Darryl Hart asks some provocative questions.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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Yes, indeed. This is very sore subject with me, because over the years I’ve seen it played out in more venues than I care to recall. I grew up as a member of congregations in a certain “confessional” Lutheran synod, one that now seems to be turning its back on its historical confessions (other than to give them lip service) in favor of a church growth paradigm, one which appears to be failing, by the way.
Some of these churches were “mission” congregations, that is, ones planted in locations where confessional Lutheranism was either unknown or had already been replaced by more liberal synods. Time after time the district office would send new or ineffective pastors to our struggling start-up, only to have the new move on quickly (if they managed to prove their worth) and the ineffective asked to leave after having pretty much run the new church into the ground theologically.
The “best and brightest,” of course, were sent to the cities to serve the larger, wealthier parishes – there’s no argument that the small town/rural congregations were discriminated against by the synod in an effort to chase after financial resources. This has become even more blatant in the past 10 years or so with proposals at synodical conventions to give the larger congregations voting privileges that are more heavily weighted than rural churches.
And the larger urban congregations are undeniably ones who prefer watered down (or non-existent) liturgy, P&W music, liberal views on justification and sanctification, etc. All of these things seem to go hand in hand.
Scott,
While I agree with what Darryl has to say, his article has no teeth because it assumes that all that is required is a change of attitude. I have discussed this issue at length with Elders and Ministers and have never found anyone who is actually willing to do anything about it.
Let me mention just two of the issues:
(1). MONEY. Very few churches are willing to pay for students to receive the education they need at a school like WSC. The result is that a majority of seminary graduates leave seminary with a boatload of debt that needs to be paid back. This means that compensation really does matter and most rural congregations don’t pay very well. Furthermore, there has been a growing expectation over the past 25 years that the pastor’s wife will work to help pay the bills. The wife of the typical seminary graduate has far greater job prospects in suburban and urban areas than in rural areas. We could address these sorts of problems by creating denominational salary scales that are mandatory – and then paying all Ministers of the Word the same salaries (with housing allowances adjusted to local conditions). Of course, this would require affluent congregations subsidizing less affluent congregations and would shift some of the control over finances away from local congregation to the regional church. If we are not willing to do something like this then we should stop cursing the darkness – because we are the ones with our fingers holding the light switch in the off position.
2. EXPERIENCE. Rural congregations rightly bemoan when they call a seminary student to be their pastor only to have him leave for “greener pastures” five years later. But in fairness to the seminarians that you are currently training – they didn’t create this system. I can’t speak for the URC, but if you look at the vacant pulpit notices in the OPC or PCA you will see that a large number of them say “M.Div. plus 5 years experience”. If your students are constantly told that their first 5 years out of seminary function as a type of residency that qualifies them to apply for these other congregations – there is every reason for them to treat their first call in this way. I don’t think that we can keep larger congregations from adding these sorts of screens on applicants as that is too imbedded in human nature. Yet, if we dealt with the financial side of the equation by simply paying rural pastors the same salaries that we pay pastors in larger churches – we would encourage new pastors to see their rural congregation as their calling rather than as an extension of their training for ministry.
David
Money is usually a reflection of priorities.
Amen
Great point. Oh the other hand, why are seminaries charging more and more….. what does that say about its priorities?
I can’t speak for other seminaries, but our costs have always been below inflation. Our tuition at WSC has historically been in the middle of the pack and this doesn’t account for the fact that we’re in Southern California. When adjusted for region, our tuition is even more reasonable.
Our staff is underpaid for this area and work sacrificially. The faculty are underpaid and have been for decades. Our faculty are ministers who serve Christ and his church by teaching here. Our staff serve Christ by supporting the mission of the seminary.
Just as easily titled “On Prejudice Against Urban Ministry,” no?
I guess this is more a question for Dr. Hart, but why not just assume a good motive rather than a poor one for those who feel called to the city? Yes, there is a danger of prestige-seeking when ministering to the “influential,” but as one commenter on the article points out, that temptation to self-righteousness and prestige-seeking is no respecter of geography or demographic. Every societal cluster has its influential sector—even rural areas. But maybe being so agrarian-centric makes one overly familiar with beams so as to easily overlook their presence whilst questing for motes.
