What makes someone "Radical 2k"?

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“All are agreed that the "two kingdoms" paradigm was worked out within the historical reality called "Christendom," which is nothing more than a friendly relationship between church and state as they both function to glorify God. The Gelasian theory of the two swords understood that civil and ecclesiastical power were distinct but connected. Calvin and the reformed tradition adopted and developed this paradigm with a view to properly distinguishing the different foundation and function of civil and ecclesiastical power, but in such a way as assumed that each worked for the mutual benefit of the other. We now have a situation where "Christendom" has broken down, or there is at least a theory of political philosophy which requires the church and state to be completely separate. Reformed people have addressed that situation from a number of different perspectives in the last century and a half. In the process the "two kingdoms" teaching has been lost or confused. Some in the reformed community are attempting to revitalise the two kingdom paradigm while insisting on the complete separation of church and state. Their starting point is contradictory to the starting point of Calvin and the refromed tradition. They believe the two kingdoms are two separate spheres of activity and require two different ethical approaches; they go so far as to say that principled pluralism is the most consistent outworking of the two kingdom paradigm and regard the "Christendom" ideal as incoherent. This is a paradigm shift. The very state of affairs which called two kingdom thought into existence is regarded as an incoherent and inconsistent application of two kingdom thought.” -MW
 
jwright82 said:
From what I can gather from your post, it is a "dichotomist" view of church and state that makes one R2K? I don't know what you mean by that, could you elaborate?
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It is a radical separation of God's law that makes it R2K. The moral law should have authority in both spheres of the Civil and the Church. They are both responsible to the Moral Law as they are responsible to God.
 
A.Joseph said:
“All are agreed that the "two kingdoms" paradigm was worked out within the historical reality called "Christendom," which is nothing more than a friendly relationship between church and state as they both function to glorify God. The Gelasian theory of the two swords understood that civil and ecclesiastical power were distinct but connected. Calvin and the reformed tradition adopted and developed this paradigm with a view to properly distinguishing the different foundation and function of civil and ecclesiastical power, but in such a way as assumed that each worked for the mutual benefit of the other. We now have a situation where "Christendom" has broken down, or there is at least a theory of political philosophy which requires the church and state to be completely separate. Reformed people have addressed that situation from a number of different perspectives in the last century and a half. In the process the "two kingdoms" teaching has been lost or confused. Some in the reformed community are attempting to revitalise the two kingdom paradigm while insisting on the complete separation of church and state. Their starting point is contradictory to the starting point of Calvin and the refromed tradition. They believe the two kingdoms are two separate spheres of activity and require two different ethical approaches; they go so far as to say that principled pluralism is the most consistent outworking of the two kingdom paradigm and regard the "Christendom" ideal as incoherent. This is a paradigm shift. The very state of affairs which called two kingdom thought into existence is regarded as an incoherent and inconsistent application of two kingdom thought.” -MW
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Good post. My only question would be, doesn't the fact that Calvin and such were working out two kingdom theory within the late stage of Christendom and modern theories are working it out within pluralism? Hence a different historical context entails a different theory?
 
Ed Walsh said:
Well, maybe...
And as you know I prefer to refer to 'pluralism' as 'polytheism,' which is of course what it is. All law is religious.
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Oh I agree, all worldviews are religious in nature. But all these worldviews exist in people living in a neutral space. We all have jobs, start families, etc. Keep the economy going, vote. All that stuff is within a neutral sphere, the common kingdom.
 
jwright82 said:
We all have jobs, start families, etc. Keep the economy going, vote. All that stuff is within a neutral sphere, the common kingdom.
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How is this possible, given Genesis 1:28? How is there any "neutrality" anywhere? Unless, of course, by "common" you simply mean "something we all do." That’s different than neutrality, though.
 
