Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

“Washington was a general and he was successful as a soldier and a president not because he prayed.

Govt. is not Sunday school or church. and to roll back the perils you see afflicting young men in public schools, you want govt. to act. That’s why you talk about Xian govt.”

Darryl Gnostic Hart
Post on X

1.) Keep in mind that Hart is, after Doug Wilson, the king of dichotomy. We find another subtle one here. It is true that Washington was a general l and he was successful as a soldier and a president. However, before Washington was a successful soldier and president he was a man. Would Hart contend that Washington’s success as a man is not related at all because he prayed? And if we would account Washington’s success as a man, at least in part, to the fact that he prayed then it is indeed the case that on some level Washington’s success as a general and a president was because he prayed. Perhaps Hart would insist that prayer has nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he enters into. If Hart would insist that, I would contend that Hart is a defacto Deist. God makes men the way the are and the religious practices of a man — practices that originate in his embraced religion — have nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he pursues. As usual Hart hasn’t thought through what he says.

Keep in mind though it doesn’t matter what Hart says because despite many quotes from Hart that are clearly outside the boundaries of Biblical Christianity nobody holds him accountable.

2.) The fact that Government is not Sunday School doesn’t mean that Government is not moral or immoral depending on the policies it pursues. Government doesn’t have to be a Sunday School in order to operate in a manner consistent with the Christian faith. Of course Hart (the pretend historian by occupation) is just being a-historical with this outburst;

“The magistrate must root out idolatry and false worship, for God commands that His truth be upheld and blasphemies suppressed by those he has set in authority.”

Martin Luther (1525)

“It is the duty of the magistrate to suppress idolatry and superstition that the true worship of God may flourish, as commanded by the Almighty.” John Knox (1554)

“Magistrates are bound to defend the worship of God and to purge their realm of idolatry, which provokes God’s wrath against the land.” John Calvin (1559)

 “Rulers, as ministers of God, must cast down idols and false teachings, ensuring that the true faith is upheld in their governance.”

Jan Hus (1414)

3.) Since public schools are indeed government schools the government does indeed have the responsibility to roll back the perils afflicting all students while they are in or at school.

Someone recently insisted to me, that it was their conviction that Hart is a subversive, purposely subverting the Reformed faith. Anybody who has a Christian worldview can easily see that.

4.) Finally, people talk about Christian government because so many of our Reformed Fathers talked about Christian government.

“Theocrats/CNs/Theonomists/etc fail to account for the progress of revelation and redemptive history. They all write as if the state of that people has not expired (WCF 19.4) but it has. This was true in the 16th century and in the 17th century.

We can see it in some of the most important Reformed writings of the period against tyranny. In his treatise On The Right of Magistrates Theodore Beza did this very thing. Our writers all recognized that national Israel was a temporary, typological institution but they all also assumed that there must be a state religion. That assumption, more or less demanded that they contradict their own reading of redemptive history. So, they talked about the king of France, as if he were king David and France, as if it were national Israel. It was incoherent and it remained so.”

Dr. R(2K) Scott Clark
X Post

1.) Theonomists agree that the state of the people hath expired but we also agree with the rest of WCF 19:4 which R2K Clark loves to disingenuously  leave out when he quotes WCF 19. Here is the complete rendering of 19:4;

IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

As many times as R2K Clark has been reminded of the part above in the bold one has to conclude that Clark is consistently in violation of the 9th commandment bearing false witness against the WCF.

I will guarantee you  that all those 16th and 17th century Reformed writers, who R2K Clark styles “Theocrats” were operating under the umbrella of WCF 19:4. If that is true that means that R2K Clark, were he an honest man, would tell the world that his position on WCF 19:4 is in contradiction to what WCF 19:4 teaches. I mean, either R2K Clark is in violation of WCF 19:4 or else the Reformed Fathers that Clark complains about were in violation of WCF 19:4. Y’all can take R2K Clark … I’ll stick with Rutherford, Gillespie, Calvin, and their tribe.

2.) R2K Scott Clark is a Theocrat. I’ll say it again in case you skimmed past that. For all the bitching that R2K Clark does about Theorcats, Theonomists, and CN’s he is himself a Theocrat.

