What's Radder, WSC or BMX?

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?

Where'd You Get That Jacket?!

Over at the Old Life Theological Society,
Darryl Hart questions Doug Wilson's label "R2K"
(radical two-kingdoms) when describing my view
and that of Westminster CA.

Check it out.

The Big Apple Versus The Growers of Big Apples

Always the provocateur, Darryl Hart has written an interesting piece for Front Porch Republic titled "If Cooking Slowly and Growing Organically are In, Why Is Rural Ministry Out?" In it, Hart highlights the irony that amid all our praise of Slow Food and organic food production, our attitude toward ministry is one area in which we are still unabashed city folk.

Signs are not encour-aging ... that the growing concern among evangelical Protestants about the environment is having any effect on their church’s estimation of the people who work on farms and live near them. A recent story in Christianity Today on Tim Keller, a popular Presbyterian pastor in New York City, suggests that for all the desires that evangelicals have to be cutting edge and socially aware, a ministry accessible to the rhythms of farming and local communities does not qualify as hip. The story fawns over Keller for his ability to carve out a multiple-congregation structure in the Big Apple, for a theology of the city that says cites are where redemption happens, and for the model of ministry he exhibits to a crop of younger pastors who aspire to make an impact.

According to the news story, “New York attracts the best and the most ambitious.” Keller senses this and ministers accordingly. He told the reporter, “Suppose you are the best violist in Tupelo, Mississippi. You go to Manhattan, and when you get out of the subway, you hear a beggar playing, and he’s better than you are.” One of Keller’s former colleagues puts Keller’s understanding of ministering in the city this way: “Paul had this sense of, I really should go talk to Caesar. He’s not above caring for Onesimus the slave, but somebody should go to talk to Caesar. When you go to New York, that’s what you’re doing. Somebody should talk to the editorial committee of The New York Times; somebody should talk to Barnard, to Columbia. Somebody should talk to Wall Street.”

(No offense intended to the violinists of Tupelo, I'm sure. I mean, you're from Mississippi, for crying out loud! Surely you didn't expect to best the Big Apple's beggars, didja? Know your place, is what I'm saying.)

Perhaps lurking behind this infatuation with The City (yes, I capitalized it on purpose), Hart suggests, is the desire to "elevate one's status by hobnobbing with the influential" coupled with a "born-again infatuation with celebrity." Then, when you factor in evangelicalism's absolute fear of the ordinary, you've got a perfect recipe (ahem) for the kind of elitism that sees the inexperience of young ministers as disqualifying them for urban church planting while not standing in the way of their ministering to simple farm folk (at least until they graduate from fly-over country to the corridors of power).

Evangelicals are disposed to understand grace and faith in extraordinary categories and so overlook stories of ordinary believers, routine piety, and even rural congregations as insignficant. Discontent with the average and routine aspects of natural life and of grace appears to breed a similar dissatisfaction with humble ministries in places of little interest to the editors of the Times.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The appreciation for the ordinary that amillennialism produces is as difficult to reconcile with postmillennial transformationism as faith is with sight, and as the cross is with glory.

The Unity of the Oh-Pavic: Fantasy or Farce?

In the comments under the previous thread it occurred to me that the unity of the Catholic Church is, in some respects, somewhat analogous to evangelical unity.

“Evangelical unity?” you ask, “Isn’t that an oxymoron like ‘a deafening silence’ or ‘an unbiased opinion’?” Well, it kind of depends. To be sure, “evangelicalism” is not a church, it is a movement consisting of various believers and churches who hold certain beliefs in common, most notably the inspiration of Scripture and the need for personal conversion. When defined in this way, the umbrella of evangelicalism is large enough to provide shelter for millions and millions of Americans.

But of course, the whole thing’s a sham.