Taylor Sexton said:
How is this possible, given Genesis 1:28? How is there any "neutrality" anywhere? Unless, of course, by "common" you simply mean "something we all do." That’s different than neutrality, though.
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If by neutrality you mean spiritual or epistemological, than no there is no neutrality. But space, as I pointed out, is neutral. That's all I meant. The kingdom is common. Does that make more sense?
 
jwright82 said:
If by neutrality you mean spiritual or epistemological, than no there is no neutrality. But space, as I pointed out, is neutral. That's all I meant. The kingdom is common. Does that make more sense?
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Yes, my apologies. I misread you. My inner Van Tilian had a visceral reaction to the word "neutrality." ;)
 
Taylor Sexton said:
Yes, my apologies. I misread you. My inner Van Tilian had a visceral reaction to the word "neutrality." ;)
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My thoughts on Van Til, and this whole debate (I started a whole thread on it for others opinion), are as any great thinker he was multifaceted and so it's no surprise that his warrior children are divided on how best to interpret/develop his thinking. One side emphasizes the absolute antithesis (which in the extreme results in not being able to communicate with the unbeliever), the other emphasizes common grace (which in the extreme results in basically absolute neutrality with some Vantillian buzzwords thrown in for taste). I think he lies more in the middle. It was his way of analysis that gave rise to this, I think Frame and Poythress are right in their perspectival interpretation of him. From one perspective he seems to agree with strong antithesis, from another strong common grace. But if you keep both poles in mind and his method of analysis it makes more sense.
I for one have rejected the idea that he gave an absolute argument (in the traditional sense) for Christianity in favor of an absolute method of apologetics. The difference is this captures the fact that when he talks of this proof he does it from different angles, hence more of a method.
 
If you want to take a wholly pragmatic position the only way for the Reformed faith to be in America and to remain a purer form may be the Benedict Option. This is essentially how we are functioning anyway, except it’s worse than that. We are not even maintaining a Benedict Option mentality, the secular culture is in our drivers seat. If only we would maintain a type of Benedict Option.
 
A.Joseph said:
Then call it something else. I think Luther and Calvin were right. And I believe Jefferson’s anti-Calvinist take on separation of church and state defaulted to a higher criticism form of Unitarian Christianity as the most acceptable and progressive form of faith. This ushered in blatantly false Christianity, and eventually a rebirth of paganism and even satanism as potentially equal in recognition and accommodation. So if I’m stuck in the past, so are you.
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I don't know about Satanism, maybe you know something I don't. So what would your alternative be?
 
A.Joseph said:
If you want to take a wholly pragmatic position the only way for the Reformed faith to be in America and to remain a purer form may be the Benedict Option. This is essentially how we are functioning anyway, except it’s worse than that. We are not even maintaining a Benedict Option mentality, the secular culture is in our drivers seat. If only we would maintain a type of Benedict Option.
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If you're talking about the whole "works out" thing, it's not Pragmatism. It's like this, Mao couldn't transplant Marx's ideas as they worked out in Russia onto China without tweaking the theory to make it work (as far as getting people to go along with it). The Great American experiment hasn't had the same success in places where we've transplanted it, that was formally a dictatorship. It's made things in a sense better but it hasn't been as successful as here. So the language of "working out" is not in reference to pragmatic ways of thinking but in how one takes concepts and ideas and try make them work out historically in a cultural context.
For instance you can't just say Calvin's Geneva did this so we must do that too, it might not work. But taking the ideas that lay behind the practical actions and seeing how best to incorporate them into our society and culture is what I'm referring to. Does that make more sense?
 
A.Joseph said:
First, do you realize that you are allowing the non religious to set the agenda? They’ve been doing it for a while now; why do we adopt their language and foundations?
Thomas Jefferson was a religious humanist. You are under a false premise that there is a form of neutrality. See the pluralism project. ... http://pluralism.org/about/our-work/mission/
There is no neutrality or coexisting. They (the powers that be) are seeking out eradication. The enemies are at the gates and they are not looking to engage, they are seeking to legislate our demise. Why are you seeking an alternative? Why are you seeking appeasement where preservation is required? We are not influencing anything if we implode from the inside.Thats the pressing concern, not establishment principles or 2KT.
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Since I clearly denied neutrality both spiritually and epistemologically I have no idea what you're talking about. You know there is difference between saying neutral space, which is what I said, and neutrality spiritually and epistemologically which I denied.
No coexistence, that's weird we seem to be coexisting just fine, not perfectly but good enough. That sounds a little warlike to me, I'm sure you don't mean to give off that impression.
 
