R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

Answering the Gnostic Accusation that Bret’s too “Focused Upon This World”

Comment on Iron Rhetoric from a chap named “Machen”

“Ultimately, Bret and his followers are focused upon this world. They are hungry for things that they see with their eyes. They want their own country. But in doing so, they have failed to see that we have a much better country. One that our forefathers sought by faith, and yet they did not see it till death. When will Bret learn to stop cherry picking history and start looking above where Christ is?”

Bret responds with 12 response (One comeback for every Apostle),

1.) You couldn’t fill a phone booth (remember those?) with Bret’s followers.

2.) There was a time I wanted my own wife and my own children and my own friends. There was a time I wanted to Pastor my own church. Then there was a time I wanted my own grandchildren. Did all these realities prove that I was hungry for things I see with my eyes and that said hunger was not Christian?

3.) Damn straight I want my own country. Just like the pagan Chinese have their own country … just like the pagan Bagels have their own country (the US) … just like the pagan Mooselimbs have their own countries. It is the height of disobedience to Christ for a Christian to suggest that somehow it is sinful to desire to have a country that is Christian, White, and Heritage American. What? … it is the case that I am most holy when I go about not wanting my own country?

4.) I trust everyone easily sees how this is Gnostic to the core. Somehow being a Christian in this chap’s world means that corporeal things are un-holy. This chap probably spends his evenings before bedtime flagellating himself till he bleeds.

5.) This chap will have to ask those who have attended funeral sermons I’ve preached if I fail to see and emphasize that we have a better country. However, all because we have a better country coming doesn’t mean that we get to trash the present country we have or might have if we are faithful to the Lord Christ.

6.) I guarantee you this chap is either amillennial or premillennial.

7.) If death and the heavenly country is the be all end all for this chap why doesn’t he pray daily that he might die? If he dies soon he doesn’t have to put up with all the gross stuff that is this life.

8.) Has this chap ever read the verse; “Occupy till I come?” (Luke 19:13)

9.) Cherry picking history? Look if I’m cherry picking history let him and his idiot Gnostic cronies publish not one, but two, 500 page plus volumes of quotes from the Church Fathers who support their Gnosticism when it comes to Christian Nationalism and Kinism. Shoot, bang, I’ll even let him cherry pick if he wants to.

10.) Kinists have ALL the evidence on their side. We have two large published anthologies that supports the truth that the Church fathers have been on our side and that over the centuries.

11.) It is precisely because I make it endeavor to set my mind on things above, not on things on the earth that works in me the working out of my salvation in fear and trembling to the end of making every area of this life serve Christ.

12.) Something about “taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” Thoughts about social order arrangement. Thoughts about race / culture / faith. Thoughts about history. Every thought.

I pray that this strand of Gnosticism would be arrested and extinguished in the modern church today. I pray that this chap would yet repent and along with all Christ’s people desire a nation of their own.

And Then An R2K Fan-Boy Showed Up In The Comments

Some chap named “Jackson Stead” showed up in the comments section to dispute my take on R2K. I’m always in for a good polemical go.

Jackson Stead wrote,

This critique (against R2K) misrepresents both the metaphysical and theological framework of Reformed Two Kingdom (R2K) doctrine.

1. Christ’s Kingship is Not Denied

R2K affirms Christus Rex. Christ rules all things, including the civil and ecclesial spheres. The distinction is not between realms of truth but of office: church and state are both under His providential kingship, but exercise different delegated authorities. The state bears the sword for justice; the church administers Word and sacrament for salvation. These are real, divinely ordained institutions with distinct final causes.

Bret responds;

1.) R2K DOES deny Christ’s Kingship by muting it for the common realm and placing it under a different sceptre. Christ does not rule explicitly in the common realm per R2K but only implicitly via Natural Law. This whole R2K conception of Natural Law has been disputed not only by us Presuppositionalists/Theonomists but also by the non-R2K natural law guys like Stephen Wolfe. So, both you chaps and the Wolfe chaps appeal to this obvious Natural Law but you cannot agree on the reading of this putatively obvious “Natural Law.” It seems Natural Law is not as obvious on this matter as you would like it to be and Christ’s ruling “by His left hand” in the common realm by Natural Law is quite up for dispute.

