On Precision and Latitude

Over the last year or so there seems to have been a concerted effort to discredit any sort of “two-kingdoms” (or two-spheres) approach to Reformed ethics and this despite the long-history and pedigree in Reformed theology of distinguishing between the kingdom of God and the civil or common realm.

One of the arguments that some of the critics of the two-kingdoms/two-spheres approach is to suggest that its proponents either don’t or can’t believe in or practice Christian schooling. In part to demonstrate the falsity of such an argument, not long ago Westminster Seminary California dedicated its quarterly publication  EVANGELIUM to the question of Christian education and schooling. Last month Christian Renewal, a small, Canadian magazine targeted at the Doyeweerdian, neo-Kuyperian, Dutch-Reformed community north of the border published a critique of the most recent issue of EVANGELIUM by a layman (a lawyer by trade) and URC elder from NW Indiana. The thrust of the critique is that though the essays advocated Christian schooling, they failed to do so correctly and so the advocacy of Christian schooling doesn’t count. Folks are discussing these questions at the OLTS. As part of that discussion I posted the following (lightly revised):

§

We have to distinguish between the pre-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian eras. If it’s true that we live in a post-Christian time/culture then we would seem to have most in common with the Christians of the early church who lived in predominantly non-Christian culture until well after the legalization of Christianity.

The testimony of the Treatise (not epistle!) by “Mathetes” (possibly Polycarp) to Diognetus (c. 150s), that the Christians had no distinct culture, no distinct language, etc, i.e., they were not Jews or Judaizers (Ebionites) is both fascinating and telling about how most of them related to the prevailing culture. The had no transformationalist agenda. One simply cannot find the early Christians (including the New Testament Christians) talking about “redeeming” anything but sinners. Nor does one find them talking about “transforming” the culture. Constantine himself merely legalized Christianity (and funded a few church buildings) and restored property stolen from Christians. Most of the decree is actually civil religion, In fact, it was explicitly pluralist in theology and with respect to religious toleration. Constantine, at that point anyway, seems to have been taking out fire insurance against offending any of the gods who might be able to bless the empire.

Much of the the discussion of two-kingdoms and Christian schooling seems to come from those who either don’t understand or accept that Christendom is over or who want to restore Christendom but as a matter of NT exegesis where do we see clear, unambiguous, unequivocal evidence that the apostolic church sett up distinctly Christian schools? This is not an argument against Christian schools but for those of us who who apparently don’t defend them correctly are wrong, where exactly is the biblical evidence to say that post-Israelite, post-theocratic, NT church established a pattern of distinctively Christian schools to avoid contaminating their children with paganism? This is not an argument for sending Christian children to state or private “secular” schools that are hostile to Christian theism but if we’re going to accuse other Christians of sinning because they question the Afscheiding-Doleantie-Neo-Kuyperian-CSI approach to Christian schooling, then shouldn’t the biblical evidence be pretty overwhelming?

Lacking such evidence perhaps this question is better discussed not as a matter of confession or sin but as a a matter of wisdom and prudence? Is it wise to send one’s children to be educated by those who are hostile to the faith when there are alternatives? Probably not but that’s not the same thing as violating the confession or sinning.

The URC Church Order requires elders to promote “God-Centered schooling” but it doesn’t stipulate how that is to be done and thus far in the life of the URCs that’s been a matter of Christian liberty.

Our confessions do not teach Christian schools per se. To borrow a phrase form our Schilderite/CanRC brothers, how is it that requiring not only a certain view of Christian schools but also a certain defense of them not a case of “extra-confessional binding”? Ursinus says that HC 103 is about what we today would call “seminary.” I should like to see the case for making Christian schools a mark of the church (as one of the commenters suggested) if only because that would be a surprise to de Bres and the the early Dutch Reformed churches. The point of the marks is to say: This is how you can tell a true church from a sect or a false church. Are the proponents of Christian schools (of which I’m one) really willing to say, however, that having not only the “right view” of Christian schools but also the right rationale and defense for them is of the essence of the church? That would seem like a pretty difficult case to make.

Such a claim is also odd since, as I recall, our critic used to argue with some vigor that the Federal Vision wasn’t really a threat to the United Reformed Churches (despite the fact that we’ve had two notorious proponents of the FV in our ministry who’ve since left to unite with the CRE; folk might also like to know that one of our classes just dealt with another FV case in the last year) and that it was a tempest in a tea pot. Interesting, I say, because 1) two synods of the URCs apparently disagreed with him by twice adopting three points on sola fide and the imputation of active obedience in response to the FV and by adopting the Nine Points against the FV in 2007 and 2) the FV question gets much closer, than the question of Christian schools, to all three of the marks of the church that we actually confess, namely, the “pure preaching of the gospel,” the “pure administration of the sacraments,” and the exercise of church discipline.

Our critic was unwilling to go to war over the FV (check out the old discussions on the Yahoo URCNA list) but he seems quite willing to go to war over not over whether Christian education/schooling is to be promoted by over how Christian education should be taught and defended. Thus, he seems like a latitudinarian on the gospel and a precisionist on Christian schooling. This suggests perhaps that his concern is more about the culture or Christendom than it is about those things with which the Reformed confession is explicitly concerned, e.g. justification, sacraments, and church discipline.

As a historical matter, the onset of the Enlightenment/Modernity created a crisis and what we think of as distinctively “Christian schools” were a response to that crisis and they became a defining part of the Afscheiding/Doleantie ecclesiastical-social culture and were a defining part of the Christian Reformed Church. Indeed, Christian schools were one of the principal reasons for the creation of the CRC.

I notice that the most recent issue of the Christian Renewal has an story about the death of a well-known Presbyterian minister who was also a member of a secret society. Here was another sticking point between the CRC and the RCA in the 19th century. it’s interesting to see that, according to the CR, it’s apparently okay to be a lodge member but it’s not okay to defend Christian schooling on the basis of wisdom. So one of the traditional marks of the CRC has gone by the wayside in favor of another?

The interesting historical thing here is that the commitment to Christian schools in the GKN and the CRC did not prevent either from losing its confessional identity, from becoming first broadly evangelical and, in the GKN, from moving quickly toward the mainline whither the CRC is headed.

This doesn’t mean that Christian schools are wrong but it does suggest that the hope invested in them, at least in the GKN and the CRC, has not “paid off” exactly, i.e., it hasn’t produced the intended results. Given the track record of the Christian school movement in the GKN and the CRC I’m a little puzzled by the temperature of the rhetoric about Christians schools and the invective used toward those who are defending Christian schools but apparently not defending them correctly.

Perhaps the time is right to take a different approach? If the neo-Kuyperian approach failed to preserve a confessionally Reformed church in the CRC, why do we think that if we do exactly what they did, the way they did it, we’ll have a different outcome.

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79 comments

  1. “If the neo-Kuyperian approach failed to preserve a confessionally Reformed church in the CRC, why do we think that if we do exactly what they did, the way they did it, we’ll have a different outcome.”

    This could be said about a lot of issues in the URC, not just so-called Reformed Christian schools. I see the URC as being, in many ways, satisfied with getting back to where the CRC was a few decades ago, not realizing that we can fall into the exact same pitfalls just thirty or forty years later on a whole host of issues.

    One of the biggest reasons I see those struggles coming (and did come to the CRC) was a lack of proper catechesis in the home. Once an objection came to the Reformed tradition, they had no legs to stand on and succumbed to the theology of the Evangelical world around them. Poorly catechized children are elders and leaders a couple of decades later.

    I know some parents who have to “detox” their children more when they come home from a CSI Christian School concerning proper Reformed and Biblical teaching than they would if they came home from a public school.

    I am still amazed at the level to which many parents (Fathers especially) put the responsibility to catechize their children onto the “Christian Schools.” What does the Bible say in Ephesians 6:4? “Christian Schools… bring [children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Oh, wait… wrong version… here is what it really says, “FATHERS… bring them [your children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

  2. BTW – I went to a CSI school from K-12 and then a Reformed Christian College. I wouldn’t trade those experiences and educations for anything, but at the time my Christian school was really solidly Reformed and I went to church with all of my teachers. From what I have heard in many areas that kind of school was an exception (and my school has slipped as well). But most importantly I believe I was catechized well in the home and supplemented at church.

    • Mark, those are excellent comments you make. I find myself looking back and saying/seeing the same things. You are bang on as to how very important catechetical instruction is for us and our children, and our children’s children. While you have breath … you are a student of a very special gift given by the Lord to us via our distinctively reformed confessional base.

      I do disagree with Dr. Clark’s logic that since the CRC has dare I say …apostacized … that therefore the Christian day schooling is not really worth the investment… after all.

      Well I am here to tell you Dr. Clark that your logic is flawed. There are many of us who are proving your logic to be flawed in various reformed churches who are active in also bucking the liberal and weak attitudes concerning Christian day schooling … or Christian homeschooling as a group where no day school has been started as of yet. Public schools are not an option … you know Dr. Clark what Luther stated concerning the public school system?

      As the professors apostacize, so do the churches … and when the churches apostacize … so does the christian day schools. It is the generation to come that is crippled and destroyed … parents, professors, grandparents, teachers, ministers, officebearers became complacent and concerned themselves with the today’s and not paying heed to the tomorrow’s little one’s and the little one’s that followed. The idea of family, that covenant family of fellowship was considered not worth the effort.

      Our forefathers has proper motive for what they did, and the Lord blessed them because of it. It is sad that the generations that followed perished for lack of knowledge and not following the old paths.

      CSI was the demon that spawed from a liberal/anti confessional take of things by weak and pathetic members within the CRC. Dr. Runner was such a weak and pathetic member.

      Parents were not being taught doctrine within the churches anymore, catechism training was lost as well, such is the case when the leadership in the churches do not follow their church orders or the vows and subscription they made as officebearers, or even care to read as to how our church order and the articles they contain were created in the first place. Precedent abounds … they were lazy and did not care to understand and read. Dare I say… common grace poisoned the well that in this sphere as well… spiritual death was the by product.

      Christian, distinctively confessional reformed day school proponent are you? Then practice what you preach and preach it soundly and firmly to the flock that they may return to the old paths and repent of the sin which has enslaved them, their children, their grandchildren.

      As for the 2 kingdom theology , I am bound by article 36 of the Belgic Confession and it’s following footnote:

      “This phrase, touching the office of the magistracy in its relation to the Church, proceeds on the principle of the Established Church…. History, however, does not support the principle of State domination over the Church, but rather the separation of Church and State. Moreover, it is contrary to the New Dispensation that authority be vested in the State to arbitrarily reform the Church, and to deny the Church the right of independently conducting its own affairs as a distinct territory alongside the State…. The office of the magistracy [is not to be conceived] in this sense, that it be in duty bound to also exercise political authority in the sphere of religion, by establishing and maintaining a State Church, advancing and supporting the same as the only true Church, and to oppose, to persecute and to destroy by means of the sword all the other churches as being false religions.”

      • Ray,

        You completely mischaracterized my argument! I am not say nor did I even suggest that “since the CRC has dare I say …apostacized … that therefore the Christian day schooling is not really worth the investment… after all.”

        What I did say is that the history of the Christian school movement and the CRC suggests that doing the same thing, the same way and expecting things to come out differently is irrational. Making Christian schools a “fourth mark of the church” is 1) unconfessional and 2) irrational.

        I agree with you that the problem begins with the churches but given the inter-connectedness of church and school we cannot simply ignore the role played by the Christian school movement in the decline of the CRC.

        I’m suggesting that the Christian schools need to be re-structured. I’m also suggesting that the focus needs to begin with the Reformation of the churches. This is one reason why I’ve spent so much time on the FV issue and promoting confessionalism.

