Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

Wolfe keeps trying to isolate theology from politics as if they are two different unrelated realities. This is the same dualism that you find in R2K. Now, to be sure, one can argue that politics is not the same as theology (that would give us a kind of monism) and so we cannot identify the two as being one in the same. And yet, all politics is shaped and informed by some theology. Politics (or economics, or education, or family life, or the arts, or history, etc.) are not and cannot possibly be a-theological.

If we believe that grace restores nature (as Wolfe himself admits in his presentation today) then we have to admit that the grace that is restoring nature is in point of fact, in this case, a Christian theology (grace) that is informing nature (politics).

Think about it. Theology deals with epistemology, anthropology, ontology, axiology, teleology, etc. Can we really argue that politics likewise doesn’t have to deal with these same questions? If both theology and politics have to deal with the same questions and provide answers for these questions then it is painfully obvious that theology and politics cannot be cordoned off from each other.

Now, we fully agree that there are distinctions that the Scripture makes. The church has a particular jurisdiction in which it operates. It handles the keys. The Civil-social Magistrate has a particular jurisdiction it which operate. It handles the sword. But even in this distinction theology is informing the Magistrate for what purposes and in what instances the Magistrate may use the sword. Similarly, the Church is informed by theology as to how to handle the keys. And in both instances, upon the principle of interposition each may have to, when one or the other Institution goes sideways, interpose to correct a Civil Magistrate gone rogue or to correct a Institutional church gone rogue.

If we really believe that grace restores nature than we have to believe that theology restores politics, economics, family life, education, arts, history, etc. because thinking rightly about God and His Word impacts every area of life.

Wolfe, like his R2K counterparts, has fallen into a dualism. Now, to be sure Wolfe’s dualism is not as shocking or impermeable as the R2K dualism, but it remains a dualism all the same. One way we know this is by Wolfe’s constant plea that the clergy shut up about politics. The man, having divided grace from nature, insists that clergy only talk about “spiritual,” or “eternal” things and since politics et. al. are, in Wolfe’s world not “spiritual” or “eternal” therefore the clergy should not speak on these matters. Similarly, I suspect, that Wolfe would never have a Constantine call a Synod for the church to solve some contentious problem.

Wolfe has been better than R2K but it is only the kind of better that finds us saying that a terminally ill man is better than a dead man.

On another front Wolfe said he doesn’t think that there’s that much difference between R2K and theonomy/postmillennialism.

“Washington was a general and he was successful as a soldier and a president not because he prayed.

Govt. is not Sunday school or church. and to roll back the perils you see afflicting young men in public schools, you want govt. to act. That’s why you talk about Xian govt.”

Darryl Gnostic Hart
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1.) Keep in mind that Hart is, after Doug Wilson, the king of dichotomy. We find another subtle one here. It is true that Washington was a general l and he was successful as a soldier and a president. However, before Washington was a successful soldier and president he was a man. Would Hart contend that Washington’s success as a man is not related at all because he prayed? And if we would account Washington’s success as a man, at least in part, to the fact that he prayed then it is indeed the case that on some level Washington’s success as a general and a president was because he prayed. Perhaps Hart would insist that prayer has nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he enters into. If Hart would insist that, I would contend that Hart is a defacto Deist. God makes men the way the are and the religious practices of a man — practices that originate in his embraced religion — have nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he pursues. As usual Hart hasn’t thought through what he says.

Keep in mind though it doesn’t matter what Hart says because despite many quotes from Hart that are clearly outside the boundaries of Biblical Christianity nobody holds him accountable.

2.) The fact that Government is not Sunday School doesn’t mean that Government is not moral or immoral depending on the policies it pursues. Government doesn’t have to be a Sunday School in order to operate in a manner consistent with the Christian faith. Of course Hart (the pretend historian by occupation) is just being a-historical with this outburst;

“The magistrate must root out idolatry and false worship, for God commands that His truth be upheld and blasphemies suppressed by those he has set in authority.”

Martin Luther (1525)

“It is the duty of the magistrate to suppress idolatry and superstition that the true worship of God may flourish, as commanded by the Almighty.” John Knox (1554)

“Magistrates are bound to defend the worship of God and to purge their realm of idolatry, which provokes God’s wrath against the land.” John Calvin (1559)

 “Rulers, as ministers of God, must cast down idols and false teachings, ensuring that the true faith is upheld in their governance.”

