R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

Historic Usage Of Doctrine Of “Spirituality of the Church” In USA

I am currently reading Daniel G. Hummel’s, “The Rise And Fall Of Dispensationalism; How The Evangelical Battle Over The End Times Shaped A Nation.”

I’m learning that the “Spirituality of the Church” (a doctrine repeatedly appealed to by R2K) was pursued by men like Rev. James H. Brooks, Rev. J. H. Thornwell and others as a means to avoid having to answer the political question of slavery that was dividing the nation. Thornwell, originally did not want to secede, and as such, he appealed to the “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine in order to teach that the Church did not have to take a position on the matter. Brooks did much the same. Thornwell, eventually, made known his opposition to freeing slaves, after secession became a fait accompli designating slavery as key to maintaining social order. (See his, “To All The Churches Of Christ.”) However, before secession actually occurred Thornwell tried to evade the secession he opposed by saying that the Church did not need to speak on it given the doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church.

Brooks, though privately opposed to slavery, carried out his allegiance to the “Spirituality of the Church,” by refusing to pray for the success of the Union Armies while in the pulpit serving his St. Louis Presbyterian church. For this omission Brookes was eventually tossed from his pulpit though a split occurred that resulted in Brooks taking the new congregation who was good with his doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” and his refusal to pray for the success of the Union Armies.

The thing to note here is that this “Spirituality of the Church” doctrine while insisting that it wants to avoid politics, embraces politics firmly. Not taking a position on a moral issue that the Scripture speaks to is taking a position against the Scripture.

The putative doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” was and is not so much a doctrine as it is a tactic in order to evade controversy where controversy is inescapable. If God’s word speaks to all of life then the church is not an institution that can evade the pressing issues of the time like slavery (which Scripture clearly regulates and so allows), political plans that promote socialism as seen in confiscatory taxation (which per the 8th commandment is theft), legislation that works to the end of weakening the family, etc.

In the end the appeal to the doctrine of the “Spirituality of the Church” as defined so to rule out the Church speaking from the pulpit where God has clearly spoken is a doctrine for cowards who do not want to deny themselves and take up the Cross. I have heard of accounts in NAPARC Presbyteries of a refusal to condemn an prospective ordinates’ clearly articulated socialism because “God’s word doesn’t speak to socialism.” This is all about the “Spirituality of the Church.”

Which Came First; The Way R2K “Reformed” Chaps “Reason” Or The Way Baptists Reason?

“Is it true that there is “no neutrality” in the cosmos? Here are several thoughts on the “Christ vs. Chaos” mindset:

1. Yes, Christ is Lord. Amen!

2. Yes, all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship.

3. At the level of the human person, we really are in either Christ or chaos, then.

4. But this does not follow for institutions and nations and stores and the public square. These entities are nowhere Christianized in the New Testament.

5. Jesus does not teach that Caesar is “neutral,” exactly, but Jesus does teach us to render to Caesar what is due Caesar (Matthew 22:21).

6. So too does Peter tell us to honor the emperor (1 Peter 2) in an era when the emperor was decidedly not Christian.

7. All this means that while the public square isn’t “neutral,” it’s also not savable like the human person is.

8. Nowhere in the NT do governments or stores or schools get saved.

9. We believers seek to influence the public square and the cultural order in a serious way; that’s what being “salt and light” means (Matthew 5:13-14).”

Owen Strachan
Provost – Grace Bible Theological Seminary (Baptist)

Bret Responds;

1.) For Owen, Christ is Lord except when Christ isn’t Lord. Christ is Lord over the individual but Christ can’t be Lord in any kind of Institution among men where the men in that Institution resolve together to operate that Institution as Christian Men.

2.) For Owen all people are called to submit to Christ’s Lordship until they start to work together in some kind of corporate endeavor. Once you put more than one person together with another person to sell widgets or Lemonade then the requirement to submit to Christ’s Lordship ends.

3.) Agreed, as far as Owen goes here.

4.) First here, note that Owen restricts his Bible to the NT. Quite to the contrary of Owen we note that the Scriptures are comprised of both the OT and NT.

