why-two-kingdoms-september-october-2000

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MODERN REFORMATION

Why Two Kingdoms?

Dual Citizenship On the Eve of the Election

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9, NUMBER 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000, $5.00

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WHY TWO KINGDOMS? DUAL CITIZENSHIP ON THE EVE OF THE ELECTION

14 The Common Good and Common Grace: Christians at the Crossroads in the Public Square The central problem with current “Christian Right” (and Christian Left) political models is that they erode the integrity of the Gospel. But it is also worth noting the political flaws of such organization—chiefly the alienation of many potential this-worldly allies. by Don Eberly

21 Defining the Two Kingdoms: One of Luther and Calvin’s Great Recoveries Versus the medieval unification of church and state, the reformers recovered the Pauline and Augustinian position that Christians in this age must live patiently with the reality that our redemptive (ecclesiastical) and cultural (political/moral) agendas cannot yet be identified. by Michael Horton Plus: Time Line of Millennial Impulses in America

29 Practicing the Two Kingdoms: The Baptist Ideal of a Free Church in a Free State Though the magisterial reformers helpfully defended two kingdoms theory, they often failed to distinguish the kingdoms in practice. Here the persecuted Baptists were the real pioneers. by Timothy George

32 Roman Catholics and Their One Kingdom: A Report on John Paul II’s Ecclesia in Asia A recent statement by Pope John Paul on how the Holy Spirit works through even non-Christian religions reveals much about the Roman Catholic belief in the basic harmony of nature and grace. by David VanDrunen COVER PHOTOS BY STOCK MARKET & PHOTODISC

37 The Eternal Kingdom—Already Initiated in Christ, But Yet to Come in its Fullness In some places, the New Testament speaks of the Kingdom as already here, while in other places, it seems to be still in the future. How are we to make sense of the tension? by Timothy M. Monsma Plus: “What Is the Relationship Between the Institutional Church and Christ’s Kingdom?”

In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Ex Auditu page 5 | Speaking of page 9 | Between the Times page 12 Resource Center page 26 | Free Space with Bill Donahue page 42 | Reviews page 47 | On My Mind page 52 S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1

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MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief

Distinguishing the Kingdoms

Dr. Michael Horton Executive Editor

Benjamin E. Sasse Vice President

Diana S. Frazier

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s many of us learned our civil religion, quotations by Thomas Jefferson on

Assistant Editor

Ann Henderson Hart Production Editor

“God” proved that America is specifically Christian. And an out-of-context

Irene H. DeLong

citation of 2 Chronicles 7:14 was supposed to demonstrate that God had a

Dr. Mark R. Talbot

Book Review Editor

unique affection for America, and that solutions to all temporal, geopolitical problems could be found in the Bible.

Eschewing the conventional wisdom of avoiding any discussion of religion and politics, some of us created our own aphorism: Avoid any discussion of the distinction between religion and politics.

But then along came the Scriptures and Church history to shake up our simplistic identification of the interests of our nation with the redemptive plans of God in this world. There were voices everywhere—Jesus distinguishing what is given to Caesar and what to God; Augustine talking about his “two cities” with their “two loves”; Luther belaboring the divergent tasks of God’s “left hand” (judgment and this-worldly order) and his “right hand” (promises and salvation); previous generations of American Christians insisting on some benefits (rather than merely toleration) of the separation of Church and state—all voices urging us not to collapse religion and politics (or, more broadly, redemption and all of culture) into one subject.

Let us be clear: We are not implying that our faith doesn’t have a great deal to say about all of our this-worldly affairs, politics included. Of course it does—which is why we consult the Scriptures and the fathers in the faith on these matters. But what do we find in these sources? Often that we have previously failed to note the distinct means and ends of the various spheres that God has instituted. Indeed, both the Church and the state are God’s. But they have different purposes (salvation of sinners versus the restraint of the harm caused by sin), different constituencies (all the redeemed across time Next Issue and space versus all the The Word created within certain Preached geographic borders),

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Column Editor

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different authorities (special revelation versus reason/natural revelation), and different means (the supernatural tools of preaching and the Sacraments versus the natural means of the sword and the purse-strings).

Both Church and state are God’s wonderful gifts, and they are spheres in which Christians can faithfully labor to the glory of God and for the good of our neighbors. But we dare not identify the two, limiting the Church to natural tools, or suggesting that political activity can produce genuine righteousness. For we are “dual citizens” and will remain so until Jesus comes to put an end to our pilgrimage, and to identify all our loves as one.

In this issue, Don Eberly parses not only redemption and creation, but within creation, how to distinguish politics from culture more broadly. Mike Horton outlines the reformers’ plan versus the medieval unification of Church and state, to recover the two kingdoms. Timothy George explores how the reformers succeeded in theory, but often failed in practice, to distinguish the kingdoms—and thus why it took a persecuted Baptist community to demonstrate consistent two kingdoms doctrine. David VanDrunen considers today’s Roman Catholic teaching on the relationship between nature and grace.

And Timothy Monsma offers a way forward by exploring how the Kingdom of God comes particularly through the Church, yet drives Christians out into the world as both salt and light.

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Dr. Allen C. Guelzo Dr. D. G. Hart Dr. Carl F. H. Henry Dr. Arthur A. Just Dr. Robert Kolb The Rev. Donald Matzat Dr. John W. Montgomery Mr. John Muether Dr. Richard A. Muller Mr. Kenneth A. Myers Dr. Tom J. Nettles Dr. Leonard R. Payton Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Dr. Kim Riddlebarger Mr. Rick Ritchie Dr. David P. Scaer Dr. Rachel S. Stahle Dr. David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

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Thank you for the free May/June issue of MR that I received. I read it with great interest, some hope and much sadness. I am always interested in what “the other side” is saying. My hope was kindled by Michael Horton’s evangelistic zeal. I also appreciated the humble admission that “we do not entirely understand the church growth movement” (page 44) and that there are “stodgy, seeker-resistant Reformed and Presbyterian churches” (page 17). I am saddened, though, because I have to refer to so many of my Christian brothers and sisters (fellow evangelicals), whom I have long respected, as “the other side” because they insist on erecting unwarranted, unbiblical and unnecessary fences that leave me out of the fold.

My disappointment with the caricatures of those with whom you disagree, and with so much amateur sociological analysis disguised as theological insight, leads me to decline your special offers, introductory rates and other slick marketing techniques that tempt me to buy a subscription. I might consider paying the cover price for an issue that focuses on “The Malling of Theology” by people within your movement.

Pastor H. Henry Williams Five Oaks Community Church (EFCA) Woodbury, Minnesota

As a church planter and sovereign grace Baptist, I was disappointed by your May/June issue attacking the church growth movement. In vain I searched for biblically based reasoning. Instead, I found superficial, straw-man argumentation, appeals to the catechisms, exhortations to grow the church by

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having more babies (!), and out-of-context quotes from various church-growth proponents, with no real attempt at understanding. When the Scriptures were even referenced, it was usually only in passing.

How ironic that the magazine of an organization formed to “recover and confess the truth of God’s Word” seems to have so little interest in appealing thoughtfully to that Word when addressing the church growth movement. It only reinforces the opinion that what you are defending is not a biblical doctrine of the church, but only a cranky conservatism of tradition for its own sake. Until you can base your arguments on the Scriptures you will find yourself persuading no one, but only preaching to the (robed, I assume) choir.

Alan Perkins Westlake, Ohio

What makes MR a Christian magazine? Not its form, but its substance is what makes it a tool useful to the Church and glorifying to God. In like manner, it is not so much the form of outreach or worship that makes them useful to the Church and glorifying to God; it is their substance. Lives are changed, disciples are matured, the Kingdom is increased, and our Lord is honored.

As an evangelical, as a charismatic, as a Reformed believer, as a pastor, as a worship leader, and as a witness to Jesus, I am offended by the narrowness of your apparent editorial policies. It is time for new wineskins. I am not interested in subscribing to magazines which hold onto the old.

Dr. Charles Legvold, Senior Pastor Village Presbyterian Church Tampa, Florida

Thank you for your thoughtful review of the church growth movement in your May/June issue.

There are certainly short comings in every “movement” of the church and it is well to take a prayerful look at the deficiencies.

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On the whole, I would have to judge the movement a success. I am on a Steering Committee for Church Planting in the Reformed Church in America for two regional judicatories in northwest Iowa…. We have found much that was useful and important to help us in these endeavors through the church growth movement in general, and the Willow Creek Association in particular. Many of the people who have joined these new churches were those who had largely dropped out of public worship for one reason or another and have been re-energized to serve Christ through a church with more contemporary worship, which expected a great deal of important service from them.

It is worth noting that just being a historic Christian church does not eliminate the possibility of a sermon consisting “of an inspiring nature video and the distribution of beautiful volcanic rocks to the audience.” Some years ago I went to a historic RCA church where the Sunday morning “sermon” was a travelogue of the pastor’s trip to the Oberamagau Passion Play. On the whole, I would have rather seen the “inspiring nature video.”

Rev. Douglas Van Aartsen First Reformed Church Ireton, Iowa

I haven’t seen that much sour grapes since I left Concord Presbyterian Church at the age of sixteen. Thank God that we have a Jesus who knew the context of his ministry and preached, dare I say it, relevant messages to folks where they lived. Leave me alone. Your mindset wears me out.

Even your name is pedantic.

Rev. Ken Stuckey Napa Valley Evangelical Free Church Napa, CA

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theology, and undervalued its proclivity toward pragmatism. A century later, much of contemporary Evangelicalism has become the ideological product of capitalist modernity. Where once Protestantism was crucial in the formation of capitalism, now capitalist principles dictate the evangelical’s agenda and methodology. It seems to me that the situation is far worse than Weber envisioned. Indeed, it may be the evangelical fulfillment of Walter Benjamin’s frightful depiction of a “religion of capitalism.”

John J. Bombaro King’s College, University of London

It is good to hear life-giving words, and even better when accompanied with life-giving lives.

Thanks for putting a “spark” out there for us by the example of our Chinese brothers.

D. H. Minneapolis, Minnesota

You hit the nail squarely on the head with your May/June issue. We all yearn and pray for church growth…. We must avoid at all cost, however, the notion that we as the church are here to entertain and “feel it to believe it.” One church of my acquaintance doesn’t want to have a cross in its “auditorium” because it is an offense to modern sensibilities…. Yet, as one wise Episcopalian seminarian recently told me, “People want to see more than a reflection of themselves off the walls of the church.”

Rev. Frank G. Fahnestock Jess Ranch Community Church Apple Valley, California

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Modern Reformation

The otherwise valuable contributions of the May/June issue failed in one respect—that is, giving more attention to the ideological trappings which lay behind the consumerist methodologies employed by many contemporary churches.

Early last century, German sociologist Max Weber suggested that “conservative” Protestantism would be increasingly influenced by capitalist principles. In retrospect, we may say that as prophetic as Weber may have been in this regard, he nevertheless overvalued Evangelicalism’s retention of Reformation

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Letters to the Editor 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, Pa 19103 215.735.5133 fax ModRef@AllianceNet.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters.

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Job 1:1–12

Suffering and the Triumph of God

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uffering is a perennially relevant theological and pastoral problem. It is a problem that every true Christian must face. It is not a problem reserved only for extreme cases— people dying with cancer, for example. It is a problem, rather, that every believer deals with on a regular basis, for suffering from a biblical viewpoint dominates the believer’s life as long as he remains a pilgrim in this passing evil age, not yet enjoying the fullness of divine glory to be revealed when Christ returns.

The biggest problem that we face in suffering is the question, Why? Why does God permit his people to experience tribulation, physical and emotional pain, even the troubles and difficulties of everyday life? One common answer to the why question is that suffering builds character. There is no doubt that this is one part of the total biblical answer (Rom. 5:3–5). But is this all the Scriptures tell us? I want to step back and get the panoramic perspective of redemptive history in order to offer a deeper and more satisfying answer. I want to do so by examining the life of Job. The title of my sermon, “Suffering and the Triumph of God,” offers you a hint of what I consider that more satisfying answer to be.

This title suggests that the key issue in suffering is not your happiness but God’s triumph.

According to the book of Job, God is achieving a mighty victory over the Enemy through your patient endurance in suffering.1 Job 1:1–5: The Earthly Scene Our text divides into two major sections.

Verses 1–5 describe the earthly scene of Job’s life, while verses 6–12 open up for us the heavenly scene of a debate transpiring in the divine council in the upper register.2 We begin with the earthly scene in verses 1–5. It is helpful to note the alternating, or chiastic, structure of this paragraph:

A. Verse 1—General statement of Job’s outstanding godliness B. Verses 2–3—Job’s unparalleled prosperity A. Verses 4–5—Specific illustration of Job’s outstanding godliness

From LEE IRONS

Verse 1 informs us of Job’s outstanding godliness. “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, Pastor, Redeemer upright, fearing God and Orthodox Presbyterian Church turning away from evil.” It is San Fernando Valley, only a general statement both California of his piety and reverence for God. Next, in verses 2–3, the text describes Job’s unparalleled prosperity. He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys. He was so wealthy, he was “the greatest of all the men of the east.” Verses 4–5 return again to the theme introduced in verse 1, Job’s outstanding godliness. But this time we are given a specific illustration, which provides evidence of Job’s outstanding godliness: Job was in the habit of offering sacrifice to atone for the sins of his children. This was no generic ancient Near Eastern practice. Job’s offering of a sacrifice was a clear indication that he exercised saving faith in the divine promise of the coming Seed whose death would constitute the final atonement for sin.

So up front, we are informed that Job is a man of faith and true biblical piety. He is not of the line of Cain or the seed of the serpent.3 He belongs to the sphere of redemption; he fears Yahweh (v. 1).

And this fear of Yahweh flows from his saving trust in the Seed to come, whose sacrifice will be the final and ultimate provision for sin.

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Now why are these first five verses here? There are two reasons. First, if you recall the rest of the story, Job’s counselors believed that only the wicked suffer. Mercilessly pursuing this false logic, they confidently charged Job with sin (e.g., Job 22:4–5). The opening verses of the book inform the reader ahead of time that the accusations of Job’s counselors are totally baseless, for Job is “blameless,” one who fears God and turns away from evil.

The second function of this opening paragraph is that it raises a very important—and potentially troubling—question: What, if any, is the causal connection between Job’s godliness and Job’s prosperity? Is he prosperous because he is godly?

Or is he godly because he’s prosperous? No answers are put forth at this point, except to say that Job is both godly and prosperous. But this question will arise in the next section and will loom large as a major theological issue throughout the book.

Job 1:6–12: The Heavenly Scene The question of the relationship, if any, between Job’s godliness and prosperity is now addressed explicitly in the second section, the heavenly scene (vv. 6–12). In this section, the scene shifts from the earthly arena of Job’s family life and outward prosperity, to the heavenly arena in the presence of Almighty God in the heavenly council. Here we are introduced to the sons of God, that is, the angelic hosts, and to Satan, the accuser of the brethren. It is interesting to note that in verse 8 it is God who picks the fight with Satan. “Have you considered my servant Job?” God initiates the conflict, because he knows he’ll win!

In verses 9-11, Satan lashes back: Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.

Satan slanderously charges that Job’s piety is not a product of true religious commitment, but is an outward display driven by a quid pro quo arrangement with God. Note the sarcastic tone of the opening question: “Does Job fear God for nothing?”

With this opening salvo, the conflict between Yahweh and Satan has been engaged, and it centers on the question of the genuineness of Job’s faith.

Satan accuses Job of hypocrisy. Job’s godliness is an outward display of bogus ritual. By implication, Satan is ultimately accusing God of fraud. God’s

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boast that there is none righteous like Job in all the earth (1:8) is empty. For Job’s apparent piety is not the result of God’s grace justifying and transforming him from a seed of the serpent into a seed of the woman, but a cynical bargain struck with God whereby Job will be made rich in return for his service to Yahweh.

The Outcome of the Conflict This conflict in the heavenly council sets the stage for the rest of the book. From this point on, God and Satan are locked in mortal combat.

Satan’s accusations must be proven wrong. Job, thus, becomes God’s champion, and Job’s counselors become Satan’s, just as Goliath and David were chosen as champions representing their respective armies (1 Sam. 17:3–4).

Incredibly, God’s vindication against the accuser’s false charges hangs on the outcome of Job’s faith! Will Job hold on to his faith even when no earthly benefit accrues? Will Job say, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust him?” In the confidence that Job is indeed a trophy of the redemptive enmity promised and initiated in Genesis 3:15, God allows his servant to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. All earthly prosperity is stripped away. Even Job’s body is stricken with boils.

How does Job do? At first, his response is one of pious resignation. “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). But beginning with chapter 3, and continuing through chapter 31, a root of bitterness against God begins to develop. Job condemns God in order to justify himself. In effect, Job agrees with the false theology of his counselors.

In chapters 38–41, God finally answers Job’s request for a face-to-face encounter. God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, and demonstrates his sovereignty. In response, Job repents of his bitterness against God even while utterly devoid of earthly prosperity. “Does Job indeed serve God for nothing?” Clear evidence of a positive answer is offered by the fact that at the end of the book we hear no more of Satan’s outrageous claim that Job’s faith is a sham. Satan is silenced. Indeed, Satan’s representatives (the three friends) are rejected, for God says, “they have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7). Job spoke what was right when, at the end, he made confession of his sin and thus vindicated God. Through his servant’s confession of faith de profundis, God is vindicated against the evil one’s accusations. God has triumphed over the enemy through the suffering of one whose faith, though severely tried,

has proven to be genuine in the end. Job serves God not for any earthly gain but for God’s sake alone, for God alone is his reward. Truly, Job’s final confession of absolute confidence in Yahweh while yet stripped of all outward blessedness can be attributed only to a sovereign work of divine grace.

A False Theology Demolished In light of all this, what is the theological significance of the life of Job? To begin, we know that one possible answer to the question, “Why does God allow his people to suffer?” is ruled out.

The suffering of God’s people is not an indication of a loss of divine favor. Outward prosperity is not proof of one’s righteousness and acceptance before God; conversely, the absence of material blessing is not proof of rejection by God. Job’s three friends taught an incredibly naive theology of divine moral government. It was their belief that sinners always get their due and that the righteous always end up blessed. Thus, suffering is a sure indication of divine disfavor on account of sin. This popular answer to the why question is utterly demolished by the life of Job. As we have observed, the narrator takes pains to inform us at the very outset that Job was righteous, and at the end of the book God explicitly denounces the theological presuppositions of Job’s counselors as “speaking falsely” of him.

We need to be reminded that God’s intentions cannot easily be discerned through providence.

The divine speeches out of the storm theophany in chapters 38–41, in which God compares himself to the mighty Leviathan and the Behemoth, poetically and powerfully teach us that God’s ways are not man’s ways, his thoughts not man’s thoughts. God is sovereign, and does not need to answer to our finite moral calculations. This surely refutes the “health and wealth gospel” promoted by many false teachers today, a theology that is flatly contradicted by the message of the book of Job, not to mention the plain teaching of the New Testament (e.g., Rom. 8:35–37, among many others).

Job a Type of Christ But why does the book of Job end with God’s restoring Job’s fortunes twice over (42:10–17)?

Doesn’t this just reinforce the false theology of Job’s friends, that the righteous ultimately are blessed in this life? It is at this point that we must view the life of Job in its proper redemptive historical context. The reversal of Job’s fortunes can only be understood typologically, in terms of the exaltation of Christ.

Consider the points of similarity between Job and Christ. Both were God’s champions in the

conflict with Satan. In Genesis 3:15, God promises that he will finally accomplish the utter destruction of the serpent’s work through the suffering of the Seed to come. In the book of Job, God accomplishes a limited, typological victory over the serpent through the sufferings of his righteous servant, Job. It is also significant that the lives of both Jesus and Job have a three-part movement: they begin with the splendor and glory of divine favor, both are then humbled for a season and brought down to the very depths of agony and suffering, but in the end both are vindicated and highly exalted.

The book of Job must not be interpreted in isolation from the whole context of redemptive history which finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Of course, Job only imperfectly typified Christ. In his worst moments, Job doubted God’s goodness and justice, unlike Christ who obediently suffered under God’s mighty hand without murmur or complaint. But this is true of the whole typological system of the Old Testament revelation. There is no question that David typified Christ as “a man after God’s own heart,” despite the fact that as a sinner his life was but a shadow—and sometimes even the antithesis—of Christ’s perfect obedience.

