19 May 2019

The Social Justice Controversy: An Addendum (Poway, R2K and the Inherent Violence of Sacralist Theology)


I was stunned to learn that some have dared to argue that Two Kingdom theology led to the Poway Shooting.
In reality the exact opposite is true.


This is where Sacralism takes an absolutely sinister turn... and this is true whether it's Right-Sacralism or so-called Left. All varieties have confused Kingdom and culture, Church and state.
And as I've said Left-Sacralism isn't really 'Left'. These are still patriotic even nationalist people, defenders of Wall Street and all the rest. I don't see these people as socialists, rather as advocating a form of state-sponsored patronage at best. It's not the same thing. They're not calling for state seizure of resources and the nationalisation of corporations, banks and industries, let alone a Marxist seizure of private property. They're advocating (again at best) a Social Democratic model which is still well within the confines of market capitalism. It may not be absolutised laissez faire but many will already know that the markets actually don't like a highly idealistic Wild West approach to economics. Regulation serves its purposes.
After the Poway attack some figures within the Social Justice movement in a move very reminiscent of their Theonomic sacralist cousins accused the shooter's OPC congregation of a Radical Two Kingdoms (R2K) view. They had failed to teach the shooter about loving your neighbour and social responsibility. Their inaction as congregational leaders and teachers led to this happening. It would be laughable if it wasn't such a serious accusation.
One of these Social Justice warriors, a certain Bradley Mason wrote some terribly misguided and confused comments associating the attack with the views of the Two Kingdom Theology of Westminster California, a point I will elaborate on below. I also located a statement by Theonomist Tim Bayly who wondered if the attacker hadn't been influenced by the views of DG Hart and David Van Drunen.
It's amazing. Mason and Bayly, a Social Justice advocate and a Theonomist would be reckoned antagonists by many observers and yet when it comes to the issue of Sacralism and Two Kingdoms, they speak the same language. It's telling. Apart from a few stands made by Bayly with regard to Sodomy and other related issues I have no time for him or his theology... particularly his Evangelical-Pop style of Theonomy. We're reading very different Bibles to be sure.
I tracked down Mason's website and grew even more frustrated. On the one hand I am encouraged that there are Calvinistic people (I wouldn't call him Reformed) who are challenging the myths of Christian America and exposing some of the dark history no one wants to talk about. Yes, Machen, Morton Smith and others were certainly racist. They represented the system, the shameful status quo. I would laugh if anyone tried to say otherwise about someone like RJ Rushdoony. His racism and Holocaust revisionism have been general knowledge for many years.
And for a new generation of American urban dwellers, the old narratives of Christo-Americanism aren't going to fly anymore. This is encouraging and in some ways resonates with what I've been talking about for many years.
However, given that these Evangelicals and New Calvinists still retain the Sacralist/Dominionist understanding of the Kingdom and have embraced the 'other gospel' language of these schools... the other gospel being social transformation and a heretical syncretic and compromised definition of the Kingdom... all their insights seem to be for naught. In the end, just as I said in the other post, it comes down to a struggle for power. The Sacral movements always devolve into politics and that's dangerous on multiple levels.
I'm glad that Mason has embraced predestinarian soteriology and that he's unwilling to just sign on to the narratives of Confessional Calvinism. That's great. But it turns out that he and others like him have broken free of the whirlpool only to dive back in at a different spot. They've learned nothing and are still caught on the same self-destructive carousel. It's sad, even pitiable.
Inaction leads to violence? Failing to teach the Poway shooter to love his neighbour led him to take up a gun and shoot people? I'm not sure that follows. And yet it has a familiar ring to it. Sacralists love to attack Two Kingdom theology as being acquiescent and therefore (they argue) it deadens consciences and teaches a kind of dumb apathetic obedience. It's absurd but the argument is often made.
Of course that still doesn't explain the shooter's views. His actions hardly constitute passivity. Apathy hardly generates the kind of fanatic zeal demonstrated by a mass shooter.
This is also but a variation of the dangerous lie that Two Kingdom theology was responsible for the German people allowing the Nazis to come to power. Those that argue in this fashion clearly demonstrate they have very little understanding of Lutheran Two Kingdom theology. As I've argued elsewhere Lutheran Two Kingdoms is really One Kingdom with two aspects. It's sacralist and more or less Constantinian and yet avoids the explicit theocratic models argued by some within the Reformed heritage.
