Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

I will continue to engage on the R2Kt (radical two Kingdom Theology) virus which with Westminster West is seeking to infect the Church. Beyond my basic problems with R2Kt I get annoyed at guys like Dr. R. Scott Clark and Westminster West toadies because they are forever insisting that they alone are the pure expression of Confessional Reformed Theology, and they do so with faces firmly set against hurricane force winds of contrary evidence blowing against them. I understand that Westminster West is considering changing their motto to ‘Never let the facts get in the way of your ideology.’ It’s almost as if they are practicing the ‘Big Lie’ philosophy, which teaches that if you tell a big enough lie long enough people will eventually begin to believe your lie.

Dr. R. Scott Clark offers,

Why must “the church” engage the culture?

Why can’t Christians engage the culture?

Why must we form this kind of dichotomy between personal individual responsibility and corporate responsibility?

Naturally, no Reformed Christian teaches that individual Christians can’t engage the culture. But that’s not really Bob’s beef. Bob’s beef is that the Church should have any role speaking to anything except personal and individual salvation. Bob refuses to believe that Christ brings salvation not only to individuals but also to the institutional and cultural infra-structures that people, in societal relationships build. So the first reason why the Church must engage the culture is because the salvation that Jesus brought extends beyond individuals to the whole Cosmos. Jesus intends to save the WHOLE WORLD — which includes culture. The second reason that the Church must engage the culture is because culture is people group theology made manifest. Now since the Church is THE PLACE where Theology is supposed to be most ardently pursued, one would think that it would have a word or two to speak to the incarnated concrete theology that we call ‘culture.’ I just find it all inexplicable that I should have to explain this. The third reason that the Church must engage culture is because it can’t help but engage culture. Look, if the Church refuses to engage culture that refusal is itself an engaging of culture. An engagement which says to the culture, ‘do as you please, we have no authoritative Word for you.’ Such a Word is an engagement The consequence of such a engagement by way of disengaging is that the larger culture begins to incarnate a Theology that is not biblical, which in turn leads to the Church being impressed and shaped in its theology by those individuals who have been impressed and shaped by the theology they are absorbing from the culture that is not being spoken to by the Church.

Let’s also keep in mind that the last time the Theology of R. Scott Clark prevailed on a geographically wide scene was the Lutheran Church in Germany between 1933-1945. Hardly a ringing endorsement for the Church not engaging the culture.

Nothing about two-kingdoms theology says that Christians can’t engage the culture. Why can’t the institutional church be left to its proper business: preaching Christ, administering the sacraments, and administering discipline. As far as I can see the visible, institutional church can hardly manage that let alone taking back whatever for Jesus.

But Bob, what is the reason that it ‘can hardly manage that’? I would contend the reason that the Church can hardly manage that is because the pagan culture that we have not been speaking to appropriately has come into the Church. Bob, you can’t realistically think you can make the Church an island that is unaffected by the tides of the culture in which it exists. If we will not engage the incarnated pagan theology (culture) then the incarnated pagan theology (culture) will engage us (the Church) — and not beneficently so.

And just to be clear, I don’t know of any bellwether Theocrats or Theonomists throughout Reformed History that didn’t believe and wouldn’t agree that the Church needs to be preaching Christ, administering the sacraments, and administering discipline. It’s not as if Theocrats and Theonomists throughout Reformed Church history haven’t week in and week out been about the proper business of the Church in Worship.

Yes, CHRISTIANS SHOULD ENGAGE THE CULTURE — pay attention! Yes, I’m shouting. Yes, there is a kulturkampf, but there probably has always been one of sorts. The question is not “whether” but rather the questions are by whom and how and to what end? Christians should engage the culture on the basis of natural REVELATION and they should preach the law to the culture which is what culture is about. Art, language, music, law, and whatever else composes a culture is about law. All these things must be done in obedience to certain laws. It is about understanding these laws.

Bob would have us draw laws by appeal to natural revelation and not from God’s Holy Word. And yet, natural revelation or natural law has as many variants as there are types of beetles in the world. What standard will adjudicate between the varying natural laws that men espouse?

