Which Kingdom Is Which?

In the beginning of Mark 7, Jesus confronts the Pharisees of His day about substituting their traditions for God's Word (click here for the biblical account). Why bring that up here? It is because D.G. Hart (click here for a bio) has, in one of his blogs, written about the danger of "baptizing" (Hart's term) the politics of any politician or religious person who is advancing a cause or crusade. That "baptizing" may be done by either the person behind the crusade or some admiring supporter. And Hart takes this baptizing of causes and crusades to task from what is called a Reformed 2 Kingdom Theology (2KT) approach (click here for his article).

The above reference to the beginning passage of Mark 7 was made because Hart's approach to the subject comes strictly from his Reformed 2KT model of thought (click here and there for quick reads on Reformed 2KT). And he is using that model of thought to interpret situations and determine how Christians should respond. Here we should note that developing models of thought by which we interpret the world around us and our obligations to God and others is almost a fetish for conservative theologians. The upside of that is that sometimes those models of though give us a better, though still partial, picture of what the Scriptures say about things. But even on a good day, because our models of though give us partial pictures of reality, we need to be careful not to substitute our model of thought for the Scriptures lest we become like the pharisees whom Jesus rebuked in Mark 7.

 The essence of 2KT is found in its name. All Christians belong to 2 distinct kingdoms: a given kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. And followers of 2KT promote varying degrees of separation between the two kingdoms. As noted by one of the cited references above, Hart teaches that the two kingdoms are so different that they are separate. And by separate, that means that neither the Church nor the State can claim any legitimacy in correcting the other. And what logically follows the teaching that the Church cannot not correct the State is that the State cannot do anything that can be considered sin. The State can be wrong in terms of violating its own laws or perhaps international laws--can't remember Hart's position on that last set of laws.  But outside of that, the State can't be charged with practicing any sin regardless of how it treats others. We should also note that Hart's own political views seem to be a conservative libertarian and, if memory serves, seems to follow one of his heroes, J. Gresham Machen,  in terms of political views.

What Hart wants to state in this particular article is that we need to use 2KT to prevent the alignment of the Gospel with political and social causes. And that applies for both liberals and conservatives. Thus, he states that if one cannot associate Trump's policies with God's Kingdom, then the same applies to Martin Luther King Jr.'s agenda. He states this because some were saying that those Christians who support Trump, also support what seems to be his unbiblical political pursuits. And the only way Christians can do that is to employ 2KT. Likewise, some say the same of those Christians who support the Democratic Party and its agenda. And 2KT, especially Hart's version, comes into play because it is saying that the State cannot sin unless it violates its own or possibly international laws. And even then, those violations are not technically sins according to Hart.

Thus, Hart's point is that Reformed 2KT, though not condemning the Republicans, the Democrats, or the work of Martin Luther King Jr., prohibits any kind of association of the Gospel with these agendas.

Now according to Hart's version of 2KT, since it can be consistently stated that nothing that the Republicans, the Democrats, nor King and his followers promote can be associated with the Gospel, the question is is whether that is also true according to the Scriptures. In other words, are all political policies and laws equal in terms of their moral standing or are some political policies and laws more moral, according to the Scriptures, than other policies and laws? According to  Hart's 2KT, Trump's policies and King's agenda rest on the same moral plane.

Before addressing that point, we should note that, according to 2KT, the standards that determine who can be in good standing in society are not identical to those that determine who can be in good standing in the Church. Likewise a given state and the Church are not given an identical set of standards and responsibilities. But not having the exact same standards and moral obligations doesn't imply having no standards and moral obligations in common.

Thus, in comparing the present agenda of Donald Trump and the past agenda of Martin Luther King Jr., can we say that these two agendas are on the same moral plane? And if we cannot say that, are we automatically "baptizing" one person's or group's agenda over the other's?

We should note here that the problem with Hart's 2KT rests with historical counterexamples. Did the Nazi state sin when it invaded other nations or conducted the Holocaust? Was the Nazi state guilty of violating the commandments prohibiting murder and theft?

But it's not just the Nazi government that must be required to account for any violations of the commandments prohibiting murder and theft as if it set the minimal standard of evil, it is all governments and states that must be held accountable for practicing murder and theft. Using a counterexample like the Nazis' reign of terror points to the Achilles' heal of Hart's 2KT.

