Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

Dr. R. Scott Clark has gone from the ridiculous to the surreal in his latest advocacy of Radical Two Kingdom Virus Theology. It appears that one affect of long exposure to the R2Kt virus is dementia and addlepatedness.

“The Fourth Circuit has upheld the ban of a minister from praying at city council meetings in Fredericksburg, VA. His crime? He prays in Jesus’ name. That’s a sectarian prayer. Yes, it is and it’s a good thing too.

I can’t think of a non-sectarian prayer, at least not one in which I would want to be involved. As I understand Scripture non-sectarian prayer is idolatry.”

If Typoid Bob can’t think of a non-sectarian prayer why can he not think of a non-sectarian education, or a non-sectarian sociology, or a non-sectarian legal theory, or a non-sectarian culture? Why is it that all prayer is sectarian (and it certainly is) but all economic theory, governmental arrangements, art theory, and educational praxis is not sectarian?

This is an important question because part of Typhoid Bob’s problem is that he thinks that his ‘common realm’ or ‘secular realm’ can be a realm that is not a manifestation of some theology thus making it a non-sectarian realm. Suffice it to say that cultures are every bit as sectarian as prayers.

“People will decry this ruling as blow to religious freedom and freedom of speech (it is perhaps the latter) but there may be no clearer example of the confusion of the two kingdoms when Christ’s ministers do the bidding of Caesar by praying for divine blessing on behalf of the magistrate, as a civil function. Ministers and all Christians are commanded by God to pray for the magistrate. We do so during the week. We do so on the Sabbath, but do we have any business doing so to open legislative sessions? Legislators ought to pray as private persons before, during, and after their civil work but ministers are called by God as Christ’s servants in his eternal, immutable kingdom. They are not called as civil servants. If they will to be civil servants they have only to resign their ecclesiastical office. To attempt to function as an officer in both kingdoms simultaneously is a blow to the spirituality (which doesn’t mean ethereality) of Christ’s church.”

First, when a minister from the Church realm prays, he prays at the bidding of God, even if another minister of God in a different realm (the magistrate) requests him to pray.

Second, there is no confusion of the two kingdoms here as is seen in the reality that it is clearly seen, by God’s minister in the civil realm asking God’s minister in the ecclesiastical realm to come and offer an invocation that God, who reigns over both realms, and to whom both respective ministers (pastor and magistrate) are required to be in submission to, might grant wisdom to decision making and to be benevolent. Everybody in the room understands that reality of the two Kingdoms when a pastor is invited to offer invocation if only because it is clearly seen that the representative of God’s right hand is coming in to beseech God for the Kingdom of His left hand. Further, a wise pastor will include in his prayer the idea of the two Kingdoms to make that intuitive understanding clear.

Third, a wise pastor who is invited to pray in the context of a civil realm will include in his prayer the petition that these ministers in the civil realm will remember that they will be answerable to God for their decisions and will request that God will visit them with chastisement if they legislate contrary to God’s revealed word. There are a myriad of ways to make it clear that the minister isn’t present as the magistrates lackey. Equally so, there are an abundant means in which it can be communicated that the minister’s presence doesn’t mean that he supports any malfeasance that is taking place by God’s ministers in the civil realm.

Fourth, the prayer of a minister at a opening of a legislative session makes him a civil servant the way a Father being present at the birth of his child makes him a mother.

Typhoid Bob’s problem again is seeing spirituality as “otherworldliness” as opposed to seeing spirituality as incarnating the age to come in this present wicked age.

Make no mistake, the disagreement between those infected with R2kt virus and those who aren’t is a disagreement over what counts as “spirituality.”

“Afraid that the local imam will be opening a legislative session near you? You should be, but not because he’s a Muslim, but because he has no more business opening a session than your minister. God is sovereign. He raises kings and dashes them to the ground, but he administers two distinct kingdoms, by his sovereign power and will, in two distinct ways. He governs the spiritual kingdom, the visible church by the Word of God. He governs the civil kingdom by general revelation and the 2nd table of the natural law.

Recently, somebody has suggested that the close relation of Reformed people and Roman Catholics in the Acton Institute (where a big push for natural law is coming from) is leading to a Romanizing of Reformed Theology. When I read things like this I can’t help but perk up my hears when that argument is made.