        We cannot, however, have confessional churches and send our children off to broadly evangelical day schools and expect to continue to have Reformed churches.

        Nor will it help us to have idiosyncratic, fundamentalist day schools or even parochial day schools. Where are churches, as such, commissioned to establish schools? Families and/or private societies, but churches? It’s all most congregations can do to maintain the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the administration of discipline.

    • Mark,

      These are very good points. My CRC pastor recently expressed absolute amazement at the doctrinal ignorance he sees in his high school catechism classes. The slightest research uncovered the fact that the local CSI’s require “comparative world religions” but make optional anything resembling biblical instruction. I think this suggests what happens when catechism and curriculum are conflated.

      Dr. Stob (Calvin College) headmasters a Pres school in another state. He has conveyed that only 25% of the families attend the means of grace regularly. There are many ways to interpret such stats. But I think one way to explain it is that there is an idea that day schooling is where kids get religion. So much so that even the Lord’s Day may be overlooked. I can’t help but sesne an enormous amount of modernity lurking, swallowing up confessional Protestant outlooks.

      I know it’s not very popular to suggest, but if the URC wants to avoid the sort of potential pitfalls you rightly point out, one step might be to revisit the language of Article 14 in the Church Order.

  3. Hart said Bret of Iron Ink is a theonomist, not a Kuyperian.

    I don’t know what you mean by “neo-Kuyperian,” but as an old school confessionalist and Dooyeweerdian myself, I say these critics sound confused. I highly doubt they are representative of Kuyperian neocalvinism. I’ll have to read what they say.

    But… one thing puzzles me about your response, are you saying the early church did a good job educating their kids, so as to prevent them from synthesizing Christian beliefs with pagan ones? Uh, really?

    • Baus,

      No, I’m not claiming anything about how the early church educated “children,” because, for the most part, that would be an anachronism.

      What I tried to do in the very brief (500 words!) essay in the EVANGELIUM that ignited the latest outburst from NW Indiana was to say that education in the early church was, in some places at least, informed by a notion that was not very different from the fundamental notion of two-kingdoms. In the treatise to Diognetus, the author argues that we’re not like the Jews/Judaizers. We don’t have a distinct diet or dress. We don’t have a distinct language. For the most part, except for Sundays, we’re basically indistinguishable from everyone else.

      In fact, the point of tension with the culture in the ancient church was “culture” at all as much as it was “cult.” To be more precise, the point of tension was that the pagans didn’t distinguish cult and culture and we did! So, we were persecuted for not “going along” with culture/cultic rites, which most no longer believed, because it impinged on the ability of the local butcher to make a living. In other words, what happened in the NT also happened, sometimes with more intensity, in the post-canonical church. The Christians refused to buy meat for sacrifices and they didn’t make the required oblations and that put them at odds with the surrounding culture.

      Some of the fathers defended borrowing from the pagans on the grounds of despoiling the Egyptians. Others, lacking perhaps an adequate doctrine of providence, believed that the Greeks had stolen/borrowed what they knew from Moses.

      In any event had no idea of transforming the culture. For the most part they just wanted to be left alone. We should also recognize that we’re not talking about mass education or mass literacy. In the ancient world only elites (and perhaps their slaves in some cases) were educated. I also suggested that the very notion of a “school” wasn’t regarded as a distinctly Christian enterprise.

      They certainly recognized sharp differences between the Christian understanding of the world and the pagan but without the transformationalist element, their approach to the broader culture was less hostile than it is among, e.g. right-wing, theocratic (neo- Constantinian) transformationalists.

      • Did (some) early Christians educate/school their kids in non-theological subjects? Did they give them unmitigated pagan educations?

        If there was some attempt to make “corrections” with regard to how paganism influenced non-theological education, then you have basic “transformationalism”. (But, obviously, history shows that the church was not thorough enough in avoiding idolatry in religious belief, in church and in culture).

        Not all views of the relationship between culture and religious belief (in distinction from cultic/eccleisal practice) that could be categorized as basically transformation-ist are of the same kind. Sweeping generalizations do offer helpful analysis here.

          • “every expression of the antithesis”… well, there are indeed various understandings of what “the antithesis” is, and how it relates to culture.

            If we understand the antithesis to be the absolute opposition between the Truth and the Lie; the Kingdom of God and of Satan, and we understand that this antithesis is not an opposition between Christians and non-Christians or between spheres or institutions, but rather cuts through every believer and community…

            then it’s a question of what relation does belief in the true God sustain to every other belief and action? If we understand that inescapable belief in either the true God or in an idol has a certain inevitable influence on the whole of life, depending alternately on whether a belief or action is presupposing one or the other (as all beliefs and actions do)…

            then it’s a question of how that influence operates, what it is, and whether as Christians we are concerned about our non-theological, non-ecclesial beliefs and actions regarding the fashion in which they presuppose belief in the true God or an idol…

            and this is to say, again, that if we recognize that paganism (for instance) might influence non-theological education, and we are concerned to “correct” that influence in terms of an understanding of how it relates to belief in the true God, then that is a basic transformationalism, yes.

            Now, there are several contrasting proposals about how these relations between Christian belief and culture are understood. One view is theonomic, and an opposing view is neocalvinistic, another view is pietistic, another is “scholastic,” and I suppose another might be a two-kingdom view or your contemporary (neo)two-kingdom view.

      • Ooops. Uh, that is “sweeping generalizations do NOT offer helpful analysis here.”

        (by “sweeping generalizations” I mean lumping all basic views of “transformation” in together as though they were the same view. If you think paganism might have some negative effects on culture that Christians should avoid in their cultural lives, then this is basic transformationalism).

    • Nick, thank you for illustrating the problem so clearly.

      Lumping-in neocalvinism as a kind of “soft” theonomy is about as intelligent as writing-off a contemporary two-kingdom view as pietist, or perhaps soft secular humanism.

      No one yet has been able to say (given the fundamental disagreement between theonomy and neocalvinism, and the shared redemptive-historical hermeneutic of neocalvinism and two-kingdom’ism) what neocalvinism’s supposed shared theonomic assumptions are.
      See discussion here: http://oldlife.org/2009/04/18/if-the-bible-speaks-to-all-of-life-why-not-the-confession/

      If the advocates of contemporary two-kingdom view can’t be bothered to read and understand neocalvinism in distinction from theonomy, then they cannot expect anyone to take their contemporary two-kingdom view seriously.

      • Baus,

        There are internal connections between various forms of neo-Calvinism. My old friend Norm Hoeflinger used to talk about “right-wing Kuyperians” (or neo-Kuyperians) and “left-wing” NKs. He had a point. The theonomists are all children of neo-Kuyperian transformationalism. Kuyper’s eschatology may have been formally amil but he used a lot of post-mil rhetoric about the future and the effect of Christianity on the culture. CVT was much more restrained in his eschatology and more consistently amil in rhetoric. The right-wing transformationalists have focused on culture (often to the exclusion of church and cult/worship; this helps explain why no one cares about Bahnsen’s consistent support of Norm Shepherd over the years). The left-wing NK’s tended to focus on “cult” but they did so by baptizing everything so that the church softball team became a “ministry.” Both are united by a form of transformationalism.

        I don’t think you can rescue neo-Calvinism from its association with theonomy as easily as your post suggests. Without the NK movement there would have been no theonomic movement. I’m not suggesting that neo-Calvinism is solely responsible for theonomy but it was a necessary precondition.

        • I haven’t heard any advocates of contemporary two-kingdom views can competently articulate what neocalvinism *is*… in any case, to merely assert that neocalvinism was some kind of “necessary precondition” for theonomy doesn’t do a whole lot to establish that neocalvinism shares some faulty theonomic assumptions.

          Again, failing to distinguish neocalvinism from theonomy is akin to your critics simply ignoring your explanation of contemporary two-kingdom views, and writing-off your views as mere pietism.

          That’s not a very responsible approach.

          • Baus,

            1. I think you’re using neo-Calvinism in a fairly precise or technical way. Perhaps it would help if you defined what you mean by it.

            2. I think you’re the only one talking about “neo-Calvinism” here. As I understand it neo-Calvinism would encompass virtually all the orthodox Dutch Reformed theology (e.g. Bavinck, Kuyper) from the late 19th century through the early 20th century. I would rather refer to post-Kuyperian or neo-Kuyperian appropriations of Kuyper. In other words, as I read things, I see continuity between some aspects of the two great aspects of Kuyper’s approach here (common grace and antithesis) between various wings of the neo-Kuyperian movment but I also discontinuity between Kuyper and some aspects of the NK movement.

            3. As I understand the NK movement(s) it would be hard to say exactly what “it” is but we could talk about various tendencies among various proponents of NKism. I did try to characterize briefly right-wing and left-wing NKism above. I take it that wasn’t helpful?

            • You mentioned Dooyeweerd and Kuyper; that is neocalvinism.

              I don’t think your right-wing (culture focused) and left-wing (church focused) categories are very helpful, no.

              There is a disagreement with the theologically/ecclesially confessional and cultural neocalvinism of Dooyeweerd and Kuyper, and there is a view in line with it.

              Theonomy is a disagreement –an alternative view of things, and neocalvinism does not share theonomic assumptions. The theonomists might mention Kuyper here and there, but substantively they are not concerned to appropriate his views. Kuyperian neocalvinism does not allow for an exclusion of the ecclesial, nor for its absolutization.

              The fact is, if your theonomic critics are at fault, that is due to their theonomy, not to any error in Kuyperianism. If there is a problem with Kuyperian neocalvinism, then that will have to be demonstrated rather than dismissed by imagined guilt-by-association with theonomists.

          • It is arguable whether Greg supported Shepherd on those issues that have become notorious in the last few years. Remember that very few recognized Shepherdism for what it was back in the 80s or 90s — the time in which Greg was active. Many have tried to link Greg with Shepherd’s conditionalism, even his own son, but no one has ever provided evidence that Greg would have rejected sola fide, imputation, and so on.

            • It’s not true that Shepherd’s errors weren’t widely recognized. I’ve documents from the late 70s-early 80s signed by 30 or so leading Reformed theologians rejecting Shepherd’s theology as sub-Reformed.

              Bahnsen’s son has said publicly that dad supported NS.

  4. Close to the heart of the disagreement in the discussion that has been prompted by WSC’s Evangelium on Christian education concerns whether public schools are a legitimate option given the current context in North America. The real or perceived lack of rejection of public schools in that volume of Evangelium has caused some of the concern over the WSC professors’ support for Christian education.

    I ordered a free (cool!) copy and read it myself. I thought Mr. Vander Molen’s review of it was over-the-top. I thought the reponse to Mr. Vander Molen’s review (on blogs and elsewhere) was over-the-top.

    As I see it, there is no question as to the WSC professors’ support for Christian education, only as to the QUALITY of this support.

    There may be cases where Reformed Christian parents send their kids to public schools and they turn out quite all right, but should this exception to the rule be permitted to become the rule? I don’t think so. Certainly, the elders of a church cannot force parents to send their kids to this school or that (since education in “general revelation” is a parental responsibility). But should elders encourage homeschooling and/or Christian education and discourage sending kids to public schools? Yes.

    I think that’s what I and others want to hear from the professors at WSC — that, as a rule, they reject the idea of parents giving authority to unbelievers to educate their kids.

    • Peter,

      It sounds to me like you’re demanding a shibboleth: “Say the magic words in the right way, or else.”

      You say “public” schools. I stipulated “secularist” schools. Are you exempting private secularist schools? Is it public funding that is the rub or the ideological basis of the schools or both?

      I tried to address this problem above. Are you suggesting that it would always be wrong for Christian parents to make use of any services from any state school?

