R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 43

“… It’s a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture.”

‎”… it’s a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture.”

~Michael Horton, R2k architect

The reasons why Horton’s statement is absurd.

1.) According to Horton and the R2K lads it is IMPOSSIBLE for Christianity to be a culture. If it is impossible for Christianity to be a culture then no one at no time as ever have lived in an era where Christianity was a culture, and this even if they were so deluded as to believe that they were living in a Christian culture. To admit that there was a time when Christianity was a culture completely eviscerates the whole theorem of R2K.

2.) This reveals that the R2K theological neophytes don’t see an intimate relationship between cult and culture. Culture is merely the living out of the belief system inculcated by the cult as embraced by the adherents of the cult. R2K gives us a Christianity that is all personal conversion with no impact by those persons converted upon the culture they live in unto a social order that could rightly be designated as “Christian.”

3.) If #2 is true (and it is) Horton is confessing that it is good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is the predominant belief system. He is saying it is a good thing that other belief systems are the belief systems that have won the day and so are producing non Christian culture. Horton is saying that it is good that the God of the Bible is no longer taken as God by the West. This is treason by Dr. Michael Horton.

4.) The West was what it was, and yet remains what it is because of the (now waning) influence of Biblical Christianity on people, peoples, and then how those people and peoples incarnated the High Priesthood and Lordship of Jesus Christ into their everyday living. As the West throws off Christianity as both cult and culture, due to teachings by both R2K advocates and the cultural Marxists. (Politics does indeed make strange bed-mates. Who would have ever thought that putatively Confessional Christianity would have served the agenda of cultural Marxism?) The R2K project is guaranteed to finish off what is left of both the West and Western Christianity. R2K, in pulling down the West with this God awful theology, will pull down its own house and be as relevant to what they create as the Russian Orthodox Church was relevant in Communist Russia.

5,) Since R2k is amillennialism run amok this agenda of R2k to divorce Christian theology from culture is a self fulfilling prophecy. R2k believes and teaches a suffering Church where Christian are pilgrims in this world. This so called theological pursuit of R2K thus absolutely guarantees what their theology insists upon. They believe that Christianity is only a suffering religion and so they have created a theology that will guarantee that suffering will come to pass.

Calvin and the Anabaptist R2K’ers

“Calvin opposed the Roman concept of “perfectio” as well as that of the Anabaptists. He contended for an ethos that bound both the Christian and the world by the same set of requirements, so that the way of the Reformation did not result in a church segregated from the world. Although Calvin also recognized a two-kingdom doctrine, his exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount revealed that he did not let this antithesis lead him to a basic dualism.”

Calvin & The Anabaptist Radicals
Willem Balke

Unlike Calvin, R2K contends for a different ethos for the Christian and the world. The Christian is to be ruled by the ethos of Scripture in the Church realm and Natural law in the common realm, while the ethos for the world in the common realm is Natural law. Unlike Calvin the R2K “Divines” give a different ethos to the world and to the Christian. Now, there might be overlap between those two different ethoi but they are different ethoi. It is also true the R2K segregates the Church from the world though it does not segregate the Christian from the world like the Anabaptists did and do. R2K, like the Anabaptists of old do not allow the Church as the Church to be concerned with what happens in the non Church realm. (For R2K that realm is called “common,” while for the Anabaptists that realm was evil. Still, regardless of what each call that realm, the Church as the Church is segregated from it considering it “the world.”)

R2K “theology” is a tweaking of a historic theology but it is a tweaking of Anabaptist theology and not a tweaking of Historic Calvinist theology. R2K’s tweaking, as that tweaking is happening in the Reformed community, is a tweaking that pulls contemporary Calvinism more towards Anabaptist categories. Consider the R2K tweak of Anabaptist theology in its nomenclature. Historically Anabaptist theology called the non-Church realm evil. R2K doesn’t do that. Instead, R2K tweaks Anabaptist nomenclature and calls the evil realm “common,” but all the while insists that it is impossible for the R2K “common” realm to be Christian, insisting on calling it “common.” Now, one might observe that if it is impossible for the “common” realm to be “Christian” (per R2k) then all that is left is for the common realm to be not Christian. If the common realm is not Christian then how is it also (using Anabaptist nomenclature) not a evil realm? The R2K acolytes reply that the common realm is neither Christian nor evil but in doing so they have given up their Reformed credentials by creating a realm where the antithesis does not apply and they have completely given up on Van Til’s denial of neutrality. The R2K lads can say till they’re blue in the face that common does not equal neutral but saying that it is not so, does not make it not so.

R2K … “Rubber meets Road”

Recently Dr. Mike Horton, in May wrote a piece that can be found here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2919093/posts

Elsewhere Horton has written here,

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/05/11/same-sex-marriage-makes-a-lot-of-sense/

In that piece you can find these quotes,

“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

Dr. Horton, having been queried about this statement he made in May, has recently spoken. I intend to respond here to his recent statements.

