What do you mean by ‘Christian’? What do you mean by ‘culture’?
A classroom full of kindergarten students is busily working on their art projects. One student glances over at the work of the student sitting next to him. “What’s that?” he asks. “It’s a cat,” the second child answers. The other looks skeptical. “No, that can’t be. We have a cat at home, and that’s not what it looks like.” The second child stops drawing, stiffens, fixes his eyes straight ahead of himself, and repeats, “it’s a cat.” The first child insists again, absolutely sure of himself, “no it’s not.” The conversation gradually escalates, with each student offering reasons as to whether or not the object in view is or is not a cat. The first stresses the lack of fur, whiskers, and movement. The second points to the shape of the head, the ears, and the body.
Finally a teacher is forced to mediate, and quietly explains to the second student that what his critic means is that it’s not a real cat; it’s simply a picture of a cat. She then explains to the first student that what the other means is that it’s a picture of a cat, not a real cat. The same word can mean different – though similar – things, in different contexts. This is not something we are supposed to argue about.
Something similar to this often happens, I think, when Christians get to arguing about the meaning of words like ‘Christian’ or ‘culture’ or ‘redemption’ or ‘transformation.’ We act as if any of these terms has one, authoritative meaning that everyone is supposed to accept, and then criticize everyone who, using the word differently, makes statements that seem contrary to our own.
Consider the word ‘Christian.’ The word appears in the New Testament three times. In Acts 11:26 we are told that in Antioch the disciples of Jesus were first called ‘Christians.’ There is no hint that there is anything normative about this. It’s simply a passing reference to the historical origin of a descriptive term. In Acts 26:28 we come across the word again, this time in the mouth of a pagan ruler. After listening to the Apostle Paul proclaim the gospel King Agrippa asks, “In a short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian?” Here again it is obvious that the term refers to a follower of Jesus. Finally, in 1 Peter 4:16 the Apostle Peter reminds believers that whether or not suffering has a redemptive quality to it depends on whether or not a person is suffering “as a Christian,” as opposed to as a “murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler.” Here the term seems to refer to someone who is actually following Christ in his or her conduct, rather than simply to someone who professes faith in Christ.
Of course, there are many other examples in the New Testament of the apostles declaring one thing or another to be “in Christ.” It would seem that these instances are also occasions in which the adjective ‘Christian’ might fairly be used. So for instance, when Romans 8:1 says that there is no no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, it would be a fair paraphrase to say that there is no condemnation for those who are Christians. Or when Paul says in Romans 9:1 that he is speaking the truth in Christ, it would be appropriate to say that he is declaring the “Christian truth.” Finally, when Paul says in Romans 12:5 that believers are “one body in Christ” we could paraphrase him as saying that we are “one Christian body.”
Fair enough? What then about those occasions in which Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” in breathtakingly expansive ways, ways indicative of the radical claims of the gospel over all of life. For instance, what about a passage like Colossians 1:15-20, in which Paul says that all things were created in Christ, all things are reconciled in Christ, and all things exist in Christ. Could we say that from this perspective there is a sense in which all things are definitively Christian (in origin, destiny, and existence)? It would seem so. At the very least it would seem very silly or petty of a person to say that we can say that something is “in Christ” and yet we cannot say that it is in any sense “Christian.”
From these examples you can readily see that the word ‘Christian’ can have a wide range of meanings. It can be a purely descriptive, historical term, referring to someone who outwardly professes to be a Christian. It can refer to someone who is actually living as a Christian, or to someone who is actually united to Christ. More broadly it could refer to the truth of Christianity, or even to the truth seen from the perspective of Christianity. Indeed, it could even refer to material objects insofar as they are seen in relation to Christ.
What then, about the word culture? Here we are on much more difficult ground, because the word culture is not a Scriptural word. There is a wide range of meanings and uses of the word culture, and all of them are correct. For instance, culture can refer to human products, such as a hammer, or an article of clothing. It can also refer to a set of beliefs or understood meaning about those products, such as a religious perspective or philosophical worldview. Ryan McIlhenny suggests in Kingdoms Apart that Christians should think of the redemption of culture (and remember, redemption is another tough word, with both concrete theological meanings and general secular meanings that predate Christianity) not in terms of the redemption of material things but as the expression of a Christian perspective on those things, i.e., about an understanding of how those things relate to Christ.
Darryl Hart has trouble with this. As he writes in a comment to Friday’s post on this blog, “I don’t think the Bible has much to say about cultural life.” What does he mean by that? Is he referring to the meaning of life, suggesting that the Bible doesn’t have much to say about the meaning of life? Or is he talking about the structure and nature of material things, as if to say, I don’t think the Bible has much scientific or technical information in it? The first understanding of Darryl’s sentiment would be absurd; the second makes a whole lot of sense. Darryl gives an indication of how he is thinking:
It seems to me that when Christians make culture they end up making things informed as much by non-biblical teaching as by Scripture itself… The issue in my mind is the sufficiency of Scripture. I do not deny that the Bible has much to say about a Christian’s obedience. I don’t think it has much to say [of the] odd notion of ‘cultural obedience.’
Clearly Darryl is not saying that the Bible doesn’t have much to say about the meaning of life, or about the necessity of obedience in all of life. He is talking about epistemology – or how we know things. He is concerned that Christians arrogantly claim for themselves superiority over unbelievers regarding matters about which Scripture does not speak. He is using the word culture in a narrow way (i.e., material culture rather than culture as meaning) and he is implying a narrow use of the word Christian (i.e., something found in Scripture but not anywhere else). And for the point he is trying to make, a point I think most Reformed Christians would affirm, that makes sense. The question is, is that the only way Christians can speak?
In another comment Darryl sheds more light on his concern: He notes five definitions of culture found in a particular dictionary, the fifth and most significant of which is “the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.” Darryl then writes, “The closest that we get to a Christian culture in there is perhaps a church culture … But for Christians to claim anything distinct in this list of definitions is beyond me.”
Darryl gives the example of language. Language is basic to culture, but Christians clearly don’t use their own distinctive vocabulary or grammar. And of course, if we are understanding language as a bare symbolic fact, he is right. On the other hand, if we understand language as a set of tools that presuppose a structure of meaning (people do sometimes talk about the ‘language of Scripture’ or of Christianity, referring to its ordinary use of terms and concepts to refer to certain truths), much more needs to be said.
Darryl also gives Kuyper’s example of a civilization such as Rome, the Muslim world, or other ancient cultures. He writes, “To my mind, that is a conceit of neo-Calvinism, the thought of a Christian culture. It applies the antithesis where it does not belong, at least in this age.” Again, it seems that Darryl’s words could be parsed out here in ways with which most of us would agree. Christians do often use these words loosely and in ways that confuse and mislead unbelievers at best, while utterly alienating them as sheer arrogance at worst. On the one hand, if by Christian culture we are talking about a material society becoming the kingdom of God itself, then Christians should spurn all such talk. If we are saying that a particular society does everything justly and in accord with the truth (i.e., Peter’s use of the term) we should also reject its application to a whole group of people, believers and non-believers alike. If we are saying that everything good in a civilization comes from Christian people or from exclusively biblical ideas, we have become guilty of breathtaking (and ignorant) arrogance.
