R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

Zuidema & McAtee On The Ecclesiasticizing of Christianity

“The ecclesiasticizing of religion necessarily calls into being the profaning of the non-ecclesiastical area …. the ecclesiasticized church calls into being a secularized world… The more church becomes ecclesiasticized, the more it will profane life outside the church and abandon it to profanation… The more the Church profanes life, the less it becomes the humble servant of Christ and his spiritual world dominion… people lament, certainly not without justification, about the ongoing secularization of life in the lands populated and governed by Western peoples. Concurrent with this secularization comes the distressing problem…and oppressive reality of human emancipation as the self-liberation out of the bonds to God and his Word… This is a problem which, unless it leads man to retrace his steps in this emancipation, will irretrievably abandon us to nihilism and the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…”

S. U. Zuidema

Communication and Confrontation

1.) Ecclesiasticizing of religion = Christianity existing only for the sake of the church. This is the goal and object of Radical Two Kingdom “theology.”

2.) This is merely the admission that if Christianity is to retreat from the public square the consequence will be a vacuum that is filled by some other prevailing religion that shapes and informs the public square. The public square can never be “neutral.” The public square is always the incarnation and thus expression of some religion. The public square only exists as being animated by religion.

3.) It is true that the public square because of secularization becomes increasingly profane. However, the profanation of the secular realm for the Christian is the divinizing or sacralizing of the public square as consistent with the tenets of the false religion that is shaping and informing the public square. In other words the profanation of the public square according to the standards of the Christian religion becomes the sacralizing of the public square according to the standards of whatever religion replaces Christianity. It’s not that the public square is no longer set apart as belonging to the God of Christianity. It is that the public square is set apart as belonging to the god of some other faith system (religion).

4.) Radical Two Kingdom Theology (R2Kt) is doing the devil’s work and as such ministers who imbibe R2K theology are of their Father the devil, intentionally or unintentionally. They are doing the work of the devil because in their work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith they are de-Christianizing the public square in favor of some other religion which will fill the vacuum that their de-sacralizing the public square has done.

5.) When the Christian religion is ecclesiasticized the consequence is that men are released from the guiding ethos of the Christian faith. Being thus “liberated,” from Christianity in their everyday living because of the clergy’s work to ecclesiasticize the Christian faith men instantly experience bondage to some other false demon god. If men will not have the freedom that comes from living in the constraints of God’s Word then they will live in bondage to false demon gods who promise absolute libertinism. How free is a goldfish who has been set free from their fish bowl? How free is a train that is free from it’s tracks? The R2K false religion, because it ecclesiasticizes the Christian religion is guaranteed to be the greatest engine of bondage ever invented by Satan’s engineers.

6.) Unless the Lord Christ grants Reformation and renewal and delivers us from this sulfur laden doctrine of R2K that ecclesiasticizes the Christian faith mankind will continue to de-man themselves in pursuit of ever greater expressions of “freedom.” This in turn will lead to the nihilism that Zuidema speaks of, as well “as the destruction of every last human worth, human honor, human value, and human responsibility…” If the public square will not be ruled by the standards of a vibrant Christianity that informs and applies to the public square then the consequence will be the loss of true meaning and then the loss of the manishness of man. Finally, the coup de grâce will be the loss of Christianity in the ecclesial (the Church). If all that surrounds the Church is a public square that is being governed by the impulse of a false religion then the inevitable consequence is that the Church itself will fall to the public square god that was given hegemony by a Christian Church that had ecclesiasticized the Christian faith.

7.) This is not some kind of children’s game. If we cannot arrest this demonic work of ecclesiasticizing the Christian religion we will have reached a pivot in the history of mankind wherein we will find a great descent of darkness falling upon mankind.

Tim Keller’s Preference For Democracy

“I’d rather be in a democracy than a state in which the government is officially Christian. Instead of trying to take power, I think what Christians ought to be doing is trying to renew their churches.”

-Tim Keller, Wall Street Journal

02 September 2022

1.) Understand what Keller has said here. He has said he’d rather be under a government that is non Christian than under a government that is officially Christian. Tim would rather have his magistrates be Christ-haters than have magistrates who are in submission to Christ.

2.) Tim talked about how Christians shouldn’t “try to take power.” The question is “take power from whom?” Presumably, in Tim’s world Christians shouldn’t try to take power from non Christians and should be happy to be ruled by Christ hating pagans.