Now, to be sure there is only one true natural law. But we can’t expect non-Christians, because of how they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, to find any reason to tip their hats to the one true natural law. Does Bob need a refresher course on total depravity?

Second, Bob doesn’t realize that it is also entirely possible and even likely that Christians won’t even agree on how to ‘understand these laws.’ Since, Bob would have individual Christians appeal to natural law as their authority then it is conceivable that there will be as many Natural laws as there are individual Christians.

The gospel (which is the basis for any Christian notion of “transformation”) has been committed to the church and is found there, not in the culture. Transformation, properly defined, belongs to Christians and to the visible church in anticipation of the eschaton.

I agree that the Gospel is found uniquely in the Church. It is the institution where Redemption is proclaimed. However, all because we admit that Gospel is found uniquely in the Church doesn’t mean that the Church can’t speak about what that Gospel looks like as it effects the Culture. The Church is where Redemption is proclaimed. The culture is where the proclaimed redemption incarnates itself. The Church must speak both to the essence of what the Gospel is and the consequent of what the Gospel looks like. We cannot divorce the message of the Gospel from the implications or outworkings of the Gospel.

The attempt to apply the category of “transformation” to the culture is the result of an over-realized eschatology and goes hand-in-hand with the confusion of the church with the culture.

And Bob’s amillennialism and his R2Kt theology is the result of an under-realized eschatology and goes hand in hand with the expectation that in this world the Gospel is defeated.

A Conquered Kingdom: Biblical Civil Government
Daniel Ritchie

Foreword 1 Rev. Paul Michael Raymond (Dutch Reformed)

Foreword 2 Rev. Douglas Comin (RPCNA)

Foreword 3 Rev. John Otis (RPCUS)

Preface

Explanation of why I wrote the book, and a definition of terms such as Theonomy and Christian Reconstruction (this also explains the relevance of Presuppositional Apologetics, VanTillan Epistemology and Postmillennial Eschatology).

Introduction

Regeneration and Christian Reconstruction

The Dominion Mandate

Chapter 1: The Kingship of Christ over the Nations

Exegetical study of various texts relating to Christ’s kingship over the nations and civil government.

Chapter 2: Political Polytheism and Toleration

The Myth of Neutrality

Political Polytheism and the First Commandment

God’s Judgment Upon Pluralism
Pluralism is Logically Impossible
The Issue of Toleration

Chapter 3: National Confessionalism and the Establishment Principle
Religious Establishment: An Inescapable Concept

The Necessity of a National Recognition of Christ (Social Covenanting)
Erastianism, Ecclesiocracy and the Separation of Powers

Alliance Between Church and State

The Precise Nature of a Christian Establishment (Divergent views of the Establishment Principle considered)

Chapter 4: The Limited Role of Civil Government

Sola Scriptura and Sphere Sovereignty
Crime and Punishment
Just Warfare
Quarantine
Taxation and Private Property

Chapter 5: Christianity versus Statism

What is Statism?

Biblical Examples of Statism (Tower of Babel, Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persian, Roman, Jewish Compromise with Statism)

Christianity Confronts Statism (how the early church confronted Statism both practically and theologically)

Christianity versus Statist Welfare
Christianity versus Statist Education
Statist Law and the Attack Upon Biblical Freedom
Statism and Private Property

Chapter 6: The Biblical Form of Civil Government

Theocratic Republicanism: The Divinely Established Form of Civil Government

The Principle of Decentralization
The Qualifications and Duties of Civil Officers
Voting Rights

Unbiblical Forms of Civil Government (Anarchy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Bureaucracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty and Democracy)

Appendix One: Civil Disobedience and Just Revolution

Appendix Two: For Whom was God’s Law Intended by Greg Bahnsen

Appendix Three: The Perpetual Obligation of the Scottish Covenants

Appendix Four: The Westminster Standards and Older Testament Penology (this is 26 pages long)

Appendix Five: Federal Vision Disclaimer

Appendix Six: Appointed for the Defense of the Gospel: The Life and Ministry of Greg L. Bahnsen by Kenneth Gentry

Appendix Seven: Rousas John Rushdoony: A Survey of His Life and Work by Gary North

Appendix Eight: A Summary of the Theonomic Position by Greg Bahnsen

Appendix Nine: George Gillespie and Biblical Civil Law: Did He Change His Mind?