In his Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham, D.G. Hart ably demonstrates that “evangelicalism” is a mirage, a façade with little of substance behind it. When you gather together a bunch of widely disparate communions under the very slimmest of criteria, voila! you’ve got a voting bloc. But beyond the flexing of its muscles for the purpose of cultural warfare, there is little significance to any movement that boasts as among its leaders both Joel Osteen and R.C. Sproul.

But imagine, if you will, that the evangelical movement decided to become a church. It then adopts a leader (we’ll go with Hart since the very idea would make him throw up a little in his mouth), subscribes a confession (say, the Westminster), applies for a P.O Box and 501-C3 status, and even comes up with a catchy name like “The Oh-Pavic” (which is obviously short for “The One Holy Protestant and Visible Church”). Can you see it? “Hey, so where do you go to church?” “Ummm… the Oh-Pavic? Where else? (Rolls eyes.)”

Suppose further, if you will, that although the pastors of the Oh-Pavic agree to stick to the Westminster Confession, none of her members are required to actually change their views. So you’ve got a bunch of Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, United Methodists, and Presbyterians all engaged in a group hug while singing “It’s a Small World After All,” despite the fact that the members of the Oh-Pavic have little in common with one another, and even less with their leaders.

My point? The Catholic Church’s institutional unity—which I admit is a better witness than what we Protestants display—still stops short of the ideal doctrinal, spiritual, and moral unity that I can’t help but believe Jesus had in mind in his high-priestly prayer in John 17. And further, the Catholic Church’s unity is little more than what could be achieved by Protestantism with the mere drive to the post office and the filling out of a few forms.

Limited Government Defended

Submitted by Darryl Hart

In theory the two-kingdom position allows for any form of government, from monarchy to socialism conceivably. In practice though, many two-kingdom advocates like myself favor the American form of government which involves at its best constitutionalism, federalism, the separation of powers and limited government. Is there something inherently two-kingdom about this form of governance?

If you believe in the fallenness of man, and you don’t need to be a Christian to do so, then it follows that decentralizing power is a good thing. To consolidate power in one person, office, or government agency may and usually does result in abuse of power for unwholesome ends.

Historically, tyranny of the worst kind has resulted from unrestricted state power. Centralization of the state only makes such tyranny more efficient. Churches have suffered repeatedly from states without limited power. Efforts to make Puritans and Presbyterians conform to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rule produced an anti-authoritarian streak in Anglo-American Calvinism. A similar logic lays behind the concerns of those who would try to protect the authority of parents to rear children according to their own convictions.

Churches and families are not the only sort of mediating structures that suffer when states control more areas of society than they should. Voluntary associations of all sorts, from newspapers to baseball leagues, would not exist if the state were to regulate all aspects of social life.

Limited government is counterintuitive to some because it requires trusting others to oversee their affairs. It also assumes that a measure of order will emerge from a decentralized polity. The economist, Friedrick Hayek, talked about spontaneous order arising from the seemingly disparate efforts of actors with much less authority of the state taking charge of specific segments of society. This was order from the bottom up rather than the top down. If one believes that the health of local communities is crucial to the health of a nation, then limited government is an important way to protect the prerogatives of towns, counties and regions.

The particular aspect of the two-kingdom doctrine that lends itself to limited government is the inherent recognition of two powers, the church and the state (the family is also in the mix). When you already have two authorities you automatically have some limits on each. Living with the idea of two different powers overseeing your life could well explain why 2k folks lean toward the state’s power being restricted. Its power is not the only game in town.

Why Split Doctrinal Hairs?

If you've not yet read D.G. Hart's piece entitled "Jeffersonians All" I would warmly commend it. In it, Darryl draws an interesting parallel between the sentiments expressed by our nation's third President and those of Mitt Romney, the Mormon campaigning for the GOP nomination, in his recent much-discussed speech.