3.) You know Tim, it is possible to both try and renew our Churches and in godly ways seek to take power.

4.) Tim’s statement above implies that there is something automatically wicked about Christian’s wielding power. Yet, here is Tim seeking to wield his power as a highly platformed Evangelical voice in service of keeping Christians from pursuing power.

Exposing The Nakedness Of R2K On The Noahic Covenant

“The pluralism of the Noahic covenant requires members of the human community, Christians included, to cultivate the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is a proper feature of justice in our fallen but pressured world.”

David VanDrunen

Politics After Christendom

In R2K “theology” The Noahic covenant was a covenant that applied to all mankind and not merely the redemptive line. It was a common grace covenant. This means therefore that in the public square we must realize that God rules by Natural Law and because the public square is the space of common grace where all men interact, therefore the public square must be characterized by tolerance (principled pluralism). This means that no one God can be uniquely God of the public square since God, via the Noahaic covenant has ordained that the public square is a realm of common grace and not saving grace.

Therefore tolerance is the virtue of all virtues as it relates to the public square. The Noahic covenant including all mankind is the basis of a required tolerance in and for the public square.

However, if the Noahic covenant was NOT an expression of the one redemptive covenant of grace as per Van Drunen and the R2K boys then we should not have found in the Noahic covenant;

1.) Noah as a High Priest

2.) Making sacrifice

3.) On an altar

4.) Wherein God takes pleasure

5.) And provides a covenantal sign

6.) to not destroy mankind

7.) so that He can continue to Redeem his people from the world

The Noahic covenant IS an expression of the one redemptive covenant of Grace. David Van Drunen and the R2K lads are full of Shedd’s Nutty Peanut Butter.

The Noahic covenant is made with Noah — God’s representative covenant head — and Noah’s household. This clues us in immediately that this covenant is indeed a redemptive covenant since it is a covenant made with those who have experienced God’s redemption. (Note also that the language, in speaking to Noah and His household, is the same kind of language used when God makes covenant with Abraham.)

We thus finding continuity with the sacrificial, typological, and gracious character continued with the Abrahamic covenant, which in turn teaches us that the Noahic covenant is continuous with God’s unfolding of the one covenant of grace. Now, one of the bits of additional revelational information about the one covenant of grace that we get with the Noahic covenant is that the covenant of grace includes provision that will sustain all creatures so that all creatures can experience providential benefits that are the residual effects of God’s redeeming of his particular people.

From this we learn that the Noahic covenant is not directly made with all people, though the Noahic covenant has an indirect and consequential effect on all people. This means that Van Drunen is clearly in error when he teaches that the Noahic covenant is a common grace covenant that is non-Redemptive and if the R2K project is in error at this point it fails completely. Do not misunderstand this point. If the Van Drunen (R2K) interpretation of the Noahic covenant fails then the whole idea of a common rule fails and the whole idea of Natural Law ruling the common realm fails. So also falls the R2K allegiance to principled pluralism as a Christian virtue fails. It all comes tumbling down.

Whether one views the Noahic covenant as a administration of the one covenant of grace or views it as a kind of gracious interruptus that teaches a common grace covenant what we must say is that the difference here ends up being a continental divide in one’s theology, personality and character. If it is true that as a man thinketh in his heart so he is, the thinking on this point ends up making HUGE difference all the way down the line. The implications are MONUMENTAL.

Because of the vast implications we would offer that the theologoumenon (a theological statement which is of individual opinion and not doctrine) of the non-redemptive Noahic covenant is a mischievous heresy, and ought to be prosecuted in Church courts as such. Such an opinion is anti-Christological to the core. See Col 1 and Eph 1. The fact that such an opinion should be prosecuted in Church courts is all the more necessary because this trash doctrine is being used to lock people out of ordination.

Every administration of the one covenant of grace brings a further expansion of revelational insight into the meaning of that one covenant of grace. As such, to insist that the Noahic covenant was NOT an expression of the one covenant of grace, but was instead merely a “common covenant” as R2K does is a ham-fisted handling of the covenant of Grace. Only someone trained at a Jesuit College could figure out how to so convincingly bollix up the history of redemption found in covenant theology.