In other words there's another element of confusion because the Two Kingdom Theology of Lutheranism and the Reformed variety advocated by and often associated with Westminster California is a far cry from the Two Kingdom views associated with the Anabaptists... the view that often gets pegged R2K or Radical Two Kingdom Theology. Though I'm not an Anabaptist by any long shot, on this point we're in agreement. It is this variety of Two Kingdom theology, now most often associated with the Anabaptists that is what I'm (more or less) arguing for. Although it certainly antedates their 16th century rise, this understanding of the Two Kingdoms posits the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world, and they are ever in opposition. The latter cannot be transformed but is under curse and is marked for destruction.
And anyone that has followed what I've written about will understand that nonviolence and nonresistance is at the core of our Kingdom calling. Anabaptist views of the Kingdom do not produce mass shooters. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant. And yet there is some of that nonsense floating around and it's not just coming from Reformed circles. Confusion reigns in the age of Internet.
If it's a 'radical' view, it's in that it rejects Dominionism, something the Lutheran and Reformed varieties of Two Kingdom's embrace... though in less vigorous and less than programmatic forms. The Lutheran model has its own nuances to be sure while the Reformed version is heavily influenced by figures like Abraham Kuyper. The Westminster California faculty may not be Theonomists or Postmillennialists but they still believe in Christians influencing and shaping culture. They're very clear on this and so those who have made these accusations of cultural retreat or apathy are ignorant or lying. They're not 'radical' and while figures from within these circles are certainly Right-wing, their understanding of Two Kingdoms if anything downplays the political aspects and divorces the politics from the theology.
As a Two Kingdom advocate who would certainly get pegged with the 'radical' or Anabaptist label I can safely tell you that from my perspective the Two Kingdom Theology of both Lutheranism and Westminster California are repugnant to me. They're crypto-Sacral. I've written many pieces criticising the views of LPR's Issues Etc. and Westminster figures like Scott Clark. The latter is cut from the same Right-wing cloth as many other Evangelicals and Dominionists. The Two Kingdom Theology I represent completely rejects his views as Right-wing and vile. And so on all fronts people like Bayly and Mason get it wrong. They misidentify the categories of Two Kingdom thought and certainly misunderstand their political thought and how it is applied.
In part 2 of my recent piece on The Social Justice Controversy I offered some thoughts on the Poway shooter and his context within the OPC. I haven't been in Poway since the 1980s and I am unfamiliar with his specific congregation and I certainly have no familiarity with the conversations that take place in the lobby and parking lot. But what I did relate was that Confessional and Evangelical churches in general are affected by an anger and a growing tone of conversation that focuses on revenge, guns and resistance. The context and assumptions that undergird these conversations is sacral. And apparently this Center-Right or Pseudo-Left Social Justice movement is turning to the same kind of poisonous rhetoric. I genuinely fear where this is all headed.
But to blame the violence of the Poway Shooter on a theology which at least in part (as in the case of Westminster and Lutheran 2K) or completely (as in the case of so-called R2K) rejects politics is truly asinine. The men who asserted such are not people to be taken seriously. They've misunderstood Two Kingdom Theology on all fronts. They pin one variety on a group to which it does not belong and the group they blame, actually holds views not all that distant from their own.
To add a layer of confusion, some have tried (and failed) to identify this nuance by calling Lutheran Two Kingdoms theology as 2K proper while the Westminster variety was identified as R2K or radical. But this too is a false distinction. If there is a 'radical' version, whatever that's supposed to mean in this case, it's the Anabaptist view which is committed to nonviolence and nonresistance. Like any Right-wing Christian, Scott Clark celebrates the troops and buys into all the standard lies and narratives about American history and its wars. But again, he's not pushing for a 'formal' state enforced Christianity. His views are not 'radical' nor do they differ (in essence) from the Confessional Lutheran view.
But as I've pointed out elsewhere this specious argument is also rooted in confusion and deceit because when they want to attack Two Kingdoms doctrine in general the apologists for Sacralism cite the Lutherans and their capitulation to the Nazis. But when they want to attack Westminster or the Anabaptists they make a distinction and point out that the Lutherans aren't R2K or radical. It's a disingenuous, opportunistic, manipulative and self-serving position.
I truly pity their followers. They are like sheep without a shepherd. They're being manipulated by agents of an agenda, not men with discernment or even a genuine zeal for truth-telling. These teachings bear fruit and have consequences and the story is far from over.