Thoughtful questions asked from one side of the spectrum. Looking forward to the sequel that asks similar questions to the simpatico side of the aisle.
Scott W
How much energy is spent on strategic planning for rural church planting vs urban planting?
Sent from my iPhone
I really think the planning involved is more reflecting of complexity of city vs. rural. Just like first year seminary students spend majority of their time studying Greek/Hebrew rather than say Church History. It doesn’t mean students dumb their noses at Church History and rather have the splendor and glamor of Greek/Hebrew.
I am also a bit surprised Dr. Hart assumes the worst for people that have a heart for the city. On the other hand I can argue just as easily many seminarians pick the easy life of pastoring at the rural area: big houses, big parks, no traffic, good school district for the children, and decent pay to live carefreely. The argument can easily go both ways.
Finally, I have to echo a poster. Dr. Hart mentions seminarians treat rural areas as training ground to hone in skills. But in my experience every time I see a rural church making a call it’s always “5+ years experience”, and/or they are looking for someone 45 years old or older.
Scott,
I think your comment would make more sense if someone were claiming the superiority or centrality of rural ministry. Did I miss where that was asserted? Not to say that rural ministers don’t have their own idols, and every single one of us struggles with self-righteousness, but it’s hardly possible or even desirable for every article to address the temptations faced by every side of an issue.
And speaking as one who himself is far more interested in the city than the countryside, I think we’re better to humbly and prayerfully consider this challenge. It’s not a terribly helpful attitude to dismiss the challenge to our temptations until those on the other side fully owns up to their own.
Is anyone anywhere strategizing how to reach rural areas? (in NAPARC circles)
I’m in favor of urban planting too
I’m doing/heping w/ it now but just asking for a little attention for overlooked areas
Sent from my iPhone
Scott:
You asked: “Is anyone anywhere strategizing how to reach rural areas? (in NAPARC circles)”
Metokos Ministries, part of Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, comes close to what you are looking for.
http://www.metokos.org/index.html
Hi Wayne,
This is, as always, quite helpful. It’s telling, however, that this isn’t an arm of MNA but an extra or para-ecclesial organization. I had contact with good folks in PEF when I was in Kansas City (e.g. Paddy Cook) and I’m thankful for what they do but the point remains that the “church planting” guys seem to be obsessed with “the city” and there’s a good bit of romance being sold as part of that program.
I figured PEF at least fit within the NAPARC circle. In addition, it is run by TE Don Clements, who maintains a strong presence in the PCA, always has a booth for Metokos at each GA and works with Dominic Aquila on the Aquila Report.
As you might guess, this same topic was also picked up on the Puritan Board.
There I took the occasion to play out a pipe dream, where Presbyteries would encourage large churches of over 200 to send a family a week to small, struggling churches.
If done well and in right spirit (visitors pay their own way, & don’t expect to be fed or entertained after church), it would strengthen connectionalism, inform and encourage prayer one for another, and small towns would undoubtedly take notice [“Hey, their parking lot is filling up these days.”]
Wayne
That’s a great idea!
Scott W.,
Points like yours are fair ones. But so is Darren’s: one cannot cover it all.
At the same time, speaking of superiority, whatever problems might attend the Berry-model they certainly don’t include the arrogant irony (and naivete) of the city-redeemer concept resident within the Keller-model. The assumption of transforming a place presumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with it. How presumptuous. At least the Berry-model is closer to affirming the very goodness of creation.
Why do we so often talk as if only city dwellers had immortal souls?
Speaking of tranforming things, why the romance of transforming the city? When did square dancing on Sundays become transformational in Mamhattan? Isn’t this mainly hype?
Assuming the validity of that model why no talk of transforming Manhattan, KS?
Darren, I didn’t intend to dismiss. I thought I acknowledged “Thoughtful questions….” I’m sympathetic to the author’s concerns, just not sure that the pitfalls of ministry that he identified were entirely urban in nature….especially those identified in the paragraph that begins, “Lost in….” That’s all.
Nor did I mean to suggest that the article should cover all angles. You’re right to correct me if that was my cry. I tried to articulate my wish for a “sequel” or subsequent article that might more thoroughly examine the rural/agrarian influences that contribute to the prejudice.
Scott W.
