R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 4

R. 2K Clark Does His Best Eeyore Impersonation

“In the ensuing discussion on the Heidelfog, one theme has emerged: some American Christians are having a difficult time accepting their new status. They want Christendom back, and some of them want the government to enforce religious orthodoxy to some degree. More than a few either assume that America is a Christian nation or that it was and should be again.2 My postmillennial friends are confident that it will be a Christian nation before Jesus returns.3 Each of these approaches, however, consciously or unconsciously relies on Christendom as the paradigm.”

R2K Clark

Heidelfog

BLMc responds,

1.) Keep in mind that per Scotty Boy, Christendom is literally impossible. Per R2K whatever was once called “Christendom” was never really Christendom because Christendom is not possible. So, given that, how can Scotty boy talk about wanting something back that has never been nor is even possible?

2.) I am left wondering as such, what exactly is it that American Christian’s want back? If Christendom is impossible what does Scotty boy call that which many Christian American’s want back? What exactly has been lost that, per Scotty Boy, we are trying to gain back.

I want Scotty to answer this because I suspect that however Scotty answers this there is going to be a tacit admission that Christendom is possible and if Christendom is possible than R2K is dead in the water. If it really is the case that Christendom once was, then there is no theological reason why Christendom cannot once again be. I don’t think R2K can admit that Christendom once really was since the R2K contingent repeatedly insist that Christian culture (Christendom) is not only not desirable, Christian culture is not possible.

3.) All Governments enforce a religious orthodoxy of some sort. All Governments descend from and support some God or god concept. This means that the Government that Scotty wants, whatever he might call it, will indeed be a Government that enforces some religious orthodoxy. (We know it will be a pagan religion since the last thing Scotty wants is Christianity being enforced by the Government.)

4.) It is irrelevant whether or not America was ever a “Christian nation.” It is irrelevant because “the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” which means that all the nations owe subjection to Jesus Christ regardless of their past. Not only that but Scripture also explicitly teaches Sovereign’s to “Kiss the son lest they perish in the way.”

But let me guess… Per R2K, Jesus died so that King’s are no longer required to give homage to Christ lest they perish in the way.

5.) Scotty hates Christendom but keep in mind that since there is no such thing as neutrality, that Scotty by hating Christendom, loves him some pagandom. With apologies to Robert Zimmerman, Scotty’s cultural vision is going to have to serve somebody. Now it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but his common public square is going to have to serve somebody.

“Whatever the pretensions of some within the confessional Presbyterian and Reformed (P&R) sideline denominations, they are, at best, marginal in American life. There are two kinds of sideliners in the P&R world: those who accept reality and those who do not.”

R2K Clark

Heidelfog blog

BLMc responds,

Understand that R. 2K Clark’s “reality” is tinged by those militant amillennial spectacle the boy has glued to his face. I can well imagine Clark’s voice being used for the Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore whining out, “Never-mind, it wouldn’t help anyway,” or “I don’t suppose it would end up mattering,” or “We’re all gonna’ die.”

https://winniethepooh.disney.com/eeyore-gallery?image_id=52f539890a172d5ba8008733

Can you imagine R2K Clark being with Gideon’s army before the victory against the Midianites? R2K Clark is tugging on Gideon’s cloak and simpering… “But Gideon, you’re just not accepting reality.”

I would sooner listen to Mr. Magoo than I would to R. 2K Clark on the nature of reality.

R. 2K Clark ends his article pleading that we should be like Quadratus in our modern post-Christian culture. Quadratus (or possibly Polycarp — no one knows for sure) gave a reasoned defense of the Gospel before Magistrates mocking the idols and the idolatry of the pagan world. R. 2K Clark insists that were was no attempt to take over the political structures.

And w/ that statement we see how blind and deaf R. 2K Clark is. Just imagine if, at the apologetic and evangelizing of Quadratus the Magistrate had repented.

What next?

Well, obviously what would be next is that Magistrate would being ruling underneath the Sovereignty of King Christ.

R. 2K Clark doesn’t provide another way to engage with the culture than any culture warrior does. All culture warriors understand that the Gospel must be preached. However, they also understand that once Magistrates convert that consequence will be Christendom.

However, culture warriors, further understand that if wicked Magistrates don’t repent that the Scripture gives full allowance for a Christian people to overthrow their wicked magistrates.

And if R. 2K Clark isn’t aware of that he might check out Christopher Goodman’s (an associate w/ John Knox in Scotland) work on Christian resistance to wicked Magistrates.

Rev. Larry Ball … Of Squirt Guns and Five Alarm Fires

Why Are Wilson’s Children Warriors?