      Why isn’t it satisfactory to say that it is probably not wise for Christian parents to ask teachers/schools, who fundamentally disagree with them about the meaning of the world, to train their children. Why do we have to make it a matter of sin (and thus church discipline)?

      That said, why is the use of secular or even secularist schools (see above for the distinction) “giving authority” to them? This doesn’t follow. If a parent takes a child to a dentist, is that parent “giving authority” to the dentist? Is there a distinction between authorizing and “giving authority”? Yes, I want the dentist to repair my child’s teach. Yes, one might want the pagan math teach to teach algebra but how does that constitute a (global) giving of authority?

      By saying “quality of support” for Christian schools, aren’t you fundamentally agreeing with our critic from NW Indiana? Where do you disagree with him? How was he “over the top”? How have his critics been “over the top”?

      • What is the difference between…

        But should elders encourage homeschooling and/or Christian education and discourage sending kids to public schools? Yes.

        And…

        …it is probably not wise for Christian parents to ask teachers/schools, who fundamentally disagree with them about the meaning of the world, to train their children.

        But I suppose I don’t understand why Reformed Christians have such a hard time with sphere sovereignty, as in the fundamental right of parents to decide what’s educationally best for their children without having to sneak in even the slightest jab that one man’s decision is “unwise.” That may be the first man’s opinion, but why does it need to be voiced formally? I wonder if the Catholic Church outpaces when it comes sola familia::

        2229 As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.

  5. Another think I would like to see our critics address is the problem that Reformed people outside of GR/Chicago (and maybe a few other places) often face and that is that it’s not like there’s a Christian school around the corner from us.

    When we were planting OURC, meeting in a sometimes unpleasant public school cafeteria a well-meaning visitor asked us, about a month or two into the work, when we were going to start a Christian school. Really? Meeting our expenses was a week-to-week matter. We weren’t sure we were going to have a place to meet for worship let alone spend 3 million dollars to buy a piece of land and another who knows how many dollars to build a building (and hire a staff etc). Paying a pastor and renting a cafeteria was more than we could do then. Currently we’re in the ONLY other place we’ve found in which to meet. The prospect of buying land and building a building for the church, let alone a school, seems quite remote.

    There’s a Christian school in Escondido (to which some of our families drive their children, which means some of them spend an hour a day commuting to and from school) and there are Arminian/Baptist/Pentecostal and Lutheran schools but these are all obviously problematic.

    hose who’ve used the more broadly evangelical schools have had to struggle with those influences which, in some ways, might be as pernicious as outright paganism. At least with open paganism we all know where we stand. That’s not an argument for sending kids to secularist schools (which, as I keep saying, is probably unwise) but it does help put the situation into some perspective.

    The Lutheran school was probably better in some respects but over the years I’ve seen problems with that setting as well.

    What about those churches and families who have NO Christian school option at all? I have the impression that some have never had to think about that problem. Well, that’s a reality for a lot of people in a lot of places.

    What if homeschooling isn’t an option? Are all parents equipped to teach Algebra, English, history, and biology? I’m a fan of homeschooling (we did it) but it’s not the right choice for everyone.

    Must we discipline people for transgressing a principle that SOME people in our federation have deduced from Scripture and/or confession?

    Dv, as we plant churches in areas without an existing Reformed population we’re going to face more such problems. What are we going to do? Stop planting churches? Are we going to so attach Christian schooling to church planting as to make church planting practically impossible?

  6. Allow me to try and contribute something helpful here. When parents are considering the education of their child(ren) they must not try to simplify the issue, rather, they need to take into account a number of different aspects concerning the matter. Here are four of them:

    #1. Motivation/intent. Are you sending your kid to a Christian school so that you don’t have to worry as much about instructing your kids in the fear of the Lord yourself? Are you sending your kid to public school or homeschooling them because you want to save money for that second vehicle? Are you seeking to fulfill your covenantal obligations? Do you want them to become wise, God-glorifying persons?
    #2. Means/methodology. What are the viable options for their education? Who will teach them? How will they be taught?
    #3. Context/situation. This would include a consideration of the society/culture in which you live, where you live, when you live, who you are, how you live, etc.
    #4. Effect/result. How will your child turn out? What will be the effect of their education on them? How will they be influenced?

    Parents need to take all these into account when considering and carrying out the education of their children. And they must do so out of true faith, in accordance with the Scriptures, and to the glory of God.

    For example, the parents may have a good intent (#1) in sending their kid to a public school (“we want them to witness to the nonbelievers there”) but the effect (#4) can be disastrous for their child, especially when the teachers are nonChristian (#2) and the parents haven’t taken into account the level of their child’s discernment (#3). Or, a child who has been to a “secularist” school may turn out alright (#4) but the parents so sinned against God when they thought their kid wouldn’t be at risk in learning from a nonChristian teacher (#2). The hypotheticals could be multiplied here but my point is that we need to seek God’s glory in all four of the above instead of just one or some of them.

    • For example, the parents may have a good intent (#1) in sending their kid to a public school (“we want them to witness to the nonbelievers there”) but the effect (#4) can be disastrous for their child, especially when the teachers are nonChristian…

      Peter,

      Full disclosure: we don’t public school because we want bigger cars. Believe it or not, some of us do have relatively principled reasons for our choice. And, for my part, it has nothing in common with “every member ministry.” The education of a child is for the child, not for somebody else. Evangelism is other-oriented, education is self-oriented. True enough, we all (young and old) must bear witness and give an answer for the truth that lies within us in whatever our vocation. But to assume that the only good reason to public school is to witness is not only a form of “every member ministry” that puts an undue burden on children, but it seems to me what is actually disastrous for a child, not that their teachers don’t share their religious devotion. I’d rather my child’s math teacher knows math better than Jesus. Sort of like how I want my representative to share my views on statecraft, not the Trinity (besides, the last guy who claimed Jesus his favorite philosopher had something of a disastrous administration—sorry, couldn’t resist).

  7. I’m confused about the “how they turn out” talk. I went to “Christian” schools from K-College. And I turned out lousy. However, I do have the three Rs down (barely).

    What part of “faith comes by hearing . . . .” is insufficient such that the addendum “and you better go to a Christian school or it will all unravel” needs to be tossed in there? To my knowledge not one of my teachers – prior to attending WSCAL – was a properly vetted and ordained minister of the gospel. To expect faith to come from some other means than that which is promised seems to be a huge, if not fatal, mistake.

  8. Zrim wrote: “…it seems to me what is actually disastrous for a child, not that their teachers don’t share their religious devotion.”

    It is this kind of reasoning that I and others want to hear rejected by the professors at WSC.

  9. I understand Zrim to be saying this: “…it seems to me what is actually disastrous for a child, not that their teachers don’t share their religious devotion.”

    Is this the kind of reasoning that the professors at WTSCal believe to be sound?

    • I can read Zrim’s words. The question is what do they mean? I take him to being saying that, he would rather have a pagan who can teach math than a Christian who cannot. Do you disagree with that?

      I think Zrim and I probably disagree over whether the pagan is willing to keep his hostility to Christianity to himself. Zrim thinks the pagan can and will do so and my experience and reading suggests that he’s less likely to do so. That’s a judgment call and good people obviously disagree.

      1. I don’t speak for the faculty of the WSC on the HB. This is not a publication of Westminster Seminary California. For me to try to speak for the faculty here would be presumptuous. Have you read the EVANGELIUM? That’s an official publication of the seminary. We’re holding a conference on these questions and more in January. You should attend or at least download the audio and listen to it.

      2. Most of the time we don’t have to chose between a devout Christian math teacher who can’t teach math or a ardent secularist who can teach math. What we want for our children is a devout teacher who can teach math. If, however, I want my child to learn math, a devout Christian math teacher who is incompetent won’t be of much use will he? I hope we aren’t willing to settle for pious but incompetent teachers. I fear, however, that we are.

      That said, there are a couple of problems here. I don’t think Zrim fully appreciates how hostile the theory of the modern education establishment has been since the mid-19th century and especially in the 20th century. It is premised on a competing theology. In my experience, a pagan math teacher is liable to teach more than math. My perception is that public school educators are much more highly politicized (in cultural and partisan terms) than they were when I was a boy. The teachers’ unions have become much more openly politically partisan and aggressively hostile to Christian ethics and convictions. My impression has long been that the teachers’ colleges do not attract the best and the brightest (judging by what I heard when I was in one briefly on the basis of what my wife experienced) and that they are fairly hostile to Christian convictions. I also worry, however, that the Christian school establishment is also not populated by the brightest and best and that too often what passes for “Christian” schooling is just a baptized version of what has been inherited from the modern educational establishment. I see evidence that the CSI type schools are deeply influenced by broad, revivalist evangelicalism. During “spiritual emphasis” week crass revivalist techniques are used that flatly contradict the Reformed theology, piety, and practice.

      I also worry, however, that the transformationalist approach to subjects such as math does not seem to be able to distinguish theology from math. We need to distinguish the penultimate from the ultimate. Theology is about the ultimate (meaning). Math (at least at the primary and secondary levels) isn’t. Everything cannot be resolved into theology. Being good at theology doesn’t make one good at math. Theology is about the right interpretation of the world, i.e. assigning a correct meaning to the world, to math but it isn’t math.

      Unless one denies common benefits (“common grace”) we don’t have to say that one must be a Christian to understand math and teach it effectively. Since at least 1924 there’s been a general consensus in the Reformed world that there is such a thing as common grace (and the language is much older than that) whereby pagans are able to do all manner of useful things in the civil, common realm.

      So the real question here is whether there is such a thing as a common realm. I get the sense from some advocates of Christian schools that they really don’t believe Kuyper’s (or Calvin’s) rather extensive doctrine of “common grace” (i.e., creational gifts given indiscriminately to believers and to pagans or “to the just and the unjust”) any more. Is there a default capitulation to the PR rejection of common grace? I hope not.

      As I’ve written here many times, the Christian interpretation of the meaning of math will differ radically from that of the pagan math teacher but 2+ 2 = 4 for both the pagan and the Christian. We understand the meaning of that proposition differently. With Van Til we rightly accuse the pagan of stealing from God and inconsistently rebelling against the God who makes 2 + 2 = 4 true but if we deny that 2 + 2 = 4 is common (not neutral) to the pagan and the Christian then we fall into a sort of gnosticism whereby only Christians can be said to know that 2 + 2 = 4.

  10. You write: “Most of the time we don’t have to choose between a devout Christian math teacher who can’t teach math or a ardent secularist who can teach math.”

    But why then do so many Christian parents put themselves into a situation where they’re required to make that kind of a choice (such as Zrim)? Shouldn’t we be discouraging that?

    You write: “What we want for our children is a devout teacher who can teach math.”

    Amen. And shouldn’t we be encouraging parents to make this an option, rather than merely hoping for this?

  11. Scott,

    I am putting five children through public school, two are finished, and in all the different schools in different states my children have attended, not once has a math teacher ever said, “now we know philosophically there is no true order in the universe because there is no god…” They just teach math, some better than others. Teachers are just normal human beings trying to keep their jobs and teach class. Part of loving all people in God’s image is believing the best about them until proven otherwise, including public school teachers. And part of believing in the importance of family is believing that when a teacher says something we don’t agree with, a parent can exlain the right way to the child and the child will actually get it. But you are right, we have taken Van Til to an extreme in the Reformed world and common grace is now denied in practice if not in theory, whether in statecraft or education.

  12. Peter,

    I think you were originally onto something when you first posted:

    Close to the heart of the disagreement in the discussion that has been prompted by WSC’s Evangelium on Christian education concerns whether public schools are a legitimate option given the current context in North America. The real or perceived lack of rejection of public schools in that volume of Evangelium has caused some of the concern over the WSC professors’ support for Christian education.