The fact that Typhoid Bob desires to keep Imam’s out of the public square the same way he desires to keep ministers out of the public square indicates again that he desires a naked public square. Dr. R. Scott Clark’s theology is one with the ACLU on this score.

Also, the 2nd table of the law presupposes the first table. It is no more possible to govern the civil kingdom by the 2nd table of the law without the 1st table then it is to fire a gun that doesn’t have any bullets in it. Bullets presuppose a gun in order to be effective. Just so, the 2nd table presupposes the first table in order to be effective. The breakdown of the West over the last 100 yeas ought to be testimony of that fact.

“Can you imagine the Apostle Paul opening a session of the Roman senate? The real question is whether we’re going to continue to try to hang on to the last remnants of Christendom.”

Note the hatred of Typhoid Bob for Christendom. We must remind our readers here that if we will not have a Christendom we will have some other kind of “dom” whether it is Islamadom, or Humanismdom. It is not possible to have a naked public square, despite all the insistence of the R2kt types that such a thing is possible. This hatred of Christendom represents a failure of nerve to incarnate the Christian faith into every area of life.

I cannot imagine the Apostle Paul being asked to open a session of the Roman senate in prayer but I can imagine the Apostle Paul praying to open the session of the Roman senate just as I can imagine him giving a defense of the Gospel on Mars Hill. Such a prayer would have been a wondeful opportunity to give the Gospel.

“Why does any legislative body need to invite anyone to pray? Why do they need to open sessions with prayer?”

Because they understand that they are ministers of God in the civil realm? Because they desire God to bless their deliberations? Because they desire to communicate that unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain attempting to legislate anything not according to His will? Because they are a pious Christian people and a pious Christian people are notorious for invoking God at important events.

Is he serious by asking those questions?

“Yes, Christians ought to serve in government and Christians ought to pray for government and Christians who serve in government should pray while they’re serving, but a city council meeting is not a worship service. It’s not a prayer meeting. It’s not a bible study.”

ROFLOL

I guess this means I, as the minister, should quit praying before our covenant mealtimes since covered dish dinners are not official worship services.

They’re meeting to discuss whether to pave my walk or not. They’re meeting to approve a budget but we’re not a theocracy.

First, note how Dr. Clark belittles what happens in the public square. This seems to communicate that where the really important stuff happens is in his “spiritual” Kingdom.

Second, does God’s Word have nothing to say how money should be spent?

Third, we are a theocracy. All governments are theocracys. Even if Bob got his way with R2Kt the government would be a theocracy. Theocracy is an unavoidable category. We live under one now. Dr. Clark’s theology won’t allow him to realize that.

“We don’t have a state church.”

We most certainly do. It’s called the government schools. If the city council wants to be inconsistent by asking a minister to pray as opposed to the local school principal Christian ministers should take advantage of that.

“We don’t have an officially approved doctrine of God.”

We do in a defacto sense. It is, “In the State we live and move and have our being.” If the city council wants to be inconsistent by asking a minister to pray as opposed to the some government official in the tank for the State Christian ministers should take advantage of that.

“We don’t know or care about the church affiliation of those whom we elect to office.”

Typhoid Bob may not care but I care and take pains to find out before I cast a vote.

“In that case, what am I doing praying with Unitarians, pagans, Hindus, and Roman Catholics? That’s crazy. I can agree with them on street paving because of the providence of God but I don’t have to agree with them theologically and I don’t have to and don’t want to pray with them.

I’m only praying with them because I’m the one praying. If a priest or Imam were praying you can bet I wouldn’t be praying with them.

What if the pagans decided that they were going to pave the street with sub-standard filling charging the citizens for the good stuff while keeping the difference. You see, worldview does make a difference for paving streets.

His congregation didn’t call him to pray at city council meetings. They called him to preach the gospel to them and to evangelize the community and the catechize their children. If he’s doing his job I don’t know that he has time to pray at city council meetings.

And what makes Typhoid Bob think that praying in a God honoring Biblical fashion at the opening of a legislative meeting isn’t evangelism?

Dr. Clark has tunnel vision.