Some Statistics

Over 780 pages long.

Over 250,000 words

Over 1400 footnotes.

Bibliography of more than 300 books and articles.

Includes Theocractic and Theonomic quotes from:

Reformers – John Wycliffe, Walter Brute, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, John Knox, Heinrich Bullinger, John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, Peter Martyr, Ulrich Zwingli, Johannes Piscator and Theodore Beza.

Puritans – Thomas Cartwright, James Ussher, Jeremiah Burroughs, John Flavel, Thomas Shepherd, John Cotton, Cotton Mather, John Eliot, Thomas Edwards, William Ames, David Clarkson, John Owen, Samuel Bolton, William Perkins, Edward Deering, Thomas Brooks, John Foxcroft, Herbert Palmer, Thomas Vincent, William Jenkyn, Thomas Gilbert, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, William Gouge, Thomas Manton, Henry Barrow, Peter Chamberlain, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, Increase Mather, Thomas Ridgeley, Isaac Ambrose, Thomas Pickering, Richard Vines, Phillip Stubbs, Edward Reynolds, William Reyner, Thomas Goodwin, Richard Greenham, Prelates opposed to Puritan Theonomy and the Geneva Bible.

Early Covenanters – Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, Alexander Henderson, Donald Cargill, John Brown of Wamphry, Alexander Shields, James Guthrie, Richard Cameron, James Durham, George Hutcheson, Robert Baillie, Patrick Walker, James Welwood, David Dickson, James Ferguson, 2nd Reformation General Assembly and Parliament.

Later Reformed Writers – John Gill, Thomas Scott, R.L. Dabney, J.H. Thornwell, John Brown of Haddington, Thomas Boston, Ebenezer Erskine, James Fisher, Johannes Wollebius, Junius Brutus, Gardiner Spring, William Symington, C.H. Spurgeon, J.G. Machen, Alexander McLeod, R.P. Joseph, J.G. Vos, Thomas Houston and James Willson. [Most of these are only Theocractic, except for Gill, Scott, Boston, Brown, Erskine, Fisher, Wollebius and Wilson].

Westminster West… are you listening?

Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster West keeps missing the problems inherent in radical two kingdom theology. In an article he posted recently on his heidelblog site he tried to show how radical two kingdom theology would rescue the day when it comes to social concerns as well as continue to provide impetus to not compromise the Gospel by signing documents like Evangelicals and Catholics together (ECT).

First we should note that there are great numbers of people who are not radical two kingdom Reformed people that didn’t sign the ECT document. This reality demonstrates that the desire for co-belligerence in the civil realm does not necessarily lead to compromise on the Gospel. Those Reformed people who signed the ECT document were in egregious error. Those Evangelical people who signed it were just be consistent with their Evangelicalism. Dr. Clark should realize that the semi-pelagianism inherent in Evangelicalism serves more to explain the Evangelical signatories of ECT then Clark’s explanation that the cause of such evangelical declension is a lack of his radical two kingdom theology. The common front that was pursued in the ECT document is explained by the reality that Theologically, Evangelicals and Romanists really do share a common front, due to the synergism that is involved in both camps. In order to be as plain as possible Dr. Clark needs to realize that even if Evangelicals had owned a radical two kingdom theology that would not have necessarily kept them from signing ECT. Actually, ECT should have been called ‘Synergists Together.’