Scott, assuming the validity of the assumption of the validity of the model, why the assumption that there is no such talk about Manhattan, KS? *grin* You may not hear it in your circles, but it’s there. That probably concerns you more than it helps you though, eh?
If I am correctly understanding “the model,” the appeal to influencing city dwellers is partly based on the perception that city dwellers influence other sectors of society (or at least influence things that influence other sectors) such as the so-called fly over states in a kind of trickle down manner.
Scott W.,
I think you are understanding the model. To be Calvinist is to be skeptical. If I have learned anything living at ground zero for it (Grand Rapids), it is that the problems with city-redemption are many. But one of the most curious is something like the worldly premise that “as goes the Big Apple, so goes the world.” That may work well for fashion and finance, but for reconciling sinners to God it’s a miserable model.
If theonomy is Calvinism’s version of Methodism, transformationalism is the Reformed version of liberalism. It would seem the spirit of the New School has won the day, as it were.
Scottw,
Wayne gave a partial answer but it’s still unsatisfactory. The URCs, given their small size and relative disorganization, are busy planting churches. Our classis has planted enough churches to require a new classis on the W. Coast and we just sent a pastor to Kauai to organize a plant there. We’re always looking for opportunities to plant.
I agree that many of our churches have been lax here. I’ve publicly remonstrated with our federation for refusing to form trans-congregational or classical missions committees to organize planting. Some of our congregations have been presented with well planned, well-funded church-planting opportunities and have turned up their noses in favor of “keeping the family together.” This is deplorable.
Nevertheless, I await the day when MNA types and church planting theorists and gurus become just a little bit enthusiastic about the less glamourous places in this country where there are people perishing in want of gospel ministry.
Perhaps it is worth noting that evangelicals aren’t fawning over cities but over certain cities. Compare the press and celebrity attention given to Redeemer PCA in NYC to First Presbyterian in Jackson, MS – even though they are comparable in size. Or consider the relative lack of buzz surrounding the meaningfully larger Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas which is heavily engaged in church planting throughout the Southwest.
Zrim Said:
“theonomy is Calvinism’s version of Methodism”
What? That does not even make sense.
Ben,
Think about it from the pov of outsiders to theonomy. What is theonomy essentially saying? It could be reasonably read to be saying:
“We have a mechanism, a method, a plan for the transformation of society: the abiding validity of the Israelite civil law in exhaustive detail as explained by (rabbis) Bahnsen, Rushdooney, and North (to name but three rabbinical schools).”
This looks a lot like Methodism. Remember, there has been “Calvinistic Methodism” (think Martyn Lloyd-Jones et al) for a long time. The predestinarian context of B, R. and N doesn’t change it’s apparent ethical-social Methodism.
I do not want to take up more space in an off-topic discussion but just as a point of clarification if that is what is meant, that “Theonomists” have “devised” a “method” for “transforming society” and that makes them “Methodists” then I do not think “Theonomists” should have any problem being called “Methodists” in that sense.
P.S.- Why do you use the term”Rabbi’s” to describe these men and refer to their “schools” as Rabbinical? Do you consider them Brothers-in-Christ?
Ben,
I call them “rabbis” because I’ve read parts of the Talmud and when I did realized that these guys are Protestant rabbis, esp. Rushdooney. They’re doing exactly the same thing the rabbis were doing.
Brothers? What does that have to do with it? How is that relevant? Rushdooney left the Reformed churches (the OPC, which he called the “Orthodox Pharisees Church” to form his own congregation– thus the question is really, did R regard me/us as a Christian?
Bahnsen died a minister in good standing in the OPC.
I have no idea what GN’s ecclesiastical affiliation is. Last I knew he was hiding in bunker in Arkansas waiting for the end of the world in 2000 (btw, if we mock the Millerites for their mid-19th century wackiness, why not GN’s)
I’m not judging their hearts but I am and will remain quite critical of their theology and its effects in the Reformed churches.
Scott,
In fairness to Gary North, I understand that he repented over what he wrote regarding Y2K. As early as January 10, 2000 North wrote:
“I believed that Y2K would create havoc. It still might, depending on how many bugs are still in the systems, but I will not here appeal to the “still might” argument. So, let me say without hesitation that my predictions did not come true. The events did not take place.”
