Dr. David VanDrunen’s Silliness

#1 — “A two-kingdoms doctrine, distinguishes what is uniquely ‘Christian’ from what is simply ‘human’ [….] Generally speaking, to be ‘human’ here and now means living in the common kingdom under the Noahic covenant. Christians share the life and activities of the common kingdom with all human beings. What differentiates them from the rest of humanity is their identification with the redemptive kingdom and all that that entails.” (p.167)

#2 — “Learning, working, and voting are not uniquely Christian tasks, but common tasks. Christians should always be distinguished from unbelievers subjectively: they do all things by faith in Christ and for his glory. But as an objective matter, the standards of morality and excellence in the common kingdom are ordinarily the same for believers and unbelievers: they share these standards in common under God’s authority in the covenant with Noah.” (p.31)

#3 — “[T]he normative standards for cultural activities are, in general, not distinctively Christian. By this I mean that the moral requirements that we expect of Christians in cultural work are ordinarily the same moral requirements that we expect of non-Christians, and the standards of excellence for such work are the same for believers and unbelievers.” (p.168)

#4 — “[A] writer promotes a ‘contemporary Christian perspective on business,’ which promotes the principles of fair trading practices for workers, healthy local businesses, and Christian-run start-up businesses that ‘lovingly serve the needs of fellow citizens.’ [These] principles are admirable, but there is nothing distinctively ‘new creation’ or ‘Christian’ about […] them. All of these principles are grounded in the present created order and the terms of the Noahic covenant.” (p.193-4)

Living in God’s Two Kingdoms
David VanDrunen

#1 — Note how R2K aficionado VanDrunen abstracts Christian from human identity as if one can be human without at the same time being Christian or non-Christian. VanDrunen sets up a human identity that operates in his common realm that is undefined by that identities relation to or non relation to Jesus Christ.

Also note on this score that any thinking that suggests that the embrace of Christ makes one more truly “human” according to God’s original design must necessarily be seen as fatuous. To be human, according to VanDrunen, is to live in the common realm. Whether we are Christian or non Christian is irrelevant as it relates to identity as “human.”

Finally, we see on this quote that once again, Van Drunen has dualistically compartmentalized the common realm from the redemptive realm. In the redemptive realm we can call ourselves “Christian,” with all that that means but in the “common realm,” we are merely abstracted humans who engage along with those who hate Christ in common cultural endeavors and callings.

#2 / #3 — It is true that “as an objective matter, the standards of morality and excellence in the common kingdom are ordinarily the same for believers and unbelievers: they share these standards in common under God’s authority in the covenant with Noah,” but what is not true is that those who are Christ haters recognize and embrace these standards of morality and excellence. I very rarely use the language of a “self evident” truth, but I would think that VanDrunen would recognize that the very issue he insists Christians have in common with those who hate Christ are the issues that our current culture is tearing itself apart fighting over. The morality of the Ten Billion dollar a year porn industry and its standard for “excellence,” is quite a different morality and quite a different “excellent” than most Christian humans living in his common realm. The morality and excellence of outcome based education in the government schools is quite a different morality and excellence than most Christian humans have who are living in this common realm.

#4 — In VanDrunen’s common realm world who defines “fair” and what is the standard being used to define “fair?” In VanDrunen’s common realm where exactly do we find these principles grounded in the created order? I thought nature was red in tooth and claw? Does VanDrunen really believe that the evolutionary Capitalist or the Businessman who is seeking to advance the cause of Allah is going to have the same standards of fairness for their business as is the Biblical Christian?

It is difficult to believe at times that the R2K crowd is serious in all of this. Do they really believe that such a social order can be governed by their Christian dualism?

Kinsey & Hefner’s America

The introduction of sexual license among college-age men as a societal norm began in earnest in American Culture in the 1950’s. This project, introduced by Alfred Kinsey and popularized by Hugh Hefner created a market for immodest and sexually adventurous young women, which in turn helped to legitimize the idea of female promiscuity. In the 1960’s, once immodesty and promiscuity had become acceptable for some women, the pressure increased for all women to adopt these behaviors in competing for the attention of men. This was especially true of the youngest of marriage-age women of that generation, whose personal morals and values had been influenced by a decade of sex-saturated pop culture.

The wholesale entrance of women into the world of sexual ‘freedom’ created a number of societal demands; the “liberation” of women from Christian expectations about marriage and child-rearing through a feminist political movement (enter Better Friedan and “The Feminine Mystique” — 1963, enter NOW formed in 1966), contraception on demand w/ Griswold vs. Connecticut – 1966, abortion on demand w/ Roe vs. Wade -1973, and finally through ‘no-fault’ divorce beginning in the early 1970’s.

All of this in turn has brought us to the “gaying” of America. Once Christian heterosexuality and family life was obliterated it was a small step to normalize Sodomy. If there were no standards that needed to be attended to for sexual norms among heterosexuals or no standards that needed to be attended to for family life then who was to say that Sodomy was an aberration?

