As you may know, over at the Old Life Theological Society Darryl Hart has been challenging the label "Radical Two Kingdoms" affixed to people associated with Westminster Seminary California by Federal Vision-leaning theonomist-reconstructionists (yes, that feeling you're experiencing is irony).I appreciate his point here:
But here is an important point: at least the current advocates of 2k theology, like Stellman, are trying to be self-consciously Reformed about their engagement of Christ and culture, or religion and politics, and do this in a modern context. That is, they draw on redemptive-historical notions of pilgrimage, exile, and differences between Israel and the church, to come up with a 2k theology that disentangles the gospel from a theology of glory, whether proclaimed by the Religious Right or neo-Calvinists. Meanwhile, the theology of glory crowd trots out defenses of state church arrangements from the 16th and 17th centuries, as if committed to them, but all the while embracing Roman Catholics and Mormons in the public square for the sake of a faith-based America.
That’s not radical. It’s two-faced.
Hart's point is that you don't get to call 2K folks historically "radical" if your tolerance of Catholics and Mormons places you closer to us than to Calvin on the Christ/Culture spectrum.
Thoughts?
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