John Locke’s Vision Of Religious Tolerance … McAtee’s Exposure Of Locke’s Error

“Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated.”
 
John Locke

A Letter Concerning Toleration

I think what we find above is what today is embraced by many who styles themselves as advocates of “Principled Pluralism.”

1.) These types of chaps are all for toleration and pluralism of religions in one social order as long as it principled and so reasonable. However, the minute one advocates for “principled pluralism,” and a “reasonable toleration,” one has rejected a pluralism that could include a religion that insists “Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me,” for a religion that insists, “Thou Shall Have Other Gods Along With Me.” You see, the God of the Bible does not allow for “reasonable tolerance,” or for “principled pluralism,” because a reasonable tolerance does not allow for His intolerance and a principled pluralism does not have enough plurality in it to allow for a God who allows no plurality.

2.) Locke denies toleration to those who tolerate the denial of the being of God. Subsequently, Locke affirms that the public square can be flooded with all the gods of all those who affirm the being of God. Only atheists it seems, need not apply. The problem here is that the position of allowing all the gods in the public square is not a great deal different than allowing none of the gods in the public square. If all the gods are in then no God is really God and so the State is the only entity left who must decide how far any one of these different gods are allowed to go in the public square. In essence Locke’s position makes the state the God over the gods.

3.) Locke forbad the atheist from creating a system that forbad all religion but he ended up creating a system that likewise forbad all religion except the religion that had the State as its head, determining how far any one god or god could or could not go in the public square. This is where Locke’s system eventually led. Locke’s principled pluralism finally did what he feared the atheist would do … Locke’s principled pluralism destroyed all religion save the religion that announces that “in the state we live and move and have our being.” We live in the condition that Locked feared … “all is dissolved.”

4.) Locke, like many today, did not understand that religion is an inescapable category wherein one and only one religion must dominate. The religion that Locke bequeathed to us, through our Founders, is a religion wherein the God of the Bible is not allowed to be the sole God over the public square. Instead, Locked bequeathed to us a system where the State, acting as the god over all the gods in the tolerant public square, determines what is and is not allowed in terms of morality, religion, and law.

5.) It is true that the atheist can “have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration,” but what Locke didn’t also see as true is that the principled pluralist can “have no pretence because of his tolerance principle whereupon to challenge the privilege of any god, from Allah to the Talmudist Demon God to Buddha to the Flying Spaghetti Monster God, to the God of the Mormons (much the same as the previous one mentioned) the privilege of toleration.” If all the gods are welcomed in then none of the gods are welcomed in. If all the gods are welcomed in then the state must be the GOD who rules over all the gods.

6.) In the last clause Locke basically says other religions can be allowed in a social order as long as they mind their own business. The problem here is that it is the very nature of religion to establish domination over others and so Locke is saying… “As long as other religions do not do what religions do they can be tolerated here.” That doesn’t strike me as a very good principle by which to support principled pluralism.

Principled pluralism was not a good principle even when the whole nation was still largely a nation consisting of squabbling protestant denominations (with Maryland as Roman Catholic and Rhode Island as Anabaptist) each seeking hegemony (Rhode Island finally won). It’s even a worse principle today when the whole “nation” consists of squabbling religions, the chief of which is the religion of no religion — those who call themselves “atheists,” or “no-religion.”

The Principled pluralism of Locke wanted a nation that allowed for tolerance and the presence of sundry expressions of Christianity. What it eventually birthed was a nation that has the presence of sundry religions with no tolerance for the one true religion of Christianity.

Some Praise For The Prophet Of Leaky Dispensationalism

Years ago I did a deep dive on Dispensationalism. I read over the course of time;

“Prophecy & The Church” – O. T. Allis
“Wrongly Dividing the Truth” – John Gerstner
“The Incredible Scofield & His Book” – Joseph Canfield
“Life Of Edward Irving: Fore-Runner Of The Charismatic Movement” – Arnold Dallimore
“Understanding Dispensationalists” – Vern Poythress
“Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” – Marvin Rosenthal
“House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology – Bahnsen & DeMar
“The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” – O. Palmer Robertson
“Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God” – Keith Mathison

These are the ones I remember. I know there were other titles I can’t remember now. I also read many books arguing for Covenant theology in general.

Because of this study I’ve been adamantly opposed to Dispensationalism in all its expressions. Gerstner goes so far as to say it is heresy. Allis’ work is perhaps the most devastating to this “theology.”

It is because of this foursquare opposition to Dispensationalism in all of its varieties (even of the so called “leaky Dispensationalism variety”) that I find it difficult to join in with the legions of Baptists and others who are now mourning the death of John MacArthur.

That is not to say that I am not a little bit saddened. It is to say that my sorrow is not anywhere near where it was when Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Van Til, Gordon Clark and others died.

