R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 13

A Flurry of Rapid & Brief Observations on R2K

1.) David Van Drunen, the malevolent genius behind R2K was trained at a Jesuit Educational Institution where he learned the classical Roman Catholic philosophical divide between nature and grace. He then, quite obviously took that Thomist divide learned at his Jesuit Roman Catholic school and created a Reformed expression of it in his creation of R2K.

Personally, I am of the conviction that one cannot be Christian and R2K even if their Reformed soteriology is perfect.

2.) R2K teaches that Education, Law, Politics, Art, etc. are all common realm phenomena that are ruled by Natural law. However, if one pauses to think about this just a moment one realizes that these (Education, Law, Politics, Art, Family, etc.) are abstractions. These things do not exist concretely apart from people as Educators, Lawyers/Judges, Politicians/legislators, Artists. So, R2K, concretely speaking is teaching that men as lawyers/judges, men as Educators, men as Artists, etc. are not to be governed by God’s revealed Word. These flesh and blood people are not to be guided in their respective fields by God’s special revelation but instead are, in agreement and consultation with concrete Hindu Educators, Jew Judges, Atheist Artists, and Satanist Legislators to come to a consensus on natural law ao that they as Christians can be governed by in these respective fields.

Such Princeton Tower Club “thinking” is shocking and yet our pulpits are filled today with morons who are touting this god-forsaken theory as truth.

3.) R2K is a theology perfectly cast to avoid confrontation with Idolatry and false religions. Whereas earlier Missionaries would challenge the false gods in public demonstrations R2K says, “The idols in the common realm are not to be addressed and defied by the Institutional Church since that would be to get clergy out of their lanes.”

R2K is heresy. When is some denomination going to stand up and say “R2K is heresy?”

4.) R2K teaches that the Jurisdiction of King Jesus and His revealed word is limited to the Church realm. Any Jurisdiction that King Jesus has in the common realm is present by a common grace, a common providence, and a common (Natural) law. R2K thus is teaching that in the common realm Jesus has delegated His rule to an abstraction called Natural law.

5.) R2K teaches that there exists a statist orthodoxy as taught in Government schools that the Church Institutional should not raise its voice against even when the statist orthodoxy is contrary to Christian orthodoxy.

6.) R2K loves to talk about a common kingdom where people of all faiths meet and have social intercourse around a common set of shared values as all based on Natural law.

However, the problem here is increasingly clear. As sodomites are now marrying and adopting children, as queers show up for Drag Queen story hour to read to our children, as women have to compete against biological men in women’s sports, where is this so-called common realm where Christians can enter into a common kingdom?

Clearly, the R2K project has never existed in a time where its fruit is seen to be more absent. Natural law as defined by R2K as a governing mechanism upon which law orders for whole peoples has never more gloriously failed than the failure it is undergoing now and yet there is David Van Drunen, Mike Horton, D. G. Hart, and R. Scott Clark still thumping for it like they have concrete examples where R2K has worked as positioned in Christ-hating social orders. There they are all thumping for R2K like adolescents for the first time having a young pretty thing speak pretty things in their ears.

If this is true (and it is) why are R2K churches and ministers still being supported?

Get out, before you experience a Sodom and Gomorrah type of visitation from God.

7.) In the way that R2K treats the Bible, the Bible becomes ecclesiasticized — trapped inside the four walls of the Church — and even there the Bible is not allowed to speak to public square issues outside the Church.

8.) Because R2K insists that the Institutional Church is not allowed to speak to civil Institutions such as education, family, law, arts, international relations, etc. the consequence is that Christians attending R2K churches become bipolar in their thinking. In the Church realm, they are Christian but in the so-called secular realm (a realm created and sustained by R2K type thinking) the Christian can be a humanist in education, a Sharia fan in law, or even a polygamist in family life. If God’s word does not speak to the common realm as stated from the pulpit then the laity may come to any conclusion they like in these realms as long as they can in some creative way attach their positions to Natural law.

9.) When God’s word is ecclesiasticized so that it cannot be applied to all of life (per R2K) the Church immediately becomes politicized as the laity become vectors for various humanist thinking diseases that descend from theologies and gods that are not Christian.

So, R2K’s attempt to cordon God’s special Revelation from every area of life finally leads to a politicized church where each member votes and advocates and does in the public square what is best in his own eyes.

10.) R2K excels at thumping the formal authority of the bible. This is the authority that teaches the infallible, verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible. However, R2K fails in embracing the material authority of the Bible. This is the authority of the Bible wherein its applicability to all of life is embraced. Another way of saying this is that R2K holds the Bible as abstractly authoritative but it is horrid in concrete application.