In the above article Rev. Larry Ball gives analysis on the Moscow mood and in the doing of so he makes some observations about some current men on the scene. I think he views most of those he mentions by name as wearing different shades of white hats. I, on the other hand, only see different shades of black and gray.

I make my case below.

I think this article is disastrous. Rev. Larry Ball does not yet understand where the dividing line is. All those he salutes in the 6th and 7th paragraphs are part of the problem, and really are enemies to a full throated Biblical Christianity. They all treat the wound too lightly and each at different points compromise in their own way.

Now, it may be true that here or there they get a matter right and I suppose if one isolates that one or two issues they have right and stick with that on those issues one will be fine. However, if one is talking about a comprehensive and organic Biblical Christianity that is equipped to stem the tide, never mind roll it back, there is not a one of them, in Ball’s list, taken as a whole, that is the answer to our current malaise.

What matters it if you get this or that issue right when you end up giving back what you gained previously by being desperately in error on some other central issue?

Van Til used to use a metaphor about having all the different magnitude of the weaponry of the military pointed in the same direction in order to have maximum effect. These men Ball lists have some of the apologetic weaponry pointed in the right direction but elsewhere in their apologetic they are shooting at those who should be their friends.

Ball is correct that the Reformed faith needs to be providing answers on these cultural issues. Some clearly are not providing them in the least. Others are like Van Til’s “Mr. Gray” (See his article, “Mr. Black, Mr. Gray, and Mr. White”). What we need is more Mr. Whites when it comes to this battle. Ball’s list does not give us any Mr. Whites — nobody who is thinking comprehensively about the issues at had. There are no Rushdoony’s in Ball’s list.

One wonders if there are no Rushdoony’s on Ball’s list, because to be a modern Rushdoony is the kiss of death. Even when RJR was alive the mainstream “Conservative” Reformed establishment wanted very little to do with the man. How much less so must that be now, nearly 23 years after RJR’s call to glory?

Now, I am not idolizing RJR here. No, not at all. I think he was wrong on his dismissal of conspiracy theory. I think his constant optimistic prattling about victory just a few years away on this or that issue (homeschooling, minority revivals,) did not, in the end serve him well. Save for Otto Scott I do not think he surrounded himself with top shelf Lieutenants. However, those errors did not stop him from giving a comprehensive organic answer that, if he had been paid attention to and given heed, would have meant that we would not now be where we currently are in both our church moment and our cultural moment.

S, I don’t expect anybody to get it right always all the time. I don’t expect that. Shoot, I’ve even been known to get important matters wrong. (Hard to believe isn’t it?) However, some of the errors of those who are considered “the good guys” by Ball (Sandlin, Boot, Durbin, to name just a few) just are out to lunch on some pretty serious matters.

I know I am the playing the role of the canary in the mine shaft but I’m telling you if we don’t get the whole issue of race/ethnicity/WOKE correct as our Christian Fathers had it correct (See Achord & Dow’s book, “Who Is My Neighbor”) then being right everyplace is not going to matter. Ethno-Nationalism (Kinism) is the issue of our times. It is to us what Justification was for Luther and Calvin. It is to us what the eternality of Christ was for Athanasius. If all our ships do not sail in the same direction on this one issue we will all be blown out of the water by our enemies even if we are all sailing in the same direction on every other cultural issue.

The problem with the Moscow mood is not what Ball says is the problem. The problem with the Moscow mood is that it’s mood is only a grifter’s affectation. The real mood we need can be located in the troops with Martel @ Tours, or in the Polish Winged Hussar calvary with Sobieski @ Vienna, or in those sailors with Don Juan @ Lepanto, or in those Crusaders with Godfrey of Boullion during the 1st crusade. When we find clergy in the Church with that mood then phone me.

I applaud Rev. Larry Ball for attacking R2K but our attack needs to be broader. Much much broader. Ball treats the wound of God’s people too lightly. He has not understood how badly we are wounded right now.

He has brought a squirt gun to a five alarm fire.

Oh… and has anybody yet refuted all those quotes in the Achord & Dow book?

Dr. Strange and the Multicult of Madness — Part V

“Inside our personal information bubbles, our assumptions, our blind spots, our prejudices aren’t challenged, they are reinforced and naturally, we’re more likely to react negatively to those consuming different facts and opinions – all of which deepens existing racial and religious and cultural divides.”

Barack Obama

Here we return to the final installment critiquing Dr. Alan’s Strange’s excoriating of Christian Nationalism (CN).

