A question about two-kingdom theology....

[Brother John]

A friend mentioned the two-kingdom theology to me and I have tried to read what I could find on it. I have some questions that hopefully my fellow PBers can chime in on.

Does T-K not give the keys to the city gates to our eniemies?

Is not the logical conclusion of T-K a secular/liberal/anti-christian state?

If T-K is correct than does that mean that the Scotish Presbyterians and Puritans are wrong?

 

[Poimen]

1) No the two kingdom theology does not give the keys of the city gates to the enemies because the city of man and the city of God are two distinct cities with two distinct ways of being governed.

2) No because individual Christians can influence government for good as citizens of their nation without insisting on a theonomic/theocratic state for legitimacy of rule.

3) I won't comment on this because I can't speak with authority on the opinions of Scottish Presbyterians and Puritans though I suspect that many would take issue with #1 and #2.

 

[mvdm]

It really depends on what version of two kingdom theology you are asking about, and what you mean by the "keys to the gates". Those keys float around and take different shapes depending on how the terms are defined. There is a Lutheran version, a Catholic "natural law version", a Reformed version, and so on.......

 

[Archlute]

In reflecting upon the second question I thought it to be quite insightful when at one point a fellow seminary student, and a good friend, remarked that "When your positions regarding the civil realm and those of the ACLU consistently mirror one another, then maybe you ought to rethink your position".

It is my belief that two-kingdom theology, at least as it is pushed by some modern advocates, does very much contribute to a secularization of culture, and leaves the church without a voice in the world. I would consider it a Reformed version of pietism. It's just that instead of the Christian retreating from the world to private devotions, it is a retreat to Lord's Day worship. Both private and public worship are important, but casting everything else out of the Christian life is a quick way to kill your understanding and joy of Christian vocation. This, of course, is exactly what is advocated by a few profs at WSC, the idea being that there is no such thing as a "Christian mechanic", or a "Christian governor", etc. The problem with this is that it ignores the fact that one's being regenerate and remade in Christ's image does indeed make a difference in the level of integrity and approach to vocation that the Christian brings. If a mechanic, or lawyer, or other person in a typical vocation brings absolutely nothing different to the table than that of an unregenerate colleague, then I think it is time for us to rethink our understanding of Christianity.

 

[Knoxienne]

In reflecting upon the second question I thought it to be quite insightful when at one point a fellow seminary student, and a good friend, remarked that "When your positions regarding the civil realm and those of the ACLU consistently mirror one another, then maybe you ought to rethink your position".

It is my belief that two-kingdom theology, at least as it is pushed by some modern advocates, does very much contribute to a secularization of culture, and leaves the church without a voice in the world. I would consider it a Reformed version of pietism. It's just that instead of the Christian retreating from the world to private devotions, it is a retreat to Lord's Day worship. Both private and public worship are important, but casting everything else out of the Christian life is a quick way to kill your understanding and joy of Christian vocation. This, of course, is exactly what is advocated by a few profs at WSC. The idea that there is no such thing as a "Christian mechanic", or a "Christian governor". The problem with this is that it ignores the fact that one's being regenerate and remade in Christ's image does indeed make a difference in the level of integrity and approach to vocation that the Christian brings. If a mechanic, or lawyer, or other person in a typical vocation brings absolutely nothing different to the table than that of an unregenerate colleague, then I think it is time for us to rethink our understanding of Christianity.

 

[Poimen]

I also am wary of how this principle is being applied by some of the professors at Westminster West (and I say this as an alumnus) but as a Kuyperian sympathizer I believe it is entirely possible to uphold the two kingdom distinction of Augustine, Luther and Calvin and maintain a distinctly Christian walk in the world. Why? The answer is simple: the priesthood of all believers.

On the other hand I appreciate the emphasis of WSCAL to support/teach the spiritual nature of the church and an avoidance of rash assertions about a variety of subjects that are often more complex than believers make them out to be.

 

[Archlute]

I also am wary of how this principle is being applied by some of the professors at Westminster West (and I say this as an alumnus) but as a Kuyperian sympathizer I believe it is entirely possible to uphold the two kingdom distinction of Augustine, Luther and Calvin and maintain a distinctly Christian walk in the world. Why? The answer is simple: the priesthood of all believers.

