Common Grace is a reality, a mercy, and restraint while the Church bears witness in the world and (this is critically important) wins by losing. We win by bearing the cross, we conquer by being sheep for the slaughter. By living as pilgrims and rejecting the world, we testify against it and to the spiritual powers that undergird it – and proclaim a way of life, a coming Kingdom, and a coming doom. This is foolishness to the world, madness, and supremely unappealing and unattractive. Only people who have lost their minds would embrace such a message and calling – or so it would seem. It's tragic that the majority of Christians think the same as the world does on these points and view such glory and victory, such testimonies to the power of the Holy Spirit as pessimism, defeat, cowardice, and offensive foolishness. One wonders if such thinking has in fact grasped even the broad strokes of the gospel message and the core principles of New Testament doctrine – let alone its ethics. No wonder Christ's words concerning mammon (and the security and power it represents) are incomprehensible to them.
The world cannot be fixed and it's abundantly clear from the
New Testament that we're not meant to do so. Paul had no interest in this and
made numerous statements contradicting the very notion. All the world's systems
are corrupt and broken. We must interact with them but always in the capacity
of strangers and pilgrims, those hated by and persecuted by the world. The sad
truth is that the Dominionist-Transformationalist cult not only does not
understand this basic New Testament reality, but rejects it with extreme
prejudice.
If you want to change society – preach the gospel. Regenerate
people don't need more laws – if anything they will need no laws at all,
something the advocates of Theonomy have never grasped, thinking the work of
the Spirit is effected by the empty forms of legislation and coercion. And yet
such a discussion is already guilty of begging the question as it assumes a
majority Christian population, something the New Testament never assumes and in
fact rejects by proclaiming the Kingdom as invisible to the lost, the way
narrow and one that few will find.
It's true, the gospel brought about cultural change in
Ephesus as witnessed in Acts 19. That was not legislated, that was voluntary on
the part of those who had been redeemed. And yet as impressive and evocative as
that moment was, in the grand scheme of things the Hellenistic-Roman society of
Ephesus was not changed and eventually the congregations of that city lost
their way – falling prey to wolves as Paul warned. The episode serves as both a
glorious testimony to the power of the Spirit – and a warning.
Appropriating the Roman Empire as was done in the Fourth
Century created a phony process called Christianisation but in terms of the New
Testament, the period was marked by functional and then later blatant apostasy.
The Church opened the floodgates to syncretism and within a short time made a
Devil's Bargain and abandoned its ethics, exchanging the Kingdom of Christ for
one of the sword and coin. The Church leaders which sold out to Caesar thought
they changed and transformed the world – all that happened was they made peace
with it, and it changed them. Seventeen centuries later we're seeing the same
process being repeated yet once again and nothing has been learned or so it
would seem.
The ministry of the Church is the realm of the Holy Spirit
and its activity is centered upon the Word and its application. It is by the
Spirit that we are in Union with Christ and experience His Kingdom. An
extra-ecclesiastical concept of the Kingdom (as advocated by Dominionism)
grants the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the unregenerate, to those outside
the covenant, and indeed it de-sanctifies the covenant, blurs the antithesis,
and opens the door to the secularisation of the Church. The case can be made
from Scripture and history bears this out as well. It's clear enough in the New
Testament the spectrum of errors being addressed by the apostles encompassed
both a Hellenistic and Judaizing tendency (often in combination) and the latter
interest it would seem was somehow captivated with power, money, and dreams of
a worldly dominion. It is in that respect very pertinent to the present hour.
Are the nations baptized? Are they in covenant? Are they
Christian? Are they indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Are they the Temple of God?
Only by changing and redefining what these terms mean can it made so. The Holy
Spirit works through means – means which cannot be applied (or have any real
meaning) apart from the Church – the Body of Christ where the Spirit dwells,
and provides the earnest for the Kingdom to come. There is no reason to believe
the Spirit operates in the common realm in reference to the covenant or
Kingdom. To redefine what a Christian is, transforming the Biblical concept
into some kind of broad cultural (or even national) reference, is to
fundamentally alter the nature of the gospel. This complex of ideas and their
outworking were introduced with the Constantinian Shift that emerged in nascent
form in the fourth century – and it certainly qualifies as another gospel,
which is why the epoch is rightly identified not as a period of victory but of
apostasy.
Confusion ensues when Augustine and The City of God are
invoked as the work remains a point of debate. Was he advocating
Postmillennialism or something more akin to Amillennialism – or if we want to
speak anachronistically, Kuyperian Amillennialism?
Either way, any form of Dominionism – whether in soft or hard
form is wrong and contrary to the New Testament. Unlike the Anabaptists who
repudiate Augustine, the adherents of the First Reformation seemed to largely
embrace him – even while retaining what would be considered a 'radical' Two
Kingdoms view. Unlike most Calvinists, I can argue (along with First
Reformation thinkers like Petr Chelcicky) that Augustine shines in his
willingness to embrace both decretalism and sacramental efficacy without
contradiction, a point that generates angst for rationalist-leaning Calvinists
and ire among the sundry Baptistic and Hyper-Calvinist sects.
