Answering Questions #17- Calvin v. The Calvinists, The Renaissance and Reformed Scholasticism, Orthodoxy, Armstrong, Amyraut and Muller…Incomprehensibility and the nature of Theology.

A friend recently sent an email referencing Brian Armstrong’s “Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France”

I responded………

FN Lee

*updated 24 December (evening)

Francis Nigel Lee has died. Most have probably not heard of him. He was something of a pariah even in Reformed circles. He talked about and was quite proud of the history of the Reformed Church in South Africa…a topic few wish to discuss, and consequently few Americans have any knowledge of.

I will grant FN Lee one thing, he was a consistent Sacralist. He excoriated Verduin and with Rushdoony and others realized the deep threat Two Kingdom non-Sacralist theology posed to their system and vision for the Church. The Anabaptists have always maintained a special place of condemnation in Reformed circles. It’s not so much about the issue of Baptism. That’s present, but many Reformed are Baptists as well. It’s really about their rejection of Sacralism, Dominionism, and Constantinianism. Though I’m not an Anabaptist, on these points I heartily agree with them, and maintain on these issues they are the maintainers and custodians of a key doctrine held by many Dissenters going back to the early Church.

In many ways this is one of the biggest issues in all of Church History. FN Lee understood this, he just came out on the wrong side…dreadfully wrong.

Cronkrite's Kingdom: A response

Not Walter Cronkite, but we will tell it the way it is. This article was interesting. Cronkrite is considerably more thoughtful than the famous lemming with the similar sounding last name. There's a bit of a nuance in his thought, and not a little wisdom.



So close, but yet so far. An interaction with Cronkrite

A Kingdom discussion at GreenBaggins

Here's a rather extensive record of a good series of exchanges over at Green Baggins. No one changed anyone's mind, but it's yet another good example of the issues at stake and how someone like me pursues them vs. those who hold to what we would call the Christian Right. These interactions/comment threads seem to generate interest and some of you seem to find them helpful. This one has a different tone than the exchange last night on this site.

The conversation was good, a little depressing from my standpoint....but I'm pleased it stayed pretty civil. I'm afraid in the end my theology was pegged as Anabaptist....which if you've read anything here, you'll know that while I have some sympathy with them, there's much of their theology that I don't share. I'm not a Baptist to start with.

The Anabaptists picked up a vital part of the proto-Protestant mantle, but in reaction to the new Constantinianism birthed by the Protestant Reformation, they went too far in some of their theological constructs. Verduin talks about how some of this played out in The Reformers And Their Stepchildren. The whole baptism issue for the Anabaptists was really more about baptism being tied in with state citizenship vs. a theology that allowed children to be part of the Church. The latter they were not totally opposed to from the onset. But over time they moved toward a more hard line Credo-Baptist position....believer's baptism only. Children were in no way part of the visible manifestation of the Body.---That's my interpretation of how things developed. Modern day Anabaptists may differ. Verduin himself seemed to agree with what I'm saying. He seemed to lament the rift that took place in Zurich. The issue wasn't really about Baptism....it was Zwingli's refusal to set aside the Sacralist-Constantinian legacy of the Middle Ages.
The original post can be found here.

One of the commentors posted a critique of me and my website. It's down at the bottom. I'll post that separately at a later time. For those of you who care to wade through it all...enjoy and I hope you'll find some benefit in this conversation.

The Kingdom War

A war worth fighting.

Within Reformed circles there's an intense debate between the Two Kingdom Theology position which I advocate here, (though in a more extreme fashion than many Reformed), and the Monistic One Kingdom position argued by Dominionists, Theonomists, and Postmillennialists, and all other expressions of Transformationalist theology.

More on the Visible Church

One unfortunate aspect in Verduin's work is the manner in which he deals with the visible church.

Often those critical of the doctrine accuse its adherents of trying to fill the church with unbelievers. Of course we categorically deny this, but there seem to be at least a dozen variations in understanding on this issue.