On the other hand I appreciate the emphasis of WSCAL to support/teach the spiritual nature of the church and an avoidance of rash assertions about a variety of subjects that are often more complex than believers make them out to be.

I very much agree with you on all points, Daniel.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Well, I didn't go to WSC, and so my approach to the "2K" has been as someone who has seen it from the outside, and has come closer to get a better look. I appreciate many points that 2K advocates make. But too closely identifying oneself with a pre-set of ideas can make it hard to disentangle yourself from the parts you don't like, sooner or later.

And as someone who has had a much closer brush with Theonomy (at one formative stage in my theology), and since found himself more comfortable in a more classic Scottish-Presbyterian reckoning with the law, I think I understand how it is that the more persistent 2K advocates see themselves as the "ant-theonomists". Being an "anti-theonomist" (and an anti-evangelical") tends to cause one's theology to sound on occasion more radical than he is in practice, or in ordinary thought. It's where he goes to make his point.

But I think I'm far more sympathetic than not to the 2K approach, properly nuanced.



I will say that there is a simplistic sort of "polarization" that takes place along cultural fault-lines, which is how I view the comment about being too much on the side of the ACLU. Isn't it entirely possible that this crew can be for something good (like civil liberty) while being philosophically fractured? It's their fracture that makes them hopeless advocates of incompatible notions. But why not recognize when they are actually on the better (if not the best) side of an issue, even if their reasons for being there are not compatible with ours?

We don't have to clink glasses with them if our combined force removes a bad obstacle. We can chuckle that "they helped us in spite of themselves." And they're probably doing the same thing. Trust me when I say that the "left-right" divide in this country has been very good for some pretty devious miscreants whose evil interests lie entirely to the side of these noisy dust-ups.

A hundred years ago, all the "right-wing culture warriors" in the old Presbyterian Church mainline simply hated JG Machen, because he took a "liberal" stance on the Prohibition nonsense, and he did it in print. What else did he do? He testified before the US Congress opposing prayer in Public Schools, and he was unquestionably correct to take that opportunity.

Think he made the right "friends"? Nope, which is why practically no one came to his defense in his show-trial with the ecclesiastical powers. I doubt very much that you will see anyone with comparable credentials piping up to lobby for the destruction of the marriage institution, although the situations have been (inaptly) compared.

But there's a sense that we are fighting the secular battle of today because "conservatives" of the past took precisely the same theoretical stance on using power from the top to ramrod "good Christian" social legislation down the barrel, to make sure the "good old morality" that had simply been the natural (not legal) product of Christian culture stayed in place after the gospel-engine was ripped out of the fabric. That form of legislated morality cannot be enforced by courts forever.

So there's a sense in which some of the 2K guys are simply trying to get Christians to wake up to the fact that trying to change culture (by keeping it from changing) by holding on to power that they don't have grip on anymore, is just the wrong way to try to fight the fight.

Better, to do what I've been saying for some time now, to see ourselves as living in circumstances like that of the 1st century Christians, determined that if Christ should tarry, their great-grandchildren would inherit a much nicer world for them having toiled and suffered through it. Because thinking that we can just reverse the present trend in order to recover the 1950s (for the ante- and anti- Psychedelic 60s types), or the 1850s (for all the ante-bellum neo Confederate types) is nothing but living in the past.

 

[Glenn Ferrell]

Affirming the position of Calvin, Knox, Westminster and the Puritans is not the equivalent of Theonomy, nor an endorsement of the myth of “Christian America” or American civil religion.

The basic questions are:

1) Does the civil magistrate have an obligation to punish public violations of the first table of the law (first four commandments)?

2) If not, where in scripture is the civil magistrate exempted from such obligation?

The duty of magistrates, its nature, as described by the word of God, and the things in which it consists, I will here indicate in passing. That it extends to both tables of the law, did Scripture not teach, we might learn from profane writers, for no man has discoursed of the duty of magistrates, the enacting of laws, and the common weal, without beginning with religion and divine worship. Thus all have confessed that no polity can be successfully established unless piety be its first care, and that those laws are absurd which disregard the rights of God, and consult only for men. [John Calvin, Institutes, IV:20:9]​