There is a great deal of confusion out there. This hardly needs to be said but I was reminded again of it on a recent Sunday when talking to a very zealous and proud CREC member who launched into a criticism of Sacralism. He's really opposed to the idea of the Church being intertwined with the government.
I was almost seeing stars listening to him. Now, we can split hairs over the meaning of the term Sacralism. When pressed, he seemed to think it meant that the state was setting policy within the Church which historically is Erastianism - a more extreme form of sacralism to be sure. For a contemporary example of Erastianism, consider how the British Prime Minister and monarch play a role in selecting who the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be - a real conundrum when the PM isn't even a Christian!
To me, the real issue at stake (with regard to sacralism) is the intertwined nature of the Church-State relationship. As I've long argued, the kind of system the Magisterial Reformers envisioned is one in which the magistrate is a Church member and as such he must answer to the Church. If the Church doesn't agree with a policy, then they can call him out and potentially subject the magistrate to discipline and excommunication - thus invalidating him for office. In that arrangement the magistrate doesn't rule over the Church directly nor the Church the state in a direct sense. But indirectly the Church has the trump card.
The original Westminster Confession mandates that the state protect the Church, and it is the 'duty' of the state to help preserve unity and peace in the Church, to suppress blasphemies and heresies, and to prevent or reform abuse in worship, and additionally the Christian magistrate (so-called) has the power to call synods. Under that scenario it might be the state's 'duty' to intervene and remove aberrant Church leaders. These are just standard Magisterial Reformation categories and concepts.
Though the American Church revised the Confession, only a small segment of the Reformed world would take exception to the original Magisterial and Confessional thinking on these points. Most would re-embrace the paradigm if it were possible - if the American constitutional order was ever to change. And those who do take exception (usually associated with Westminster-California) only modify the position slightly by advocating for what is essentially a Lutheran 'Two Kingdoms' view - which is in reality a One Kingdom in Two Aspects model, a paradigm that still falls far short of the New Testament.
The Theonomists who inspired Doug Wilson and the CREC went further in their call for Christian states to specifically adopt the Mosaic 'judicial' laws - as they understood them. This was part of the fallacious 'By what standard?' dilemma as any other model will rely on a mix of tradition, theology, philosophy, and the like. Of course, the same is usually going to be required in order to transfer the Mosaic Law from its ancient and (according to the New Testament) fulfilled and obsolete context to a modern state.
But this CREC man denied all this and said the Theonomists did not want the state to enforce Christianity - which again, was not something specifically Theonomist, but merely historic Presbyterianism.
He said Rushdoony and the Theonomists were Kuyperian and advocated Sphere Sovereignty.
I had to keep pointing out that he was mistaken and he was misunderstanding the nature of Theonomy and even historically Reformed views of the state. While Rushdoony et al. appreciated aspects of Kuyper's teaching, they were actually not on board with some of his basic concepts in terms of the ordering of society. Kuyper's model of Sphere Sovereignty and Pluralist Pillarisation (along with Common Grace) was for a post-Christendom context. He wasn't always consistent and though a Dominionist, he was not Theonomic or Postmillennial.
Upon a little reflection I think the best way to explain these differences is to ask how these camps view the Kingdom being brought in.
The first generation of Theonomists would speak somewhat derisively on the Pietistic Postmillennialism of the Puritans and older Reformed types - the kinds of authors so heavily promoted by outlets like the Banner of Truth. You must remember this was back in the 1980's and 1990's when there weren't so many different outlets, ministries, and the like.
Pietistic Postmillennialism (as described by the Theonomists) looked to the revivalist tradition and believed the world would be transformed and the Golden Age of the Kingdom (as it were) would be brought in through Pentecost-type outpourings of the Holy Spirit, great revivals that would result in mass worldwide conversions.
The Theonomists thought this to be pie-in-the-sky and rather naive. Okay, everyone is converted - so now what? They believed (and some still do) that the most effective task for the Church was to build structures in society that would prepare the way for the Golden Age but also when it arrived - the institutions, laws, and culture would be in place to facilitate it. The Church would be flying blind (as it were) unless a programme was in place to really make the great 'conversion' effective and across the board in terms of culture and society. And so they wanted to think about things like law, government, and culture and start working toward that end. Homeschooling played a big part in that it would allow them to train up a generation, a spiritual army ready to go. As such Christians should have big families and within a few generations, sheer numbers would be able to effect social transformation.
For some - such as the followers of Rushdoony, there was also a narrative of impending social collapse and they wanted to have everything in place so that the new Triumphalist Kingdom could arise from the ashes of a broken civilisation. They weren't just interested in powerful sermons and prayer meetings. They wanted judges, senators, generals, academics, engineers, and artists. This cultural programme would transform and prepare the way for future transformation. It is the means utilised by the Holy Spirit - not just mass conversions.
There's overlap here with Kuyper's view of Common Grace wherein the Holy Spirit works through culture and even pagans within the culture to bring about the Kingdom - the Kingdom again being defined in terms of Christendom or Christian Civilisation.
Kuyper was not postmillennial and so he wasn't looking for that ultimate triumph or Golden Age but believed that Christians were to work toward that end and that a great deal of success was attainable. But for Kuyper it wasn't a top-down programmatic and legislative agenda as per the Theonomists, nor a revivalistic outpouring as envisioned by some of the Puritans and early Evangelical leaders. Rather, he saw the Kingdom in terms of cultural growth and advancement by means of Common Grace and the Church ever shining the light and showing the way. As usual with Kuyper he wasn't always consistent. He formed a political party and became prime minister. He supported the Dutch Empire and its conquests - and the violence required to maintain them.
