R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 31

J. Gresham Machen and Christendom … Contra R2K’s Despising Of Christendom

It is a popular ploy of R2K types to insist that Christendom is no more, or that Christendom was a bad idea, or that we need to rid ourselves of the ideas of Christendom. Indeed, just recently at a R2K blog site one R2K advocate named “Sean” said, “State of Christendom? Christendom died a long time ago. “

This anti-Christendom mindset is unique to R2K. In point of fact it is one of the many innovative aspects that one finds in the Radical Two Kingdom Theology. Unlike almost all of Christendom that went before them they earnestly believe that Christendom is a myth. I find it curious for them to complain about something that to their mind could never have possibly existed. It would be like me complaining of a Grumpolumpagus. R2K advocates will often complain of the sins of Christendom but how can something that doesn’t exist have sins. If it is not possible for Christendom to exist then it never existed even when people thought it existed and any sins that might have existed certainly can’t be laid at the feet of a thing that never existed.

J. Greshma Machen of course did not agree with this despising of Christendom. In his sermon, The Creeds And Doctrinal Advance Machen could and did speak respectfully of Christendom.

“So they sit down and concoct various forms of words, which they represent as being on a plane with the great creed of Christendom. When they do that, they are simply forgetting what the creeds of Christendom are. The creeds of Christendom are not expressions of Christian experience. They are summary statements of what God has told us in His Word.”

R2K folks could never speak like Machen does here with his tend referencing of “Christendom.” Machen likely wasn’t even self conscious that he chose the word. It was natural for him, as it has been natural to the history of Reformational thought to refer to Christendom. R2K advocates self censor when it comes to the notion of Christendom.

Here we see again that Dr. Machen was no harbinger of R2K.

The Worldview Machen On The Modern Age — A Rebuff To Hart’s R2K Machen

“The truth is there can be no real progress unless there is something that is fixed. Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.” Well, Christian doctrine provides that place to stand. Unless there be such a place to stand, all progress is an illusion. The very idea of progress implies something fixed. There is no progress in a kaleidoscope

That is the trouble with the boasted progress of our modern age. The Bible at the start was given up. Nothing was to be regarded as fixed. All truth was regarded as relative. What has been the result? I will tell you. An unparalleled decadence—liberty prostrate, slavery stalking almost unchecked through the earth, the achievements of centuries crumbling in the dust, sweetness and decency despised, all meaning regarded as having been taken away from human life. What is the remedy? I will tell you that too. A return to God’s Word! We had science for the sake of science, and got the World War; we had art for art’s sake, and got ugliness gone mad; we had man for the sake of man and got a world of robots—men made into machines. Is it not time for us to come to ourselves, like the prodigal in a far country? Is it not time for us to seek real progress by a return to the living God?

J. Gresham Machen
The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance

1.) Notice how integrated Machen’s worldview here is in this excerpt. He starts with the necessity of the absolute given-ness of the Scriptures and the Historic Christian Doctrine that they convey. From there he segues into the reality that without the Archimedian fixed reference point there can be no progress. And the progress which Machen is referring to is not merely progress in the Church but progress in culture and social order. Machen explicitly says because of the loss of fixity that is provided with and by Scripture and the Christian doctrine that flows from it, “there is decadence, there is liberty prostrate, there is slavery stalking almost unchecked upon the earth, the achievements of centuries crumbling in the dust, with sweetness and decency despised.”

Now clearly this is worldview thinking at its best.

Machen, writing as a Christian Minister, and a Doctor of the Church, tells the Christian community that unless they return to Scripture not only will all hope of progress is abandoned but also regress into old chaos and dark night is guaranteed.

2.) Notice also, how Machen connects the teaching of Scripture to what some style the “common realm.” Machen, like all good worldview thinkers, explicitly notes that when we embraced Science apart from Christian doctrine, Art apart from Christian doctrine, Man apart from Christian doctrine the consequences were war, ugliness gone mad, and robots. Machen clearly sees a connection here between Scripture, Christian Doctrine and all of life. Machen’s faith is not a privatized faith that is cordoned off from the public square. Machen’s faith is not a faith that appeals to Natural Law to govern science, art, and man. Machen’s faith is not a faith that would keep him from boldly speaking as a Christian minister to the life issues of the time. Machen’s faith was a wholistic integrated faith as this quote clearly reveals.

