If it was our duty to redeem culture or apply Christian teachings to society, the end result would not be in keeping with the vision of Right-wing Republicanism. A study of Europe and the rise of Christian Social Teaching (of which Abraham Kuyper is the Reformed representative) reveal that those wrestling with these questions are just as likely to come to very different conclusions than what has emerged within the American theological and political spectrum. For these Americans, 'Biblical' turns out to be something that arose within a specifically American context and mindset.
This does not mean that such Christians should or would invoke or implement 'social justice' teachings as they all too often rely on the same kind of Enlightenment categories invoked by the advocates of libertarianism, market capitalism, and much more.
Van Dorn errs in associating these impulses with socialism and communism. He's merely echoing Right-wing narratives within the context of the modern American GOP. As I and others have long argued, a great deal of contemporary identity politics does not flow the font of Marx but from individualist consumer capitalism in a stage of decadence and from inherent problems within the very liberal framework of American democracy. After generations of tension, the system has begun to break down, its unsoundness has been at last revealed - on both sides of the political spectrum.
His premise quickly collapses when he invokes Westminster's threefold division of the Law - a paradigm that has no Biblical warrant and can't even stand up to basic scrutiny. The Law was never treated that way, and the ad hoc method used by these people to appeal to 'civil' equity and the like is also without basis and represents a defective understanding of redemptive-history and the purpose the law served - and certainly what the New Testament says about it.
The threefold model is both the result of bad exegesis and false steps made at the level of prolegomena. Westminster's approach to the law is a classic case of Scholasticism producing a system that is outwardly coherent and yet unbiblical. In this case it constricts the categories, producing tightly defined building blocks that do not reflect the dynamism and layered way the Law is revealed in the text. It's a case of bad theology that has only stood the test of time because men within the Reformed faction have placed this man-made document on par with Scripture.
His use of the Decalogue and the 1st and 2nd Table classification of its laws is arbitrary and also unsustainable as taking the Lord's name in vain (for example) brought about so-called civil punishment. Likewise adultery and killing had 'ceremonial' implications. The assumption that the Decalogue is an absolute and unchangeable expression of the eternal or universal law is also without warrant as it is cast in specific Old Covenant form related to the narrative of the Exodus. Once these points are understood, along with the problems related to the threefold division, his whole premise collapses.
Additionally, apart from the Sabbath command, it is cast in negative terms. The New Testament exceeds this in its expectation of the Christian life, ethic, and duty. The Decalogue is not nearly enough (one might say) if one wishes to express 'the Law' in the New Covenant. Further, the Sabbath is fulfilled or at the very least if it's changed - then the Decalogue is not universal but a contextual form expressing some eternal truths to be sure, but limited.
This is not to say that killing, lying, stealing, committing adultery, or taking the Lord's name in vain are therefore permissible. Such arguments which are commonly levied against those who don't accept the Westminster legal paradigm are either disingenuous or display a kind of impoverished understanding of the broader concept of the Commands of God.
The spiritualizing of the law (not the ceremonial law) that Van Dorn speaks of reveals that it has been fulfilled and cannot be appealed to in a literalistic sense. It remains covenantal as the Church in Christ fulfills the promises concerning Israel. All of these discussions and wranglings over the law and its application to society are off base - and the New Testament says as much in the various epistolary passages dealing with the Judaizers.
Van Dorn takes a major leap in logic to apply the 'second table' mutatis mutandis to an extra-covenantal nation. He begs the question as seen in this statement:
Isn’t there a moral principle here, however, that might apply to America or any modern nation when they are thinking through what civil laws to enact? Sure there is.
No there's not, and a number of New Testament passages repudiate his assumption. The call to mind our own business and lead quiet and peaceable lives comes to mind. We pray for kings and yet we don't pray for changes to tax codes or economic policy. We may do so indirectly but such instances are not on the basis of hoping to make the society more godly. They are issues of pragmatism or mercy at best. Babylon can't be made into Zion.
Van Dorn seems to have forgotten that the law is spiritual, the commandments of God are foolishness to the lost and they cannot follow them. Paul says, what have I to do with those who are outside? God will judge them. Paul is not concerned to eliminate social evils like slavery but rather for Christians to know how to live in such a context.
The concerns Van Dorn expresses and the questions and logic that flow from them are nowhere to be found in the New Testament. Therefore this is not an exercise in exegesis but speculation. As an American, Van Dorn cares about these things and so he's determined to make the New Testament care about them as well. And its clear that such thinking has muddied his thoughts and distorted his understanding of ethics as well.
There were no secular nations in the Old Testament, I'm not sure why he would suggest that. As he knows, the nations belonged to their gods and are condemned for their idolatry and their wickedness. They are not in a redemptive covenant with God and are never judged by the standards of that covenant - which includes the Mosaic Law (and thus the Decalogue).
They are sundered from God with the Fall and have failed to uphold the Noahic Covenant of Common Grace (a point we'll return to momentarily). What basis is there to think that nations that are broken off from God can be 'restored' (whatever that means) to godliness by borrowing from the redemptive covenant given to Moses - a covenant the New Testament says is fulfilled and obsolete?