11.) Whenever R2K starts up with the idea that there is no such thing as “Christian stir-fry,” or “Christian plumbing,” or “Christian diaper-changing,” they are at that point advocating, contrary to Christian thinking, that there is indeed such a thing as neutrality. R2K when it argues this way is saying in essence, “See, all of the common square is neutral and so we should not insist on Christian law, or Christian Education, or Christian family, seeing those matters as just as neutral as stir-fry, diaper changing, and plumbing.

First, we should note that suggesting that Christian law does not exist because Christian diaper changing does not exist is a leap of magnificent proportions that only a very stupid person could make.

Second, we would argue that there is such a thing as a Christian diaper changer. Imagine if non-Christian parents changing out dirty diapers didn’t apply diaper rash medicine with the result that the child in the diaper is miserable having a severely burned bottom. Would that baby complain, if he could, about his parents not practicing Christian diaper changing? Would not failing to apply diaper rash medicine in the context of changing the diaper not be a violation of the 6th commandment?

Neutrality is a myth and that is as true about diaper changing, plumbing, and stir-fry as it is about Law, Education, and Business.

12.) R2K cuts off the story of Redemption with Christ crucified. They fail to see that the resurrection, ascension, and session of the Lord Christ continue the Redemption narrative in terms of absolute Kingship. Jesus Christ is not only our Great High Priest but He is also a Great High Priest who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords over every principality and power. To give a Gospel that so wrongly centers on the Crucifixion so that it only tells the story of a dis-empowered Great High Priest who is not ruling as the Mediatorial King as very God of God is to do a great disservice to both our soteriology and our doctrine of Jesus Mediatorial Kingship.

R2K gives us a Jesus who is a Gnostic King. In R2K thinking Jesus rules over our spiritual lives but Jesus dare not flex His authority in culture, family, education, law, politics, etc. R2K has divorced Jesus’s office of Priest from His office as King. That is a grave sin when pointed out and still continued in.

13.) In our sins we seek to alienate God’s creation from Him. R2K “theology” supports our work of alienating God’s creation from Him as R2K refuses to allow Christians to be Christ’s Kingdom people joining in the work, under Christ’s Kingship, of taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. In R2K every thought is not brought captive because many thoughts are never intended to be brought captive and as such, all of creation remains alienated from God. R2K turns Christ’s Kingship into the Kingship wherein His people don’t live and move and have their being in light of Christ’s ascension and session and as such God’s creation remains alienated from Him except in some Gnostic sense.

Wherein We See How Horton & McDurmon Leave Us Shipwrecked

“… it’s a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture.”

Dr. Michael Horton — Reformed Seminary Professor

One of R2k’s Architects

Keep in mind that Mike, if he was consistent, would say that mankind has never lived in an era where Christianity was a culture. This is the case because Mike Horton, like all R2K mobsters, does not believe it is possible for any culture to be Christian since culture by definition, like Education, Law, Family life, Arts, etc. cannot be “Christian.” Per R2K, only Churches and individuals can be Christian. So, per R2K, all those centuries of Christendom were not really Christendom. Per R2K, those cultures in the era of Cromwell, or in the era of the Puritans in the “New World,” or in the era of Alfred the Great when his Kingdom was ruled by excerpts taken right out of God’s Law, or the era of Charlemagne, etc. were never Christian in any sense in their culture. Per R2K culture can only be common and of course, if a culture is not Christian but is only common then the only category left for that R2K common culture is “non-Christian.” Unless, of course, the R2K lads are arguing that common culture is a neutral culture. However, given the fact that the bastion of R2Kism is Westminster Seminary – Cal. where all the papers of Cornelius Van Til are held, I know the R2K lads could not be arguing that the common realm is a neutral realm. Or could they be arguing that?

There is some irony here for those with eyes to see. The Reformed world is not caught between the hammer of R2K and the anvil of Alienist Cultural Marxist “theonomy” as promoted by the likes of Joel McDurmon (he of “the oldest law student in America” fame) and his hacks over at “The Lamb’s Reign.” On the one hand, the uber Amillennial R2K teaches, as seen by Mike’s quote above, “... it’s a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture,” while the uber postmillennial Alienist Cultural Marxist “theonomy” teaches CRT, WOKE, and Intersectionality. Indeed for the Alienist Cultural Marxist “theonomists,” any cultural era preceding the CRT era was not Christian. So, boiling it down the amil R2K hammer lads are telling us that “it’s good Christian culture is gone,” while the postmil Cultural Marxist theonomists anvil lads are telling us that “only Cultural Marxist culture is Christian.” Not surprisingly Biblical Christians respond with, “a pox upon both your houses.”