On the other hand, historians and sociologists routinely refer to particular societies with the descriptive term Christian, often in contrast to other societies that are Buddhist, Muslim, or pagan. And what they mean when they write this way is that various societies have been shaped to a certain extent by truths of the Christian religion, or by beliefs unique to a body of Christians. Does Hart reject this? I doubt it.
I could go on and on, applying the same analysis to words like redemption and transformation, but this post is already long. Consider it a testimony to my frustration with the sound-bite quality that the Reformed debate over questions of Christianity and culture often takes, a quality no better than those two kindergarteners arguing over whether or not a picture of a cat should be referred to as a cat. I’m not saying there are no real disagreements or important issues at stake. I am an ethicist, after all, having devoted the last four years of my life to studying Christianity and culture. And no, I’m not simply picking on Darryl Hart here, any more than I’m picking on neo-Calvinists or reconstructionists.
Far too often our debates devolve into simplistic sloganeering against paper caricatures that obscures the real points of agreement and disagreement. We abandon all charity of interpretation as we insist that others use their terms precisely as we do. Well aware of the extremes to which those in the other camp have gone, we are entirely blind to the extremes of those in our own. Knowing our own faults and inconsistencies, we readily forgive them based on our good intentions and correct thinking on the ‘main points’, while holding others ruthlessly accountable for the logical outworking of their own mistakes. A good test here: do you find yourself stubbornly unwilling to talk about something with the language or perspective found in Scripture, simply because someone somewhere has abused it?
I’m not above criticism here either. At one point or another, I’ve done every one of the things I’m saying we shouldn’t do. We all need to do better.
Posted on December 17, 2012, in Neo-Calvinism, The Secular, Two Kingdoms and tagged Christian culture, Darryl Hart, paganism, Ryan McIlhenny, transformation. Bookmark the permalink. 60 Comments.
The best instances of “Christian Culture” are when Christians do excellent work that rivals the best done by anyone (think Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy or Francis Collins heading up the Human Genome Project. The worst instances are Christians doing cheap knockoffs and Christians consuming those knockoffs just because they see them as the only alternative to being “secular”. Would you rather watch Veggie Tales or Looney Tunes? Would you rather listen to Stryper or Led Zeppelin? If Christian people would worry more about being excellent than being overtly (and often clumsily) Christian in their engagement with culture they would have more of an impact than they realize.
As I’ve watched this little exchange unfold between you and Darryl, it’s occurred to me that the idea of Christians being the “first fruits of God’s creation”, that is, a new humanity with Christ the First Fruits as its progenitor, can be quite helpful in explaining why even the most ardent Duoregnistas can and should be involved in producing and reforming secular culture. Christians are called to an antithesis, it is true, but this antithesis is against sin, not against anything that is truly human. The recovery of the imago Dei that we find taking place in the Spirit-indwelt community of believers, our becoming his icon as we are incorporated into Christ, is not in the end a rejection of any bit of God’s creation, least of all what is most truly human, but rather the echo of God’s “Amen” and “Yes” enunciated in the resurrection of his thoroughly human Son.
Brilliant human living is not by itself “Christian” in an eschatologically redemptive sort of way, but Christians ought to recognize that a recapitulated humanity in Christ pronounces God’s blessing upon everything true, everything noble, everything right, everything pure, everything lovely, everything admirable, everything that is excellent and praiseworthy, not despite but precisely because we have learned, received, seen, and heard the apostolic witness that the Lord is at hand (Phil. 4:4-9). Affirming the good around us, and struggling valiantly to bring about good around us, takes nothing away from our Hope of Glory; rather the curious promise that the God of peace will be with us, now and so much more in the Age to Come, frees us to be truly and fully human in future and in the present, that is, to be Christian.
Christians are not a tertium quid. We are redeemed humans in the process of being restored as our lives are mapped onto the form of Christ, the Man par excellence. At no point should we as followers of Jesus Christ have any fear of being truly human (humanity being defined and judged not in Adam but in Christ), nor should we fear affirming the truly human around us (by God’s common grace) as Christian insofar as it reflects the imago Dei whose brilliance we will soon see in a consummative face-transforming way.
Nigel, your’s is an interesting post and perhaps gets to the root of the difference. Is there such a thing as a temporal good or is all good eternal?
Well said Nigel. The only thing I would clarify, with an eye to igasx’s question, is that the future of “all things” of creation, all of which Calvin says is in a broad sense sacred in Christ, is entirely tied up with Christ. When he returns he will transform the substance of his creation into his eternal kingdom but much of what we know as this life (including, Calvin would say on the basis of 1 Corinthians 13, cultural knowledge) will pass away. So we witness to the goodness and future redemption of creation in all that we do as Christians, even as we recognize that the things with which we are dealing are passing, the future being tied up with Christ and his body.
I’m hesitate to comment on igasx’s question, since the sheer mystery of “flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God” still escapes to a bewildering degree. That this world will pass through fire before being transfigured is something to which St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John the Evangelist, and St. John the Baptist himself all testify. And yet, there is a sense in which Christ as the Second Adam, in fulfillment of the “cultural mandate”, has given “his body for the life of the world.” The sin of this earth, and the destroyers of this earth, will be destroyed on Doomsday, but the world which emerges through the flames of judgment is still that world for which Christ has endured the wrath of God; to wit, just as we do not believe in the annihilation of the unjust but rather in their resurrection (to judgment), neither do we believe in the annihilation of the good, the true, or the beautiful, but rather in their consummation (to glory).
And this is why, even in the face of the Coming One who brings with him both fire and the Holy Spirit, I have the sense that we are to share in every bit of his love for every bit of the world. It does not seem unreasonable to hope (albeit not to presume) that our cultural endeavors might rise to the level of symbols, icons, images of the Age to Come, neither bare signs infinitely deferring eternal significance, nor the consummated substance of heavenly realities themselves, but brushstrokes pregnant with the beauty of the Coming One and his Coming Kingdom.
I know that it is rather uncouth to bring up any visual analogies in Reformed circles (and if there’s one thing we Anglicans hate, it is being uncouth). But perhaps by drawing on the analogy between the visible and its reflection, we may be able to suggest how our cultural endeavors emerge from the heirs of Kingdom of heaven: they arise as we here on earth seek to give our bodies and our lives pro mundo just as Christ himself did. Whether the canvas is purged in the fire of the Final Day or not, the figures they bear might still conform to the contours of his life and herald (in some faint way) his swift arrival to this world.
Nigel, indeed I believe the good (eternal) is within the temporal. Not convinced that cultural endeavors are eucharistic(?). I believe something more along the lines of what Gandolf said to the elvian queen in the movie “The Hobbit”: “Saruman [another wizard] believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. That is not what I’ve found. I found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I’m afraid, and he gives me courage.”
Thanks for the reply, igasx, and kudos for the Tolkien reference. I rather agree with him and you. Although I do see our cultural endeavors as bounded by the Eucharist (the impulse from and towards thanksgiving), I’m inclined to be more specific and refer to it as oblation (which, I know, is part and parcel with the Eucharist). Let me explain.
