Modern Theonomy: A Crisis of Vision, A Crisis of Voice

It's hard to get excited about the recent theonomy debate.  It doesn't matter who "won."  (Is it really possible to objectively "win" a debate, anyway?)  Even if theonomy "won" that debate, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, which leads to the point of this post:

Quo vadis, Theonomy?

Who is the public leader and spokesman for theonomy today?  One could remark that since it is not a "movement," there is no need for a leader.  That's not true, though.  Even if the US Govt introduces theonomic codes, which will never happen, some "voice" will be informing said Republican Congressmen.   And such a voice in any situation usually will be the most capable.

So who is the voice?

Probably American Vision, I think.  They are the ones sponsoring the debates and putting out the material.  One could say "Chalcedon Foundation," but American Vision has traditionally been pro-GOP politics, so they get the edge.

Leaders like Gentry will not take the role for a variety of reasons.  Morecraft is the bishop, practically speaking, of his own denomination and he has mostly alienated all of NAPARC.  Leaders can't be merely capable.  They have to have influence as well.

Who else is out there that doesn't reduce to one of the above categories?

So why is this a problem if it falls to American Vision?  It's a problem for theonomy because theonomic discussions are now divorced from the Church setting, particularly at the synodal level.  Whatever problems NAPARC leaders may have, presbyteries can hold each other accountable and keep a lot of nonsense from emerging.  Would the debate over the audio rights happened if there were mature third-party mediation (like a synod)?  You see my point.

And since most NAPARC churches merely tolerate theonomy, theonomists now that they can't "make a difference" from within the churches themselves.  They literally have to go "outside" the church.   At this point any "kingdom activity" has been reduced to the level of a parachurch (and Rushdoony was quite explicit on this point).  Now people will have to face the question:  where do I want to invest time and money where it will do the most (perceived) good?

The Church doesn't promise civic righteousness.  It doesn't promise outward justice lex talionis.   It is the kingdom of mercy (though aspects of judgment are present).  The Church promises that Jesus will feed you at his Table.  The Church promises that Jesus will speak to you from his Word.

If given the choice at the end of the day, what would you prefer:  Taking Back City Hall or Eating with Jesus?

On leaving the Facebook Covenanter Group

Okay, I admit this doesn't have the same existential or rhetorical import of Luther's 95 theses, but it might prove interesting, nonetheless.

The Covenanter Theonomist group on Facebook actually had a lot going for it.  Unlike Reconstructionists groups, they cared for the church (so to speak) and had a modicum of self-reflection.  I did notice a number of unhealthy habits, though.

1. Inventing Kinism:  One of the most overblown debates in the Reformed world is kinism.  I don't want to get into defining it.   The troubling phenomenon, though, is that groups associated with theonomy often attract kinists.  I wonder why that is.  These guys look for Kinists to create so they can talk about how evil slavery and the South is.   Their definition of kinism also happens to include every human society until 1789.  I am not endorsing kinism, mind you, but I am equally wary of over-reacting to such an extent that you are a Jacobin from the French Revolution.
2. Speaking of which, the Covenanters, which were usually a Northern Christian denomination in the United States, love to praise Lincoln and John Brown and attack the South (see here for the most devastating deconstruction of American Covenanter thought).  It's sort of myopic and disturbing.  They brag about how they opposed man-stealing while never reflecting on how Roman Christian slave-owners in the New Testament might have acquired slaves (hint: it had to do with empire and conquest).  They even boast about denying communion to Southern Slave owners (though this was probably a moot point, since the RCNA really wasn't operative in the South, and the Scottish ecclesial tradition probably didn't have Communion that often, anyway).  This is going beyond Scripture is is "getting holier than Jesus."
3. Will a Covenanter movement ever "get off the ground?"  No.  With a few exceptions, Covenanter denominations are almost always the results of schisms from the larger Reformed world.  They are intellectually isolated (this isn't a value judgment; it's a historical observation) and really haven't contributed much to Reformed theology in the last 300 years beyond some monographs on the Mediatorial Reign of Christ, which is staple Reformed thought, anyway.
4. One of the reasons they won't get off the ground is that they are self-legally obligated to support a magistrate who upholds the Solemn League and Covenant.  I'll let you reflect on that possibility for a while.  (although they didn't have a problem joining with Lincoln to attack their fellow Celtic brothers in the South; evidently the Constitution wasn't that bad then).