Second, if “institutions and nations and stores and the public square” are not to be Christianized then what is left? Does Owen realize that Mooselimbs, Bagels, and Hindus are not going to reason that “institutions, and nations, and stores and the public square” are not to be Islamicized, Judaized, or Hinduized. So, Owen, like R2K, would argue for a religiously naked public square but will provide no answer to the conundrum that Mooselimbs, and Bagels, and Hindus, and Atheists will pursue with definite conviction a public square, a nation, and Institutions that are beholden to their demon gods?

Frankly, as I have said repeatedly in connection with R2K this kind of reasoning is not just off, it is monumentally stupid and worse yet it is dangerous because if pursued by all Christians as living in a multicultural setting it means the success of Mooselimbs, Bagels, Hindus, etc. to roll Christ off the throne in the public square. It means the persecution of the Christian faith. It means Dhimmitude status.

Look, the hour is late and we no longer can just smile and shake our heads at these R2K/Lutheran/Baptist idiots. Their theology is a theology of absolute abject surrender. It is a theology that is embraced by people who hate their children, hate their neighbors, and worse of all hate their God.

5.) It is true that Jesus said to render unto God the things that are God’s and to render unto Caesar the things are Caesar’s. This, by necessity, means that we, as Christians, must render Caesar and all he claims to God since Caesar is a thing that belongs to God. If Caesar can find anything that is uniquely is and not God’s and I will be sure to render that thing unto Caesar.

6.) It is true, that we are to honor the King. However, that honor due to the King does not exceed our responsibility to honor the King of Kings and so if it is the case that the Emperor becomes in his duties an “Anti-Emperor” then Christians are duty bound to honor the office of Emperor by throwing him out on his keister.

7.) If the public square is not neutral then the public square must be rendered unto Christ as King since the public square belongs to Him. We are sinning if, as Christians, we do not render the public square unto Christ. If Christian men and women render the public square unto Christ, I’ll be glad to let Christ worry about whether or not the public square is salvable.

8.) Christianity has such an effect that when it is introduced into the bloodstream of a nation, public square, or Institution it completely turns that nation, public square, and Institution on its head. See the account in Ephesus recorded in Acts 19:23f. There we see a city fighting against being saved.

9.) It seems that Owen desires Christians to salt and influence the public square much like the seasoning oregano season a tomato dish. Owen can’t envision where the salting and influencing rises to the point to be the dish served and not merely the seasoning.

I suspect that, like R2K, Owen is not postmillennial and so is retrofitting his theology to fit his a-priori eschatology.

Rev. Chris Gordon Advises Christians That The Public Square Does Not Belong To Christ

“Your premise here is that the public square is ours to take back. Prove that. I don’t see how the public square is ours to take back for our purposes in light of Belgic 13 (on God’s Providence).”

Rev. Chris Gordon
Interview w/ Wilson & Gordon
48:00f time stamp

1.) So Gordon’s premise here is that the public square belongs to another god and the people of another god and so God’s people shouldn’t be concerned since the public square does not belong to Christ?

2.) Gordon’s required proof is found in Psalm 2.

3.) Belgic 13 is on God’s providence and really has absolutely zero to do with whether we should or should not take back the public square. Whether or not Christians should or should not take the back the public square is answered by the fact that the public square is Christ’s public square.

4.) Keep in mind that Gordon’s counsel here is counsel of surrender to the false gods who will arrange the public square in their image if Christ is not publicly acknowledged once again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

R2K’s Immanentizing of the Eschaton

The R2K fanboys love to accuse theonomists, postmillennialists and Kuyperians of trying to bring in the Kingdom of God by their own efforts. In point of fact this is projection on the R2K lads part because it is they who, by their dualisms seeking to bring in the Kingdom of God on earth. This is so because the R2K chaps desire to relativize people and place in pursuit of immanentizing the eschaton. R2K insists that the Kingdom of God serves as the blood and soil for all Christians and as such there is no need to embrace our blut und boden. In the very act of doing this they are seeking to help along the coming of the Kingdom. The very thing they accuse the theonomists, postmillennialists and Kuyperians of.