While Christ’s sacrifice once for all upon the cross is uniquely expiatory, it is not only an expiation: it is also the oblation of his life and ours. On the cross the Son offered up to the Father the Great Thanksgiving of his own life, offered so that the world also might have life. His life and death constituted an anaphora, an upward movement of self-giving which becomes the life-pattern of each Living Sacrifice (i.e. Christian) in this world. Through him, we become, body and soul, an oblation to the Father.
And this is why I’m a little uncomfortable with Darryl’s point that Christians will only look different on Sunday as they come to Pulpit and Table. The form of our dominical worship itself is enough to dissuade us. Not only do the intercessory prayers insert into the divine service the church’s particular interest in our problematic world, but the Offertory especially presents sufficient evidence that the fruits of our week’s labors are vitally enmeshed in the public worship of Almighty God, much as such worship also bears fruit in our week’s labors. Corporate worship and the everyday Christian life, our sanctified selves and our secular work, all are fundamentally expressions of thanksgiving, oblation, anaphora to our Creator and Redeemer.
In fact, in many Christian traditions (and, as far as we can tell, the oldest traditions), the laity’s gifts, tithes, and offerings are presented to be used by the ministers at the exact same moment that the bread and wine (for Holy Communion) are brought forward to be used by them as well. The implication seems to be that the mystical commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice is incomplete without the symbolic incorporation of the first fruits of creation (first fruits representative of the whole lump, to borrow Pauline language), a creation which has been set apart and brought forward through the work of human hands (specifically Christ’s hands) as a perpetual offering to the Father by the eternal Spirit.
I’ll stop here, but I find this a compelling way to think about how eternal good can become enmeshed within the temporal, and whether these goods will continue into the eschaton. I feel like we tread here on great mystery, but truly in Christ’s oblation we have that hope that in the Regeneration our labor will not have been in vain, and that the Lord will have established the work of our hands.
A fair amount of esoteric talk in this thread. But, Nigel, I wonder why so ill-at-ease with the idea that what distinguishes believers from non is Word and sacrament. These are things only believers can do and unbelievers refuse to do. They can both create and participate in all manner of culture, and in so doing, blend in with each other six days a week. But come Sunday, only the believer can be found removing himself from all manner of culture and participating in particular cult. And it’s not so much that the particular activities of that one day inject themselves into the believer such that they implicitly reveal themselves in his six day cultural activities—it’s more that the explicit activities of the one day reveal in a simple but profound way the antithesis between faith and unbelief.
Hi Zrim, sorry for guiding us towards esoterism. To be honest, I more or less agree with you. I don’t feel at all uneasy about saying that the Word and the Sacraments are what set apart the believer from the non-believer and what set the Church apart from the world. Maybe what I’m most getting at is an overly cautious approach to defining what can be truly be called “Christian”, an approach which excludes behaviors or actions from being “Christian” simply because a non-believer can and will often do the same things.
My experience in these debates is that, when it comes to “giving a cup of cold water,” the Transformation types will talk about making that cup and its cold water Christian, redeeming it for the kingdom, whereas the Two Kingdoms types will swear up-and-down that there is no Christian way to give a cup of cold water, and that strictly speaking it only counts for the kingdom maybe if it happens during a fellowship hour on the Lord’s Day. I’m parodying a little, but I get frustrated with both sides sometimes.
And this is why I believe that although we can indeed draw a sharp line between non-believer and believer, World and Church, First Adam and Second, we must understand that in each case the latter is the completed and fulfilled version of the former. To give that cup of cold water is truly human, it reflects in some way the image of God, which means that it is truly Christian, whether carried out by a Christian or not. The gesture does not redeem the cup of water, nor does it redeem a human being. But it’s human, which means it is, in part, what we as Christians are aiming for.
When we speak of the Kingdom in its fullness, Christian ethic in its fullness, the redeemed community in its fullness, it seems silly to me to exclude behaviors or actions that are or could be common to all humanity from being called “Christian”. Does that help clarify what I was trying to say?
Matt,
I think that part of your frustration is simply owing to one of the blogosphere’s weaknesses – namely in it’s brevity, there tends to be a lack of clarity and careful distinctions that one might find in academic journals (and journal responses), lectures, or books. That’s not to say that this frustration is impossible to overcome, but that blogs that are too long are nearly unreadable, so it is hard to be both clear and brief.
I think one of the main issues that Darryl is highlighting, which is pretty clear to me after following his writing closely for a couple of years now is that there is very little in Scripture outside of the instructions for theocratic Israel that is prescriptive for human culture, even if there is a fair amount of cultural description. Even where Scripture is highly critical of the nations, as it is for example in the Prophets, where God indicts nations such as Babylon for their brutal treatment of Israel during the conquest before and after 586 BC, it is not appealing to prior revelation that God has given to these nations on the strictures of just war, it appeals to a sense of ethical fair play, universal ethical axioms that the Babylonians should’ve known better than to transgress.
But, as I have alluded to in comments on a previous discussion, I think that there will continue to be a lot of “talking past each other” so long as those of a Transformational/Kuyperian persuasion and those of a NL/2K persuasion don’t lay the harder groundwork of understanding the intellectual assumptions and a priori commitments of their schools of thought. I am not sure how much it will bring these schools of thought together, but it might more clearly demarcate our positions and cut down on some of the less than helpful run-arounds that happen in our debates. I think it is hard for some of Kuyperian sympathies to grasp the 2ker insistence that there isn’t a distinctly “Christian” or “Biblical” way of doing culture, without automatically meeting 2k with the suspicion that it is somehow squaring up against or disloyal to what Scripture clearly teaches regarding the Christian’s life in the world or the church’s responsibility to the same. They see 2kers as somehow capitulating to the very worst in the modern political economy and culture at large.
However, Natural Law, especially the Reformed re-framing of Thomistic NL, and the current development of modern NL theory amongst 2k scholars is a fairly established, and robust branch of ethics, that has a very real historical legacy in Western jurisprudence. My gut feeling, from where the debates stand today, is if Reformed 2k continues to espouse and develop off of the historical Reformed/Thomistic branches of NL ethics, the real “parting of the ways” might be over the Kuyperian/Van Tilian emphasis on the antithesis in areas not pertaining to salvation. Clearly, even 2Kers would agree that man, in his natural state cannot attain to saving knowledge of God without the illuminating work of the Spirit (WCF 1.6). However, 2kers would argue that the “light of nature” is sufficiently clear for man to make sound ethical judgements regarding what is good and what is evil, and from this work toward the adequate ordering of human societies. The key is the adequacy of human society and governance, which is meant to suppress evil, and promote good (Rom. 13:4) – this will never be perfectly attained, and societies will always be constrained by their fallen individuals, never attaining fully to the good it ought, or suppressing perfectly the evil it should; and there are even instances where societies are prone to great evil. If the antithesis is to apply to matters outside a saving relation to God, only Christians would have any right to seek the proper ordering of society. I find this notion problematic on both biblical and epistemological fronts – it would seem to me that man’s capacity as imago dei to attain to sound moral and ethical reasoning is the basis upon which he will be judged by God – and that this capacity for morality within fallen man, coupled with Providence, is why we are able to observe any morality or ethical cohesion amongst human societies in the first place.