Of course the preferred understanding is that there is one Kingdom with different jurisdictions wherein we find Christ’s appointment as stewards over those differing respective jurisdictions. In such a way these realms are both independent and yet interdependent. Independent because they each have been assigned different roles and responsibilities (Church = grace [Keys]/ Civil Social = justice [sword] / Family = discipline [Rod]).

You’re reading and all Natural Law readings creates a Gnostic dualism. It ends up giving us a Gnostic Jesus ruling over a Gnostic Kingdom.

Jackson Stead wrote,

2. Preaching and the Limits of Office

The pulpit is the instrument of the Church’s office. It declares the gospel and moral law as illuminated by Scripture and natural reason. That includes denouncing injustice—but within its mode and end. The Church does not legislate, prosecute, or campaign. It witnesses. Confusing the offices—making the pulpit a political stump—usurps the state’s vocation and undermines the Church’s own.

Bret responds,

2.) The Keys are the instrument of the Church’s office. Via the Keys the Kingdom of God is opened and closed. Via the Keys Word and Sacrament are given to the end of building up the body of Christ. The whole idea of natural reason is a piece with Natural law. Natural reason is fallen and so only redeemed reason as considering the Word and the good and necessary consequences from the Word instructs and guides God’s people. The Church clearly has a role in speaking to the State as seen throughout Scripture. (John the Baptist denounced Herod for His crimes, Jesus called Herod “that Fox,” The proclamation that “there is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved” was a challenge to the Worldly authorities as the usual proclamation of Caesar was “there is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved” referring to Caesar.) Then there was the accusation against Jason and the Christians,

Acts 17:6 But when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

You may not think that the Church should speak to Caesar but these chaps in Ephesus sure thought that was what was happening.

The Church does indeed not prosecute, except on those rare occasions when it has to practice interposition, but it does campaign for righteousness. This is something we read about during the run up to the War of American Independence with all those Reformed Pastors prosecuting in the Pulpits the injustice of the Crown against God’s Word. Of course, part of the Reformed clergy’s complaint at the time was the intent of the Crown to place a Anglican Bishop over the Colonies.

Your understanding empties the office of the Minister of his needed prophetic voice under sovereign Christ. You accuse me of confusing the offices. I accuse you of neutering the office.

Jackson Stead wrote,

3. Historic Examples Misapplied

Ambrose confronted Theodosius as bishop on moral grounds, not as a rival magistrate. Likewise, the Black Robed Regiment often overstepped. Charles Hodge, cited, explicitly distinguished the Church’s spiritual voice from civil action. His warning was about silencing moral witness, not collapsing jurisdictions.

Bret Responds,

3.) Historical examples were properly applied. You just don’t like the implications. The idea that Ambrose didn’t confront Theodosius as a rival magistrate is just ludicrous. Do you think anyone would have listened to Ambrose if he had not been wearing that Bishop vestment? In terms of Hodge maybe we should go w/ A. A. Hodge since you have misinterpreted Charles;

“Christianity should be recognized publicly by this country. Christ should be recognized in the law of our land as the Supreme Ruler of our nation. I am a member of a society striving for this end; the principle is right, whatever our success may be. We should insist that if the State has a right to educate she must not educate in infidel history and philosophy, but, in assuming the educator’s function, must obey the Scripture injunction regarding that function — to train the young in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord.’”

A. A. Hodge (1823 – 1886)
19th Century American Reformed Theologian

Jackson Stead writes,

4. The Charge of Cowardice Is Baseless

The claim that R2K exists to “build large churches” is speculative and malicious. R2K theology arises from coherent metaphysics: natural ends, secondary causes, and the ordered distinction of powers. It is not pragmatism but principled realism grounded in classical Christian metaphysics and federal theology.

