A Better Two Kingdoms View

[greenbaggins]

I firmly believe in the spirituality of the church. However, what does that mean? For some, it means no interaction with anything going on in politics, government (or much of anything else!). For others, it does not. For a rather insightful, careful, and measured article, I think this piece deserves some careful consideration. Thrown in there is an interesting review of Sean Lucas's recent history of the PCA.

 

[mvdm]

For background context, this latest Tuininga piece expands on an earlier entry in which he critiqued the views of Clark and Hart on the topic:

https://matthewtuininga.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/the-gospel-is-social-and-we-need-to-get-it-right/

 

[AndyS]

Does Tuininga think that Horton's view of 2K is different from Clark's and Hart's view? (That last paragraph seems to suggest that to be the case.)

 

[mvdm]

Does Tuininga think that Horton's view of 2K is different from Clark's and Hart's view? (That last paragraph seems to suggest that to be the case.)

I don't know why, but yes, he does think that.

 

[greenbaggins]

Does Tuininga think that Horton's view of 2K is different from Clark's and Hart's view? (That last paragraph seems to suggest that to be the case.)

I don't know why, but yes, he does think that.

The answer to this question is in the piece I linked to (implicit, not explicit).

 

[earl40]

Lane may I ask who are the ones called to make and train disciples in Tuininga's view? I ask because I tried to discern such but was unsuccessful.

"Our call is make and train disciples of the gospel of Christ, a gospel that is spiritual even as it is comprehensive, a gospel that saves individual souls even as it promises the restoration of all things in Christ."

 

[mvdm]

Does Tuininga think that Horton's view of 2K is different from Clark's and Hart's view? (That last paragraph seems to suggest that to be the case.)

I don't know why, but yes, he does think that.

The answer to this question is in the piece I linked to (implicit, not explicit).

So implicit as to be imperceptible, at least to this reader.

 

[MW]

So implicit as to be imperceptible, at least to this reader.

I couldn't find any two kingdom view in the article. Mention of Calvin and the Westminster Confession looked promising, but I was looking for some explanation as to how church and state as distinct institutions might co-operate.

 

[ZackF]

Not to derail the thread, but I wouldn't mind some recommendations for my reading queue on the Two Kingdoms. Because of the controversy surrounding the issue with what R2K/WSCAL-2k scholars and other personalities write it would be helpful if the work dated before say 1980. Is there an older fairly non-controversial work laying out a plumb-line 2K view point? I've always thought I was 2k in belief but the matter seems so slippery.

 

[earl40]

So implicit as to be imperceptible, at least to this reader.

I couldn't find any two kingdom view in the article. Mention of Calvin and the Westminster Confession looked promising, but I was looking for some explanation as to how church and state as distinct institutions might co-operate.

In the USA?

 

[MW]

Not to derail the thread, but I wouldn't mind some recommendations for my reading queue on the Two Kingdoms. Because of the controversy surrounding the issue with what R2K/WSCAL-2k scholars and other personalities write it would be helpful if the work dated before say 1980. Is there an older fairly non-controversial work laying out a plumb-line 2K view point? I've always thought I was 2k in belief but the matter seems so slippery.

Bannerman's Church of Christ has a few sections dealing with the relation to the State. Gillespie's 111 Propositions is the classic formulation from a Presbyterian perspective.

 

[ZackF]

Gillespie's 111 Propositions is the classic formulation from a Presbyterian perspective.

Thank you. Found it and am printing it now.

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

For an American view Stuart Robinson has probably the "classic" 2K from a non-establishment, non-Klinean 2K position in his work "Church of God".

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I firmly believe in the spirituality of the church. However, what does that mean? For some, it means no interaction with anything going on in politics, government (or much of anything else!). For others, it does not. For a rather insightful, careful, and measured article, I think this piece deserves some careful consideration. Thrown in there is an interesting review of Sean Lucas's recent history of the PCA.

Thanks for posting this. I've been wrestling with the very same issue that Tuininga is wrestling with in this Ref 21 article.

These issues are very complex. In fact, I've realized just how complex they are as I've been studying Church history more extensively.

For a moment, I'd like to stick with Lucas' latest book For a Continuing Church. It's recommended reading for anyone to see the trajectory from social concern to the social Gospel.

What I've been wrestling with, however, is that the difference between the Social Gospel and appropriate concern for our fellow man (as Christians) is the difference between a false Gospel and a true Gospel. In the PCUS, for instance, the "birth" of what became a slide into the social Gospel was actually not unorthodox in the conception that man was essentially fallen and needed the Gospel to be transformed. In a sense, the transformation of individuals would have consequences on society but the Church's mission was, fundamentally, about Word and Sacrament and the visible Kingdom of God in the Church. Because Southern Presbyterians occupied an outsized influence in the political and social institutions that ought to have had a positive impact on society even though I do not believe that societies are "saved" or "redeemed".

What I really think happened in the slide of the social Gospel was a concurrent slow abandonment of orthodoxy into modernism. I've come to the conclusion that heterodoxy takes root because men don't want to be perceived as impolite and it's frightening for me to consider parallels in our own context. Churchmen were generally disinterested in the system of doctrine and men were allowed to continue in pulpits (because they were popular) or remain in teaching positions (because, after all, he said he subscribes to our system of doctrine.

What is left after a Church slides into modernism is a social Gospel. Men are not sinful but do bad things because of systemic evil.