Clark desires to explain ECT as a document that was motivated by the desire to rally conservatives together to form a common alliance against the inroads of modernity, aping earlier work that existed in Britain in the 60’s. What Clark doesn’t seem to understand is that it is possible for people to be conservative and still be semi-pelagian — if even only as their theology is expressed pragmatically. I’ve read the McGrath volume that Clark cites and it was the same type of cast of conservative synergists in the 60’s in Britain that was seeking to build coalitions as it was in the 90’s in America. The common fault then and now was and is synergism and not a lack of Clark’s radical two Kingdom theology among the signatories. The doctrine of Justification did not get in the way in Britain or in America for the signatories because they were janus faced in their theology. Radical two kingdom theology would not have healed their janus faces.

Dr. Clark keeps insisting that if only Evangelicals had held radical two kingdom theology they wouldn’t have signed the document, but it seems to me that, at least theoretically speaking, there is no reason why an Arminian Evangelical couldn’t be radical two kingdomist, and so have signed the document. It seems to me the only reason that such an eventuality didn’t happen is because radical two kingdom theology is so obscure that only a very select breed of people embrace it.

Dr. Clark insists on the cure of radical two kingdom theology for weak kneed Evangelicals. The problem here is that the cure is worse than the disease. What consistent Evangelicals (guys like J. I. Packer) should have done, is that instead of signing the document they should have told the folks from Rome,

“Look, y’all, we’re never going to agree on Justification or on the Gospel, but you know what — we can still be co-belligerents in the culture wars, on particular issues. We are going to have to remain divided on the Gospel, but we can unite on any number of other issues.”

The last thing they should have said is what Clark might have told them,

“Look, y’all, Christ’s Word doesn’t apply to what we call the common realm — but we can still work together as individuals by appealing to something subjective that is called natural law. Now, if we all together objectify the subjective and agree and pretend that our mutually agreed upon objectified subjective is really objective we can make sure that the world doesn’t get as evil as our eschatology says it must — at least not to hastily.”

Clark goes on to site the things that natural law teaches that could be common ground for Roman Catholics, Reformed, Evangelicals, Muslims, Hindus, and Mormons. The problem of course is that those self-evident things that Clark insists that all these people can agree upon are only self-evident things when people have been conditioned by a largely Christian institutional framework that they have been informed by over the centuries. Try to get someone from the Democratic party to agree that liberty vs Statism is self-evident. Try to get someone from the house of Saud to agree that sharia isn’t self evident. Try to get someone from queer nation to agree that heterosexuality is self-evident. Dr. Clark refuses to see that natural law is not going to solve these problems, and indeed, that these people likewise appeal to their own versions of his precious natural law theory.

Dr. Clark finishes his article by insisting that in this world there are two Kingdoms. We agree. The problem is that for radical two kingdomists, like Clark, there is a desire to divorce the two Kingdoms from one another as opposed to merely distinguishing them in a way that non-radical two kingdom folk would. We agree that the Spiritual Kingdom finds its central expression in the Church. We agree that “in the Christian life we live by the law of God in the grace of God by faith.” However we also believe that the Christian life, lived by the law of God, in the grace of God by faith, means that we together build public institutions that reflect a people who are living by the law of God, and who are kept by the grace of God by faith. We agree with Clark when he says “that the power and authority of the visible church is spiritual and it touches spiritual ends: faith and sanctity and its means are spiritual: Word, sacrament, and discipline.” But we also insist that the spiritual ends that he speaks of, faith and sanctity, end up incarnating themselves in realms outside of the Church. Further we believe that the Word he speaks of, applies not only to individual piety but also to the public piety of Kings, Economists, Journalists, Lawyers, Educators, Artists, etc., and that the Word needs to be brought to bear on the public realm. We agree with Clark “that law is revealed in nature, in the human conscience and is universally known by humans.” Where we part with Dr. Clark is where he refuses to embrace the scripture that teaches that fallen men suppress that law revealed in nature and conscience. Finally we agree that “Christians, who live in both kingdoms simultaneously, may cooperate as members of the civil kingdom toward common ends without agreeing on the sorts of issues entailed in ECT.” Where we disagree is that when we are working on common ends with unbelievers, we, unlike Clark, realize that we are agreeing with people who are being inconsistent with their religious presuppositions which should have them behaving in a very different way. Thank God for common grace and providence.