Bret responds,

4.) R2K is a completely novel way of reading Scripture not discovered and developed till Meredith Kline and his chief Romanist – Jesuit trained popularizer David Van Drunen. Van Drunen himself has admitted that it is a novel way of reading Scripture. Just go away. I’ve gone round and round with you poor souls so often that I can age myself in terms of the years I have been over this. If you guys aren’t cowards, you do a fine job of acting like cowards. R2K is coherent the way that Open Theism is coherent. R2K is coherent the way that men being born in women’s bodies is coherent. R2K is coherent the way that Vatican II Papists are coherent.

Finally, your metaphysics are not Christian in the least but are Gnostic and Dualistic. That explains why D. G. Hart (R2K aficionado par excellent) is always talking about living the “hyphenated-life.”

R2K is pure heresy.

Jackson Stead writes,

5. The Real Issue Is Providence and Ends

Civil authority is a temporal good, real and bounded. The Church’s end is eternal. R2K insists that while truth is one, offices are distinct. Denying this confuses grace with nature, eschatology with politics, and risks clerical overreach.

Bret Responds,

5.) No one denies offices are distinct. However, R2K does not make for distinctions but rather makes for divorce with it Gnostic Dualism. R2K is so worried about clerical over-reach that it touts clerical under-reach which is to say that R2K advocates for cowardice. It takes no courage at all to watch the broader culture burn all the while saying, “I am going to stay in my lane.” It takes no courage at all to tell yourself that you won’t preach on the anti-Christ ideologies of the age because you want to remain holy and above it all. All the while those anti-Christ ideologies are swamping your people so that they reinterpret all of Scripture and all of life through those anti-Christ ideologies that you’re too pure to get involved with. You and your kind are destroying the Church in the West.

And don’t even get me started on your precious militant amillennial eschatology.

Jackson Stead writes,

Summary:

R2K is not cowardice, relativism, or heresy. It is a metaphysically coherent and confessionally grounded doctrine affirming that Christ rules all, but through distinct means. It guards the integrity of both church and state by preserving their God-ordained vocations.

Bret responds,

Dude … I wrote and had published a book on this subject. This is not my first rodeo. You guys are coherent the way that Open Theistis are coherent. You guys are coherent the way that II Vatican Papists are coherent. You guys are coherent the way that a guy who says he was born in a woman’s body are coherent. You are dualistic and Gnostic. Your dualism is seen in the R2K aficionado Dr. D. G. Hart’s love of the phrase, “living the hyphenated-life.” That just a pleasant way of saying that y’all are living the Dualist-life.

Confessionally grounded? LOL … you certainly can’t be serious. I suppose if you chaps are allowed to twist the confessions.

R2K is cowardice, relativism, and heresy. It is a dualistic gnostic soup that is metaphysically incoherent denying the explicit ruling of Jesus Christ over all as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

You chaps are so cowardly the only time you demonstrate any courage is when you are fighting for the position that the Church should be irrelevant. Should your false system ever win out it will be the destruction of both church and state.

McAtee Contra Rev. Chrissy Gordon & His R2K Non-Christian Christianity

This is how far the Christian Clergy has sunk;

From Rev. Chrissy Gordon, R2K and Escondido trained;

“Bringing the political war between the left and the right into the pulpit is unequivocally a compromise of Christian ministry and using the ministry for power and gain.”

One has to wonder if Rev. Gordon would retrospectively abominate the, by and large. Reformed Black Robed Regiment who were the ones who, from the pulpit, declared the whole counsel of God against the Trepidations of King George and the British parliament in the run up to the American War for Independence.

Or would Rev. Gordon abominate Ambrose, Bishop of Milan who used his power as Bishop to repreminad the Emperor Theodosius I for his unjust massacre of Thessalonica citizens in retribution. Ambrose, in his Ecclesiastical office wrote Emperor Theodosius the Great a letter stating the emperor needed to demonstrate repentance for the massacre, further adding that emperor Theodosius would be forbidden from receiving the Eucharist until he had done so.

Would Rev. Gordon abominate Reformed Theologian Charles Hodge who wrote on the same subject saying;

“To adopt any theory which would stop the mouth of the church, and prevent her bearing her testimony to the kings and rulers, magistrates and people, in behalf of the truth and law of God, is like one who administers chloroform to a man to prevent his doing mischief. We pray God that this poison may be dashed away, before it has reduced the church to a state of inanition, and delivered her bound hand and foot into the power of the world.”