Why Suffering? A Redemptive Historical Answer This brings us then to the question with which we began. Why suffering? According to the book of Job, all suffering is for the redeemed a form of spiritual warfare. It is to be understood against the cosmic backdrop of Satan’s boastful wager with God, slanderously questioning the effectiveness of the redemptive enmity promised in Genesis 3:15 to secure a people that will serve God for God’s sake alone.

What is at stake in this war? Not your faith and perseverance, but Christ’s. The issue is the legitimacy of God’s claim to have fulfilled Genesis 3:15 through Christ and through the application of Christ’s work by the effectual calling of the elect throughout the ages. God sovereignly permits his people to suffer in order to silence Satan’s wagging tongue. Indeed the elect must suffer in order that God’s claim to have secured through the work of his Son a people that are his very own might be vindicated by means of their persevering faith in tribulation.

Through your patient endurance in suffering, God is achieving a mighty triumph over the adversary. The seed of the woman referred to in the mother promise of Genesis 3:15 has two interconnected referents. On one level, as Paul argues in Galatians 3:16, it refers to the individual

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Seed, the Messiah. But on another level, as Paul argues later in the same chapter, verse 29, it refers to the collective seed, the elect who are united to Christ. Thus, the Genesis 3:15 promise that God is going to crush the serpent’s head is fulfilled not only through Christ’s redemptive work—in his fulfillment of the Law, his accursed death upon the cross, and in his victorious resurrection and exaltation—but also through the suffering of Christ’s body. Those who by sovereign grace are enabled to persevere in spite of the loss of all things in this life are participants in Christ’s sufferings and, hence, also in his victory over Satan. God demonstrates the power to take out of the fallen mass of the seed of the serpent a redeemed people who serve God for no earthly reward. Only by grace can these truly say, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” (Ps. 73:25).

The greatest temptation in suffering is to

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how much more shall we, who now live in the last days inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ?

Job, from the limited perspective of the earthly scene, knew little of the spiritual warfare transpiring in the heavenly council, and yet he was enabled to trust in the promise of a heavenly reward. How much more must we who have had the heavenly realm opened up to us by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We have seen the victory achieved for us by our sufferingbut-now-glorified Forerunner who has passed within the veil.

You who trust in Jesus Christ alone, you who are suffering as pilgrims at the end of the ages, look away from the limited perspective of your earthly life, and gaze in faith upon the heavenly perspective afforded by the panoramic sweep of redemptive history! Look away from yourself to Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is the greater Job. And you are united to ou who trust in Jesus Christ alone, you who are suffering as pilgrims at the this One-greaterthan-Job. By end of the ages, look away from the limited perspective of your earthly life, redeeming grace, you are a divine and gaze in faith upon the heavenly perspective afforded by the panoramic trophy, for God has caused you to do sweep of redemptive history! Look away from yourself to Jesus Christ. what no man can do apart from question whether God still loves us. When we grace—to place your hope fully in the heavenly suffer, it is natural to wallow in self-pity, to become reward while yet stripped of all things in this life. curved in upon ourselves, as we bemoan our You who continue to confess Christ in the midst condition. Even though by grace he was brought of suffering, who with Job look ahead by faith to to his senses at the end, Job also fell into this sin of the hope of the resurrection at the second coming self-pity. How did God recover him from this state of Jesus Christ, you belong to God’s triumphant of self-oriented doubt? Through suffering. It was answer to the devil’s slander. May the God of suffering that caused him to abandon any hope of peace crush Satan under your feet shortly. finding his reward in this passing evil age and taught him to look ahead to the dawning of a new age, even the last days inaugurated by the Rev. Lee Irons (M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary resurrection of Jesus Christ. For in his darkest hour, in California) is pastor of Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Job was enabled to say by faith: Church in the San Fernando Valley, California. This sermon was preached on several occasions in 1999, including the 66th I know that my Redeemer lives, General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.4 and he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19:25–26) Only because of this fixed hope in the resurrection was Job enabled to repent in dust and ashes before God, even while lying destitute in rags and the smell of his rotting flesh!

If Job, living in the pre-Messianic era of type and shadow, was able to take up his cross, forsake the world and its offer of earthly advancement, and follow Christ in the hope of a better resurrection,

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Speaking of...

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et every soul be subject to the governing

authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God….

Romans 13:1–2.

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he kingdom of the Church constitutes the principal and august theater where God presents and displays the tokens of his wonderful power, wisdom, and righteousness.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 4.335.

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Christian might legitimately hold public office, render verdicts according to imperial or other established laws, prescribe legal punishments, engage in just wars, render military service, enter into legal contracts, own property, take an oath when the government requires it, or contract marriage—in short,… lawful civil ordinances are God’s good creatures … in which a Christian may safely take part. The writings of our theologians have profitably illumined this whole question of the distinction between Christ’s kingdom and a political kingdom. Christ’s kingdom is spiritual; it is the knowledge of God in the heart, the fear of God and faith, the beginning of eternal righteousness and eternal life. At the same time it lets us make outward use of the legitimate political ordinances of the nation in which we live, just as it lets us make use of medicine or architecture, food or drink or air. The Gospel does not introduce any new laws about the civil estate, but commands us to obey the existing laws, whether they were formulated by heathen or by others, and in this obedience to practice love.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 16.

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uestion: What is the second petition [of the Lord’s Prayer]? Answer: “Thy Kingdom come.” That is: so govern us by thy Word and Spirit that we may more and more submit ourselves unto thee.

Uphold and increase thy church. Destroy the works of the devil, every power that raises itself against thee, and all wicked schemes thought up against thy holy Word, until the full coming of thy kingdom in which thou shalt be all in all.

Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 123.

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by Michael Horton

James Montgomery Boice: Servant of the Word

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n Sunday, May 7, the senior pastor of 171–year old Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and one of the most significant evangelical statesmen of the last several decades, mounted his pulpit for the final time. The congregation listened intently as Dr. Boice preceded the call to worship with the stunning announcement that he recently had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.

Already severely weakened, the until now vigorous 61-year-old pastor returned home after his announcement. His condition would deteriorate markedly almost daily, depleting his energies as he struggled to complete a book on God’s grace and the prefaces to a set of hymns that he had been writing.

His death on June 15, 2000 (after the July/August issue of MR had been printed), was relatively painless and remarkably swift.

He is survived by his wife Linda and three daughters: Elizabeth Boice Dawson, Heather Louise Boice, and Jennifer Boice Rainer.

Son of an orthopedic specialist studying at the University of Pennsylvania, young James attended Sunday school and church with his parents at Tenth Presbyterian Church under the ministry of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. As an avid listener of Barnhouse’s radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, he took advantage of every opportunity to meet and interact with the famous expositor. Eventually, at Barnhouse’s urging, Boice attended Stony Brook, a Christian preparatory school on Long Island, where headmaster Frank E. Gabelein took a special interest in the promising student. Graduating cum laude, Boice went on to major in English literature at Harvard and became involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship where he met Linda Ann McNamara, his future wife and collaborator. Linda earned a Master of Arts and Teaching at the Harvard

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Graduate School of Education that would prepare her for future leadership with Jim of City Center Academy, a dream that the couple had conceived for creating a high-quality college preparatory education for urban teenagers. After Harvard, Jim moved on to Princeton Theological Seminary where he and Linda married and Jim pursued the goal of ministry that he had since he was twelve.

After Princeton, the Boices moved to Switzerland, where Jim completed a doctorate at the University of Basel under the instruction of Karl Barth, Oscar Cullmann, and Bo Reicke. These years contributed to a growing appreciation for intellectual rigor that would mark Jim’s ministry among us. Eager to combine ministry and family with New Testament studies, he planted a church and welcomed his first of three daughters into the world. After a brief stint of world travelling (an avocation as well as missionary passion that energized Jim throughout his life), Jim and Linda settled down in Washington D.C., where Carl F. H. Henry had recruited Jim to be an assistant editor of Christianity Today, then based there.

In March of 1968, Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church called Jim to become its pastor. Over the years that we have spoken together at conferences, Jim has often recalled the influence of John Calvin’s ministry in Geneva.

Calvin believed that the regular proclamation of Christ through the close exposition of Scripture was more relevant in creating a worshiping and serving community than political causes, moral crusades, and entertaining services. Jim frequently contrasted Calvin’s approach to the current obsessions and were it not for his characteristic modesty, Jim could have cited the example of his own ministry in Philadelphia just as easily.

A leading voice for biblical authority in the mainline Presbyterian Church (then the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.), Jim became speaker for The Bible Study Hour in 1969, the very program that had captured his heart and mind as a young man. As one who never took himself too seriously, Jim related to me his mother’s witty response to his initial preaching: “Well, it’s not Barnhouse!” Confident in God’s Word and his own calling, Jim soon established his own style, but carried on the legacy of clear, in-depth expository preaching that had characterized the ministry at Tenth Presbyterian Church before him and will doubtless after him.

Jim poured his energies into pastoral ministry.

In fact, the pulpit ministry didn’t stop at the pew, but cascaded into an incredible depth and variety of spiritual and diaconal mission. Anyone who has come into contact with Tenth Presbyterian Church marvels at its ethnic diversity, missionary enterprise (around half the size of its general budget), ministry to international students, HIV positive patients, homosexuals, women with crisis pregnancies, and the homeless. Jim’s English literature degree even came in handy as he translated Chaucer from Middle English for the students at City Center Academy. Despite the notorious challenges of city ministry, including practically no parking, his expository, Christcentered preaching fed a consistent membership of well over a thousand. And in 2001 he would have been the church’s minister as long as Barnhouse’s 33-year tenure.

Joining the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in 1981, Tenth gave Jim room to extend his ministry to the wider evangelical community. In the seventies, he launched the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology (PCRT), which quickly spread to other cities and also spawned a host of similar conferences across the country. At the top of Jim’s list of gifts was his courage in taking a stand where it counted while attracting a diverse coalition of co-laborers to encourage greater faithfulness to God’s Word. In 1977, he founded the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI), which he chaired through its watershed Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, large gatherings of church leaders, and a cottage industry of books on scriptural authority and hermeneutics. (Speaking of books, he wrote or contributed to over sixty.)

At a California session of the PCRT in 1978, as a nervous but eager 13-year old, I mustered the courage to introduce myself by interrupting Jim Boice’s note-taking at the break.

To my amazement, he asked me if I were free and shared

his sack lunch with me. For the next hour, he treated me as if I were a colleague, a gift that he gave and enriched over the following 22 years.

From lunch partner to pen pal to senior partner, Jim’s influence on my life and countless others of my generation is inestimable. God has used his ministry to plant seeds of reformation in churches in North America and abroad, seeds that have become vigorous stalks that will doubtless yield fruitful harvests in future generations.

In 1996, we merged our two organizations, upstart Christians United for Reformation and Jim’s half-century-old Evangelical Ministries, parent of The Bible Study Hour, as part of a much larger initiative—the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Once again drawing together a diverse group of evangelical Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans and Reformed/Presbyterians, Jim’s remarkable statesmanship has given a vision for unity rooted in the recovery of apostolic truths in an age of compromise with the culture of modernity. He has taught us that truth is the source of, not the obstacle to, the power that we lack in our churches today, and the fountain of evangelistic zeal, intellectual rigor, and action in the world that our various undertakings these days cannot match.

And now in his dying, as in his living, he has still been our teacher. On that difficult day when Jim took the pulpit for the last time, he uttered these words that have now circulated around the world: Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to perform miracles—and he certainly can—is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place…. Above all, I would say pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying himself in history and you say, ’Where in all of history has God most glorified himself?’ the answer is that he did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though he could have…And yet that’s where God is most glorified.

James Montgomery Boice would not encourage us to remember him or to linger long at his grave, but to remember what is too easily forgotten: the Gospel that he preached, defended and joyfully embraced in his own heart even as death claimed his body for a while—until God’s Word has the last word again.

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A Summer of Controversial Church Meetings t its triennial general convention in Denver in July, representatives of the 2.5-millionmember Episcopal Church voted 190 to 23 to approve “Called to Common Mission” (CCM), an ecumenical agreement with the 5.2million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). CCM, approved last year by the ELCA, is not a full merger, though it does include mutual recognition of members and complete clerical exchange.

The Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop, Frank Griswold, called the agreement “an invitation to open our borders,” and noted his hope that all those with “doubts” about this opportunity for unity before the watching world would soon become full supporters.

While few have voiced such doubts in Episcopal circles, the ELCA situation is somewhat different, where some more confessionally minded congregations have expressed serious misgivings about CCM. At the ELCA’s 1999 biennial churchwide assembly, supporters of CCM were able to secure the necessary two-thirds majority (716 to 317) in favor of the agreement, but that was not sufficient to silence the opposition. In March of this year, a large group of

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The Rev. J. Robert Wright, theological consultant to the Ecumenical Office of the Episcopal Church, facing camera, is greeted by a priest as Chris Epting of Des Moines, Iowa, far right, congratulates Donald Brown, a deputy in the Episcopal Church in northern California, after a vote by members of the House of Deputies to the Episcopal General Convention accepted a call to common mission with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Saturday, July 8, 2000 in Denver.

dissenting clergy and laity met in Minnesota to form Word Alone, an organization dedicated to bringing the CCM issue back before the next national assembly, in 2001. While some concern has related to the Episcopal Church’s greater theological liberalism generally, the primary focus of complaint has been the agreement’s accommodation to the “historic episcopate,” which many see as a threat to the Lutheran understanding of the clerical office. Following the Episcopal vote on July 8, Word Alone representatives reaffirmed their desire to prevent a split within the ELCA, but suggested that further steps toward enacting CCM would “likely deepen division within the ELCA.” The national media paid much greater attention to the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC’s) annual meeting in Orlando, where

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“messengers” (the SBC term for delegates) voted overwhelmingly to revise their statement of faith to clarify that women are not called to the office of pastor. The revised Baptist Faith and Message explains that, although “both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Supporters of the amendment, including newly elected SBC President James Merritt of Snellville, Georgia, insist that the revision is simply an attempt to “submit to [God’s] structure because we believe that the Bible is the ultimate source of truth in the world.” Critics countered, however, that the vote reflects the changing cultural sensibilities of the 15.9million-member SBC, which some insist has been becoming steadily more conservative for two decades.

The 47-year-old Merritt,

who was not involved in the 1979 conservative change of leadership in the SBC, rejected this claim. He noted that the revision, like the Scripture on which it is based, speaks not to authority in secular assemblies, but only in the church.

Women can certainly head businesses and other cultural organizations, he said, but Scripture explicitly limits who can head the church.

Opposition to the revision is led by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). Founded in 1991, CBF claims to represent about 4,000 of the 41,000 SBC congregations.

CBF leaders, such as Julie Pennington-Russell of Calvary Baptist of Waco, Texas, insist that Galatians 3:28 (“There is no longer Jew nor Greek…no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”)—though it does not mention office— trumps texts like 1 Timothy

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2:12 (“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man”). Fewer than seventy women currently serve as senior pastors in SBC congregations, and the convention has no authority to remove them. Because of Baptists’ commitment to congregational polity, the revision is merely advisory; individual congregations retain control over their pastoral appointments.

At another national ecclesiastical meeting that touched on culturally contentious issues, the 2.6million-member Presbyterian Church (PC-USA) voted 268 to 251 on June 30 in Long Beach to send a proposed amendment banning samesex union ceremonies to the 173 presbyteries. The proposed change to the Directory

ÍBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labor Party have consciously borrowed both style and substance from U. S. President Bill Clinton and his move to the center for the past few years. Now Blair’s chief rival, Conservative Party head William Hague, is attempting to take a page from the U.S. Republican Party. Hague wants the conservatives to win the support of the U.K.’s evangelicals who, like most religious constituencies in the U.K., have tended to vote Labor. Though evangelicals constitute only

for Worship reads: “Scripture and our Confessions teach that God’s intention for all people is to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or in chastity in singleness.

Church property shall not be used for, and church officers shall not take part in conducting any ceremony or event that pronounces blessing or gives approval of the church or invokes the blessing of God upon any relationship that is inconsistent with God’s intention as expressed in the preceding sentence.”

In other business, Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick was reelected as stated clerk of the PC-USA, 427 to 74. His challenger, Rev. Winfield “Casey” Jones, of Pearland, Texas, ran on a platform asserting the need for greater

about 5 percent of the electorate, Hague believes they may be the key to unseating Blair’s government. His initial strategy is to begin making speeches about “traditional values” and the need for a greater church role in charitable services. ÍPollster George Barna continues to take heat for his recent study demonstrating that evangelical marriages end in divorce much more frequently than the marriages of nonChristians. While the general population divorces 25 percent of the time,

catechesis and a stronger theological identity within the PC-USA. “We talk much about the center of the But a center church. demands a circumference.

And there are certain things we believe as Presbyterians.”

After much debate, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) this summer at its Tampa general assembly approved a committee report accepting “diversity in views of the days of creation.”

The committee wrote that the Reformed tradition has not required a particular interpretation of the “days” of the biblical account. Acceptable views that affirm the full historicity of Genesis have included: 1) twenty-four hour days; 2) the day-age interpretation; 3) the frame-

Barna’s data suggests that nondenominational, born again Christians divorce 34 percent of the time. Of evangelical denominations, Baptists divorce the most often, though still at levels much lower than members of nondenominational congregations. ÍTimothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s latest novel in their dispensational rapture series “Left Behind,” The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession (Tyndale), remains atop the nation’s best-sellers on both secular and evangelical lists. This volume, the seventh in a series of twelve, had pre-

work interpretation (where days are understood as topical though not necessarily chronological); and 4) the analogical interpretation (where the creation days are seen as “God’s work days … structured for the purpose of setting a pattern for our own rhythm of rest and work”).

Michael Glodo, professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (and MR contributing writer), has been elected stated clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). He assumes his official duties on January 1, 2001 at the EPC offices in Livonia, Michigan.

publication sales of 1.4 million copies, placing it second on the national best-seller list before it was even available in stores.

Four of the previous six volumes also had sales of over a million copies each, and filming has already finished for the first movie based on the series. The film is scheduled for a February 2001 release. ÍThe Wall Street Journal reports that 15 percent of churches that order new seating prefer theater seating to pews. This is up from 3 percent ten years ago.

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W H Y T W O K I N G D O M S ? | Dual Citizenship On the Eve of the Election

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Common Good and Common Grace: Christians at the Crossroads in the Public Square very presidential election cycle produces a fresh round of vitriolic debate regarding the role of conservative Christians in the political process. In a few short decades, evangelicals have been transformed from politically indifferent separatists to one of the most controversial political constituencies in America.

As one who has contributed to the debate over religion and society, I believe it has not only become more bitter within politics but is increasingly polarizing the nonbelieving world against Christians generally. Worst of all, the Gospel itself has become confused in the minds of many with right-wing political dogma.

Undoubtedly American society has become more resistant, and in some quarters outright hostile, to orthodox Christian faith. But it is fair to question whether the bitter response to the Christian right political movement is merely another manifestation of this, or whether the reaction is explained in part by the methods and models of these organizations themselves. Do these organizations needlessly pit Christians as a group against their non-Christian neighbors, even those who generally share their moral values?

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Liberals and secularists are no longer alone in insisting that something is inappropriate about Christian interest groups operating as they presently do in the public square. Many conservative Christians themselves are having second thoughts.

Missing in all of this discussion is a biblically informed public philosophy which bridges the gap between Christians and the world, which sets reasonable goals using defensible methods, and which safeguards the Gospel from politicization. Such a public philosophy would acknowledge important God-ordained differences between the state and other spheres of civil and ecclesial authority, and it would promote a vision of the common good as an alternative to political agendas wrapped in religious packaging. Such an approach would avoid either religionizing politics or politicizing religion.

Politics at the Expense of Culture y critique focuses on a twofold concern: one, that the priority given to scrambling for political power in recent years combined with the almost complete inattention to cultural concern is misplaced and bound to fail; and secondly, that many of the organizing methods of the so-called Christian right are flawed. These flaws should be of concern to any Christian who loves the Gospel of Christ and wants to protect its integrity.

First, as a matter of long-term strategy it is a terrible mistake to prioritize politics over the culture.

As any number of leading philosophers throughout the ages have argued, politics is decidedly “downstream” from the culture. British statesman Edmund Burke, for example, said that “manners are more important than laws” because “upon them, in great measure laws depend.” Abolitionist William Wilberforce recognized the impossibility of passing or sustaining legislation to outlaw the slave trade without first bringing about widespread reformation of manners and morals in society.

