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“… there was a dialectical (P and not P) tension between the Pietist impulse to flee the world into a new monasticism and its opposite, to identify the Christian faith with present social concerns.”

R. Scott Clark 

Let’s get this straight. On one hand Scott is telling us that it is surrender to the “Pietist impulse” when Christians retreat from the world. On the other hand Scott is telling us that at the same time it is to surrender to the “Pietist impulse” when one insists that Christians must champion the idea of Christian culture. So, per Scott, when one retreats one is giving in to the dreaded Pietist impulse, and when one engages the culture in a uniquely Christian fashion one is afflicted with the dreaded Pietist impulse.

But wait … there remains hope in shedding ourselves of Scott’s boogeyman Pietist impulse. We can embrace Scott’s R2K and go all schizophrenic. Scott would have us shed this Pietist impulse by splitting our selves in half in order to pursue the hyphenated life. Scott’s prescription is  for us to withdrawal, per monasticism, in our grace realm living while we should be fully engaged in our common realm living. According to Scott’s Escondido R2K theology the answer to the Pietistic impulse is to become schizophrenic.

My prescription for Scott is pharmacological. In order to cure his schizophrenia I recommend either a return to Biblical theology or, failing that this good Dr. prescribes some Thorazine in order to cure the schizophrenia that ails the R2K of its gnostic hyphenated life.