Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
The collapse of the Yellow Corporation in August 2023 made a brief splash in the news cycle – probably a little too brief. Many individuals and analysts have reason to be concerned when considering the volatility of the US economy as demonstrated by not only this collapse but the numerous banks that have faced difficulty and near collapse over the past year or so.
It seems like this subject is coming up a lot lately as I've encountered it in churches, in conversation, and even in podcast discussions. Sadly, the understanding of this question is often lacking.
Pennsylvania media has long been fixated on the trial of the man who went on a murderous Anti-Semitic rampage at a synagogue in Pittsburgh back in 2018. Eleven people were murdered and six more suffered injury. The Federal trial resulted in a death penalty verdict and this has generated a range of responses. As I took them in and reflected on them in light of Scripture, I found myself not a little frustrated by the many false assumptions being made both within and without the Christian community.
When one thinks of religious conflict and persecution in the Americas, the slaughter of Huguenots at the hands of the Spanish necessarily comes to mind. Hundreds were killed in northern Florida during the sixteenth century as Spain took exception to the notion of a French Protestant colony proximate to their vast Caribbean empire.
Were the Beall's disturbed by watching their little five year old disappear into the bowels of a big institutional facility? They should be. It isn't natural. It's actually highly disturbing and historically anomalous but people have been conditioned to think it's normal. As a Christian not only is it an abdication of parental duty and calling, it is just plain crazy to hand over your precious and innocent covenanted child to authorities that are going to spend all day, five days a week, for at least a dozen years – during your child's most formative period in life, attempting to undermine all the most fundamental things you believe in.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/christian-home-schoolers-revolt/
The
new Amazon Prime documentary on The Duggars (Shiny Happy People) is apparently
one of the most popular shows of the year, even breaking all kinds of viewing
records. What a sad thing. This is what they've brought on themselves – an on
the larger Church.
https://theaquilareport.com/second-thoughts-about-the-proposed-witness-overtures/
We've just passed General Assembly season in the Presbyterian
world and thus there's a lot of talk about polity, discipline, and procedure
and yet as this article demonstrates, most of it is off-base and has little if
anything to do with actual New Testament polity, but is instead rooted in
tradition and what amounts to a functional rejection of Scriptural Sufficiency.
Having recently worked through Crawford Gribben's 2021 Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest, I was struck by many things but I have repeatedly revisited his reporting on the exchanges between American Theonomy and British outlets like the Banner of Truth. Later as Theonomy would emerge onto a larger stage it would be met with no small degree of hostility from within theologically conservative and Reformed circles in Britain. I don't believe Gribben sufficiently explored this and yet I think the episode to be rather instructive.
A recent episode of Iron Sharpens Iron caught my eye as it
called attention to some of the conservative remnants and their resistance to
theological liberalism within the United Church of Christ (UCC).
For as 'woke' as the environment supposedly is – he's been appalled at the Establishment-friendly narratives (that while sometimes critical of the United States) in the end defend it and justify American policy and conduct in such contexts as Vietnam and its other more recent wars. And so while a Right-wing adherent would be critical of what's being said, a New Testament Christian is left offended by what is in the end a defense of the Establishment regime and its countless episodes of imperialist theft and murder. And it would only be worse in the context of a Christian college.
After having stated on repeated occasions that I don't believe Christians should send their children to public school, how can I justify sending my son to a state or public college? Isn't this the same thing?
Looking at a social media photo of members of our wider family circle (a network of relations connected by marriage) – I'm struck once again by the rapid fall of American Evangelicalism. The photo is of a mother, her daughters and their 'spouses'. One of the daughters stands boldly and unashamedly with another woman.
Having recently finished Gerard Russell's Heirs of Forgotten Kingdoms (Basic Books, 2014) I found myself once again irritated and put off by popular but erroneous narratives concerning Second Temple Judaism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-ofKxfYqGw
In recent weeks, as the media focused on the seventy-fifth
anniversary of Israel's founding, I have been musing on Dispensationalism and
its geopolitical influence. I happened to come across a video of John MacArthur
appearing on the Ben Shapiro show back in 2018.
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is repeatedly invoked but with a Dominionist overlay that re-casts the passage in terms of a Christianisation that does not exist, that has no premise in the New Testament, is refuted by the New Testament, and in no way reflects Christ's imperative in the passage. He was exhorting His followers to make disciples of the nations – in other words the gospel message is not restricted to the Jewish nation but now goes out into the world and is open and available to all people – a point reiterated and reinforced by Pentecost and the Book of Acts. That offer did not include the Mosaic Law as Acts 15 makes clear.