If heads of church and seminary continue to account for pluralism, I don’t see how our true identity and distinctiveness isn’t erased in the process. I’m not concerned with changing anything. I guess I would leave it to you to offer something in which we don’t lose anything in the process.

First we legitimize pluralism, eventually we find ourselves on the wrong side of it. I know there’s an instinct to adjust and change our emphasis, but is it worth it?
 
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The ancient Jews wanted Messiah to come, so they could finally get in the driver's seat. They understood this to be an inevitable outcome of his ascendancy. They wanted to tell *unbelievers and idolaters* what to do, instead of it always being the other way around.

And now, quite apart from there being any substantive rationale found in the NT that it should fall to the church to take up those expectations, Christians nonetheless spend significant energy attempting to "bring in the kingdom."

Or, feeling as though there was some old-time glory-day when the kingdom was better approximated on earth, they scheme for getting back again what privilege or protection they think they had, as an entitlement.

Even going so far as to say that it was most proper to have (at length) obtained it as the rightful inheritance of the church, and so any alienation of their property (i.e. social status) constitutes a loss; which recovery ought to be the duty-business of all good Christians.

The means of the recovery are inevitably the weapons of the world--sometimes weapons of physical violence (which many of the same mind repudiate), but other times weapons of legal violence--but significantly, all wielded (it is claimed) on behalf of the spiritual church and for righteousness' sake.

That which has happened in 2000yrs of church history, and particularly the heritage of most of us westerners, tends to be viewed as the "best possible outcome" thus far, and signs of how everything was meant to turn out, except for some recent reversals.

The quest for reason "why those reversals" often leads to proposals such as that the church has slipped up somewhere, or is losing because it is complacent, or this is all a big test for the faithful, who only need to "step up to the battle line" and contend with lawful means, and so reassert Christian control of the cultural rudder.

What if the church's realized prospect in the West has simply been one way it has muddled along in the world for two millenia, and churches in the East (and other directions) have had their own successes and failures?

What if the western church has also failed in the midst of its progress? Maybe having a hand on the rudder was, not a mistake per se, but opened up an avenue of temptation for men to assume that it was "meant to be" in the sense of inevitable advance of Kingdom cause.

Because, having lost the tiller, an awful lot of energy and treasure is being spent to take it back, on the assumption that Christians were "made captain" at some past moment (because... they knew where things were going?).

Those who ruled, who claimed to be Christian: does history show them to be noticeably superior in that role? Has the relatively short-lived American experiment in republican and democratic ideals, infused with Christian virtues, been any better at its job than the Roman and Greek expressions from Classical times? Has it been any better than monarchies and other forms (also infused with Christian salt-and-light) in other times and places?

I say the answer to all those questions is: no. All Christians and the church can BE is salt-and-light. All believers can DO is theorize and "wing-it" in contest for hearts and minds with the best the unbelieving world can come up with.

The institutional church should maintain its independence from control by external governments; but then it has to give up any inclination to pursue control of other governments, contenting itself with offering biblical counsel in extraordinary moments.

It's nauseating to see the positional jockeying and the photo-ops of the current crop of standby "spiritual advisers" to the D.C. masters. They think they are both indispensable and ordinary counselors; oblivious to how they and their followers are being used. They are under-the-influence in more ways than one.

The extraordinary counsel the true church offers worldly elites is not likely to be listened to. Its chief value is for its own members; and for those times when later it may be said, "You should have listened," Act.27:21.

And when it is listened to (even belatedly), the danger is that this "success" will lead to the ordinary polling of its counsels, and the eventual promotion of ecclesiastical ministers to positions of State ministers.

When this "triumph" is achieved, the prophetic mission of the church is already fatally compromised. There will be no end to the eager "yes men" (and women) who will scramble for those places, from which they will tickle the ears of officialdom. Only rarely will there come an Elijah to confront the king.

This is the pattern, folks. Sometimes it takes only a single generation; other times the movement is much slower, undulating over centuries. When matters take ages to reach crisis dimensions, hardly anyone alive can imagine how the church was once a foreign Kingdom's embassy.