#4 Sacralism

Time does not permit me to write a scholarly work on these topics and I realized long ago no one would be willing to publish such a book. I have other projects and my goal is not getting another book published which no one will read. The hope I cherish is that people will stumble onto this site, read and ponder these issues. This won't be a website for the lazy…I'm not going to do the homework for you. I'm not going to footnote and reference everything. I want issues exposed and discussed. My role for now, I hope and pray is that of a catalyst.
Verduin in "The Reformers and Their Stepchildren" repeatedly uses the term Sacralism. I had grasped this concept long before I read him so that when I encountered his work it was akin to a thunderclap. Sacralism is basically making something holy. Obviously there is a Biblical Sacralism, when God commands something to be Holy to serve His purposes in Redemptive History or typology. Think of the Sabbath, or the Temple. These things aren't Holy in and of themselves, intrinsically woven into the fabric of the created universe, moral reflections of God's character. These things are Holy or were Holy because God commanded them to be so. Thus, they can also at a later time be taken out of Holy Status and made common. The Seventh Day is no longer Holy. Reformed Sabbatarians who try to argue the Decalogue is the eternal law of God also show inconsistency by switching the day, showing it wasn't intrinsic, it was a sacralized day. I would argue the New Testament teaches it was fulfilled in Christ, but if they want to argue its abiding validity they have a Redemptive Historical problem. That's another issue. I merely wanted to make a point. The Temple was Holy. Today we understand the Temple of Solomon or the 2nd/Herodian Temple were Holy, but with the advent of the New Covenant and the end of the old order in the year 70…the temple were it still to exist would no longer be, and rebuilt (as some dream) would certainly not be! Hence when people refer to the Holy Land, they do err. That land ceased to be Holy two thousand years ago, it also being a picture of Christ. All these promises were affirmed and confirmed in Him as per 2 Corinthians 1.
Sacralism in the sense Verduin uses it and in the context of the Constantinian discussion is referring to culture and civilization. God is in covenant with His people. They are in covenant with Him alone. We are the Holy Nation. We are His kingdom of priests and no other nation can claim that. The diatheke/covenant was given by God, a covenant of grace to which we can contribute nothing. Even when men swear the oath adding an element of conditionality it is still established and defined by God. No nation whether it be Edom, Egypt, Byzantium, Austria, Britain or America has the right to 'enter in' as a nation to the Holy Status. Israel was Holy, a theocracy in the true sense… not the way we use it today meaning a clergy run state. No, it was an actual theocracy, its charter from heaven, its battles Holy, its kings chosen, it indictments brought by Divine agents, viz. the prophets, thus ideological ruled by God through his agents.
The Holy Roman Empire, Britannia, nor America can ever 'claim' this status. What about the common Theonomic argument that the Mosaic Law was for the nations? How so? When the nations are indicted whether it be in Isaiah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets…what's the charge? Sin to be sure, but under what category? Natural Law. That's all they had. They were not holy nations so they are not accountable for Sabbath-breaking or taking the Lord's name in vain. They are judged for idolatry, the chief and greatest of sins, and for things like injustice, murder, theft, and so forth. They had no part in the Law of God. They could convert, but that would mean ceasing to be an Edomite or whatever. It meant becoming a Jew. Today it means becoming a Christian. To call a nation Christian is theologically erroneous. Sometimes it is meant in the sense that the bulk of the population is Christian, but that still doesn't allow for its government and status to be reckoned Holy. More often than not it means more than that, tending toward a Holy/exclusive status.
Next to heretical Christologies, Sacralism is the greatest heresy in the church. More to come….

#2 Constantinianism and the Constantinian Shift

Historically this refers to legalization/legitimization of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in the early 4th century. The persecutions ceased, which of course was a good thing for the church, but the policy reversal, encouraging Christianity and beginning to fuse it with the state led to:
1. A watering down of Christianity. The church begins to lose its identity, its sense of salt and a spirit of nominalism began to creep in. Almost all histories agree on this fact, even someone as mainstream and ecumenical as Schaff.
2. A loss of identity, the sense of antithesis, in turn leading to new deviations of pietistic expression. Monasticism flourished from this time forward. Many innovations and Biblical deviations had already begun to make headway, but from this point they grew rapidly. The veneration of martyrs and their relics now expanded to a host of new corruptions.