While that doesn’t make what he wrote any less extreme, it is important for us to recognize what Gary North did was fundamentally different than what the Millerites did:
1. First, to the best of my recollection, Dr. North always made it perfectly clear that he was offering his own judgments about the potential for disaster. He explicitly stated that this was not based on any revelation from God. The Millerites claimed that their teaching was from God. This is a very significant distinction.
2. Second, Dr. North admitted that he was wrong. Many of the Millerites went on to embrace bizarre interpretations of Scripture in order to justify that they were not in fact entirely wrong.
David
Okay, his response to his failed interpretation of providence is better than that of the Millerites but the comparison stands. Both engendered panic, not faith, and foolishness not faithfulness.
My greater concern is North’s account of common grace, his account of Christian ethics, and his eschatology (wherein he threw CVT under the bus but with no consequences among allegedly Van Tillian theonomists).
Agreed!
FYI, FWIW:
From those I know in Fayetteville, AR, Dr. North is no longer living in that area, but has moved to either Memphis or Nashville (I forget which), to be near some of his children.
Ben,
In addition to what RSC has suggested, the larger point of my comment was that both theonomy and transformationalism share with Methodism and liberalism the premise that Christianity is relevant to the cares of this world, that the gospel has a direct bearing on and obvious implication for the immediate concerns of the temporal age.
Another aspect to all this is that the small towns of America are slowly dying. People have been moving to the big cities and their immediate suburbs for thirty years now. Surely that has some relevance to our church planting strategies.
Todd,
Yes, that’s true in places but demographics are shifting. There was a fairly long-term trend in that direction but in some places there’s been a renaissance in small towns.
Those shifts are among the reasons I’ve been pointing people to midwestern college towns as seminal places.
These demographic trends shouldn’t be used, however, to justify our near complete ignoring of the middle of the country from N. Dakota all the way to N. Texas.
I agree with Darryl, but the problem is much larger even than he sees. There are plenty of other factors that keep church plants out of smaller, rural areas. Chief among them is the first of David’s points: Money. How many family units (incomes) does it take to make a church plant viable? Ten? Twenty? Given the barely noticeable proportion of the Reformed and Presbyterians out of all confessing Christendom, most rural towns don’t have enough population to even get ten families.
I guess you could consider my town rural; we just grow missiles in the desert instead of crops in the valley. But out of 30,000 people, with 50+ churches already in town, there aren’t enough people to support a Reformed church plant. The Reformed population amounts to my single income family, a single professional, and two more singles who work pizza part time. As soon as we all became members of the URC, the consistory wanted to start a plant here, and we told them to forget it. We couldn’t even pay for a meeting hall four times a month. So we all drive the hour and a half one way that it takes to get to church. (We still spend less time in the car per week than your average city dweller, so it’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s just a different kind of problem.)
If rural church plants are going to happen, larger churches are going to have to adopt them and commit to paying their expenses for not just a year or two, but ten or fifteen even. I don’t know if there are even enough “big” URC’s in our classis to do that.
All that and I haven’t said a thing about the drop-out rate of church members. Church planting is a hard road, even for the committed members. How long before the rest of the membership gets bored of the same old word-and-sacrament ministry, and drops out in search of a little more already and a little less not-yet?
Wow, I didn’t realize the city is a gold mine, that must be why church planters go to the city, it’s easy picking.
I do not want to argue against it either way, but many of the posters here demonstrated a sincere lack of understanding and complexity and sacrifices that are involved in urban missions. This whole thread for the most part, in my humble opinion, is a slap in the face to the urban church planters that answered God’s inner calling to do urban missions.
Do you know some urban church planters live in slums that you would probably never dare to walk pass it let alone live in it? Risk getting beat up by simply walking in the streets? Risk getting rob and house broken-into? I know many Philly church planters that probably should talk to you guys, because after a few years they live off scarce donations, and yet still has to provide for the family, for the Church, and for evangelism. Not everyone racks in the fame and glory like Tim Keller, nor should everyone be. Most urban ministers quietly serve in places suburbanites would never go, serve the people suburbanites would never relate to, and all for the glory of God.
I can understand the uneasiness with urban missions stealing all the headlines, or church resources, or whatever. But please, what is this about making them a bunch of glory seekers and Tim Keller wannabes?