    It has always seemed to me, generally, that what the advocates of Christian schools (and home schools) mean in their advocacy is “whatever you do, stay away from public education.” In other words, the advocacy is usually heavily reliant upon an incrimination of something else. I find this disturbing. The thing about advocacy is it doesn’t by nature seem to be something that really should rely on incrimination.

    For example, I advocate for public education. But my advocacy isn’t at all reliant upon incriminating Christian schooling or home schooling, etc. Granted, like RSC suggests, good people can disagree. But I find it curious that those of us who advocate for public education always seem to have to justify ourselves, while Christian schooling gets a pass. Meanwhile, at least from what I observe here at ground zero for CSI and transformationalism, Christian schooling functions as a sort of surrogate for parental instruction, a means to transform culture and a way to perpetuate both Christian ghetto-culture, as well as act as a leftover project of immigrant cultural cohesion (which is weird considering the kids have fully assimilated).

    What you, and Mr. Van der Molen, seem to want is an explicit incrimination of my parental prerogative. Why can’t you be satisfied with us being good people who disagree?

  13. Zrim writes: “I adocate for public education.”

    But I believe that Dr. Clark, Mr. Vander Molen, and myself would all say that you should rather be advocating for Christian education, whether this be at a Biblically faithful school or homeschooling.

    • Peter,

      Are you listening to anything I’m saying? Yes, I know that’s what you’d say. I’m challenging that. While I have my own particular advocacy, I think it much better to advocate liberty than any one particular mode of educating a child.

  14. I don’t think Zrim fully appreciates how hostile the theory of the modern education establishment has been since the mid-19th century and especially in the 20th century. It is premised on a competing theology. In my experience, a pagan math teacher is liable to teach more than math. My perception is that public school educators are much more highly politicized (in cultural and partisan terms) than they were when I was a boy.

    My own undergraduate training in the early 90s was education. Granted, that might go a far ways to show just how Teacher’s Colleges don’t attract the best and brightest. But while some aspects of the theory of education may not thrill, in the real world it’s a very long distance between theory and practice. If we’re trading experiences, mine as a teacher, student and parent has been that the larger balance of what actually happens in a classroom (you know, where it matters) on any given day is that subjects are being taught as best as possible; the typical public school teacher is a sane and competent individual who actually finds esoteric philophizin’ and politics to be highly distractive to his/her craft, something, in point of fact, to be avoided.

    I have to admit, I don’t know exactly where this notion comes from that public schools are doing something sneaky or underhanded (leftover from the Scopes Trials?). Maybe my experiences are sheltered, or maybe some like to think, for whatever reasons, something is there that just isn’t. Maybe they are training educators these days to be agents of socio-political agendas (I wasn’t in the 90s). But one sure wouldn’t know it when one walks into the typical classroom. All I ever see when I observe in my work or parental capacities are teachers doing their level best to get Suzie to nail her 3 Rs. Sure, public education has its problems and failings. But, to be honest, I’m really not sure the antagonistic posture many believers tend to take amounts to a better citizenship.

    • I can’t remember who it was, perhaps Richard Mitchell, who first (for me) distinguished between the motives of the public school teachers and those of the administration and curriculum designers. It was justified in my anecdotal experience as the publicly-educated son of public education teachers, with the non-faculty as more worthy of the secularism-as-religion concerns.

      Zrim’s position nevertheless strikes me as ambitious. I agree that if the stars align, public school can be educational. As a libertarian, I don’t see any of the elements present to best assure that outcome, and I would not repeat my schooling. But I’m less bitter over occasional leftist indoctrination (which was so ridiculous that it caused an Ann Coulter phase) than the inept education generally.

      If all of my teachers had subscribed to the Standards/3FU, it would have prevented the class time spent watching positive documentaries on the Islamic faith or musicals singing about world peace, neither of which I adhere to now or cared about then. It would not have necessarily benefited my math, science, or history education, which were all flawed in nonconfessional ways that many, mostly unbelievers, have since explained to my satisfaction.

      • Mike K.,

        My point in all this is that the critics of WSC want more than an advocacy of Christian education. They want an explicit incrimination of public schooling. That to me is what is ambitious. And, while I want to be as charitable as possible to those who advocate it, I’m fairly persuaded that this is what belies most advocacies of Christian schooling, to lesser or greater degrees. I am also persuaded that the larger project is culture war (which I consider an impious thing). Maybe that’s an incrimination on my part, but I don’t go around making the sorts of demands the way the WSC critics do. It’s perfectly fine to want one’s child to learn that two and two are four because God says so (I tell my own kids this).

        But I worry about all the sub-text in the Christian school movement that pits believers against their neighbors six days a week instead of nurturing them to live peaceably in the common realm. I happen to believe that such pitting should happen only once a week. This isn’t to be Polly-anna about how our children are educated—we declined a convenient public education for our oldest when we deemed it unfit.

        I can freely admit that public education has its vexing problems, shortcomings and outright failures. But I’d rather a sane explanation, one that relies more seriously on the reality of human sin and how it abides all institutions and the actual people who inhabit them. I’d rather see a serious critique instead of a kind of spiritualized diatribe. So would those who value public education in the first place. If one doesn’t care, the diatribe looks silly.

        But one advantage of the WSC critics is that that they show that legalism in Reformed enclaves is alive and well. Legalism isn’t just about alcohol and tobacco or “worldly amusement.” It’s a set of principles, which means it’s highly mobile and can be applied to any host of things. It could be that educational legalism is the last frontier for a two-kingdom theology to vanquish.

  15. Scott said, “It’s not true that Shepherd’s errors weren’t widely recognized. I’ve documents from the late 70s-early 80s signed by 30 or so leading Reformed theologians rejecting Shepherd’s theology as sub-Reformed.”

    My reply:

    Well, I don’t think hardly anyone knew who Shepherd was during that time, unless they read Rushdoony’s Journal of Christian Reconstruction, which published an essay by Shepherd. True, there were some who saw the danger, but 30 is not an overwhelming number. One could probably find as many “leading Reformed theologians” who supported him.

    It’s pretty anachronistic to link Greg Bahnsen to Shepherd’s errors. I know that David Bahnsen has claimed that his father supported Shepherdism, but when some of us a few years ago asked him to provide proof, he never did. For a critique of the Bahnsen-Shepherd-FV connection, see:

    http://www.westminsterrpcus.org/pdf/Bahnsen.pdf

    I think, Scott, what you are doing is what Sean Gerety has been doing for a long time with respect to Van Til. Just as Sean trys to discredit Van Til by forced linkages with FVism, you are trying to discredit Greg by a forced linkage with Shepherdism.

    For instance, Van Til said:

    http://www.vantil.info/articles/cvt_shepherd.html

    However, what Van Til says here is not what Shepherdism teaches, which shows that there was still a lot of unclarity with regard to what Shepherd was teaching back in the early days. Some saw the danger, but many did not – just as you’ve seen the danger with Gaffin’s unionism, but many still do not.

    Failure to recognize this unclarity means that any show of support by Van Til for Shepherd means that he supported Shepherd’s conditionalist soteriology. Therefore, eo ipso, Van Til is discredited. Let’s call this the Gerety fallacy.

    Similarly, because Greg Bahnsen supported Shepherd, he by that fact must have supported everything that has come to light about Shepherd’s theology. Hence, Greg must also be discredited.

    You can see the fallacy with this approach. One can as easily discredit Gaffin for the same reason – his unionism is ultimately destructive of sola fide – but that probably won’t become clear to most of his followers, perhaps not even to himself, until some of his supporters actually begin to deny sola fide based on Gaffin’s unionist teachings.

    So let’s keep Shepherdism, Van Til, Bahnsen, and Gaffin as separate issues. They should be critiqued on their own merits, or lack thereof, not on the basis of any alleged sinister linkages to Shepherdism or FVism. Not denying “influences” of course but we should avoid conspiracy theories of theology.

  16. Clark’s post could justify a much lengthier response, but given the direction he’s taken this discussion, I’ll address some key portions of his entry which are italicized, followed by my response.

    …there seems to have been a concerted effort to discredit any sort of “two-kingdoms” (or two-spheres) approach to Reformed ethics and this despite the long-history and pedigree in Reformed theology…

    Not any sort. Rather, the criticism is of a particular sort, a Klinean 2k variant which advocates a common realm shorn of special revelation, governed by natural law, which has its pedigree closer to Lutheran theology.

    The thrust of the critique is that though the essays advocated Christian schooling, they failed to do so correctly and so the advocacy of Christian schooling doesn’t count.

    No, the thrust of the critique is that the good affirmations of the necessity of Christian education in the Evangelium were undermined by NL2k qualifiers from some contributors.

    …where do we see clear, unambiguous, unequivocal evidence that the apostolic church sett up distinctly Christian schools?

    The issue is Scriptural normative patterns for Christian parents to provide Christian education in all areas of learning.

    This is not an argument against Christian schools but…

    That “but” is not making much of an argument *for* Christian education either.

    …where exactly is the biblical evidence to say that post-Israelite, post-theocratic, NT church established a pattern of distinctively Christian schools to avoid contaminating their children with paganism?

    You should take up your exegetical objections with your WSC colleagues who wrote on the Reformed understanding of the duty of Christian parents, to wit:

    ..“[t]he education of Christians in every subject—philosophy, literature, history, music, sociology, political science, economics, architecture, engineering, chemistry, physics—belongs in the context of the biblical worldview that traces all things to the sovereign Creator.”—Prof. Dennis Johnson.

    “Since education is not neutral at any point, but either glorifies God or rejects him, Christian parents must seek a Christian education for their children.” –Dr. Robert Godfrey.

    “…All disciplines, not only science and math but also the humanities and the arts, must be seen within the framework of a Creator who created all things for his own glory. All of life, then, is interpreted through the lens of God and the coherence he brings to all reality. That is why we decided to send our children to a Christian school and why I serve on the board of Covenant College….We firmly believe that God has given us as parents the responsibility to raise and educate our children ‘in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.’” –Dr. Julius Kim.

    It would be good to see you clearly affirm these statements, without qualifications.

    This is not an argument for sending Christian children to state or private “secular” schools that are hostile to Christian theism …

    Now you protest too much.

    Is it wise to send one’s children to be educated by those who are hostile to the faith when there are alternatives? Probably not …

    “Probably not”. This qualifier fits with some contributions in the Evangelium, where the NL2k liberty of choice signals to Christian parents the possible option of sending children to be educated by those hostile to the faith even when there are alternatives.

    The URC CO requires elders to promote “God-Centered schooling” but it doesn’t stipulate how that is to be done and thus far in the life of the URCs that’s been a matter of Christian liberty.

    This is obfuscation. My critique is not about methodology of Christian education, as you and Hart wrongly suggest. A key issue is whether education of covenant children is to be shaped and normed by Scripture. The URC CO doesn’t countenance elders promoting the possibility that children should be educated in schools that are hostile to the Christian faith.

    Our confessions do not teach Christian schools per se.

    But they teach Christian education per quod. Our Church Order, built on Scripture and the principles of our confessions, teach Christian education. See your colleagues’ quotes above.

    Such a claim is also odd since, as I recall, our critic used to argue with some vigor that the Federal Vision wasn’t really a threat to the United Reformed Churches…
    Our critic was unwilling to go to war over the FV (check out the old discussions on the Yahoo URCNA list) …Thus, he seems like a latitudinarian on the gospel and a precisionist on Christian schooling.