And yet Hart has a valid point even when we cannot say that Trump's policies are as moral as King's agenda. Even though King's agenda is more moral than Trump's, we still must resist any urge to equate the agenda of those working to advance social justice with the Scriptures. So though, we can't "baptize" King's agenda over Trump's, it is wrong to deny the sinfulness that King saw and personally experienced from any state or government. In fact, if we use Hart's 2KT to deny that states can sin, we are substituting traditions for the Word of God as illustrated in the above Scripture passage. Thus, though Hart has some valid points to make in his article, they remain biblically problematic when applying them to real life.





 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 14, 2016

Sept 10

To Joe  Carter and his blogpost about what we should know about the aftermath of 9/11. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition blog.

The greatest problem we Americans have in talking about the history of the 9/11 attacks is that that history of those attacks begins on 9/11. And that history revolves around what was done to us and what we experienced and how we reacted. And in doing so, we decontextualize what happened on 9/11. Some rationalize that decontextualization by claiming that to add the context of the attacks, that is to add what was done elsewhere that would have spurred such these attacks, is merely an attempt to justify what was done to us. On the other hand, this decontextualization allows our nation to continue to act as a bull in the china shop of the world. Such an approach also says that only American lives matter. That Palestinian lives who suffer and die because of Israel's Occupation and Iraqi lives who were lost to the results of the first Persian Gulf War and the sanctions that followed do not matter even though those two situations were stated as contributing reasons for the attack. And to deny the significance of the lives of other places while calling on God to help us is to make the Lord God into a tribal god.

Certainly the 9/11 attacks are horrible atrocities for which there is no excuse. But neither do the atrocities that serve as a context for the 9/11 attacks have any excuse. For it was those atrocities that at least partially fueled the anger of the terrorists who attacked us. And like all other atrocities, they were unnecessary.

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Sept 11

To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost on relativism and how it leads to the totalitarianism of the self. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The attempt to state that relativism implies narcissism and then link it to Nazism by the manufactured term "Nazissism" and the use of the word "stormtrooper" seem to forget that Nazism claimed that its beliefs were based on science and objective reality and that it was in the best interest of the state and society to impose their objective reality on everybody.

Another point to be made is that there seems to be no middle ground here between relative, subjective truth and objective truth. In other words, beauty and truth are either all subjective or all objective.

The conjunction of these two points paints an ominous pic of the viewpoint that opposes the existence of any relativity and subjectivity used to determine beauty and/or truth. That ominous pic takes us back, to some degree, to the word from which "Nazissism" comes from.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost pic of part of the wreckage of Flight 93 from 9/11. The blogpost was titled Remember 9/11. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Realize that I knew a person on Flight 93 when asking this: Which 9/11 are we being asked to remember? Is it the 9/11 when we favored the predators or the 9/11 when we were the prey? For if we don't try to remember both when attempting to see how the Scriptures say we should react, regardless of the different names for God and religions we adhere to, we, like the European nations did during WW I, make God into a tribal deity. And thus our respective religions merely become another way to exalt ourselves over others.

And for those who don't know about the first 9/11, it occurred when our nation's leaders supported the predators in the attacks. That occurred on  September 11, 1973 when there was a military coup, which was well supported by the US, that overthrew the democratically elected leader Salvador Allende and his government in Chile. The result was a military dictatorship that was ruled over by General Pinochet in which thousands were killed and many more were tortured.

So again, if we only remember the 9/11 in which we were the prey, we make God into a tribal deity. That might feed do much to feed our collective egos, but it attacks the truth.

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Sept 12

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how statistics show that hunger is on decline in America because of a drop in the humber of those who are food insecure from 2014 to 2015. This appeared in the Acton blog.

So by taking the difference between in statistics from one year to the next, we have enough evidence to conclude that the best way to help the poor is not through gov't help? And there is no breakdown of statistics regarding where food insecurity was minimally relieved after not participating in some gov't programs like SNAP, WIC, or the National School Lunch Program?

The above conclusion reached by Carter shows not a scientific approach to the use of data, but an eager opportunism to prove one's own pet theories and animosities.

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To Daryl Hart and his blogpost that opposes a Christian society because there are common concerns between Christians and nonChristians so that they could work together in build a secular society. This appeared in the Oldlife blog.

D.G.,
Those who want a Christian society want control for themselves by taking freedom from others and such is one of the problems of a Christian society. But what should we say about those who deny that states can commit murder and theft because these people don't believe in corporate sin? Why is it that what we can work with with individuals in a society does not exist between nations so that nations could not come together around those same points?

As for being thankful for the United States? We do have advantages that many from other nations do not have. But our nation has also committed a great number of immoral and sinful acts because of its power that many other nations have not.