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=10922121435868
This podcast typifies the kind of confusion that seems to
reign at the moment in Reformed and Dominionist circles. There is a Theonomic
overlay to the conversation and yet the roundtable discussion is in the end
rendered as something of the absurd – all but pointless. The assumptions of
Theonomy are effectively invoked and yet the overriding ethos of the
participants is that of Libertarianism. The fact that these two approaches are
not only incompatible but antithetical seems to escape them. The topic in
question is whether or not the government has the right or should be able to
impose a regime of licenses and permits. In every case their impulses are
effectively libertarian in their rejection of all such mechanisms – a point we
will return to below. But there are other preliminary issues that must be
considered first.
It must be granted the appeal to different understandings of law and its implications for Kingdom thinking by Evans is rather astute and is worthy of more reflection – but that's a question of historical theology and while interesting, is of a secondary importance. In terms of the question of Law vis-à-vis the New Testament, the Lutheran Law/Gospel paradigm is certainly artificial and forced, an outworking of the school's absolutising of Sola Fide – to the detriment of other aspects of soteriology, in particular sanctification. The Reformed understanding is more nuanced and remains a point of contention – different camps understanding it in different ways. There certainly is a case to be made (and one badly needed!)for a Law-Gospel distinction in terms of Redemptive History, but this is not the same as the Lutheran attempt to relegate all New Testament imperatives to a contrived category of law.
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 cited article by William B Evans provided a well-argued
and concise analysis of the question of Two Kingdom theology viewed from the
perspective of Reformed Confessionalism and as such provides a good opportunity
for some interaction and comment. Reading this essay alongside the work by
Evans will hopefully assist readers in understanding the nature of the issues
and just what is at stake.
I was asked to elaborate a bit on the question of proto-Protestantism's relationship to Magisterial Protestantism and the question of conservative vs. progressive movements.
In a Journal of Early Christian Studies article from the 1990's David Hunter argues contrary to Jerome and later interpreters (such as Edward Gibbon) that the late fourth century protests of Vigilantius of Calagurris were not the result of innovation on his part, nor the lone voice of an outlier, but rather represented an extant and thus older tradition in protest to a newly developing piety.
The problems involved that Berkhof refers to concerning the Godhead and the Incarnation are dilemmas only for the systematician who thinks he can dissect the very nature of God. Our task is not to parse, disassemble, and re-engineer Biblical doctrine into a form that fits our limited, temporal, and fallen notions of symmetry or aesthetics (as some have argued) but rather to submit to what has been revealed.
Louis Berkhof's The History of Christian Doctrines (published in 1937) is a great resource if one is looking for a broad overview of historical theology. As a systematic theologian, Berkhof seems to struggle at times and grows frustrated with men like Augustine who are able to present theology in the framework of a dynamic. To Berkhof this is to embrace contradiction, even if the dynamic is supported by Scripture. This demonstrates the tendency of systematicians in their endless quest for coherence to subordinate Scripture in order to maintain the integrity of the dogmatic edifice to which they are committed. This point comes to mind every time I see the book on the shelf. Recently I picked it up again and revisited Berkhof's assessment of the ante-Nicene period.
The hypocritical and frankly spurious ICC indictment of Putin for war crimes was timed perfectly to coincide with Xi's recent trip to Moscow, and meant to embarrass the Asian leader who got to claim the credit for the Riyadh-Tehran agreement. Washington's posture regarding the ICC is hypocritical, self-serving, and even ridiculous as the American government consistently claims the court (which it helped to create) has no jurisdiction over either the United States or Israel because they are not signatories to the treaty. However, when it comes to non-signatories such as Russia (who also refuses to acknowledge the court), the ICC has full jurisdiction – or so it is argued.
These are mostly points that have been touched on over the past year and even well before the war erupted in February 2022. However, some of these points demand revisiting as the dynamics continue to change and the implications of this war are becoming more pronounced and profound. The Ukraine War is affecting global politics and economics but it's also starting to look like the opening chapter in what history may reckon a much larger war of consequence – even possibly a world war. There are certainly those clamouring for it. Perhaps some readers are tired of hearing about Ukraine but in reality one can barely discuss anything right now that touches on geopolitics or the economy without discussing the war in Eastern Europe.