    This is puerile ad hominem intended to smear me and distract the reader from the topic. But I’ll go down memory lane for a moment. The pre-Synod ’07 discussion arose over a specific overture that asked for the adoption of another denomination’s study report on Norman Shepard. The argument I made with “vigor” was that your rhetoric in support of that overture was unjustifiably inflammatory and it did not provide a sufficient rationale for its adoption. I argued the URC should perform its own careful study of the issue, rather than adopt another denomination’s report. Synod ’07 agreed with my argument, the overture’s request was defeated, and Synod appointed its own study of the issue. That study committee has now produced a well-crafted report which will be presented to Synod 2010. Also, you must be unaware of the work I did in my church teaching about the errors of the FV. I even used some of your material. Naturally, these facts would get in the way of casting FV aspersions.

    …but he seems quite willing to go to war over not over whether Christian education/schooling is to be promoted by over how Christian education should be taught and defended.

    I repeat: the critique is not about *how* Christian education is to be carried out. It is directed to natural law /common realm theory, which strikes at a root reason for it to be carried out *at all*. My review of the Evangelium made that very clear, so your omission of that essential point must be deliberate. What is also clear is that Christian education is but just one of many areas of Reformed confessional piety and practice that is affected by this amalgam theology.

    …the commitment to Christian schools in the GKN and the CRC did not prevent either from losing its confessional identity ….This doesn’t mean that Christian schools are wrong but it does suggest that the hope invested in them, at least in the GKN and the CRC, has not “paid off” exactly, ….

    As go the churches, so go the schools. It’s one reason why serious examination of NL2k and its far reaching implications is necessary. You might plead that NL2k is a “secondary issue”, but the church throughout history has faced errors on primary, secondary, and tertiary fronts.

    …I’m a little puzzled by the temperature of the rhetoric about Christians schools and the invective used toward those who are defending Christian schools but apparently not defending them correctly.

    What’s troubling is the unwillingness to defend Christian education without NL2k “common realm” qualifications. Your response here only confirms that the critique is on target. I suspect that’s why you feel the discussion temperature rising.

    On that score, puzzlement over supposed invective and heated temperature rings hollow from the one who is wielding the rhetorical flamethrower. You’re quick to appeal to the 9th commandment in response to criticism, yet you don’t restrain your own habit of ad hominem attacks, e.g., “Theonomist!” “Theocrat!” “ignorant ass!” “wacko!”. So I expected to receive some of them after writing the review, and I haven’t been disappointed.

    But Dr. Clark, you’ve hit a new low with your “latitudinarian-on-the-gospel” charge.

    • Mark,

      The intellectual tensions you imagine to exist with the faculty exist solely within your fevered imagination. Yes, there is, within the faculty, a range of ways of speaking about these issues but there is also fundamental unity. We are all committed to Christian education. Indeed, your unfortunate, uncharitable, partisan, and misleading caricature of the seminary’s approach to Christian eduction and Christian schooling not withstanding we all continue to advance the cause of Christian education and Christian schooling.

      Your post here and your many other internet posts, like the CR hit piece, give no indication of having the slightest understanding of the historic Reformed doctrine of natural law. Evidently you’ve never read Calvin on natural law, nor does your rhetoric give any indication of having read any of the other major classic Reformed authors on natural law. The notion that the decalogue is substantially identical to the natural law was universally taught by the magisterial Reformers in the 16th century. That notion was carried on by the Reformed orthodox in the late 16th century. You might be shocked to see how often Caspar Olevianus appealed to natural law in his Romans commentary. It was carried on by the 17th-century Reformed theologians.

      I have no idea what you mean by a “Klnean” two-kingdoms view. I don’t know that I’ve ever read MGK on two-kingdoms. The only thing I remember is a short piece in the old Presbyterian Guardian arguing for what the Southern Presbyterians called the “spirituality of the church,” but that had nothing to do with education.

      Your rhetoric here and elsewhere reveals a profound ignorance about the two-kingdoms as advocated by the tradition and by VanDrunen, Horton, and others. Indeed, it was Bob Godfrey, whom you hail as a hero here (and rightly so!) who introduced most of us to the very existence of the two kingdom ethic.

      This nonsense about a “Lutheran” two-kingdoms doctrine is just that: nonsense. VanDrunen, Horton, Hart, and Clark are merely arguing for the same thing Calvin articulated in the Institutes (1559) in 3.19.15:

      Therefore, in order that none of us may stumble on that stone, let us first consider that there is a twofold government in man (duplex esse in homine regimen): one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction (not improper terms) by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holily, honorably, and temperately. For the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter regulates only outward behavior. The one we may call the spiritual kingdom, the other, the political kingdom. Now these two, as we have divided them, must always be examined separately; and while one is being considered, we must call away and turn aside the mind from thinking about the other. There are in man, so to speak, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority.

      Was Calvin a “Lutheran” on the two kingdoms? Your post here, as your unfortunate CR piece, shows a very poor grasp of the basic outlines of Calvin’s thought. Perhaps if you actually read Calvin in context before you grabbed quotations for polemical use, your piece might have been more convincing. As it is, anyone who actually knows Calvin’s work will not be convinced.

      We also continue to agree with Machen, the founder of Westminster Seminary, on the importance of Christian schooling. You might consult this brief intro by Shane Lems, a WSC grad and URC minister.

      You write of a “common realm shorn of special revelation.” You’re suggesting that, in order to be Reformed, one has virtually to hold the Barthian/theonomic denial of natural revelation? Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Why? Because I’m not a Barthian nor am I a theonomist.

      Do you believe in the doctrine of common grace as promulgated by Synod Kalamazoo in 1924? Do you reject Kuyper’s or Van Til’s doctrine of common grace?

      I know it’s foolish to try to have a reasoned discussion with such a blind partisan but I shall continue. The “but” that you find so offensive is an attempt to deal with a) the pastoral realities outside of NW Indiana, the Dutch enclaves in Chicago, and in Grand Rapids. In many parts of this country it is beyond the capacity of families to establish Christian schools — at least in the foreseeable future. It is a goal, to be sure. In the meantime we have to negotiate reality as it is. Are we to discipline families for coming to a different judgment than I would about where they should send their children?

      Second, you did not answer my questions. Despite your suggestion to the contrary, I quite agree with what my colleagues wrote in the EVANGELIUM. Education is not NEUTRAL. Your continue to confuse “neutrality” with “commonality.” They are not the same thing.

      Your quotations of my colleagues, with whom I talk daily whom you do not know, to try falsely to create the appearance of disagreement is unworthy of Christian dialogue. More than that, it’s just silly and your implication is untrue. As it happens we’ve discussed these issues and we don’t disagree about the apparent lack of evidence from the NT of the establishment of the sort of schools you seem to want to make a 4th mark of the church.

      As anyone with eyes can see, I’ve argued the very same things repeatedly on the HB. Here is but one example which you seem to have ignored rather conveniently:

      http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/common-is-not-neutral/

      Once more, please show me the unequivocal evidence from the NT that the church set about setting up CSI type schools.

      By suggesting, as I am, that this evidence is not forthcoming, I am not suggesting that Christian parents ought not to endeavor to do all they can to see to it that their children receive a Christian education but I am seeking to put a speed bump in your over-heated, theonomic, Barthian rhetoric. If there is no prima facie evidence that the NT church did what you demand that all do, right now, then it should give us pause when we make demands of our brothers and sisters about what is required of them.

      I don’t disagree with my colleagues at all. I do disagree, however, with your attempt to re-contextualize their words into your argument. They are not arguing the same thing as you at all! None of them want to make Christian education a 4th mark of the church. None of them would discipline families for coming to a different conclusion than they have or for being immature in the faith. I don’t believe that they would disagree with my use of the category of “wisdom” rather than the category of “sin” by which to analyze this problem.

      Again, when you say “even when their are alternatives” you add a qualifier that changes the equation. The relevant clause in our Church Order is about instruction and advocacy, not about outcomes. As I said before, we are Calvinists. The outcome of teaching and preaching belongs to the Holy Spirit.

      You say,

      The URC CO doesn’t countenance elders promoting the possibility that children should be educated in schools that are hostile to the Christian faith.

      You raise conflate two issues: 1) what elders promote; 2) what members might do.

      No one in this discussion, least of all I, is “promoting” the sending of Christian children to secularist schools. The offering of qualifications to your overheated rhetoric does not reasonably constitute “promoting.” A reasonable definition of promoting would be to “advocate” or “to encourage” or to suggest that it would be a good thing.

      All I’ve done is to admit that there are cases (once more there is a world outside of rural NW Indiana, GR, and the Chicago suburbs where there is not a CSI school) where it is simply impossible presently to build a CSI-type school and where homeschooling isn’t realistic.

      Mark, what would you counsel folk to do in such a case?

      You appeal to the confessions. They were written in the 16th and 17th centuries, well before the Enlightenment and well before the current crisis. There were no such things as “public schools” as we know them today. The only place the confessions speak to schooling explicitly is in HC 103 and that refers to training of pastors. So now we’re down to your deductions with which you want to bind the consciences of other Christians, regardless of circumstance.

      My colleagues did not claim that Christian schooling is a confessional obligation in the way that you do.

      “Puerile”? “Ad hominem?” Not at all. In the pre-07 discussion (and well before Synod 07) you argued repeatedly that the FV was no significant threat to the URCs.

      On 20 June, 2007 you wrote (and this is just a single post, there were others like it):

      This generally comports with my observation that FV is really more an issue within the Presbyterian family.

      …Secondly, that this is a “live issue” of errant teaching in the URC. I am not aware of any minister or elder in the URC that self-identifies as FV….

      On your reasoning, apparently, so long as one did not label himself “Federal Visionist,” he was safe within the confines of the URC.

      These comments were in the broader context of of discussing not only whether the FV was actually a “live issue” in the URCs, a view which you alternately denied or downplayed, but also in the context of your repeated, if qualified, suggestion that the critics of the FV were being too hard on them (here I refer to your “acidic” comment after Synod). Were the Nine Points “acidic.” Why isn’t the FV “corrosive” of the gospel?

      Yes, I recognize that you did say explicitly that you hoped the Synod would reject the FV, but you also seemed to defend them. Talk about undermining your otherwise good arguments! Who is the latitudinarian here and on which issue.

      Is Christian schooling of the standing or falling of the churches? J H Alsted said that the doctrine of justification is of the standing or falling of the churches but you seem to treat other issues that way but not justification. My point, which you missed, is that where Scripture and our confessions are crystal clear, i.e., on covenant theology and justification, you took a much more latitudinarian stance but when it comes to Christian schools you are a precisionist. This is odd. Your priorities seem confused.

      Fortunately, Synod did not take your view of things and adopted not only Three Points on Sola Fide (again!) but also Nine Points to reject the whole mess comprehensively and erected a synodical study committee which has now finished its work and come to the same conclusions as adopted in the Nine Points.

      As to whether the doctrine of natural revelation and natural law is “radical” as you allege, your refusal to distinguish between, e.g. the Grotian doctrine of natural law–which sprung from his Socinian theology, and which was part of a natural theology project–and the orthodox and even confessional doctrine of natural law and natural revelation continues to amaze me. Once more:

      3. Some considerations from the confessions. The WCF opens thus:
      Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.

      Note that the divines did not say that the light of nature is “not sufficient” for civil government but for salvation. For the divines, as for Calvin, civil government is one thing, salvation is another. Theonomists confuse these two things far too often.
      1.6: “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature….” Notice that the divines taught that there are some circumstances “common to human actions and societies” that are ordered by the “light of nature.” The divines did not share the theonomic/Barthian skepticism about natural revelation and natural law. If I remember my history, the divines did not write during the Enlightenment. I think they were Christians and Reformed at that.