The believer’s first job in society is culture formation, not policy prescription. The latter flows naturally from the former. This point was generally acknowledged by evangelicals prior to the 1980s, most of whom grew up repeating what now mostly comes from the libertarian left, namely that “you can’t legislate morality.” It is foolish to think that a culture obsessed with vanity and vice is going to produce virtuous law, and it is a peculiar sight to witness evangelical Christians promoting this idea.

Christians are understandably dismayed that the culture has become unhitched from its JudeoChristian roots. However, they refuse to acknowledge that in literally millions of decisions made by Christians themselves, this unhitching was produced by a massive retreat from the intellectual, cultural,

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and philanthropic life of the nation. An excessive search for political power will not aid this deeper foundational recovery and may very well set it back.

The consequences of the great evangelical retreat from the cultural realm can hardly be overstated.

While evangelicals count millions of members among their grass roots political groups, and are now, if anything, overrepresented in the legislative arena, the number of evangelicals serving at the top of America’s powerful culture-shaping institutions—like a major university or publishing house—could be seated in a single school bus! The watching world is understandably dismayed by the interest evangelicals have shown in power while simultaneously showing so little interest in arenas of society where one’s only weapons are creativity and persuasion.

Christians can be heard referring excitedly to their evangelical contacts at the top of the power heap in Washington, such as the entire leadership of the House of Representatives. The fact that not one evangelical can be identified running a cultural institution such as CNN, NPR, a secular philanthropy, or a Hollywood film studio, is never even a matter of conversation, much less concerted action.

The unmistakable inference from this preoccupation with legal matters is that society and culture are subsidiaries of the state, not vice versa, a belief, which if actually held, is a dangerous heresy. The idea that the state can fundamentally reorder a society is a radical idea; it is neither a conservative belief nor one that finds any encouragement in Scripture.

It’s not that evangelicals have no concept at all of culture; it’s that their ideas are mostly wrong.

Evangelicals do culture all right. They send billions of dollars annually to “Christian” television, radio, magazines, and publishing houses which only perpetuate the parochialism and isolation of Evangelicalism.

They spend billions more on “Christian” merchandise, such as reflected in the current end-time fiction fad. To address the corruption in the majority culture, they send millions of dollars to protest organizations, whose impact on popular culture has been negligible at best. The idea of shaping the culture in a positive way outside of the evangelical subculture remains, with very few exceptions, foreign.

The same impulse was at work in producing Christian right politics. Creating a special interest group uniquely for Christians came naturally for a group of people who functioned well as a subculture.

The Christian right political movement, which was not even founded by evangelicals, has injected into American Evangelicalism’s bloodstream spiritual toxins that have received very little internal examination until recently. The movement organized itself around a paradox: It adopted the world’s methods to promote allegedly Christian ends. I will long remember chal-

lenging a prominent direct mail company owner who was profiting richly from a large Christian right group for his blatantly hateful direct mail rhetoric. With a dumbfounded look in his eye, he responded by informing me “but, this is a Christian cause.”

The Christian right was born during the 1970s out of a reaction to certain specific threats, such as the Internal Revenue Service treatment of Christian schools, Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, the loss of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools. Its posture was defensive; its goals modest. By the 80s and 90s, this movement was transformed into one confident enough that it was heard threatening to take over the Republican party around a dramatically expanded agenda.

Pride Coming Before a Fall? he movement was steadily plagued by a remarkable hubris. At one point, a leading Christian right operative was boasting that the Christian right was bigger than the two parties combined. Having worked on Capitol Hill and then in the Reagan White House during this time, it is impossible for me to forget the triumphalist rhetoric of party takeovers and impending revolution. No less remarkable is how this very movement around which the Republicans built their majority now appears on the verge of implosion, thanks in large part to the conduct of Christians.

While modest, incremental progress can be expected on discreet public problems that fall within the scope of legislative policy, producing a broad-based social and moral renaissance through conservative politics was never in the cards.

Neither was this idea of promoting political revolution all that conservative for that matter. Many conservative activists now watch in bewilderment as the social hurricane continues to swirl around them, disoriented and numbed by the letdown of it all. It was not supposed to work this way.

Some, like Moral Majority cofounder Paul Weyrich, essentially have called for an exit from politics altogether, concluding that those of conservative morality are now a distinct minority. It is a remarkable spectacle to witness evangelical conservatives careening all over the American highway, first firmly embracing separatism for much of the twentieth century, then veering suddenly in the direction of an aggressive political engagement to the exclusion of other spheres of influence, and then, to complete the cycle, rethinking the whole thing again. This lurching about erratically, which must be amusing for the watching world, only points to the profound theological impoverishment of Evangelicalism in our era.

The issue isn’t, and never was, that politics is unimportant, whether as a professional craft to be

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practiced by individual Christians or as one means by which the Church dispenses salt to a dying world.

This year’s election will decide who controls the Supreme Court for a decade or two to come, an institution more important at the present time than the White House itself. Who can deny the importance of this? There are profoundly important challenges underway in the arena of law right now (perhaps most importantly the legal definition for marriage).

God has called and gifted each one of us to touch the world around us. A theological embrace of the biblical notion of vocation would include many activities, not the least of which is political. Our calling is not to engage in one thing one day and when that doesn’t work try something else. Our calling is to be faithful to Christ unto death, consistently and across the entire spectrum of life: personal, ecclesiastical, social, and political. In that respect, it would be impossible for an authentically Christian people to not impact all facets of their society.

Great Expectations for Politics he real problem is the exorbitant expectations that many brought to politics in the first place. Even if one succeeds at building working majorities, the lawmaking process can at best suppress the symptoms of cultural disorder. It can do very little about the underlying causes. Politics cannot begin to put the connecting tissue back in society. It is ill-equipped to reconstruct traditional moral beliefs where they have evaporated.

The best policies cannot recover courtship or marriage, make fathers responsible for their children, restore shock or shame where it once existed, or recover legitimate social authority to institutions that have been hollowed out by a pervasive ideology of individual autonomy. The best politics would be to get government to do those things well that it is called upon to do, and otherwise to simply do no harm. The vast majority of moral problems that trouble us cannot be eradicated by law, and even if they could, it is Christians who should be skeptical about them.

Contrary to widespread perception, there is little encouragement from either the Scriptures or Christian history to suggest that national righteousness emanates predominantly in the law. Jesus and the early Church existed within one of the most politically and culturally corrupt societies in history and offered few specific political prescriptions outside of “giving to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

The Bible recognizes many evils but does not supply a specific mandate for outlawing all that believers consider immoral or improper. As theologian Thomas Aquinas put it, “The law cannot command all virtues and forbid all vices.” Laws can only forbid those things, he said, that are “injurious to others,

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without the prohibition of which society could not be maintained.” In other words, the law plays a minor role in the ordering of society. The New Testament scriptures seem to suggest a minimalist approach to the state. In no place in the New Testament is the slightest suggestion given that Christians should attempt to commandeer political or governmental institutions. In the brief New Testament passages that even address the issue, believers are called upon to submit to and respect “every authority” without a hint that they be worthy of respect as a precondition.

None of this denies that the Gospel, which should reign over all aspects of the believer’s life, does not have profound social implications. Surely it does.

But where social and moral reform is pursued, the method of choice should not be political action, as if God ordained the state for Christians to achieve their purposes. When evangelicals turned to social reform in the nineteenth-century, says historian John West, they “did not seek to enact the Bible into law.” They tried to change habits, beliefs, and behaviors. The objective of Christian engagement should first be social and cultural change, which almost always precedes or at least accompanies political change.

The Christian right is guided by a set of mythologies which, at a minimum, weakens its chances of achieving even modest goals. Worse, they practically assure self-marginalization. Worse still is the fact that the political toxins of which I speak can quickly erode the integrity of the Gospel. Let’s examine them briefly.

Myth 1: America as a Christian Nation he first myth is one that is rarely articulated but is nevertheless a part of the consciousness of many and that is the myth that America is, or historically was, a Christian nation. This is a false gospel which must be repudiated. The term Christian is mostly a noun, not mostly an adjective, and it most assuredly cannot be applied to a nation if we are to take the New Covenant seriously. Except for ancient Israel under the Old Covenant, there never has been a nation that had special favor with God. True, the early Puritans experimented with the idea of a Christian commonwealth based upon God’s law, but even that is different from the status of an elect nation. Creating even a small-scale society premised upon biblical law is problematic and, as the Puritans themselves discovered, impossible to sustain unless one is willing to keep outsiders out.

It is frequently remarked by evangelicals today that the founding fathers were Christian believers, or that they at least held to a Christian worldview.

If that is true, Christians today might question why their early American brothers did not create a Christian republic grounded not on reason, nor on nature and nature’s God, but entirely on biblical

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revelation. Except for the preamble, God isn’t even mentioned in the Constitution.

The founders framed a constitutional republic, predicated upon a rather thin theism, not a muscular, prescriptive Christianity. Perhaps in doing this they were acknowledging that New Covenant Christianity is about the redemption of elect individuals, not special covenant relations with elect nations. In other words, they might have done what they did precisely because it is the most biblical ordering of the state, and because the idea of a Christian state is an oxymoron.

Myth 2: Social Reform Requires Christians and Christian Language he second related myth is that social reforms are neither effective nor legitimate unless the concepts are advanced by believers and are presented in biblical language. It is odd that American Christians have a need to present their reforms in Christian terms, conveying several false ideas to a watching world: one, that Christians believe in preferentially appointing or electing Christians, as if they are more worthy leaders; and second, that there is something unique or superior about morality that carries a Christian label. Neither of these principles was considered true by Reformation theologians. Recall the famous quote by Martin Luther, “I would rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a stupid Christian” or John Calvin’s expression of confidence in the natural capacity of the unredeemed to rule justly.

In this connection, we might ask: What exactly is Christian about the Christian Coalition? Is it that it is comprised mostly of Christians? Is it that its agenda includes issues that are somehow peculiar to Christianity? Whereas tax reform, educational vouchers, and a host of other social policies pursued

by Christian conservatives can be said to be prudent, sensible proposals, what precisely is it about these issues that qualifies them as Christian?

Moreover, we might ask what difference exists between the conservative political gospel and the liberal social gospel, especially as the Christian right’s message is perceived by a confused society. Liberals embraced the social ethics of the beatitudes; conservatives talk endlessly about biblical law in areas of sex, morality, and religion, often communicating, perhaps inadvertently, that the Christian Gospel is about a moral or political agenda. The premises of liberals and conservatives, at least as understood by a biblically illiterate culture, are nearly indistinguishable.

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The Importance of Common Grace iblical faith informs our social ethics, but Christianity is not primarily an ethical system.

What very few Christian activists seem to appreciate fully is that institutions such as the state,

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marriage and the family, and culture are common grace institutions. They existed prior to the revelation of redemption. When evangelicals confuse the work of moral and cultural renewal with the redemptive work of Christ, they give the appearance of promoting cultural Christianity, civil religion, or worse, a gospel, not of grace but of morality and legalism.

As sociologist Peter Berger has stated, anytime we embellish a particular cultural, political, or moral agenda with the authority of the Christian Gospel, the result is a manifestation of “works-righteousness” which is “ipso facto, an act of apostasy.”

Christian moralism in the public square produces another outcome: a low and condescending view of unbelievers and the appearance of self-righteousness among believers. As Westminster Seminary professor Michael Horton has argued, this is to think that “conversion is the only answer to temporal problems or to assume that unbelievers are worse then they are (denying natural capabilities for justice, truth and beauty) and that believers are better than they are (denying the ongoing sinfulness of the Christian).”

Quite simply, this approach does not take full account of sin even in the life of believers, nor of the natural capacity of the unredeemed for responsible action. Horton states: “The Gospel is not the answer to everything. It is not the solution to the welfare crisis, to environmental decay, to health care. These are temporal problems demanding temporal solutions.

Even if everyone were to become a Christian, the world would still require government courts, policy, and prisons because Christians are sinful.”

New Testament Christianity presented a Savior; it did not present a new moral system. The idea, says C. S. Lewis, “that Christianity brought a new ethical code into the world is a grave error.” Lewis adds, Christianity’s founder and early followers “came demanding repentance and offering forgiveness in Christ, a demand and an offer both meaningless except on the assumption of a moral law already known and already broken. Moral law, along with numerous other facts of our existence, including the institutions of marriage, the family, the state, the social order, all came to us via God’s creation, and are thus a part of his common grace.”

Many Christian reformers in history appreciated the importance of appealing to the time-honored idea of natural law. C. S. Lewis treated the natural law as an inescapable set of principles that form a moral common ground that undergirds all people and all societies, which is part of God’s general revelation (what Lewis called the Tao, which is found in all successful civilizations).

The reformers embraced this notion of general revelation, or natural law, even though they were clear that it is inferior to special revelation. As Calvin cap-

tured it, “We cannot assume that there is in men a full knowledge of the law, but only that there are some seeds of justice implanted in his nature.” He continued: “The law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and that conscience which God has engraved on the minds of men.” The fact that the law of God shows up in so many ways, for example, the role of the Golden Rule in all world religions, was regarded by Calvin as evidence of some kind of universal moral law. Natural law, to Calvin, was also evidenced by such facts as that the redeemed and unredeemed alike institute religious rites and make laws to punish things such as theft, murder, and adultery. Calvin concluded that there must be “a certain natural knowledge of the law.”

Many evangelicals find this embrace of natural law reasoning in the public square not “Christian” enough. But we should ask: Which is more faithful to biblical Christianity, the approach that conflates morals and the Gospel or the one that refuses to do so for the sake of the Gospel? Ironically, those who embrace a model of politics that is pluralistic and understands politics to be directed toward temporal not eternal concerns, in which common, not saving, grace is the operating principle—in other words those who organize politically and socially outside of the Christian right model—are those who are taking the greatest care to safeguard the gospel of Grace.

This refusal to embrace the work of remoralization in the framework of natural law or common grace accounts more than any other factor for the huge chasm between Christian activists and the world, even within the conservative coalition in which they operate. Catholic theologian Richard John Neuhaus captured it well: “By separating public argument from private belief, by building a wall of strict separationism between faith and reason, fundamentalist religion ratifies and reinforces the conclusions of militant secularism.” By refusing to translate Christian principles into public philosophy and language that is accessible to all, evangelicals reinforce the secular idea that faith is a private thing, they strengthen secularism, and they further their own isolation.

As a practical matter, why would a movement permit itself to appear to be imposing a sectarian agenda on the state when the same moral principles can be derived from general revelation and natural law reasoning? Far more importantly, why would Christian leaders, especially the preachers and television evangelists who created the Christian right, ever want to give people reason to confuse the Gospel with moral living, social action, or a conservative political agenda? Perhaps the chief failing of the Christian right is that it has been organized predominantly by Christian preachers or television or radio ministers. This represents a profound confusion of

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both leadership roles and spheres of authority. One need not be a secularist to be offended by the image of a television preacher praying for a healing miracle one minute and rushing out to defend his favorite Republican presidential candidate on CNN the next.

There is something deep within the American character that reacts very strongly to this. Writing in the 1840s, French critic Alexis de Tocqueville presented a description of the role of religion—and especially of clergymen—that many today would find surprising. He said religion “exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion; but it directs the customs of community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the states.” The clergymen, he said, were careful to preserve the unique and honored station they occupied in society.

Ministers of the Gospel “eschewed all parties,” filled no public appointments, and were “excluded by public opinion” from serving in political roles.

In short, clergymen kept their distance from partisan politics, and they did so in order to preserve their honored position in society as sources of spiritual and moral truth. In light of this, it is an unsurprising irony that high-profile evangelical preachers are at the same time being marginalized for their partisan escapades and possessing no meaningful moral authority in their public roles as preachers or prophets. No prominent evangelical figure, with the possible exception of the aging Billy Graham, has any genuine moral authority with which to address the moral life of the nation. Turning preachers into power brokers and Political Action Committee (PAC) operatives has cost the standing of evangelicals generally.

Conservatives and orthodox believers should advocate the proper ordering of things. The answer to officially backed separatism is not government advocacy of Christianity. The state has never gotten religion right, and certainly has not been a help to the Gospel of Christ. It will likely be evangelicals themselves who come around to advocating a healthy separation of Church and state. Evangelicals seem to have abandoned their search for a workable plan for the restoration of school prayer having realized that in a hyper-pluralistic society, a prayer by an evangelical one day would likely be followed by a Buddhist, Muslim, or New Ager the next.

The movement to elevate the Ten Commandments has already displayed some of the same problems. Where the Ten Commandments have been adopted thus far in high schools, they have been forced to share space with other religious documents, including those of religions which otherwise have no public platform to speak of. Backers of a Ten Commandments display in Altoona, Pennsylvania, high schools were forced to

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accommodate the Wiccan “faith,” information on gay rights history, and atheism. Faced with these circumstances, the Ten Commandments advocates abandoned the entire idea.

What is communicated in this post-modern milieu is that the moral law of Jehovah God is only one of many sources of moral values. It is possible that we have arrived at the point where any state promotion of the religious precepts which emanated from the Jewish or Christian faiths can have only trivializing and corrupting effects.

All of this takes us back to where we began. If Christians want a nation that is more thoroughly Christian, it will not start with politics and law. It will start with what Chuck Colson has referred to as a massive “re-evangelization of the culture.” That work starts with souls of course, but it moves outward to communities and institutions, and especially those strategic institutions that set the pace for the culture, such as academia, and the elite professions, in such fields as publishing, library sciences, and philanthropy.

In other words, the whole spectrum of culture must be reseeded with biblical truth and until then, its politics will produce disappointing results. So let the Church be the Church and Christians be salt and light in a society desperately in need of a preservative. ■ Don Eberly (graduate degrees from George Washington University and Harvard University) directs the Civil Society Project, a national initiative advancing ideas to strengthen America's social institutions and social ethics. His work is covered regularly by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New York Times and National Public Radio.

ESSAY CONTEST 2001 First Prize: $1000 · Runner-Up: $500 Three Honorable Mentions (By Education Level)

MODERN REFORMATION PRIZE in THEOLOGY & CULTURE 2001 Theme: Reaching the Lost Without Losing the Reached Christians are called to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. But some today would argue that the evangelical movement is captive to American culture. To what extent have concessions been made for the sake of evangelism that have actually compromised the evangel. Can we get beyond the impasse of either compromised outreach or smug passivity?

MODERN REFORMATION Magazine invites essays of up to 2,000 words from students to address this topic constructively. Submissions are expected from a variety of disciplines (theology, sociology, history, philosophy and the arts, cultural studies, anthropology, etc.).

See www.AllianceNet.org for guidelines.

W H Y T W O K I N G D O M S ? | Dual Citizenship On the Eve of the Election

Defining the Two Kingdoms One of Luther and Calvin’s Great Recoveries wo eschatologies, or views of history and creation’s destiny, clashed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. One was rooted in the triumphalism that marked Anglo-American Protestantism since the Spanish Armada’s defeat in 1588 and produced the courageous confidence of the New England Puritans. The other was rooted in the disillusionment with society’s gradual improvement that so characterized nineteenth-century Evangelicalism. Postmillennialism and premillennialism (see definitions on page 46) are the terms most commonly used now to delineate those two distinct approaches.

Millennialism, whatever the prefix, concerns the triumph of “Christendom” from the conversion of Constantine the Great in 313 to the Great War (World War I). In the fifth century, St. Augustine sharply distinguished the “two cities,” with their own

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special origin, purpose, destiny, message, and methods. And yet, Augustine reluctantly conceded to the use of the secular sword in suppressing the Donatists, a schismatic group similar to the radical Anabaptists known to the reformers. Like Augustine, both Luther and Calvin defended in theory a two kingdoms approach that they did not always follow in practice. While Augustine, Luther, and Calvin were “amillennial” in their eschatology (i.e., non-millenarian), they were still under the sway of the Christendom model. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire often played out its identity as the fulfillment of the Old Testament theocracy, the true Israel of God. The emperor was a blend of King David (hence, the Holy part of the name) and Caesar (hence, the Roman part). The whole empire and, in fact, all Christian states, composed the corpus Christianum, the body of Christ. And this “one kingdom” of God would grow and spread its unified cult and culture, its worship and its civilization, to the ends of the earth.

This is the myth behind the crusades, the Inquisition, and such American institutions as slavery and the doctrine of manifest destiny, which gave narrative justification for the slaughter of Native Americans. Needless to say, the confusion

of the two kingdoms has yielded the lion’s share of blame for the atrocities committed in the name of God and his Messiah. In the nineteenth century, most Protestants were optimistic. Temperance societies emerged as one of many movements organized around the vision of a Christianized America.

