Ask The Pastor — How Can Cultural Institutions Be Christian?

Dear Pastor,

How can you talk about various social order Institutions being Christian? Don’t you see that the Institutions in any given culture cannot be Christian Institutions in and of themselves if only because those Institutions are common to all men, Christian and non-Christian alike?

Delaney

Dear Delaney

It is not that Institutions are common to all men so much as it is that men are common to all Institutions. As such, Institutions will be Christian, Muslim, Humanist, Hindu, Satanist, Judaistic, dependent upon the men who are animating those Institutions and the Faith that is animating those men.

It is most difficult to speak of a Institution as common to all men without taking into consideration the men who comprise the Institutions.

Remember, Delaney, it is not possible for Institutions to be neutral as if they do not serve the interests of some God or god concept. Cultural Institutions are nothing but a reflection of the theology and the people who staff them.

Also, it will do no good to try to create a distinction that admits that, there are Christian businesses and Christian marriages, and Christian families although commerce, marriage, and family are not Christian institutions in and of themselves.” This will not do, if only because commerce, marriage, and families do not exist without people. To say that there are Christian businesses, marriages, and families, while insisting that commerce, marriage and family are common and therefore neutral is an abstraction of the most intriguing sort.

R2K, Moral Law, Natural Law And It’s (Non) Applicability?

‎ On one hand R2K’ers want to say,

“Natural law is contiguous with Special revelation so that what is true from Natural law is consistent with Scripture.”

They will agree that for the Reformed Scholastics the natural law is synonymous with the moral law. The natural law is rooted in the being of God consistent with by His intellect and His will. It is not just naked authority but eternal moral truth. This natural moral law was written upon the heart of Adam at the creation. It is a part of the image of God.

They will agree that nature and grace are not in conflict. The moral law given in nature and the moral law given Scripture are the same law (as to general equity,i.e. the Ten Commandments).

On the other hand they want to say that the pagan, who is ruled by this Natural law, is not ruled by the imperatives of Scripture.

Those very same imperatives of Scripture that they earlier insisted were consistently articulated in Natural law.

“Biblical morality is characterized by an indicative-imperative structure. That is, all of its imperatives (moral commands) are proceeded (sic) by and grounded in indicatives (statements of fact), either explicitly or implicitly. The most important indicative that grounds the imperatives in Scripture is that the recipients of Scripture are the covenant people, that is, members of the community of the covenant of grace. (39)

Since membership in the civil kingdom is not limited to believers, the imperatives of Scripture do not bind members of that kingdom. These imperatives are not ‘directly applicable to non-Christians'” (40).

David Van Drunen

For R2K, the imperatives of Scripture are not directly applicable to non-Christians and yet, Natural law, which is perfectly consistent with God’s Moral law, would seem to force us to conclude that the imperatives of Scripture, as communicated via Natural Law, would be directly applicable to non Christians.

Am I missing something here?

R2K’er Advocates For Allowing Civil Rights Of Marriage To LGBT

After documenting how Europeans (particularly the French) can be pro on legalizing sodomite and lesbian approximation of marriage while at the same time opposing sodomite and lesbian couples raising children one young R2K’er offers this gem,

“Do the French point the way to a potential compromise? Increasingly most Americans are loath to restrict gays and lesbians from exercising the same rights associated with their relationships that married couples have. Yet the most persuasive public arguments against gay marriage continue to revolve around the interests of children. The evidence is solid (though minimized, due to the politicization of the debate) that children do best when raised by two biological parents – both the father and the mother. Of course, as far as adoption is concerned such an ideal is unattainable. Nevertheless, as much as possible it can be approximated.”

1.) Apart from presupposing the God of the Bible and His special revelation by what standard do we adjudicate “best” as in, “that children do best when raised by two biological parents.”

2.) Apart from presupposing the God of the Bible and His special revelation why should anyone care about children at all? Apart from the God of the Bible and His special revelation why even think that a family consists of a Dad, Mom and children? Why not three Moms, two Dads and children? Why not five Moms and one Dad and children?

3.) Here is a article that contends that studies reveal that children who grow up with sodomite and lesbian parents do not suffer, in the least, when compared to children who grow up with heterosexually normal parents. I choose to believe this study over the R2K’er studies. How is his appeal to Natural law going to defeat my appeal to Natural law?

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids

4.) Is this R2K’er suggesting that people have rights to sin? Is this R2K’ers saying that God’s Natural Law teaches that sodomites and lesbians have the same rights to the civil rights of marriage as a heterosexual man and woman? Where do these rights for sodomite and lesbian civil rights marriage come from for this R2K’er? If God’s Natural law and His revealed law both teach the same thing, where does this R2K’er get off suggesting that sodomites and lesbians have a right to civil rights marriage as long as they don’t corrupt (in his opinion) children?

R2K’er

“The issue here is not a matter of religious morality. Christian teaching, like that of other major religions, is as condemning of heterosexual immorality (i.e., sex outside of marriage, unnecessary divorce) as it is of homosexuality. But the French remind us that this is not really what the political debate should be about. It should be about children and the vital social role of the family.”

1.) So, children and the vital social role of the family is not about religious morality? If this isn’t about religious morality then who cares about children and vital social role of the family? Is our R2K’er saying that the matter of children and the vital social role of the family is not a religiously moral issue? I presume that our R2K’er is saying that protecting children and the vital social role of the family is a good thing. How can we know what a good thing is apart from religious morality. Or maybe he is saying that it is a good thing that protecting children and the vital social role of the family isn’t determined by religious morality? But how would we know that that it is a good thing that protecting children and the vital social role of the family isn’t determined by religious morality without some religious morality?