      It’s worth noting how often the divines speak about “the nature” of this or that, including the human nature of Christ (ch. 8). Yes, special revelation teaches us a great deal about the human nature of Christ but not everything. Scripture assumes, as do the divines, that, if our sense perception is working correctly, we perceive with them truth about human nature. Scripture doesn’t teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat. Indeed, Scripture doesn’t teach us a great many things about daily life or natural human existence. It doesn’t intend to teach us those things. It intends to teach us about sin and salvation. How do we know what sort of humanity Jesus had, that he is really consubstantial with us? We know it because we know from experience what humanity is and we know from Scripture that he was like us in every respect, sin excepted. If we become skeptical about “nature” as a genuine source of knowledge we risk our Christology.

      The same sort of argument applies to the doctrine of the sacraments (29:5). The divines assume that we know what bread and wine are and what their nature is. Scripture does not teach us what is the “substance and nature” of bread and wine, only that they remain substantially bread and wine. We need Scripture to teach us what the sacraments are but nature teaches us what bread and wine are.

      The Canons of Dort (RE 1.4) make a similar distinction between what “the light of nature” can and cannot do. The light of nature is insufficient for salvation, but it is sufficient for the ordering of common civil life. This teaching is explicit in CD 3/4/.4:

      There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, and natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. By no means, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and hinders in unrighteousness, which by doing he becomes inexcusable before God.

      [When the Canons say “aright” here they refer to human inability to properly glorify God even in “things natural and civil.” First, Synod recognizes that there is a category of thing “natural and civil.” This is a category that does not exist for the theonomic/theocratic critics of natural law. What cannot be done with things “natural and civil” is to come to a saving knowledge of God. Thus, even in things natural and civil we do not become good before God but remain “wholly polluted.” This language, however, cannot be construed as a rejection of “things natural and civil” nor is it a rejection of commonality. This would require us to take this language out of the context in which was written.]

      WCF 10.4: “…be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature….” The Confession assumes that it is possible for human beings to order their lives according to the “light of nature.” A life thus lived is lived according to natural law. This law keeping is insufficient for salvation, but civil life is about law it is not about salvation.

      WCF 20.4: …for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature….” On Christian liberty, the divines connect “the powers” ordained by God to maintain order (which was a problem during the English civil war!) with this troublesome expression, “the light of nature.” This language and way of thinking about civil life was well and deeply ingrained in Reformed orthodoxy in the 16th and 17th century.

      In this article the Confession even contrasts this source of knowledge with the “ceremonial” laws that had expired because they had been fulfilled. 21.1:
      The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.

      The contrast here is between common life and stated worship. The former is lived according to “the light of nature.” Instead of applying the RPW to “all of life” (and thus to none of it really) the divines distinguish between daily life and stated worship. The RPW applies to the latter. It is derived from special not general revelation. Do not miss the fact, however, that once again the divines appeal to natural revelation. They always assume that, for civil life and order, it can be known. They even go so far as to teach that “the law of nature” teaches “that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship….”

      Unlike our theonomists, the divines believed that there is a natural law, that it can be and is known, that it contains specific precepts that are revealed with sufficiently clarity to be applied, even by the unregenerate, to specific instances. The skepticism that our theonomists have demonstrated toward the perspicuity of natural law is not only downright late modern (who can know anything really?) but contra confessional.

      Mark, you simply assume that the churches in the GKN/CRC went bad in isolation from the Christian schools, but does history actually support your assumption? The schools and churches were and continue to be much more closely intertwined.

      Again, this is not an argument against Christian schools, far from it but it is a caution against the sorts of arguments you’ve been making. The truth is that many Christian schools, even in Reformed circles, are deeply infected with the very sort of broad evangelicalism from which many of us fled. One wonders whether, in the bosom of the isolated Dutch enclave of NW Indiana, it is possible for you to see to what degree many of the CSI schools have become not part of the solution (i.e. recovering the Reformed confession) but part of the problem by leading children away from our confession and down the path that ended up wrecking the CRC.

      This is an argument for the Reformation not only of the churches but also of the schools.

  17. To those who support what Mr. Van Der Molen believes,

    If Christian education is both a Scriptural command and confessional, then how to you plan to discipline member parents who send their children to public schools? Wouldn’t that be the consistent position?

    • Todd,

      One start might be to take a page from the PRCs playbook and make examples out of extraordinary members like you by requiring CS on pains of termination. But the Van der Molenittes, in their plea that CS and homseschooling are analogous, might do well to remember that the PRC decision was precipitated by a pastor who had the audacity to pull his brood out of CS in order to homeschool.

    • Todd writes: “If Christian education is both a Scriptural command and confessional…”

      This is what the professors at WTS Cal appear to be saying in the EVANGELIUM.

      Todd writes: “…then how to you plan to discipline member parents who send their children to public schools? Wouldn’t that be the consistent position?”

      No, that would not be the consistent position. The elders of a church can’t force parents to choose this or that particular school since the training of children in general revelation is a parental responsibility.

      Isn’t this what you want to hear? That no one can tell you what to do with your kids? Rather, parents must answer to God for the decisions they make in raising their cildren.

      Yet the elders of a church can certainly discourage parents from sending their kids off to be educated by nonChristians. The elders can certainly encourage parents to choose that Reformed Christian school over the public school. And the elders can certainly make sure that fathers who place little value on Christian education don’t get nominated for church office.

      • Isn’t this what you want to hear? That no one can tell you what to do with your kids? Rather, parents must answer to God for the decisions they make in raising their cildren.

        No, that’s not what I want to hear. Parents are duty bound to the God-appointed elders to diligently seek those things God has said they must seek. If parents aren’t, for example, causing their children to attend the means of grace or catechizing them they should be subject to discipline. The “answering to God” ploy is unconfessional modernity—let the evangelicals have it. The question is what has God clearly commanded in his Word. He has clearly commanded certain things, but particular curriculum isn’t one of them. By your argument nobody really has to attend the means of grace, catechize, keep the Sabbath or even the moral law of God.

        Yet the elders of a church can certainly discourage parents from sending their kids off to be educated by nonChristians. The elders can certainly encourage parents to choose that Reformed Christian school over the public school. And the elders can certainly make sure that fathers who place little value on Christian education don’t get nominated for church office.

        You realize you’ve just kept the early church from having any elders. Modernity can be so arrogant.

        But it seems to me you want all the power of discouragement without any responsibility. This is the perfect recipe for soft legalism. Fundamentalist churches pull this same thing when it comes to things like alcoholic consumption (at least the ones I used to inhabit): they write subtle blue laws into their church orders, spin it as “just promoting wisdom” and keep certain people seen coming out of bars, tobacco stores or cinemas from being called to office and second class citizens. So either vie for a fourth mark or change the language of Article 14. The equivocation is too limp-wristed.

  18. ‘One simply cannot find the early Christians (including the New Testament Christians) talking about “redeeming” anything but sinners. Nor does one find them talking about “transforming” the culture.’

    This for me, is the crux of the issue. I find transformists lean heavily on logic and deductions but are short on biblical support. Christ was crucified precisely because he refused to be ‘a judge and divider’. Such a role lay in the future. It lies in the future for the church too. In the meantime we are called to ‘do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith’, a mandate that falls far short of a transformist agenda.

  19. Peter,

    Christian parents like Zrim and myself who send their children to public schools are looking for some consistency in what we consider the new legalism in reformed cricles, educational legalism. On the one hand we are told how wrong it is to do this, how it will shipwreck our kids’ faith, and how unfaithful to God we are, but on the other hand it is not bad enough to begin church discipline against such parents. So adultery, divorce, fornication, not attending church services; all bad, all worthy of discipline; yet failing to raise our covenant children in the nuture and admonition of the Lord, that is out of the elder’s hands, just leave it to God. Can you see how that might not seem to demonstrate much backbone to your position?

  20. Peter wrote,

    “This is what the professors at WTS Cal appear to be saying in the EVANGELIUM.”

    Just to be clear, I do not agree with my alma mater on this and was disappointed in the whole recent Evangelium. While I appreciate the attempt by Scott to leave this matter of Christian freedom, the quotes from the Evangelium will not help dissuade the new legalisys, however unintended.

    The issue is consistency. IMO the consistent 2k position is that there is no such thing as Christian education or schools, like there is no such thing as Christian buildings, Christian health, Christian foods, or Christian guitars. Individual believers and churches (& denominations) should only be defined as “Christian” for the word to retain its true biblical meaning.

    Teaching covenant children the Bible and the faith (catechism) is what the Bible commands; there is no Christian math or history, nor command concerning such. That parents must use wisdom to discern what is best for their childrens’ education is a given, whether public, private or home schooling. The church has no business dealing with general education; it is legalism to do so. So I am not applauding WSC’s position, and it only proves, given WSC’s courageous stances for the gospel over the years, that even Homer nods.

    • Todd writes: “So I am not applauding WSC’s position…”

      That’s weird, because I imagine that neither would Dr. Hart, and yet they let him teach there, which is one of the reasons why the confusion over WSC’s stance on Christian education persists.

      Perhaps you will find some value in what Dr. Machen wrote in 1936:
      “If you go into a city where there are many people of the Christian Reformed Church, you will see scattered here and there throughout the city certain school buildings which are not public schools and are not parochial schools of the Roman Catholic Church. These are the “Christian Schools” in which an integral part of the instruction given is instruction in that system of truth that the Bible contains. These schools are not under ecclesiastical control, but are conducted by assocations of parents. In an overwhelmingly predominant way, however, they are conducted and supported by the people of the Christian Reformed Church. Those people pay their taxes like other citizens, but in addition to that part of
      their taxes which goes to the support of the public schools they give – voluntarily and out of love to God and to the children of His covenant – what is needed for the maintenace of the Christian Schools. They love God and love their children too much to allow Christian instruction to be tagged one day in seven as a kind of excrescence upon an education fundamentally non-Christian. They have tried to make the education of their children Christian throughout. God has wonderfully blessed them in that effort.”

      • Peter,

        A school is not a factory. It’s a place for thinking and learning. Why do we all have to say the same thing, the same way about this issue? For example, I would disagree with Machen about whether a Christian school ought to be teaching the Bible. That is the job of the church. I suspect that Christian school students would be much more receptive to catechism and bible instruction were it done by pastors rather than Christian school teachers, many of whom are not really prepared to do that sort of teaching. I doubt that they ought to be holding chapels. They certainly shouldn’t be holding revival services and having children come forward to nail their “sins” to a cross or whatever nonsense will appear next during “spiritual emphasis week” (in which, invariably some broadly evangelical RCA cat is brought in the get the kids all steamed up for Jesus).

      • Peter,

        “In Baltimore I attended a good private school. It was purely secular; and in it I learned nothing about the Bible or the great things of our Christian faith. But I did not need to learn about those things in any school; for I learned them from my mother at home. That was the best school of all; and in it, without any merit of my own, I will venture to say that I had acquired a better knowledge of the contents of the Bible at twelve years of age than is possessed by many theological students of the present day. The Shorter Catechism was not omitted. I repeated it perfectly, questions and answers, at a very tender age; and the divine revelation of which it is so glorious a summary was stored up in my mind and heart. When a man has once come into sympathetic contact with that noble tradition of the Reformed Faith, he will never readily be satisfied with a mere “Fundamentalism” that seeks in some hasty modern statement a greatest common measure between men of different creeds. Rather will he strive always to stand in the great central current of the Church’s life that has come down to us through Augustine and Calvin to the standards of the Reformed Faith.

        My mother did more for me than impart a knowledge of the Bible and of the Faith of our Church. She also helped me in my doubts.”

        J. Gresham Machen, Christianity in Conflict

        But I live in the Grand Rapids Machen describes in your quote. To the extent that one can find plenty of transformationalism in Machen, I’m with RSC that what Machen describes actually needs a major restructuring. If these schools aren’t understood as part of the ecclesiatical mission, how does one explain taking up regular offerings for them?