Oh and finally, Paul was an urban church planter.
Dear RS,
I was an urban missionary for 6 years. I worked among the homeless and broken for much of that time. I didn’t work in the ‘burbs among affluent white folks.
Lighten up.
I’m glad for the mission where ever it is being done biblically/confessionally. I’m not calling for any urban missionaries to uproot and relocate to Quinter, KS.
I’m just asking that folk who think about mission and who talk about it take into account that there is a rural population in this country and in others that needs to be reached. It’s not as sexy as the “city” relative to marketing and “bang for the buck” and all that. but it’s a mission field nonetheless.
Oh and Paul was an apostle who saw the risen Christ.
Those of us who live in the post-canonical world have to pray and make prudential judgments, hence these posts to try to stimulate people to think about a more or less forgotten area.
hey isn’t it true that Kline recommended a change in the Westminster Standards to rebuke theonomy and its adherents? Doesn’t that mean that the confessional position at least as far as Westminster is concerned was originally something other than Kline’s view on the matter? Why else would the Confession need to change?
“If, providentially, anything good is to come of the Chalcedon disturbance, perhaps, paradoxically, it will come from the very embarrassment given to churches committed to the Westminster standards by the relationship that can be traced, as noted above, between the Chalcedon position and certain ideas expressed in the Westminster Confession. Perhaps the shock of seeing where those ideas lead in Chalcedon’s vigorous development of them may make the church face up to the problem posed by the relevant formulations and reconsider the Confession’s position on these points (and on interlocking issues, like the Sabbath). From such a constructively critical effort there might ensue, if not actual amendment of the faulty formulations themselves, at least a sorely needed clarification of the use of the Confession as an instrument in the judicial process.”
Meredith G. Kline, “Comments on an Old-New Error” [review article of Theonomy in Christian Ethics, by G.L. Bahnsen] WTJ (1978/79): 172-189. [Reprinted in Baptist Reformation Review 4:8 (1979): 20-31]
Kevin,
Meredith was wrong. The standards don’t need to be changed.
To quote Luther, “One little word” will fell theonomy:
EXPIRED
I am surprised a Theonomist has never been “felled” by that word.
Here is what Robert Shaw (1795-1863) says in his commentary on the WCF:
“The judicial law respected the Jews in their political capacity, or as a nation, and consisted of those institutions which God prescribed to them for their civil government. This law, as far as the Jewish polity was peculiar, has also been entirely abolished; but as far as it contains any statute founded in the law of nature common to all nations, it is still obligatory.”
Ben,
That’s nothing more than “the general equity thereof” or natural law!
Theonomy hasn’t been fond of natural law.
I didn’t say that “natural law” has been felled by “expired.” You changed the middle premise.
I said THEONOMY or the abiding validity of the Jewish CIVIL LAW (as such) is EXPIRED.
Now, the theonomists want to repent of theonomy and embrace natural law with the rest of, come on in. That’s a beautiful thing.
http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/the-abiding-validity-of-the-creational-law-in-exhaustive-detail/
Point being, as you have demonstrated, is that “expired” does not have the force you are wanting it to have. The Confession of Faith uses two separate words, “Abrogated” and “Expired”, to describe the place of the Ceremonial and Judicial Law for a reason. Reading just basic Theonomic works shows that there is no disagreement on the basic point that the Ceremonial Laws are completely done away with and that the sundry Judicial Laws “expired” due to the expiration of Israel as a “political body”. However notice this again in WCF 19.3 & 4. To belabor a point the Confession uses the word “abrogated” to describe the ceremonial law and “expired” to describe the judicial law, as well as notice in the next chapter on Christian Liberty (#20) the Confession states that we have been freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law and does not mention the judicial law once. If we have been removed from the “yoke” of both ceremonial and judicial laws why does the confession in Ch. 20 not mention the judicials at all? That is because the judicials, as the framers of the Confession say in 19.4, continue in abiding validity to their underlying moral principle, or as the Confession states the “general equity” of the Judicial Law. The Apostle Paul models how we are to do this in 1 Cor 9:8-10. You can also see further what the Divines were getting at by looking at the Westminster Larger Catechism and its explication of the Ten Commandments. All throughout (#’s 98-148).