The above are some of the reasons I left the group. Below is a more sustained reflection on the self-limitations of Covenanter thought.

There is much good in the Covenanter tradition, and this post will pain many (myself most of all).  But if they want an intellectual (Or even better, political) future then they need to own up to some challenges.  I honor and admire Richard Cameron and Alexander Peden (hey, they received extra-scriptural prophecy.  Anybody want to take up that one?).  I do not think, however, that the entire Covenanting tradition was able to hold the strings together.  And that’s not just my take on it. I think Moore argues the same thing (Our Covenant Heritage). These challenges are not simply my making up because people started slandering Christ’s elders in his church on Facebook (like Stonewall Jackson).  They point to deeper issues.

While the problems in the Covenanter tradition can easily point back to the Battle of Bothwell Bridge (cf Maurice Grant’s biographies of both Cameron and Cargill; excellent reads), I was alerted to some of the tensions by T. Harris.  Again, I am writing this so Covenanters can work out the difficulties now instead of having to make hard and fast choices on the field of battle later.   You can be angry with me, but I am your best friend.

1.  The Hatred of the South

This is myopic and almost unhealthy.   Modern covenanting talks about how evil the South is and never once tries to work through the sticky issues of how best to help freed slaves.   Or slaves who didn’t want to be freed.  As evil as slavery might have been, simply throwing the blacks out on the street only it makes it worse.   The slave-owners (and many slaves) knew this.

And it really comes back to the question:  is the relation between master and slave sinful?  This is a very specific question.  This is why Freshman atheists have a field day with us.  But I know the response:  buying stolen property, especially human property, is sinful.  Perhaps it is, but didn’t Paul know this when he outlined healthy parameters for both masters and slaves?  How do you think the ancient Romans got slaves in the first place?  Democratic vote?  They were often prisoners of war, babies of raped women, and worse.  And does Paul say, in good John Brown fashion, “Rise up slaves and kill your masters” (though to be fair John Brown actually killed white Northerners)?

Northern Covenanters love to boast on how they “deny communion to man-stealers.”    Harris notes in response,

Athenagoras, defending the church against the pagan charge of cannibalism said, “moreover, we have slaves: some of us more, some fewer. We cannot hide anything from them; yet not one of them has made up such tall stories against us.” (Early Church Fathers, ed. C.C. Richardson, p. 338). But Alexander McLeod says to the slaveholder, “you cannot be in the church,” (p. 25) and this posture was eventually ratified by the entire covenanter church. On this point, their righteousness exceeded even that of our Lord and the apostles. And that is heady stuff.

Am I saying we should have slaves today?  Of course not.  But we need to seriously think through these issues instead of giving non-answers like “Christianity provided for civilization to move forward without slavery.”  To which I say, “early Medieval Russia.”

2.  The strange love-affair with Lincoln

This is odd, too.  Lincoln really didn’t care for Christianity and he routinely made darkie jokes.   He was the biggest white supremacist of the 19th century.  He ran on the platform, in essence, that he would not free a single slave.  My Covenanter friends–you are being deceived.

Someone could respond, “You’re just angry that the South lost.”  Perhaps, perhaps not.  That brings up another point

3.  Consistently outmaneuvered politically and militarily

Why is it that the Covenanters who have such a heroic (and rightly earned) reputation for godly resistance during the Killing  Times have routinely been outmaneuvered in the public square?  I’ll give three examples: Bothwell Bridge, Cromwell, and The War Between the States.