Dear Sir,

I’ve bee reading through your R2kt virus posts. I can’t tell you how important they are to me. I started attending a PCA church infected with this perspective and it took a long time and a lot of studying to realize where all this was coming from (Westminster West it turns out). I’m now running a mile from the place thankful that the Lord opened my eyes when he did.

Thank you for taking the time to write on this subject.

Blessings,

Name Withheld

Mr. Bret: One thing I forgot to ask? Do you really think preaching against ideology is more important that preaching forgiveness of sins?

I think when forgiveness of sins is preached it should also be preached that people must repent, (it’s been my experience that those two always go together) and always what they must repent from is their sinful wrong thinking about God (their ideology if you please) that drives their aberrant behavior. Preaching the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus is preaching that God will forgive man for being ideologically opposed to God and His Christ in all of his thinking. Now, certainly some people are more epistemologically self conscious about their god hating ideology and hence it is far more formalized, but in the end all men who desire the forgiveness of sins must repent of an ideology that has them seeking to de-god God, in the interest of investing themselves with godhood.

So, Mr. Darryl, in the end I don’t draw a dichotomy between preaching against ideology and preaching forgiveness of sins. I figure that people need to be aware that their sinful thinking is standing between themselves and God’s abundant and gracious forgiveness.

So, could you lend some insights in how it is you preach forgiveness sins apart from repenting for hostile thinking against God?

Mr. Darryl wrote,

In your search for an oppositional church, I guess you’d also pass by the churches established by Christ and the apostles. There was, as you well know, lots of bad theology informing the civil order of first-century Palestine. For some reason, Christ and the apostles decided not to oppose Rome’s civil religion but instead taught submission to the powers that be. Of course, the one power to which they took exception was the theocracy of Israel, which also separated powers among the priests, the elders and the king, but did not separate the kingdom of grace from the kingdom of justice.”

Mr. Bret responds,

I could only hope I would be brave enough to be a member of those early Churches where many were martyred for treason and sedition. You do recall those early Martyrs right? Those early martyrs understood all the bad theology informing their civil order of the first century and they went to the nub of it by refusing to burn a pinch of incense to the Emperor and saying “Caesar is Lord.” You see Mr. Darryl they were being ideologically driven by their commitment to Jesus as Lord, and they understood that Lordship to have implications in your “common realm.”

St. Paul understood well the necessity of not allowing the bad theology informing the civil order to infect the Church. This is why he could write, “Be not conformed to this World,” and also, “We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.”

As only God is absolute, only our submission to God is absolute. Nowhere in Scripture is absolute submission taught to be extended to anybody but God in heaven above. Our general principle is to honor those in authority but the submission that comes with that is not absolute.

Finally, as I’ve said now countless times, I’m all for distinguishing the Kingdom of Grace from the Kingdom of justice. I’m just not for divorcing and compartmentalizing them. That’s far to radical and its not Biblical.

Thanks for the follow up question Mr. Darryl.

Mr. Bret,

I’m not sure what you should expect from a church other than to preach the word of God. If you can find a text to oppose historicism or taxation, then I suppose you can preach it or argue with your minister about preaching it. Since you seem to have connections to MARS, I wonder how the Dutch-American faculty there feel about socialism back in the old country. In fact, it is curious to me that European evangelicals are far more comfortable with big government than American evangelicals are (consider the lefty at WTS, Carl Trueman). Could it be that the biblical warrant against a big government is not as clear as you think?

I’d also recommend that you spend some time with J. Gresham Machen on politics and faith, just to see someone who generally enjoys good press among Reformed types but whose politics might be a tad different from yours.

But in the end, I don’t know how you can live with yourself living in this land where bad theology haunts every corner. Shouldn’t you move somewhere for pyschological relief?

Mr. Darryl,

First, I have absolutely positively no connection to MARS beyond thinking it a decent Seminary. I have no idea what they at MARS think about socialism in the old country, though I think it might explain a good deal how, in about a century, the Netherlands went from Kuyper as Prime Minister to where they are now. Presuppositions matter and bad ideas have consequences.

Second, I am glad that you concede that “if you can find a text … than I suppose you can preach it.” Now is that a first class conditional “if” or some other kind of “if”? As someone who has been around the Scriptures much of your life you certainly have an opinion on whether or not such texts exist.