To me, this is the real rub between 2kers who would hold to any historic understanding of NL and Kuyperians, or even theonomists who take an even harder stance on the antithesis. If the “light of nature” is indeed sufficient for the ordering of human societies, and we need not pursue distinctly “Christian” societies, then much of the transformational/Kuyperian project (not all of it to be fair) becomes unnecessary. However, if Kuyperians are right to extend the antithesis as they do, the 2k school of thought has a lot of holes to answer for. I am just not convinced, as a 2k sympathizer that it does.
Excellent comments Jed. Once again you hit the nail on the head. Thanks!
Matt, I’m not sure what the point of your post is except to argue in some way for lightening up on the ambiguities and breadth of meanings in terms. But if part of the 2k complaint (mine anyway) with neo-Calvinism is a sloppiness about redemption and kingdom, then I can’t go easily into that ambiguous night.
But since you don’t think I mean that Christians don’t know the meaning of life, let me clarify. I actually do think that the meaning of life is not disclosed to Christians. Ecclesiastes would be biblical warrant for this. But in the teaching of history students constantly want to know the meaning of events or the direction of history. I can say as a Christian where I believe history is headed — the Lord’s return. But I can’t tell students the meaning of the 1828 election, at least as it pertains to the meaning or direction of life. This may seem obvious. (And if a historian tells me he knows the meaning of historical events, I’m going to sit farther away from him at the next department meeting.)
But Christian schools are littered with parents who believe that if they send their kids to Christian schools they will learn the meaning of Shakespeare, math, and biology. I don’t know about you, but those are questions above the pay grade of most pastors and yet Christian schooling suggests that finding the meaning of life is as easy as balancing a checking statement. (Not to mention that Christians will have any number of answers to the question of what is the meaning of King Lear?)
Which leads to another reason for not using Christian with culture. Christian is a normative word. It implies a single or a small number of legitimate, nay, orthodox meanings. Since the Bible isn’t revealing the meaning of Thomas Jefferson, I think we should back away from language that implies a “Christian” reading of matters outside the canon.
Nigel, here’s the rub about Christians becoming more human. Generally speaking in the world of Calvinism (and evangelicalism) becoming a Christian involves becoming worse at culture. I mean, I doubt that many believers in Reformed churches could get away with writing either Brideshead Revisited or The Wire. I personally believe these cultural expressions to be oozing with humanity — they explore the human condition in remarkably perceptive ways. And yet, could a Christian get away with writing about sodomy or corrupt politicians who win?
Hi Darryl. I can’t argue with your diagnosis that becoming Christian (or certainly becoming “Calvinist”) often goes hand-in-hand with becoming awful at culture. Although I have met the occasional Reformed Christian who is able to appreciate the humanity in the kinds of works you’re describing (including, thank God, some of my professors at WSC), not many have the guts to grapple so thoroughly with the bowls of humanity like other non-Christians writers do.
There are of course delightful exceptions. Fyodor Dostoevsky writing from the Orthodox shadows of Enlightenment Russia, Flannery O’Conner in her brazen Southern Catholicism, even Marilynne Robinson with her understated Protestant liberalism: these authors give me hope that the truly human is within the reach of Christian culture-makers. Then again, none of them is a neo-calvinist transformationist, and each is willing to put up with a strong dose of dialectical paradox, secular ambiguity, and downright depressing endings to their literature. Their works are unpredictable, and they tend to unnerve the Evangelical Christians who take the time to read and try to understand them.
And so yes, I think too often when Christians (especially Reformed and Evangelical Christians) try to make culture, they turn away from the fullness of humanity, from the fullness of history, from the fullness of the world around them, and instead turn towards a bizarre idealism which descends into the uncanny, that is, the horribly almost-human. That’s been my experience with most “Christian” art, music, literature, and (sometimes) community. My hope and vision for Christian cultural engagement, whether Transformationist or Duoregnista, is that it could indeed open its eyes to the human condition, in all its corruption as it was assumed by Jesus of Nazareth, and also in all its glory as it was redeemed by Jesus of Nazareth.
Niigel, I like that, “Duoregnista.” Almost sounds Communist.
But Darryl, this is a great example of rhetoric that is one-sided and obscures more than it helps. Up front you state, “I actually do think that the meaning of life is not disclosed to Christians.” That’s an incredibly strong, negative statement. But then you take away with one hand what you give with the other, pointing out that Christians don’t know the full meaning of particular things (not very many Christians, even neo-Calvinists, would argue this, so you seem to be engaging a caricature), but you actually agree that we do know the ultimate meaning (i.e., “I can say as a Christian where I believe history is headed — the Lord’s return.”). So why not avoid the strong, exaggerated statement and offer a helpful clarification, showing people that although the Bible does give them broad insight on the meaning of life, that does not have all the particular implications people naively think it does for particular points.
In fact, that’s precisely what my Covenant College professors (who you like to write off as neo-Calvinists) taught me to do in the discipline of history. They chastened my assumptions about Christian insights into history, while still training me to view it all in the context of the broader Christian faith. When I read your books, you do exactly what my professors at Covenant taught me we are supposed to do, except that you are more explicit about your theological views and critiques and objectives.
In my experience teaching at a Christian school, Darryl’s rhetoric matches reality. That is, if he’s not speaking only to neo-Calvinism but also to broader evangelicalism.
It has been baffling to many students and parents that I was uncomfortable declaring the Real Meaning of, say, British Imperialism. Our textbook (from a major Christian publisher), of course, had no such qualms. And to be clear, the Real Meaning they were looking for wasn’t an eschatological framework, but a precise, definitive word from the Lord (which, I hope we’d all agree, He hasn’t given).
And here Jed’s earlier words are on the money – the very idea of ambiguity in a Christian’s reading of history was met with suspicion of disloyalty to God. I’ve had similar experiences in the church. I’m fairly comfortable describing myself as Van Tilian, but encountering curriculum designed to teach, for instance, Christian economics gives me a case of the howling fantods. To characterize these leanings as “not [held by] very many Christians” does not jive with my experiences.
Adam, thanks for the comment, that helps. Don’t you think, though, that the problem is with people who think that the “mind of Christ” (or thinking Christianly) somehow goes beyond what Scripture actually says? These people entirely lack a substantive understanding of general revelation or natural law, as found in the Reformed confessions. But their problem is not with their desire to think as Christians, or to view all things in relation to Christ. Christ was humble. Christ was a servant. To think Christianly is not to be naive or arrogant in our judgments, but to be Christlike even in our approach to general revelation.
That’s where this comes down to for me. I view the two kingdoms, natural law, and general revelation not as limiting Christian convictions or the insights to one realm or sphere, but as clarifying how we are to apply those convictions and insights to all of life (i.e., both kingdoms), which involves a rigorous humility in the face of general revelation and the limits of Scripture. The rhetoric of some two kingdoms people obscures that.
D.G. – Are you saying I could be the next Fagen or Becker? How about Larry David? I guess there is always the option of a pseudonym.
I nearly said the same thing about pen-names. I’ve never published any fiction, but I imagine I’d want my own name stamped on my own work. There are great reasons for using a pseudonym, but fear of reprisal from those of another theological bent (perhaps in ecclesiastical authority over me) doesn’t strike me as one of them.
Paul Schrader & Peter DeVries came out of the CRC. George C. Scott explaining the Five Points of Calvinism to a hooker in “Hardcore” is one of the strangest things I have ever seen on film. Scott goes to rescue his daughter who has slipped into the world of pornography while on a trip from Michigan to a Reformed youth convention in California.