This is due to the fact that theocracy is an inescapable category. As a Theonomist I desire our government to rule consistently with God’s Law. That makes me  a theocrat. However, as a anti-theonomist R2K Clark desires our government to rule consistently with Natural Law. Natural Law is thus R2K Clark’s God and as a Natural Law Theocrat R2K Clark insists on the State ruling according to that law.

Now, keep in mind that even the Christian Natural Law fanboys can’t agree on what Natural Law does and does not teach. Natural Law fanboys such as Dr. Stephen Wolfe and Dr. R2K Clark  get along with one another like homeless people get along with soap and bathing. As such, since there is no uniform voice on what Natural Law, R2K Clark is a Theocrat who takes the State as his God. The State will determining the meaning of Natural Law and all the little Natural Law Theocrats will have to bow to the State as their God. Indeed, this is R2K Clark did during the Covid ruse. He followed his state god and insisted that the Churches shut down. R2K Clark is a Theocrat. He merely has a different Theo in his cracy (Theocracy).

3.) Of course this means that R. Scott Clark owns and practices a State religion. The very thing he complains about Theonomists, Theocrats, and CN’s. The State religion that R2K Clark practices is humanism. R2K Clark is a humanist Theocrat. R2K Clark practices the State religion except for a few hours on Sunday when he tips his cap to a God who is only ruling in the church realm. Keep in mind, that it is that God (who is no God) in R2K Clark’s church realm that is teaching R2K Clark that the God of the Church realm is not the explicit God over the common realm (public square).

4.) By now we see a couple truths;

a.) R2K Clark is the incoherent one. There are so many contradictions in R2K that it is amazing that R2K Clark can spit without dribbling it all over himself.

b.) It is R2K Clark’s reading of redemptive history that sucks. He is basically a Marcionite. He finds so much discontinuity between the Old and New Testament that he basically owns a different God from the Old Testament saints as well as those Reformed Fathers he so bitterly rails against.

Like all R2K chaps, R2K Scott Clark is a deceiver of the body of Christ. Now, like all sinners they may have the best of intentions, but at the end of it all they are advocating a different religion, and a different Christ.

 

 

“Since, the Mosaic covenant, as noted, was designed in part to highlight the ultimate penalty that every sin deserves, under the protological law of the covenant of Creation (and will be administered at the final judgment). God willed that some sins be met with punishment that can not be accounted for in terms of intra-human relations. These sins are abhorrent to God even if they may strike people today as insignificant (such as gathering sticks on the Sabbath) or as strange but basically harmless (such as sex with animals). In contrast to the Mosaic covenant, the Nohaic covenant explicitly ordains civil penalties only in terms of intra-human relations, and points to the Lex Talionis as the standard for human retributive justice. Thus the fact that contemporary civil law should rest on the Noahic Natural Law again has significant ramifications for thinking through the contemporary relevance of particular civil penalties under the Mosaic law.”

David Van Drunen (DVD)
Divine Covenants & Moral Order – p. 511

1.) Note the hermeneutic of a hard discontinuity between the Nohaic and Mosaic covenant. Hermeneutics of discontinuity are a hallmark of Baptist theologies.

2.) The idea of turning the Noahic covenant into a “common grace/Natural Law” covenant is completely innovative to Reformed theology as pursued first by Meredith Kline and later by David Van Drunen and the R2K fanboys. Nobody of any consequence, prior to DVD sought to bleed off the redemptive continuity found in the Noahic covenant vis-a-vis the other epochs of the one unfolding covenant of grace.

3.) By introducing a fracture here in the one unfolding covenant of grace, Kline and later DVD introduces a dualism into their theology whereby the Abrahamic covenant is seen as gracious, the Noahic is seen as common, and the Mosaic is seen as a return to the covenant of works, except when it is not. (R2K fanboys are forever dividing the Mosaic covenant into one of grace for the nation while at the same time being one of works for the individual.) This is a kind of subservient covenant but it is a complete innovation of subservient covenant theology prior to Kline.