Bothwell

The Covenanters had already proved themselves at Drumclog.  Further, Bothwell Bridge forced the Royalists into a chokepoint.   While the ultimate cause for the covenanters defeat was lack of artillery and ammo, the outcome was in the air for a while.   The problem was whether to allow Indulged parties to participate.  Granted, the Indulged sinned and were under God’s judgment.  Cameron and others were right to resist elsewhere, but Bothwell was not an ecclesiastical act.  It was a military one.   Indulged ammunition wasn’t sinful per se.

Cromwell

Covenanters call Cromwell the Usurper.   It is somewhat ironic given that these Covenanters had fought a war of defiance (rightly so) against the very same king.  I have to ask, though, precisely what did you expect when rallying behind the (well-known) debauched papal pervert Charles II?  Granted, he vowed the covenants.  Granted, he should have owned up to them.   Still, anyone could have seen how this was going to end.

How else was Cromwell to interpret this?   He knew the Covenanters were militarily capable, so he is seeing an armed host rallying behind the dynasty against which both had recently fought a war.  But even then, the Covenanters could have held him off and forced a peace.   Their actions at Dunbar as as unbelievable as they are inexplicable.  They had the advantage of both place and time.  Ignoring that, they decided to meet Cromwell on equal footing.  In response, Cromwell executed one of the most perfect maneuvers in military history (that was still studied and practiced in the 20th century by America, England, and Germany) and in effect subdued Scotland.

To make it worse, Grant notes that Cromwell’s subjugation of Scotland allowed the kirk to flourish spiritually.  Ye shall know them by their fruits.  Interpreting Providence is dangerous, but this might mean that the Covenanters didn't even deserve political independence.

Lincoln (again)

I must quote Harris in detail for full affect.

“Most of its members were enthusiastically for the war and anxious to participate in it as far as they could without violating their principle of dissent from the government.” (p. 58) This despite the fact that Lincoln himself constantly said the war was not about slavery. We now know Lincoln was a pathological liar; the covenanters must have known this in their bones as well, and gave vent to their approval of the “real reason,” concealed by Lincoln. At any rate, it is hard to imagine them getting so excited about a war that was about enforced union. In view of their history, that would be ironic indeed.
However, they exhibited a certain naiveté in two ways which may go part way to explain the madness. At one point, they concocted an oath to propose to the US as a basis for enlisting in the army, an oath that would be consistent with continued resistance to full submission. “I do swear by the living God, that I will be faithful to the United States, and will aid and defend them against the armies of the Confederate States, yielding all due obedience to military orders.” (p. 58) The charming bit here is the notion of defendingagainst the armies of the CSA — armies which were purely defensive, and which would have been glad to disperse and go home, if it weren’t for the invading and marauding union armies. Somehow, they had built up a mythic view of an aggressive South, gobbling up adjacent lands by force of arms.

Covenanting on the Ground

This is open for discussion.  How exactly is National Covenanting going to work today?  Surely it means more than strong-arming congress in rejecting the First Amendment.

Note Bene:  Harris’s quotations are from David M. Carson. Transplanted to America: A Popular History of the American Covenanters to 1871. (Pittsburgh: Crown & Covenant Publications, n/d).

Theonomy and the Steroids Effect

I wrote this at Bayou Huguenot a few years ago and I was reflecting on my own life.  But even then the article was somewhat abstract.  Since then I participated (much to my shame) in the "Level Headed Reconstructionist" group on facebook.  I don't want to be mean, and I am well aware of my own limitations (quite painfully), but these guys are the 4 year olds of theology.  They don't know how much they don't know, yet they think--due to their understanding of Van Til--that they know everything.   

One of the dangers in taking steroids while lifting weights is that despite all the gains, the level you reach is likely the highest you will ever reach.   Once you get off steroids, and even the biggest “user” won’t take them perpetually (No one does steroids, or even creatine, during the regular season for risk of dehydration), it is unlikely you will ever reach those levels naturally again.