Dr. Clark continues to advocate for a realm where religion or religious presuppositions don’t apply. He continues to advocate for the active pursuit of irreligion in what he calls the ‘common realm.’ Such theology is most unfortunate.

Rev. Rick Phillips is a fairly well known PCA minister who is a two Kingdom advocate Recently he weighed in on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright incident. I want to take a minute to look at what two kingdomist Phillips had to say.

Having been preaching the prophet Micah for several months, I have discovered quite a lot of concern in the Bible over social ethics, and I have often reflected on how little attention such concerns receive in evangelical circles. A thoroughly biblical worldview will speak to both private and social ethics, and for evangelicals to speak persuasively to the culture we need to be strong in both.

Note here that Phillips is encouraging ‘evangelicals’ to speak persuasively to the culture. That is good as far as it goes. Still, Phillips nowhere suggests that the Church as the Church should speak persuasively to the culture. It seems it is only individual evangelicals who should speak persuasively to the culture and not the Church as the Church. Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s problem isn’t that he was speaking persuasively to the culture from the pulpit, as Phillips will say in the next quote. Wright’s problem is that he was speaking as the spokesman of some other God besides the God of the Bible from the pulpit.

Listen, the problem with this approach is seen beautifully in the California Judge H. Walter Croskey who also is a presbyterian elder and who just rendered a ruling that implied that the State owns the children and so homeschooling is not legal. Croskey, no doubt, is seeking to speak persuasively to the culture. But as the Church, according to two kingdomist views, cannot speak to what Croskey has done because ‘God doesn’t speak to that issue in the Bible’ then we are left with no place that can give God’s corrective authoritative word to the H. Walter Croskey’s of the world.

3. Regarding Wright’s use of the pulpit. When I first saw the Youtube excerpts of Wright’s preaching, my first thought was not, “He hates America!” or “He’s a racist!”, but “What a terrible use of God’s pulpit!” I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a candidate standing behind a pulpit — Democrat or Republican. I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a preacher extolling the virtues (or vices) of a particular candidate — Democrat or Republican. Surely the church pulpit is intended for higher and better matters than the small concerns of national politics! The pulpit is not an institution of the republic, but of the Kingdom, and it’s only legitimate use is the preaching of King Jesus. Politics should be kept out of the pulpit not merely for reasons of church-state separation, but because the pulpit is for matters of such greater significance. And when King Jesus speaks from His Word on matters that pertain to politics — such as personal or social ethics — He speaks equally to all parties, all candidates, and all voters.

I agree with Phillips that it was a terrible use of the pulpit. The question is, ‘why was it a terrible use of the pulpit(?).’ Phillips seems to suggest that it was a terrible use of the pulpit because the pulpit is not the place to speak to social and cultural issues, for, according to the two Kingdomist view, the Church as the Church can’t speak to these issues, because that is not what the Bible is about. To the contrary, as I’ve already mentioned, I would say it is a terrible use of the pulpit because it grossly misrepresents God’s mind, which is what one expects to find emanating from the pulpit.

With regards to that portion that is in bold I must ask Phillips who he thinks the Republic belongs to. It is true that the pulpit is the institution of the Kingdom but for that matter since the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof so is the Republic. One cannot consistently place a dichotomy between the pulpit and the Republic as if God owns the former and not the latter. When Republics are walking askance of their rightful King Jesus then the pulpit must rebuke the Republic in the name of King Jesus. When Republics are in submission to King Jesus then pulpits must teach people to be in submission to authority. Rev. Phillips problem here is the problem of all two kingdomists, and that is that he wants to interject a compartmentalized reality between the reality of Christ’s Lordship over the pulpit (Church) and a reality where, according to two kingdom thinking, Christ is Lord in a different (non-explicit) way. Rev. Phillips says that the pulpits only legitimate use is the preaching of King Jesus. I agree. If King Jesus is over the Republic then should not the pulpit occasionally speak King Jesus’ mind to the Republic? That is what Wright was doing. Wright’s problem though is he serves a different Jesus than the Jesus in the Bible.