Fair warning: The lady uses the F word at the very end.
Jed-
The danger for 2k is the truimphalistic sweeping under the rug of how the Thomistic strand lead Romanism to Natural Theology.
Nor am I convinced that the light of nature is enough to prevent the idolatry of the god-state. This is where 2k needs to take serious the concept of sphere soveriegnty.
igasx,
I am not sure 2k is being triumphal, or sweeping anything under the rug in returning to how the Reformed scholastics appropriated and re-shaped certain aspects of Thomistic NL. As it has been noted by recent scholarship, the Reformed scholastics were very concerned in establishing their catholic bona fides by demonstrating their ties into the historic Christian faith, which meant they drew off of many sources throughout the history of the church from the ECF’s to the transitional figure of Augustine, all the way to Aquinas and some of their medieval scholastic predecessors.This was used to establish a wide variety of doctrines, even Natural Theology. Where they differed on the matter of Natural Theology was not over it’s validity, but it’s real limitations. The Reformed did uphold the antithesis (even if they didn’t use the term) on matters of saving faith, but they did grant that the “light of nature” allowed a limited understanding of God, and some of his core attributes (as Rom. 1 teaches), and this shows up all the way from Calvin’s Institutes to our Reformed confessions.
And, I am not sure how sphere sovereignty is going to stop the “god-state” either. If a nation slips into tyrannical despotism, I am not convinced, on the basis of history that anything is going to stand in its way. Certainly, in his Providence, working through a variety of means, God has brought despotic states to their end, allowing for the establishment of tentative order. Christian opposition did not stop Hitler, Mao, Stalin, or Pol Pot. But, as egregious as these historical examples are, they are not the norm for human governance throughout history. From Hammurabi, to Rome, to Imperial China, down through the ordering of Medieval Europe, all the way to the development of modern democracies, we see a commonality in human politics and jurisprudence – society is organized to work reasonably well, in spite of the fall, building the fabric of the social contract where good is rewarded and evil is punished. But, where and why this breaks down, seems to me in the final estimation to be known only to God who is working all things according to the council of his will. Historically no Christian theory of the ordering of civil society has ever been able to eradicate the reality of human evil, or the spiritual evil that stands behind it, and I don’t think we can expect to. The best I think we can hope for is working for a society, as citizens, that functions reasonably well, and there will be times, not owing to any fault among Christians, where their efforts fail.
Matthew, I’m not as read up on this as I used to be, and I’m sure my views have shifted over time. However, I remember being rather on board with Van Til and Gaffin on “the mind of Christ” in 1 Cor 2 and Luke 11. Perhaps I’ve been wanting to have my cake and eat it, too (while calling it “common grace”).
As for humility in light of natural revelation – I agree with you. Of course, that sort of humility is exactly the sort of thing that has a tendency to arouse the suspicions we’re talking about. And that’s why I, though I see your point about Darryl’s rhetoric, resonate with what he said. Comparatively speaking, what I have to offer in terms of “Christian worldview” is stark. I am, in light of what the Scriptures have to say, comfortable with that.
igasx, I’m with you when you say “Nor am I convinced that the light of nature is enough to prevent the idolatry of the god-state.” This is where it is crucial to emphasize that natural law needs to be interpreted through the lens of the Christian tradition. The very notion of the secular that Darryl defends so ably in A Secular Faith is a Christian concept. The natural human tendency is to synthesize religion and politics, and it was Christianity that first challenged that. That’s why it is self-destructive for two kingdoms advocates to say that the Bible has nothing to say about politics.
Thanks Matt. I find encouragement in your efforts.
Darryl, you write “The fuzzy and inspiring mantra that the Bible speaks to all of life means the Bible is never silent.” But why do we have to go from one extreme to the other? The Bible says everything or the Bible says nothing. Why can’t we simply say that the Bible says some very important, general things about everything, but that it says nothing particular about almost everything? The Bible is authoritative in whatever it says (interpreted rightly, of course) but it does not say everything.
I think you put it much better when you say: “all I am doing is affirming the insufficiency of Scripture — which is the notion that the Bible is sufficient for everything it reveals, but not for setting up a society, writing a poem, establishing a tax code… It does speak some about being a father. Where the Bible speaks, I obey. And with this view goes precisely the idea that I can do whatever I want. Actually, I am bound by love but the basis for Christian liberty in the Reformed tradition is that we have freedom in those matters where the Bible is silent.”
If you are bound in whatever you do by love than that is something very important that the Bible says about everything you do. In fact, I think its the fundamental thing the Bible says about all of life, and most of Christian thinking on this point is working out on the basis of general revelation what it means to love people in various callings and circumstances.
What you, and Adam, are really critiquing is not the idea of a worldview (you have one, clearly) but the idea of a worldview that presumes far too much for itself (i.e., the ability to definitively evaluate historical events like British imperialism).
Speaking for myself, that’s fair. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Matt, what collection of documents do we ever speak about the way you describe the Bible. (It speaks of very important things about everything.” (I paraphrase.) Some tea party types might talk about the Constitution that way, and we roll our eyes. Some think Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare hung the moon on human experience. And yet would we say they speak about everything? I know, the constitution and human authors aren’t the Bible. But I am convinced that the notion of the Bible speaking to everything is recent and novel in church history.
So what I am arguing for is modesty in our claims (does the Bible really speak to everything if it doesn’t speak directly to everything?) and for greater precision. All of those cosmological passages in Paul have given to enormous license among neo-Calvinists claims about the world and views of it.
I still think that the rhetoric of everything negates Christian liberty. All of a sudden, a person with a Christian w-w can tell me what the meaning of Charles I’s execution means. And I have encountered such folks. Even though they are licensed to do history, they want to tell me how I should interpret the past.
BTW, the claim I made for not knowing the meaning of everything was actually biblical. Ecclesiastes is a remarkably humbling book. From a 2k perspective it makes complete sense. For a neo-Calvinist it’s like encountering the village atheist.
Darryl, the claim that we look at all of general revelation through the lens of Scripture is at least as old as Calvin. It’s not a neo-Calvinist claim. A careful reading of Paul’s letter to the Colossians will demonstrate that in essence it is found there. You can’t write off those Scriptural claims just because they’ve been abused.
This really isn’t an issue in which we need to veer back and forth between extremes. You don’t really disagree with what I’m saying, I don’t think (is there any action about which the Bible does not tell us to love God, any thing about which the Bible does not say that God has created it?); you just prefer a rhetorical stance that at times borders on the absurd in order to make a point. You already know I agree with you about the various examples you cite; they don’t really have anything to do with the point I’m making. Any good doctrine can be abused. Even the gospel. That doesn’t mean we should stop preaching it.
Could I perhaps suggest that, rather than using the rhetoric of “Scripture-as-lens” for all of reality, we employ a rhetoric of “Christ-as-lens”, a move which seems more faithful to what Paul is doing in his Epistle to the Colossians. Most Duoregnistas faithful to the Lutheran and Reformed traditions would affirm that the God-Man Christ is now become the ascended Mediator of the Father’s rule over all of creation. Though that rule may be refracted through different operative principles (creation and its natural law v. redemption and its special revelation), the same diothelitic Person is the one in whom “ta panta” cohere now and forever.
