R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 6

A Few Words On Both R2K and Historic 2K

This is an excellent podcast that I highly recommend as a introduction to Radical Two Kingdom (R2K) “theology.”

https://furtherreformation.substack.com/p/mark-van-der-molen-confronting-the?fbclid=IwY2xjawOHMO1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFYcGtKcVg5V1lRcVVMaHM2c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MghjYWxsc2l0ZQEyAAEePFzfCMFot0PkGytjXFqAR3JtrYQzMyzsP97oGly8y8G6k3X9kDpLgBY55ZE_aem_4zdX8DP1ANUA2XSWHqAiPw

Towards the end Mark Van Der Molen and Rev. Benjamin Hicks say that they believe that R2K is waning in influence. I hope that is the case but I am not convinced of it. Keep in mind that R2K owns many of the flagship Reformed Seminaries. Of those Seminaries R2K doesn’t own and who might not agree with R2K, very few of them are going to come out explicitly opposed to R2K since R2K is right now the 800 pound guerilla in the Reformed world.

Then there is the problem that even if R2K is on the decline we still have the problem of Historic 2K with its reliance upon Thomistic Natural Law theory. The disagreement between R2K and Historic 2K is not on Natural Law theory but only on how Natural Law should be read. There is a intense fight between Historic 2K and R2K even though they both insist that Natural Law is perspicuous. Indeed, Natural Law is so perspicuous that the best of our Reformed theologians who embrace Thomistic Natural Law can’t even get close to agreeing what the putative perspicuous Natural Law teaches.

As it stands I can hold my nose and hold hands with many of the Historic 2K chaps because they end up embracing my positions but the methodology they use to get there is contrary to the Reformed faith because in denying that in order for Natural Law to be read aright one must presuppose special Revelation they have denied a foundational doctrine of the Reformed faith, to wit, Total Depravity. Like the R2K chaps that the historic 2K don’t much like historic 2K has embraced the same ancient inherently philosophical dualism. The difference between R2K and Historic 2K is that Historic 2K allows more of a bleeding over between the two realms (nature and grace) while the hard R2K chaps have built impermeable walls between their two realms of nature (which R2K refers to as “common”) and “grace.” For both R2K and historic 2K God’s special revelation is not the norm that norms all norms in the nature realm. For both the norm that norms all norms in the nature realm is Jesus Christ ruling by his “left hand” via Natural Law. The difference then between Historic 2K and R2K is only that the walls built between nature and grace are more permeable (leaky) then what you find in R2K. It is that leakiness that allows Biblical Christians to carefully and gingerly hold hands with them on some matters.

The better model of course is to embrace the Reformed doctrine of Total Depravity (which is different than Utter Depravity) and to get rid of the whole idea of “Jesus Christ ruling the realm of nature (the common realm) by His left hand.” All this idea does is to create a “secular” realm that, per R2K, can’t be in any way related to God’s Kingdom. When doing this what R2K yields up is not a secular realm that is “common” but rather what it yields up in truth is a profane realm that is called “common.” This secular/profane realm of R2K, being by definition, “irreligious” becomes a profane realm where nothing can be considered a Christian calling. R2K tries to argue that Christians can operate in their “common realm” but Christians can only do so as operating in a profane (non Christian) way.

Again, Historic 2K is far superior to R2K at this point because at least Historic 2K isn’t afraid of the word “Christian” being used in an adjectival sense. Historic 2K has no problem with the phraseology of “Christian Magistrates,” or, “Christian Fathers,” or “Christian Historians,” etc.. For R2K this is all anathema since the adjective “Christian” cannot exist in their common (really “profane”) realm.