The basis for their judgment by the prophets and elsewhere is limited to a standard that is never specifically spelled out - and yet it is discernible. We don't need to know the details and we're not told them. Basically it's related to their rejection of God, pride, exploitation, violence, theft, murder, and adultery. It is admittedly akin to what some call the Second Table of the Decalogue but it's something more - and yet definitely not the full Ten Commandments - which is indivisible. Jehovah is not 'their' God in the same way He is for Israel. They were not redeemed from Egypt and they could not (even were they to try) keep Sabbath.
Van Dorn touches on these issues later in the article but insists (without basis) that they are still part of the Decalogue framework. Why does he assume it can be segmented? Or worse he seems to suggest that it belongs to another universal covenant - I suppose he'd find some Louisiana politicians who would agree with him.
There are significant disputes over the nature of the Covenant of Works as it is never specifically spelled out but rather is inferred and deduced. Van Dorn is using this as a springboard to promote his paradigm when in fact it's not the prelapsarian Edenic order that would apply, but rather the second phase of what some term the Noahic Covenant, itself the subject of dispute.
I am willing to grant there is some validity to the Covenant of Works paradigm though there's no basis to suggest that Adam and Eve had the Decalogue in the Garden. This is inferred based on the wrong-headed assumption that the Ten Commandments are the eternal moral law of God ergo it must be the law they had in the Garden.
Rather than understand the Noahic as a universal covenant a more careful reading reveals it two-fold nature - God invoking the redemptive covenant with Noah in chapter 6 while what emerges in chapter 9 is sometimes referred to as a non-redemptive Covenant of Common or universal Grace. The so-called Creation or Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1 is basically eliminated as the world of East of Eden is no longer the Kingdom or Holy Realm. God would later re-establish a typological presence in Israel, anticipating the Church but the dominion that man exercised in the Garden was wrecked by sin and is now a realm of fear, dread, antagonism, weeds, a blood-realm of hunters and hunted. The seed of the world would no longer be holy, that would only apply to one of Noah's offspring - Abraham. The remnant that presumably existed in the post-diluvian context is something we're not told about - the Book of Job is likely the most informative regarding that epoch and the nature of religion and what Kline calls the 'altar communities'.
Death is defeated by Christ at the eschaton. There's no rebuilding the Garden in this age. The rebuilding (as it were) is done by the Holy Spirit and yet our participation in the new Zion-Eden is eschatological and in the Spirit. Only the regenerate can see the Kingdom or experience it.
The fire-water judgments described in Isaiah 24 are in keeping with the post-diluvian language and the later apocalyptic associations with fire - depicted in well known terms in the New Testament. Genesis 9 is the key to Isaiah 24, not Genesis 1. And the passage reveals the vanity and futility of this age - hardly a clarion call to grab some bits (ad hoc) from the Mosaic Law and attempt to dress up the fallen nations. To what end is this foolishness?
But the most simple question is this - where in the New Testament are Christians told to appeal to the Covenant of Works (or perhaps this undefined Eternal Covenant) and apply it to the nations? Paul was under pagan Rome and couldn't - 'but he would have' we're told if Christians could hold office, vote, or whatever. If the New Testament intended this, then where is it? If this was the big plan all along, why is there no expectation of it. There are plenty of verses that indicate otherwise.
If this command is not there but obligatory nonetheless, then the Scriptures are not sufficient and authoritative. It would seem we need philosophy and tradition and maybe a magisterium to define this body of thought in authoritative terms. Sola Scriptura begins to quickly evaporate - which is the de facto reality in our day. This is despite the fact that almost every church in the Magisterial Protestant tradition insists that they base their beliefs and practices on the authority of Scripture. The reality is none of them do and for most this reality has spread to other realms of thought and theology, and they fail to see in fact how far they have departed from Scripture.
They don't hold to Sola Scriptura and neither does Van Dorn if he insists on pursuing this line. He would (presumably) argue that he bases his civil vision on the Old Testament - but not really as what he proposes is in the end nothing like Old Testament Israel.
But fine, it's a vision many seem to hold or wish for in our day. But if it cannot be verified or demonstrated from the New Covenant writings and the methods used by Christ and the apostles, then the New Testament is effectively being degraded and is at best an other-than exclusive authority. That's a big part of the issue here - is the New Testament authoritative and does it interpret the Old, or is it merely on par with the Old and at times (depending on the issue) it must effectively bow to the Old. This is what we see in Theonomy, Postmillennialism, and Dispensationalism - systems I argue are guilty of theological Judaizing. And while Van Dorn avoids the worst expression of this error, he has embraced it in principle. How odd (at least to me) that he would thus remain a Baptist - but that's another topic for another time.
I will grant him kudos for his attempt to make this argument for civil religion - it's a better articulation than what is commonly found out there but in the end, it collapses at the starting gate.
I'm confused over his appeal to Apartheid which actually grew out of Kuyperian and Dutch Reformed thought and was developed by very deceived men seeking to apply God's law to their society. The confusion he laments is exactly what he is promoting. I guess he is unable to see that. I'm not suggesting that he's advocating Apartheid as clearly he repudiates it. But I am suggesting that it was this kind of thinking about the law, culture, and kingdom that led to that error.
And if he thinks the application of God's law and the promotion of godliness is found in alliance with a blaspheming, criminal, rapist, adulterer, thief, and murderer, then he needs to go back and read not only the Old Testament over again but the New as well. His concern for civil religion has smashed his ethical compass to bits. Trump is by definition a lawless person if ever there was one.