R2K accuses their opponents of holding a position where grace swallows nature but in reality it is R2K, in its insistence that place and people are realized in the “Spiritual Kingdom of God” – to such a degree that blood and soil disappear in grace – who are the ones who are guilty of holding a position where grace swallows up nature. This is ironic because R2K insists that their position honors the grace realm but the minute R2K goes the next step, as Rev. Chris Gordon did in his interview with Dr. Stephen Wolfe, and says now that we are all Christians we can intermarry grace is swallowing up nature. At this point their dualisms slingshots into a grace monism where grace and nature are indistinguishable and that all in the name of Christ.

R2K would do well to listen to John Calvin here;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

R2K does mix up nature by insisting that grace destroys nature so much that Christians should routinely practice inter-racial marriage. R2K is championed by those who Calvin rightly described as “flighty and scatterbrained dreamers.”

Thanks to Chrissy Gordon I see that there is definite linkage between R2K and Alienism. Because R2K can’t use the word “Christian” adjectivally (as in Christian Nation) combined with R2K’s commitment that Galatians 3 and Ephesians 2 proves that all racial/ethnic markers are obliterated by the Gospel, R2K is really part of the Cultural Marxist project. One might say, given Chrissy’s explanation of R2K in his interview with Wolfe, that R2K is the egalitarianism weaponized as Christian theology.

This means anyone who opposes Alienism must oppose R2K.

What Chrissy has taught me is that as neither religion nor ethnicity can be used to define a nation. A nation thus seems to be reduced to a gathering of people who dwell in a shared advantageous economic zone. These people might and might not share a common language and history but the tie that really binds is a shared investment in a hybrid Marxism & Gnosticism.

From the Mailbag; Comparing & Contrasting R2K, Classical 2K, & High Kuyperianism

Dear Pastor;

– Can you give a few examples of what standard classical 2K is?

Hello Jason

Thank you for writing with that question.

First, to be clear here, there is not only one classical 2K understanding. Nuances have existed through history. Luther’s 2K is different than Bucer’s 2K which is different than Calvin’s 2K, etc. This needs to be understood.

Speaking generally standard classical 2K like R2k teaches that there is a “Duplex Regnum Christi” (Christ’s Twofold Kingdom). Classical 2K unlike R2K attempts to orient the earthly life to the heavenly life without conflating or confounding them. This means that for classical 2K there is going to be far less of a dualistic feel to what they advance and champion.

Because the above is so, classical 2K is going to allow for the fact, for example, that the magistrate is responsible not only for the second table of God’s Law (Ten Commandments) but also is responsible for the first table of God’s Law as well. R2K, will typically insist that the Magistrate should not be concerned with enforcing the first table of God’s Law. On this score Dr. R. Scott Clark (he of R2K villainy) has stated;

“It is not the magistrate’s duty to police every sort of violation of natural law and sin. For example, no one but theocrats want the state enforcing obedience to the first table of the law. The magistrate’s natural sphere of concern and authority is in the second table.”

http://heidelblog.net/2008/10/natural-law-the-two-kingdoms-and-homosexual-marriage/.

R2K maven Dr. D. G. Hart agrees;

“To expect the Bible to address the affairs of state is to apply the wrong standards. We have general revelation to muck through the political realm. We have the Bible to plod along in the church.”

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/election-cycle-2008-and-the-christian/#comment-56987.

Calvin, however, himself being classical 2K did not agree with Dr. Clark and Dr. Hart’s theological novelty. Instead Calvin writes (as he writes likewise in sundry places) in his Institutes 21.5:

“Those who are desirous to introduce anarchy object that, though anciently kings and judges presided over a rude people, yet that, in the present day, that servile mode of governing does not at all accord with the perfection which Christ brought with his gospel. Herein they betray not only their ignorance, but their devilish pride, arrogating to themselves a perfection of which not even a hundredth part is seen in them. But be they what they may, the refutation is easy. For when David says, “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth;” “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry” (Psalm 2:10, 12), he does not order them to lay aside their authority and return to private life, but to make the power with which they are invested subject to Christ, that he may rule over all. In like manner, when Isaiah predicts of the Church, “Kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers” (Isaiah 49:23), he does not bid them abdicate their authority; he rather gives them the honourable appellation of patrons of the pious worshippers of God; for the prophecy refers to the advent of Christ. I intentionally omit very many passages which occur throughout Scripture, and especially in the Psalms, in which the due authority of all rulers is asserted. The most celebrated passage of all is that in which Paul, admonishing Timothy, that prayers are to be offered up in the public assembly for kings, subjoins the reason, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:2). In these words, he recommends the condition of the Church to their protection and guardianship.”