As it pertains to MacArthur I respected his stand against Charismania and anti-nomianism (even though he fell into neo-nomianism in opposing anti-nomianism). I saluted MacArthur when he took on the Church growth movement and tore it apart. I saluted MacArthur when he refused to qualify his opposition to sodomy and other tough issues like the absolute requirement for a known Jesus Christ in order to be redeemed. These were issues that many other guys like Tim Keller or Billy Graham or Robert Schuller were constantly trying to nuance to death. To MacArthur’s credit he did not do that. I saluted MacArthur when he warned his Seminary students that it would be hard sledding in the ministry given all the opposition that they would have to spend their whole lives fighting. I could identify with that one. Of course, MacArthur stood against California Gov. Newsome during the Covid issue in Newsome attempt to keep the Churches closed. MacArthur was one of the few who did so. That perhaps, was MacArthur’s greatest moment.  In many respects John MacArthur was a man who could be admired because of these qualities.

I also admired him a wee bit because my Father-in-law admired him. Rev. Anthony Lombardi owned series after series of MacArthur’s taped sermons. I have that collection now sitting in my office. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to one. I always believed that I had better things to read or listen to, but my Baptist minister Father-in-law was smitten with John MacArthur. That stands to reason though since they were both Baptists and they were both Dispensationalists and they were both more than a little put off by the seeker sensitive movement.

For myself, I only ever read MacArthur’s book on Charismania and his two books on Lordship salvation issue. I thought Richard Gaffin’s book was better on the Charismania issue and I thought Mike Horton’s book was better on the antinomian issue. Also, several of the Puritans put faith in justification and faith in sanctification in a far superior way to MacArthur’s take. Still, that MacArthur was willing to take on the issues spoke in his favor, even if he didn’t get it completely correct.

Also, MacArthur clearly helped thousands upon thousands of people through his preaching, and writing. That is a good thing.

However, having said all that to honor him, I do pray that ministers who embrace leaky dispensationalism as did MacArthur did not will no longer be a presence in the Church today. I say this because I do not think Dispensationalism is a proper understanding of Biblical Christianity. I think the theology of that school is a hindrance to the furtherance of the  Christian faith.  It is sub-Christianity. If you read Allis and Gerstner they would say it is anti-Christianity.

Remember, it was MacArthur who boldly told his legion of followers that “We lose down here. Get over it.” This pessimism is a direct result of MacArthur’s leaky Dispensationalism. As long as the clergy believe that the Church and the Christian faith will be defeated in space and time history that defeat will become a self-fulfilled prophecy. The Church doesn’t need more clergy like MacArthur who not only believes this but who still think that the eschatological clock is tied to modern Israel and that we have an obligation to support Israel and is still looking for the Temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt. These characteristics of Dispensationalism need to be eternally put to rest.

So John MacArthur served his generation and now has been gathered to his fathers. We praise him for his strengths while not ignoring his weaknesses.

 

Meg Basham … Not A Wise Person

“Some people caught in this particular sin (sodomy) are lovely, kind, and brilliant people.”

Meg Basham
Author — Shepherds For Sale
Evangelical Female Algophile

This demonstrates how much sodomy has been accepted. Would Basham say the same thing about people caught in sin of necrophilia or bestiality?

She wouldn’t say that because necrophilia, bestiality, and pederasty (as just three examples) aren’t yet socially acceptable. But because sodomy is now socially acceptable one has to confess that at least some sodomites can be lovely, kind, and brilliant people.

Further, per the Meg Bashams of the world, if we don’t agree with her on this then we are being a hindrance to the conversion of these otherwise lovely, kind, and brilliant sodomites.

People like Meg Basham seem not to realize that sodomy is an expression of a serious mental disorder/disease. Do we commonly say that folks with serious mental disorders/disease can be otherwise lovely, kind, and brilliant people?

It’s all so twisted.

Now, having said all that, I don’t deny that some sodomites, no doubt, can be more lovely, kinder, and more brilliant than others when judging on a scale of comparison. However, that doesn’t mean that the means of converting them is ignoring their mental disorder/disease. One of the prerequisites of conversion is being confronted by God’s Law so that those in rebellion to God may see their rebellion that they might see their danger with the consequence that they might flee to Christ for His protective righteousness. Presenting the law to sodomites regarding their sodomy is the very definition of “loving them into the kingdom.” It is not loving them into the kingdom, contra the Meg Bashams of the world, to avoid reminding them of the wrath of God that is upon them for their sin.

Because of their mental disorder/disease I don’t want to see sodomites in place of public responsibility. I don’t want to see the sodomite Scott Bessant as head of the Federal Reserve and I don’t want to see him their because he has a mental disease and I don’t care how good he might be with money. I don’t want to see Rick Grenell as an advisor to the President in any capacity and I don’t care how brilliant he might be on foreign affairs. He has a mental disorder/disease that disqualifies him from that position.