Romney's "Jeffersonian moment," Hart argues, came not when he assured his hearers (as did JFK during his presidential bid) that if elected he would vow to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and not the Book of Mormon or the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Instead, Hart argues:

"The actual Jeffersonian moment came just before his appeal to the separation of church and state. Romney ran through the religious virtues of fellow believers, from the profundity of the Roman Catholic Mass to the prayer life of Muslims. He then said, 'It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions.' The 'great moral principles,' he explained, 'urge us on a common course.' Romney... affirmed Jefferson’s view that theology doesn't matter compared to ethics. An American may believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that there are three persons in one God, or that men and women have the potential to become gods. But as long as he or she believes in the nation's great moral principles they make darned good neighbors."

The irony of Romney's appeal to ethics over doctrine, Hart argues, is that it is usually only employed by evangelical Protestants, or Roman Catholics like Kennedy, whose churches at least affirm the Trinity and deity of Christ. But when a Mormon plays the deeds-over-creeds card, those Christians who are uncomfortable with the idea of a Latter-Day Saint in the White House all of a sudden become very theologically scrupulous and doctrinaire (I mean, the culture war is at stake here!).

For this turning of the faith-based tables Romney should be commended, for he has articulated what many have been thinking all along: Advocates of religion in public life have never cared about doctrinal precision, so as long as one's religion affirms the correct political ideals, then what's the harm?

After all, if the spiritual kingdom is destined to be the handmaiden of the State anyway, then why split hairs?

W2K Part Five: Biblical Dualism

As D.G. Hart has recently pointed out, "dualism" has become a modern-day theological expletive for most transformationists of a neo-Calvinist stripe. The argument seems to be (1) Gnostics are dualists; (2) Proponents of two kingdoms theology are dualists; therefore (3) Proponents of two kingdoms theology are Gnostics.

(Yes, I realize their argument is more sophisticated than that, but brevity is a necessary bedfellow of the blog.)

Listen to this passage from the Westminster Confession:

"Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate (xxxi.4)."

Please notice that there are two distinct spheres of authority mentioned: the Church (which is concerned with spiritual matters), and the State (which is concerned with civil affairs). I pointed out in my last post (half in jest) that there must be some "bracketing" of one's faith involved when one's duties in one sphere are in tension with one's duties in another (such as a civil magistrate who is called to execute justice and to turn the other cheek).

In response to the challenge of reconciling killing people with the sword and killing people with kindness, one anti-W2K commenter argued that, while the State must be merciless, the individual Christian is called to be forgiving (sounds like two kingdoms to me).

The real issue, then, is not dualism at all, but the nature of one's dualism. Sure, if I pit the physical against the spiritual, I am a Gnostic. But if I pit the spiritual against the temporal, or this passing age against the eternal age to come, I am Pauline (Eph. 1:21; cf. Matt. 12:32).

Two kingdoms, two swords, two cities -- however you describe the dynamic, the fact is that though both are intrinsically good and ruled by God, one is fleeting while the other endures forever.

Observant Protestantism

The pietist/confessionalist taxonomy has been the occasion of considerable debate and disagreement here (for a concise explanation and defense of this paradigm for classifying American Protestants, see D.G. Hart's comments after the thread below [his is #52 in case you're counting]).

Confessionalism, rather than focusing narrowly on the use of confessions per se, is actually just code for "churchly Protestantism." A confessionalist, then, is a Protestant whose faith is not divorced from its corporate, liturgical practice (be it in an Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, or Reformed church).

This gives rise to an interesting linguistic phenomenon which Hart alludes to elsewhere: Why is it that Jews and Roman Catholics are usually described as observant or non-observant while Protestants are classified either as true, genuine Christians or formal, dead ones?

This type of nomenclature betrays the latent pietism of much of evangelical Protestantism, for rites and practices like baptism, church membership, corporate worship, and communion are all dismissed as incidental, if not inimical, to "true Christianity."

"The fact that American Protestants do not use the nomenclature of observance," writes Hart, "demonstrates just how complete the triumph of evangelicalism has been" (Recovering Mother Kirk, 247).