That identity never really changes, though it may be forgotten. All this concern that Christians (or A Christian) won't have a certain kind of moral influence on people outside of the church ignores the fact that the impact on the world of "doing the right things" will forever have a mixed character.

That's what Jesus and his apostles told us and wrote to us to explain about life in this fallen world, a place destined to roll on its broken way until the Second Coming. Sometimes we'll have peace, our good citizenship rewarded. Sometimes we'll have tribulation, and unthankful leaders and minions will make ruin of us.

One administration will have a Christian as its face, another will have an enemy of Christ, another will have a pretend Christian, another will see an enemy converted while in his office, another will apostatize.

Today, those who call good evil and evil good want to enforce "good behavior" on all their citizens, even the Christians. The attitude of those in charge seems to be: "You Christians forced your morality on everyone in your salad days; and now you complain when it's our turn to call the shots?"

We might reply: in old time laws were commended by us and good conduct compelled by government independent of any religious preference. However, in fact Christianity was at times summoned to prop up all sorts of decisions, as a way of adding "moral fiber" to strengthen them.

So now, what once might have been an "innocuous" appeal, has been turned into condemnation. Past use of Scripture to defend slavery (even if such appeals were found on both sides of the question) is trotted out as evidence of Christian duplicity, of giving moral cover to horrible abuse.

The power to tell other people what they may and may not do, and what they must do, is intoxicating. Not many who attain it use it wisely, nor have professing Christians proved exceptionally competent.

Eagerness to reclaim the levers of authority, couched in terms of moral renewal and pious principle, is often just eagerness.
 
jwright82 said:
The Great American experiment hasn't had the same success in places where we've transplanted it, that was formally a dictatorship. It's made things in a sense better but it hasn't been as successful as here.
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Why is that exactly? Do you know?
 
In the reformed, historic 2K view of Gillespie, Rutherford, and others, they were addressing a society with Christian magistrates and so called on those magistrates to uphold the Law of God. Chris Coldwell said in one of the threads I linked to earlier, "but I don’t think one can say either way that they (the Westminster divines) held that all magistrates as magistrates should be held to account to the law as revealed in Scripture for their ruling. At the very least George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford would view that kind of argument led to Erastianism... Rutherford’s view was that while the Christian Magistrate should look to God’s law in Scripture, the standard for heathen magistrates of nations to whom the Gospel has not come, is to look to natural law. Coffey in his book on Rutherford opines that Rutherford was perhaps a bit optimistic in just how much of the ten commandments and applications could be derived from nature, but Rutherford does affirm it is a dim source."

Chris went on to say, "...While it is a guess, I suspect Rutherford would look far differently on apostatizing nations and magistrates that still have a history of Christianity and culture to reference. I suspect he’d preach repentance and say to expect persecution, and would not think that we should let the apostate magistrate off the hook for the standard of the heathen magistrate’s natural law. He discusses this in Divine Right of Church Government. As I say, it is pretty wrapped up with his view of the two fold nature of Christ’s Kingdom and combating Erastianism."


Matthew Winzer commented in that same thread, "I recognise the obvious fact that we live in societies which are self-consciously aiming to be post-Christian. My point in relation to the post-Christendom appropriation of the reformed "two kingdom paradigm" [referring to R2K] is that it rejects the native soil of the paradigm while it feeds upon the fruit which has grown out of the soil. That is, it rejects the principles of Christendom while relying on the intellectual distinction and benefit which has grown out of those principles. It is epistemologically self-defeating.

"What is a post-Christendom society? It is one which speaks the language of Christianity but strips the language of its original and meaningful referent -- the Lord Jesus Christ. We have ideals, values, morals, laws, and judgements, which have emerged from the influence of Christian, and especially Protestant, faith and life, but the principles of Christianity and Protestantism are being challenged and rejected. Hence, while I am bound to recognise the obvious fact that we live in what calls itself a post-Christian society, I cannot accept the propaganda that the social good requires us to deliberately move beyond Christianity into the unknown. It is self-defeating to accept this propaganda.