Third, as whether constrained government is a Scripturally warranted as I might think, instead of getting into a long and extended explanation here I will refer those interested to Charles McCoy’s “Fountainhead Of Federalism,” or John Witte’s The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism, or Lex Rex by Rutherford or something similar. Unlike big government types like Carl Truman Calvinism has a long history of finding texts that warrant teaching that government should be constrained and shouldn’t be allowed to take up prerogatives of God.

Certainly a text against Centralized government that takes up the prerogatives of God and seeks to be God walking on the earth would be “Thou Shalt have no other gods before me.”

Ever wonder if the fact that there remain so few European Evangelicals is explained by the fact that they are comfortable with socialism?

I’ll make a deal with you Darryl. I’ll work on finding psychological relief if you’ll work on finding something that will give you psychological turmoil.

Still, in the end, I find my relief in a Sovereign God who is sustaining and governing all that comes to pass and who does all things well. Since that remains true everywhere why would I have to move to find some psychological relief?

Nice chatting with you Dr. Hart.

God grant Reformation to the Church.

Dr. D. G. Hart, renown teacher, author and theologian in the Reformed church today stopped by for metaphorical coffee and a chat yesterday. I recorded our session so that readers could benefit.

Dr. D. G. Hart writes,

Jetbrane: you write: “R2Kt virus goes on to say that the Church as the Church must not even seek to use moral persuasion when it comes to issues that are non-salvific (narrowly defined) that apply to the public square. According to R2Kt virus thinking the Church as the Church cannot speak to these issues because the Bible doesn’t speak to these issues.”

I don’t know of anyone who holds this implication of what you perceive to be the 2k view. The church may use its power of persuasion all the time (and does every time a minister steps into the pulpit and proclaims the word of God). The question is one of jurisdiction. When the church declares the word of God, in worship or in its courts, it is using powers of persuasion all over the place.

So, D. G., does this mean that I can expect Reformed Churches that believe in R2K theology to preach from the pulpit on the evils when the State seeks to take on the prerogatives of God? Does this mean that I can expect Reformed Churches that believe in R2Kt to proclaim from the pulpit that God’s prohibition against theft applies to confiscatory taxation of the citizenry by the State? Does this mean that that I can expect Reformed Churches that hold to R2k views to proclaim from the pulpit clearly against the evils of abortion and homosexuality? Does this mean that I can expect Reformed Churches that hold to R2k to speak against ideologies like socialism, feminism, fascism, historicism, multi-culturalism, etc. that so influence our culture that are anti-Christ at their core?

I would like to attend services where some of these public square issues are addressed by graduates of Westminster West. But, given what you say later that won’t ever happen because you believe that the Church is not charged with speaking to those issues since that would be like trying to discipline other people’s children.

What is more the 2k position in no way denies that the Word of God speaks to matters of morality that affect civil society. Clearly the Bible says things about lying, cheating, stealing and killing, and the state makes laws about such things. But simply because the church ministers the word of God on these “issues” does not mean the church has jurisdiction over civil or political affairs. The 2k position says that it doesn’t. (It’s like a father who disciplines children; his status as an administrator of offspring discipline does not give him the authority to administer discipline to children of another father.)

First of all let’s keep in mind that two Kingdom theology can not be equated with what is being passed as two Kingdom theology by R2k types. Two Kingdom theology when handled by the Puritans was Two Kingdom but not Radical two Kingdom. Your version of two Kingdom theology is not THE version of two Kingdom theology.

Second, in the first blockquote you insisted that my perceptions of R2K are nowhere present and yet in the second blockquote you prove that my perceptions are correct. In the portion you quoted from an earlier statement of mine I said, “R2Kt virus goes on to say that the Church as the Church must not even seek to use moral persuasion when it comes to issues that are non-salvific (narrowly defined) that apply to the public square,” and now you are saying that the Church may not speak to the civil realm because that would be like a Father disciplining children that were not his. I would say that my perception in the italicized portion immediately above has been confirmed by no less of an authority then you.