2.) This R2K’er commits the common R2K fallacy that somehow political debates are not at their core religious or theological debates. Notice how he assumes that we don’t have to deal with religious morality when we are in a political realm that is cordoned and sequestered from the theological or religious realm.

R2K’er

“The fact is, if America is ever to become serious about rebuilding the social fabric of marriage and the family, government and the various institutions of civil society will have to be much more proactive in reestablishing the link between marriage and the procreation and raising of children. Yet there is no reason why this has to require the restriction of the legal or civil rights of gays and lesbians, let alone a focus on matters pertaining to homosexuality. In reality, rebuilding a culture of marriage and fidelity would step on the toes of far more heterosexuals than of gays and lesbians. The question is, are we willing to place the interests of children back at the center of our public discussions of sexuality, marriage, and the family?

Perhaps the heirs of the French Revolution have something to teach us after all.”

1.) Again … where does Natural Law teach that sodomites and lesbian have a right to normalize and legalize their sin?

2.) Some studies are being released that suggest that children being intimate with adults is a healthy thing. Why not promote the interests of the children is this way?

A Dutch study published in 1987 found that a sample of boys in paedophilic relationships felt positively about them. And a major if still controversial 1998-2000 meta-study suggests – as J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, Chicago, says – that such relationships, entered into voluntarily, are “nearly uncorrelated with undesirable outcomes”.

Most people find that idea impossible. But writing last year in the peer-reviewed Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Bailey said that while he also found the notion “disturbing”, he was forced to recognise that “persuasive evidence for the harmfulness of paedophilic relationships does not yet exist”.

Obviously our R2K’er is allowing his religious bias to color his interpretation of Natural law.

Third Reich or Westminster-Cal?

“And above all we have dragged priests out of the depths of the political party struggle and have brought them back again into the Church. It is our determination that they shall never return to a sphere which is not made for them, which dishonors them, and which of necessity brings them into opposition to millions of people who in their hearts wish to hold to the faith but who desire to see the priests serving God and not a political party.”

~ Adolf Hitler in a speech, October 24, 1933
R2K Enthusiast
Member — Christ Uniform Reformed Church

“[O]nce the church’s voice is stifled in the public square, the role of culture-makers shifts to the secular realm. The state will see this need and fill that need itself—in the name of national unity. In the case of Nazi Germany, it realized that it was now the state’s educational role to create a unifying worldview for the nation….”

“[T]he unity of the Germans must be secured through a new Weltanschauung [worldview], since Christianity in its present form was no longer equal to the demands which were to-day made on those who would sustain the unity of the people.”

Hitler told this to a group of Nazi leaders, August 27, 1933:

“The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church.”

– Hitler again, in conversation with Nazi bishop Ludwig Muller

2:00 Of Dr. Greg Bahnsen Exposing The Cowardice Of WS-Cal

“If you sincerely try to stand against the slide into the cesspool of wickedness in our state, and in our culture by looking for a consistent biblical position by which you can witness against the disgrace all around us, (as many of us have found), you’ll lose your job within the Seminary community. You’ll lose your standing in the Church establishment. You’ll virtually become unemployable — even if your orthodox. You’ll become ostracized. You’ll be called ‘dangerous.’

What’s wrong with us that theonomists are dangerous when we have to lock our windows at night? It’s crazy isn’t it?

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn’t see?

Of all the wicked heresies and threatening movements facing the Church in our day, when Westminster Seminary finally organized their faculty to write something in unison they gave their determined political efforts not to fight Socialism, not to fight homosexuality, not abortion, not crime and mayhem in our society, not subjectivism in theology, not Dispensationalism, not cultural relativism, not licentiousness, not defection from the New Testament, not defection from the Westminster Confession of Faith, — all of which are out there and they could give their legitimate efforts to. Boy the thing they had to write about was ‘Theonomy.’

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he doesn’t see?

We are living in the cesspool of relativism and the Church doesn’t have an answer. Well, I praise God … that the truth that the early Church knew and is found in the Bible and is available to us and there are people like he who were willing to pay the price and say, ‘it’s worth it.'”

Why stand against the slide into the cesspool of wickedness when you can write articles suggesting that perhaps Christian could reach an entente with homosexuals on homosexual marriage? Why stand against Dispensationalism when your own theology is but a variant of Dispensationalism? (Some have even taken to calling R2K “Reformed Dispensationalism.”) Why stand against Socialism when your agenda is defined by Enlightenment and Liberal categories? Why stand against cultural relativism when your theology insists that your theology has nothing to say to the public square culture?

Look, long ago J. I. Packer noted that “bad theology hurts people.” R2K, doubtless is a theology that makes for nice sentimental people who get all teary eyed when they sing, “Trust & Obey,” but it is a theology that hurts people because it is escapist and retreatist when it comes to the public square. As an escape religion R2K is the perfect oppositional religion to the Cultural Marxists who practice power religion. It is the perfect oppositional religion for the cultural Marxists because it offers no opposition. If the cultural Marxist want to build an Idol out of the God State R2K says … “we’ll help you with those nasty reconstructionists by pointing them out to you and by making sure they are unemployable. We will blacken their names. We will misrepresent their positions. We’ll do all we can to cast them out of the Church. We will spit on the memories of Rushdoony (Why, we’ll even call him ‘Rushlooney’ in our private get togethers), and Bahnsen (Psst … We will call him ‘Rabbi Greg’ — ha ha ha).”

The White Hat Reformed Church is now riven by those who have two completely different worldviews and all the wishing and hoping in the world is not going to reconcile these antithetical worldviews.