McAtee Contra Rev. Jim Cassidy’s Putrid R2K

“The anabaptist view of church and state is not two kingdom, but one. They want to apply Christian morality to the sphere of the magistrate. And since Christ said love your enemy and turn the other cheek, the state is to be wholly pacifist.

Unfortunately, the anabaptists are sorely mistaken. The Reformed have always recognized the legitimate role of the state to use coercive force, and to punish according to the lex talionis principle. They also recognize that Christian morality in love of enemy and forgiveness of sin is required of believers.

How do these two things sweetly comply? Only according to a Reformed version of two kingdom theology as you find, for example, classically defined in James Bannerman.

The basis and powers of church and state are distinct. The church’s basis is love and service empowered by the Word. The state’s basis is retributive justice empowered by the sword.”

Rev. Jim Cassidy

OPC Minister

Once again we see the Clergy get matters all bollixed up. Really, are we even surprised any longer?

1.) AnaBaptists, not wanting anything to do with”the world” were clearly two Kingdom. They understood that there was their own community and that there were those who were not part of their community. They believed one set of principles guided their own Kingdom they lived in while believing that another set of principles governed over those “outside the faith.” Can you say “Two Kingdoms” Jim?

This is the same reasoning R2K uses. There is one set of principles for the church realm, as set by God’s special revelation, and another set of principles for everywhere else as set by Natural Law. The only difference is that R2K calls that realm ruled by Natural Law “common,” whereas the Anabaptist call that realm not ruled by their community, “wicked.” In the end, R2K’s “common” looks a great deal like the Anabaptist’s “wicked.” We only have a changing out of the word used.

Now to be sure, inside the Anabaptist Kingdom the Anabaptists believed that God’s word applied to all matters but as they were (and are) terrible heretics are we surprised that they got that all bollixed up? All because the heretical Anabaptists misapply God’s Word to their living in their communities is that reason to think that God’s Word can’t be properly applied to all areas of life. Cornelius Van Til put it this way;

“All proper human activity is therefore activity within the Kingdom of the Christ.”

CVT

Christianity and Barthianism — p. 228

And again;

“You cannot expect to train intelligent, well-informed soldiers of the cross of Christ unless the Christ is held up before them as the Lord of culture as well as the Lord of religion.”

Cornelius Van Til

I quote CVT here because Cassidy likes to think of himself as a CVT fan. Cassidy clearly doesn’t understand CVT.One more from Van Til’s nephew;

The radical, totalitarian character of religion is such, then, that it determines both man’s cultus and his culture. That is to say, the conscious or unconscious relationship to God in a man’s heart determines all of his activities, whether theoretical or practical. This is true of philosophy, which is based upon non-theoretical, religious presuppositions. Thus man’s morality and economics, his jurisprudence and his aesthetics, are all religiously oriented and determined.

Henry Van Til

Calvinist Concept of Culture

2.) Cassidy is wrong to suggest that in the Reformed view the Magistrate has to always follow Lex Talionis in adjudication. That is clearly seen in Reformed Magistrates practicing commutation and pardoning for those who, according to the Lex Talionis, should received punishment. That this is Biblical is seen in Jesus parable of the unforgiving debtor where the Magistrate forgives the debtor his great debt.

3.) Love of enemy and Lex Talionis doth sweetly comply when in each case we exercise what is required of God’s law towards both our enemies and towards those who are before the magistrate, inasmuch as we do unto them what is assigned to us in our particular jurisdictions.

4.) When the State gives retributive justice empowered by the sword it is at that time practicing love and service empowered by the Word.

That is not to deny that Church and State have distinct functions. It is true that the Church proclaims grace while the State provides justice but there is false dichotomy in Cassidy’s thinking. When the Church practices discipline there is justice going on and when the State practices discipline there is love and service going on. It is merely that these look different in different jurisdictional realms. The State does not have the keys and the Church does not have the sword but they still, in a Biblical order, doth sweetly comply.

Cassidy’s R2K is heterodox at best.

Something R2K Will Never Be Accused Of

“and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.””
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Acts‬ ‭17‬:‭7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Can you imagine any pagan crowd today complaining; “Those R2K Christians… I hate them because they are always saying there is another King, Jesus?”

This one passage by itself should eliminate R2K from serious consideration as a legitimate Christian theology.