As an example, though perhaps on the face of it, it is counter intuitive to assert, Playboy has served as a tool for gay social engineering. One could make the case that all porn is essentially homosexual because it is in fact created by men for the sexual gratification of other men. That is pretty gay if you think about it.
Further, on a more practical level, the existence of a thriving porn industry serves the ‘gay’ cause by morally corrupting the men who use it, making them less likely to oppose the homosexual agenda on moral grounds and makes them more likely to support public policies which legitimize sexual hedonism of all varieties.

The result of all of this sexual hedonism has been the de-Christianizing of America and the advance of the agenda of the pink triangle army. Census data published in 1998 reveals a fourfold increase in divorce from 1970-1996, while the population of cohabiting couples has more than doubled.

The resultant ripples of destabilization from the sexing of America on American culture has been dramatic. Since the advent of sexing of America in the 1960’s we have seen the escalation of crime (Fatherless homes breed criminals), the proliferation of STD’s, and the escalation of mental illness and chronic substance abuse. These are all the consequences that one might expect of a generation raised in unstable families.

The information for this post was taken from Scott Lively’s “Redeeming the Rainbow,” though I have repackaged the language somewhat.

Warfield On Atomistic Hyper-Individualism

“To Paul, the human race is made up of families, and every several organism — the church included — is composed of families, united together by this or that bond. The relation of the sexes in the family follow it therefore into the church. To the feminist movement the human race is made up of individuals; a woman is just another individual by the side of the man, and it can see no reason for any differences in dealing with the two. And, indeed, if we can ignore the great fundamental natural difference of sex and destroy the great fundamental social unit of the family in the interest of individualism, there does not seem any reason why we should not wipe out the differences established by Paul between the sexes in the church — except, of course, the authority of Paul.”

B. B. Warfield

Piggy backing off this Warfield quote it would be easy to suggest that this hyper-individualism that he locates has created more havoc in what was once Christendom then just the problem of Feminism. This hyper-individualism that is part and parcel of our philosophic egalitarianism has broken down all the formerly understood and embraced hierarchical structures of Biblical Christianity. Not only are the Biblically informed hierarchical structures and roles between women and men decimated but also the Biblically informed hierarchical structures between men and men and women and women have been destroyed. This is proven by the embrace of Sodomy and Lesbianism. If men and women are merely integers that are not Biblically defined in their meaning and hierarchical structures then why shouldn’t men go with men and women with women into the boudoir? Another example of this is the recent push for children’s rights. If humans are merely integers that are not Biblically defined in their meaning and hierarchical structures then why shouldn’t the differences between children and parents be eliminated?

And though we’ve been propagandized since the 1950’s not to probe this application, wouldn’t Warfield’s complaint against the human race being composed only of individuals be a cautionary word pertaining to the wisdom of not honoring historic distinctions between cultures and ethnicities? Is it really the case, as the Alienists and Cultural Marxists would have us believe, that just as women and men are undifferentiated cogs so it is the case that men of different nationalities are likewise merely undifferentiated cogs that can be swapped in and out of the Statist created cultural machine of the New World Order? If God has created men and women to be distinct is it so hard to think that He likewise hath made of one blood all nations of men (note the unity in diversity idea) and did determine the bounds of their habitation (note the idea that nations, and so nationalities are distinct)?

I am convinced that this idea of the human race as being comprised only of atomistic individuals — an idea that owes its origin more to the French Philosophes and their Revolution then it does to Biblical Christianity — is an idea that has effected us more negatively than we think or realize.

Top 10 Reasons I am not a Baptist

10.) Doesn’t household mean household?

9.) How do children who are disallowed from the covenant make it a new and better covenant?

8.) Let me get this straight. Does the Baptist really expect me to believe that the Jews were absolutely incensed at the idea that Gentiles were now in the covenant without circumcision but accepted that their children were no longer in the covenant even with circumcision — and they accepted the latter without so much as a whimper recorded in the NT? You want me to believe that on one day Jewish children were included in the covenant and on the next day they had to wait until they were old enough to vote for Jesus on the matter. Hello?

7.) I didn’t wait for my children to ask me into their hearts before I named them and made them a part of my family. Why should I expect God to wait for His covenant seed to ask Jesus into their hearts before He names them in Baptism and makes them part of the family of God?

6.) I can’t get my mind around the fact that Pentecost amounted to the excommunication of children.

5.) “Forbid not the children to come unto me,” must mean something.

4.) If I were a Baptist and required explicit instructions from the New Testament before I baptized infants then I could not give communion to women? Imagine how that would go over.

3.) I read the Bible as one book … one story.

2.) I believe the children go with the parents. Call me old fashioned.

And the number one reason I am not a Baptist,

No one can tell me if I’ve reached the age of accountability yet.

More reasons,

11.) Jesus said infants could be members of the Kingdom of God. I think we can take His word for it.

12.) Who says Infants can’t have faith? Faith is God’s gift after all and He will bestow that gift on whomever He so chooses.

13.) Jesus didn’t say, “You must become as an adult to enter into the Kingdom of God.”

14.) We are saved by faith alone, not by the claim of faith alone.

When Baptists say that what is required is faith, what they really mean is what is required is a claim of faith.