http://web.archive.org/web/20001016110209/www.alliancenet.org/pub/mr/mr94/1994.05.SepOct/mr9405.mjg.TwoKingdoms.html
I responded with the following:
(this is an unedited email)
Interesting article. While I
can agree with much he says, the approach he takes is a bit different. I’m
afraid I didn’t agree at all with his Cain/Abel contrast in terms of the
urban/rural comparison. I know of others who might make much of that argument,
but usually Two Kingdom people are not into Christian Agrarianism. I realize
that wasn’t his point, but his way of framing the issue reminded me of it! That’s
usually found among Dominionist minded folks who have embraced a certain
narrative with regard to Western Civilization and the root of its social
decline.
He seems to hint at what I
might call the Pilgrim Identity and ties that in with the ‘rural’ narrative.
There may be something to that, but it also might be a case of hyper-typology.
The Transformationalist says
we have to make the Common realm into the Holy…we must be involved and permeate
every facet of every sphere.
The Separatist says the
Common Realm is in fact the Evil Realm and we can’t touch it or else we’ll be
polluted.
The Pilgrim (my term) says we
live in the Common Realm and we don’t need to retreat or transform. We live as
salt and light in the community, contribute what we can with a very limited
expectation and also understand that often we can’t participate. In terms of
culture, we can take it if we determine it’s good, leave it if it’s bad. We don’t
have flee or conquer, we simply tarry, build our houses, raise our children,
worship God, and pursue the Gospel imperatives.
I’m not sure Augustine really
held to the views many Amillennialists would ascribe to him. I say this an
ardent Amillennialist. Or perhaps he was just inconsistent. He was what might
be called a flawed giant. His ideas were so massive, so profound, he was so
beyond his era, that he was great and good but also in terrible error on some
points. Obviously if the author’s understanding of Augustine is correct, then
the North African made a terrible mistake and was most inconsistent when he
called upon the Emperor to bring down the sword and ‘compel’ the Donatists.
I thought his concluding ‘profound
implications’ were excellent. There’s some real meat there to chew on…but then
he lost me when he threw in the Neuhaus quote!
An adherent of purgatory, papacy and supererogation hardly grasps the
profundity of Kingdom life.
The paragraph following this
threw up some alarms. As I said I don’t believe in what he calls the ‘evacuationist’
tendency, but I also don’t agree with interpretation of ‘rendering’ the Caesar
nor the call to citizenship. We are to seek the peace of the city and like
Jeremiah said live in it, but Daniel’s service was as a prisoner of war, not a
willing servant.
We can participate in society
as individual Christians. But it’s not the mission of the Church to transform
the society. As Christians we also have to be willing to just walk away when
the society is calling us to do something we cannot do. If we can’t keep the
promise to uphold a law, then we need to say so, not duplicitously affirm the
obligation and then work to try and put a Christian spin or promote a Christian
agenda on the issue. I’m thinking of things like jury duty. There might be
times when we say I can’t judge this case according to the law. The law is
wrong. And if that means we can’t serve on the jury or we’re punished for
contempt….then praise the Lord.
I also disagree with his
interpretation of the Reformation. As helpful as the Reformation was it’s great
failure was that it largely re-embraced the entire Constantinian/Christendom
model. It set about to use power, political power to aid the Church in building
the Kingdom. This was and is a disaster. Calvin’s Geneva, Knox’s Scotland,
Huguenot France, and even the Netherlands under the House of Orange all failed
in this regard. That said I’m not so naïve to pretend the questions of their
day were not difficult and often people found themselves in the midst of
difficulties beyond their control. I heartily acknowledge that. But that does
not excuse them or place them outside the bounds of critique. It simply means
we can have some empathy and compassion. However I find many Protestant
historians tend to accept the magisterial sword working with the Church and
hail it as a good thing and the men who frankly erred in doing this were in
fact heroes. The Reformation was meant to focus on religion but in reality it
was a very real Cultural Revolution that led to almost two centuries of
incessant war. It happened. I’m thankful for it, but it wasn’t glorious and I
don’t wish to pretend it was something it wasn’t…but it was far more than the
author is willing to acknowledge.
Overall a good article. I
largely agreed with him at least in terms of the general thrust. I think he’s a
bit off…much in the same way I would think about Michael Horton and some of the
folks surrounding him. They still retain a Kuyperian element to their thinking.
Their Two Kingdoms theology for the most part overrides it, but as I said in
our conversation the other night…that Dutch fellow is always hovering in the
background. Kuyper’s ghost is almost omnipresent today. I hear Arminian
Dispensationalist radio preachers talking about sphere sovereignty and ‘every
inch’ belonging to Christ. As Dennison recently said…Transformation is the new
orthodoxy. Because of Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson, the ideas of Abraham
Kuyper have overtaken the Church even though very few know who he was.
The author doesn’t touch on
it, but I would have focused on the concept Kline most aptly brings to the
forefront…the distinction between the REIGN and REALM of Christ. Christ reigns
over all…he is the creator, the universal Lord, the sustainer of all. The
entire universe is in one sense his domain. But on the other hand His REALM is
Holy and separate, a meta-realm under the auspices of Spirit-led Redemption.
Kuyperianism and all forms of
Dominionism claim the whole universe as being part of the Holy REALM. They
believe the mission of the Church is to bring this reality into being. They
acknowledge the antithesis but believe it is the task of the Church to
eliminate it. We all agree the antithesis and the dynamic between the realms
will be eliminated at the Eschaton. I would say only the Parousia of Christ
will bring this about. We cannot, nor is it our task. In fact I would go
further and say with Kline that when the Church sets out to embark upon that
task you don’t end up with Zion, but with pseudo-Zion. You never end up with
777, but with 666. Man trying to build the City of God (as it were) ends up
with yet another version of the City of Man. He can dress it up all he likes,
but it always ends up not just a failed form, but a perverted form.
In closing here’s one of my
favourite quotes from Kline:
"Latent in the Apocalyptic symbolism is an even more
direct contradiction of dominion theology's postmillennial eschatology. The
melding of church with the state and its coercive power, the arrangement which
theonomic reconstructionism regards as the kingdom ideal to be attained during
the millennium, is precisely what is anathematized in the Apocalypse as the
harlot-Babylon church, the monstrous perversion of the true church."
Meredith Kline
God Heaven and Har Magedon, pp.186
Meredith Kline
God Heaven and Har Magedon, pp.186
Thanks for sharing that article. I look forward to
your reply.