience of a La-Z-Boy Chair! Providence itself is guiding you, I have no doubt. So, there was no good in the world before Christianity? If so, why did the world exist before Christianity? If your answer is, “to make way for Christianity,” then why did it take so long for Christianity to come upon the scene? Why is it that historically most religions have not even been monotheistic? Was Plato’s life without goodness? What about that of Confucius?


  • Bret L. McAtee

    1.) Why, of course Providence is guiding me. There is nothing that Providence doesn’t guide. Even your smart-ass rejoinders.

    2.) There has never been a time when Christianity hasn’t been. So, naturally, there was never a time when anything good in the world existed before Christianity or its Hebrew anticipation. In point of fact, without Christianity there is no ability to distinguish good and evil and so when one talks about “no good before Christianity,” one might as well be saying, “wero 087yx zcvvbwe co98gws.”

    3.) The world did not exist before Christianity. As it is the case that God created the heavens and the earth, and as it is the case that the Christian God’s word was flouted in the Garden resulting in the Christian God casting out our first parents, it seems rather obvious that Christianity, at least in its Hebrew anticipations existed before the incarnation of the God-Man who had the title “Christ.” (It’s why we can write of “Christophanies” in the OT.) So you see, Christianity was there from the beginning.

    4.) Most religions have not been monotheistic because they were and are of their father the devil. Even the one’s which putatively monotheistic and denied Christ (Talmudism, Islam, etc.) were of their Father the devil. Besides, you don’t really think that one comes to truth by counting noses do you? All because most religions have not been monotheistic therefore monotheism isn’t true?

    5.) Yes, Plato’s life was without redemptive goodness, though on a sliding scale Plato has things in his life which were less bad than others, though in an absolute sense they could never be called good. There is only one that is good.

    6.) Same goes with Confucius. And just so we are on the same page… the same goes with Mohamed, Zarathustra, Mani, the Buddha, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, and any other false prophet you might want to conjure up.

    Shall we continue? I promise you, by dazzling brilliance is a well that has no bottom.


    Christopher De Groot

Bret L. McAtee, frankly, I think you are a joke, so I am not interested in wasting more time on you–all you are good for is amusement. You have not answered a thing; nor, it seems, do you know what it means to make a coherent and substantive argument. It is a FACT–whatever you may think or say–that Christianity came very late in human history. This I pointed out. Your dogmatic response: “Christianity always was.” Most religions have indeed been polytheistic. Your dogmatic response: “Polytheism is the work of the devil.” And so on and so forth. Maybe you really think you have demonstrated something with these assertions. Anyway, you are just not serious, nor is your stupidity allied to conceit worth my time.


Bret L. McAtee responds,

1.) I have already taught you how it is not the case that Christianity is a johnny come lately religion. I taught you that Christianity was present in the anticipation of the faithful expressions of the Hebrew Old Testament religion. That Christianity as a religion began with Christ is really quite the heresy that no knowledgeable Christian embraces. If that were the case we would just excise the Old Testament.

2.) But Polytheism is the work of the devil. It is the work of men seeking to avoid the unavoidable Christian God so as to make an idol for themselves. I’m not sure what that is so difficult to understand.

3.) You seem to continue to be under the illusion that all because polytheism has been popular therefore polytheism is true and the monotheism that is Christianity is false. That is most strange reasoning.

Most men throughout history believe that Stalin didn’t attack Poland 15 days after Hitler did therefore Stalin didn’t attack Poland 15 days after Hitler did. You do see how strange this method of reasoning is right?

I am more than willing to allow folks to determine who is the person who is not serious in all this Christopher.

Forbidding The Strong God

“Multiculturalism focuses on disenchanting the Western tradition because it alone has a hold on our spiritual and political imagination and provides us with a home. So, for example, progressives in Europe attack strong expressions of Christianity but accommodate rigid and illiberal forms of Islam. They do this because Christianity is a strong God of the West whose return must be prevented. “

R. R. Reno
Return of the Strong Gods — p. 118

This quote inadvertently confirms what I’ve long been insisting. Multiculturalism (the Child of Cultural Marxism) exists only penultimately to get rid of White people. The ultimate target of Cultural Marxism is Christ and Christianity and Christendom. White people aren’t hated because they are White. White people are hated because they are Christian. They are the carriers of Christian civilization. As such they must be wiped out. Not for the crime of being White, but instead for the crime of being Christian.

Note, here that R2K aids and abets this Cultural Marxist multiculturalist agenda when it agrees (as it ALWAYS DOES) with the idea of ridding ourselves of Christendom. Let it be said here though, that without Christendom, Christianity wanes and become just another kooky cult like L. Ron Hubbard’s Christian Scientism or Anna Bell Lee’s Shaker community. If Biblical Christianity is going to wax then it must build a Christendom to express itself. If R2K is successful Christianity will be the religion of only hobos, derelicts, and moon-bats. A religion that cannot incarnate itself into a distinct social order is a religion that is Gnostic. May God cast R2K as a kooky religion into the dustbin of cultic “Christianity” and grant repentance in the R2K community, who in the name of Christ are pulling down Christ from His throne and may He damn R2K’s dancing partner Cultural Marxism who right now is playing girl on top in many putatively conservative Reformed denominations.