Prooftexting 2k

Here is how Darryl Hart responds to the following question:

“Can you ground 2K in scripture for us? Is this the teaching of the Bible?”

http://davestrain.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/interview-with-darryl-hart-part-iv/ 

If it doesn’t sound too defensive, I’d start by saying that a 1 kingdom view has not been shown to be the teaching of Scripture. It is curious to me that lots of people who object to 2 kingdom views go ahead and live with a two-kingdom reality.  They are not insisting that the church rule over all things…

i) Why would we view the church as a “kingdom” in the first place? How does Hart define a “kingdom?”

And how does he define “the church”? Does he mean a local church? A set of local churches? The visible church? The invisible church?

It’s clearly equivocal to use “kingdom” both for church and state. For we don’t mean the same thing in each case.

ii) What would it mean to say “the church” rules over all things? If the church includes the laity, then the laity do have a civic role to play.

iii) Or is he using the “church” as a synonym for something like Christian social values? If that’s what he means, then I think Christian social values ought to norm social policy.

So when he talks about “the church” ruling over all things, does he mean an institution, church officers, laymen, or moral norms?

iv) Keep in mind that even the Mosaic theocracy distinguished between church and state. Only a Levite could be a priest. So does that make the Mosaic theocracy 2k? Yet 2k proponents typically treat the Mosaic theocracy as the antithesis of 2k.

But if the Mosaic theocracy is not 2k, then was God inconsistent?

…or that Christians must be elected to public office…

What does he mean by “must”? We don’t control who chooses to run for public office. And who’s elected depends on who gets the most votes.

However, I certainly think it’s preferable to have Christians in gov’t.

…or that every cultural expression must come from a regenerate artist.

How is that inconsistent with alternatives to 2k? Even theonomists have a doctrine of common grace. As well as Kuyperians. 

Critics of 2 kingdom theology like to protest against it, but it hardly ever involves a one-kingdom argument instead.  This may simply be an inconsistency.  I think it also an acknowledgement of the limits of church power…

i) How is acknowledging the limits of church power inconsistent with alternatives to 2k? Once again, Hart fails to define his terms. Church power would be exercised by church officers. But is that the issue? Is the issue who exercises power? Of is the issue what is exercised? Isn’t the real issue the source and standard of social ethics, which inform public policy? The question is not the enforcement-mechanism, which is secondary, but the code of conduct. Especially laws of morality (in distinction to laws of utility). What value-system norms the laws of the land? That’s the question.

ii) Some 2k proponents appeal to natural law. But, of course, there’s no social or philosophical consensus on value theory. Natural law is just one of several competing ethical paradigms.

Is he suggestion that all lawmakers be required to ground their legislation in natural law? If so, how would he enforce that mandate? 

…and the reality of living in societies where believers and non-believers cohabit and must get along in some fashion.

i) How does that distinguish 2k from, say, the Mosaic theocracy? Believers and unbelievers cohabited in ancient Israel. The populace of ancient Israel included resident aliens as well as covenant members. And the Mosaic law made provision for that diversity.

ii) Do unbelievers abide by peaceful nonexistence? In our own country, unbelievers are attempting to impose their values, by force of law, on Christians. Coercive equality. Speech codes. Food police. Thought police. Income redistribution. And so on and so forth. 

The specific passages I go to for support for a two-kingdom view are obvious ones like Christ’s instruction, “Render unto Caesar. . .”

i) To begin with, why assume Jesus is even stating his own position on statecraft? In context, he’s simply answering his opponents on their own terms. They tried to snare him in a dilemma, so he returned the favor by snaring them in their own dilemma.

ii) Even if (arguendo) it does state his own position, how does it teach “two kingdoms”? Clearly “God” and “Caesar” are asymmetrical. Everything belonging to Caesar also belongs to God, but the converse is hardly the case. God is over Caesar. There’s no parity between the two.

iii) Notice, too, that Hart is asserting an analogy: God is to the church as Caesar is to the state. But where’s the argument? Isn’t the analogy equivocal? Both church and state have human officers. So the church is not synonymous with “God.”