A strong case can be made that Augustine's view – even as
expressed by Evans is in accord with what I before described as the Lutheran
One Kingdom in Two Aspects view, which in Reformed circles most closely
resonates with the views promoted by Westminster California – the so-called
Escondido Theology.
However, the questions before us are – Is this the view of
Scripture, and for Evans, is this view in keeping with the Reformed
Confessional tradition? I would say on the first point an unequivocal 'no' but
on the second question the 'no' must be qualified as it's complicated.
Evans final conclusion regarding The City of God is flawed because
he conflates Lutheran/Kuyperian Two Kingdom views with what detractors often
refer to as the 'Radical' or Anabaptist Two Kingdoms view. As just stated, the
latter view of the Kingdom (which is in accord with the New Testament) must
reject Augustine's paradigm, and yet this 'radical' position is not the view Westminster
California advocates. That school is more or less in agreement with the view
expressed in the City of God. They would balk at the notion of the state
suppressing idolatry – to a point. It depends on how that is defined. And so
while they might differ with Augustine on that particular issue, it's clear
enough that Augustine's view is more or less compatible with Escondido and not quite
the same as the Westminster Confession, let alone Theonomy which advocate
strict monistic, sacralist, and triumphalist views of the Kingdom and its
relation to the world.
To further muddy the waters, it is at this point Evans turns
to Luther and offers qualified praise for his position. And he's right, Luther
did modify the view by running it through the Law/Gospel filter that defines
the theology of Wittenberg – one that
Westminster California-affiliated theologians also seem keen to employ.
He errs in thinking Lutheran Two-Kingdoms thinking gave rise
to the notion of the secular – that's actually found in the New Testament. For
example in 1 Corinthians 5 when Paul speaks of those who are outside, or
forbids Christians to go to law before the unbelievers, he assumes a
sacred-secular divide, an antithesis between the Kingdom and its concerns and
the lost pursuits, thinking, and justice that is of the world. This of course
is merely an elaboration on Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The
Church largely lost these teachings with the advent Constantine and the ethical
revolt he spawned. The fact that the Enlightenment (by means of a very
different road) came to a broadly similar secular paradigm is worthy of
reflection and careful study – but its foundational errors do not negate New
Testament doctrine, nor should they be employed to obscure, discredit, or
explain away these teachings. The fact that many Christians have since the
eighteenth century confused Enlightenment categories with Christian doctrine is
the result of syncretistic patterns in the realm of epistemology and theology
that began with Constantine which were in no way remedied by the Magisterial
Reformation. In other words, the very scholastic method embraced by the
Reformed, left their movement wide open to such influences, as did its
misguided and even sordid history of political schemes and compromises.
I do not agree with Evans' conclusions and applied ethics
regarding Lutheran Two Kingdoms. He doesn't say it openly, but readers will
obviously be thinking of what happened in Germany under Hitler. Contrary to the
baseless slanders of Dominionists, the capitulation on the part of the German
Church wasn't a result of disinterest, otherworldliness, or passivity. On the
contrary due to long-standing and deeply rooted Sacralist notions about Germany
and German society, the Christian community actively embraced Hitler because he
was undoing the aimless decadence and debauchery of the Weimar regime, actively
combating communism, and reinstilling German society with purpose, pride, and a
kind of virtue. German Kultur had (in a very non-Two Kingdoms pattern) been
more or less equated with the Kingdom or viewed as the paragon of a Christian
culture and Hitler (for all his flaws) was viewed as a positive change-agent.
The analysis of American Evangelicals on this point is dangerously myopic and
flawed and it is not a little ironic that their movement is falling into
similar patterns of political orientation and alliance – another historical
lesson and warning that has not been learned.
In the end it must be stated in unequivocal terms – Lutheran
Two Kingdoms doctrine is a sham. It's One Kingdom Sacralist theology attempting
to dress itself up in terms more compatible with the New Testament but in the
end it was (and is) just another permutation of the same old Constantinian
cancer that has plagued the Church for seventeen-hundred years.
I will grant Evans' analysis of Calvin and the differences he
draws between Lutheran views and the record in Geneva. Calvin's view was notably
different. It doesn't mean it was Biblical. Incompatible with the political theory
and ethics of Wittenberg, the Calvinist heritage seems rather robust by
comparison and when viewed through this lens, the Lutheran model does seem
subservient – as long as that is understood within its context and the many
assumptions that are usually made regarding such questions. This does not mean
the Reformed doctrine of the lesser magistrate and its corollary concept of the
right of rebellion have any claim to being Biblical – they do not and in fact
(historically) have promoted and provided cover for sinful conduct and violence.
Once again some of the key debates regarding the legacy of the Magisterial
Reformation are revealed as sideshows and fruitless distractions.