Next we have to ask the question; “Why speaking God’s revelatory truth to every subject as in the pulpit is unequivocally a compromise of Christian ministry” and is a matter where one is ” using the ministry for power and gain?”

Is it a compromise of God’s Word to allow the mind of God to be known on every subject under the sun? Is it a compromise of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life to set forth the mind of God on whatever subject may be presenting itself before men?

According to Gordon’s precious R2K, God’s mind may not be made known from the pulpit on subjects like State sponsored terrorism, or transexualism, or no fault divorce, or abortion, because clergy are not able to decipher the mind of God from God’s revelation.

In my estimation the real reason that R2K advocates for this position is that it provides a compromise cover while at the same time allowing to build large churches. You see, if one speaks the mind of God from the pulpit on issues that are contentious in the culture one is going to alienate large segments of the population who will, in turn, not attend the church (and so give to the Church) where clergy are setting forth the mind of God from Scripture. This stance by Gordon and all his R2K toadies is not one of principle. It is one of financial gain. The R2K fanboys think that if they can make the church and pulpit apolitical they can curry the support and finances of both the right and the left.

Gordon’s position is the position of both the coward and the grifter and God will not forget the cowardice nor this grifting that is being done in His name.

Rev. Chrissy Gordon writes,

“They attack the entire purpose of Christian ministry. Do what the Spirit does in convicting the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. Don’t drag America’s political cesspool in Christ’s pulpit. This approach is earthly, sensual, and demonic.”

Bret responds,

This is pietistic bullspit. This is Jesus Juking taken to Ph.D level. This is ecclesiastical gaslighting.

The entire purpose of Christian Ministry, in relation to the pulpit, is to set forth the entire counsel of God. Further, the entire ministry of the Christian ministry is to set forth all of Christ for all of life.

How is there any convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment apart from speaking on the subjects of sin in the culture, of what righteousness looks like in the public square, of what judgment to come looks like for those who will put their trust in wicked political solutions?

I quite agree that America’s politics is a cesspool (just like R2K churches) but one reason America’s politics is a cesspool is because the pulpit has been silent on the mind of God when it comes to political issues before the American public. The one way to guarantee the continuing cesspool of American politics is by Godly men remaining silent on the mind of God expressly set forth in Holy Writ.

Rev. Chrissy Gordon’s R2K approach is anti-Christ, smells of sulfur, and is a sure fire recipe for the church to continue to provide only escapism for answers to life’s hard question. If we lived in orthodox times Gordon would be brought up on charges for advancing the idea that the Kingship of Christ over every area of life should be banned from the pulpit.

Rev. Chrissy Gordon writes,

What’s truly cowardly is to not give people their true savior when that’s what they need most. Enough is enough with this.

Preach Christ and him crucified, not America and its politics improved.

Bret responds,

That savior that people desperately needs is also King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Gordon wants to give a “Savior,” who because He has been stripped of His title and position of King cannot truly be savior. For Gordon and his R2K effeminate pals Christ saves but He does not rule. Gordon has surrendered Christ in His threefold office (Munus Triplex) and instead given us a Christ who is no Christ since the R2K Christ only holds one office (Priest).

R2K is heresy and anyone who advocates for it is a heretic.

Dr. Mike Horton On Separating Christ From The Propositions That Reveal Christ

“Although we have plenty of propositions about the person and work of Christ, these MERELY serve to give definition to the person in whom we place our trust. It is trust in Christ, not the number of propositions we hold, that is the empty hand that receives the treasures of the kingdom.”

Mike Horton

Modern Reformation Vol 15. Number 2

March/April 2006

1.) Horton uses propositions to prove that propositions are not necessary to receive a propositional-less Christ.

2.) “The propositions MERELY serve to give definition to the person in whom we place our trust?”

So, is Horton advocating here that we embrace the person of Christ apart from the MERE propositions that serve to give definition to the person in whom we are placing our trust? What kind of madness is this? We are to trust a person apart from the propositions that define the person?