Apologetics from the Time Capsule … Lane Keister, R2K and Vitriol (2011)

Lane wrote,

“If you believe some people on the internet today, R2K theology is the antichrist. They want their neo-Kuyperianism unchallenged over the Reformed world today. But is radical Two Kingdoms so antithetical to the Gospel and to the Reformed faith?”

Bret responds,

As a Rabbi (per Darryl Gnostic Hart) I think I can speak to this.

Is R2K (when I will get some royalties for coining that phrase?) antithetical to the Gospel and the Reformed faith? Well, it depends on what you mean by “antithetical.” If you are asking whether or not R2K in the abstract is antithetical to the Gospel, in the Gospel’s narrow sense, then I would have to say “no.” If you are asking whether or not R2K is antithetical to Christianity in Christianity’s broadest sense, then it would depend upon which discussion I was most recently in.

The Reformed faith has ALWAYS been a comprehensive and totalistic world and life view. If you question this pick up the “Calvin in the Public Square” series by David Hall or Joe Boot’s “Mission of God.” R2K denies that the Christian faith is comprehensive and totalistic with its denial that grace impinges upon nature. R2k has a Gospel that justifies the abstracted individual and champions a Gospel that is denuded of its public square implications. Can the Church speak on Cultural Marxism in the public square? R2K says …

“No, the Church can not speak against the enemy that is trying to kill Christianity, as Cultural Marxism saturates the public square for that would be impious to do so.”

Rev. K writes,

One could argue that the R2K theology is simply trying to rid the Gospel of all the accretions to the gospel that have been trying to creep in unawares. When I read Michael Horton, for instance, I see a man who is trying with all his might to keep the Gospel the Gospel and to forbid anything else from encroaching on the territory of the Gospel. That’s his heart. I know it is.

Bret responds,

And one could argue that R2K is simply trying to rid Christianity from declaiming against the sins of the zeitgeist so that large Church Presbyterianism can be achieved again. When I read Michael Horton I read a man with the best of intentions but who just does not understand that the Gospel can’t be abstracted from a Christian world and life view.

Rev. K writes,

Ultimately, why would such vitriol be leveled against R2K folk?

Rabbi Bret responds,

You mean the kind of vitriol that says “Don’t trust Dr. Kloosterman”? You mean the kind of vitriol that finds D. G. Hart character assassinating me every time I turn around? You mean the kind of vitriol that Meredith Kline splashed around against Dr. Greg Bahnsen?

“With its gifted and energetic leadership, this movement held the promise of great good. The tragedy of Chalcedon is that of high potential wasted – worse than wasted, for its most distinctive and emphatically maintained thesis is a delusive and grotesque perversion of the teaching of Scripture.”

You mean the kind of vitriol that had T. David Gordon saying,

“It (Theonomy) is not merely the view of the unwise, but the view of the never-to-be-wise, because it is the view of those who wrongly believe that scripture sufficiently governs this arena, and who, for this reason, will never discover in the natural constitution of the human nature or the particular circumstances of given peoples what must be discovered to govern well and wisely.”

And what shall we say of the vitriol of a formerly popular blog referenced above?

But hey … Theological controversy always makes vitriol the number one drink in the saloon, and as such, I don’t mind much – water off a duck’s back and all that – except when the vitriol flingers complain and whine about vitriol being flung about.

Rev. K. offered,

Aren’t the matters concerning church and state secondary to the Gospel?

Bret counsels,

Not, if the State by its policy is seeking to wipe out Christianity. This is the reality that we are in, in America right now.

Rev. K says,

If they aren’t secondary, then I would argue that one side has made the Gospel something much bigger than it actually is. Church-state relations are secondary matters, not primary. And that should be true whether one is R2K or Neo-Kuyperian. I do not see the same kind of vitriol coming from the R2K guys against Neo-Kuyperianism, with the possible exception of Darryl Hart, and even he is a lot more light-hearted (Harted?) than most people credit him.

Rabbi Bret responds,

When the State becomes the idol du jour, seeking to be God walking on the earth then the law that is the red hot needle that pulls through the scarlet thread of the Gospel must inveigh against the idol state that people might repent of their sin and embrace the God of the Bible. A people infatuated with the God state will always reinterpret Christianity in light of the God State and so Church and State become a major issue to the Gospel because it is the idol that must go.

