What do you think about the following
article by Gary DeMar, which criticizes the two kingdom approach to society?
I think the article presses an extreme that the only type of Two Kingdom view is one that is indifferent to neighbor and is concerned only with pietistic self-improvement. There are gradations between Anabaptist views of the secular culture being against the Kingdom and the Kingdoms merging to the point that there is no distinction between religious and civil authority.
I agree with the idea that a self-absorbed view of the Christian life that only sees Christianity as dealing with life in the Body as fundamentally flawed. It ignores the requirement that Christians love their neighbor by what the Law positively requires. The Word of God, properly understood, ought to cause us to desire to love neighbor not simply as an evangelical target to get them into a lifeboat and out of the sinking ship of culture.
My love of the image of God in my neighbor impels me to treat those under my authority with care and concern. When I was in command and served in what constituted a magisterial role (with the ability to take liberty away) I could not check my Biblical convictions at the door. I rendered justice in the application of law in order to protect those that had been harmed by the violations of others. I was even able to appeal to the Law written on men's hearts to reprove them of the violation of integrity to sworn oaths to obey lawful orders.
At the same time, however, I distinctly remember a Reformed talk show host in SoCal around 2000-2002 who was so concerned with the Church having a militant role in transforming culture that he once brought a Roman Catholic fellow on his show. The gentleman was concerned that Churches were not preaching enough on the evils of culture and, in particular, the slaughter of innocent children through abortion.
On the one hand, I stand with many who are reviled by the death of millions of innocents. On the other hand, I could not reckon that the group had the right to dictate to ministers the proportion of sermons that had to be devoted to the topic of speaking out about the evils of culture from the pulpit. If they didn't meet this minimal requirement then his group would picket that Church and placard pictures of aborted infants to shame the Church that they were not militant enough in preaching against this evil.
My question to the Roman Catholic when I called into the show was simple: How is a Roman Catholic in any position to dictate to a Preacher of the Word what he is going to preach on? He was shocked that I challenged that he even was in a position to understand the Scriptures and their proper exposition and the host quickly changed the subject rather than get into the issue of whether or not the Roman Catholic Church was even preaching the Gospel.
Interestingly enough, we have a thread right now about whether or not preaching ought to be topical or expositional. If expositional then what is the Minister to do if the text he is faithfully expositing does not preach explicitly on the 6th Commandment? Ought ministers, in this culture, forego expository preaching because the Word does not regularly enough deal with the wickedness we find ourselves in and among? When has the culture ever been in a state where a preacher can leave the topic of wicked men oppressing and killing innocents for it certainly existed at the time of Paul when Roman citizens regularly abandoned unwanted children?
The Word, properly preached, transforms men. Men transformed ought to care about and love their neighbor and be impelled by the love of Christ to love neighbor in vocation and as they engage the culture. Even so, ministers of the Word need to be properly distinguished for the role they serve as undershepherds for Christ's flock. There are evils within the boundaries of the Church and elder care and shepherding does not mean that the minister spends the majority of his energy as the organizer of a Political Action Committee to transform society.
Proper preaching and catchetical instruction of the entire flock will have a quality all their own. Christians of the early centuries transformed the culture around them because they became known as people that would take in infants that nobody wanted. They were ridiculed for the fact that, although in poverty themselves, they would feed and care for another mouth that could give them nothing in return.
I can't quite articulate what I'm trying to say and feel like I'm rambling. I just believe some of us spend far too much time planning for the ideal community rather than starting where we currently live among men and women stumbling about in darkness who need to see that our love for Christ causes us to love our neighbor in ways that is surprising. Are men and women attracted to Christ by the fact that we constantly tell them how stupid they are for being dead in their sins or are we willing to bless them in ways that they cannot understand.
My friends, Matt and Karen, had to return an adopted child to a mother who lives on a reservation and is dead in her sins and trespasses. They returned the child with tears knowing that the mother would likely not care for the baby but had no other choice. They could have railed against her foolishness but, instead, mailed hundreds of dollars of baby supplies and gave instructions to the mother on how to care for this infant. They brought a $200 gift certificate to the mother to buy infant supplies and, in the presence of the lawyers, shared the Gospel to this woman who desperately needed the light of God's redemption in Christ. The lawyers present were moved to tears by the love of a Church that sent forth this gift not because the mother had been wise but because they loved this child and wanted its good and could do no more to bless the child.
That's what the Gospel does.
Caricature to the point of not even being worthy of a response to be quite frank.