I am not trying to separate Christ from his written Word by any means; but still, where we might understand the Scriptures to be explicitly silent on many, many issues (including the eternal significance of St. Charles’ martyrdom), they may yet implicitly and indirectly give voice nonetheless. Christ indeed is himself Lord of world and space and time, of state and market and academy, and while often silent about the juicy details of this sphere, about this Man Scripture is overwhelming not-silent.
Just as we must view Christ himself as the interpretive lens through which we interpret the Old Testament (allowing the New Testament to bring its threads together), in an analogous way perhaps we can view Christ himself as the interpretive lens through which we view our present created order, allowing (in some limited Qoheleth-approved way) the Scriptures to give shape to our pilgrimatic reflection and action because they by the Spirit’s power show forth the shape of our Messiah and his present dominion.
Such a move, while recognizing the Lordship of Christ over all of life, might deliver us from the exhausting task of trying to find a proof-text for my morning breakfast (huevos rancheros, in case you were wondering), from the tyrannic scourge of the neo-antelbellum-arians (bless their hearts), or from the temptation to so oversimplify the Way that I forget the need to pray daily for wisdom from heaven. It might allow us the freedom to say that our vocation in this world is in no final sense adiaphora because it is Christ’s vocation and Christ’s world, while allowing us simultaneously the freedom of the Spirit to conform ourselves to the Lordship and imitation of Christ in ways that go far beyond what Scripture could possibly encompass.
“perhaps we can view Christ himself as the interpretive lens through which we view our present created order,”
Nigel, you have an uphill battle in explaining how this is anything other then a poetic metaphor that gives maximum latitude to the Christ-observer to say profoundish stuff with “Christian” being the adjective. At some point, people realize that the adjective is being used when the speaker really has an outlook that can be described without any theological adjectives.
mikelmann, as I read your comment, I do feel as though I’ve already posted my response in some of these other comments. This “poetic metaphor” (you flatter me) is rooted in a Person, revealed in Scripture, master of all revelation both general and special. There is in this Person an infinite reality (infinite because it’s personal, and infinite because it’s the Person of the Word) that allows for quite a lot of variation (if not latitude), depth (if not profoundish stuff), and discovery (if not observation) as we put out our outlooks on life and the world around us.
I won’t deny that people have abused this kind of rhetoric, even abusing others in the process (and I have been the first-hand recipient of much of that abuse). The key here again, as I said above, is not to divorce or separate the Personal Word from the Written Word. For example, while my own nephew, as a person, is infinitely knowable and describable in his myriad characteristics, there are still limits to my description of who my nephew is: he is two years old, he likes toy cars and trucks, and he enjoys drinking out of cups that don’t have sippy lids. To say otherwise would be problematic. In the same way, Christ is infinitely describable, yet there are boundaries (confessional boundaries, I might add) that limit how we speak of him.
In other words, the application of the Christ-as-lens metaphor does indeed have limits to its use, but these limits have entirely to do with the particularities of Christ, the definite qualities and concrete acts that we through faith know him to have and to have accomplished. But we must never forget that it is Scripture that is dependent upon him for its revelation and not he upon Scripture, though Scripture be his tool.
“In other words, the application of the Christ-as-lens metaphor does indeed have limits to its use,”
Nigel, it is limited in a sense and unfortunately unlimited in another sense. Let’s look at governmental structure and politics through the lens of Christ. Does the lens of Christ tell us whether a monarchy or a repesentative republic is the way to go? Much less does it inform us about the myriad decisions excercised under either regime. What will likely happen is that, in analyzing such things, the expounder will have a position that is conservative, libertarian, liberal, or some other persepctive that, in fact was derived from various sources that are quite explainable without any reference to the “lens of Christ.”
But then it is an incredibly plastic term, without much for boundaries that would delimit its scope. What does the lens of Christ tell you? Sounds like a version of “this is what the scriptures tell me” in a bad Bible study group.
Moreover, it’s actually a regression from “worldview” which at least has some discernible themes like creation, fall, and redemption. Unless you can point me to an explanation of what it actually looks like, I’m thinking it is to philosophy what WWJD is to ethics.
Matt, you know I’m not exactly wild about this extreme vs. balanced, absurd vs. sane rhetoric. I would appreciate if you gave it up.
My point still stands. You can point to Calvin and Paul but I have read Calvin on 1 Col. and he doesn’t go anywhere near where neo-Cal’s go. “All things” for Calvin means men and angels, not plumbing and art (see Goheen and Bartholomew for starters).
Why not advocate greater clarity in rhetoric? I’m not wild about neo-Calvinism but I don’t call it absurd.
And just to push back a little harder, Calvin could not mean looking at everything through the lens of Scripture what neo-Cals mean when Bibles weren’t available to most sixteenth c. saints (that is, if they could read).
So how about trying to take into account a disagreement without resorting to psychological categories?
Darryl, I have to admit, you are confusing me here. Why can’t I say that your rhetoric is extreme, or exaggerated? What if it is? You keep portraying this discussion as if it is in binary categories, as if anyone who agrees that Scripture is the lens through which we interpret general revelation, or that we are to do all that we do “in Christ” is therefore automatically going to fall into all the worst excesses and mistakes of the most naive interpreters of Scripture and the worst kind of transformationalists. But that simply does not follow.
We can drop the discussion at this point, if you prefer. I’m fine with that. I’ll let you have the last word.
On “all things” I must strongly disagree with you. When Paul says that all things were created in Christ he does not simply mean personal beings. I’ve written a lengthy exegetical study on this but I doubt I need to pour that out here. I’m going to follow the text where it leads, not duck from its clear teaching simply because it has been abused.
Nigel, This is a decent try, Christ, not the Bible. But let’s come down to something tangible like the fields of Kentucky and see how your appeal works there. If I want to know about the meaning of strip coal mining in Kentucky would I have a better chance of understanding it by reading the Bible, contemplating Christ, or reading Wendell Berry? I vote for Berry since he lives in Kentucky and has reflected lots on the effects of coal mining on the soil.
Does this leave Christ out? Not necessarily since Berry writes as something of a Christian who believes in a God who created the world good, and who gave humans the task of taking care of creation.
But I see the appeals by neo-Cals or even Duoreginistas to Christ or the Bible as almost as ethereal as appealing to Hegel to understand fixing potholes. So maybe some of this is temperamental. Maybe I’m not as philosophically inclined as I should be (though I don’t see that as a biblical imperative). But what I don’t quite understand is how theologians and biblical scholars and pastors don’t understand that their theories about meaning in real life look pretty abstract from the actual duties of real life.
Hi Darryl, I really appreciate your comments, and especially your reference to Wendell Berry. I almost brought him up earlier in the conversation. I would vote for him as well.
Maybe I’m running adrift in dangerous ground here, but I have the unnerving sense that all our humanly endeavors, all our art and study, our anthropology, all are quite related to Christ insofar as they constitutes the details of the humanity that he assumed. With the incarnate example of Christ in the back of my mind, I will read Berry to learn about humanity (to some degree), which then informs my understanding of Christ (to some degree), which then informs my understanding once again of Berry (to some degree) and coal mining in Kentucky (to some degree). Maybe I sound a little abstract and philosophical here, but in my experience, this is a very real and practical “feedback loop” present in the reflection of many ordinary Christians. We keep doing a “reality check” as it were regarding our views of the world and of Christ, trying to make sure they somewhat cohere at least.