But if being Reformed is more than just a state of mind but actually involves participating in certain corporate, religious ceremonies, then perhaps formal, observant, churchly Christianity isn't the bane of Protestantism after all.

And if you think about it, confessionalism's insistence that the Christian faith not be divorced from its ritualistic practice means that the pietist's distinction between creed and deed is not only not a temptation for us, it's not even an option.

Holy Urbanism Old and New

A phrase caught my eye in D.G. Hart's recently-published A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State, in which he writes:

"The redemptive urbanism of the Puritan founders and their American Protestant descendants... repeated the errors of Christendom... [for] the American invocation of the city-on-a-hill metaphor has been at considerable odds with the old urbanism of the Bishop of Hippo [as defended in Augustine's City of God]...." (p. 38, emphasis added).

I couldn't help but wondering if Hart was consciously drawing a connection between the "redemptive urbanism" of John Winthrop, minister and first governor of the Massachussetts Bay Colony and Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. After all, both men share a similar interpretation of the importance of "the City," one which invests a greater redemptive significance in this institution than Hart is comfortable with.

I'll ask the forgiveness in advance of those who cry "foul!" whenever I label transformationists as postmillennial, but I just can't help myself: When both the Puritan founders like Winthrop and advocates of the redemption of culture like Keller were/are equally committed to the transformation of the kingdom of this age into the spiritual kingdom of Christ, how is the former postmillennial and latter optimistically amillennial?

(And Dr. Hart, please feel welcome to flesh out this connection if you choose.)

Transformers and Decepticons

(Forgive the Eighties reference; unless you were or had a kid during that decade, you'll just scratch your head at the title of this post, so if you don't get it, just forget it and move on....)

All the language concerning the "transformation of culture" that we hear in ecclesiastical circles today gives rise to the question, "Just where did this idea come from?" According to Hart, it is part and parcel of pietist Christianity. He writes:

"Throughout the twentieth century, evangelical and mainline Protestants have assumed, thanks to their pietist heritage, that religion has immediate relevance to all walks of life.... [T]he legacy of pietism is a this-wordly form of devotion that... manifests 'the passion to hammer down history, to touch the transcendental, to earth the supernatural in the mundane.'" (Hart, Lost Soul, xxx).

The intended result of pietism, whether liberal or evangelical, is results. When the poor are fed, abortion is criminalized, and X amount of souls are converted, then the gospel has done its (tangible and utilitarian) work.

Biblially speaking, where does this idea that the ministry of the gospel must produce a visibly better society come from? And if this is not the point, then what is?

What Hath Wheaton To Do With Grand Rapids?

In a passage that is sure to raise some eyebrows (which those who know him will agree he revels in doing), Hart further defends the essential difference between pietism and confessionalism by writing:

"The institutional church set confessional piety apart from revivalism's rugged spiritual individualism and low regard for clergy, liturgical rites, and creeds.... In fact, on a spectrum of Christianity that placed creeds, clergy, and rites at one end, and religious experience and personal morality at the opposite end, Protestant confessionalists would be located closer to Roman Catholics than to revivalist Protestantism." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, 50, emphasis added).

At issue here is the nature of the tie that binds (or divides, as the case may be). Is ecclesiastical similarity more important than doctrinal difference? Or does doctrinal agreement transcend ecclesiastical distinctiveness? And if we affirm the latter, we must then answer the question: How much agreement do Reformed believers have with evangelicals, really? Sure, we affirm some basic essentials, but are there not striking differences with respect to soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and various other loci?

Moreover, Calvin's own defense of the Reformation listed worship above justification as the primary example of the need to reform the Church, thereby seemingly giving ecclesiology the upper hand over soteriology (the latter being an outgrowth of the former).

So what say you? Is any paradigm that places Grand Rapids closer to Rome than to Wheaton de facto illegitimate? And if solidarity over "the essentials" trumps churchly concerns, does that not assume that doctrine is formulated in an ecclesiastical vacuum rather than in the context of the community of believers?