In the last quarter of that century, fellow evangelicals Josiah Strong and D. L. Moody would represent the growing cleavage between the triumphalistic postmillennialists and the pessimistic premillennialists. “The kingdoms of this world will not have become the kingdoms of our Lord,” Strong opined, “until the money power has been Christianized.”1 Long before the conservative-liberal polarizations, American Evangelicalism had championed the socalled social gospel, as one notices in the following comment from liberal preacher Horace Bushnell: Talent has been Christianized already on a large scale. The political power of states and kingdoms has been long assumed to be, and now at last really is, as far as it becomes their accepted office to maintain personal security and liberty.

Architecture, arts, constitutions, schools, and learning have been largely Christianized. But the money power, which is one of the most

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argely written in response to the charge that Rome was being destroyed by the barbarians because the former had just officially embraced Christianity, the Bishop of Hippo (a city in northern Africa) responded with his classic, The City of God. In that work, Augustine (354–430) announced that he had hereby “taken upon myself the task of defending the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of that City. I treat of it both as it exists in this world of time, a stranger among the ungodly, living by faith, and as it stands in the security of its everlasting seat” (Preface to Book 1).

The earthly cities, taking their cue from the history of human rebellion from the fall to Babel to pagan Rome, know only power, not grace. They all belong to “the city of this world, a city which aims at dominion” and is itself dominated by a lust for power.

Because of God’s providential restraint, however, even this earthly city is capable of generating culture, civic morality and justice, as well as other essential characteristics of human community.

With this perspective, clearly distinguishing between the nature, goals, and methods of both kingdoms, Augustine was able to hold out optimism about what Christians could do in the fall-

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en world around them while not confusing the heavenly kingdom and its earthly manifestation in the present (the Church) with the kingdoms of this world.

What a different approach this was from Jerome, Augustine’s famous contemporary, who exclaimed, “What is to become of the Church now that Rome has fallen?” There was for Jerome a certain correspondence between Rome and the kingdom of God. Hadn’t Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion? Here, the big difference between pagan and “Christian” Rome was that idols were worshiped in the former and God alone was worshiped in the latter.

But for Augustine, the differences were much greater.

Although he himself doesn’t seem to have recognized the full implications of his message, Augustine said that even a “Christian” nation is still a kingdom under judgment, a kingdom of power and domination to be sharply distinguished from the kingdom of Christ and its progress through grace rather than glory.

Augustine’s theological conviction at this point made him view sacked Rome as a mission field rather than a battlefield. Viewed in terms of the latter, one such as Jerome could only conclude that a devastating blow had been dealt to Christ’s cause. But viewed

operative and grandest of all, is only beginning to be; though with promising tokens of a finally complete reduction to Christ and the uses of His Kingdom…. That day, when it comes, is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation.

Is it not time for that day to dawn?2 But evangelist D. L. Moody marched to the beat of a different drum. Although initially quite representative of Charles Finney’s social activism, Moody became increasingly pessimistic about the extent to which earthly empires could become the kingdom of God. “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel,” he would later write. “God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.’”3 Whereas revival was usually regarded as an instrument of Christianizing society through evangelism and social action, Moody saw it as a means of converting individuals. The American version of the Holy Roman Empire regarded the proliferation of Protestant hospitals, colleges, and men’s and women’s societies, as signs of God’s approval and, indeed, of the advancement of the kingdom of God. As historian George Marsden has documented in various places, both the Christian Right and the Christian Left derive from this late nineteenth-cen-

tury Evangelicalism.4 It is this quite recent train of thought (or, more precisely, activism), rather than the profound reflection of Augustine and the reformers that guides contemporary evangelical activism. Ironically, even staunch premillennialists like Jerry Falwell sound similar to the postmillennialists of yesteryear. It’s one thing to inconsistently act out a two kingdoms position and quite another to act out a Christendom model because one has confused a particular culture with the kingdom of God. We know that Augustine taught the two kingdoms approach. This view made it possible for profound Christian involvement and influence in secular society, while at the same time never giving in to the naïve assumption that any human culture or nation is—or can become—truly righteous or good. For only at the end of the age, when Christ returns, is the wheat separated from the chaff, and until that time, we work on two different agendas: One for the kingdom of Christ (salvation), and another for the kingdom of man (social improvement), and both for the glory of God. Earthly Kingdoms and the Heavenly City ccordingly, the earthly kingdoms establish diverse laws and customs that will engender earthly peace—no small accomplish-

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e’s City of God from Augustine’s perspective, God had brought the pagans to the missionaries!

In North America today (as in many other formerly “Christian” parts of the world), this issue is as acute as it was in the fourth and fifth centuries. “Christendom” is over—and for those of us who worry that this very notion is bad theology leading to horrible consequences for the “Canaanites” among us, that’s terribly exciting news. No, it isn’t good news that life (beginning with the unborn) is so cheap, that neighbor-love is so weak, that greed and sexual immorality are championed as virtues instead of vices. But for those who believe that the greatest crisis in the world concerns the issues of everlasting importance, they are free in a sense to say in the face of Christendom’s demise, “Fine. We’ll cope.

We’ve done this before. Now Christianity will be strange and can have its own voice back at last—and not be exploited as a prop to hold up a tower of national interests.” So we can either run off to Bethlehem and start a monastery, as Jerome ended up doing, or we can stay in the earthly city while indwelling the City of God by the Spirit of Christ, citizens of two distinct empires.

Abraham and his heirs of promise have always “confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who

speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”

It is not a geo-political homeland here on earth that is in view, not even Jerusalem. “But, as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them” (Heb. 11:14–16).

Ironically, this makes us more effective both as witnesses on behalf of the City of God and as citizens of our nations. First, we are no longer perceived as those who want to play the power game with our religious commitments, since the heavenly kingdom progresses by God’s grace alone through the means of grace. Second, our participation in this world is affirmed without having to buy into a triumphalism about “capturing the culture for Christ” that alienates our pagan neighbors even as it corrupts the distinctiveness of the Gospel (see Eberly’s article, page 14.). While individual Christians will, as citizens of the heavenly kingdom, participate in the public sphere and defend particular views alongside other citizens who may not be Christians at all, the Church must never be identified with a political movement. When it does, it loses its credibility before the watching world just as it loses its confidence in the power of the Gospel to complete the mission for which the Church was created.

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ment for humanity after the fall. But the heavenly city is always different in its ambitions, seeking heavenly peace and calling people out of the nations into the kingdom of God. This does not mean that they then are no longer citizens of the earthly city, but that they do not derive their ultimate comfort, satisfaction, or hope from it.

Secular society is a gift of God before and after the fall and it must be cultivated by Christians as well as their nonbelieving neighbors. In fact, “God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of His providence.”5 But the earthly city is always Babylon—it is never converted, as are its inhabitants, into the dwelling place of God. The kingdom of God advances through the proclamation of the Gospel, not through force: “This city is therefore now in building; stones are cut down from the hills by the hands of those who preach truth, they are squared that they may enter into an everlasting structure.”6 Luther appropriated Augustine’s New Testament insights, although he reacted against church domination over the secular sphere by making the church subject to the state. (In fairness, the same approach was taken by Zwingli, Bucer, Bullinger, and even to some extent Calvin.) “Secular government has laws which extend no further than to life and property and to external things and relations on earth. For over the soul God can and will let no one rule but himself alone,” Luther said. The two kingdoms approach represents the Lutheran consensus.

But what about Calvin and Calvinism?

Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr’s heavy typecasting in Christ and Culture distinguishes Calvinism as a “Christ Transforming Culture” model. There have been reasons to argue that case, I suppose. In the Dutch Calvinism of theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper, for instance, there is a heavy emphasis on recognizing the authority of God and of his Christ over all spheres of life and not just religion. While Presbyterianism in the northern United States tended to confuse the two cities, dominated as it came to be by postmillennial optimism, southern Presbyterianism sharply distinguished the two kingdoms—often perhaps in the interest of protecting the institution of slavery by separating faith from practice.

But when it comes to the confessional standards of Reformed and Presbyterian bodies, as well as their most representative dogmatics or systematic theologies, one easily discerns a consensus around the biblical and Augustinian two kingdoms doctrine. To demonstrate this conclusion, let’s turn briefly to Calvin.

Calvin Appreciates God’s Fallen World rained in some of the most distinguished circles of French humanism, Calvin was familiar with a wide range of literature and other subjects. Far from repudiating this heritage, he continued to appreciate its strengths even as he came to recognize more clearly the weaknesses in secular thought. “Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers,” he pleaded, “let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts.” He continues:

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What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone on the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature?… Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen?…

Those men whom Scripture calls “natural men” were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of earthly things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good.7 Opposing what Calvin called the contrived empire known as Christendom was not popular in the sixteenth century, with Roman Catholics or Protestants. And Calvin was still not as clear about how this worked out in practice as we might have hoped. Nevertheless, he insists, we must recognize that we are “under a twofold government,… so that we do not (as commonly happens) unwisely mingle these two, which have a completely different nature.” Just as the body and soul are distinct without being necessarily opposed, “Christ’s spiritual kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct.” But he continues: Yet this distinction does not lead us to consider the whole nature of government a thing polluted, which has nothing to do with Christian men. That is what, indeed, certain fanatics who delight in unbridled license shout and boast.… But as we have just now pointed out that this kind of government is distinct from that spiritual and inward Kingdom of Christ, so we must know that they are not at variance.8 So here the Genevan reformer stood, between the

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Christ of culture (Rome) and the Christ against culture (Anabaptists). Because of God’s goodness in creation and providence, the secular kingdom could not be renounced without incurring divine displeasure, but because of sin and rebellion against God the cities of this world would never be reconciled to God apart from his final judgment at the end of history.

Anabaptist zeal to escape the world meets with Calvin’s rebuke at every turn. The Schleitheim Confession (1527) of the Anabaptists argued the following dualism that would also heavily mark American fundamentalism: We are agreed on separation: A separation shall be made from the evil and from the wickedness which the devil planted in the world; in this manner, simply that we shall not have fellowship with them [the wicked] and not run with them in the multitude of their abominations. This is the way it is: Since all who do not walk in the obedience of faith, and have not united themselves with God so that they wish to do his will, are a great abomination to God, it is not possible for anything to grow or issue from them except abominable things.9 Hence, most Anabaptists withdrew entirely from civil society to form their own communities.

Ironically, these communities became a new confusion of kingdoms: the secular and spiritual government were regarded as one and the same, just as they had been in Christendom. While some Anabaptists withdrew, others sought to overthrow existing governments and institute the kingdom of God by force, as in Thomas Muntzer’s ill-fated peasant revolution.

The problem with the Anabaptists on this point, Calvin argued, was that they would not distinguish between creation and fall or between the two kingdoms instituted by God. In this way, justification before God was confused with moral, social, and political righteousness, undermining both civility between Christian and non-Christian as well as the Gospel. So, Calvin writes, “How malicious and hateful toward public welfare would a man be who is offended by such diversity, which is perfectly adapted to maintain the observance of God’s law! For the statement of some, that the law of God given through Moses is dishonored when it is abrogated and new laws preferred to it, is utterly vain.”10 After all, Calvin says, “It is a fact that the law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has engraved on the minds of men.”11 Unbelievers can rule justly and prudently, as Paul indicates, even under the more pagan circumstances of his day (Rom. 13:1–7).

Calvin’s Distinctiveness from Luther on the Practice of Two Kingdoms here Calvin differed not only from Luther but also from his Reformed elders and colleagues, was chiefly in the practice of two kingdoms theory. For one thing, Calvin had been expelled from Geneva precisely because he and the other ministers had insisted on the liberty of the church in the spiritual affairs of the people. Zurich’s city council had ruled the church, as had Strasbourg’s, Bern’s, and Basel’s—while Zwingli, Bullinger, Bucer, Oecolampadius, and other reformer-pastors of those cities fully concurred. Why were Calvin and Farel so disagreeable to this order? Only after pleading earnestly and successfully for Calvin’s return did the city council of Geneva finally surrender at least some of its jurisdiction to the consistory (the pastors of the several Genevan churches with their elders). Even when Michael Servetus, the outspoken anti-trinitarian, was burned at the stake in Geneva, Calvin’s only role was that of witness. In fact, Calvin had pleaded with the city council for a less painful form of execution, but the support of even “gentle Phillip” Melanchthon was on the side of the traditional execution for heretics. As in many other controversies (such as weekly communion), Calvin lost to the conservatism of the city council.

On the right of resistance to tyrannical rulers, Calvin shared the conservatism of the other reformers, especially at a time when so many princes suspected all Protestants of the radicalism of Thomas Muntzer and the radical Anabaptists.

Nevertheless, Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza, along with a number of other Reformed theologians especially in Germany and France, began developing what became the modern “right of resistance” to tyrants. For Luther, the prince is always to be obeyed, at least in the sphere of earthly things. Calvin’s view was almost identical to that but with the door sufficiently cracked (e.g., Institutes 4.20) to allow for the possibility that tyrants could be opposed on legal grounds by lesser nobility— but never by the masses. One does begin to discern in Reformed attitudes a greater interaction between the two kingdoms. Although both are clearly distinguished, there is perhaps a stronger emphasis in Reformed theology upon the continuity of creation and redemption. The image of God is defaced, but not lost, in sinful humanity. While cultural activity can never be redemptive, the redeemed will view creation and cultural activity with new spectacles. The enormous interest in cultural pursuits that the Reformed tradition produced was never seen as entirely separate from heavenly

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In Print September/October Book Recommendations Two Cities, Two Loves: Christian Responsibility in a Crumbling Culture James M. Boice In these contemporary “culture wars” Dr. Boice finds a spiritual replay in the event that shook the Western world centuries ago: The fall of Rome to the barbarians. Deeply biblical in argument, thoroughly conversant with contemporary culture and informed by personal involvement in urban ministry, he speaks with challenge and encouragement to Christians in the midst of turbulent times.

B-TCTL HARDCOVER, $20.00 Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?

Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson Two insiders at the center of the Moral Majority reveal why the religious right failed to transform mainstream America and how to adjust course to make a lasting difference in the days ahead.

B-DOBS-1 HARDCOVER, $20.00 Restoring the Good Society: A New Vision for Politics and Culture Don E. Eberly A veteran of government proposes a practical grassroots effort to mobilize a new national consensus. The author looks at where society got off track and why politics alone won’t accomplish reform.

B-EBE-1 PAPERBACK, $7.00 The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America Richard John Neuhaus In this work the author addresses the relationship of religion and democracy with steadiness and vitality. The Naked Public Square challenges the reader to consider afresh the relationship of religion and public life.

B-NEU-1 PAPERBACK, $20.00 Beyond Culture Wars Michael Horton What’s wrong with today’s “culture wars”? Is America a mission field or a battlefield?

Horton discusses the issues at stake, and challenges us to recover a classical Christian witness in our time.

B-HO-3 HARDCOVER, $18.00

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On Tape From the Alliance Archives The Role, Wonder and Importance of Preaching White Horse Inn series This five-part White Horse Inn series highlights the scriptural view of the place of preaching in worship. Program hosts Mike, Ken, Kim and Rod examine the impact of culture on the sermon, why it has been lost, and how to recover it's preeminence. Includes a lengthy interview with Duke University professor Will Willemon.

C-RWIP-S 3 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $18.00 The World, the Flesh and the Devil White Horse Inn series Ours is a world polluted with sin. No matter who you are, where you go or what you do, temptations and sin abound.

By virtue of Christ’s imputed righteousness, each Christian must be at war with the tempting forces around him or her.

In this four-part series hosts Mike , Kim and Rod examine the true nature of spiritual warfare as well as the sure defenses against temptation demonstrated in Scripture.

C-WFD-S 4 PROGRAMS ON 2 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $13.00 Defending the Faith White Horse Inn series The apostle Peter commands us to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15). In this three-part series, hosts Mike, Kim, Ken and Rod will help you do just that as they introduce us to the field of apologetics. Included is an invaluable roundtable discussion with R. C. Sproul, Robert Godfrey, Rod Rosenbladt and Michael Horton on the differences between classical apologetics, presuppositionalism and evidentialism.

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Memorial Service for James Montgomery Boice Dr. James Boice, noted author, theologian and long-time pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church, died on June 15 after a brief battle with liver cancer. The tape of the service held on June 23, 2000 includes the message by The Reverend Eric Alexander as well as the music and testimonies by Dr. C. Everett Koop, Dr. R. C. Sproul, and Mr. Elmer Snethen.

C-000623 (1) 110-MINUTE LENGTH TAPE, $3.00 Developing a Christian Mind James M. Boice This four-part series captures the heart and passion of a seasoned pastor and scholar and challenges contemporary Christians to begin to think and act biblically. Done in a small group seminar style, Dr. Boice’s message is penetrating and thought-proking. Included is a study guide with outline, definitions and recommended reading.

C-DCM 4 TAPE SERIES IN AN ALBUM, $27.00 Our Sovereign God Third Annual Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology This seven-part series from our conference archives looks at the themes of freedom and law, disobedience and the sovereignty of God, the problems of suffering and evil, and the role of prayer. Speakers include Dr. James Boice, Dr. John R. W. Stott, Dr. R. C. Sproul, and a message on ”Faith Healing and the Sovereignty of God“ by Dr. C. Everett Koop.

C-76-0A 1976 PCRT SERIES, 7 MESSAGES ON 7 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $38.00 Recent White Horse Inn Programs on Tape, $5.00 each * Question & Answer #3, C-WHI-485-86 * Question & Answer #4, C-WHI-490-91 * Question & Answer #5, C-WHI-496-97

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citizenship, but a constructive outworking of it.

To be sure, there is a tension in the Reformed position to see all of life under the reign of God and yet to affirm “we do not yet see all things subjected to Christ.” Some err on the side of triumphalism (an over-realized eschatology emphasizing the “already”), while others err on the side of pessimism (an underrealized eschatology emphasizing the “not yet”). But if Calvinists are not expected to endure tyranny, they are also not given liberty to take justice into their own hands or to exercise the judgment reserved for the King of kings on the last day. Nor are they to seek to impose their distinctively Christian convictions on society through the kingdom of power, as both Rome and the radical Anabaptists tried to do, but are to pursue their dual citizenship according to the distinct policies of each kingdom.

At the end of the day, at stake in distinguishing the two kingdoms is the distinction between law and Gospel. Those who confuse civil righteousness with righteousness before God will be likely to confuse moral reform in society with the kingdom of God. And yet, here again there is a subtle difference between the Lutheran and Reformed approaches. While the Reformed firmly insist on the distinction and, in fact, the opposition of law and Gospel with respect to the question of our acceptance before God, they do not believe that the law only accuses everyone at all times. There is a third use of the law, which Lutherans also accept in principle. According to this use, the law guides

believers who can never again fall under its threats and condemnation. Law and Gospel are not in opposition unless we seek to find satisfaction before God. But they are always distinguished at every point. The law can guide us in godly living, but it can never— even after we’re justified—give us any life.

Just as we cannot derive any life from the law, we cannot derive any confidence in our cultural triumphs in so many fields. As with law and Gospel, our earthly and heavenly citizenship are not opposed unless we are seeking a way of salvation for a nation.

But once we recognize that there is no everlasting rest from violence, oppression, injustice, and immorality through our own political or cultural works, we are free to pursue their amelioration with vigorous gratitude to God for his saving grace in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we pursue this cultural task looking back to the creation which God blessed and looking forward to this same creation that will be restored when the kingdoms of this world will finally be made the kingdom of our God and of his Christ forever, world without end. Amen. ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and the University of Coventry) is associate professor of apologetics and historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California and serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Time Line of Millennial Impulses in America The subject of millennialism has interested many religious groups over the years. Often they were willing to make predictions.

1740–42 Jonathan Edwards’ experience in the Great Awakening led him to believe the millennium was imminent and would begin in America.

1770s Shakers believed the Second Advent of Christ occurred in Mother Ann Lee, their founder.

1830 Leading revivalist Charles G. Finney predicted if believers continued to work diligently, the millennium might arrive in only three years.

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1843–44 Millerites, around teaching of William Miller, expected Christ’s return imminently.

1870s Jehovah’s Witnesses, founded by Charles T. Russell, predicted an imminent Battle of Armageddon and establishment of a theocratic kingdom under the Watch Tower Society.

1880s– WWI Social Gospel movement looked for coming of kingdom in human progress and evolutionary thought.

1970s Hal Lindsey’s work, The Late Great Planet Earth, on the end times becomes best seller.

1970s & ‘80s Reconstructionist movement envisioned a more authoritarian world run according to Biblical law (theonomy).