Rev. K. offers,

Also, I don’t trust Nelson Kloosterman anymore. He has written an encomium on the back of a book that defends Norman Shepherd. He has always been a Klaas Schilder fan. I think Kloosterman is soft on FV issues.

Bret responds,

Was Schilder ever disciplined as a heretic? Has Kloosterman ever been disciplined as a heretic?

Rev. K. writes,

Regardless of what one thinks of Kloosterman, I don’t think this board should tolerate accusations against the R2K guys of distorting the Gospel. I think we have been generally pretty careful about this. But I would especially exhort the Neo-Kuyperians among us- why are you posting what you are posting? Is this going to promote understanding or polarization? We have much to learn from the R2K guys. I think especially Neo-Kuyperians have much to learn from R2K folks. If only there could be open minds.

Rabbi Bret,

I have nothing to learn from R2K theologians when they are in their R2K mode.

This is why the Green Baggins blog has always been such a joke.

Rev. K. writes

The main reason I am saying this is that Neo-Kuyperianism has had pretty much a free reign in Reformed circles during the last century. And yet, Van Drunen does offer significant evidence that 2K theology was much more prominent in the Reformation eras than it is today. This is a strand of Reformed thinking, not just Lutheran thinking. We need to give this a fair hearing, and vitriol against the 2K position isn’t going to help matters. Remember this Proverb (18:13): “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” There’s a lot of that going on today on the internet.

Rabbi Bret responds,

Dr. Venema has exposed the problems with Dr. Van Drunnen’s book and some of the errant conclusions he reaches regarding past eras. Dr. James Anderson has exposed the contradictory problems w/ Dr. Van Drunnen’s book. Dr. John Frame has exposed the errors in Dr. Van Drunen’s book. Dr. Keith Mathison, speaking for Ligonier has raised some serious (and I think unanswerable) questions regarding Van Drunen’s book. Dr. Mark Dever’s interview with Dr. Van Drunen exposes the folly of R2K, and that quite without even trying. Dr Brad Littlejohn has done a fine expose of the problems with Van Drunen.

Legions are the problems that have been exposed regarding R2K by good men and for the most part silence in answering those critiques have been the response.

R2K … Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.

Observations on Mike Horton’s Determination to Surrender Christianity — Part I

In a recent presentation on our favorite Christian heretic site that screams everyone else is a heretic, The Gospel Coalition, gives us an interview that includes the precious insights from a little-known “theologian” named Mike Horton.

I take some time here exposing Horton’s lack and my own frustration with Horton’s lack. Keep in mind that Horton is training young men for the Gospel ministry and that what he says here is going to in turn be said in pulpits all across America.

“Islam is not an external threat in the United State to Christianity but Christian Nationalism is a Christian heresy. It is, therefore, an internal threat both to the message and the witness of the Church.”

Mike Horton

1.) I dare Mike to come to Dearborn or Hamtramck Michigan and say that first part about Islam not being an external threat to the US.

2.) Are we to wait till Islam becomes an external threat to the US before we understand that as Americans and Christians Muslims are other than us and so should be restricted from coming here?

3.) Certainly, some forms of Christian Nationalism could well be a threat to the message and witness of the Church of Jesus Christ but to say in a blanket fashion that Christian Nationalism is by definition a threat to the Church is just bull fecal matter coming out of the mouth of a Christian heterdox.

4.) We should expect someone who touts the heresy of R2K to accuse orthodoxy (and Christian Nationalism practiced in a Biblical fashion is God’s model for social orders) of being heretical.

Horton also, in the “Christian Nationalism” podcast denounces the Crusaders for splitting the skulls of infidel while confessing “Christ is Lord,” saying that in that context the statement “Christ is Lord” is not faithful.

Horton thus shows, once again, that he is an idiot and knows nothing about History. The Crusades were a defensive war against a centuries-long unanswered Muslim offensive that had, by the power of the Scimitar, conquered and vanquished the Christian message, faith, and civilizations across the formerly Christian N. African Littoral, into Christian Europe, and across the formerly Christian Middle-East. For Horton to suggest that it was wrong for the Crusaders to defend Christianity, the Gospel, and Christendom by splitting the skull of the infidel while chanting “Iesus Christus Dominus Est” demonstrates that Horton’s Christianity is a suicide pact. Maybe Horton would have preferred the Crusaders to chant “We love you and God loves you also.”