Conservative Iconoclasm?

As we've seen, the assumption by both church historians and sociologists of religion is that revivalistic Protestantism (evangelicalism) is a conservative form of Christianity. Yet as Hart points out, this view fails to take into account the fact that the forms such piety takes -- an emphasis on conversion, small group Bible study, evangelistic crusades, and altar calls -- all represent a very novel approach to the Christian faith. In other words, the way most believers today seek to "get religion" is starkly different from the way their forebears did.

The "pietist" and "confessionalist" paradigms for growth in the Christian faith are made into bedfellows, however, by the insistence that whatever is not evangelical is liberal, and whatever is not liberal is evangelical.

Beside the obvious inconsistency behind labeling the religion produced by iconoclastic trailblazers as "conservative" stands the equally obvious question, "If evangelical spirituality consists largely of quiet times and Vineyard-style praise and worship, what does Reformed spirituality look like? And why the insistence that these two brands of piety must be distinct rather than blended?"

Well...?

Liberalism and Evangelicalism: Two Sides of the Same Pietist Coin?

As I highlighted below, D.G. Hart's plea for a reconfiguring of the common two-party division of American Protestants (abandoning the liberal/evangelical division in favor of a pietist/confessionalist one) hinges upon his contention that the agreement between pietists and confessionalists on doctrines such as the authority of Scripture is overshadowed by their disagreement over just about everything else.

What is "pietism"? Hart traces its origin in this country to the revivals of the Great Awakening (1735-1742), and writes:

"The sort of religion heralded by the revivals of the First Great Awakening is chiefly responsible for the triumph of a utilitar-ian view of faith. The itinerant evangelists of these revivals, as well as their successors, transformed Christianity from a churchly and routine affair into one that was intense and personal.... American pietism dismissed church creeds, structures, and ceremonies as merely formal or external manifestations of religion that went only skin deep. In contrast, pietists have insisted that genuine faith was one that transformed individuals, starting with their heart and seeping into all walks of life." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, xxiii).

What makes Hart's argument especially striking is the fact that he places both liberals and evangelicals in the pietist camp. As he and others have pointed out, both parties tend to pit doctrine against practice (hence Rick Warren's call for a "reformation of deeds not creeds"), head against heart, institutional against primitive Christianity, and Paul against Jesus.

What are we to make of all this? Is pietism inconsistent with confessional Christianity? Is there as great a similarity between liberals and evangelicals as Hart argues for? And how ought Reformed believers to conduct themselves toward our evangelical friends across the aisle?

American Protestantism: A New Paradigm

After highlighting the traditional nomenclature with which American Protestantism is usually characterized ("liberal" vs. "evangelical"), D.G. Hart argues that these categories, like King Belshazzar's reign, have been "weighed in the balances and found wanting."

A better way to divide American Protestants, Hart argues, is between "pietists" and "confessionalists" (with both liberals and evangelicals falling into the former category). Hart writes:

"The two-party [liberal/evangelical] interpretation lacks nuance and so lumps together disparate Protestant communions on the basis of a slim set of criteria, such as conversion and social activism. Such a minimalist approach to the various denominations of Protestantism, in turn, ignores such historically important aspects of Christianity as liturgy, creeds, catechesis, preaching, sacraments, ordination, and church government. Ironically, by overlooking these churchly dimensions, the standard approaches to American Protestantism miss what may in fact be a more significant division in Unites States religion -- namely, between believers who distinguish the essence of Christianity from the external practices and observances of it (i.e., pietists) and those who refuse to make such a distinction (i.e., confession-alists)." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, xxvii, emphasis added).

So according to Hart's schema, the agreement that confessional churches have with evangelicals on issues such as the inspiration of Scripture and the diety of Christ is less significant than the disagreement they have over just about everything else.

How does this paradigm play into our discussion concerning the attitude of Refomed believers toward evangelicals? Toward Lutherans? Toward proponents of the New Perspective on Paul?