“Like the English Revolution in the seventeenth century, the Papal revolution pretended to be not a revolution but a restoration. Gregory VII, like Cromwell, claimed that he was not innovating, but restoring ancient freedoms that had been abrogated in the immediately preceding centuries. As the English Puritans and their successors found precedents in the common law of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, largely passing over the century or more of Tudor-Stuart absolutism, so the Gregorian reformers found precedents in the patristic writings of the early centuries of the church, largely passing over the Carolingian and post-Carolingian era in the West. The ideological emphasis was on tradition, but the tradition could only be established by suppressing the immediate past and returning to an earlier one. Writings of leading Frankish and German canonists and theologians of the ninth and tenth centuries were simply ignored. In addition, the patristic writings were interpreted to conform to the political program of the political program of the papal party, and when particular patristic texts stood in the way of that program they were rejected. Faced w/ an obnoxious custom, the Gregorian reformers would appeal over it to truth, quoting the aphorism of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, “Christ said ‘I am the truth,’ He did not say ‘I am the custom.'” Gregory VII quoted this against Emperor Henry IV, Beckett quoted it against King Henry II. It had special force at a time when almost all the prevailing law was customary law.

It is the hallmark of the great revolutions of Western history, starting with the Papal Revolution, that they clothe their vision of the radically new in the garments of a remote past, whether those of ancient legal authorities (as in the case of the Papal revolution), or of an ancient religious text, the Bible, (as in the case of the German Reformation), or of an ancient civilization, Classical Greece (as in the case of the French Revolution), or of a pre-historic classless society (as in the case of the Russian Revolution). In all of these great upheavals the idea of restoration — a return, and in that sense a revolution, to an earlier starting point — was connected w/ a dynamic concept of the future.

It is easy enough to criticize the historiography of the revolutions as politically biased and, indeed purely ideological…. What is significant is that at the most crucial turning points of Western history a projection into the distant past has been needed to match the projection into the distant future. Both the past and the future have been summoned, so to speak, to fight against the evils of the present.”

Harold Berman
Law & Revolution — The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition — pg. 112-113

Now for a couple varied applications,

1.) There is an attempted Revolution going on in the Reformed Church right now and it is being pursued by Westminster Seminary California. The way they are seeking to frame the debate is in keeping with the observations that Berman makes here about all revolutions. Like all Revolutions, WSCal is clothing their vision of the radically new in the garments of a remote past. They are taking an ancient religious authority, the Reformed Confessions and they are interpreting them to conform to the political program of the Escondido / R2K political program of the WSCal party. Like all Revolutions, they are selling this great upheaval as a return to a pristine time and are connecting it to their “dynamic” concept of a yet to be realized future.

The fact that they are interpreting the Confessions to conform to their political program can be seen in the Kerux article observation that while those advocating the Escondido Hermeneutic mouth the words of the confessions, they at the same time are speaking a different language. Kerux states on pg. 70-71,

“Though much of this language (the language of the Escondido Hermeneutic adherents — BLM) is clearly in line with the confessional formulations, it is not entirely clear to us that it accurately reflects its traditional and accepted meaning. There is a marked ambiguity that runs throughout all of these formulations—it is not always entirely clear in what precise sense the Mosaic covenant is to be considered a covenant of grace, or at least ‘part of’ or ‘connected to’ the covenant of grace….

Likewise, although these authors attempt to utilize traditional, orthodox language regarding the Mosaic covenant (“administration of the covenant of grace”), it is not entirely clear the precise sense this language carries in their formulations. Again, there is marked ambiguity, tension, and even self-contradiction in some of their formulations.

When this is combined with Kerux’s earlier observation that their is a desire on the part of some of those in the “Escondido Party” to change the language of the Confessions it it clear what is going on here is a radical revolution of the type that Berman speaks. When the Escondido Hermeneutic speaks on the confessions on the issue of covenant or R2K it is like watching a old Japanese Godzilla movie where you hear people speaking English and yet you know that they are saying something funky by the way their lips don’t quite match their words.

If the boys from Escondido get their way and are able to impose the Escondido Hermeneutic on large portions of the Reformed Church it will be a revolution in the Confessional Reformed Churches in America, which pro-rated for its smaller size, will be every bit as seismic as the Revolutions that Berman cites above.

2.) At the same time there is an attempt in America at large to pull off social revolution in this culture by the elites in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Using Berman’s language we would say that that the Cultural Marxists, as led by B. Hussein Obama, are clothing their vision of the radically new in the garment of the remote past by appealing to the ideal pre-Christian multicultural egalitarian society.

We must keep in mind the words of Obama in his inauguration speech that communicated his intent at Revolution,

“But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

The Cultural Marxists that has been embraced by our elites are on a mission of revolution and they are casting that image in clothing of fairness, and social equity. Because this is true every appeal to the past, or to legal documents (i.e. — Constitution) must be heard through the grid of their attempt to bring cultural Marxist revolution to America. These people will be satisfied with nothing less then social revolution for the simple reason that they are social revolutionaries.

Berman’s quote, especially the emboldened part, is quite handy for the times in which we live for we are surrounded by people who desire to bring in their version of social Revolution.

