Sept 29
To Heidelblog and Ryan Bias for the article that quotes Ryan Bias on Overture 15 from the PCA. That overture deals with whether people who identify themselves by their unnatural desires should hold positions in Church offices.
Ryan Biese's article in full:
https://rfbwcf.substack.com/p/clarity-on-overture-15
Is the issue about having unnatural desires, which we see carried out in the animal kingdom? Or is the issue about how people define themselves? Unlike the classification of some desires as being unnatural, there is no one clear approach to the latter question.
Do Christians only have 1 identity or one identification? Are we to only define ourselves as new creations? If the answer to that question is 'yes,' then how do we escape the fate of the Pharisee and embrace the fate of the tax collector from the parable of the 2 men praying (see Luke 18:9-14)?
The above overture seems to be more about how we define ourselves rather than what our desires are. And in determining how we Christians should define ourselves, we need to look at all of the Scriptures that shed light on that issue, not just a few or even one Scripture passage.
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Sometime on or soon after September 29
To Clyde Wilson and his article praise of conservative Russell Kirk's admiration for Southern Valor. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Perhaps the following paragraph gives a clear picture of where some want conservatism to go from here:
'That a conservative of Kirk’s stamp should value the south should not shock anyone. It was, after all, Randolph, the quintessentially Southern statesman, who said: “I love liberty and hate equality,” thus summing up the American traditionalist’s creed as well as it has ever been done. Where else in America than in the South could Kirk find substantial and continuing traditions to oppose egalitarianism and utilitarianism, to affirm the American link with British culture and a propertied order, a preference for local liberties and prescriptive rights, and a distaste for abstract schemes and rationalistic progress?'
We can tell from some of the comments to this article that not all conservatives oppose equality. But what is tragic is the refusal or inability to clearly define liberty exhibited by some. For what is liberty that is not enjoyed by all but privilege. It introduces hierarchy and eventually authoritarianism. Is that what conservatives want attributed to conservatism? Unfortunately, some do, but fortunately others do not.
As for the opposition to ideology expressed in the article above, their embrace of conservatism shows that they are only opposed to the ideologies of others, not to all ideologies. After all, they embrace conservatism.
While conservatives revel in their traditionalism, they should note that traditionalism is the mirror image of narcissism. For each one puts a certain time period(s) on such a pedestal that implies that their favorite time period(s) have everything to teach other time periods and nothing to learn from them--to adapt a phrase provided by Martin Luther King Jr. when speaking against the Vietnam War. King rightfully called such an attitude arrogant. And for students of the Scriptures, we should note that arrogance is never smiled on by God's Word. Neither is the belief in one's own moral superiority over that of others (see Luke 18:9-14 or Romans 1-3).
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Oct 3
To R. Scott Clark and his article about some of the differences between Reformed 2 Kingdom thinking and the approaches taken by the neo-Kuyperians and TheoRecons. This was posted on the Heidelblog website.
But we should note here is the context of early Reformation writers on 2 Kingdoms. They were writing when Christendom was firmly established. Calvin was very much a theocrat, which is different from being a theonomist. And since Christendom continued well after their lives, other Reformers lived in a very similar context in which Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin lived. And that context is dramatically different from today's religiously heterogeneous societies and our own separation of Church and State concept from The Constitution.
Among Reformed 2 Kingdom (2K) Theologians and followers, I have seen support for the notion that nations should codify the whole 2nd Table of the Law in one way or another. And that idea seems to be more consistent with the Neo-Kuypernians and TheoRecons than with the promotion of 2 distinct kingdoms.
Personally, I think we should approach the neo-Kuyperians and TheoRecons vs 2K divide in a very similar way that Martin Luther King Jr. approached the Capitalism vs Communism divide. Here I should mention that King wrongfully seemed to have conflated Soviet Union Communism with Marxism. King noted the weaknesses and strengths in each approach and encouraged us to create a hybrid of the two.
Here we should note that while Reformed 2K respects a religiously heterogeneous society more than the Neo-Kuypernians and others do but at the same time it cancels the Church's prophetic voice being spoken to society and the world, but only to a certain extent. Meanwhile, the efforts of the neo-Kuyperians and TheoRecons and some others show an inadequate amount of respect for today's religiously heterogeneous societies and yet preserves the Church's prophetic voice being spoken to the world. We should borrow from both and direct the Church to adequately respect today's religiously heterogeneous societies, including atheism, while speaking prophetically against the corporate sins of societies and nations.
What should be avoided is the strict division between the two approaches especially when each side claims to have the Reformers on their side. What is more important is to have God's Word on one's side. And to use the Reformers as a standard for orthodoxy here begs the question of the accuracy of their interpretation of God's Word, especially considering the context in which they were writing.