3.) In his appeal to return to the living God is implied the idea that should man return to the living God then the problems he makes mention off will find themselves receding. Man will no longer be a robot and a machine but instead will discover again his manishness. Art will no longer be ugliness gone mad but will once again find its proper place and role in God’s world. Science will no longer be prone to producing War but will be harnessed for the glory of God.

Machen finds in God’s Word and Christian doctrine not only the resolution to individual men’s hostility to God and God’s hostility to them, but Machen also found in God’s Word and Christian doctrine the resolution to a world gone mad and a civilization undone by sin.

And for that R2K must re-invent the Machen of History so that he is, as one R2K advocate recently put it one who believed that, “fighting these (cultural) battles was not the ministry of the visible church.” Quite to the contrary this piece reveals a man of the visible Church fighting with an eye not only to the Church but also to the cultural issues in the world.

R2K’s Inherent Pessimism

“Christians have always lived in pessimistic times. That’s the nature of being aliens and exiles. That’s what happens when you worship in the church militant. Sure, Christians are optimistic about going home to be with their Lord. But they’re not optimistic about making their home here, this side of glory….

… 2kers, in fact, know that we are always in a battle and that culture wars often distract from the real warfare which is spiritual and that can only seen by faith and not by sight.”

Darryl G. Hart
R2K Connoisseur
https://oldlife.org/2013/09/06/making-difference-even-bill-evans-cant-see/

1.) I for one am glad that not all Christians have agreed with Dr. Hart on this matter when he says that Christians have always lived (and, by way of implication, “always will live”) in pessimistic times. For example, Dr. J. Gresham Machen did not agree with Darryl on this score. Machen could look forward to times that would be absent of pessimism,

“God still rules, and in the midst of darkness there will come in His good time the shining of a clearer light. There will come a great revival of the Christian religion; and with it will come, we believe a revival of true learning…”

2.) Note that it is Darryl’s worldview that forces him to conclude that Christians have always lived in pessimistic times. Darryl’s apriori militant amillennialism requires him to look at all history and all the future as “pessimistic times.” If Darryl did not have this worldview component, then Darryl wouldn’t be interpreting all of history through these pessimistic lenses. I especially note this because Darryl insists that he has no use for Worldview thinking and yet here we find Darryl engaged in Worldview thinking at its finest. In point of fact, R2K Theology is Worldviewism at its finest.

3.) Can you imagine attending a party with Darryl? He makes Eyeore and Oscar the Grouch look like winsome dinner guests. Darryl makes Schopenhauer and Voltaire look like guys you’d like to invite to your next garden party to hand out party favors.

Imagined conversation with Darryl at a party,

Guest — “So what do you do for a living Darryl?”

Darryl — “I write books and articles trying to convince people how pessimistic the times are in which we live.”

Guest — “Well, that sounds interesting.”

Darryl — “It depresses me and everyone who reads me but I press on.”

4.) Note that for Darryl, that the “not yet” of his eschatology completely obliterates the “now” of his eschatology. We can be optimistic about the sweet bye and bye but what is required now is pessimism. Now, R2K types will object and say that their “now” is Spiritual and that the problem with people like me is that my eschatology is “over-realized.”

Which brings us to our next point,

5.) R2K really is platonic or neo-platonic or, if one prefers, gnostic. We see this in the quote above that contrasts real warfare (spiritual) with non real (non spiritual) warfare. This is neo-platonism. Neoplatonism is the idea that the “spiritual’ (i.e., non-physical, ethereal eternal) aspect of life (Darryl’s Church realm) is superior to the more physical aspects. The Neoplatonic R2K perspective implicitly denies the biblical facts that man is a unit, and that God is concerned with the whole of our being and with all of life. R2K Neoplatonism leads to a spiritual contempt for God’s material creation and for the laws God has ordained in such areas as education or social order issues.