“Man’s theology determines his philosophy of man, which in turn produces his political philosophy. Out of this develops a nation’s policies, from which evolves the economic system…. The natural outgrowth of the humanist viewpoint of man can only be a controlled, and regimented society: socialism, fascism, communism or the welfare state, which is different not in essence but only in degree.”

Thomas Rose
Retired Economist — Grove City College

In this quote Dr. Rose connects the dots between theology and tyrannical political and economic systems and so clarifies for us the relationship between Christianity and the deliverance from Spiritual bondage that it alone can bring and political and economic systems that are characterized by freedom and so are manifestations of a people who have been delivered from the tyranny of the devil.

Political and economic systems of bondage, such as all expressions of Marxism (Cultural Marxism, National Socialism, International Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Fabian Socialism, Fascism, Islamic Fascism, Neo-conservative Republicanism, Liberalism, Progressivism and the American Democratic party) are simply the natural and inevitable fruit of a people who hate the God of the Bible. Christians, who are redeemed and freed by Christ and who understand the vast implications of that redemption will never build or tolerate political and economic systems that put them and their children into bondage.

How does one clearly communicate this?

Spiritual realities incarnate themselves in to corresponding corporeal instantiations. People who are spiritual in bondage to the devil will build cultures that reflect that bondage. People who have been set free by Christ from the bondage of the devil will build cultures that reflect that freedom. Now what is interesting is that people who remain in bondage to the devil and who live in a increasingly Christian culture that offers increasing freedom will complain that that very culture they are living in is a culture of bondage and they will diligently work to overthrow that freedom all the while insisting that the bondage they are pursuing is in reality freedom. This explains a great deal as to why Christianity is constantly accused of being narrow, judgmental, and restrictive. The people making these charges are people who are in bondage and as such they can only see freedom as bondage. Remember, God-haters live in an upside down world that calls evil “good” and good “evil.”

This is one aspect of what is wrong with the mono-cultural attempt at multiculturalism and rabid pluralism. Multiculturalism or rabid pluralism is the putative attempt to combine various cultures of bondage that reflect people being in bondage to the devil with the culture of Christianity that is a culture of freedom and which reflects a people who have been set free by Christ from their sins. This is why Christians must hate multiculturalism and rabid pluralism because to accept the premise of multiculturalism and rabid pluralism is to accept the premise of a hatred for the Christ who sets men free.

Now, what explains the bondage of individuals building cultures of bondage is the reality that part of what it means to be in bondage is to be a slave to self. In other words bondage to the devil begins with individuals putting themselves at the center of all reality. Once enslaved individuals do this they begin to construct political and economic cultures that will support first their egocentric prioritization and secondly will support their ethnocentric prioritization. In pursuit of the priority of the self people in bondage will seek to put other people in bondage so as to serve their selfishness. This explains cultures of bondage where institutions (especially the State) are used to extract from others the fruit of their labor so that it might be redistributed to the selfish in power. This explains not only variants of Marxism but also evolutionary capitalism where God hating capitalists, in their selfishness and covetousness, use the state to make laws that will insulate them from true competition. All of this is a pursuit of institutional slavery.

Cultures of bondage make several assumptions. First, they assume conflict of interest. Where selfishness reigns each man or group is out for to enslave those they are forced into some relationship with. What this means, pragmatically speaking, is that employers and employees are in a adversarial relationship where each seeks to enslave the other for their egocentric ends. What this means, pragmatically speaking, is that politics becomes the be all end all, as people seek, by means of politics, to control the apparatus of the State in order to use it to enslave the rest of the population in favor of their selfish and covetous interest. What this means is a State that seeks to enslave its population by means of economic policy. Second, cultures of bondage assume the necessity of propaganda. In the end cultures of bondage can only be held together by force but this force is covered by the velvet glove of propaganda. This propaganda is characterized by a flurry of euphemisms and information outlets giving just enough truth to make propaganda falsehoods plausible. This propaganda is characterized by wall to wall messaging and cradle to grave revisionism. In order to keep people in bondage people must be constantly given the propaganda that convinces them they are free. This explains why our culture is characterized by public schools. Third, cultures of bondage assume the necessity of some religious structure in order to proclaim that the bondage is really freedom and is approved by God. In cultures of bondage the altar that supports the crown can be anything from Islam to Hinduism to a corrupted Christianity as currently exists in these United States.

All of this explains why political or economic freedom can not be exported to peoples who are not Christian. One can not expect the fruit of freedom where the root of freedom does not exist. All of this also explains that any hope for renewal in the West must begin with Reformation for the West has become a culture of bondage.

All of this also explains my rabid opposition to R2K theology. Radical two Kingdom theology desires to cut the animating nerve between spiritual freedom and how that spiritual freedom incarnates itself in human cultures and institutions. In short R2K makes the opposite error of those who believe that social, political, and economic freedom can be had where people remain in bondage to their sin. R2K teaches that there should be no expectation of a eventual correspondence between a proliferating of spiritual freedom and the fruit that such spiritual freedom brings. The former error wants the fruit of freedom without its root being in place while R2K is satisfied with the root of freedom that does not produce its corresponding fruit.