9 comments

1. Dr. Clark,

   With all due respect, I don’t think it’s fair or honest to group all people who are more historical than R2K together as “theocrats.” You do this often and when asked to define theocracy, you’ve basically said it’s government promotion of religion, which of course is untrue. We can’t have any kind of dialogue if one side goes off about how everyone but they are theocrats and no one in Christendom knew anything about political theology till Kuyper.

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   • Jared,

     I mean establishmentarianism. Theocracy is a lot easier to say and to write. That’s all I mean and it’s what most everyone means by the word and has for a long time. No one means by theocracy today, the domination of the state by the church. I mean the use of the coercive power of the state to enforce religious orthodoxy.

     The Jews were onely under a Theocratie, an immediate government of God.
     J. Donne, The Sermons of John Donne (1631; repr. 1959) vol. IV. 242

     Josephus..properly calls the Jewish government θεοκρατιαν, ‘a theocracy’, or ‘the government of God himself’.

     J. Smith, Select Discourse (1652; repr. 1821) vii. iv. 346

     1741: Thus the Almighty becoming their King, in as proper a Sense as he was their God, the Republic of the Israelites was properly a Theocracy; in which the two Societies, Civil and Religious, must..be intirely incorporated.
     W. Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses vol. II. v. ii. 365

     When they tired of the Christian Theocracy, and clothed the church with ‘the purple robe’ of Cæsar.
     J. H. Newman, Parochial Sermons (ed. 2; 1836) vol. II. xxi. 283

     To the degree the magistrate is using the coercive power of the state to enforce religious orthodoxy the “priests,” as it were, are in charge. The “Christian Prince” (e.g., of Christian Nationalism) is getting advice from someone.

     The Israelite theocracy was was strictly speaking the rule of priests but it’s called a theocracy and has been, as you can see from Oxford English Dictionary since the early 17th century. David and Solomon ruled Israel as kings but they enforced (as they were commanded to do) religious orthodoxy and punished religious heresy.

     Yes, it’s a theocracy/establishmentarianism is historical tradition but it’s also a mistake without warrant in the Word of God after the expiration of the national covenant with the death of Christ.

     Abraham Kuyper was right about this. That’s why the Dutch churches finally revised the Belgic to remove the language authorizing the magistrate to enforce religious orthodoxy.

     Jesus never intended, after his death, the magistrate to establish the church or enforce religious orthodoxy and, as Kuyper said 100 years ago, when the magistrate has done so it has mostly been a disaster for orthodoxy. By nature the magistrate wants to accumulate secular power. Religion, when he has coercive power to punish religious heresy, becomes a tool in his accumulation of power.

     It is more Augustinian, i.e., more realistic about the nature of man after the fall, to keep the coercive power of the state away from religion. That’s the genius of the American system (post 1833).

     I should very much like to see the establishmentarians explain to me how we will not once again end up with religious wars once the coercive power of the state is picking religious winners and losers. No fair appealing to magical postmillennial eschatology. I want actual answers not unbiblical fairy tales.

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     • I’m not an establishmentarian, but I’ll bite on this: “I should very much like to see the establishmentarians explain to me how we will not once again end up with religious wars once the coercive power of the state is picking religious winners and losers. No fair appealing to magical postmillennial eschatology. I want actual answers not unbiblical fairy tales.”

       People who oppose application of Christian principles to political life sometimes act as if questions like this have never been asked or answered before.

       In our actual church history, not hypothetical “magical postmillennial eschatology,” Oliver Cromwell recognized the issues of how he was going to deal with the fact that the majority of the Parliament was Presbyterian and the majority of the Westminster Assembly was also, but as head of the New Model Army, he was not. I don’t necessarily like Cromwell’s answers, but he knew his views were the minority and he had to deal with the majority view not being his view. Cromwell also had to deal with the Scots and the Irish who had significantly different “boots on the ground” religious realities in their countries. Likewise, he had to answer some very hard questions to the Duke of Savoy on why Cromwell was willing to threaten the use of military force to protect Waldensians in the Italian Alps, while he was himself persecuting Catholics in Ireland.

       Recognizing the inherent inconsistency in Cromwell, some of the American Founders looked to the experience of the Swiss Confederation with each canton making its own religious decisions and thought it would be a good model for a federal union of the thirteen American colonies.

       Other examples could be cited.

       I think the best short answer is that there are many “off ramps” on the expressway between full secularism of the French Revolution and some sort of medieval theocracy run by the Pope, or at least one in which the Pope could threaten interdicts and excommunication against those who opposed him, and could invite other civil rulers to come in and take over the lands of civil rulers who he had excommunicated on the false premise the oaths made to heretics are not binding.

       A civil government which protects Christianity (I would argue that the Jews should also be protected in a Christian state, much as actually happened in the Netherlands, and as Cromwell fought to do in England) is not the same as one which establishes a particular denomination of Christians. Yes, there has to be boundary lines for what is and what is not “Christian,” but if drawn broadly enough, I think we can argue that was essentially the way the United States worked in fact if not in law for much of its history.

