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Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 03:30PM
Reader Comments (27)
Where do we draw the line? Pretty soon the Obama administration will try to tell Lutherans that we can't use wine in the Lords Supper because it will lead to alcoholism.
Throwing out lunches that folks have prepared for their kids and giving them government apporved lunches? Enough of the mind control stuff to lead the good folks to depend on the government for everything!
Has anyone noticed that whether conservative or liberal media, everyone seems to be presenting this as an issue involving Roman Catholics only?
This is not a Roman Catholic issue. It is about first amendment rights of the separation of church and state. We must not allow the government the right to force people of all faiths to violate one's conscience by such progams as Obama care, which force Catholics to have birth control as part of their medical care against their held beliefs.
Fox News is not making it a Roman Catholic issue, but, and rightly so, an issue about church and state.
This is going to be a huge issue in the upcoming elections. Do we want our freedom, or an eastern Euorpean socialist governmnent?
If this is allowed, the government will very soon be allowed to tell us what we can and cannot preach in our pulpits.
We need to articulate a consistently Reformed view of the civil magistrate's duties. E.g.,
“The duty of magistrates, its nature, as described by the word of God, and the things in which it consists, I will here indicate in passing. That it extends to both tables of the law, did Scripture not teach, we might learn from profane writers; for no man has discoursed of the duty of magistrates, the enacting of laws, and the common weal, without beginning with religion and divine worship. Thus all have confessed that no polity can be successfully established unless piety be its first care, and that those laws are absurd which disregard the rights of God, and consult only for men.” (John Calvin, Institutes, IV.20.9)
Obama's problem is not that he is "meddling" in religion. Obama's problem is that he is peddling the wrong religion, namely, statism.
I don't believe the Lutherans have a real solution.
Luther wrote some of the best stuff on the two Kingdoms - ever! I have also read every single word in Calvin's Institutes and other stuff by Calvin.
Both Reformed traditions, be it Lutheran or Reformed have a good handle on the two kingdom stuff.
The issue here is the attempt by Obama to force Roman Catholics to have health plans which include birth control -- against their beliefs.
You take a swipe at Lutherans on this issue. For what? Pastor Harrison hit the nail right on the head -- for all that feel the threat of our first amendment rights going down the drain.
is the government forcing private religious hospitals and individuals to be involved in abortions. My wife is a pharmacist who works at a Catholic hospital and thankfully she does not have to be involved in filling prescriptions that would be needed if abortions were performed by the hospital. I am not sure if the government is trying to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, but this is certainly her fear. The issue of abortifacient birth control pills is much more tricky, but if the Roman Catholics are opposed to these, I think the government should respect their views.
And if the government tries to impose their will on the Catholics, then they will attempt to do so with the Baptists, Lutherans, Reformed and all faiths as well.
By the way.......this is classic 2K stuff. We wear our Kingdom of man hats and fight with other Americans (yes even Mormons!!) to protect the rights of the first amendment so that we may worship the way that we please. Then, because we have fought the good fight to protect our freedom, we can then put on our Kingdom of God hats for the purpose of advancing God's plan of redemption through the proper administration of God's Word and the Sacraments.
"We therefore conclude that the civil government, as soon as it discovers abominable heresies by which the glory of Christ is diminished and the salvation of souls prevented, is in duty bound, yea that it has the office, to wield the sword and to exercise its full authority against those errors which bring divisions among the people and other great calamities, as we have experienced more than once. And if the teachers of false doctrines will not be convinced of their error, nor desist from their preaching, let the government use its power and compel them to refrain from their mischievous work, so that the true doctrine, and the proper worship of God, may be retained pure and unadulterated, that peace and harmony may prevail." (Martin Luther, Sermons on the gospels for the Sundays and Principle Festivals of the Church Year)
The error of many modern churchmen is to place the Christian religion on equal footing with all false religions in the civil realm. Since a thought would have been considered monstrous by the Reformers who understood that peace and security in the civil realm can only expected where the true religion is sanctioned and guarded by the magistrate.
I suspect Luther's and Calvin's views of two kingdoms is remarkably different from what's being peddled today.
E.g., in the paragraph preceding the one I gave above, Luther wrote, “The judgment must precede the punishment; but if any one desires to judge a heresy, he must derive this judgment from the Scriptures, and from no other source.”
As you can see from the quote, Luther had no problem with civil government identifying and judging heresy based on the Scriptures.
Calvin also recognized the duty of the magistrate to make laws regarding both tables of the Ten Commandments. He wrote:
“The duty of magistrates, its nature, as described by the word of God, and the things in which it consists, I will here indicate in passing. That it extends to both tables of the law, did Scripture not teach, we might learn from profane writers; for no man has discoursed of the duty of magistrates, the enacting of laws, and the common weal, without beginning with religion and divine worship. Thus all have confessed that no polity can be successfully established unless piety be its first care, and that those laws are absurd which disregard the rights of God, and consult only for men.” (Institutes, IV.20.9)
>... this is classic 2K stuff.