I open with the quote above because Strange at the 12:17 mark of his third installment on the subject says much the same thing. I can’t help but find it interesting that a putative conservative Reformed theologian agrees with a Marxist like Obama on critiquing the reading habits of Americans.

1.) It seems that Strange is trying to pry Christian people away from having convictions that he personally doesn’t like and so he says, “read from sources that don’t agree with you.” Now, I don’t have a problem with reading broadly. Indeed, I often read my enemies because in such a way I can more easily disembowel their arguments. However, this isn’t why Strange (or Obama) want you to read outside those who agree with you. Strange wants Christians to read outside of those who agree with them because only in such a way will people be pried away from positions that Strange doesn’t like.

I would encourage people to read broadly but only after they have anchored themselves in a Christian World and life view.

2.) Strange insists that “we have to put politics in its place,” but he does so via his own political jeremiad that insists that everyone salute his politics. Strange’s politics insist that Christians should not prioritize politics. The problem here is that the enemies of Christ has politicized everything. It is the enemies of Christ who have politicized life, sex, and death. As Christians are we not to respond to this pagan politicization by entering into the political sphere by pushing back? The enemies of Christ have taking politics as their theology and by the means of politics they seek to cover the globe with their anti-Christ theology. For Christians, at this time, to put politics in its place the way Strang envisions is to surrender the whole ball of wax. The consequence of Strange’s version of “putting politics in its place” is to be forced back into the catacombs. The consequence of Strange’s version of “putting politics in its place” is the final hegemony of polluted pietism in the place of a muscular Christianity that walks uprightly in the public square. The consequence of Strange’s version of “putting politics in its place” means that Jesus Christ takes a back seat to whatever god or gods is/are running the public square. I submit to you that Strange, however well intended the man may be, is issuing a call to treason against Jesus Christ.

3.) Strange pulls, the now tired claim, that CN is just WOKEism on the right as if ideas of CN or race didn’t long predate the rise of WOKEism. This claim, now made by many, is just idiotic.

4.) Strange makes a typical R2K move by insisting that Christians must return to the “spirituality of the Church,” where spirituality means “surrendering to the anti-Christ forces” in the culture wars. Strange, it seems to me, will only be happy when Christianity is not a force at all in the public square, when Christianity will be restricted to what happens during Worship on Sundays, when Christianity is publicly irrelevant. The man is petrified by the notion that Christianity may become once again militant.

Look, at the end of the day, the Christianity that Dr. Alan Strange is hawking is a different Christianity from the likes of John Knox or Puritan Pulpiteers in colonial American history. It’s not a Christianity in which I am interested. I find it to be cowardly and dishonoring to the Lordship claims of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Strange and the Multicult of Madness — Part IV

Here we continue our series on Dr. Alan Strange’s podcasts concerning the depredations on the idea of Christian Nationalism (CN). I anticipate one more entry in order to finish this series.

Some have complained to me that I labeled Dr. Strange as a man of the left. I can come to no other conclusion about any man, despite their orthodoxy on any number of other subjects, that he is a man of the left when eschewing the idea of the explicit Lordship of Jesus Christ over a nation. Consider, as there is no such thing as neutrality, when one declaims against Christian nationalism the only options that remain is support for a nationalism that is driven by some anti-Christian religion or a internationalism that is driven by anti-Christ religion. (It is not possible for internationalism to be Christian.) Dr. Strange, and the other numberless hordes (Owen Strachan, R. Scott Clark, David Van Drunen, etc.) who are classical liberals are being driven by their Enlightenment faith and so can be considered nothing but “men of the left.” There is more of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat about these “Christian” men then there is Jesus Christ when it comes to their political theory. Hence, this is why I insist that Dr. Alan Strange is a man of the left.

Now to interact with Dr. Strange’s final podcast denigrating of Christian Nationalism;

1.) Strange, first lists his concern about the issue of how Christian Nationalism would imply coercion. This is true. Christian Nationalism would require coercion. Just as we Christians today, in the classical liberal model, are being coerced on any number of fronts to support our current state religion. Christians are being coerced to pay taxes to support the murder of the unborn, the murder of countless peoples in other lands because of our NWO guided military, the continued existence of our anti-Christ government schools and countless other projects. All governments are driven and inspired by a faith/religion vision and all governments in turn coerce people to salute that faith/religion vision. Christian Nationalism would be no different. We would coerce people — not to be Christian (only the Holy Spirit can do that) — but to operate within the confines of a Biblical Worldview and social order.