Horton here also violates the 5th commandment (as well as the 9th commandment) by running down his fathers in the Faith — the Crusaders.

As we move on in this interview we find this gem of an exchange;

Moderator: Let me ask a clarifying question, Mike. Would you say that Nationalism itself is a threat to the Gospel or only Christian Nationalism?

Horton: “If Nationalism is the idea that we have to be Americans more than anything else then yes it is a threat to Christianity. We are Christians more than anything else which means we are united not only here but with our brothers and sisters around the world and that is our first family.

BLMc responds,

1.) Clearly, Biblical Nationalism would never prioritize one’s home over one’s faith if that was the ultimate choice. To prioritize our homeland when in error over Christ would be idolatry. No Christian who advocates for Biblical Nationalism would ever place Christ over family and home when family and home are against Christ.

2.) I would say our first family is our blood family who is united with us in Christ. Horton posits a dichotomy between nation and faith that at times might exist but certainly isn’t necessarily the norm. St. Paul in Romans 9:3 gives us an example of what I am talking about.

“For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race…”

Here Paul says of his blood kin what he says nowhere else about other Christians who are not his blood kin. Obviously, there is a kind of Nationalism we see here coming from St. Paul — a Nationalism that Mike desires to summarily dismiss as being heresy.

3.) Horton keeps decrying Nationalism but allow us to ask what other social-order form does Mik recommend? Internationalism? Marx would be happy. Empire? Empires don’t have that great of a Historical track record — especially if you belong to a people on the bottom of the Empire. The social order Mike wants because of his R2K theology is some form of pluralism or multiculturalism. Horton’s R2K forces him to denounce nationalism because R2K presupposes a social order common realm where peoples from all different faiths and origins are cheek by jowl.

4.) Fortunately, Biblical Nationalism doesn’t mean being an American before being a Christian. Biblical Nationalism, contra Mike, doesn’t mean “My country right or wrong but still my country.” That is more “Murica Bear-ism and not Biblical Nationalism.

Elsewhere Horton suggests that Christian Nationalism by necessity inverts the Old Testament by viewing Israel as presaging America as opposed to pointing to Christ. While certainly, that might be true of some versions of non-Biblical Christian Nationalism it is by no means true of all Christian Nationalism that is Biblical.

Horton is already showing a habit of taking Christian Nationalism in its worst expression and making that the norm so that all Christian Nationalists are, in Horton’s book, “Murican Bears.”

Horton in this interview talks about how heresy is parasitical upon the Christian faith. He says heresy twists the Christian faith. Of course, he is correct but I find myself listening with jaw agape wondering if this man understands nothing of irony. Horton and his whole R2K school of “thought” is a parasite upon the Christian faith and here his Horton talking about heresy as parasitical on the Christian faith.

Not Getting R. Scott Clark’s Inability to Get The Obvious

“Practically, what does it mean to speak of transforming softball or orchestral music or any other cultural endeavor? Why cannot softball simply be what it is, recreation? What is distinctively Christian about “Christian art” or “Christian history” or Christian math”? I understand that the rhetoric is sacrosanct (a shibboleth, as it were) but what does it signify? What are the particulars? I understand that when we get to ultimate matters, e.g., theology, there is a distinctively Christian view of things and there is certainly a Christian interpretation of the significance of things. That is a Christian worldview properly understood but what does it mean to speak of transforming penultimate things? Is the neo-Kuyperian view related to the Anabaptist vision of nature and grace and if not, how are they essentially different? What if Leonard Verduin intuited something?”

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Heidleblog

Recently, someone left the link to a brief Clark essay wherein this quote was found in the comments section on Iron Ink. The commenter thought this essay proved that Clark was making progress. I disagree.

Clark objects to the idea of grace transforming nature (and so culture) preferring instead to say that grace renews nature in salvation. Clark desires to keep the renewing power of grace constrained to humans as it pertains to their salvation. However, this seems to be a constrained view of reality. After all, it is grace renewed and saved people who are the ones who create culture (an embodiment of nature). If grace renews nature in salvation then grace is going to renew everything that those salvifically renewed people are going to create in culture. One simply can’t have grace renewing nature in salvation without that renewal getting into everything the renewed and salvation visited person touches. The products of culture, after all, don’t come into being apart from the renewed or unrenewed people who create them. I honestly don’t understand why this is so difficult for R2K Clark and his R2K buds.

Then Clark lists several, what I take are supposed to be real stumpers. as to how grace renews nature (grace transforms culture). Let’s take these one by one.