  21. You write: “I would disagree with Machen about whether a Christian school ought to be teaching the Bible. That is the job of the church.”

    Why do you force a choice between one or the other? Shouldn’t it be both?

    But if you want to publicly disagree with Machen then that’s up to you to explain.

    • It’s a confusion of spheres. The Christian grammar/high schools are not called to do the work of the church. By the way, I learned that view from a Christian Reformed theologian who was and remains utterly devoted to Christians schools.

      My larger point is that there has always been a range of ways of speaking about these issues. That’s one reason why I’m resisting your attempt to impose conformity on us all.

      I also raise this as a way of suggesting that we need to be open to re- thinking the way we think about Christian schooling.

  22. History has undoubtedly shown there is much debate over Calvin’s reference to natural law, the content of it, the use of it, etc. The Barth/Brunner debate was not the end of differing interpretations of Calvin or natural law. Paul Helm in the 80’s argued for direct continuity between Calvin and Aquinas in suggesting that Calvin was no “divine command theorist”, such that self-evident principles of morality are effective *independent* of any explicit divine command. Henry Stob on the other hand found no connection between Calvin and Thomist natural law ethicists.

    I think most would agree today that for Calvin, the *content* of “natural law” is essentially equivalent to the law found in both tables of the Decalogue.

    The question then turns to man’s access and use of that law, and for Calvin, his reference to “natural law” must always be understood in the context of his pessimistic epistemology due to the noetic effects of sin. Neisel points out that for Calvin, natural law serves to impart “recognition” of morality on the conscience, only to the extent that it leaves man without excuse before God– but it does not serve as the foundation for some universal or Christian ethic. We see that same limitation in Belgic 14 where we confesses that man has lost all the “excellent gifts”, and yet there are “small remains thereof, which however are sufficient to leave man without excuse; for all the light which is in us is changed to darkness, as the Scriptures teaches..” Thus, BC 14 summarizes that due to the fall, “..there is no understanding nor will conformable to the divine understanding and will but what Christ has wrought in a man.” Similarly, Canons III/IV Article 4 confesses the insufficiency of that retained natural light to form the foundation for universal ethics conformable to the will of God. So while a sense of morality is engravened in men to the extent it leaves them without excuse, it is not engraven on the human *will* so as to shape his desire to conform to God’s will “aright”, i.e., in a consistently God honoring direction. Depravity has the effect to undermine the effort to build a morality upon natural law alone. For Calvin and the Reformed confessions, written revelation is the necessary lens by which men can rightly discern the will of God.

    Stating it another way, according to Francois Wendel, Calvin built the decisive foundation for ethics on faith in Christ– which fits with both BC 14 and CD III/IV 4. For similar conclusions, see Wilhelm Niesel “The Theology of John Calvin”.

    J. Edwards followed Calvin’s pessimistic epistemology in understanding the unreliability of relying on “natural law” alone apart from special revelation:

    “It seems much the most rational to suppose that the universal law by which mankind are to be governed should be a written law. For if that rule, by which God intends the world shall be regulated and kept in decent and happy order, be not expressed in words that can be resorted to and be supposed to be expressed no other way than by nature, man’s prejudices will render it, in innumerable circumstances, a most uncertain thing. For though “it must be granted that men who are willing to transgress, may abuse written as well as unwritten laws, and expound them so as may best serve their turn upon occasion, yet it must be allowed that in the nature of the thing, revelation is a better guard than a bare scheme of principles without it. For men must take more pains to conquer the sense of a standing, written law, which is ready to confront them upon all occasions. They must more industriously tamper with their passions and blind their understandings, before they can bring themselves to believe what they have a mind to believe, in contradiction to the words of an express and formal declaration of God Almighty’s will, than there can be any pretense or occasion for, when they have no more than their own thoughts and ideas to manage. These are flexible things, and a man may much more easily turn and wind them as he pleases, than he can evade a plain and positive law, which determines the kinds and measures of his duty and threatens disobedience in such terms as require long practice and experience to make handsome salvos and distinctions to get over.” [Ditton on The Resurrection] And upon this account also, that it is fit in every case, when the law is made known, that also the sanctions, the rewards and punishments, should be known at the same time. But nature could never have determined these with any certainty.”

    Contra a Thomistic/Lutheran separated dualism between grace/special revelation vs. nature/natural law, Bavinck in his Reformed Dogmatics wrote of the relationship of “grace reforming nature:

    “The natural was not of a lower order but in its kind was as sound and pure as the supernatural, inasmuch as it had been created by the same God who revealed Himself in the re-creation [of the world] as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only it has been corrupted by sin and therefore had to be reconciled and renewed by the grace of Christ. Grace, accordingly, serves here not to avoid, to suppress, or to kill the natural, but precisely to free it from its sinful corruption and to make it truly natural again. True, in applying these principles Luther stopped halfway, left the natural untouched, and restricted Christianity to severely to the domain of religion and ethic.

    But Calvin, the man of action, who came after Luther and could therefore compare or contrast himself to Luther, continued the work of reformation and tried to to reform all of life by Christianity. ‘Avoidance’ is the cry of the Anabaptists; ‘acesis’ that of the Roman Catholics; ‘renewal’ and ’sanctification’ that of the Protestant, especially of the Reformed, Christian.”

    Like Calvin, Van Til understood the limits of natural law theology: “If the scholastics, with all their fine distinctions, had been careful…they would not have fallen into the error of giving as much credit to natural and to rational theology as they did. Natural and rational theology were never meant to function, even in paradise, apart from theology proper.” The outworking of this thought can be found in Van Til’s wonderful essay on the necessity of Christian education.

    So these are strange days indeed when we witness vitriolic personal attacks in response to a reminder that the Reformed uphold the divine written Word as the living fount of God’s revealed norms to which Christians should appeal for how all men are called to live before the face of God everywhere: in the church, the home, in civil life—and in education of our covenant children.

    • Mark,

      If you actually read Calvin scholarship on this you would know that some of what you say is wrong and some right.

      I covered this in a journal article over a decade ago.

      http://www.wscal.edu/clark/1998rsclexnat.pdf

      Back then I was building on other Calvin scholars (esp. Steinmetz) who had come to the same conclusion. Brunner was right. Barth’s reading of Calvin was without historical merit. Niesel was a Barthian and his reading of Calvin is notoriously unreliable and even untenable. I showed that Calvin was neither a Thomist nor a Barthian (speaking anacrhonistically). Yes, the Reformers had a pessimistic epistemology — which I described — but they also made a distinction between spiritual matters and civil matters. In this regard, much of H. Kuiper’s work on Calvin still stands up. For Calvin, in common and civil matters natural law is real, it is known, and it is revelation.

      If you’ll look at the footnotes in the piece linked above you’ll get a picture of the scholarship to 1995 or so. Then see Grabil (who is critical of me for distancing Calvin from Thomas! — but I’m still right on that, he didn’t really deal with the texts I exegeted) and see the work of VanDrunen.

      Calvin was explicit that it’s impossible to build a natural theology toward God, something that the Remonstrants and their followers would reject but the Reformed orthodox continued to speak this way. VanDrunen has shown this in multiple refereed journal articles in the CTJ and in various law reviews.

      Calvin knew nothing of the attempt you cite above to set himself against Luther on this question. That analysis is anachronistic to the 16th century. I’m aware of no place in the Calvinian corpus where he criticized Luther on natural law. As Herman Selderhuis has shown, he followed Luther’s theologia crucis/gloriae distinction in his work on the psalter.

      Calvin did not hold the view attributed to him in your post. As I explained in ’98, for Calvin, special revelation is necessary, but he did not conflate the necessity of special revelation in spiritual matters with the necessity of spiritual revelation in civil or common matters, as you do.

  23. I see that when I submitted that last post, that Little “Auntie Nomian” must have popped up under some forgotten wordpress user account name. Not intending to be posting undercover.

  24. Mark,

    One more follow up.

    I do disagree with CVT on the history of the doctrine of natural law. He tended not to distinguish between modern and pre-modern writers and he also tended not to distinguish between, e.g. Thomas’ doctrine of natural law and Grotius’. This was a historiographical mistake.

    That said, I still think CVT was fundamentally correct on Barth and at least some modern scholarship, whether they admit or not, support his conclusion that Barth was not Reformed.

    See e.g.

    Cornelius Van Til, The New Modernism; an Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1946).

    Cornelius Van Til, Barth’s Christology (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1962).

    Cornelius Van Til, Karl Barth and Evangelicalism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1964).

    Cornelius Van Til, Christianity and Barthianism (Philipsburg, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Pubishing Company, 1977).

    More recently, Bruce McCormack, The Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology of Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) essentially vindicates Van Til’s major argument. I don’t say that Bruce intended that but as I read it I was amazed at the similarity or their analysis. McCormack’s is much more historical and even nuanced than CVT’s but they came to similar conclusions on important issues.

    Finally, Ryan Glomsrud’s just completed DPhil thesis at Oxford comes to conclusions that many contemporary Barth scholars may find surprising. You can see some of his work here:

    David Gibson, and Daniel Strange, eds. Engaging With Barth: Contempoary Evangelical Critiques (New York: T & T Clark, 2008).

    Barth was not Reformed in many ways, not in his doctrine of revelation/scripture, not in his Christology, not in his doctrine of God/decree, not in his covenant theology, and not in his doctrine of natural law.

    It’s hard to avoid commenting on your appeal to the bête noire of confessional Reformed theology for support for your rejection of the traditional Reformed doctrine of natural law. I really don’t think Barth’s the guy to whom you want to turn. Barth not only denied much of historic Reformed theology, he denied the historicity of Adam! That way danger lies.

  25. Scott, I’d like to continue the conversation when I get some more time a bit later. In the meantime, for the sake of the reader to have clarity in following the conversation–so as to know “who’s on first”–do you have the moderator ability to substitute my name as author of my post last night? Or perhaps, it needs be deleted, and the re-posted properly? Whatever you think best is fine with me.

  26. Certainly agree that Barth is no reliable guide to Reformed theology.
    What is shown in the multiple citations posted above is that different theologians appeal to Calvin’s work for support for some significantly different theological positions. You documented the same in your 1998 article.

    On the whole I’m in agreement with the main conclusions you drew on Calvin’s use of the natural law, in particular:

    1. The context is one of a pessimistic epistemology due to the fall.
    2. The extent that natural law is known so at “leave men without an excuse”.
    3. the identification of the content of natural law/moral law with the 2 tables of the Decalogue.

    You also cite Olevian to say that God willed to exist a testimony of this natural obligation partly in the natural law written on the mind

  27. {hit the submit button too early before}

    Certainly agree that Barth is no reliable guide to Reformed theology.
    What is shown in the multiple citations posted above is that different theologians appeal to Calvin’s work for support for some significantly different theological positions. You documented the same in your 1998 article.

    On the whole I’m in agreement with the main conclusions you drew on Calvin’s use of the natural law, in particular:

    1. The context is one of a pessimistic epistemology due to the fall.
    2. The extent that natural law is known so at “leave men without an excuse”.
    3. the identification of the content of natural law/moral law with the 2 tables of the Decalogue.

    You also cite Olevian to say that God willed to exist a testimony of this natural obligation “partly in the natural law written on the mind and partly written on the two tables.”

    Which makes it puzzle from a Belgic/Canon confessional standpoint as to why now you would so divide natural law from written revelation such that one should not appeal to the clear written revelation as a universal ethic in the civil realm.

    • Olevianus made is clear in numerous places, e.g., repeatedly in his commentary on Romans, that he regards the natural law as essentially identical with the moral law or the decalogue.