Source: The Dictionary of Christianity in America

W H Y T W O K I N G D O M S ? | Dual Citizenship On the Eve of the Election

Practicing the Two Kingdoms The Baptist Ideal of a Free Church in a Free State having once thrown off the t is difficult for yoke of bishops, had no desire American to tolerate that great swarm of Christians today, “illiterate, mechanic preachers, long accustomed yea of Women and Boy to the political benefits of libPreachers,” which had suddeneral democracy, to imagine ly arisen in the unsettled clime what it was like to live in a of the English Civil War. Of time when religious freedom particular offense to Edwards was not taken for granted. were the Baptists or “dippers,” The concept of the separation and he urged “that whosoever of Church and state was a radre-baptized any that had been ical idea in the seventeenth formerly baptized, he should century, and it is still a debatbe cast into the water and able one today. As Baptists drowned.”1 have become more numerous Ludwig Muller (waving), appointed by H i t l e r i n 1 9 3 3 a n d h e r e c o n s e c r a t e d a s and more successful in Edwards also lamented “Reich Bishop,” provides an enduring American society (just a few the growing sentiment in example of the dangers of the church baptizing any political regime. years ago, the top five constifavor of leniency for religious tutional officers in the United States were all dissenters. In particular, he deplored the publicaSouthern Baptists), they have tended to lose touch tion of the famous Bloody Tenet of Persecution by the with the historical role their forebearers played in sometime Baptist, Roger Williams. All such books, the struggle for religious liberty.

Edwards believed, should be delivered to the hangIn February 1646, Thomas Edwards, orthodox man for public burning: “Oh what a burnt offering, Puritan heresiologist, published the first installment a sweet smelling sacrifice this would be to God!”2 of his magnum opus entitled Gangraena, or A Catalog Both Edwards and Williams had died by the time and Discovery of Many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and Parliament enacted the famous Act of Toleration in Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this Time. Edwards 1689, but the idea of unabridged religious freedom represented those parliamentary Presbyterians who, for all persons everywhere first surfaced in England ©AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/CORBIS

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as the distinctive religious tenet of one of Edwards’ despised sects, the Baptists. This idea was exported to the American colonies where it merged with other more politically prudential motives, as well as currents of thought emerging from the Enlightenment, to produce the distinctive American concept of the separation of Church and state.

In his essay, “Protestantism and Progress,” theologian Ernst Troeltsch, while acknowledging the rationalistic and utilitarian sources of the idea of religious toleration, argued that “its real foundations” were to be found, especially in England, in “the revived Anabaptist and Spiritualist movements, in combination with Calvinism of a radical tendency.”3 Baptists, along with other Protestants, are heirs of the Reformation, “stepchildren of the Reformation,” to use Troeltsch’s term. Despite important affinities with continental Anabaptism, the Baptist movement as we know it today emerged from the matrix of Puritan and Separatist reform efforts in early seventeenth-century England. They wanted, as Robert Browne put it, a “reformation without tarrying for any.” For the Baptists, however, the great doctrines of the Reformation were refracted through the prism of persecution and dissent which informed their intense advocacy of religious liberty and the separation of Church and state.

In both its Calvinist and Arminian expressions, the Baptist movement saw itself in continuity with the great doctrinal breakthrough represented by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and other mainline reformers. The doctrine of justification by faith alone was fundamental for Baptists’ soteriology, while the principle of sola scriptura was cited as the basis for both the rejection of infant baptism and the gathering of covenanted congregations organized according to the blueprint of New Testament Church order.

Some Baptists were aware that Luther himself had early on advocated a similar ecclesiology. In 1520, for example, he had defined Christianity as an “assembly of believers including all those who have true faith, hope, and love.” In 1526, he called on earnest Christians to separate and meet alone in a house for prayer, Bible reading, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.4 True enough, Luther never thought of setting up Anabaptist-like conventicles separated on principle from the territorial Church. His “congregationalism” was closer to the later Pietists’ experiment of a collegium pietatis, church intended to function as a leaven within the larger Church body.

However, with the proliferation of Protestant sectarianism, Luther backed away from this congregational ideal in favor of an official Reformation carried out under the aegis of the territorial prince.

In the early years of the Reformation, Luther had also emphasized the noncoercive character of faith

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and stoutly opposed the persecution of heretics— both important themes in the Baptist defense of religious liberty. In his 1523 tract, On Civil Government, Luther wrote: “Heresy is a spiritual thing, which can not [sic] be cut with steel nor burned with fire nor drowned with water. We do not kill, banish, and persecute anyone who teaches other than we or starts a sect.”5 It is the “papists,” he said, who engage in killing, burning, and persecution. “They are the devil’s Christians.”6 With the unraveling of the Reformation, however, Luther had second thoughts about his earlier toleration of heresy and endorsed a policy of religious coercion. In 1529, the imperial edict of the Diet of Speyer revived the ancient Code of Justinian calling for capital punishment for anyone who practiced rebaptism or denied the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1531, Luther supported the drowning of Anabaptists, claiming that while it seemed cruel to execute them, it was more cruel for them to damn the ministry of the Word and upset the true Church.

Luther saw the tension inherent in his view but opted for faith over love. As he put it, “I am bound to obey faith more than love, for faith is above love. Faith I must defend with head, neck, and belly. When we have that we can come back to love.”7 Like Luther, the leaders of the Reformed churches in Switzerland also sanctioned the coercive power of the state to suppress religious dissent. Zwingli watched as his former disciple Felix Manz was held in a cage and drowned to death in the Limmat River, while Calvin acquiesced in the execution of Servetus.

Theodore Beza eschewed the idea of religious liberty: It simply meant that everyone would be left to go to hell in his own way.8 There was nothing distinctively reformational about this sentiment: Servetus was burned in effigy by the Catholics before he was burned in reality by the Protestants! Both mainline Protestant and counter-Reformation churches maintained the Theodosian legacy of the corpus christianum with the coercive power of the civil authority in the service of religious teaching.

Baptists on the Separation of Church and State he early Baptist doctrine of religious liberty was forged between the apolitical pacifism of Anabaptism on the one hand and the official reformation of the magisterial churches on the other.

Their argument for the separation of Church and state was complex and included the following elements: 1. Two Kingdoms. The Baptists claimed that religious persecution resulted from the confusion of the temporal and spiritual realms. The attempt to establish by law a particular religion and to prohibit by force the exercise of any other religion was a clear violation of Christ’s royal prerogative. The civil magistrate could be a member of the Church but was

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basically incompetent in all purely spiritual matters.

Thus, the Baptists recognized the possibility of a Christian magistrate while denying with equal vigor the concept of a Christian magistracy. The biblical basis for denying magisterial authority in matters religious derived from an asymmetrical hermeneutic. In the new dispensation, civil magistrates could no longer serve as “nursing fathers” for the Church. This custodial model of Church-state relations, with the attendant policy of physical force and civil sanctions based upon it, had been abrogated by Christ’s “last will and testament.” As Roger Williams put it, Christ no longer has a national people, only a congregational one. In the former covenant, heretics along with civil offenders were subject to magisterial punishment. But in the new covenant, heretics were liable only to the spiritual weapons of congregational censure and excommunication.

2. Inviolability of the Conscience. In separating regnum from sacerdotium, Baptists argued that each soul stood in a unique and immediate relation to God. Thus, the forcing of conscience by means of violence was a heinous crime whereby magistrates became “soul-murderers.” Since God alone is “Lord and lawgiver to the soul,” civil encroachment into the spiritual sphere was an infringement on this sacred relationship.

3. Noncoercive Character of Faith. The forcing of persons in matters of faith, Baptists claimed, was also completely counterproductive. Constraint of the conscience would only produce hypocrisy, not true conversion. The Baptists’ insistence on believers’ baptism was also related to the noncoercive character of faith. Adult baptism presupposed repentance, faith, and regeneration. Since small children could not repent, they could not be the proper subjects of faith whether implicit (Catholic), infant (Lutheran), or federal (Calvinist).

4. Evangelism and Christian Unity. Baptists were confident that the truth of the Gospel, when freed to compete in the marketplace of ideas, would win out over all opposition. Freedom of worship and the liberty of free speech would advance the apostolic faith and do far more than persecution to restore the broken unity of God’s people.

Furthermore, to execute heretics would foreclose the possibility of conversion and thus increase the population of hell. Motivated by their intense evangelistic zeal, the Baptists, somewhat ironically, were the first religious group in England to argue for the readmission and toleration of the Jews, who had been legally excluded since 1290. As Leonard Busher put it, “If persecution be not laid down, and the liberty of conscience set up, then can not the Jews, nor any strangers, nor others contrary-minded, be ever converted in our land … for they will never seek to inhabit there.”

5. Predestination. The Baptist movement sprang from two separable beginnings in the seventeenth-century: the Particular Baptists were strongly Calvinistic in theology, whereas the General Baptists were more Arminian. Both groups used their differing views on the doctrine of predestination to argue contrary-wise for religious liberty. The Generals argued that since Christ never forced himself on anyone, neither should the state meddle in affairs of the soul. The Particulars, on the other hand, argued from the inscrutability of election, claiming that even heretical sects might include some of God’s chosen ones. Since God alone knows the elect, the state should abstain from all coercion of conscience lest perchance, along with the tares, some of God’s good corn be also plowed up!

These arguments, among others, were set forth in a number of writings including Thomas Helwys’s A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity published in London in 1612 and addressed to King James.

One extant copy of this tract bears the following handwritten ascription by Helwys: “Hear, Oh King, and despise not the counsel of the poor … the king is a mortal man, and not God, therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects.” Helwys was placed in prison where he died in 1616, leaving behind his wife Joan and their seven children. Oppressed sects had long argued for their right to religious toleration. What set the Baptists apart was the explicit avowal of universal religious freedom, or as Helwys put it: “Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them.”

Shaped by this heritage, Baptists believe that a free Church in a free state is the Christian ideal. This implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all persons, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power. God alone is the Lord of the conscience, and Church and state should be separate. The Church as a covenanted community is no longer coextensive with the nation as it was in ancient Israel: Nowhere does the New Testament impose thenonomous government upon the political arena in the name of Christian duty. To borrow a phrase from Catholic writer Richard John Neuhaus, the naked public square should not be replaced by the sacred public square but by the civil public square. The Church, along with the family and other voluntary associations, are mediating institutions through which tradition-shaped moral and religious values can—and should—have a positive impact on the wider culture. But this kind of influence can be wielded better not from the security of a confessional state, but rather through the engaged [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 5 1 ]

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nvestigating the nature of the kingdom of God means that one must come to grips with the nature of the world outside the kingdom. How Christians evaluate the spiritual status of non-Christian cultures and religions inevitably shapes their understanding of the Church, the Gospel, evangelism, and cultural engagement. A recent Roman Catholic address directly addressing such issues is Pope

John Paul II’s Ecclesia in Asia,1 a “post-synodical apostolic exhortation” given to the Roman Catholic community on the Asian continent last November.

This present article offers a survey of his address and reflections on its significance for confessional Protestants. As Ecclesia in Asia is quite lengthy, this analysis is not comprehensive. Rather, it focuses on John Paul’s discussions of non-Christian religions and their followers, the way the Gospel is meant to confront non-Christians, and the nature and necessity of evangelism. As ecumenical dialogue continues apace between Roman Catholics and various Protestant groups, producing claims of increasing agreement on the doctrine of salvation and its proclamation, these matters are pressing. Ecclesia in Asia presents a compelling vision of the Roman Catholic outlook, yet displays throughout that it remains fundamentally at odds with the theology of the Reformation.

Non-Christians and Non-Christian Religions cclesia in Asia makes many claims, both directly and indirectly, about the spiritual condition of non-Christians and their religions. (Citations throughout this article are indicated by the section number of the address.) What may be surprising to many people who are only generally familiar with

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Roman Catholic teaching is the generosity shown by John Paul toward those outside the Church’s bounds.

Though there remains a perception that the Roman Catholic Church’s high claims about its own status entail a corresponding condemnation of others’ convictions, both those on the left and right in the Roman Catholic Church warmly embrace and, in a sense, “Christianize,” much that is outside.

Consider, for example, the way John Paul describes the orientation of all people toward the truth and toward God himself. Commenting on the character of the Asian people, John Paul admires their “intense yearning for God” (9). Likewise, he notes the conviction of the Church that “deep within the people, cultures and religions of Asia there is a thirst for ‘living water’” (18). Even before proclamation of the Gospel, people possess an expectation (perhaps even unconsciously) of knowing the truth about God, man, and salvation (20). However, John Paul does not see such an expectation arising in people apart from God’s work. Even for those who have not confessed Jesus Christ, it is none other than the Holy Spirit who is the origin of humanity’s noble ideas. The Spirit is constantly sowing seeds of truth among all people in their various religions, cultures, and philosophies (15).

All this raises the perennial theological question

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b y D AV I D VA N D R U N E N

Their One Kingdom: of whether those outside the Church—and without faith in Jesus Christ—can be saved. The answer of Ecclesia in Asia, in harmony with the official and unofficial teaching of Roman Catholicism, is unabashedly “yes.” It may be helpful to summarize the Roman Catholic Church’s position presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Though the ancient phrase “outside the Church there is no salvation” is still affirmed, it is directly applied only to those who know the truth about the Roman Catholic Church, yet refuse to enter it. Others, who nevertheless seek God sincerely and try to do his will, may also achieve eternal salvation.2 John Paul professes similar sentiments in Ecclesia in Asia. Jesus Christ is proclaimed as the “one universal Mediator,” so that even those without explicit faith receive salvation as a grace from him (14). The word “explicit” in the previous sentence is surely significant. The Roman Catholic Church continues to assert that faith is necessary for salvation.3 Yet all faith is not explicit, and some Roman Catholic theologians have even spoken about an “anonymous Christianity.”4 Christ and the Church as the Perfection of What Is Incomplete n important related question is how the Church and explicit profession of Christ are related to these “non-Christian” longings for God and his truth. In contrast to the thought of the great reformers, the Roman Catholic Church continues to view the ideas and affections

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of the nonbeliever as in fundamental harmony with the Christian faith. Non-Christian, or perhaps better, pre-Christian, beliefs and practices are regarded not so much as false or wicked but as incomplete and in need of fulfillment. Nature is good but requires grace to make it perfect. In the famous words of thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas, “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.”5 And though the precise relationship between nature and grace has been a point of controversy among Roman Catholic theologians in recent years, this basic conviction continues to hold sway, and was reaffirmed in 1998 by Pope John Paul in his encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason).6 Ecclesia in Asia is replete with similar language.

John Paul describes the Holy Spirit’s work in nonChristian cultures and religions as “preparation” for the Gospel (15–16). The Gospel enters to perfect what is yet incomplete. It “responds” to the “profound longing for the Absolute” and ensures “integral human development.” The Gospel can be presented as “the fulfillment of the yearnings expressed in the mythologies and folklore of the Asian peoples.” Jesus Christ is then seen as the one whose grace “brings to fruition the ‘seeds’ of divine Wisdom already present in the lives, religions and peoples of Asia” (20). The theme of “fulfillment” recurs repeatedly. John Paul praises Asia as the cradle of the world’s major religions, but claims that their values “await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ” (6). Even more expansively, he proclaims that in Christ the “authentic values” of all religious and cultural traditions find their “fullness and realization” (14). For John Paul, the good things found outside the pale of the Church—and there are many—are essentially anticipations and incomplete expressions of the Gospel’s truth as explicitly proclaimed by the Church. The Pope attempts to give this a profound theological grounding. He explains that the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the Savior of all people, can be fully understood only in terms of the communion of life of the Trinity. All people are called to share in this communion and, indeed, all can (12). Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church is the privileged place of encounter between God and man, where God reveals the mystery of his inner life (24). Here again, therefore, the Church and its message are portrayed as providing depth to, rather than as correcting, the beliefs of the world.

The Nature and Necessity of Evangelism he transition from non-Christian to Christian is a smooth process for Ecclesia in Asia, because it is essentially a development from an implicit to an explicit Christianity.

Conviction about this process inevitably shapes

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the Roman Catholic view of evangelism.

However, the nature of evangelism is contested among Roman Catholics. When the move to Christianity is a move from something good to something better, do Christians have the responsibility to proclaim the Gospel explicitly and call others to the Christian faith? If others possess Christ and salvation apart from such proclamation, is this proclamation a necessary aspect of the Church’s missionary task? John Paul suggests that this issue is confusing (19), and one senses that clarifying this matter was a central concern in delivering this address.

Allow a personal illustration reflecting the kind of “confusion” that John Paul surely has in mind. A professor of mine at the Catholic university where I study told us about his trip to a Muslim country many years ago. There he visited a missionary study center run

by Jesuits. This study center existed to instruct Muslims about textual criticism, to enable them to apply historical-critical methods to their study of the Koran. Proclamation of the Christian Gospel was not on the agenda. A number of years later, my professor saw one of these Jesuits somewhere else and asked how the study center was doing. He no longer knew, he responded, because his Jesuits had closed shop and the Dominicans had taken over.

And the Dominicans, he explained, were evangelizing. How did he feel about that, my professor inquired? The former missionary simply pointed one finger toward the sky, as if to say, “God alone knows.”

Are Roman Catholics to do as the Jesuit missionaries to the Muslims were apparently trying to do, namely, aid the other’s tradition through various means and rely on its internal resources for its growth and flourishing? Or are they to do as the Dominicans were apparently doing, namely, explicitly proclaim Christ as the fulfillment of already held beliefs? John Paul’s answer in Ecclesia in Asia is that both approaches play an essential role within the Church’s missionary task. Given the harmonious relationship between the Christian and non-Christian in Roman Catholic thought, this answer makes sense. Since the Roman Catholic Church sees a virtual continuum between what is non-Christian and what is Christian, pushing from below (our Jesuits’ method) and pulling from above (our Dominicans’ method) both serve the same cause: encouraging people toward an ever greater realization of the truth. Neglecting the former method risks imposing the Gospel as something foreign to a culture rather than as its completion. Neglecting the latter means that the name of Christ, who is the ultimate object of human striving, is not made known and, hence, that the final perfection of a culture is unattainable.

Pope John Paul explains that the kinds of cultural, social, and educative work that we saw the Jesuits engaged in are necessary aspects of the Church’s mission. He explains that the Church tries to reach out to all people to build together a civilization of love, which is founded upon the universal values of peace, justice, solidarity, and freedom. All these values find their fulfillment in Christ (32). Likewise, the Church is committed to the care of the sick, as a vital part of its mission of offering the “saving grace of Christ to the whole person” (36). The vision of transforming society is also held forth (8). All this proceeds through ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, which John Paul also sees as essential to the missionary task (30–31). Yet he strongly warns that cultural development and vibrant dialogue are not the entire answer. He refers to the “absolute priority” of evangelism as the preaching of Jesus Christ (2), and states that there is no true evangelism without explicit proclamation of Jesus as Lord (19). The universal presence of the Holy Spirit, which John Paul so clearly affirms, is no excuse for neglecting this explicit preaching of the only Savior (16).7 Indeed, proclaiming Jesus Christ as the only Savior for all people is identified by John Paul as the Church’s “unique contribution” to the Asian people (10).

John Paul affirms that cultural work and explicit proclamation can, and must, hang together. The Pope explains that “the building of the kingdom cannot avoid borrowing elements from human cultures.”

True, the Church renews cultures and imparts its values to them. But at the same time, the Church adopts positive elements already found in the various cultures as it makes the faith part of peoples’ heritage. For evangelists, this two-way process is obligatory (21).

Reflections and Critique any significant issues are raised here— and even more addressed in Ecclesia in Asia, which this article does not address.

I wish to consider three matters that I believe are particularly pertinent to the contemporary theology and practice of confessional Protestant churches.

While not exhaustive, the following comments are meant to provoke reflection as we wrestle with these issues, particularly in response to the everpresent challenges of the Roman Catholic Church.

First, this article has stressed John Paul’s understanding of the relationship between nature and grace. John Paul, reflecting the long-held (though sometimes disputed) position of the Roman Catholic Church, explains the relationship as one of fundamental harmony. That is, the natural abilities and accomplishments of people, apart from knowledge of Christ or his Gospel, are viewed in significant continuity with the Church’s teaching. It is not that every-

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thing proceeding from nature is good—John Paul has been a great cultural critic throughout his career.

But, in nature, the good is predominant, and the Gospel confronts it not so much to challenge it as to complete and fulfill it. Grace perfects nature.

My own Reformed tradition, as well as other confessional Protestant traditions, objects to this paradigm. Reformed Christianity challenges the idea that all (or most) are sincere seekers of the truth, or that their virtues and philosophies are seeds of a more complete Christian truth. Rather, “there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10–11). All people know of God’s divinity, eternity, and basic moral requirements apart from the Gospel proclamation, yet “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). A different view of the Gospel proclamation naturally follows.