So, Strange, laments the possibility of coercion in the context of Christian Nationalism yet apparently he is willing not to lift his voice and do something about Christians being coerced to serve the agenda of our current state religion as it serves the gods of humanism. In the final analysis, when it comes to Governments, it is either coerce or be coerced. As Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, I have no problem saying, “Yes, Christian Nationalism would mean coercion.”

2.) Strange next insists that CN wrongly uses Scripture. This is basically a “anti-theonomy” argument. Now I agree with Strange that the Bible does not give us an exhaustive blue print for how social-orders are to be governed today. I do not believe that we should seek to repristinate OT Israel’s social order. However, I strongly disagree with Strange that the Scripture doesn’t speak to issues like proper tax rates (Strange mentions this). So, I agree with Strange that every political/social order issue can not be resolved with a “thus saith the Lord.” However, I disagree with Strange that many many political/social order issues couldn’t be resolved with a “thus saith the Lord.” For example, I do believe we should take the Scripture seriously that talks about taxation, that insists that a man should not dress like a woman, nor a woman like a man, that Magistrates should not have the capability to wage offensive wars, that Magistrates should be required to write out God’s law, etc. etc. etc. Strange’s strongly anti-theonomic position inevitably leads to “each man doing what is right in his own eyes.” It is a recipe for humanism.

3.) Strange, using an illustration for his position, next argues that the Scripture has nothing to say on whether or not the State should provide health care. This is a classic example of Strange being on the left. Scripture clearly denounces theft and the State cannot be involved in providing health care without stealing from the citizenry. State funded health care is anti-Christ and Christians should look with suspicion upon “Christians” who think like Strange. I don’t want to get too deeply in the weeds here but it is the jurisdiction of the family, and not the state to provide health care. Secondly, the prices of health care skyrocket when the state becomes the benefactor for health care. State funded health-care is not Christian.

4.) Strange next compares CN with Socialism and Communism by saying that his CN friends say “well, CN has never worked because it has never been tried by the right people.” Strange notes that is the same kind of logic that the Christian Utopians, Socialists and Communists use. I agree that is terrible logic. CN is never going to bring in Nirvana and that shouldn’t be our expectation. However, contrary to Strange the question isn’t “will CN bring in Shangri-La,” the question is will CN be closer to a God honoring social-order than other political/social-order arrangements that are decidedly anti-Christ? (Understanding that all other political/social-order arrangements that are not CN will be anti-Christ — no neutrality.) The answer there is clearly and unequivocally “yes.” I would rather live with the follies of a Cromwell or Charlemagne or Alfred the Great than the follies of a Stalin, Mao, or Obama.

5.) Strange then agrees with another chap (John Ehrett) who insists that Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s CN sounds more like Nietzsche than it does Christ. I have dissected that critique here;

McAtee Defends Stephen Wolfe Against Ehrett

More Growling & Snarling From Van Drunen’s “Pit Yorkie”

“The TheoRecons are theologians of glory, selling conquest and dominion in this life, before Christ returns. But they cannot square that vision with the eschatology and ethos of the New Testament, and it is to the New Testament, not their vision of glory, that Christians are bound.”

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Van Drunen’s Pit Yorkie

1.) All people everywhere at all times are reconstructionists. One is either reconstructing all of life as informed by the Scripture or one is reconstructing all of life as informed by the authority of some other God.

2.)This means that we could call R2K, “The TheoRecons of a false god.”

3.) R2K as Theorecons of a false god are theologians of glory for their god — the God who defeats and crushes the one true God of the theonomists/reconstructionists.

4.) Note therefore the contest between R2K and the theonomists/reconstructionists is a contest between the pagan God of R2K and the one True God of the Bible. The Christianity of R2K is a different religion than the Christianity of the theonomists/postmillennialists and the god and God of those two different religions are at war with one another all across the Reformed landscape. The result of that war will define what it means to be Reformed for generations to come. Choose ye this day whom you shall follow; the god of Escondido or the God of the Bible.

5.) The New Testament, as well as the whole Bible, is a postmillennial document. Again because Scott has a different God than the theonomists he reads the Scripture through the lens of that different false god. Keep in mind that is called IDOLATRY.

6.) It has been said before but I will offer it up again here. R2K is Roman Catholic inasmuch as in their thinking Jesus Christ is always on the Cross. If they were to carry around croziers it would be with Jesus on the Cross. For them, Christ is only victorious in a spiritual manner and so they have him upon the cross still. This is why they complain about postmillennialism being a “theology of glory.” Don’t you care ever suggest that Jesus is not still on the cross and instead is reigning at the right hand of the Father. They can not have an ascended Jesus who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords except in a “spiritual” (read GNOSTIC) sense.