In the italicized section of Rev. Phillips quote above he once again does the compartmentalization thing. According to Phillips the pulpit is for greater things then politics, and yet Phillips just said that, the only legitimate use of the pulpit is to preach King Jesus. Rick, is Jesus King over politics? Is Jesus King over economics? Is Jesus King over education? Is Jesus King over civil jurisprudence? Is Jesus King over the arts? If, as you say Rick, we are supposed to preach King Jesus then I don’t know how it is when we preach Christ as King over the political realm we are abandoning the greater things that you say the pulpit is for. Now, we both agree, that not only Christ’s Kingship must be proclaimed from the pulpit but also Christ in His role as High Prophet (thus engendering sermons on epistemology, philosophy illumination, inspiration, revelation, etc.) and Christ in His role as High Priest (thus engendering sermons on soteriology, sacramentology, hamartiology, etc.). This is why the preachers job is so burdensome Rick, because we have to speak about everything precisely because Christ is Prophet, Priest, and King over everything. Who is sufficient for such a task?

Next as it touches the italicized section we must understand that separation of Church and State never, ever, meant that the Church couldn’t speak to the any realm it darn well pleased. The separation of Church and State only meant that the Federal State couldn’t force a national denomination on the states, who were free to have their own State denominations as they chose. Further, the Separation of Church and State where it functions properly doesn’t mean the division or divorce of Church and State (as if that could ever happen) but rather it means that each realm functions only within its proscribed and God ordained boundaries. Rick, the danger of eclipsing Church and State separation today comes not from politically charged pulpits but rather from the State who wants to become the holder, not only of the Sword, but also of the Keys and of the Rod.

Now in reference to Phillips last sentence it looks like he is trying to hedge his bets. It looks like he is saying that the pulpit can speak to these areas as long as everyone is guilty. Well, the good news Rick is that it is a target rich environment on that score. Still, the idea that King Jesus speaks equally to the abortionists as he does to the pro-lifer in a convicting word on that issue is nonsense. I appeal to James to be sustained. In the book of James Jesus speaks a condemning word to the oppressors (Rich) that he does not equally speak to the oppressed. In short Rick, there will be times that the Church speaks to support some view, and some person holding that view, because it and they are being consistent with the law and the testimony of the King, while correspondingly and simultaneously speaking an unequal word against positions and candidates which and who are inconsistent with the declamations of King Jesus — and all that from the pulpit.

Thus endeth the lesson.

I meant to add to my last post an addendum that ties things together in my mind. In that post we looked at some traits of socialism. Eventually where I hope to go with this is to segue into differences between Marxist Socialism and Fascist Socialism and to show concretely that the political differences that exist in this country among the two major parties is merely a contest over which stripe of Fascism one prefers. Anyway … there is another connector between this and what I have also written recently on Radical Two Kingdom Theology of the Westminster West variety (R2Kt virus).

The connector is that when the Church refuses to deal with, from the pulpit, the kind of issues that I am trying to clarify in my posts on Socialism and Fascism the consequence is that the larger culture loses the sense of the True Transcendent that is required for Biblical civilization to occur. If the Church will not speak a clarion word about how the Transcendence of God needs to be a guiding presupposition in the cultural life of any nation then that culture will embrace a false god with a false transcendence. R2Kt proclaims that culture lies in the common realm where all can participate but what we are already seeing in these posts on Socialism and Fascism is that culture while certainly a common realm is affected by presuppositions that either are or are not Biblical. While all agree that culture is a common realm we are learning that it is not a neutral realm. If culture is affected by presuppositions that are Biblical then those presuppositions along with the texts they grow out of need to be preached from Reformed pulpits and Reformed Churches all across the land.

To refuse to do so in pursuit of some lame academic theory is treason.