Reformed thought views the preaching of Christ and his salvation as a clear challenge to those ignorant of it. Though seeking to commend its truth to all who hear, it takes with utmost seriousness the warning of Paul that the preaching of Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). This has not been meant to negate everything that is not specifically Christian. Calvin’s incisive discussion of common grace, and its (at times controversy-provoking) development by later Reformed theologians, has guarded against this. The good deeds and insightful ideas of non-Christians on any number of matters is recognized—yet always with the caveat that the virtue of these deeds and ideas is only superficial. The basic attitude of every nonbeliever is rebellion against God and hostility toward his truth, and such expression can only be overturned by the Gospel, not perfected by it.

This divergence between Roman Catholic and Reformation thought on the relationship of nature and grace has been, and continues to be, fundamental. It has immediate bearing on one’s views of God and humanity, sin and salvation, and the Church and world. When calls are frequently being issued today, especially by those associated with the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” movement, urging ecumenical world evangelism, this crucial issue must be addressed. How can they labor together who profess two different views on what the Gospel proclamation is meant to accomplish?

Secondly, another particularly pertinent, and related, set of issues raised by Ecclesia in Asia is the way the Christian faith is to contextualize its message and to transform the context. John Paul is adamant that inculturating the faith is essential to the task of evangelism. Christianity’s message is to be tailored to the cultural context within which it is presented. Likewise, the Christian faith is to trans-

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form the culture it meets, just as the culture shapes the form of the Gospel. Such ideas are not immediately at odds with the Reformation’s theological framework. Contextualization and transformation are much-discussed ideas within conservative Protestant circles. We must admit that bringing the Gospel into a new culture does require sensitivity, and even adjustment in its presentation. Obviously, a different language requires different words to describe the great truths of the faith. Likewise, few would deny that Christian conviction has an impact on our lives within the broader cultures in which we live. Numerous examples could be given of the positive effect that successful missionary endeavors have had on societies all over the world.

Nevertheless, considering how John Paul handles these issues ought at least to provoke caution from those in the Reformed and other confessional Protestant traditions. His calls for inculturation of the Gospel are clearly wedded to his convictions on nature and grace: if the Gospel comes to complete a culture, then preserving the culture in all its integrity and preaching the Gospel only within these bounds are necessary. Any Reformed attempts at inculturation, or contextualization, must proceed from different premises, and should undoubtedly be more sanguine. Similar things could be said about the idea of cultural transformation. Though the idea persists in many Reformed communities that “transformation” is a distinctly Calvinist idea, its roots are probably more accurately located in Roman Catholic soil. Once again, John Paul’s reasoning is instructive. His call for the transformation of cultures is grounded in the harmony of nature and grace. The transformation of culture is part of the completion and perfection of the good in nature.

Crucially different is the Augustinian (and Reformational) view that there are two cities, one of God and one of Man. Though the two are constantly interacting in the present age, they will remain in fundamental disharmony with each other until their complete separation at the Last Day. John Paul’s vision of transformation is built on his conviction that there is ultimately but one City, of whose unity the Roman Catholic Church is the sacrament. The Church’s desire to transform the world is understandable on these premises. But it is difficult to see how understandable it is on Augustinian premises about the fundamental—and permanent—conflict between (sinful) nature and grace, and between the two cities.

Finally, emphatic warnings must be given to those tempted by Roman Catholic embraces of Protestants as their brothers in Christ. Here again, we enter into a discussion that deserves more than a few words. Yet my warning is one that Ecclesia in Asia clearly calls forth.

John Paul and the Roman Catholic Church, it is true, acknowledge a special bond with non-Catholic

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Christians based upon a common confession of Jesus as Lord. Ecumenical dialogue is distinguished from interreligious dialogue. However, non-Catholic Christians find themselves in much the same position as those of other religions, and even atheists. According to John Paul, all non-Catholics can be saved. All nonCatholics who are saved are saved apart from the ordinary means of salvation. All non-Catholics who are saved are saved through a mysterious and imperfect communion with the Roman Catholic Church. It seems fair to say that the difference between nonCatholic Christians and those of another (or no) religion is, for Roman Catholics, essentially only one of degree. Confessional Protestants are considered closer to Roman Catholics than the others, but the difference is more quantitative than qualitative. According to the Roman Catholic view, both non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians pursue many true beliefs and virtuous actions, but the beliefs and virtues of both stand in similar need of completion and perfection in communion with the Church of Rome.

Ecumenical brotherhood is not always as attractive as it first sounds.

May the churches holding to the faith of the Reformation be well instructed on these matters before rushing headlong into mission at the expense of message. ■

David VanDrunen (J.D., Northwestern University) is minister at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Chicago and a Ph.D. student at Loyola University, Chicago.

“…To understand this visit we must try to understand the new insight that the Second Vatican Council has given us into the mystery of the Church, her origin, her life, her members, who are commonly called the People of God, her whole living structure, her communion through the Holy Spirit and her never-ending mission.

In the last few years, ever since the Holy Father decided to celebrate the 2000th birthday of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, the entire Church was involved.” “… I am happy to see that the whole Church in Delhi is involved in the preparations of this great event, which is God’s gift to us in this millennium.”

— Excerpts from “Why is the Pope Visiting Delhi?” by Alan De Lastic (Archbishop of Delhi)

W H Y T W O K I N G D O M S ? | Dual Citizenship On the Eve of the Election

The Eternal Kingdom– Already Initiated in Christ, But Yet to Come in its Fullness hristians everywhere are called to battle the forces of evil in this world. Understanding biblical teaching on God’s Kingdom should be a powerful weapon in this battle against evil.

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The Bible’s Kingdom Vision he four gospels mention the Church (Ekklesia) only twice (Matt. 16:18 and 18:17), but they mention the Kingdom (Basileia) 125 times. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” He also said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

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and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt.

6:33).

Why is the Kingdom, which is mentioned often throughout the New Testament, so important? To answer that question, let us consider question and answer 102 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: What do we pray for in the second petition? In the second petition, which is, Thy Kingdom come, we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and

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kept in it: and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.

There is a kingdom of darkness (Satan’s Kingdom) in the world, and the Kingdom of Light (or of Grace) grows at the expense of the kingdom of darkness. The Kingdom of Grace was present already in Old Testament times in the Kingdom of Israel. In New Testament times, this Kingdom of Grace is called the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Christ, or the Kingdom of God. When I was a college student I learned this simple definition of God’s Kingdom: “It is the rule of God in the hearts and lives of his people.” There are two problems with this short definition. First,

it does not do sufficient justice to all that God has revealed about his Kingdom(s)—past, present, and future—in Scripture. Secondly, it brings nothing concrete to mind that people can apprehend.

God’s people cannot develop enthusiasm for that which they cannot grasp. Most, therefore, have no vision for the blessings of Kingdom living. Allow me to present three outstanding characteristics of God’s Kingdom today.

Three Characteristics of the Kingdom Today 1. The Kingdom is both realm and rule.

“Realm” points to dominion or territory while “rule” points to jurisdiction over this territory. Scholars who place a heavy emphasis on Kingdom as rule or

“What Is the Rela the Institutional Church Liberalism’s Dissatisfaction with the Institutional Church or a long time … [in modernist theology, the] character of the kingdom of heaven was supposed to be incompatible with the idea of the ekklesia [the institutional church]. Thus, e.g., the liberal theology asserted that, as a visible gathering of believers with a certain amount of organization, the church lay entirely outside the field of Jesus’ vision. Jesus was only supposed to be the prophet of the “inner” religion directed to every individual….

Only in a process of historical development (after Jesus’ death) did his religion assume its sociological significance revealed in visible communities and organizations. It is true [concede the liberals] that from the outset Jesus’ preaching was also directed to a community, but one of an ideal and invisible character, a jenseitsKirche (a church in the life beyond) as an ultimate goal. The church as a visible and organized unity is supposed to have been completely foreign to Jesus’ world of thought and preaching. It was held to be of an absolutely secondary character, a humansociological phenomenon. … Instead of assigning the church a place in Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of God, as is found in Matthew 16:17–19, it is thought [by liberals], rather, that the church is the consequence of the non-fulfillment of the parousia [Second Coming] of the Son of Man announced by Jesus. The church is then supposed to owe its origin to the fact that those who had been waiting for the coming of the kingdom in vain had no other alternative in the con-

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tinuation of history than, as Jesus’ disciples, to form an organization. [And thus there is supposedly this] great discrepancy between Jesus’ preaching and the reality of history, viz., that Jesus preached the kingdom, and what came was … the church.

The Biblical Position … [Yet against this liberal, “spiritualist” view of the Christian community, the Scriptures’] Christological motif again and again comes to the fore. To the Messiah belong a people. The church is not a merely sociological phenomenon originating from the will of men, but is the necessary revelation of the messianic people. … In view of the total picture of Jesus’ activities described in the gospels, it is impossible to understand how we could admit that Jesus founded a community of disciples to whom he had promised part of the inheritance of the kingdom, but that this cannot be considered as the beginning of the formation of the church. Undoubtedly, the revelation of this community during Christ’s earthly life was in accordance with his self-revelation so that it did not have the explicit character of an organized messianic church. But those who accepted his words were essentially nothing else than his people, the people of the Messiah. And it is entirely in accordance with this fundamental thought that, upon the public confession of him as the Messiah by his disciples and his own announcement of his death and resurrection, Jesus immediately speaks in a formal sense of his ekklesia. When, presently, Jesus is proclaimed as the Messiah by the disciples, his

jurisdiction, see no need to distinguish God’s rule over all the earth from his rule over his people both before and after the coming of Christ.

But the Bible makes a clear distinction: “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.

Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod.

19:5,6). Herman Ridderbos, Dutch Biblical theologian, recognizes this distinction when he writes, “The Old Testament speaks of a general and a particular kind of kingship of the Lord. The former concerns the universal power and dominion of God over the whole world and all the nations, and is founded in the creation of heaven and earth.

The latter denotes the special relations between the Lord and Israel.”1 The “authority both in heaven and on earth” mentioned by Jesus in Matt. 28:18 was given to Christ when he ascended into heaven and was seated at God’s right hand. This authority is not the same as his kingship over his people, because they willingly serve Christ as Lord and King, whereas all others are under his ultimate control whether they want to be or not. I agree with Biblical theologian Geerhardus Vos that although “Kingdom” originally pointed to the authority to rule, in the New Testament it came to mean “if not a territory or body of subjects, at least a realm, a sphere of life, a state of things, all of these more or less locally conceived.”2

ationship Between h and Christ’s Kingdom church will also manifest itself as such. … [It is possible] to summarize our view of the relation between the basileia [the Kingdom of heaven] and the ekklesia [the institutional church]. There can be no uncertainty about either the connection or the difference between these two fundamental notions: The basileia is the great divine work of salvation in its fulfillment and consummation in Christ; the ekklesia is the people elected and called by God and sharing in the bliss of the basileia. Logically the basileia ranks first, and not the ekklesia. The former, therefore, has a much more comprehensive content. It represents the all-embracing perspective, it denotes the consummation of all history, brings both grace and judgment, has cosmic dimensions, fills time and eternity. The ekklesia in all this is the people who in this great drama have been placed on the side of God in Christ by virtue of the divine election and covenant. They have been given the divine promise, have been brought to manifestation and gathered together by the preaching of the Gospel, and will inherit the redemption of the kingdom now and in the great future. This is no doubt why the kingdom is revealed in the ekklesia, viz., in its redeeming and saving significance, in all the gifts and treasures promised and granted now already in and through Christ. So there is no question of basileia and ekklesia as being identical. The former directs all our attention to God, to his consummative will, to the power with which he carries it out, to his virtues in the most comprehensive sense of the word. The latter is to a certain extent—i.e., as far as humanity is concerned—the soteriological goal of the former. To

say that the ekklesia gradually replaced the basileia, that Christ came to inaugurate the kingdom but that a church arose in its stead [as liberals have argued], is an absolute misconception of the permanent eschatological perspective that encompasses the church on all sides in her expectation and service; a misconception also of the universality of the divine redemption and judgment in which the church is herself included. There is no foundation at all for the statement that the idea of the basileia as proclaimed by Christ is incompatible with that of the ekklesia because the basileia is either only present and spiritual or future and eschatological. For salvation bears both a messianic and a historical character. As it is messianic, it is inconceivable without a people (the new Israel, the people of the covenant); and as it is already being realized in history, the ekklesia is not only of an eschatological but also of an historical nature. The ekklesia is the fruit of the revelation of the basileia; and conversely, the basileia is inconceivable without the ekklesia. The one is inseparable from the other without, however, the one merging into the other.

Excerpted from Herman Ridderbos’s classic The Coming of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), pp. 335, 337, 340, 351, 354–55. Dr. Ridderbos was Professor of New Testament at the Theological Seminary of Kampen (Netherlands).

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that will be theirs when Christ returns (Matt. 5:5).

Several parables of the Kingdom describe it as a body of people. They hear the word, understand it, and produce fruit (Matt. 13:23). They are like wheat that grows in spite of the weeds and will eventually be gathered into the barn (Matt. 13:30).

They are like good fish that will be separated from the bad fish (Matt. 13:49). They are like virgins, some wise and some foolish.

God’s people are Kingdom citizens. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Col. 1:13). “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father” (Rev. 1:5–6).

Kingdom citizens are not all those who happen to do civic good under the influence of God’s common grace. If the rule of God’s New Testament Kingdom could be extended that far, it would become so attenuated as to leave it without power.

God’s Kingdom of Grace, past, present, future, is a Kingdom of saving grace purchased by the death and resurrection of its king.

When God’s people realize that the Kingdom is both realm and rule, present and future, and counts all Christians as its citizens, then these citizens will begin to have a By union with Christ, believers already participate in the Kingdom in a provisional clear vision of the obligations that accompany their way. Yet we still yearn for the complete eradication of sin and the perfect worship citizenship. Christians will visualize the Kingdom still of our King. Somewhat like Old Testament believers in the wilderness, we are a more fully when they see both the close relationship and the distinction between nation of pilgrims waiting for the bounded territory of the promised land.

Kingdom and Church.

2. Christ’s Kingdom is both present and future. On this point both New Testament scholar George E. Ladd3 and Herman Ridderbos agree.

Christ came during the first century and established his Kingdom in a provisional way; he will come again with power and glory fully to establish his Kingdom at some future date.

The congruence of thought by these two scholars is important because Ladd is premillennial and Ridderbos is not. Their agreement establishes a platform on which many Christians can stand together even before they have sorted out their specific eschatological views.

The coming of the Kingdom in the person of Jesus on this earth 2,000 years ago is especially apparent in his power over the demons. The miracle of healing the demon possessed was not just a sign of God’s mercy for suffering humanity. It was a sign of his triumph over Satan’s kingdom of darkness. “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20).

The fullness of the Kingdom is still to come. But there are already many signs of a Kingdom presence in this world even now. Therefore God’s people can take heart. They don’t see the sunrise as yet, but they see the first rays of the dawn, assuring them that the Kingdom of Glory is surely on the way.

3. The Kingdom of Christ in this present age includes a body of people. Ridderbos comes very close to espousing this position when he describes church members as follows: “They are also those in whose life the Kingdom takes visible form, the light of the world, the salt of the earth, those who have taken on themselves the yoke of the Kingdom; who live by their King’s commandments and learn from Him (Matt. 11:28–30).”4 If the Kingdom came in a provisional way in the person of Jesus Christ, and if all believers share his anointing, they, too, participate in this provisional Kingdom. New Testament believers are like Old Testament believers in the wilderness. The Israelites in the wilderness possessed no territory with boundaries. But they are a nation of people anticipating bounded territory when they entered the promised land. New Testament Christians are a nation drawn from all parts of the earth anticipating a promised land

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Kingdom and Church edieval Roman Catholic theology identified Kingdom and Church. In their reaction to the Reformation, Catholic theologians used this identification to insist on loyalty and submission to the institutional church.

The pope in this view is Christ’s representative on earth, and in a monarchy one does not question the king’s representative. Hierarchy necessarily accompanies monarchy.

The reformers separated Church and Kingdom.

Their key text was Luke 17:20–21: “Jesus replied, the Kingdom of God does not come visibly, nor will people say, Here it is, or, There it is, because the kingdom of God is within you.” The Kingdom, they said, is the invisible church and the attributes of this church cannot be used to define the visible church.

The view of Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper that all Christians are called to

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honor God throughout human society allowed confessional Christians to see biblical teaching in a new light. The Kingdom became a sphere of activity broader than the institutional church but accountable to Jesus Christ the King. Ridderbos observed: “Perhaps one could speak in terms of two concentric circles, of which the Church is the smaller and the Kingdom the larger, while Christ is the center of both.”5 He demonstrated in his exhaustive study of the Gospels6 that many parables and sayings of Jesus were intended to help the Jews of his day to understand that his Kingdom was entirely different from the nationalist Kingdom of Old Testament times. Nonetheless this spiritual New Testament Kingdom fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.

To all that, one can add an important observation: The ancient Israelites were often called to gather together for worship, instruction, and decision-making. Silver trumpets were used to summon the people (Num. 10:1–10). Such special meetings were called in Hebrew Quhal or ‘Edah.

The Septuagint translators often used the Greek word Ekklesia to translate these Hebrew words. The Israelites, therefore, were Israelites seven days a week regardless of where they were or what they were doing. But on specified occasions the Israelites went to “church” (Ekklesia) or assembly.

In New Testament times God’s people are always Kingdom citizens. But on Sundays and on other days they become a church when they assemble for worship and instruction. If we are clear on the difference between the Israelite nation and the Qahal, we will also understand the difference between Kingdom and Church. Kingdom is the more basic category because God’s people are, by definition, Kingdom citizens wherever they are and whatever they do. They become a church when they assemble for worship, instruction, or spiritual business.

Church and Kingdom are intimately related as an engine is intimately related to the car in which it

is placed. The engine is the most essential part of the car, but an engine without the rest of the car is useless. The Church is to the Kingdom like an engine is to a car. When God’s people are in church they are to be instructed on how to live as Kingdom citizens the rest of the time when they are not in church.

The diagram illustrates the relationship of Church, Kingdom, and the world. The cross at the center stands for Jesus Christ who is head of the Church and King over his Kingdom. The inner circle represents local churches, or the gathering of God’s people for worship and instruction. The vertical lines, surrounded by a wavy circle, represent God’s Kingdom people who are in church on Sunday but out in the world the remainder of the week. The horizontal lines represent citizens of the kingdom of darkness who generally have no interest in attending church.

Kingdom citizens interact with the citizens of this world often on a daily basis, and the intersecting lines represent this interaction. Their goal should be to live in the light of the Gospel and in alliance with other Christians, in such a way that they become a light in this dark world. They are ever to remember Paul’s instruction to the Roman Christians: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).

The institutional Church also has contact with the world every time it seeks to fulfill the Great Commission, and the diagram does not convey this aspect of the Church’s work. Nonetheless, this is definitely an important part of the work, for the Great Commission was given to apostles who became foundation stones of the Church (Eph. 2:20). As the Church fulfills its primary task to preach and to teach, all Kingdom citizens are to let their light shine by their deeds so that what they do ratifies before the world what the Church is teaching.

When both the intimate relationship and the distinction between Kingdom and Church are understood by God’s people, they will by God’s grace have the vision and the energy needed to be telling witnesses for him in every sector of human society.

Furthermore, they will not confuse the vocation of Christians in the world with the calling of the Church as an institution. A vision of God’s righteous Kingdom sending its light into the darkness of this world is a tool in the Christian armory that has grown rusty from lack of use. Let’s take it out and use it! ■

Timothy M. Monsma (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary), director of Cities for Christ Worldwide, is interim pastor of Loveland (Colorado) United Reformed Church. His Cities: Mission's New Frontier, written with Roger Greenway, has just been updated and republished by Baker Book House.

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Interview with Bill Donahue, Willow Creek

Of What Use Is the World’s Wisdom—e.g., Marketing— in the Redemptive Enterprise?

BILL DONAHUE Vice President Willow Creek Association

As this issue's Letters to the Editor section readily testifies, our May/June issue on the dangers of seekerdriven (as opposed to theologically-driven) congregational outreach—"The Malling of Mission: How Suburban Values Control the Church Growth Movement"—raised the hair on the necks of more than a few readers. Some of the most interesting conversation this debate sparked was with Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, a body often popularly identified as the leader of the megachurch movement. Some of Willow Creek’s leaders objected to MR's treatment of the subject on a number of grounds, most notably that we understated the distinction they typically draw between a weekend "seeker service" and a midweek "worship service." Similarly, they protested that, on a number of occasions, we used the term "Willow Creek" as a sort of shorthand for a large and diverse church growth movement, some of which they too would like to distance themselves from.

