"There is not one law of God for the Christian and another law of God for the non-Christian." (source)
"Are then Christianity and culture in a conflict that is to be settled only by the destruction of one or the other of the contending forces? A third solution, fortunately, is possible—namely consecration. Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God." (source)
Monday, September 27, 2010
23 comments:
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"... let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist,..."
ReplyDeleteEven Dr. Hart needs the Truth to sustain his upholding his idea of a radical 2 kingdom reality.
In fact, the veriest humanist needs Him too to put forth to their world their moral delusional truisms because of Him!
How did the Apostle address it in his day?
Act 17:22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
Act 17:23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Act 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
Act 17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Act 17:26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
Act 17:27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Act 17:28 for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'
Act 17:29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Act 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
Act 17:31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
I cannot recall who it was that got me thinking about the future this way, but someone noted and now I tend to lean that way, that the Devil wants a moral society!
Why?
Well, if everyone was moral and decent and productive and all was well and peaceful, why would one turn to Christ for the salvation of their corrupt soul?
They would die in a delusion of the illusion of the Kingdom of God having finally come to live on earth as all live in the Eternal Heaven.
"What Would Machen Say to Darryl Hart?"
ReplyDeleteIf limited to merely the scope of these two quotes, or limited to the discussion of Darryl Hart's promotion of R2K theology, I would imagine Machen rebuking Darryl Hart in no uncertain terms.
P.S. Word Verification (I kid you not): moloch
Interesting. Machen also said this about education:
ReplyDelete“We are constantly told, it is true, that there ought to be an equal opportunity for all the children in the United States; therefore, it is said, Federal aid ought to be given to backward states. But what shall we say about this business of "equal opportunity?" I will tell you what I say about it; I am entirely opposed to it. One thing is perfectly clear -- if all the children in the United States have equal opportunity, no child will have an opportunity that is worth very much. If parents cannot have the great incentives of providing high and special educational advantages for their own children, then we shall have in this country a drab and soul-killing uniformity, and there will be scarcely any opportunity for anyone to get out of the miserable rut.”
If Machen could be opposed to “equal opportunity” in education, might he also not have opposed pluralism (“equal opportunity”) in civil government on the same grounds (“we shall have in this country a drab and soul-killing uniformity”)? After all, could not system of government, those based explicitly on the Word of God vs. those built on some nebulous “natural law” be tried and the people offered a choice?
Possibly, Machen said lots of things that I also would not agree with. I should be clear, of course, that the Scriptures (not Machen) is my rule of faith and life and ought to be both Hart's and the civil magistrate's rule of faith and life.
ReplyDelete-TurretinFan
TF,
ReplyDeleteI've not looked into the matter, but do you know off the top of your head if Machen was a Reconstructionist/Dominionist?
In Him,
CD
I don't know for sure, but I think it's safe to say he was not.
ReplyDelete"What Would Machen Say to Darryl Hart?"
ReplyDelete(This is kind of like those one-panel cartoon strips where folks can enter a contest to see who can provide the funniest punch lines.)
Here's a contest submission for your question above:
Machen to Hart: "Will you please shut up?"
While you’re out there making the world subject to God, be sure to make room for Roman Catholics and Socialists also to exert some dominance.
ReplyDelete“Tolerance, moreover, means not merely tolerance for that with which we are agreed but also tolerance for that to which we are most thoroughly opposed. A few years ago there was passed in New York the abominable Lusk Law requiring private teachers in any subjects whatever to obtain a state license. It was aimed, I believe, at the Socialists, and primarily at the Rand School in New York City. Now certainly I have no sympathy with Socialism. Because of its hostility to freedom it seems to me to be just about the darkest thought that has ever entered the mind of man. But certalinly such opposition to Socialism did not temper in the slightest degree my opposition to that preposterous law. Tolerance, to me, does not mean merely tolerance for what I hold to be good, but also tolerance for what I hold to be abominably bad.” J. Gresham Machen, 1923
“I am for my part an inveterate propagandist; but the same right of propaganda which I desire for myself I want to see also in the possession of others. What absurdities are uttered in the name of psuedo-Americanism today! People object to the Roman Catholics, for example, because they engage in ‘propaganda.’ But why should they not engage in propaganda? And how chould we have any respect for them, if holding the view which they do hold, that outside of the Roman Catholic Church there is no salvation, they did not engage in propaganda first, last and all the time. Clearly they have a right to do so, and clearly we have a right to do the same.” J. Gresham Machen, 1923
Mfan
DG:
ReplyDeleteSee my comment in response to TU&D.