Recently Horton wrote,

(1) “I wrote several posts on same-sex marriage, arguing that because monogamous-heterosexual marriage is rooted in creation (not redemption), Christians should not treat it as merely imposing our distinctively Christian beliefs and values on society. (2) We may lose, but the church can’t surrender its witness to God’s unchanging law. (3)Thus, neighbor-love entails support for traditional marriages and family structures. (4) At the same time, I argued that there are complicated legal and policy questions over which Christians (who hold this same view) may legitimately differ. (5) One example is domestic partnerships, which I neither affirmed nor rejected. (6) My only goal there was to say that there is nothing that the gay movement can win by same-sex marriage that it doesn’t already have with domestic partnerships. (7) If they can have the latter, why do they need the former? (8) It seems to me that the only real purpose in pressing for marriage is moral: namely, to place homosexual relationships on a par with heterosexual marriage: this we cannot allow, even if it involves the coercive power of the state (via our participation in the democratic process).

(9) Also, Christianity Today asked me to provide a response to an interview in The Atlantic with the head of Exodus International, who seemed to suggest that one could be an active homosexual and a member in good standing of a church. (10) Of course, I disagreed. (11) In response to this and those other posts, I’ve received criticism from evangelicals (and others) who thought I was too hard-line on the issue. (12) So this one is a first. (13) Until this one, I haven’t seen any responses that see any of the dangers that Mr. Maurina raised here.”

In Christ,

Mike

Before getting into the entrails of these comments by Dr. Horton we should note here that as Dr. Horton does not believe that such a thing as Christian culture even exists or can exist, Dr. Horton does not believe that we can do anything to make a culture more Christian. Dr. Horton believes Christians do exist but he does not believe Christian culture exists. That observation is key in unraveling what Dr. Horton is saying here.

(1) — A.) If “monogamous-heterosexual marriage is rooted in creation (not redemption)” then why should marriages be conducted by Clergy? The R2K crowd, of whom Dr. Horton is a member, have said in the past that the Clergy has no business giving a invocation at a City Council meeting, or in being an official participant as a Clergy member at political events precisely because these kinds of events are rooted in creation and not redemption. So, if Clergy are not to be involved in events that are rooted in creation then for centuries Clergy have been violating Scripture because they have been officiating at and praying at Wedding ceremonies which are rooted in creation.

(1) — B.) If marriage is rooted in creation and not redemption and if culture can not be Christian then how is it possible to impose our distinctively Christian beliefs and values on society? Society is a reality that is rooted in Creation and so all it can ever be, regardless of what religion’s beliefs and values are imposed upon it is common. According to R2K it is possible to have Christians living in society, however it is not possible for Christians to impose their Christianity on something (society) that by definition can not be Christian no matter what.

(2) — But Dr. Horton does not believe that God’s unchanging law applies to the public square. It applies to individuals but it most certainly does not apply to the public square.

Now, it is possible when Dr. Horton talks about God’s unchanging law he is not talking about God revealed law in Scripture but rather he is speaking of God’s natural law. However, as he invokes the “Church” in (2) one is tempted to think he is referring to the Scriptures. With R2K it is hard to know what law is being referred to when statements are made about “God’s unchanging law.”

(3) — “Thus, neighbor-love entails support for traditional marriages and family structures.”

Except when we don’t. Read on.

(4) – (5) “Neither affirmed or rejected.”

Mike has said he neither affirms nor rejects domestic partnerships but he does affirm that Christians could affirm domestic partnerships and be within the orbit of Christian orthodoxy. Mike does not affirm them but he does affirm the affirmers. This is the real sticky wicket in Mike’s pronouncements. Mike, is suggesting that Christians could very well support domestic partnerships of one variety or another. If Christians were to do this, and as Mike is saying, they well could do this and remain orthodox, then that calls Mike’s (3) statement into serious question.

(6) – (8) — We agree with Mike except I do not think that the goal of the sodomite lobby is not to put sodomite marriage on part with Heterosexual marriage but the LGBT goal is to normalize sodomite marriage while abnormalizing heterosexual marriage.

(9) – (13) — We pass on.

Another missive from Dr. Horton was later forthcoming,

(1) “Being open to affirming a civil arrangement that allows partners inheritance, insurance, and other economic benefits, is NOT being open to same-sex relationships!!! (2) My point was to say that the gay lobby is not really interested in equal rights, but in equal affirmation of gay and heterosexual marriage. (3) So Christians should NOT treat the marriage debate as if it were equivalent to civil rights. (4) Some Christians do argue that we should allow a pagan state to honor “life commitments” regardless of marriage, but to argue that this should be called MARRIAGE is ultimately not a question of civil rights but of the meaning of marriage itself.

(5) I cannot help the fact that some have apparently overlooked the distinction I’ve made—and the fact that it’s part of an argument AGAINST gay marriage. (6) I can only hope that people would not spread false impressions based on where they think it will lead rather than what I actually argued.