The Meg Basham’s in the church are likewise a disease on the church. I know they are well intended and probably the kind of people you want as Nannies or Au-pairs for your children. But they have no business influence public policy with their inability to understand the world.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe Warring Against R2K … McAtee Warring Against All 2K Thinking

“‘Radical two kingdoms'” is radical only in separating nature/grace, general/special revelation, first-table/second-table, secular/sacred, and nature/scripture. The Reformed distinguished these without separating, and so they could affirm Christian nations, Christian magistrates, and Christian laws. In political thought, r2k is the least radical option. It is nothing but modern conservatism established as fixed, timeless principle rather than something prudential. Late 20th century conservatism is made the timeless politics of Jesus.

Otherwise intelligent people bought into this recent iteration of “two kingdoms” looking for some theological and tradition-based justification for their modern secularist political ethos.”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe
X 

In political thought R2K is the most radical option because it embraces the classical liberal world & life view born of Enlightenment categories and reasoning and insists that such a libertarian view is Jesus normative for all times and places. R2K isn’t even Reformed, instead really being Anabaptist. If you will recall the Anabaptist movement was that movement now called the Radical Reformation.

Secondly, we would say that the Reformed did distinguish and not separate but they were only able to do so because they were living in a context that already presupposed Christianity as the starting point. The West no longer presupposes that and so political theory, like Stepen Wolfe’s “Thomism” will not be able to provide a unified theory of what it is that Natural Law teaches about political thought in the context in which we live today. This is proven by the fact that Wolfe here is warring against those who share his same Thomistic starting point. Both Wolfe (with his historical 2K view) and Escondido (with its R2K view) both are appealing to Natural Law and two Kingdom thinking and both are coming to diametrically different conclusions. Wolfe is here insisting that R2K has unnaturally divorced nature/grace, general/special revelation, first-table/second-table, secular/sacred, and nature/scripture but of course Dr. David Van Drunen and the R2K lads will just insist that Wolfe’s historical 2K school is unnaturally not seeing the proper distinguishing that must be done.

This battle between Wolfe and Van Drunen really is a sight to behold. They are each suffering from an unbiblical dualism and yet Van Drunen is essentially saying to Wolfe that Wolfe’s problem is he is not consistent in his dualistic world and life view.

In the end it is better to speak of One Kingdom, One Lord, with varying Christ ordained jurisdictions. This delivers one from this hopeless warfare of how much dualism is enough dualism while avoiding a monism that might arise without recognizing any jurisdictional distinctions ordained by the Sovereign God and His Christ.

Dr. Richard Gaffin On Eschatology … Rev. Bret McAtee on Dr. Richard Gaffin

“This period between Christ’s resurrection and return, the period of the church, is distinctively and essentially eschatological; it is, in fact, as we have see, a phase in the coming of the eschatological kingdom. That kingdom significance of the church is apparent by reading Mt. 16:18-19, in the light of the great commission (28:19-20); the keys of the kingdom are to the doors of the church.”

Richard Gaffin
In The Fullness of Time — p.80

On the whole I agree w/ this quote by Gaffin but there is something subtle here that is going on that I do not agree with in the least. You will note, if you read carefully, that what Dr. Gaffin is doing here is that he is compressing into one reality the idea of the church and the Kingdom making those ideas to be synonymous.

I do quite agree that the times we live in — the times between Christ’s ascension and His return — are indeed eschatological times. Indeed, it can be rightly said that we have been living in the last days since the Ascension of Christ and the last days of the last days since Christ’s AD 70 judgment return. We wait only now for the final day. However, all of our living now is eschatological. The kingdom has come and while the fullness of the Kingdom awaits we, who have been united to Christ already have the fullness of the Kingdom in principle as we have died with Christ, been resurrected with Christ and are seated in the heavenlies (ascended) with Christ. The “not-yetness” of the kingdom should not eclipse the already and nowness of the kingdom. Like Tolkien’s elves in his trilogy we Christians live in two worlds. We live now in the age to come and yet we still live in this present wicked age.

Returning to the idea of church and kingdom we would note that while the Church is part of the kingdom the church is not the whole kingdom. The kingdom is expansive. An argument might be made that the Church is to the Kingdom what the hearth fire is to the home or what the armoury is to a battle but the kingdom is far more expansive and broad than the church. When we limit the kingdom so that it is exactly synonymous with the Church what we do is cut off the leavening power of the Christian message from every other area of life.

This is the difference between postmillennialism and amillennialism. Amills typically want to limit the kingdom to the church while postmills see a dynamic relationship between kingdom and church but do not limit the kingdom to be 100% identified only with the church.