Ben,
Consider the clear contrast between:
I. “The abiding validity of the law of God in exhaustive detail” (which means, the civil law since most theonomists affirm that the ceremonial laws are fulfilled and there’s no controversy over the moral law). So we’re left with “the abiding validity of the civil law in exhaustive detail.” Whose exhaustive detail? Rushdooney’s Institutes of Biblical Law that veritable Talmud for Christian Reconstruction, Gary North’s categorical rejection of common grace and his dispensational ethic: “Turn the other cheek is for the oppressed not for the victorious,” and Greg Bahnsen’s “Theonomy in Christian Ethics” where “fulfilled” doesn’t mean “fulfilled” at least not as the Reformed have always understood it.
and
II.The Westminster Confession of Faith 19:
1. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.
The WCF begins with the natural/moral/creational law which alone has “abiding validity”
http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/the-abiding-validity-of-the-creational-law-in-exhaustive-detail/ 2. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man</p..
As Thomas Boston argued in his notes on The Marrow of Modern Divinity and as I argued in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry the only sensible referent of the demonstrative pronoun “this” = the law God gave as a covenant of works in creation. With Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Melanchthon, and Luther the divines equated the moral law with the natural law and made it binding.
3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
“This law” again = the moral/natural/creational law. The Israelite civil law was “beside” or “alongside” that law. The divines recognized the intentionally temporary nature of the Israelite civil law. The entire Israelite civil polity, including (contra at least some theonomists) the ceremonial law (as I recall GB argued for a “church- state distinction” in Israel, but I might be wrong about that– I’ve spent most of my time over the last 20 years reading classic Reformed writers not theonomists) the ceremonial law.
Those law are ABROGATED (this verb is interesting because it was the verb used by Cocceius as part of his doctrine of the gradual abrogation of the covenant of works in redemptive history. 4. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
Note the word “also.” The divines make the civil and ceremonial laws parallel. In other words, logically, to do what the theonomists want to do, haul the Israelite civil laws out of the ashes of abrogation, they have to separat them from the ceremonial laws but the WCF doesn’t do this. The judicial laws are EXPIRED with the Israelite state. GB “abiding validity” but the WCF says: “not obliging any other [civil entity] now [since Christ has fulfilled all the law with the resulting ABROGATION and EXPIRATION of the civil and ceremonial laws] except insofar as the general equity may require. General equity does not mean, contra the theonomists, what Rabbi Rousas, Rabbi Greg, or Rabbi Gary says. General equity takes us back to the moral, natural, creational law. Post-Israelite, post-theocratic, post-typological civil law is the civil application of the moral law by the magistrate. Period.
Abrogate means to finish, to put an end. Expire means to breathe one’s last, to die. Why did they use such strong language? Because they had read and understood 2 Cor 3, Heb 7 (which Bahnsen manifestly misunderstands. When the priesthood changed, the law changed, because the law was contingent on the priesthood. Finito. Caput. Done. Jesus is the high priest and with that change, the entire Mosaic epoch, law, and ceremonies: DONE.
Theonomy was huge detour and essentially Anabaptist, chiliastic attempt to realize the Kingdom in history via the civil magistrate and thus, from a historic and confessional perspective, a waste of time.
This thread has been hijacked long enough and it illustrates how theonomy is a distraction from the real, God-given work of Christ’s church. This thread is about planting churches in fulfillment of Christ’s commission and theonomists want to talk about the Israelite civil law!
By way of another plug, one of the interesting things I found hiding in plain sight as it were in my research for an article appearing in the forthcoming 2009 issue of The Confessional Presbyterian journal, is that the original wording of what would become WCF 20.1 included the judicial law. The early wording reads: “Under the Gospell consists especially in freedome from the Guilt and power of Sin, from Bondage to Sathan, from the condemning wrath of God, from the ceremoniall and judiciall Law, and from the curse of the morrall….” The language was later significantly expanded for the final wording and the judicials were left out, mainly, I think, because of the way the divines chose to address the ceremonials in relation to the Jewish Church. They already addressed the civil law and the Jewish state in the final version of chapter 19 (at ¶4). In any event; subscribe now. 🙂 http://www.cpjournal.com