As such, in the spirit of "Free Space"—as a column where we pursue open, unedited dialogue with articulate spokespeople of theological systems and practices that are largely outside the bounds of Reformational or confessional Evangelicalism—we thought it might be beneficial to allow Willow Creek officials to speak for themselves. Dr. Bill Donahue, long-time director of small group leadership development at the church and now with the Willow Creek Association, a network of over 5,000 congregations that compare notes on outreach methodology under the Willow Creek umbrella, agreed to sit down and talk with us about their theory and practice. —EDS. MR: Dr. Donahue, you have expressed frustration with MR for, in your view, making too much of the influence of Peter Drucker in your circles. [Drucker is the management guru famous for insisting that every “company” repeatedly ask who their “customers” are, and what the customers consider value. In the May/June 2000 issue of MR, we said that the church growth movement, via the “felt needs” concept, seems to have made this business logic a mantra in determining how the Church is to reach non-Christians.] If we’ve misunderstood, please set us straight. What is your view on the proper role of business thinking in the evaluation of the Church’s mission and means?

BD: I cannot comment about the influence of Peter Drucker in other churches because, frankly, I am not aware how other churches view him. My frustration was directed to the comment that this “mantra” hangs over Bill Hybels’s desk when actually it hangs in the administrative area, a gift from Peter Drucker

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to Bill. Frankly, I would be surprised if more than a few staff members (out of over 280 full-time) would even know about Drucker’s three questions. Our true “mantra” has been in the lifeblood of Willow Creek since its inception in 1975: To turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ, a restatement of the Great Commission.1 But I do understand your concern and agree that churches from a variety of backgrounds and traditions have substituted clear biblical teaching for savvy principles and catchy slogans. It is the Spirit of Truth, using the Word of Truth (Scripture), leading us to the Person of Truth (Christ) and his substitutionary atoning work on the cross that produces transformation. We don’t for a moment believe that business, or education, or politics, or science, or anything else can transform a human heart. We state

unequivocally that, under God’s providence, “The Church is the hope of the world!” because it is his chosen vehicle for communicating the Gospel.

I would allow a nonredemptive but nonetheless important role for other disciplines (business, education, sociology) to inform matters that concern the Church. Drucker is not a pastor or a theologian. But neither was William Wilberforce.

Influenced by George Whitefield and John Newton, Wilberforce, a politician, together with a group of lawyers and members of Parliament, initiated efforts to abolish slavery. His political work was a “wake-up” call to the Church in this neglected area. Did this call replace the message of saving grace? Absolutely not.

But knowledge from businesspeople can be used to help a local church understand how to navigate change, develop a strategy for mission—without compromising or weakening biblical principles— manage a budget, run board meetings with effectiveness, and handle complex staffing issues (a particular need in larger churches.)

As to meeting felt needs, it is clear that Jesus, James, and Paul exhorted us to address the needs of our hearers, even enemies of the cross (Matt.

25:31–46; Rom. 12:20; 1 Cor. 9:19–23; James 1:27; 2:15–16). If people in our community “need” to be better at parenting teens, developing authentic biblical relationships, managing stress, dealing with loss and grief, finding their next meal, or raising a disabled child, we can help many of them. It is a great bridge to the Gospel. And love demands that we respond. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a powerful example of the kind of neighbor we are to become. To walk past those in need would be a travesty to the very Gospel that addresses the whole person in the fullness of its redemptive effects. Meeting some legitimate felt needs demonstrates Christ’s love and invites them to hear the message behind the love expressed, which alone can meet our deepest needs.

If, however, you are concerned that meeting needs be an end versus a means to an end, then I would share your concern. You cannot substitute the meeting of a felt need for the preaching of the Gospel. It has never been our intent to simply help people with daily needs. Neither has it been our approach to say, “Be warm and filled.” Rather, ours is a “both-and” approach, to preach the Gospel and feed the hungry, whether that hunger be physical, emotional, or spiritual. We provide free cars for single parents, donate tons of food to the poor, and provide shelter for the homeless. It is our intention to give the Gospel alongside of “cups of cold water.”

MR: The church growth movement typically segregates congregations based on their generational demographic (boomer, buster, etc.). Some confessional Christians have expressed concern that such a program is as contrary to the reconciling effects of the Gospel as is building on class, race, or gender distinctions. Do you think there is cause for concern?

And, since the Church has inherited this practice from Madison Avenue, to put the question more generally: Is marketing neutral?

BD: Yes, I think it is dangerous to target one group exclusively. But look at Jesus. He chose men— twelve Jewish men in their late teens or early twenties, all from Galilee. He could have chosen Gentiles and Jews, men and women, Ethiopians and Greeks. We have theological answers to this dilemma, but the facts remain. Even the apostles, who were called to take the Gospel to the world, remained in Jerusalem after being commissioned.

And Acts 6 records a very homogenous selection of men for the service of waiting tables. So, should we choose only male Jewish elders to lead the Church?

This discussion always presents a potential problem in hermeneutics—taking that which is descriptive and making it prescriptive. We must ask ourselves, “What is mandated or commanded, what is regularly practiced and deserves close observation, and what simply occurs in Scripture?”

That the Old and New Testament communities began with homogenous groups (Jews in both cases) does not mean that we can ignore the more robust and clear teaching of Scripture on the matter.

The Abrahamic covenant, Psalm 67, the Great Commission, and exhortations from the epistles call us to oneness while embracing diversity.

Concerning the segmentation of groups based on age (boomer, buster, etc.) this may be helpful for initial evangelistic focus (“to the Jew first,” for example). But soon every people group must come to grips with the reality that they are to become more inclusive and expansive in mission. We started a service, for example, to reach unchurched generation X persons. But the group now is enjoying an ever-widening age range and ethnic diversity.

If by “marketing” you mean finding ethical, moral, and creative ways to get the truth to those who need it most, then I find no problem with it.

Any church with a sign is marketing itself to passersby. If, however, you mean discovering what will make people “feel better about themselves” and never preaching the Gospel to confront them with their sin, we have no use for it. It is our responsibility to do everything we can, in the spirit of 1 Cor. 9:22, to reach the guy who is about to crack open a six pack and watch the Bears on Sunday afternoon. We work and pray and plan in order to compel him to get up and come to a seeker service, an event, a small group, or a personal

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meeting. We open the truth of the Word as it speaks to perceived and felt needs initially (his failing marriage, rebellious kids, meaningless work, spiritual confusion), as well as his fundamental need for Christ. The seeker service is ideal because it is an open invitation to come again next week and investigate further, “to hear more on this subject.”

MR: We don’t question your belief in the great doctrines of the faith. But, as we’ve said, we wonder if certain methods might, in practice, undermine those doctrines. Paul says that the preaching of the cross is foolishness. Yet, to some, it would seem that you’re trying to make the Gospel look like wisdom to those who are perishing.

Isn’t Paul warning about accommodating the preaching of the Gospel to different cultures and demographic groups? How would you defend Willow Creek and its association congregations against such a charge? (And, along the way, help us understand the relationship between Willow Creek and Willow Creek Association members.)

BD: The Gospel is an offense, a stumbling block.

But our traditions, language, and ignorance do not necessarily have to create stumbling blocks. To speak truth in a language people understand does not dilute it. In John 11:35, concerning the death of Lazarus, the apostle wrote, “Jesus wept.” It would have been just as truthful and accurate to say, “Aqueous fluid seeped from his lachrymal ducts.”

But which version is more memorable, clear, and simple? The Gospel is profound in all its implications, but the great paradox of Scripture is also its simplicity. I fear that at times churches diffuse the raw power of the Gospel by wrapping it in man-made theology about the Gospel.

The teaching at the seeker service is Christianity 101, not 301. It is designed to meet the questions and needs of the skeptical, fearful, and confused.

We work hard to make sure it is always biblically faithful, evaluating every message (by at least five people) for theology, structure, and delivery. Bill Hybels has never preached a message over the last 25 years without such evaluation and feedback from elders and others. There is always room for improvement. But we strive never to compromise the message. If our Gospel said, “Come to Christ and you will always be happy” or some such nonsense, then we would be accommodating the culture. But the message is the biblical message— there is a holy God, you are dead in your sins, and Christ’s finished work on the cross is your only hope. From this we have never wavered.

We are aware that some seeker-style churches, in an effort to speak to the culture, can compromise with it. That is unfortunate and we do what we can to exhort churches to maintain absolute integrity when it comes to biblical truth and moral

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judgments. Churches that are members of the Willow Creek Association (WCA) sign a basic evangelical doctrinal statement and pay a fee to join.

They represent about 80 denominations and 27 countries. Presently there are about 5,600 members in the WCA, joining at the rate of three per day. But they are not joining a denomination. Membership has benefits (conference discounts, resources, etc.) but is a loose affiliation for the purposes of sharing ideas and networking with other like-minded churches that want to function biblically and reach lost people. We hold no sway over member churches. In instances of known aberrant behavior or doctrinal heresy, membership can be revoked, but we hold no governing authority.

But compromising the power and veracity of the Gospel can also occur when a congregation gives more attention to its ecclesiastical heritage and denominational traditions and, perhaps unknowingly, turns people from the faith because they cannot understand the rituals. And, in other settings I see the Gospel preached without emotion—without passion—and I wonder, “Does this person really believe this is good news? Or is this just simply a set of theological propositions being propounded in rote fashion, week in and week out? Where is the Creator God and all his creativity?”

Jesus rarely preached the Gospel in the same way. The woman at the well, the rich young ruler, and Nicodemus all heard a different presentation, each time confronting their sin and offering salvation. Are we surprised that the Creator of the universe would use fresh approaches to presenting the life-giving Gospel to each person, based on their spiritual understanding and heart? Some needed to be confronted with their selfrighteousness while others required compassion and tenderness. It was the risk-taking, truth-telling Jesus in the homes of prostitutes and tax collectors, teaching women, dining with publicans and sinners, and drinking water from a Samaritan cup who had the words of life. Yet he was breaking many of the “rules” of his day. Often his toughest words were reserved for the unchanging, uncompromising, tradition-worshiping Pharisees whose need to be “right” rather than loving brought only death to the souls of people.

Paul also followed this course of varying the approach. He spent three weeks in the synagogue at Thessalonica reasoning with the Jews from the Old Testament Scriptures but did not use this approach with Greeks on Mars Hill. Was Paul accommodating the Greek culture? Hardly. It was always “for the sake of the Gospel.” It was worth becoming all things to all men in order to win some.

MR: Willow Creek often has sermon series on how to have a happy marriage, or how to order your finances, rather than on explicitly redemptive topics. You and we obviously agree that an individual’s greatest problem is not that his finances are out of order, but that he is an enemy of the living God. So why shouldn’t all churches immediately follow the Apostles’ example, and set before everyone (believer and unbeliever) Christ crucified? What is the relationship between teaching morality to unbelievers and bringing them to saving faith in Christ?

BD: Your question contains an assumption that is unfounded—that teaching about marriage and finances is somehow divorced from the Gospel.

Those who regularly attend weekend seeker services would find your assumption confusing because we see the two inextricably linked. How can you preach the Gospel and have no moral impact? How can you preach a biblically-centered morality without discussing the nature of God, the incarnation, and the cross? We seek to integrate these, but not to the fullest extent possible in every single message. The “wisdom” and “morality” we teach come from Scripture—the wisdom literature and the wisdom sayings of the New Testament.

Perhaps it would be helpful to understand how we integrate the two-service approach here at Willow Creek. Years ago when the church began, a group of believing youth and young adults sought to reach their friends with the Gospel.

Inviting them to regular church or youth group services proved fruitless, and friends did not return.

Observing that the regular services were designed for full participation of believers without sensitivity to the visitors present, they decided (under the tutelage of some theology professors and discerning, mature mentors) to design a service especially for their friends—for “seekers.” Seekers were people responding to the drawing influence of the Holy Spirit and open to Christianity and its claims, but with questions and doubts. A seeker service was held on weekends, when people would be open to visiting a church, and the believer service was held midweek.

The seeker service is a presentation of some aspect of Christian truth through teaching, drama, music, and media. It is not the same as “New Community.” It is not a “worship service” as some mistakenly call it, at least not in the formal sense.

Rather, it is a place for seekers to investigate without pressure or manipulative tactics to force a decision. We regularly present the call to commitment to Christ, but not every single week in a “turn or burn” appeal. It more closely resembles the sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 17.

Paul finds a common point of interest with the audience, commends them for being seekers

(literally those who “grope” after God), challenges them with their idolatry (but actually calls it “ignorance,” —is he compromising?), and calls them to repent in light of the coming judgment by the one resurrected from the dead. No explicit reference to Christ crucified, the cross, or that they stand condemned in their sin. Notice that the result is that some sneered (we have that happen every week), and others become followers of Paul, and he later leads them to a saving faith.

I do not claim to speak for all of Willow Creek.

Nor do I present Acts 17 as a model for all churchbased evangelistic activity. But I am saying that, when speaking to spiritual skeptics and seekers, there appears at least a biblical precedent for speaking the truth in a way that confronts the hearer but does not necessarily call for a decision each time.

This encounter gave Paul an opportunity to have lasting and repeated spiritual discussions with those wanting to hear more (that is, those whom the Father was calling). Much like the listeners in Acts 17, we are hoping seekers at Willow Creek will say, “We would like to hear more about this” and return again next week, or talk more with the friend who brought them. It is in this seeker service that we address some felt needs and questions that seekers would be asking about life, faith, and God. But we also speak of greater needs (for salvation, forgiveness of sin, etc.). Contrary to many presumptions, we often teach books of the Bible at seeker services and have covered the Sermon on the Mount (ninemonth series, much longer than it took Jesus!), Proverbs, James, and Malachi to name a few.

Interestingly, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount covers the two topics you mention! As a matter of fact he preaches on giving, adultery, divorce, prayer, relational discord, evangelism, and worry, to name a few. It is clear that the sermon is about life in the kingdom. So, with that as a backdrop, to teach through sections of the Sermon is to give people a look into life in the kingdom. Of course this means weaving in the clear message of the cross throughout, but does not mandate that we repeat this to the same degree at every seeker service. Instead, we allow them to swallow the meal one bite at a time, processing, wrestling with the truth, challenging the assumptions. After two to three weeks, we hit the core of the Gospel very directly. Most scholars agree that this “sermon” was not all given in one place and at one time.

In our New Community or “worship” service, we sing for 30 to 40 minutes a variety of hymns, praise songs, and psalms. Scripture is read and taught faithfully, communion is administered, and baptism is celebrated. Presently we are teaching the Lord’s Prayer, one phrase per week.

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MR: How does Willow Creek conceive of its relationship to the Church across time and space? And, to break this question into its component parts: Why does your liturgy look so much like popular culture, and so little like the dialogue between God and his covenant people that the saints have known for generations? What is your accountability to the rest of the universal Church? And, especially, what do you see as the proper place in congregational life today of the creeds and confessions of prior generations of believers?

BD: Like all churches and individuals we are judged by our faithfulness and our fruit. This is a sobering reality. These are the clear measurements in Scripture, not whether we conform to a given tradition or methodology, are large or small, read Drucker or play contemporary music, or recite the Nicene Creed. Look at the number of people coming to saving faith, evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, changed behavior in conformity to Christ and the teaching of his Word, and the faithful witness to Christ and his kingdom. Willow Creek is far from perfect, but much fruit is being borne, and it is the right kind of fruit. People are turning from idols to the true and living God. The liturgy of which you speak arises largely from the Western, Monastic, Scholastic, European, and Roman traditions of the third century through the Middle Ages, and into the Reformation. It certainly is not totally Hebrew (it is rare to be in a church where Psalm 149 and 150 are modeled or practiced). And it certainly is not entirely reflective of the Acts 2 community, where the large group/small group dynamic was a common element. It also is not reflective of the vast array of styles and expressions found around the world in indigenous churches. Again, we test the Church by its fruit not its conformity to man-made liturgies.

Willow Creek has a liturgy, and it is different. If it looks “contemporary” then we are glad: It is supposed to. We speak to a contemporary culture.

When planting a church in Austria I adopted customs, language, and dress of Austrians. In Barrington, Illinois, I communicate through customs, language, and dress that are culturally normal. But in neither culture—Austrian or Illinois—did I compromise the message.

It is assumed that we neglect tradition. We are grateful for the sacrifice and sufferings of the Church throughout the ages. Tradition has a place.

To study it is wise. To respect it is honorable. But to be constrained by it is dangerous (see Jesus’ comments in Mark 7). Our accountability is the same as yours—to Christ and his Word, and to the elders of the church who “watch over our souls.”

The Scripture demands no more and no less. When the historic Church sought to develop systems of

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accountability not mandated by Scripture, it also created hierarchical structures. We have learned lessons from observing these structures. Such hierarchy often erodes the mutual ministry and servant leadership taught and modeled by the writers of Scripture. Far too often the result was abuse of power, a stifling bureaucracy, the creation of “offices” instead of Spirit-gifted ministries, and the separation of “clergy” and “laity.” This unbiblical separation is advocated by those who deny the expansive and inclusive nature of the New Testament Church in Scripture, and narrowly limit “ministry” to preaching and the administration of the sacraments. This teaching ignores the priesthood of all believers.

As a mentor of mine articulated years ago, “Contrary to its detractors, the seeker movement is not about the Church becoming contemporary—it is about the Church becoming community, the way it was intended to be from the beginning. The biblical principles that inspired it were inclusive community, mutual submission and accountability, communal life actualized through small groups, universal use of spiritual gifts, leadership as servanthood, nondifferentiated clergy and laity, gift-specific ministries, plurality of leadership, congregationbased evangelism, and preaching as intelligible discourse. This is a movement of the Spirit that will not be stopped.” I believe he was right. And I trust that no Christian who really understands this work of the Spirit would want it to stop.

Definitions Source: Dictionary of Christianity in America.

Antinomianism. The word comes from the Greek anti (against) and nomos (law), and refers to the doctrine that it is not necessary for Christians to preach and/or obey the moral law.

Premillennial view – golden age will come only after present age is destroyed through supernatural means, such as the second coming of Christ.

Postmillennial view – the present age will be gradually transformed into the millennium through natural means, such as revival and social reform.

Amillennial view – belief that 1,000 years of Rev. 20:1-10 is not a literal millennial rule of Christ on earth but a symbolic reference to the period between the ministry of Christ and his second coming.

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| The Pilgrim’s Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness

Contextualizing C. S. Lewis

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n spite of the flurry of new books on C. S. Lewis, few volumes offer really new insights

Blamires, who is at his muscular best, examines Lewis’s and succeed in showing the relevance of Lewis’s ideas for the issues that face Christians self-perception as a dinosaur, a relic of “Old Western Man.” today. David Mills’s fine collection is one of these rare exceptions. The focus of Mills’s Edwards explores the extraordinary integration of book is witness. It is divided into two Lewis’s mind. He shows how Lewis is a role model sections. “The Character of a Witness” for a public Christian intellectual, something desexplores what it was about Lewis’s life and perately needed in a culture that seeks to silence any work that made him an effective witness voice of commitment or discriminating judgment. to orthodox Christianity in a hostile cenSection 2, “The Work of a Witness,” contains tury. “The Work of a Witness” is a very the remaining 14 contributions.

Michael broad survey of how Lewis witnessed. MacDonald and Mark Shea argue that one reason There are implicit subdivisions in this for the importance of “mere Christianity” is that it second section that could have been provides a standpoint that allows “its participants made explicit in the book’s structure: to embrace the convictions of their distinctive traSome of its essays concern the sources or ditions” (p. 48) and yet to fight together against antecedents of Lewis’s views; others look “Secular Relativism/Hedonism/Materialism” and at how Lewis tried to make Christianity the “culture of death” (p. 47).

By contrast, two of the contributors look at comprehensible in a secular age; and still others deal with perhaps the most impor- Lewis’s congeniality to specific denominational tratant apologetic task in a pluralistic age by showing ditions. Kallistos Ware points out that, though how Lewis argued for the superiority of Christianity Lewis was an Anglican, there are aspects of his thought that resonate deeply with the Orthodox.

The Pilgim’s against its many competitors.