Jan Hus (1414)

3.) Since public schools are indeed government schools the government does indeed have the responsibility to roll back the perils afflicting all students while they are in or at school.

Someone recently insisted to me, that it was their conviction that Hart is a subversive, purposely subverting the Reformed faith. Anybody who has a Christian worldview can easily see that.

4.) Finally, people talk about Christian government because so many of our Reformed Fathers talked about Christian government.

“Theocrats/CNs/Theonomists/etc fail to account for the progress of revelation and redemptive history. They all write as if the state of that people has not expired (WCF 19.4) but it has. This was true in the 16th century and in the 17th century.

We can see it in some of the most important Reformed writings of the period against tyranny. In his treatise On The Right of Magistrates Theodore Beza did this very thing. Our writers all recognized that national Israel was a temporary, typological institution but they all also assumed that there must be a state religion. That assumption, more or less demanded that they contradict their own reading of redemptive history. So, they talked about the king of France, as if he were king David and France, as if it were national Israel. It was incoherent and it remained so.”

Dr. R(2K) Scott Clark
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1.) Theonomists agree that the state of the people hath expired but we also agree with the rest of WCF 19:4 which R2K Clark loves to disingenuously  leave out when he quotes WCF 19. Here is the complete rendering of 19:4;

IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

As many times as R2K Clark has been reminded of the part above in the bold one has to conclude that Clark is consistently in violation of the 9th commandment bearing false witness against the WCF.

I will guarantee you  that all those 16th and 17th century Reformed writers, who R2K Clark styles “Theocrats” were operating under the umbrella of WCF 19:4. If that is true that means that R2K Clark, were he an honest man, would tell the world that his position on WCF 19:4 is in contradiction to what WCF 19:4 teaches. I mean, either R2K Clark is in violation of WCF 19:4 or else the Reformed Fathers that Clark complains about were in violation of WCF 19:4. Y’all can take R2K Clark … I’ll stick with Rutherford, Gillespie, Calvin, and their tribe.

2.) R2K Scott Clark is a Theocrat. I’ll say it again in case you skimmed past that. For all the bitching that R2K Clark does about Theorcats, Theonomists, and CN’s he is himself a Theocrat.

This is due to the fact that theocracy is an inescapable category. As a Theonomist I desire our government to rule consistently with God’s Law. That makes me  a theocrat. However, as a anti-theonomist R2K Clark desires our government to rule consistently with Natural Law. Natural Law is thus R2K Clark’s God and as a Natural Law Theocrat R2K Clark insists on the State ruling according to that law.

Now, keep in mind that even the Christian Natural Law fanboys can’t agree on what Natural Law does and does not teach. Natural Law fanboys such as Dr. Stephen Wolfe and Dr. R2K Clark  get along with one another like homeless people get along with soap and bathing. As such, since there is no uniform voice on what Natural Law, R2K Clark is a Theocrat who takes the State as his God. The State will determining the meaning of Natural Law and all the little Natural Law Theocrats will have to bow to the State as their God. Indeed, this is R2K Clark did during the Covid ruse. He followed his state god and insisted that the Churches shut down. R2K Clark is a Theocrat. He merely has a different Theo in his cracy (Theocracy).

3.) Of course this means that R. Scott Clark owns and practices a State religion. The very thing he complains about Theonomists, Theocrats, and CN’s. The State religion that R2K Clark practices is humanism. R2K Clark is a humanist Theocrat. R2K Clark practices the State religion except for a few hours on Sunday when he tips his cap to a God who is only ruling in the church realm. Keep in mind, that it is that God (who is no God) in R2K Clark’s church realm that is teaching R2K Clark that the God of the Church realm is not the explicit God over the common realm (public square).

4.) By now we see a couple truths;

a.) R2K Clark is the incoherent one. There are so many contradictions in R2K that it is amazing that R2K Clark can spit without dribbling it all over himself.

b.) It is R2K Clark’s reading of redemptive history that sucks. He is basically a Marcionite. He finds so much discontinuity between the Old and New Testament that he basically owns a different God from the Old Testament saints as well as those Reformed Fathers he so bitterly rails against.

Like all R2K chaps, R2K Scott Clark is a deceiver of the body of Christ. Now, like all sinners they may have the best of intentions, but at the end of it all they are advocating a different religion, and a different Christ.