1.) Softball

I am going to use baseball as an example but it would apply to softball as well. Baseball just gives me more at-hand examples.

In 2017 the Houston Astros (Baseball) won the World Series. Sometime afterward it was revealed that the Astros won the World Series by the art of cheating as they were stealing signs. Several key team leaders lost their jobs and the team itself was fined $5 million for this cheating scandal. Allow me to propose to Dr. Clark that Christian baseball vis-a-vis non-Christian baseball would be less inclined to have this problem.

If Dr. Clark doesn’t like this example we could note that non-Christian baseball has seen performing-enhancing drugs be a huge issue in the recent past providing a barrier to Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmerio, and Roger Clemens gaining entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame. They are each in essence guilty of playing non-Christian baseball.

We could go on to give examples of Ty Cobb sharpening his spikes so that when he slid into 2nd base he would cut up the Shortstop covering the bag. We could write about Pete Rose paying the penalty for playing non-Christian baseball by violating the rules against gambling while a player.

Let’s pretend that genuine Reformation visited Major League Baseball. Does Dr. Clark actually believe that grace would not renew nature so that grace transformed baseball culture?

2.) Orchestral Music

Francis Schaeffer in this work “The God Who is There,” spends some time looking at the Orchestral music of composer John Cage and demonstrates how Cage’s orchestral music was a declaration that the cosmos was the product of time plus chance. Cage’s music communicated that there was no meaning. This would be non-Christian Orchestral music and it is again difficult to understand how Clark can find this concept difficult. Is what Cage did in music akin to what Bach did in music?

3.) Art

Clark wants to know what makes Christian art, Christian. First, let us note there that the artist as God’s image-bearer cannot avoid getting their worldview into their art. Every piece of art means something and the meaning of that Art is going to determine whether the art in question is Christian or non-Christian or a mixture of both.

Second, art typically aims at beauty. Beauty is an objective category as existing in different genres. Art exists along an objective scale in those different genres of ugly to beautiful. The more beautiful a piece of art is the more Christian that art is and vice-versus.

It would seem that when we compare the modern art of a woman pushing paintballs out of her vagina onto a canvas (yes… that is a thing) and compare that to Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch,” or Monet’s “Water Lilies,” we would have to say that inasmuch as Rembrandt and Monet were going after beauty their work more closely approached Christian than pushing paintballs out of a human orifice on to a canvas.

4.) History

This one is a little breathtaking as history is really nothing but theology told in another venue. Does Clark not realize that a period of history as handled by the Marxist Historians Charles and Mary Beard is going to look and read very differently than that same period of history as covered by the Christian Historian C. Gregg Singer?

History is Christian or not Christian depending on the presuppositions that the historian has who is approaching the time period they are writing upon. I expect Nesta Webster or Edmund Burke as Christians to tell me a different story about the French Revolution than I expect to be told by Simon Schama or Albert Sobul. When I read the accounts of the American era of Reconstruction I expect a different report from the Dunning School than I expect to read from the Marxist “historian” Eric Foner.

5.) Math

Clark in all likelihood believes that Math is impervious to Christian or non-Christian categories. However perhaps Clark hasn’t heard of one Kareem Carr?

Harvard PhD student Kareem Carr’s recently had a dialogue about the abstract nature of mathematics and it was profiled by Popular Mechanics in an article entitled “Why Some People Think 2+2=5…and why they’re right.”

Carr’s “hope is that you understand the flexible relationship between our mathematical systems, our perceptions of the world, and the symbolic manipulations we use to reason about reality.

Note what is being said here is that mathematics is a social construct. There is nothing in objective in mathematics. Any such reasoning gives us non-Christian mathematics.

So, pace Dr. Clark we do see that these matters can be handled either in a Christian manner or a non-Christian manner. Frankly, it is bewildering to me at least how any educated man could not readily see this. It’s like not readily noticing the oddity of tits on a boar.

However, the oddity does not end here for Dr. Clark. He goes on to say above that;

“I understand that when we get to ultimate matters, e.g., theology, there is a distinctively Christian view of things and there is certainly a Christian interpretation of the significance of things.”

What else is baseball, orchestral music, art, history, and math but “things?” And if they are “things” then why should there not be a Christian view of these things? Another theologian who shared the same last name as our erstwhile Escondido novice wrote a book a generation ago titled “A Christian View of Men and Things.” Gordon Clark realized that all things were at their heart theological. This is something that seems to escape Dr. R. Scott Clark. Maybe Scott should pick up Gordon’s book and give it a read. Maybe then he would understand?