Fellow Calvinists on the Great Reformed Ping List, I need some help.
Go to this website, run by a lawyer who is also an Orthodox Presbyterian elder, and you’ll see what is being advocated by prominent people in Calvinist circles today who are seriously arguing not only that the church ought to steer clear from political positions but also that Christians ought not to use their Bibles when they enter the civil realm.
This theology is sometimes known as “Two Kingdoms” theology. While there are a lot of variants, the basic bottom line is that if Christians are to participate in politics at all, they do so as citizens, not as Christians, and they are to use natural law, not Scripture, to make their points.
Reformed people active in politics need to be aware of this theology and take steps to fight it.
In some forms, Two Kingdoms theology may be compatible with the old Southern Presbyterian “spirituality of the church” concept. I’m not going to argue that point; that’s a separate issue.
The modern “Two Kingdoms” view has already led to a Westminster-West professor saying a Christian case can be made for homosexual civil unions. There is no way that kind of theology would be advocated by classical Southern Presbyterianism.
Link here for documentation:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2919093/posts
And here for an attack on me as a “culture warrior” by the Reformed defenders of Two Kingdoms theology:
http://presbyterianblues.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/talking-about-talking-about-2k/
This nonsense needs to be stopped, and it can’t be stopped if we as Calvinists don’t learn about it, read as much as we can, and fight hard against it.
But the loss would occur not because these preachers were faithfully preaching the whole counsel of God, but because they foolishly believe that their endorsements of political candidates are just as good as the Word of God, if not the Word of God itself.
Oh for heaven's sake. What hogwash. The preachers involved have never implied such a thing.
Just curious - why are you just asking just “Fellow Calvinists” for help on this? There are many 100% Bible-believing Christians on here that would be glad to help, as the two items this blog is advocating is 100% NOT Biblical. We are IN the world, just not to be OF it. God is our Heavenly Father and Jesus is our Lord no matter what vocation and especially as Jesus commands us to be the Salt of the Earth.
I’d like to be on that ping list, if I may.
Thanks,
SR
Ah - never mind. I re-read your request - it’s in prominent Calinist circles, thus the arguments and points would have better formulations in the likeness of thought.
I think it needs to be said that the original Two Kingdoms approach had the INVISIBLE Church on one hand, and the Crown AND the VISIBLE Church on the other.
Europe of 450 years ago had a near complete integration of Church and State (so much so that many Bishops were simultaneously secular rulers of lands) and a modern USA-style separation of Church and State was unthinkable. Therefore the two kingdoms envisioned by the Reformers was the government AND the official visible Church as the one Kingdom–of this world–and the true eternal Church of the elect–God’s Kingdom of this world and the next–on the other hand.
Given this, a godly ruler was always looking for the council of leaders of the Church–and godly Church leaders were always eager to give it–not artificially dividing the world into religious and non-religious spheres.
Even to our US Founding Fathers the current official agnosticism and even hostility of the state–narrowing the constitutional protection to “freedom of worship” (a favorite term in this current administration)–of the free exercise of religion, would be unthinkable. Very clearly the first Ammendment religious freedom clauses only attempted avoiding one officially recognized Church; it was clearly NOT intended to push pastors out of the public square–as the ACLU and the Left in America does today.
Preachers can and should incorporate ETHICS (which includes political ethics) into their biblical teachings. EVERY decision we make is to one degree or another–an ethical decision–and God is concerned with all aspects of our lives, not just our religious side.
Restrictions by the government on what a minister of the Gospel can and cannot say, are in principle, unconstitutional–and even if it is unfashionable to the educated and legal elites in this country–should be fought.