The dangers of being either too abstract or too overly-simplistic in the application of a “Christ idea” have (I think) an opposite and equal danger of leaving Christ the Mediator out of the reflection loop. My hunch is that this is what Bonhoeffer was trying to correct in his Ethics when he restated the Two Kingdoms theory in his own radically Christocentric terms. For instance, should we think through and apply Natural Law since it is based on Creational Principles? Absolutely. But let’s not think through Natural Law itself without reflecting for a bit on the Father’s Creative Word who literally embodies that Natural Law. Rhetorically it may not work in every situation (CNN? FOXNews?), but does that negate its dialectical validity?
What this sort of thing is not going to do, I think, is shut down dialogue. I suspect in most scenarios a Christ-as-lens approach to engagement with culture will create more ambiguity rather than less, will force us to keep listening to one another, will require us to continue learning and discussing, and will lead to dogmatic certainty only in rare and exceptional cases. And I admit, this really not what most Neo-Calvinist Transformationists (or even most Duoregnistas) are looking for when they try to bring Christ Pantokrator into the picture. Still, the Man is there. It might behoove even those of us brought low with epistemic humility (or pessimism) to recognize that fact.
Matt says: “Why can’t we simply say that the Bible says some very important, general things about everything, but that it says nothing particular about almost everything? The Bible is authoritative in whatever it says (interpreted rightly, of course) but it does not say everything.”
Call Dr. K and see if he’ll agree to this.
I’m not sure your notion will square with “All of Life Christian Cultural Obedience (TM)” or whatever term he is using this week.
Usually when people start using phrases like this the next thing they tell me is I need to start eating nothing but yogurt or something along those lines.
Jed- I agree with your general synopsis of the history of the Church but of course the question is how far to one side or the other the antithesis is pushed. While 2k complains that the neo’s push it too hard my point is that if the antithesis is merely a difference between church and secularity then there is no real antithesis. The recent cases of formerly Reformed folk converting to Romanism points to this. If the mere difference is divine worship then the smells and bells of Romanism probably seem much more attractive than the somber Reformed version.
The problem with both systems is exactly that… it’s a system. While 2kers complain that neo’s are endorsing a form of Hegelianism the 2k system is just a different form. If everything is reduced to church and secularity the individual is dissolved into the organic whole to become just a set of relations within that whole. One needn’t read too much Calvin til they come to understand the place of conscience in both church and state.
Nations slip into despotism because the people worship the god-state. If the concept of sphere sovereignty is maintained, with self-government being the beginning point, there is less of a chance for despotism to rear it’s ugly head.
igasx, where does 2k ever say that the antithesis is “merely a difference between church and secularity”?
And I don’t understand your point about system, as in it’s just one. You read folks like Francis Oakley on medieval political theory and Bernard Lewis on Islam you see that the notion of spiritual and temporal (i.e. secular) spheres is pretty basic and is unique to Christianity (and to the West). It’s not a question of system. It’s history.
“It’s history”- Huh? Sounds like something Hegel would say.
Igasx,
I haven’t forgotten about responding, busy with kids preschool Christmas parties…I’ll probably get to responding later tonight or tomorrow.
Nigel, that’s an excellent point, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. When I speak of Scripture, of course, I mean Scripture interpreted in an appropriate, Christ-centered, manner. But your emphasis has more precision to it.
Igasx, that’s right. I forgot. You only respond to me in bumper sticker quantities.
Hey man- why you crimping my liberties? Why should I be bound by your dialectic?
Because this is a blog, not a car.
I’ll try to toe the system- dude… er Sir!
Matt, who decides what is extreme? What if you are extreme from my perspective? You may think that there is a responsible use of worldview (ouch) thinking, but the historical precedents are not in your favor. Think GKN. Think CRC. Think the Toronto Institute. Does this mean that “automatically” a neo-Cal is going to fall off the cliff? Not exactly. But when will any worldviewer (ouch) acknowledge the defects and try for greater precision? Not to invoke a rivalry between you and Nigel, but at least he offered Christ instead of the Bible as lens. When I disagree with you, you call me extreme.
As for all things in Col 1:16, Here’s Calvin:
“Both of these kinds were included in the foregoing distinction of heavenly and earthly things; but as Paul meant chiefly to make that affirmation in reference to Angels, he now makes mention of things invisible. Not only, therefore, have those heavenly creatures which are visible to our eyes, but spiritual creatures also, been created by the Son of God. What immediately follows, whether thrones, etc., is as though he had said — ‘by whatever name they are called.’
“By thrones some understand Angels. I am rather, however, of opinion, that the heavenly palace of God’s majesty is meant by the term, which we are not to imagine to be such as our mind can conceive of, but such as is suitable to God himself. We see the sun and moon, and the whole adorning of heaven, but the glory of God’s kingdom is hid from our perception, because it is spiritual, and above the heavens. In fine, let us understand by the term thrones that seat of blessed immortality which is exempted from all change.
“By the other terms he undoubtedly describes the angels. He calls them powers, principalities, and dominions, not, as if they swayed any separate kingdom, or were endowed with peculiar power, 305 but because they are the ministers of Divine power and dominion. 306 It is customary, however, that, in so far as God manifests his power in creatures, his names are, in that proportion, transferred to them. Thus he is himself alone Lord and Father, but those are also called lords and fathers whom he dignifies with this honor. Hence it comes that angels, as well as judges, are called gods. 307 Hence, in this passage also, angels are signalized by magnificent titles, which intimate, not what they can do of themselves, or apart from God, but what God does by them, and what functions he has assigned to them. These things it becomes us to understand in such a manner as to detract nothing from the glory of God alone; for he does not communicate his power to angels as to lessen his own; he does not work by them in such a manner as to resign his power to them; he does not desire that his glory should shine forth in them, so as to be obscured in himself. Paul, however, designedly extols the dignity of angels in terms thus magnificent, that no one may think that it stands in the way of Christ alone having the pre-eminence over them. He makes use, therefore, of these terms, as it were by way of concession, as though he had said, that all their excellence detracts nothing from Christ, 308 however honorable the titles with which they are adorned. As for those who philosophize on these terms with excessive subtlety, that they may draw from them the different orders of angels, let them regale themselves with their dainties, but they are assuredly very remote from Paul’s design.”
Looks like a lot of angels to me.
Nigel, thanks for your response. But I am still left wondering. What is it that makes Wendell Berry smarter than me about Kentucky, farming, and the land? Is it that he has thought through the perspective of Scripture or Christ? Or is it that he has for years reflected on the climate, region, soil, and economy of his home? I think the latter. To me this means that someone arrives at the truth about the land by studying the land, not by doing theology. I’ll go a step farther, someone who does theology is never going to understand Henry County the way Berry does unless he or she spends time studying the stuff Berry does.
I think this is pretty obvious. But it also seems like a truth that neo-Cals are hard pressed to admit who think either Christ or Scripture as lens is the source of truth. In which case, someone has to argue that Berry’s truth is not the whole truth. Or he doesn’t understand his place adequately.