D. G., you keep injecting elasticity into that word “jurisdiction.” When the Church speaks to public square issues it is not taking jurisdiction. Jurisdiction belongs to the civil realm. What the Church is doing is providing godly counsel. Using your illustration, when the Church seeks to speak to the public square of the culture it is not the case of the Church taking jurisdiction if only because the Church can be (and usually is) ignored. If the Church had jurisdiction she couldn’t be ignored. Rather it is the case of offering advice to the parents of other children who are tearing up the shared living space.

Keep in mind that when you say that Church doesn’t have the responsibility to speak to the public square that is just another way of saying that it doesn’t have the responsibility to correct bad theology. I say this because all action in the public square is the result of and manifestation of bad theology. I can’t understand why any Christian would say that it is not the Church’s role to correct bad theology wherever bad theology is found.

Third, I realize that R2Kt will speak to the personal and individual ethics of those who confess Christ. I’ve nowhere denied that. What I’ve denied is the willingness of R2Kt types to correct the bad theology of the Public Square that leads to a creation of a culture that impresses and shapes Christians to think in a anti God honoring way. This unwillingness to speak to these issues then is compounded when some of these same Christians send their children to be indoctrinated into a pagan covenant by sending them to the State Churches.

One more correction, the 2k view says nothing about pluralism being desirable. It does concede that pluralism exists and it argues that it gives the church a way to minister in a pluralist setting without seceding or rebelling against the existing powers. But many 2k people would argue that they’d prefer to live in a less pluralistic society.

I’ve read other R2k people advocate pluralism. I will notch this up to disagreement in the R2K camp.

But… FYI… pluralism doesn’t exist, or if it does exist it exists in the same way that pluralism existed in ancient Rome, which is to say that it exists as long as nobody takes their God or gods seriously and instead resolve to live, move and have their being in the State.

Where you and I differ probably the greatest is over your contention that the 2k view will make the church impotent. Here you hold up Mass. Bay as a model of separating the two powers, civil and ecclesiastical, and I suppose as maintaining its vitality. But the 2k view argues that the collapsing of membership in the civil society and in the church, as all state churches do, does not make the church potent. In fact, it was one of the chief ways by which the church became corrupted.

Look at what happened to the Puritans’ Half Way Covenant. Infant baptism was not simply a church matter — as in the 2k view — but also a civil matter — as in the anti-2k view. And what happened to the Puritan churches then. They had to fudge biblical teaching to accommodate the demands of civil society. (This, btw, is also what happened even to churches after the separation of church and state. When the PCUSA was the most vigorous in asserting its public influence — say as its four-square support for the 18th Amendment or when John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State — it was a church fairly impotent theologically.)

All because one generation fudged doesn’t mean that the whole system is wrong. The problem isn’t the system but rather those who fudged their theology in the system. The problem was a lack of willingness to do Church discipline compounded by a pure church doctrine and the insistence that membership be anchored in a conversion “experience.”

We have not escaped the problems of a State Church D. G. Our unofficial official state Church is now the government schools. We have embraced putative pluralism in exchange for established churches and what we got in return was a state religion. We ditched the religio licita of Christianity and ended up embracing the religio licita of Humanism where the civil realm and the church realm remain collapsed.

Still, I am not arguing for a established state church as you seem to think I am. I am arguing that the Church speak to the bad theology that incarnates itself in our culture.

But let’s look for a point of agreement. Let’s agree that the Church must get its theology right before it can council the culture. I would go on to say that once we have it right it must speak to the bad theology that surrounds it in the culture. In my estimation Churches should be as or more concerned with teaching their people the wrongness of non-Reformed theologies as they are concerned with teaching their people the ungodliness of the theology that incarnates itself in our culture.

So the 2k view holds that the church is most vigorous when she is spiritual and eschews the temptation to reform society or back legislation or shape public policy. That seems to be what Paul was getting at when he talked about preaching and the cross being foolishness to the Greeks — the great political theorists — but the power of God unto salvation.

You keep on using that word “spiritual.” I do not think it means what you think it means. Spiritual realities are always behind legislation and public policy and so if the Church was being spiritual she would speak to these issues. Finally, the salvation that God brings is cosmic. It is not narrowly defined as being limited to the salvation of souls but rather extends to include the renewal of all things. That is the kind of salvation that we need to be concerned with.