"Ideas like liberty, equality, fraternity, are natural law ideas, that is, ideas which presuppose the revelation of "God" in nature. The Christian and the non-Christian will compete to fill those ideas with the content of their own systems. The Christian cannot accept the content which the non-Christian pours into those terms because the acidity of that content burns a hole in the very bottom of the ideal. The Creating and Redeeming God of holy Scripture alone cements these ideals and values. That being the case, as we believe therefore we should speak, and ought to resist society's "onward march" to perdition, call upon it to repent of its wicked imaginations, and return to the living God Who gives us all things richly to enjoy."

These were interesting thoughts to me, just thought I'd post them.
 
Ed Walsh said:
Why is that exactly? Do you know?
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Historians have pointed it out. There were some (on the political right mostly) who thought if we just give we just spread democracy to third world dictatorships they will be better and be our allies against communism. That hasn't always worked hence experiment, it doesn't always work. I believe it waz Montisque, defeninantly didn't spell that right, was French and wrote a book about it. I think he compared the French revolution to the American and why one was had more bloodshed than the other. I believe so.
 
Hasn’t faithful Reformed churches and denominations been on the fringes of society for at least half a century? I don’t think we are even much on anyone’s radar. Outside the brief neo-Calvinism phenomenon, we’ve been reduced to pockets of influence. Invite people to church, love your neighbors and pray to remain faithful in doctrine and practice at home, local community, work, etc. That’s 2KT. I support when James White gets up before local officials to express concern over pro-abortion legislation, or when denominations address their legislatures when appropriate. I think the true spirit of 2KT and even the establishment principle should remain very much alive. It would be easier to compartmentalize my faith but agree that there are dangers in attempting to politicize it at this point. I would agree with Hart that it can get complicated but not sure we have to make any major adjustments either.
 
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Jeri Tanner said:
In the reformed, historic 2K view of Gillespie, Rutherford, and others, they were addressing a society with Christian magistrates and so called on those magistrates to uphold the Law of God. Chris Coldwell said in one of the threads I linked to earlier, "but I don’t think one can say either way that they (the Westminster divines) held that all magistrates as magistrates should be held to account to the law as revealed in Scripture for their ruling. At the very least George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford would view that kind of argument led to Erastianism... Rutherford’s view was that while the Christian Magistrate should look to God’s law in Scripture, the standard for heathen magistrates of nations to whom the Gospel has not come, is to look to natural law. Coffey in his book on Rutherford opines that Rutherford was perhaps a bit optimistic in just how much of the ten commandments and applications could be derived from nature, but Rutherford does affirm it is a dim source."

Chris went on to say, "...While it is a guess, I suspect Rutherford would look far differently on apostatizing nations and magistrates that still have a history of Christianity and culture to reference. I suspect he’d preach repentance and say to expect persecution, and would not think that we should let the apostate magistrate off the hook for the standard of the heathen magistrate’s natural law. He discusses this in Divine Right of Church Government. As I say, it is pretty wrapped up with his view of the two fold nature of Christ’s Kingdom and combating Erastianism."


Matthew Winzer commented in that same thread, "I recognise the obvious fact that we live in societies which are self-consciously aiming to be post-Christian. My point in relation to the post-Christendom appropriation of the reformed "two kingdom paradigm" [referring to R2K] is that it rejects the native soil of the paradigm while it feeds upon the fruit which has grown out of the soil. That is, it rejects the principles of Christendom while relying on the intellectual distinction and benefit which has grown out of those principles. It is epistemologically self-defeating.

"What is a post-Christendom society? It is one which speaks the language of Christianity but strips the language of its original and meaningful referent -- the Lord Jesus Christ. We have ideals, values, morals, laws, and judgements, which have emerged from the influence of Christian, and especially Protestant, faith and life, but the principles of Christianity and Protestantism are being challenged and rejected. Hence, while I am bound to recognise the obvious fact that we live in what calls itself a post-Christian society, I cannot accept the propaganda that the social good requires us to deliberately move beyond Christianity into the unknown. It is self-defeating to accept this propaganda.