-TurretinFan
Tfan, so then why cherry pick if Machen actually doesn't support your position?
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth would a post that has nothing to do with me be about my position?
ReplyDeleteDG
ReplyDeleteit is interesting to follow along. One learns from the responses to others who's view isn't the same.
Here is something that gives me pause when reading your responses and I wonder if this might also be for all of the similar sins of her?
Isa 3:13 The LORD has taken his place to contend; he stands to judge peoples.
Isa 3:14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of his people: "It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
Isa 3:15 What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?" declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
Isa 3:16 The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet,
Isa 3:17 therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts.
Now we all have to contend for the Faith. Now we all must be alert and vigilant. Now we will all be humbled if not so already!
DG wrote: While you’re out there making the world subject to God, be sure to make room for Roman Catholics and Socialists also to exert some dominance.
Isn't that bad theology?
Can you show me some place in Scripture where God gives us the place of making the world subject to Him?
Rather, as I suspect, you won't be able too. Why? Because you like us all have been made subject to this world until God frees us according to His promise found and enjoyed conjoined to Christ the Lord:
Rom 4:17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"--in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Tfan, I get it. You have no position like you have no real name.
ReplyDeleteNatamllc, if what you say is true, then one of the great defenders of the gospel in the 20th century was guilty of bad theology. Or maybe, good theology doesn't require the dominance that you think it does. And that is part of the point between two kingdoms and the Augustinian recognition that the rule by the state, whether Christian or not, is not the same as the kingdom of Christ.
ReplyDeleteDarryl Hart: "Tfan, I get it. You have no position like you have no real name."
ReplyDeleteTypical inflammatory bombast from Darryl Hart.
TurretinFan has a real name. He just doesn't share it. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have a real name. How stupid of you to say so.
"Tfan, I get it. You have no position like you have no real name."
ReplyDeleteI have a position. This post was not about my position. Why is that so hard to understand? (I also have a name, though this post is also not about that.)
I guess when someone does not interact with the substance of an argument or quotation but instead levels accusations at the fact that someone uses an alias, it must be called an ad nonhominem attack. :-)
ReplyDeleteGodith
DG
ReplyDeleteNatamllc, if what you say is true, then one of the great defenders of the gospel in the 20th century was guilty of bad theology. Or maybe, good theology doesn't require the dominance that you think it does.
What does it matter what I say is true?
What, may you tell, does the dominance do?
Isn't this admonition enough?
Isa 2:20 In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,
Isa 2:21 to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.
Isa 2:22 Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?
Is your teaching about radical 2 kingdom theology an express representation of the Lord rising to terrify the earth?
Or could it be God is and His Word is settled in heaven for all time until Eternity?
I wonder out loud what Paul had an eye for when exhorting:
2Ti 2:3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
2Ti 2:4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Might it be the same thing Peter had an eye for when exhorting this:
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
2Pe 3:13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Machen's "let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God" sounds suspiciously like Kuyper's "every square inch." Will the R2Kers now call the former, J. Gresham "world subject to God" Machen?
ReplyDeleteGodith
“Tolerance, moreover, means not merely tolerance for that with which we are agreed but also tolerance for that to which we are most thoroughly opposed.”
ReplyDeleteToleration of differing views does not imply nor require toleration of sinful activity, e.g., public blasphemy. Is there anything in Machen’s writing to indicate he was explicitly opposed to the magistrate acting as a Christian, i.e., making just laws based on both tables of the Ten Commandments?
Machen was close to what we would call today a libertarian. Somehow I doubt he would applaud freedom for prostitution, gambling, and same-sex marriage. I know he opposed Prohibition, and I think the rest of the country ended up agreeing with him.
ReplyDeleteHe was rather naive. He thought Philadelphians would be perfect gentlemen, so "walk" signals in that city would be a waste of time. He, a Christian gentlemen, tended to think others would act like himself. He would be absolutely appalled by our culture today.
"He would be absolutely appalled by our culture today."
ReplyDeleteHe'd also probably be appalled by Darryl Hart's R2K theology.
It sounds to me like you have all been up to long with no skills for a hobby
ReplyDelete