Guide: C. S. The audience of the book is “the serious gener- Doris Myers illustrates the distinctively Anglican Lewis and the Art al reader, though academic readers should find it style of Lewis’s presentation in the Chronicles of of Witness helpful” (xi). This is very much in the spirit of Narnia, charting the Christian life from birth Lewis. All of the chapters are well-written and through childhood, young adulthood, middle age, edited by David Mills most contain extensive footnotes, though some and the last years. These sorts of approaches are have fewer than a scholar might like. sometimes unfairly criticized as attempts to co-opt Wm. B. Eerdmans Section 1, “The Character of a Witness,” con- Lewis into one’s tradition instead of attempting to Publishing Company, 1998. tains contributions by Christopher Mitchell, Harry trace the proper doctrinal consequences of Lewis’s $16.00, 297 pages Blamires, and Bruce L. Edwards. Mitchell seeks to work. The fact is that, from the objective stance explain why Lewis was willing to endure the of systematic theology, Lewis asserted doctrines opprobrium of his colleagues as the cost of his pub- that are Anglican (gradual growth in grace, as lic and popular defense of Christianity. The key, emphasized by Myers), Lutheran/Puritan (Law and according to Mitchell, was Lewis’s sense of urgency Gospel, as argued by me in a recent Concordia about evangelism, given our very limited time on Journal article), Roman Catholic (limbo and purgaearth to influence the destiny of eternal beings. tory, and sanctification after death, as emphasized

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by Meilaender in The Taste for the Other), and Orthodox (the hiddenness of God and the apophatic way, as emphasized by Ware).

Several of the authors do the hard work of examining the views and trends to which Lewis’s works are a response. James Patrick shows how Lewis came to support the classical ethical tradition of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hooker against the prevailing schools of utilitarianism (which tends to hedonism), Kantianism (which can find no credible motive of ethical action), and intuitionism (which, in practice, supports moral subjectivism).

David Mills’s essay shows that Lewis shared with George Orwell a concern about propaganda and its ability to make evil seem good.

Lewis’s response to Gnosticism is ably explored

by Thomas Howard. In That Hideous Strength, the literally disembodied head and the plan to sanitize the earth of biological life forms show the gnostic tendencies of modernism. They also epitomize scientism, the worship of science and human control even at the expense of what defines humanity itself. Thomas Peters traces scientism to the scientific utopianism of H. G. Wells, who clearly thought that man would supplant God in controlling his own destiny. Peters shows convincingly that Lewis’s Space Trilogy is a direct response to “Wellsianism” (the Trilogy calls it “Westonism” after the demon-possessed scientist Weston), aiming to show its Satanic potential.

Three of the essays focus on Lewis’s appeal to the imagination as a way of grasping truths that transcend the deceitful vale we call “real life.”

Stratford Caldecott shows that, for Lewis, myth conveys archetypal truths that can only be grasped by the imagination, not by the intellect, and it aids the mind in finding union with the beauty and goodness we seek. Colin Duriez explores Lewis’s theological reflections about “romance,” in the older sense of that word, as meaning a story or tale about imaginary characters. Story evokes the categories of Otherness, The Numinous, and Joy; it embodies subcreation and promotes healing.

Stephen Smith goes further, exploring Lewis’s view that the best stories are a kind of spell, not for enchanting us, but for awakening us from an enchantment of worldliness. In particular, Lewis used stories to help overcome the problem of belief in the supernatural, the problem of projection (modernists like Freud claim religious beliefs are mere projections of our hopes and fears) and the problem of syncretism—the temptation to believe, like the redoubtable Bishop Spong, that all religions are essentially the same.

This issue of the relation of Christianity to other faiths is taken up by Jerry Root. Root shows

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that Lewis, like Rudolph Otto, thought there were three main features shared by Christianity and the world’s great religions: there is a holy being; he prescribes laws we do not keep; and we are consequently alienated from him. If, therefore, Christianity is true, then all of these religions have a significant amount of truth in them. At the same time, Lewis argued, Christianity is unique in claiming that only God can bridge the gap that sin creates between God and man. Also, in the Incarnation Christianity both affirms and denies the world, whereas other religions do either one or the other.

Another problem for Christian faith is the everunpopular doctrine of Hell. Kendall Harmon shows that, in Lewis’s vision, Hell is a necessary consequence of human will and that it may be that God shows his love even to the damned by limiting the amount of damage they can do to themselves.

All in all, this is an excellent, fresh, varied, and thoughtful collection of essays. It contains, in my opinion, the best set of essays on That Hideous Strength ever published and some fine work on Lewis’s response to difficult Christian doctrines. It would have been helped by a bit more internal organization, by a cross-listing of essays, and an index. Two nice touches are the provision of a time line on C. S. Lewis’s life and an excellent review of major book-length treatments of C. S. Lewis by Diana Pavlac Glyer—a very useful shopper’s guide.

The exact source of “mere Christianity” from the work of Richard Baxter is also printed.

It is worth noting that Mills intends this volume to be the first in a series, the next volume being Worth Doing Badly: G. K. Chesterton and the Art of Witness.

Reviewed by Dr. Angus J. L. Menuge Associate Professor of Philosophy Concordia University Mequon, Wisconsin

SHORT N OTIC E S Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999 902 pages, $75.00 As Jaroslav Pelikan observes in his foreword to this very fine volume, “[T]here are certain figures in the history of thought who are themselves an encyclopedia … and whose writings, therefore, both by their profundity and by their total mass, seem to require encyclopedic treatment” and, “[m]easured

by any criterion, whether volume of literary output or depth and originality of thought or historical significance ‘through the ages,’” Augustine certainly is among them.

This book attempts to orient readers to the whole range of Augustine’s achievements.

Through nearly 500 entries by almost 150 scholars, each of Augustine’s works—such as the Confessions, De mendacio (On Lying), De bono conjugali (On the Good of Marriage) and the City of God—is overviewed and placed among the corpus of his writings; his major philosophical, theological and cultural themes— e.g., Asceticism, Church, God, Grace, Pelagius and Pelagianism, Sin, Time, and Women—are plumbed; and his influence on particular individuals—such as Adolf von Harnack, Athanasius, Bonaventure, Calvin, and Luther—and specific historical periods traced. In addition, the classical and Christian sources of his ideas—Plato, Neoplatonism, Ambrose, Cicero, “Skeptics and Skepticism,” among others—are identified. Each article includes an up-to-date bibliography of the best secondary writings on its subject; there are good cross-references among them, and a thorough index. Each, moreover, is written by an acknowledged expert—Gerald Bonner, for instance, wrote the article on Augustine’s AntiPelagian writings, J. Patout Burns the piece on grace, and Robert A. Markus writes on the “Life, Culture, and Controversies of Augustine.”

Augustine is one of the few thinkers to whom it is not inappropriate to devote a lifetime of study. I have taught his Confessions almost yearly for 20 years, and each year of teaching brings me a harvest of fresh insights. His anti-Pelagian writings remain indispensable for understanding the interrelations of grace and free will. Of course, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants cite Augustine as their master; there is that within his writings that supports both Rome’s doctrine of the church and the reformers’ doctrine of grace. No one can master the whole Augustinian corpus, but this encyclopedia can help both neophyte and expert alike to grow both more appreciative of and more discerning about his works.

Reviewed by Dr. Mark R. Talbot Associate Professor of Philosophy Wheaton College Wheaton, Illinois

Great Doctrines of the Bible: Volume I, God the Father, God the Son Volume II, God the Holy Spirit Volume III, The Church and the Last Things

by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Crossway Books, 1996, 1997, 1998 370, 276, and 264 pages, $25.00, $22.00, and $22.00 From 1952 to 1955, the great London preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones delivered a series of lectures on biblical doctrines every Friday evening in Westminster Chapel. The tapes of these lectures are still by far the most requested of all those distributed through the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust. This series of volumes, now complete, are edited transcripts of those lectures.

These are no arid, textbook lectures on topics far-removed from Christian life. Lloyd-Jones, as the editors note, “was, above all, a preacher and this shines through in all of them. He was also a pastor and wanted men and women to share his sense of wonder and his gratitude to God for the mighty facts of the Gospel; so his language is clear and not encumbered by complex academic phraseology. Like Tyndale, he wanted the truth to be in words ‘understanded [sic] of the people.’” There is always application to make sure that what we have heard with our heads will be felt in our hearts and enacted in our lives.

As always, Lloyd-Jones minces no words. The dislike of some, even in the 1950s, for biblical doctrine was labeled by him as “a very pathetic and regrettable attitude,” for “the Bible is particularly concerned about teaching certain truths, and nothing is more important than that we should grasp that and that we should start with it.” What truths?

The truths that tell “what God has done about men and women as the result of their sin,” the truths in other words that highlight “the message of redemption by God and from God”—truths about the Bible, about God, about human beings, about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, about how his saving work is applied to us, about our incorporation into the Church as Christ’s mystical body, and about the grand climax and consummation of all things that is still to come.

One example of Lloyd-Jones’s trenchancy may

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whet the reader’s appetite. In a chapter examining God’s moral attributes, Lloyd-Jones says that the purpose of the biblical revelation of God’s holiness is to teach us how to approach Him…. [W]e are to approach God “with reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28). He is always to be approached that way, wherever you are; when you are alone in a room, or when you are meeting as a family to pray, or when you are in a public service. God is always God and He is always to be approached “with reverence and godly fear.” No such expression as “Dear God,” for example, is to be found in the Scriptures.

As Douglas Moo has noted, it is part of LloydJones’s uniqueness that his “very relevant homiletical applications grow out of insightful, theologically informed exegesis.” Here are the Scriptures’ great doctrinal truths, delivered at a level accessible to God’s common sheep, yet with virtually no loss of accuracy and profundity. Nothing could be more welcome.

Reviewed by Dr. Mark R. Talbot Associate Professor of Philosophy Wheaton College Wheaton, Illinois

The Hand of God: Finding His Care in All Circumstances

by Alistair Begg, Moody Press, 1999 204 pages, $16.99 In The Hand of God, pastor and Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals council member Alistair Begg surveys the life of Joseph, the hero of the faith in whose life the biblical doctrine of providence finds its classic Old Testament expression. Joseph, Begg contends, was a radically God-centered individual whose journey from the fields of Canaan to the throne room of Egypt reveals the “incredible truth that God rules and overrules in all the circumstances of life.” Indeed, the “overarching theme” of the biblical portrait of Joseph, Begg insists, “is that of the sovereign hand of God manifesting itself in his providential care over his dearly loved children and bringing about all that he has purposed in the affairs of time.” As such, the story of Joseph is a “real-life illustration” of the fact that Romans 8:28 is more than just “kitchen-verse theology,” for it exemplifies

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the biblical truth that God works all things—including evil—for the good of his children and the glory of his name.

There are a number of noteworthy features of Begg’s analysis. Not only does he pause from time to time to note significant parallels between the lives of Joseph and Jesus, but he also offers practical insights on God-centered living on topics ranging from temptation, assurance, and forgiveness to the Christian’s more general relationship to culture.

By far the most significant aspect of his analysis, though, is his description of the profoundly theocentric worldview of Joseph the man. What sustained Joseph through his journey and what makes his story relevant to those whose circumstances are less than “ideal” was not the fleeting desire for “perfect” circumstances. What sustained him, rather, was his unwavering conviction that God is “the speaker of his Word and the doer of his Works,” the supreme reality in the universe who “determines what is going to happen according to his will, for his glory, and for the good of his people.”

Joseph was convinced, in short, “that God sovereignly orders all things that come to pass and preserves the lives of his creatures for his purposes,” and thus he recognized that there “is no ideal place to serve God except the place in which he has set you down.”

While The Hand of God is written on a popular level and thus might not be useful as a college text, it will be useful in combating the teachings of evangelicals who, as Begg so delicately puts it, “do not want to bow before the mysteries of God’s providence.” For this reason alone the book is highly recommended.

Reviewed by Dr. Paul Kjoss Helseth Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Apologetics Northwestern College St. Paul, Minnesota

Practicing the Two Kingdoms

[ C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 3 1 ]

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), especially chapter 3. 5Ibid., 222. 6Ibid., 208. 7Institutes, 2.2.15.

witness of individual Christians and communities of faith sustained by faith, love, and prayer.

Although the separation of Church and state does not mean the divorce of religion and politics, it is a safeguard against both the encroachment of civil authority into the community of faith and also the improper use of religious principles for partisan ends. The Christian community is called to speak truth to power, never forgetting that its ultimate accountability is to a transcendent Reality beyond the relative and penultimate aims of any political party or ideology. For this reason, Christians must bring to the public square not only conviction but also humility, preaching forgiveness as well as judgment. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn reminds us in The Gulag Archipelago: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ■

Ibid., 4.20.1–2. 9Mark Noll, ed., Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation

8

(Vancouver, B.C.: Regent College Publishing, 1997). 10Institutes, 4.20.8,14. 11Ibid.

The Baptist Ideal by Timothy George Thomas Edwards, Gangraena (London, 1646) part I, epistle dedicatory, sig. Blr.; part

1

i, pp. 18-36. 2Edwards, part i, 203. C. N. Brailsford, The Levelers and the English Revolution (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 40. 3Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress: A Historical Study of the Relation of Protestantism to the Modern World, trans. W. Montgomery (1912; reprint ed., Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), pp. 124–26.

George H. Williams, “The ‘Congregationalist’ Luther and the Free Churches,”

4

Lutheran Quarterly 18 (1967), pp. 283-94. 5Weimarer Ausgabe Luther’s Werke (Hereafter, “WA”) 11, 268. 6WA 19, 263. 7WA 15, 616. 8Roland Bainton, “The Struggle for Religious Liberty,” Church History 10 (1941).

Roman Catholics and the Kingdom by David VanDrunen My copy of this document was downloaded from the Vatican Web page

1

(www.vatican.va). The address has been published in Origins, vol. 29 (November 18, 1999), 23: 357–84. References to the address in this article are cited by section number. 2Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1995), par. 846–847. Also

Timothy George (Th.D., Harvard University) is Dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and executive editor of Christianity Today.

relevant is this document’s interpretation of the doctrine of the necessity of baptism for salvation (par. 1260). 3Catechism, par. 161. 4One example is from an article which I will cite again later, written by perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Rahner: “Anonymous Christianity and the Missionary Task of the Church,” Theological Investigations, vol. 12 (Baltimore: Helican Press, 1961), 161–78. 5Summa Theologiae 1a 1.9. 6Fides et Ratio (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1998). One particularly important contribution

E N D N O T E S

to the contemporary Roman Catholic debate on nature and grace is Karl Rahner’s “Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace,” Theological Investigations, vol. 1, 297–317. 7Despite the apparent Roman Catholic “confusion” on the question

Ex Auditu by Lee Irons

of the necessity of evangelism, the issue has been addressed, at times authoritative-

1

The basic interpretive approach taken here owes a great deal to the biblical theological

ly, in the recent past. For example, see the papal encyclical of Paul VI, Evangelii

insights of Meredith G. Kline, especially in his “Trial By Ordeal,” in Through Christ’s Word:

Nuntiandi, sect. 22 (in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage, ed. David J.

A Festschrift for Dr. Philip E. Hughes, W. Godfrey and J. Boyd, eds. (Phillipsburg, NJ:

O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998], 311). See also

Presbyterian and Reformed, 1985), pp. 81–93. 2The image here is suggestive of ancient

Catechism, par. 848.

Near Eastern iconography contemporary with the writing of Job, wherein earthly events

Christianity and the Missionary Task of the Church,” cited above.

For a somewhat different take, see Rahner’s “Anonymous

unfolding on a lower level (or “register”) are portrayed as reflecting and resulting from heavenly events simultaneously occurring in the upper register—and so having cosmic

by Timothy M. Monsma

significance. Thus, a battle between two warring nations will be portrayed on a lower

1

level, running parallel with a heavenly battle between the deities of the same two nations.

2

Meredith G. Kline has suggested that the language of Job reflects a similar interrelation

Tract Society, 1903), p. 28. (Reprinted with a new format by P & R Publishing in

between earthly and heavenly events, “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony,” in

1972). 3Ladd wrote extensively on the subject of the Kingdom. See The Gospel of the

The Coming of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), p. 4.

The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church (New York: American

Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 48:1 (March 1996), pp. 2–15. The “line of Cain”

Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959) and The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology

and the “seed of the serpent” are different names for the generations of the ungodly that

of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974). 4“Kingdom of God, Kingdom of

are portrayed in the book of Genesis as opposed to the generations of the faithful.

Heaven” in The New Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas, ed. (London: InterVarsity, 1968),

Throughout the post-Fall period, there is an antithesis between the world and God’s

p. 693. 5Ibid. 6The Coming of the Kingdom (see endnote 1). When the Time Had Fully Come

covenant people, the (collective) seed of the woman. Additional sermons by Rev. Irons

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957).

3

4

can be found at www.redeemer.opc.org.

Free Space Two Kingdoms Defined by Michael Horton

If I may, I will refer you to the article, “Myths About a Movement: Answers to

1

1

Josiah Strong, “Our Country,” in William G. McLoughlin, ed., The American Evangelicals,

Common Misunderstandings About Seeker-Oriented Churches” in the Willow Creek

1800–1900: An Anthology (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1976), p. 196. 2Quoted by Josiah

Association (WCA) News, September/October 1997. You can access it at

Strong, op.cit. 3Cited in Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (Oxford: Oxford

http://www.willowcreek.com.

University Press, 1980), p. 38. 4George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in Nineteenth-Centry America (New

On My Mind by James Montgomery Boice

Haven: Yale, 1970); and George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

1

Gertrude Himmelfarb, One Nation, Two Cultures (New York: Knopf, 1999), p. 82.

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James Montgomery Boice

Heroes

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everal years ago a poll was taken among Canadian teenagers, and one of the find-

“who through faith conquered kingdoms, adminisings was that the teenagers had no heroes. There were people they wanted to be tered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the like, people who were famous and had money, such as rock stars. But there was no one mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and they seemed to look up to, no one whom they per- escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was ceived as providing a model for what might be a turned to strength; and who became powerful in worthwhile life. battle and routed foreign armies” (vv. 33–34).

I thought of that recently when I was reading a This means that even a person such as myself section of One Nation, Two Cultures by Gertrude can be a hero, as God counts heroes, and so can Himmelfarb.1 She was reflecting on the smallness you. For what counts is not heroics but faith. of modern life and how it has affected our leaders. What counts is faithfulness.

She concluded that if citizenship is demeaned by I have always remembered a poignant line from the habit of thinking only about such small things the first of the many popular Rocky movies.

JAMES as the material goods and needs of mundane life, so Because of a promotional fluke, Rocky Balboa has MONTGOMERY come out of oblivion by being given a chance to is national leadership.

It has been demonstrated in BOICE the recent political campaigns. “Presidential candi- fight Apollo Creed, the heavyweight champion of dates have defined themselves by a series of cam- the world. No one thinks Rocky has a chance, and 1938 – 2000 paign slogans and issues befitting, as has been he doesn’t really, though he loses in the end only pointed out, the mayor of a small town rather than by a close decision. But Rocky takes the challenge aspirants for the presidency of the United States,” seriously and goes into rigorous training. He gives it everything he has. However, as the day of the was her astute observation.

Presidents once figured prominently among the fight draws near, in a reflective mood, Rocky connation’s heroes—people like George Washington, fides to his girlfriend Adrian, “There’s no way I can Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and beat Apollo Creed. I just want to go the distance.” others. But that no longer seems to be the case. He meant he just wanted to last the fifteen rounds.

That is not a bad goal for Christians. How do you People no longer look up to presidents or anyone else for that matter, and we are impoverished as a measure a hero? Jesus told the believers in result. Heroes provide a spirit that elevates ordi- Philadelphia, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what nary people above the ordinary. They encourage you have, so that no one will take your crown” (Rev. people to identify with something larger than 3:11). Can we remember that? Can we hang on? themselves. But when we do not have heroes we Jesus doesn’t ask for miracles. He just wants those are demeaned as a people. who are his own to persevere. Yet to those who do The Bible gives us heroes. Yet they are heroes of persevere, who endure to the end, he promises his a particular kind. They are heroes because in a own new name, the name of a conqueror, and a crown sense they are not heroes at all. They are not the of glory that will never tarnish or be snatched away. proud movers of history, the wise, the influential, or those of noble birth (1 Cor. 1:26). They are just James Montgomery Boice wrote this column prior to his diagnosis of ordinary people who were chosen by God for a par- cancer earlier this spring. We thought it fitting to run the piece now, ticular task and who were faithful in performing it. after his death on June 15, as he is one of our great heroes of the faith.

They are like the men and women of Hebrews 11, — EDS.

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