"Ideas like liberty, equality, fraternity, are natural law ideas, that is, ideas which presuppose the revelation of "God" in nature. The Christian and the non-Christian will compete to fill those ideas with the content of their own systems. The Christian cannot accept the content which the non-Christian pours into those terms because the acidity of that content burns a hole in the very bottom of the ideal. The Creating and Redeeming God of holy Scripture alone cements these ideals and values. That being the case, as we believe therefore we should speak, and ought to resist society's "onward march" to perdition, call upon it to repent of its wicked imaginations, and return to the living God Who gives us all things richly to enjoy."

These were interesting thoughts to me, just thought I'd post them.
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Wow! I liked that.
 
A.Joseph said:
Hasn’t faithful Reformed churches and denominations been on the fringes of society for at least half a century? I don’t think we are even much on anyone’s radar. Outside the brief neo-Calvinism phenomenon, we’ve been reduced to pockets of influence. Invite people to church, love your neighbors and pray to remain faithful in doctrine and practice at home, local community, work, etc. That’s 2KT. I support when James White gets up before local officials to express concern over pro-abortion legislation, or when denominations address their legislatures when appropriate. I think the true spirit of 2KT and even the establishment principle should remain very much alive. It would be easier to compartmentalize my faith but agree that there are dangers in attempting to politicize it. I would agree with Hart that it can get complicated but not sure we have to make any major adjustments either.
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You seem to have an axe to grind against (America, contemporary churches, R2K?) I'm not sure. I don't see what paganism or Satanism have to do with when someone moves from being simple 2K to R2K? Which was the op.
 
Ed Walsh said:
I think you missed my question. I asked WHY it worked here and not there. Do you know? I think I do.
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Sorry. What I've read was that we were already pretty free. So when king Goerge, was it, needed to pay for his war he taxed us (which was legal) so we rebelled. But we were already pretty much free, so it worked. The interesting thing about it was the difference between our revolution and the French revolution was that for us the church wasn't part of the problem. So for us religious liberty made the church nothing more than supportive or silent maybe.
But the French were revolting against both church and state, who were in cahoots. Which is why, at least to one historian, the Jocobian faction (atheists) were able to take over and the reign of terror began and than it took a dictator Napoleon to bring order.
Two different trajectories one with the church as part of the problem and the other where it wasn't. That's probably simplistic but it's what I've read.
 
A.Joseph said:
You seem to have a blind spot regarding the American experiment. I believe the fruit of that experiment is what moved you toward R2K and will probably send you to RR2K before long. The seeds were planted... https://mereorthodoxy.com/john-calvin-thomas-jefferson/
“His later embrace of Unitarianism in fact allowed him to continue his loathing of historic Christian teaching like the Trinity that he found so essential to Calvinism. Both Deists and Unitarians found the divinity of Christ and associated doctrines–the Virgin birth and the Incarnation–revolting. Jefferson’s fear of the Calvinists was not without reason.”
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I don't think that I'm R2K, and I don't know what RR2K is, really radical 2 kingdom maybe? But what I gleaned from your post was an implication. If I'm wrong please correct me. So the father of our right to religious freedom only inserted it for nefarious purposes, to undermined true religion and corrupt the common good? That's seems to be what you've been laying out in your case against America.
Since you really haven't laid what R2K is, outside of liking America, I don't see how I can be that.
 
No, you’re fine. As far as Jefferson is concerned, I guess he followed his heart, and we’ve benefited from the freedoms we’ve been granted.

I don’t want to derail your thread anymore than I have. It sounds like you are concerned with reaching those outside the church and those are pure motives. I tend to be guarded and I am more cautionary about change even if it seems more practical. So I’m probably not the best person to discuss this with, sorry if I wasted your time.
jwright82 said:
I don't think that I'm R2K, and I don't know what RR2K is, really radical 2 kingdom maybe? But what I gleaned from your post was an implication. If I'm wrong please correct me. So the father of our right to religious freedom only inserted it for nefarious purposes, to undermined true religion and corrupt the common good? That's seems to be what you've been laying out in your case against America.
Since you really haven't laid what R2K is, outside of liking America, I don't see how I can be that.
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