3.) This chap is actually arguing that we are saved by a Christ absent of the propositions that tell us who Christ is. If this isn’t neo-orthodoxy it is a kissing cousin.

4.) It strikes me that propositions (particularly inspired ones) that do the work of defining who Christ is should not be referenced as “Merely.”

5.) If we don’t rely on the propositions of Scripture that give us Christ then who is the empty hand receiving as the treasure of the Kingdom?

6.) This is a subtle attack on inspired Revelation on Horton’s part. Those propositions that Mike casually dismisses are inspired Revelation. There is no trusting Christ apart from the revelation that defines the Christ that one must trust.

7.) Indeed, even the idea that we are to “trust Christ” comes to us as a “mere proposition.”

The Urgent Appeal Of Dr. R. Scott Clark For Societal Polytheism

Who in the ancient church, before AD 311, draw the inference from the New Testament teaching about the magistrate that Christianity should have a privileged place in the empire? What do you find in the New Testament teaching about the magistrate that leads you to think that Christianity should have a privileged place in society?

Dr. R. Scott Clark
X Post
Advocating for Anabaptist Pluralism

1.) When Scott talks about the ancient church he is implying that the Church only begins with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Remember, the Church extends back to the restoration of Adam and Eve after the fall. Does Scott believe that the Church is only a New Testament reality? If so that’s a very Baptist way of thinking.

2.) The fact that Scott wants to focus only on the NT here also suggests that Scott thinks that if we want to know what the Church thought we can only consult the Church after the crucifixion and resurrection (and apparently only up to AD 311). The Church’s Scripture prior to the NT apparently doesn’t count. Is Scott, what we call “a New Testament Christian?”

3.) When Scott asks

What do you find in the New Testament teaching about the magistrate that leads you to think that Christianity should have a privileged place in society?

We ought to hear him asking:

What do you find in the New Testament teaching about the magistrate that leads you to think that Christ should have a privileged place in society?

Scott is actually asking the question why Christians today would ever think that Christ should have the preeminence? Scott is suggesting that Jesus Christ who is “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords,” should NOT have a privileged place in society. According to Scott Jesus Christ should step aside so that other gods can have equal air time. Per. Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary Jesus Christ should not have a privileged place in any given society. Dr. R. Scott Clark is telling God and the world that it is wrong (sinful) for Christians to desire that Jesus Christ should have a privileged place in every society.

THIS IS MADNESS.

Keep in mind dear reader that if Jesus Christ is not privileged in any society that, by default means, that some other God or God concept is going to be privileged in the society where Jesus Christ is not privileged. Since there is no neutrality, it is not possible for a society to not have some God or god concept be privileged. When Dr. R. Scott Clark says these kinds of magnificently stupid things Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary is advocating for IDOLATRY.

However, quite to the contrary of Dr. R. Scott Clark’s expostulations there is a NT text

Act 17:6 “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

Now unless Dr. Clark wants to suggest that the accusations brought against Paul and his compatriots here in Thessalonica were lies we clearly have a passage where it is taught that the spread of a Christianity which privileged Jesus Christ was a threat to previous pagan social orders.

Folks need to understand what guys like Dr. R. Scott Clark and Dr. Kevin DeYoung are trying to do here. They are trying to rivet upon the Reformed Church in America the idea that it is God’s express will that societies and social orders must be pluralistic/polytheistic. This is societal polytheism is a positive good from God to His Church per these anti-Christs, and to object to them is worthy of being cast out of the Church.

And of course, we don’t hold with Dr. R. Scott Clark that only appeal to the New Testament can be made. Being Biblical Christians we believe that the OT is part of God’s revealed Word and there we find in Psalm 2;

Why do the ^[a]nations ^[b]rage,
And the people plot a ^[c]vain thing?
²The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed,^[d] saying,
³“Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”

⁴He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
⁵Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
⁶“Yet I have ^[e]set My King
^[f]On My holy hill of Zion.”

⁷“I will declare the ^[g]decree:
The Lord has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
⁸Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
⁹You shall ^[h]break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”

¹⁰Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
¹¹Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
¹²^[i]Kiss the Son, lest ^[j]He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.