4.) For DVD (the disciple of Kline) and for all R2K fanboys, the Mosaic covenant is like a scaffolding that falls away from the building once the New and Better covenant arrives. The Ten Words, particularly as applied to the public square, are eclipsed in a return to the Noahic common grace/Natural law covenant. The dualism remains as the Church is ruled by God’s special revelation while the public square is cordoned off from the Church and its representatives, and is ruled by Noahic Natural Law. These two realms (church and common) are sealed off from one another and the Church has no business speaking to the common realm and the magistrates in the common realm are to be hands off regarding the regulation of the Church within the Church.

5.) Notice, in the quote above, the playing off of the Mosaic covenant with the Noahic covenant. The Mosaic covenant, both in its Moral law and in the application of the Moral law is completely bypassed as a standard for the public realm in favor of Noahic Natural Law.

6.) Notice the Marcion move in the above quote. God wanted His people ruled one way in the old and worse covenant but now in the new and better covenant God has lifted those previous standards and now what was penalized in the old and worse covenant are now bypassed in the new and better covenant. God’s standard has changed and so we are dealing with a different God in the new and better covenant.

7.) DVD does look bad in this quote because God’s abhorrence for gathering sticks on the Sabbath and for bedding farm animals only applies as under the Mosaic covenant. We are now ruled by Noahic covenant & these sins are no longer so abhorrent to God so as to require the death penalty in the non-sacred realm. DVD, is saying here, that since the Mosaic covenant is no longer applicable and since we live under the Natural Law Noahic covenant when active in the public square therefore the civil realm is not required to make laws forbidding bestiality since such action is not a intra-human relationship.

8.) The whole appeal here is to Natural law, in the common square, as established, per DVD, by the Noahic covenant. Noahic Natural law does not necessarily require any kind of civil penalty for bedding farm animals, though if people bed farm animals and don’t repent God will visit their alone and intimate time with farm animals with judgment. God can and will exact penalty. The civil Magistrate shouldn’t exact penalty.

9.) One wonders if DVD himself finds bedding farm animals to be “strange but basically harmless.” It is a curious way to put the matter.

Dear Pastor;

What would R2K think of the protesters interrupting the Minnesota church service?

I know liberals always love the separation of church and state and even though they take it out of context, but here they seemed to meld the two.

John from Canada

Bret responds,

Hello John,

Good to hear from you. You’re one of those chaps who refresh me given how much we share in our mutual faith and worldview.

A couple options here;

They might say that Christians, as private citizens, might well do that as protesters who are Christian organized a political club opposed to ICE, while those members claim that is what Jesus would want of them.

R2K advocates have said in the past that Christians as private citizens are welcome to join Christian organizations that take up this or that cause. R2K just doesn’t want to be put in the position of having to speak on the issue of protests one way or the other. R2K might well say, “that is the common realm and what happens in the common realm is not related to the lane (grace realm) that we are obliged by God to not abandon.”

So, theoretically, in this scenario, Presbyterian Church “A” has some members (B) that belong to a political organization in favor of protesting ICE while at the same time having members (C) that belong to a political organization that protest those protesting ICE. These Christians will have no problem worshiping together in Presbyterian Church “A” because the pulpit will remain silent on the subject. Christians in groups “B” and “C” will find themselves, for example, taking communion together in the same service even though on Monday they may be in each other’s face in terms of protests.

The point is that it is possible that a R2K church and clergy would silent on the whole thing

John presses the question and asks;

But if we looked Michael Horton in the eye or that poor Pastor in Minnesota asked, hey Mike, would you be on my side that they did a terrible wrong here? What would Michael Horton say?

Bret responds;

This is the other possible option as to what R2K would say in this situation.

It might be the case that Mike Horton (or any R2K clergy advocate) would say that this would be an instance where the protesters are coming in to the grace realm (the Church’s worship service) from the common realm and as such the protesters (Christian or not) are confusing the two realms (grace and common) and so shouldn’t be there. If that is the way that R2K would consider the matter then a R2K clergy may well speak from the pulpit against the vagrancy.

However, I am fairly certain that R2K fanboys would not say the same thing if the protesters descended on a private business the way they did that church. If the protesters were descending on private property that are not churches then I can see R2K thinking … “That protesting is taking place in the common realm and therefore I will not speak to it from the pulpit,”or, “as a Pastor. I am obliged, in order to honor God, to remain silent on the subject. The two-Kingdom theology demands my silence.”