For Darryl and R2K, the really important part of life is in the realm of the Church. In the Church alone one finds the Spiritual. Outside in the common realm all one finds is the temporal and the carnal. In R2K thinking the temporal realm suffers soul sleep upon the consummation of all things. As such the temporal realm only finds its importance as it supports those working in the Spiritual realm.

If one wants to glory in pessimism, R2K is the way to go. However, if one optimistically believes, along with Machen, that Revival is coming, one will want to eschew R2K’s call for eternal pessimism and embrace the confidence and optimism of Machen.

Machen, The Worldview Thinker … The Machen Hart Never Told You About

“What has Christianity to do with education: What is there about Christianity which makes it necessary that there should be Christian schools? Very little, some people say (R2K “Christians, for example — BLM). Christianity, they say, is a life, a temper of soul, not a doctrine or a system of truth; it can provide its sweet aroma, therefore, for any system which secular education may provide; its function is merely to evaluate whatever may be presented to it by the school of thought dominant at any particular time. This view of the Christian religion…is radically false. Christianity is, indeed, a way of life; but it is a way of life founded upon a system of truth. That system of truth is of the most comprehensive kind; it clashes with opposing systems at a thousand points. The Christian life cannot be lived on the basis of anti-Christian thought. Hence the necessity of the Christian school.”

~ J. Gresham Machen

“It is this profound Christian permeation of every human activity, no matter how secular the world may regard it as being, which is brought about by the Christian school and the Christian school alone. I do not want to be guilty of exaggerations at this point. A Christian boy or girl can learn mathematics, for example, from a teacher who is not a Christian; and truth is truth however learned. But while truth is truth however learned, the bearings of truth, the meaning of truth, the purpose of truth, even in the sphere of mathematics, seem entirely different to the Christian from that which they seem to the non-Christian; and that is why a truly Christian education is possible only when Christian conviction underlies not a part, but all, of the curriculum of the school. True learning and true piety go hand in hand, and Christianity embraces the whole of life — those are great central convictions that underlie the Christian school.”

~ J. Gresham Machen

The Second Coming Of Jenny Geddes Stool

Comes now a story as told from 21st century lore
When the Church was living in captivity as Babylon the Whore
Escondido had sworn that R2K would become the new Reformed jewel
They never dreamed they’d be undone by Jenny Gedde’s stool

The Ph.D’s and their sycophants, with printing presses hot
Expected all to genuflect over the theology they had wrought
Meredith Kline had sworn that Westminster 19 would never be the rule
But he passed before he could be introduced to Jenny Gedde’s stool

Kline’s disciples filled his shoes with Academic gravity and pomp
Resolved to cover the Reformed globe with their Republication swamp
VanDrunen, Hart, Horton, Clark, and others among those counted “cool”
Never expected they’d feel the wood of the metaphoric Gedde’s stool

They pushed their books insisting that Recovered Confessions meant
That all the Reformed World must offer up its assent
They introduced saints gone by, claiming all taught the hyphenated dual
But their plans began to crumble when met by Jenny Gedde’s stool

First Machen was trotted out by Hart as crypto Radical 2K
And that floated among the dupes until Machen’s words were displayed
And all the time they gnashed their teeth at the stubborn mules
Who had the temerity to resist R2K with Jenny Gedde’s stool

Then Natural Law was spun by the Magic of Van Drunen’s pen
The common realm was ruled by it, without Scripture’s intoned “Amen”
In the hearts of the saints the blood upwelled with bitter anguish full;
And to their blogs they took as one, casting Jenny Gedde’s stool

Next came covenant republication in this Reformed poison brew
Here the fingerprints of Horton were found creating this ballyhoo
To defend the truth rose warriors to expose this Escondido tool
And the weapon of their choice was Jenny Gedde’s metaphoric stool

Came forth then the sputtering of men not used to being told they’re wrong
Reinforcements did arrive but Gordon and Trueman could not prolong
The inevitable demise of these schoolman’s Reformed Theology re-tool
It was brought to an end by the flying wood of Jenny Gedde’s metaphoric stool

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