...along with his rebuke to Peter for using the sword against the ruling authorities.

i) Why should we treat that as a universal imperative? Isn’t the basic problem here that Peter is interfering with the plan of salvation?

ii) Does Hart take the position that civil disobedience is never justified? If so, that wouldn’t be 2k, that would be 1k. That would be totalitarianism.

By contrast, the Bible sanctions civil disobedience in some cases. Indeed, it goes well beyond that. In 2 Kgs 9-11, we have two cases of tyrannicide, back-to-back.

In fact, the gospels are replete with a recognition – it seems to me, of Christ submitting to earthly authorities, whether Jewish or Roman, all the while establishing his own kingdom.

How does that distinguish k2 from Roman Catholicism, or Lutheranism, or Anglican Erastianism, or Anabaptism, or the Kuyperian paradigm?

Notice, too, that he keeps recasting the issue in terms of “kingdoms” rather than law.

 My own pastor has been preaching through Luke and it sounds like the distinction between what’s going on in the civil and national realm and what’s being inaugurated by Christ’s work and ministry is a theme from which one cannot escape in Luke, and that to try to turn Christ’s ministry into a program of social justice or political engagement really misses the point and grander significance of what he came to do.  I believe the gospels show that Christ’s kingdom was spiritual and many Israelites could not fathom that because they were looking for a one-kingdom world where religion and the state would be fused.

i) Well, there’s an obvious sense in which the Sanhedrin already “fused” church and state. It was both a political and a religious ruling body. Yet many Jews didn’t think very highly of the religious establishment.

ii) And notice how Hart caricatures the opposing position.

And then there are passages like Romans 13 where Paul tells Christians to submit to the magistrate – a heretical and persecuting magistrate at that.  It certainly suggests that Paul was not thinking the rule of the state was on redemptive grounds.  And when he says that the task of the magistrate is to punish evil, he is clarifying a function that is very different from the church’s which is to forgive sin.

i) How does Rom 13 support 2k? Does Rom 13 compartmentalize church and state? Wasn’t the Roman emperor the pontifex maximus? Does Hart think 1C Christians were duty-bound to submit to the imperial cult? Has he never read the Book of Revelation?

ii) What makes him think Nero was persecuting Christians at the time Romans was written? As a historian, I’d expect Hart to be more careful with his dates.

iii) What Christian position doesn’t accommodate Rom 13 on its own terms? How is that a problem for Kuyperians? Or Amish? Or Anglicans? Or Lutherans? And so on and so forth.

I’d also point to the Great Commission as supporting a two-kingdom view.  They way that the church disciplines the nations is not through political rule but through word (teach) and sacrament (baptize).

Well, it says the church should teach Christians whatever Jesus taught. And that includes Mt 5:17-18. Of course, that passage is open to interpretation. But it does complicate his simplistic dichotomy.

Some people object to the two-kingdom view for its dualism.  I find it hard to read 1 Cor. And Paul’s distinctions between temporal and eternal things and not see that some kind of dualism is entirely fitting with biblical teaching.

Well, that makes 2k a classic example of overrealized eschatology. And, indeed, some of the Corinthians may have been guilty of that. 

My pastor is also preaching in the evenings through Ecclesiastes.   He is by no means a committed two-kingdom guy.  He is simply trying to be a faithful minister and preach the text.  And throughout this book – all is vanity – I keep wondering if the transformationalists have ever read Ecclesiastes, if it is for them what James was for Luther, an “epistle” (wrong genre) of straw.

Of course, the Mosaic covenant, with its civil and criminal law code (laws of morality and utility), was still in force when Ecclesiastes was written. So does Hart think the Bible is self-contradictory?

Last, I have in A Secular Faith used the example of Daniel to suggest how pilgrims and exiles negotiate the two powers.  Daniel submitted to Chaldean rule and even excelled in their culture.  But he drew the line at worship.   His case suggests that Christians can engage with non-Christians in a host of common endeavors and that worship clarifies where such cooperation must cease.

i) If he can appeal to OT paradigms, why can’t opponents of 2k?

ii) Of course, Daniel was in no position to enact or enforce the Mosaic law in Babylon. How is that analogous to the situation of Christians who may find themselves in the majority?