If by “classic” you mean historic and Reformed, the Reformers' writings do not support that conclusion. Which of the outspoken “two kingdoms” advocates share Luther's and Calvin's views that the magistrate is duty bound to enforce both tables of the Law of God, or to use Scripture as the basis for judging things like heresy?
You seem really confused on your role in the two kingdoms. We are trying to protect our first amendment rights so that we may practice our religion as we please.
I have posted a bunch of Luther quotes on this website in the past on the two kingdoms. Sorry, I don't have the time to do that now.
Listen to President Harrison again. None other than Pastor Riddlebarger has stated that he is right. What part of the Harrison post do you not agree with? Does he not clearly define our role in the two kingdoms?
He is taking time out of his busy schedule as a SP to fight for you and me so that the government does not intrude on our rights to worship as we please.
If I am confused, then so were Luther and Calvin. They clearly saw a role for the civil magistrate in making and enforcing just laws based on both tables of the Ten Commandments. Modern 2K advocates have a more stunned view, based their limited reading of Luther and Calvin.
The reason for our more "stunted view" as you call it, is because of the change in historical situations. Luther and Calvin both lived during the tail-end of Christendom and could have never imagined the rise of secular/socialist democracies such as we have now.
Under our current circumstances, do you really want the state attempting to enforce the first table of the law?
I'm quite satisfied when the state protects me so that I can preach the first table of the law! If my preaching were ever interrupted by someone who disapproved or didn't like it, our deacons and ushers would only be too happy to call the Anaheim PD and have them removed from the premises.
I can live with that!
So what it sounds like we have here is a pragmatic argument rather than a principled one. You seem to be suggesting that history norms our view of the role of the magistrate. Should in the future, by God's blessing, we enter into another era of Christendom, then the pendulum could rightly swing the directions of Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the magisterial reformers.
In any event, what we call two kingdoms theology is clearly much broader than the way it is being portrayed in some circles.
But you ask, “Under our current circumstances, do you really want the state attempting to enforce the first table of the law?” If I were a pragmatist, I would answer in the affirmative. In reality what I want are the same things that Calvin and Luther wanted, godly magistrates who honored God and His word and constructed just laws, based on both tables, for the ordering of society. This is what Scripture requires. The Reformed view is that all of life is normed by the Bible.
Secondarily, what I want is for some of the more outspoken modern two kingdoms advocates to be honest in their disagreements with Luther and Calvin and not try to equate classic two kingdoms with modern two kingdoms. They clearly are not the same, but folks have been snookered into thinking they are.
"We oppose this Confession out of complete conviction, prepared to bear the consequences of our convictions, even when we will be denounced and mocked on that account as unReformed.
We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics.
It is our conviction: 1) that the examples which are found in the Old Testament are of no force for us because the infallible indication of what was or was not heretical which was present at that time is now lacking.
2) That the Lord and the Apostles never called upon the help of the magistrate to kill with the sword the one who deviated from the truth. Even in connection with such horrible heretics as defiled the congregation in Corinth, Paul mentions nothing of this idea. And it cannot be concluded from any particular word in the New Testament, that in the days when particular revelation should cease, that the rooting out of heretics with the sword is the obligation of magistrates.
3) That our fathers have not developed this monstrous proposition out of principle, but have taken it over from Romish practice.
4) That the acceptance and carrying out of this principle almost always has returned upon the heads of non-heretics and not the truth but heresy has been honored by the magistrate.
5) That this proposition opposes the Spirit and the Christian faith.
6) That this proposition supposed that the magistrate is in a position to judge the difference between truth and heresy, an office of grace which, as appears from the history of eighteen centuries, is not granted by the Holy Spirit, but is withheld.
We do not at all hide the fact that we disagree with Calvin, our Confessions, and our Reformed theologians."
Pay particular attention to that last sentence.
But Calvin and Kuyper were still only men. American Presbyterians revised the original Westminster Confession and churches such as the PCA and the OPC continue to accept the revisions from 1787-1788, which goes from:
"The civil magistrate hath. . . authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God."
To:
". . . no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance."
The revision drops entirely the magistrate's responsibility for suppressing heresy and blasphemy. Not only that, it forbids laws that would prefer any denomination and insisting that magistrates protect the good names of all people no matter what their religion or their infidelity. Wow.
There is also the revision to Belgic 36 which effectively does the same thing. So, there are some of us who make no secret that we stand with certain figures in the R&P tradition and, more than that, with certain ecclesiastical revisions. And, there are some who don't. The question that remains for the latter is what to do about the fact that the NT no where condones true faith coming at the point of the sword but in fact only by the power of the Spirit. Maybe you want Mormons and Muslims punished for having false faith, but that's a really hard case to make biblically.