      The older writers did not have the same qualms about natural revelation that developed in the modern period.

      Olevianus also, however, assumed that the magistrate has to enforce the 1st table and thus insisted, with other pastors, that the two Unitarian heretics (Neuser and Sylvanus) be executed in Heidelberg in ’72.

      We wouldn’t do that today because we don’t accept the notion that was a proper exercise of judicial power.

      So there are two questions: did the tradition teach natural law that is written on the human conscience and what ought we to do with that tradition now?

  28. Maybe you would have answered differently in 1998, but it appears fair to say that that some of your disagreement with Van Til extends to this
    as well:

    “The doctrine of total depravity of man makes it plain that the moral consciousness of man as he is today cannot be the source of information about what is ideal good or about what is the standard of the good… It is this point particularly that makes it necessary for the Christian to maintain without any apology and without any concession that it is Scripture, and Scripture alone, in the light of which all moral questions must be answered. Scripture as external revelation became necessary because of the sin of man. No man living can even put the moral problem as he ought to put it, or ask the moral questions as he ought to ask them, unless he does so in the light of Scripture. Man cannot of himself truly face the moral question, let alone answer it.”

    Van Til, “Defense of the Faith”.

    • CVT wasn’t laying out his doctrine of common grace or how we function in civil society there. He’s laying out the epistemic problem created by sin.

      These are distinct questions.

      The question is whether there is a civil. common realm normed by general, natural, legal revelation.

  29. This has been helpful. You say the question is whether there is a civil ream normed by general revelation. I don’t think this is *the* question. The better question is whether this civil realm is normed exclusively by general revelation. Given the epistemological problem rightly described by Van Til and BC 14, the spectacles of Scripture are given so as to declare to all men the will of God for life before His face. BC 36 clearly declares a normative role of Scripture in the civil realm. In his Evangelium piece, apart from some of his qualified language, Dr. Godfrey also acknowledged that “the Bible should guide the state..”

    To say the Bible norms the civil realm does not deny the natural law inscribed on the conscience; the content of each are in harmony.

    To say the Bible norms the civil realm does not deny God’s providence or common grace in mysteriously restraining, upholding, and providing for all men.

    To say that the Bible norms the civil realm does not deny God’s use of spiritual means vis a vis the use of power.

    To say the Bible norms the civil realm does not require imposition of penal sanctions found in theocratic Israel; the equity thereof remains.

    To say the Bible norms the civil realm does not deny the distinction between law and gospel– the Bible declares both to all men everywhere.

    To say the Bible norms the civil realm does not deny the distinction between the ecclesiastical and the civil.

    We would agree that we would want to avoid misuse or confusion of categories when that Word is taken up, eg., the Reformed do not argue for re-establishment of theocratic Israel. But NL2K errs in the opposite direction, such that the Word is not opened for its normative revelation in the civil realm.

    It appears this is the nub of the controversy.

    • Mark,

      It’s one thing to say that special revelation is necessary for Christian education. It’s another thing to suggest, as you did (or seemed to do) that a magistrate who is not a Christian or who does not use Scripture as a guide is illegitimate. I know for a fact that Bob disagrees with the view(s) you published in the CR and that he disagrees with the views you’ve published here. We nearly had to call an ambulance after he read your piece. You’re drawing conclusions that assume a paradigm that neither Godfrey nor Clark share.

      How do you avoid theonomy except by sheer assertion?

      Where did the apostolic church speak to or about the civil magistrate as you?

      Like the theonomists you do not distinguish between national Israel, the civil polity of which “expired” (the language of the WCF) and post-canonical states which are guided by general REVELATION. Calvin speaks of this repeatedly. We’re the civil magistrates, contemporaneous to national Israel, who did not have access to special revelation illegitimate? Nero? Not according to Paul and Peter. This is why Calvin had to craft a doctrine of lesser magistrates, in Institutes bk 4, so carefully so as to explain how the French Protestants could legitimately resist tyranny without resisting the magistrate imposed upon them by God. The test was not whether the magistrate was governing according to Scripture.

  30. Then under your pardigm, it appears you have Christian schooling outside of the civil realm, which you say is governed by natural law. On the other hand, if it is in the civil realm, then I’m not seeing consistency to argue Scripture is normative for schooling, but not for the government, vocations, etc.

    It would be helpful, I suppose, if Godfrey were to speak for himself as to what he means by the state being “guided by the Bible”, if he means something different from what I’m saying, i.e., that the Scripture is normative in the civil realm.

    As to the Institutes, I find Calvin in harmony with Belgic 36, in which our obedience to the magistrates is explicitly conditioned by conformity to God’s written Word. The Institutes do recognize that the Word of God has a normative role in the civil realm:

    But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their sceptres must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offence of Him for whose sake you obey men! The Lord, therefore, is King of kings. When he opens his sacred mouth, he alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command any thing against Him, let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates – a dignity to which, no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God. On this ground Daniel denies that he had sinned in any respect against the king when he refused to obey his impious decree, (Dan. 6: 22,) because the king had exceeded his limits, and not only been injurious to men, but, by raising his horn against God, had virtually abrogated his own power.

    Calvin’s Institutes, Book IV, art. 32.

  31. Comments from the CSI hotbed of Chicagoland. It might not be what you think.

    My grandchildren are the 4th generation attending CSI christian schools in Chicagoland. We have completed the circuit including Timothy, Illiana and Chicago Christian High Schools and the corresponding grade schools. The further north you go the less Dutch the schools are and also the more broadly evangelical they are. I know teachers in the system who went to secular colleges and teachers who send their children to secular colleges. Most schools remain primarily under CRC control/influence. I know of 2 CRC ministers who have considered the religion teaching at one of the high schools non-reformed.

    I remain a member of a CRC church. In our church about half the children attend Christian Schools. A majority attend secular colleges. Who sends their children to public schools? Several families have both parents Calvin College grads, one family has a Dordt College parent, one family has a parent teaching in our local reformed christian college, several of the children are related to a URC minister. Obviously attendance at a reformed christian college does not automatically mean the whole package has been bought.

    Why do parents sent children to public schools? (They are mostly excellent schools) Location, transportation, cost, special needs. I might also add that our church has several public school teachers as members. I don’t believe most church members are completely fearful of the public school. I personally look back at my secular college education favorably.

    So, I think that parental discretion and discernment is being exercised with increasing frequency. Maybe the public school “option” (sorry, but it is an option) is not as bad and the Christian school as good as individuals like MVDM think. He is down on the south end which is loaded with URC and PRC, but I think the absolutist opinion is not pervasive. As I used to tell my kids, I would rather have you taught free market Economics by the Jew at the University of Chicago than be taught Ecomonics by the left winger at Calvin College.

  32. Mark,

    There are a couple of issues here. The first is whether, after the fall, “creation” is a real category and whether it is distinct from grace. This is connected to the discussion about the covenant of works. The medieval church assumed an ontological hierarchy in which creation is inherently defective because it is creation, because it is finite. They assumed that what we need is divinization and we get that via grace. Thus, they taught that grace perfects nature.

    The magisterial Protestants rejected this scheme in favor of saying that nature, per se, is good. This was behind the original doctrine of the covenant of works.

    After the fall, nature remains good per se but now corrupted. Grace, the old Protestants said, renews nature. This was in contrast not only to the medieval/Roman view but to the Anabaptist view that had grace (to the degree they even believed in grace) obliterating nature.

    The Protestants continued to believe in the reality and essential goodness of nature as created by God. American evangelicals have had a very hard time with this. Here I agree with Ken Myers. American evangelicals have tended to a sort of gnostic suspicion of creation/nature.

    I think there are two, sometimes overlapping, spheres under which most everything can be subsumed: nature and grace. There are corollaries to nature/grace, e.g. common/spiritual or civil/spiritual, or secular/sacred.

    Pagans live in only one of these spheres. In that sense they have a simple existence. They have no positive relation to the sacred. In distinction, Christians live in relation to both spheres simultaneously.

    There are two or three divinely ordained institutions that manifest these two spheres. The family, church, and state are the most basic institutions but before the fall it seems that the there was no distinction and that distinction developed necessarily after the fall. See this post where I discussed Althusius’ theory.

    In the postlapsarian world, then there are two classes of people, believers and unbelievers, and believers live relative to both spheres (nature and grace) and three institutions. Two of the three institutions are openly mixed. There are believers and unbelievers in state and family. Obviously there are unbelievers in the church as well but they are hypocrites. They are not there in the nature of the thing, as in the case of family and state.

    The next question is how to relate education. Is it properly related to the state or to the family or to the church? It seems most naturally related to the family. A Christian family lives in both spheres simultaneously. So what is Christian education? Well, it is a natural, creational function carried out by Christians in obedience to divine revelation. The thing that most clearly distinguishes it from pagan (which is not identical to “secular”) education is that it acknowledges the Creator and the Redeemer. It’s primary focus, however, is on creation. Math is a creational matter. Science is a matter of creation. Post-canonical history is a matter of creation. This is one reason why I am so resistant to talking about “Christian” math. It makes no sense. Math is math. Either it conforms to creation or it doesn’t. That x is being done by Christians doesn’t make it “Christian.” This is also why I reject the language of “redeeming” math etc. Jesus didn’t die for math. Math isn’t sinful. It doesn’t need to be redeemed. It does need to be done is subjection to the Creator (who is also the Redeemer).

    At the same time we must also recognize, as Calvin did repeatedly, that even pagans do math and they do it correctly. We can learn from them about math. What we reject is not their math but their theology of math. The question is whether they can keep their theology of math to themselves. Zrim says that, on the ground, they can and do. I suppose that’s true but it isn’t always true. Since the mid-19th century at least, educational theorists have busily re-describing reality (including math and human nature) in ways that exclude God from the picture and that theory has manifested itself with a vengeance in the late modern period.

    Yes, as one of my profs, a strong advocate for Christian schools, use to say, pagans need education just as they need marriage etc. To deny that is to deny creation itself.

    Acknowledging the Creator and his interpretation of reality revealed in general (law) and special revelation (law and gospel) is a big distinction from pagan education but I also want to avoid making schools an extension of the church. The visible, institutional church is the only institution authorized to administer officially Word, sacrament, and church discipline. Too often it sounds to me as if Christian school proponents want to make that enterprise more significant by making it a redemptive enterprise, almost a 3rd sacrament: Baptism, the Supper, and Christian school. Education doesn’t need to be made more significant by being made redemptive. This is why I think Bible instruction should be left to the church. Perhaps school should let out for an hour or two a week so the pastor can do catechism? The Jewish kids in my grammar school used to get our early on Fri for religious education. Why can’t we do that?

    Because it Christian families, who live in both spheres and who relate to all three institutions simultaneously, who form private societies to organize schools there is necessarily existential overlap between nature and grace in the Christian school which seeks to recognize the reality of creation and the reality of redemption.

    The thing here is to acknowledge the reality of sin and grace; to fail to do so is Pelagian AND to acknowledge the reality of creation because to fail to do that is gnostic/dualist etc.

  33. So what is Christian education? Well, it is a natural, creational function carried out by Christians in obedience to divine revelation.

    So divine revelation *does* operate normatively in the common/creational realm, which is what I’ve been arguing. Therefore, a blanket statement that the “common realm” is normed only by natural revelation/law and not by special revelation/law is not accurate.

    • Mark, no one is saying that Christians in the common realm do not heed special revelation. What some are saying is that the Bible doesn’t say all that you say it does. It doesn’t reveal how English grammar works, how Algebraic formulas function, or the best way to teach reading. Mind you, those are the three R’s, and what schools do. If a school were to set itself up to teach reading, writing and arithmetic only on the basis of what the Bible taught about those subjects, the school would shut down.

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