       As for how it worked in law prior to the US Constitution, the 1600s New England model of preference for one type of theology and polity, while allowing people to “sign off the rolls” and join a limited list of other approved churches (at various dates, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists obtained toleration, including civil voting rights), seems like a model which largely worked. It worked, however, because of the widespread acceptance of Christian principles and predominant acceptance of at least generically Reformed soteriology, and the understanding that if someone thought Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, or Plymouth were too strict, they were welcome to leave for greater toleration in Pennsylvania or Rhode Island.

       The preferred civil penalty for obstinate heretics in New England was banishment. Yes, people were executed for heresy. That usually happened when they were warned repeatedly not to come back and did anyway. A Christian state works best when people are free to leave for what they thinks is greater toleration somewhere else.

       Would that model work today in modern America? Obviously not. I know that. So does anyone who spends much time in our most conservative and most Christian communities, i.e., the Bible Belt run by Baptists and charismatics, or Utah run by Mormons.

       The last I checked, there were six counties out of more than two thousand in the US in which the Reformed are the majority of the population. They’re mostly where one would expect: two parts of Iowa and a few very rural parts of Michigan.

       I don’t know about my establishmentarian friends, but I don’t want to live under establishment in Utah, and I know quite well what it is like to live in West Michigan and now in the Bible Belt. Even without a formal establishment, as our former state representative used to say, “The Baptist Church runs things here, but not as much as they used to.” (And yes, he did use the singular “church.” I know better and so did he, but that’s the word he used.) It got interesting when, after a county commission meeting I was covering, I got pulled aside after the meeting by two of the commissioners and asked to explain and defend what it meant to be Reformed and whether I was going to be “causing Calvinist problems” due to the issues experienced in the Southern Baptist Convention with their Calvinists. My answer was that I have no interest in taking people out of other churches, but rather providing an option for people who are Reformed and refuse to be rebaptized. In other words, no sheep-stealing from Baptist churches made me “okay” and “tolerable” in their eyes.

       We can’t apply a New England model to modern America. It just won’t work.

       It requires a high degree of religious agreement to work. To get that agreement, businesses would have to be free to hire people in agreement with the beliefs of the owners, and states would have to be free to apply religious tests for immigration.

       That’s simply not possible under the interpretations of the US Constitution which have been in force since at least the early 1900s and arguably since the Fourteenth Amendment a century and a half ago.

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2. Dr. Clark,

   How do you distinguish theocracy and establishmentarianism? In general, would your remarks about theocracy in this episode apply to establishment as well?

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   • Bill,

     These are two aspects of the same phenomenon. We could quibble about the definition of theocracy, which some want to define very narrowly so as to define it out of existence, but as the word is used most often now establishmentarianism is theocracy. The more important distinction between between theocracy and theonomy, which are distinct. All our forebears before the 18th century were theocratic, i.e., they want an established national church and they wanted to use the coercive power of the state to punish religious heterodoxy and heresy. They were most certainly, however, not theonomists as witnesses by WCF 19.4

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     • A qualification here:

       In our actual Reformed history, some Reformed people argued that the state may not “establish” a church, but may only “recognize” a church, on the grounds that the civil powers claimed by King Henry VIII to establish a church according to his preference and make himself the head of the church exceeded the authority allowed to King Saul, who was rebuked for offering sacrifices.

       It is also possible to argue that the civil government should declare itself to be Christian but not to establish a particular church or denomination of churches.

       I think this is theoretical, of little value outside historical studies, and not helpful in the modern American context.

       Still, it is important to recognize that some of those who want to have a Christian civil government are strong opponents of establishmentarianism as it was defined in England, historically speaking, and that’s not new.

       As for me, I’d be happy if the government would just stop threatening churches that disagree with whatever happens to be the current liberal groupthink.

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3. Dr. Clark mentioned the “animus imponentis”. I found these lectures to be very helpful on the “AI” topic. The larger context of the lectures is specifically the days of creation, also.

   https://pncnopc.org/sermons/?sermon_series=2009-animus-imponentis-conference

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4. If 6 day creation is not a marker of reformed orthodoxy, and there is room for a framework understanding of creation, how are we to understand the example of God’s rest given to us as the reason for the sabbath observance in Q. 57 of the WSC and Q. 120 of the WLC?

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   • Nick,

     The question of the Sabbath observance doesn’t depend on 6/24 creation. For one reason, if we’re paying close attention to the text of Scripture when did the sun set on the 7th day? The text has mornings and evenings without the sun (days 1-3) and mornings and evenings with the sun (days 4-6) but Scripture says nothing about a morning and evening on the 7th day and yet Ex 20:8 grounds the sabbath day on the creational pattern.

     What matters is the creational pattern. That’s why Scripture uses Yom in 2:4 is a different way than in the preceding verses. In 1-3 it refers to a sunless morning and evening pattern. In days 4-6 it refers to solar days but in 2:4 it refers to the whole act of creation at one Yom? Why? Because it’s not interested in the length of the creation days or whether there is a sun or not. Those questions are indifferent to the issue which is the pattern. Further, Deut 5 grounds the Sabbath in the Red Sea episode and not in creation at all. The 1 in 6 pattern is the creational ground and the Exodus is the redemptive pattern.

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