Critics of the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis often seem to
suggest that those who posit the notion have erected a straw man – the supposed
epistemological and methodological divide between the first generation of
Magisterial Reformers and their seventeenth century descendants just isn't
there.
Many of the doctrinal points Melia wishes to make (which he does by means of collating numerous quotations and references) are troublesome to the type of Protestant history one encounters with someone like JA Wylie. Melia wants to show how Catholic the Waldenses were and thus drive a wedge betwixt the group as they appeared in history and the romanticised narratives of later historians.
And yet for someone like myself who argues the First
Reformation was essentially different on many key points than the Magisterial
Reformation, these claims made by Melia are not troubling in the least.
The Origin, Persecutions, and Doctrines of The Waldenses by Pius Melia. The original was published in 1870. The copy I read was a 1978 AMS re-print of James Toovey's 1870 edition published in London.
It's a short book but packed with useful information. The
Jesuit theologian pulls no punches. It is his intention to dismantle and
deconstruct many of the popular narratives surrounding The Waldenses. The book
despite its significant flaws is not without value.
https://theologymatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/00Vol6-No1-TM.pdf
While there are certainly some advantages to understanding
the context of the Ancient Near East and while this knowledge can sometimes
elucidate certain episodes in Scripture, Bailey provides a sterling and
noteworthy example of how this should not be done.
Through the efforts of my son I was able to read Peter Brock's The Political and Social Doctrines of the Unity of Czech Brethren in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries (The Hague, Mouton & Co., 1957).
Copies can be found but it's a somewhat rare
and expensive book. This is one of Brock's early works and probably not his
best known. Recognized as an authority on pacifism, he specialised by focusing
on many of the groups in Eastern Europe such as the Unity of the Brethren or
Unitas Fratrum.
In light of these struggles and the fact that money is not the goal – but to honour God and hopefully (if possible) find something you enjoy doing, we have wrestled with whether to encourage our children in terms of college and career, or simply to wait and let them live awhile, gain life experience, save some money, and so forth. For the most part I think we've opted for the latter.
This question of daughters seems especially difficult in today's context, all the more when you make something of a stand and yet no one else is doing so in your local congregation. In fact, not only will your daughters grow frustrated by all the 'exciting' things the other young women are doing, the other parents are likely to start raising eyebrows at you when your daughters (and perhaps your sons) aren't attending college and moving out. Once again, these assumptions are more about status and middle class respectability than anything else. For them, it's embarrassing to have kids not going to college – there's almost an unspoken assumption that you've failed and they're too undisciplined, dumb, or otherwise incapable of getting through a university programme.
As my children are all now in early adulthood and yet living at home, we have been forced to wrestle with some of the assumptions in the culture about kids leaving. These questions are coming from both within and without the Church.
The New Testament teaches that the Mosaic order has been disannulled – hence the harsh words in the epistles of Galatians and Hebrews, the errors of these groups being close cousin to what contemporary Theonomy advocates. Exodus 20 cannot be appealed to in the way DiGiacomo would use it. There is no Theocratic order in the New Testament apart from the Church, the earthly manifestation of Christ's Kingdom which is not located on Earth in terms of a political, cultural, or geographic order, but in Heaven itself. Exodus 20 is Scripture, but fulfilled Scripture and must be read through the Christocentric lens of the New Testament. To do otherwise is to invert the Scriptures and read them unfaithfully in a Judaized manner.
The various Babylons of the world will to greater or lesser degrees build law codes and ethical systems and they will all be flawed and tainted by idolatry. They will contain grains of truth – some more and some less. This all brings judgment on them. Evil laws condone sin and thus condemn them. Good laws which reflect something of the will and character of God condemn them too in the fashion of Romans 1. They are without excuse. This does not make their society better or help the believer and if anything such legislation can sow seeds of confusion and represent a danger as believers might be tempted to think such a state to be godly, when in fact it cannot be. This is a point Paul emphasizes when he contrasts Christian conduct and imperatives with the Providentially ordered and temporal nature of the state and the sword it bears (Romans 12-13). In terms of Providence, the state rewards 'good' in a highly generalized sense, just as it is a minister or servant in the same way Babylon, Assyria, and other Beastly powers were servants or ministers under the old epoch. This does not mean the state has a positive role in terms of enforcing God's law and the dichotomy established by Paul suggests that Christians should have no part in this. The good of the state is clearly something very different from the kind of 'good' a Christian would define by means of the eschatological ethics of Romans 12.