In point of fact, I think Berry understands the creation better than most Christians. He may not understand creation in relation to redemption properly. But that is precisely the point I am trying to make. The Bible explains redemption fully and sufficiently. The Bible only gives the high points about the creation order. And I would argue that people may understand creation well without the Bible, Christ, or regeneration. (Why else would we go to a non-Christian physician?)
To claim that the Bible speaks to everything and is the source of all truth invalidates Berry’s insights. Even more, it invalidates the hard work in which he has engaged to understand the world.
Lest neo-Cal’s worry about autonomy here, I’d also argue that all of Berry’s knowledge comes from God — the God who created his mind, equipped it with a certain capacity, and who created the created order on which Berry reflects. That’s a whole lot of creation and almost no redemption.
If 2K people have anything to offer to the wider Christian community it is the constant reminder that we offer that Jesus meant what he said about His kingdom not being of this world. We get a glimpse of His kingdom in the church — primarily by hearing the Word preached and participating in the Sacraments — but we still await his kingdom in the fullest sense.
So many Christians look for the kingdom here and now. Liberal, social gospel types think they bring the kingdom through improving society through social welfare. Temperance advocates thought they could bring the kingdom by getting rid of alcohol. Machen’s opponents thought they could bring the kingdom by lowering their standards and just encouraging all Christians to get along. Evangelicals think they can bring the kingdom by making the gospel more accessible and appealing to the middle to upper-middle classes (with help from a cool praise band, an architecturally appealing megachurch, and an onsite coffee bar). Some evangelicals also throw in a political program that usually involves taking over the Republican Party. Postmillennialists await the kingdom coming visibly (albeit still not quite perfectly) in history. Neocalvinists & Kuyperians see the kingdom emerging as Christians embrace the Bible speaking to “all of life”. Add to these Christians multiple varieties of non-Christians who seek a secular kingdom through politics, community organizing, labor union membership, universal health care, abortion on demand, gay marriage, The United Nations, world peace, drug use, sexual freedom, or whatever else they can come up with to comfort themselves and give their lives meaning.
To all these people we say – No – Look to Christ and hope not in this world or in this life, but in the life to come. Be faithful in your work but temper your hopes about what they will achieve.
As a test, ask yourself how you make sense of the awful school shooting last week. Does your theology fully account for it? If not, you need to adjust your theology rather than thinking your theology will eventually fix this world in the current age.
Igasx,
Sorry for the delayed response, but here goes:
While 2k complains that the neo’s push it too hard my point is that if the antithesis is merely a difference between church and secularity then there is no real antithesis. The recent cases of formerly Reformed folk converting to Romanism points to this. If the mere difference is divine worship then the smells and bells of Romanism probably seem much more attractive than the somber Reformed version.
This comment illustrates a very real issue I have with neo-Cal’s in general (I can think of a few exceptions though) – there is a real lack of support given for rather broad sweeping statements. Rigor (even brief, blog style rigor) is substituted for throwing in some anecdotal evidence and viola point proven. But, I think this lacks real rigor or clarity, for instance, how a weak understanding, in the eyes of a neo-Cal, potentially leads one to Rome; moreover, that if one does not hold to the all-encompassing neo-Calvinist version of the antithesis, one wrongly understands the emphasis. So let me try to achieve some clarity – WCF 1.6 states:
The extent to which Reformed theologians in the confessional age (16th-17th centuries) would have understood what we call “the antithesis” would have extended only to salvific matters, drawing a distinction between the spiritual man, who is spiritually appriased to the truth of Scripture and the realities of salvific truth, and natural man, who can only interpret – some better and some worse – reality as elucidated by the “light of nature”. And let us not forget how early Reformed scholarship appropriated the very best systems of thought achieved by pagans reflecting on the “light of nature”, especially the structures of Aristotle’s philosophy (following Thomistic contours) in order to structure and articulate Reformed Orthodoxy. You are going to be hard pressed to find anything amongst theologians in the period of Reformed orthodoxy that extend the antithesis to cultural and political matters. These developments do not gain much emphasis until Kuyper, and do not become dominant until Van Til’s radical insistence on a thoroughgoing antithesis.
The illustration you offer, implicating that the antithesis was the reason why some Reformed (and even 2k) ministers and seminarians have converted to Rome is equally dubious. In the case of Stellman, who has been most prolific in stating his case, the reasons why he converted had nothing to do with a weak understanding of the antithesis – according to his own resignation letter to the PCA, he could no longer hold to our confessional standards because he did not believe that they were biblical. While we profoundly disagree with him, he felt the exegetical evidence on matters of soteriology and ecclesiology favored the church of Rome. As a former 2k advocate, he did not see an antithesis between the spiritual and earthly kingdoms as the fundamental issue, so much so that differences between Rome and Geneva center on matters of “divine worship”, he saw that fidelity to the true church, which he took to be Rome, was as much of an issue of biblical exegesis as Protestants who have continued to protest the legitimacy of Rome and the Pope see their grievances as fundamentally biblical.
You go on to say, The problem with both systems is exactly that… it’s a system. While 2kers complain that neo’s are endorsing a form of Hegelianism the 2k system is just a different form. If everything is reduced to church and secularity the individual is dissolved into the organic whole to become just a set of relations within that whole. One needn’t read too much Calvin til they come to understand the place of conscience in both church and state.
My complaint against neo-Calvinism isn’t because I see it as overly Hegalian, but that it has imbibed Kantian idealism (which I have dealt with in other comments I could direct you to), and sought to re-work it along Christian, and even Reformed lines, all while trying to stand in a critical posture over the abuses of idealism in the modern world. Neo-Calvinists, for too many reasons to be listed here, have come to dominate Reformed churches and denominations with varying degrees of emphasis on Kuyperian and Van Tilian streams of thought. Because of the ubuquity of neo-Calvinism, what seems to be lost are the older articulations of Reformed Orthodoxy, from the confessional age all the way down to Old Princeton, and that neo-Calvinism functions as a substantial development of a far older tradition of theological inquiry and reflection that gave rise to our confessional witness. 2k, while a system, lacks the imperialism of the neo-Calvinists expansive emphasis on a all encompassing worldview – it seeks to recover something that Reformed churches have lost along the way, and that is how Scripture is meant to function a) as God’s word and supreme mode of self-disclosure and b) the role of Scripture as the final authority for the church. If you read any 2k scholarship, whether you agree or not, the attempt is to justify 2k theology Scripturally first, and thereafter by showing the seeds of 2k theology in the Reformed tradition. 2k isn’t critical of neo-Calvinism because it is a system, it is critical on both biblical/theological and historical grounds.
Jed,
Thanks for the response and exhortation. I likewise find lack of rigor in those who merely quote some section of the Confessions and think that is the all encompassing truth. The point I was trying to make is if the priority one set for himself is a radical spiritual/secular divide then Romanism gives him better resources to live out that worldview. Then, as you mention, one just needs to seek out exegetical arguments to support that worldview. The meta-narrative controls exegesis.
Pingback: What do you mean by 'Christian'? What do you mean by 'culture'? | Christian Media Monitor
Pingback: D.G. Hart on Christianity and the Meaning of Historical Events « Literate Comments
Pingback: D.G. Hart on Kuyper and the Lens of Scripture « Literate Comments