The greatest irony is that the sacral understanding politicises the Kingdom and theologises the culture and civilisation. This is what both Mason and Bayly stand for. Bayly like most Theonomists seems to have never really thought through the implications of his own system. I've heard a multitude of Theonomic sermons calling on the state to enforce religion and reconstitute blasphemy laws, suppress heresy and the like. Speaking out of both sides of their mouth they often still attempt to retain the language of liberty, rights, constitutionalism and the Enlightenment values and ideals associated with America. Some of them try to blend the concepts of Classical Liberalism with their theology but the more thoughtful and honest members of that school realise they don't go together and are in fact incompatible. As I've pointed out elsewhere, on this point they're right. Classical Liberalism is incompatible with New Testament Christianity but given that we're not to establish power or erect a sacral state, the forms of Classical Liberalism are sufficient and are generally supportive of the social plurality New Testament Christianity considers ideal. It's not a bad system to live under and certainly preferable to a sacral state. Even living under a Turk was better than living under a Habsburg. The danger of living under such a Classical Liberal system is to confuse it and its seemingly Christian friendly ideals with Biblical Christianity, the very trap that Evangelicalism and even much of Confessional Protestantism have fallen into.
Theonomists have largely failed to grasp that under their system not only do we find the theology for Crusade but for an Inquisition, thought-crime and a police state. Such views are antithetical to Liberalism and certainly the views, ideals and visions of the Enlightenment soaked American Founding Fathers. The Theonomic position is inherently violent as their seizure of power would immediately and necessarily be followed by a purge, a bloodbath. Twenty years ago this used to be talked about more openly. Since the movement reinvented itself in the wake of Rushdoony's 2001 death, this kind of candid and frank (if brutal) conversation has been set aside, at least in their public discourse.
The truth of the matter is that the shooter was motivated by a variety of Sacralism, the same overarching category of thought that motivates Mason but certainly is deeply entrenched in the thought of someone like Bayly. I pity the latter because he's apparently too clueless to understand this and what's even more disheartening is that he has a large following... again sheep with no shepherd or more accurately sheep being led by wolves. The fact that the racist theology of Kinism is a movement that has arisen out of Theonomy shouldn't surprise us. It's a natural outgrowth but many Theonomists (like Bayly) do not make the connections. While I would not accuse the garden variety Theonomist of being overtly racist on the order of Kinism I will say their movement and ideology fosters and even facilitates such views. Their theology of the state, civilisation and history is riddled with deeply embedded racist assumptions and yet like many social conservatives they are blind to this reality or practice a form of self-deception. The Kinist heretics themselves point out the inconsistency and I will freely concede they have a valid argument. The difference is, they celebrate this fact. They glory in what ought to be their shame.
That's harsh language to be sure but as I said earlier...we're reading different Bibles. Sacralism, the great Kingdom heresy is undoubtedly one of the darkest and most destructive cancers to ever afflict the Christian Church. It is (I would argue) the Great Apostasy predicted by Scripture. Ultimately in its extreme forms it is a denial of Christ, His Person and Work and it represents a form of spiritual treason, an attempt to erect a counterfeit Zion. As Meredith Kline said, their ideal is actually the Beast-Antichrist paradigm we're warned against in Scripture. It is (I would argue) a Protestant variety of Constantinianism, a modern version of Medieval pseudo-theocracy. There are many variations, all grievous to be sure but some more so than others. Theonomy represents one of the most extreme and contemptible forms. I've known many Theonomists and I have wrestled with the issue since my early days as a Christian. I'm afraid in all sincerity I'm left wondering about a good many of them, if they've even grasped some of the basic messages of Scripture. Their gospel is one of power, brutal, bestial, Judaizing and a far cry from the both the spirit and core doctrines of the New Testament. Ethically it is bankrupt and at times overtly evil. It's ironic because it is the school so obsessed with ethics and judicial application of Torah and yet these folks have abandoned, nay jettisoned the core ethical principles and judicial teachings of Christ and the Apostles. The Sermon on the Mount is offensive to them.... as indeed the Gospel of the Kingdom is always offensive to the Christ-hating world. The Theonomists (and not a few of their Dominionist cousins) possess a theology that neither reflects the Old Testament nor the New... rather it represents a bastardised attempt at Christianising pagan sacral politics... raw power and the veneration of it. As I've often described it, it's the Tower of Babel re-born with cheap golden cross attached to the top of it.
When I saw Bayly's accusation, I just shook my head. A blind guide if ever there was one.
The Two Kingdom views of Confessional Lutheranism and Westminster California are also to be condemned but they at least retain a sense of division between Kingdom labours and political hopes.
As far as the Dallas Signers, they are neither Theonomists nor advocates of Two Kingdom Theology. They are however Dominionists but primarily I see them as being motivated by simple Right-wing concerns and a zeal to retain the societal status quo.