However, the better model vis-a-vis both R2K and Historic 2K is Biblical Christianity where we lose the language of “Christ ruling by His left hand,” and where we are finally forever done with the Thomistic theory of Natural Law, and where we no longer are enchanted with philosophical dualisms and where we no longer are parceling out what can be and cannot be part of God’s Kingdom. Biblical Christianity instead insists on unity in diversity. Biblical Christianity insists that there are two Kingdoms — The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Beelzebub. Paul teaches in Colossians that God’s people have been “delivered from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves.” God’s Kingdom is characterized by His people laboring for Him in different callings explicitly ruled by Him. So, God rules directly by His Word and the necessary consequences arising for His Word rightly understood. Because of this all callings can be as unto Christ and so have the quality of “sacred.” No calling is profane. Within this one Kingdom of God over which Christ rules by His Word there are distinct jurisdictions (hence diversity) wherein Christ has assigned His stewards to rule. In the Civil jurisdiction Christ has assigned male Magistrates to rule under Him and by His authority. In the Familial jurisdiction Christ has assigned Fathers to rule under Him and by His authority. In the ecclesiastical realm Christ has assigned male Elders to rule under Him and by His authority. This has traditionally been referred to as “Christian Jurisdictionalism” and it has the advantage of not only being Scriptural but also it finds Christ ruling as Mediatorial Sovereign over His totalistic Kingdom. It also has the advantage of being forever done with this pernicious soft or hard dualism that earnestly desires to create a putatively secular realm that is either really profane (R2K) or failing that is methodologically inconsistent with the Reformed doctrine of total depravity (Historic 2K) with their appeal to fallen man’s ability to read Natural Law aright. (This is really just a reversion to the old Enlightenment doctrine of “Right reason and Natural Law theory.”)

Now before the Historic 2K chaps get all juiced up, I will stipulate that for centuries our Reformed fathers were not consistent on this matter of epistemology. For centuries one can find an ongoing appeal to Thomistic “Natural Law” theory in Reformed writers. However, I would contend that they were involved in felicitous inconsistency. Calvin, for example, did a series of Sermons on Deuteronomy that have been published in a book titled “The Covenant Enforced,” and when one reads that series of Sermons one wonders how Calvin could have said anything positive about Natural Law. Secondly, on this point, we should not be surprised that with the rise of presuppositionalism we saw more light breaking out of Scripture with the result that we were indeed a Reformed people who were interested in always Reforming where warranted.

So my plea, as it has always been, is to be done especially with R2K which I believe is heretical since it evacuates Jesus Christ’s office of King. If we have a Jesus Christ who is not Mediatorial King (see the book “Messiah The Prince” by William Symington) then the Jesus Christ we have is not the Jesus Christ we find in Scripture but is only a Jesus Christ who just happens to share the same name with the Jesus Christ of Scripture. My plea extends to being done with Historic 2K since it epistemologically fails to throw man off the throne of source authority.

This issue is watershed. If we get either our ontology or epistemology wrong we will not be able to get anything else right.

May the Lord Christ grant Reformation to His Reformed Church.

Pronouns, School Districts, Courtrooms, & R2K

There is a major ruling out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on both free speech and student rights. The court, sitting en banc, ruled 10-7 that “the mere use of biological pronouns does not entail ‘aggressive, disruptive action.’” In the lengthy opinion, the court split along political lines with every Republican appointee voting with the student challengers and every Democratic appointee voting with the school district.

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org

Seven judges actually voted to sustain the original Olentangy (Columbus, Ohio) school district ruling that the refusal to use the pronouns that insane people demand that other people use when addressing them was “aggressive, disruptive action.” The Olentangy school district, comprised also of insane people, made a ruling for their schools that faggoty pronouns had to be used if insane people wanted to be known by faggoty pronouns the opposite of non-faggoty proper pronouns. The pro-faggoty pronoun school policy included sanctions for any student who refused to use the preferred pronouns of transgender insane classmates. Such violations were deemed “contrary to the other student’s identity.” The first judge to hear the case upheld the policy of the Olentangy school district. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned the lower court and the original faggoty school policy.

Now there will be people who will be more offended by my use of the word “faggoty” then they are offended that a group of “professional” school personnel as well as the original Clinton appointed judge, as well as seven judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided to reinforce childhood insanity. To such people offended with me, all I can say is… “suck it up buttercup.”

The Olentangy school district now has the option of appealing to the SCOTUS.

Keep in mind that if your Pastor embraced Radical Two Kingdom theology he will never say a word about the error of this original Olentangy policy. If he were R2K and if the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had ruled in favor of the school district he also would remain completely silent about this violation of God’s revealed law. The R2K Pastor would say; “Speaking on this is not in my lane as a minister and it would be sin for me to speak on it in my role as Pastor.

You tell me which is more insane… the Olentangy school policy on pronouns or the policy of 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.