While it's an oversimplification, I would argue that within this scope of discussion wherein the Kingdom is viewed as manifest and culturally transformative - we have revivalist, legislative, and culture-focused views. And to be fair there would be many that would argue these need not be mutually exclusive.
But then (returning to the discussion at hand) we have the influence of Libertarianism which really began to gain ground in US political culture during the 1990's and early 2000's. The Theonomists of the time denounced and decried it as antithetical to their programme and yet it has flourished. And with the post-2001 fragmentation of Theonomy (marking the death of RJ Rushdoony), there are numerous Libertarian impulses and factions at work. Some may still wave the Rushdoony banner (so to speak) and yet have functionally abandoned all that Theonomy advocated. They embrace Right-wing thinking and have (contrary to Rushdoony, North, and others) conflated American ideals concerning rights with their vision of a Christian America.
The Theonomists themselves were always quite clear - the US Constitution is not a Christian document. Some advocated changing it making it more explicitly Christian while others recognized the whole thing (being built on a Liberal foundation) was flawed and needed to be dispensed with.
Evangelicals have tended to treat the founding documents as Deutero-Canonical and this kind of thinking has trickled into today's 'Theonomic' thought. The conversation revealed to me that Theonomy is becoming an increasingly meaningless term and while groups like the CREC find their roots in Theonomic Postmillennialism it continues to permutate. For some (like the gentleman in question) the vision of a Christian society is a kind of hybrid, a mix of Right-wing nationalism and Christian legislation, and yet the treatment of personal rights and liberties is to be regarded as sacrosanct. It doesn't work and such models are riddled with internal contradictions. A modus vivendi might be reached in the context of a social consensus but that was shattered long ago - long before the 1960's.
Ironically as some have marked the 100th anniversary of the 1925 Scopes Trial, it's worth reflecting on what the contest represented. It was something of a scam to be sure - a set up. But culturally it was a clash of values. The social consensus was already broken. Already there was an emerging urban, modernist, and largely educated class that was in conflict with rural culture and its homespun values. And so even 1925 doesn't mark the shift - but rather an event in which already extant realities were being brought to bear on to the public stage. A great deal would happen over the next forty years bringing us to the point of acute crisis in the mid-to-late 1960's.
The CREC man in question obviously holds to Libertarian-leaning views and is thinking in terms of rights and the US Constitution. He wants Church and State to be separate and yet at the same time (and completely inconsistently) he wants Christian legislation and for society to be transformed. He spoke repeatedly of his postmillennialism. He is (to say the least) very confused and I'm starting to wonder how common this is in groups like the CREC. It's obvious their churches have been flooded by people not really understanding what they're about. The same is true of New Calvinism and thus it's no surprise to see so many deviations and defections.
He also was quite candid that their congregation is divided over Right-wing political matters with some embracing extremism - some even flirting with ultra-nationalism that has led a growing number to reconsider World War II-era fascism and the entire post-war order. These folks wrongly trace the post-1945 societal transformation to some kind of globalist conspiracy that led to the 1960's counter-culture, feminism, homosexuality, and the rest. For them, the Axis powers of Germany and Italy and their allies (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Spain, Vichy France, and some in Ukraine) were defending an older conservative and Christian order. There is an argument to be made but it all rests on a false premise - that there is such a thing as a Christian order, Christendom, and the like. Of course many advocates of the paradigm rejected these fascist regimes as being nationalist deviations, perversions of the ideal. It's complicated to say the least and there's little hope of solid reflection or understanding when people are learning this stuff on social media and via YouTube videos.
Somehow Rushdoony got turned into a Libertarian - an absurd notion. I finally asked him point blank - "Have you read Rushdoony's Institutes?" He admitted that he had not. I have a sneaking suspicion he's read very little at all.
Chaos and confusion is everywhere and its spreading. And then you have men like this making videos, teaching others - and they in turn influence others. It's almost like someone has to be broken and really humbled to finally reach the point and say - I don't know and I'm going to start over from square one. I was there some thirty years ago. I started over by reading my Bible and that was what kept me from being seduced by Theonomy's ear tickling and its promises and prospects of worldly glory and power. It also led me to abandon the Cheap Grace Evangelicalism and Dispensationalism that had defined my upbringing.
He made another interesting and candid admission - a lot of the people showing up at the CREC were there because of Covid. They didn't believe the government, and were angry, and Wilson became an inspiration to them and it drew them to the CREC. And yet how many don't really understand what the CREC is, what Wilson is about, and where these ideas all come from?
The whole exchange reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine over 25 years ago. He was attending a PCA and the Sunday School teacher was outright teaching Arminianism. My friend challenged him on several points and I guess it became uncomfortable. Afterward one of the elders approached (with the Sunday School teacher) and handed my friend a copy of Boettner's The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, a book on the topic that is (rightly or wrongly) held in high esteem by many Calvinists. My friend was more or less speechless as that was the essentially doctrine he was trying to defend - the doctrine the Sunday School teacher was effectively opposed to in his teaching. But these men couldn't grasp that.
I felt like I was reliving that moment in my exchange with the CREC man who tried to argue that Rushdoony was only concerned about Sphere Sovereignty and Theonomy wasn't about erecting a Christian social order - but was instead some kind of Libertarian-style attempt at soft Christian power.