In the end classical 2K ends up being far less dualistic than Radical 2K. Radical 2K compartmentalizes the common realm from the church (grace) realm and compartmentalizes General Revelation (Natural Law) as being for the common realm whereas Special Revelation is for the grace realm. Classical 2K though as said earlier seeks to orient the earthly life to the heavenly life without conflating or confounding them all the while admitting that while there are indeed two sources of revelation the two sources cannot be isolated from one another in airtight compartments. I still have significant problems with classical 2K but those problems become Godzilla like when Escondido gets ahold of 2K.

In contrast to this what is labeled Kuyperian thinking sees all of life under the direction of Jesus Christ as the Mediatorial King of Kings. Kuyperian thought is far less inclined to talk about two Kingdoms opting instead for one Kingdom with various jurisdictions ruled over by the Lord Christ’s appointed stewards for the building of their respective jurisdictions. The Kuyperian will note that Fathers are to be God’s stewards of the family realm (jurisdiction), that Elders are to be God’s stewards of the church realm, and the Magistrates are to be stewards of God’s civil realm. However, though there is a distinction of jurisdictions there is to be a harmony on interest between the jurisdictions because Christ is Lord over all the stewards in their respective jurisdictions. Because their one Kingdom (not two Kingdoms) with one Lord there need not be and should not be conflicts between these various jurisdictional realms though there remain definite boundaries for each jurisdiction. In the Kuyperian model (though Kuyper himself disagreed with this example) the Magistrate should indeed follow the original Belgic Confession 36 (Kuyper led the charge in watering this down in revision, quite contrary to his own principles);

Article 36: The Magistrates

We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, hath appointed kings, princes, and magistrates,¹ willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose He hath invested the magistracy with the sword, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. And their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship;² that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. They must, therefore, countenance the preaching of the word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshipped by every one, as He commands in His Word.

Moreover, it is the bounden duty of every one, of what state, quality, or condition soever he may be, to subject himself to the magistrates;³ to pay tribute,⁴ to show due honor and respect to them, and to obey them in all things which are not repugnant to the Word of God;⁵ to supplicate for them in their prayers, that God may rule and guide them in all their ways, and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.⁶

Wherefore we detest the error of the Anabaptists and other seditious people, and in general all those who reject the higher powers and magistrates, and would subvert justice,⁷ introduce a community of goods, and confound that decency and good order which God hath established among men.⁸

¹ Ex. 18:20, etc.; Rom. 13:1; Prov. 8:15; Jer. 21:12; 22:2–3; Ps. 82:1, 6; 101:2; Deut. 1:15–16; 16:18; 17:15; Dan. 2:21, 37; 5:18
² Isa. 49:23, 25; 1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 23:2–4
³ Titus 3:1; Rom. 13:1
⁴ Mark 12:17; Matt. 17:24
⁵ Acts 4:17–19; 5:29; Hosea 5:11
⁶ Jer. 29:7; 1 Tim. 2:1–2
⁷ 2 Peter 2:10
⁸ Jude 8, 10

So, what this might look like in the political realm when the three are compared and contrasted.

Michael Horton’s quote on sodomy would be a good example for how R2K would handle sodomite marriage in a society. Horton wrote;

“Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.”

“The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage.”

Dr. Mike Horton

Classical Two Kingdom attempting to orient the earthly life to the heavenly life without conflating or confounding them and esteeming both tables of God’s law would pursue laws forbidding all legal recognition of same sex marriage. Classical Two Kingdom may well site Calvin in the Institutes;

“civil government has as its appointed end . . .to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote general peace and tranquility.” (4.20.2)

A Biblical response that sees all of God’s Word for all of life would criminalize, even up to the point of capital punishment all those who would engage in sodomy when and where the requisite two or three witnesses are present.