You'll have to forgive us unsophisticated folk who look at the end result but a Church on a modernist foundation is all about the transformation of society and social justice because that's all that's left once the doctrines of Original Sin and Justification and Sanctification are tossed out as "fundamentalist". All one has left is the love of neighbor due to a moral example theory and, if Jesus is the Son of God, it is more the ideas that he expresses about how man is supposed to love man and societies are to strive for more justice.

This is where I disagree a bit with Sean Lucas in his book. He repeatedly points out that, even as the Conservatives were arguing for the spiritual nature of the Church that they were still speaking about transforming society and fighting communism, etc. He tends to articulate that as a form of hypocrisy because many of these men were justifying the racial injustices under the auspices of the spiritual nature of the Church.

I'm not defending those who had theological blind spots but I do think that a person rooted in the real Gospel can argue for the spiritual nature of the Church while still speaking to social issues. The difference is that this true Gospel is not the modernist Gospel that sees nothing of the spiritual nature of the Church because all that is left is the gospel of social transformation.

So the first thing I want to note is that I don't necessarily think it is inevitable that a Christian Church's engagement with society is inevitably doomed to sliding into the social Gospel. I think it is something that we need to be cognizant of but the real danger is the abandonment of Christian orthodoxy because social ills or the transformation of society is seen as most important.

OK, so let me shift trails a bit.

One of the things that has caused me a lot of concerted thinking is reflecting upon the theological blindspots of some men who I otherwise think of as heroes. Before anyone accuses me of ravaging Southerners I actually think that it's a blindspot for America as a whole. The irony is that, after all the "social concern" of the mainlines, mainline Churches are not racially integrated. I think that only the Gospel can reconcile some longstanding problems that are a part of American Church History.

I have to say that I thought I knew a bit of what it was to be Southern having lived in the South on an off but I realized I did not grow up breathing the air. I'm a military brat and don't have a personal sense of the way things emerged and felt in that region of the country.

Reading Lucas' book was very helpful for me to see some of the consequences of some societal and theological assumptions.

I've always known that there were some bad things that happened during the Civil Rights era but I guess I was taken a bit off guard by how this translated to people we might otherwise think of as the "conservative good guys" in Southern Presbyterianism.

Now, this issue is very complicated because you had a lot of really bad theology and anarchist behavior mixed into this. It's easy to look at this in hindsight and think that we know exactly how we might react.

Yet, there were some things that needed to be repented of. Bad theological ideas about the mixing of races (which continue to this day in the stupid theology of kinism) were important themes.

I even realized, after reading the book, that Martin Luther King was pretty much perceived the same way most of us think about Al Sharpton.

But, in the midst of all that, there were Conservative Presbyterians that were engaged in Church and social activities that did not accord with loving one's neighbor as yourself. They had the political and economic power in certain communities and prevented black people from things that we would consider are basic issues of human dignity as those created in the image of God.

Sean Lucas came to speak in Richmond a few weeks ago and it was a very good presentation followed by an opportunity to meet with several elders (black and white) afterward to talk through this. It was probably the first time I really got a sense of how existentially important it was to the black people present that someone say: "These conservative Presbyterians (some of which were founders of the PCA) sinned against their fellow men at a crucial time when they really needed Christian men and women to stand with the suffering." Did these men need to engage in anarchist activity? No. Did they need to abandon their theology? No. They had examples in men like Bill Hill who cared deeply for the Gospel but were also counter-cultural in the inclusion of blacks and whites in the Presbyterian Evangelical Fellowship.

I'm not writing this to stand in moral superiority to these men. They suffered greatly for Christ in other ways. If anything what it teaches me is to be fearful of the ways that I assume I'm always on the side of the angels with respect to my fellow man.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose is that these conversations about what is the true 2K view are important but one option I fundamentally reject is the notion that we can just retreat into the confines of what happens on Sunday and assume that if someone in our Church is fundamentally harming a neighbor by his social or political actions that this is no business of the Church. If you want to call it R2K then let's call it that but that view is fundamentally what Black Christians did *not* need from conservative Presbyterians. They needed Presbyterians who had informed consciences who could say: "I may not agree with you theologically but I will also not contribute to your suffering but help you in any way I can." I wish it was more the case that we could engage as citizens to other Christians and show them a better way than turning their hopes to a social Gospel because they have lost the true Gospel.

Do you know that most black people in the South think of Presbyterians as fundamentally racist? There is a historical reason why that is the case and part of that history we (I say that so I don't pretend like I'm not part of the Church) need to own. When you stand in a place where you can help someone and use the spiritual nature of the Church to give you permission to keep certain people from moving into your neighborhood or to keep certain businesses from opening because the owner is black then that has fundamental consequences in a society. You bring that reputation to your Church. The Church is tarnished with the reputation you have made for it because you do not obey the Law of God in loving your neighbor as yourself. The Church that ignores this consequence is foolhardy.

It absolutely breaks my heart to think that part of the reason that our good theology is somewhat inaccessible to many minorities is that we've fundamentally tarred its reputation because we failed to be transformed by that theology.

OK, I have to end this now because I really don't have the time to write everything I'm working through. I'm just processing a lot right now. Don't read this as me jumping on the social gospel bandwagon. That said, merely defending orthodoxy is no guarantee that you're always on the side of the Lord.

 

[KGP]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Rich. I appreciate how you describe the slide toward the social gospel, it is a reality we live in for sure, pretty accurate to me.