In Christ,

Mike Horton

(1) — This sentence is a study in contradiction.

I think the famous R2K dualism is playing in here.

Mike has no problem with the legal infrastructure being set up by the Government. Mike has no problem with the objective legislation being put into place. However, Mike does have a problem if two people actually start engaging in the sodomite behavior that the legal infrastructure supports and honors.

So, his dualism allows the public structures but not the private behaviors. This is classic R2K speak. Having divided the world into the common and grace realm and having said that the Church may not make pronouncements on what the State does in the common realm, though retaining the right to speak with God’s voice regarding individual personal sin, the R2K thinker can posit a position where the public infrastructure for Sodomite behavior is legalized while insisting at the same time that they are not being open to same-sex relationships. Such a position only makes sense in a R2K Alice in Wonderland World. It’s like saying that while one is open to setting up the infrastructure for abortion in terms of abortion doctors, fetus removal systems, abortuaries, legal protection, etc. one is not, by doing so, communicating an openness to the act of abortion.

In fairness to the Doctor from Westminster Seminary Ca. it is possible that he is saying that while the act of sodomy is sinful the Church has no business to suggest that it is criminal and therefore Christians could very well support domestic unions as sanctioned by the Civil Magistrate. So, in such a scenario Christians could be Christian and support the non-Criminality of domestic partnership in theory while opposing the sin of sodomy itself. The problem here is that God has criminalized sodomy but Dr. Horton doesn’t believe that God’s unchanging law is unchanging on this point and so we are where we are.

(4) — We must keep in mind the distinction between Defacto realities and Dejure realities. Legalized domestic partnerships are defacto Marriage even if not Dejure marriage. Which is to say that they are marriage in all but title. Christians who support domestic unions are supporting defacto sodomite marriage even if opposing dejure sodomite marriage. At this point, it is all about semantics.

(5) – (6) — Dr. Horton has no one but himself to blame for people misunderstanding him. If other Christians do not think in a dualistic R2K worldview you can not fault them for interpreting R2K words through a non dualistic grid.

One more connection between R2K and Anabaptism

” … the government of Reformation led Basel considered anabaptists to be a threat to the state because the anabaptists refused to recognize any form of goverment as being Christian.”

Calvin & The Anabaptist Radicals
Willem Balke

Of course this is also true of R2K. R2K likewise refuses to recognize any form of government as being Christian. For R2K Christianity is a religion that does not impinge directly upon the public square of the common realm, though indirectly R2K Christianity does because individuals operating in the public square are Christian, though they are Christians who do not fool themselves into thinking they can have Christian culture, a Christian social order or a Christian government.

The Clergy & The Destruction Of Christianity

This from,

The Decline of Christianity: How the Clergy Brought Down the Faith

Writing in the 19th century, Henry Buckle put together a three-volume History of Civilization in England (1869).

Buckle was no friend of Christianity, and was happy to witness its demise in his time. But his observation as to the cause of the decline of the influence of Christianity is rather revealing. Speaking of the decline of ecclesiastical power and the emergence of what he called “religious liberty”, he made these comments:

“Among the innumerable symptoms of this great movement, there were two of peculiar importance. These were the separation of theology, first form morals, and second from politics. The separation from morals was effected late in the seventeenth century; the separation from politics before the the middle of the eighteenth century. And it is a striking instance of the decline of the old ecclesiastical spirit, that both of these great changes were begun by the clergy themselves. . . . Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, was the first who laid down that the state must consider religion in reference, not to revelation, but to expediency; and that it should favour any particular creed, not in proportion to its truth, but solely with a view to its general utility. . . .

Thus it was that, in England, theology was finally severed from the two great departments of ethics and of government.”

Volume 1, pp.424-427

Dr. Hodge then goes on to say,

This is the legacy of the Enlightenment that is with us today. It’s religious manifestation was in Moravian pietism the faith system that influenced Wesley and the Great Awakening. Now if you want to understand why kids are turning up at college with the ideas of Nietzsche firmly planted in their psyche and in their lifestyle and departing the Christian faith in droves, you have to look backward to the 16th and 17th centuries to find not only the root ideas, but who introduced them.

And it was the Christians who effectively laid the foundations for their own demise over the next four centuries.

And now with the advent and growing popularity of R2K we are seeing the work of Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester flower here in the States in the Reformed community of all places. R2K does not believe that Christianity can create a distinct social order. There is no such thing as a Christian social order and so there can be no such thing as “Christendom.” As such, a social order vacuum is created for other false religions to fill. As Christianity can not form a social order or culture, therefore, Christ hating Judaism, Islam, Marxism, and other variant forms of religious humanism will form the social order and culture.

The last sentence from Buckle above must be corrected. Theology was never severed from England’s ethics and government. Certainly it was the case that Christian theology was severed from England’s ethics and government but some other theology then filled the vacuum to inform England’s ethics and government. No neutrality.