We see something similar in theological studies.   Deciding which area to major in will determine how deep one’s theological knowledge can get.   Here was my (and many others; and for what it’s worth, throughout this post substitute any Federal Vision term in place of a theonomy term and the point is largely the same) problem in institutional learning:  I immediately jumped on how important apologetics was for the Christian life to the extent that I made apologetical concerns overwhelm theological concerns.  While I believe Greg Bahnsen died entirely orthodox, and I do not believe theonomy is a heresy (only an error), focusing on Bahnsen’s method to such an extent, both in apologetics and ethics, warped the rest of theology.   I essentially made theology proper (and soteriology and ecclesiology) subsets of apologetics/ethics, instead of the other way around.
I won’t deny:  I became very good at apologetics and ethics, but I didn’t know jack about theology outside of a basic outline of Berkhof.   Studying Reformed theology among sources, and worse, movements, who are only barely Reformed (Bahnsen excluded), limited how deep I could go in Reformed theology.

I’ll say it another way:  when I was taking covenant theology we had to read sections of Gisbertus Voetius and Cocceius in class.  I got frustrated thinking, “These guys are tying in the covenant of works with natural law.  Don’t they know how un-reformed natural law is?”  Problem was, I was wrong.  But if you read the standard theonomic (or FV; by the way, the FV fully adopts the Barthian, and now historically falsified, Calvin vs. Calvinist paradigm) historiography, there is no way to avoid such misreadings.  Even worse, said historiography fully prevents one from learning at the feet of these high Reformed masters.

By the grace of God I’ve repented of that misreading.  I spent this spring finding as many Richard Muller journal articles and taking copious notes.

Theonomy Demands Natural Law

Jus Divinum on the Mosaic Judicials .

We answer, the Laws of the Jewish Church, whether Ceremonial or Judicial, so far forth are in force, even at this day, as they were grounded upon common equity, the principles of reason and nature, and were serving to the maintenance of the Moral Law. … The Jewish Politie is only abrogated in regard of what was in it of particular right, not of common right, so far forth as there was in their Laws either a typicalness proper to their Church, or a peculiarness of respect to their state in that Land of Promise given unto them.  Whatsoever was in their Laws of Moral concernment, or general equity is still obliging …[2]

Conclusion:  Whatever else 19.4 might mean, it clearly states that the use of the judicials in today’s society presupposes some understanding and application of natural law and common sense equity.  This doesn’t mean theonomy is necessarily right or wrong.  However, it does shed some light on how American theonomists tell the narrative.   If one adds to the mix a hyper-presuppositionalism and a fear of all things Thomistic, then there is no way he or she can read the judicials in the way that the writers of the Confession intended.

Equity is a natural law concept, full stop.  The anti-scholastic theonomist of today is borrowing from Thomistic categories in order to reject Thomistic categories (the irony of this somewhat Van Tillian sentence is thick).

I will say the problem another way.  There are two hermeneutical worlds (courtesy of John Stott).

Mosaic World                                                                                               Today's Application

(How do you apply the two on issues where there isn't a clear connection between the two?)

Mosaic World ---------------------------Equity--------------------Today's Application

Here is the problem:  even if theonomy is correct on this point, equity is a generic category that doesn't necessarily include Mosaic specifics.  Equity presupposes (!) that one use analogy and accepted ideas of fairness, and it doesn't always tell you what that is.  But the Bible doesn't really give a complete list of generalities on fairness.

This is why something like Reid's Common Sense Realism is inevitable.

Creeping Cultism

I recently shared a paper on epistemology to some Reconstructionists and Van Tillians.  I did not see myself as attacking Van Til, yet merely asking some technical questions on philosophy.  I thought I saw a weakness in a specific argument Greg Bahnsen made.  Mind you, I wasn't saying Bahnsen was wrong (in the broadest sketches I think he was on to something), but merely saying that one aspect is faulty, but if that aspect is fixed then the argument can probably be salvaged.

The response was ugly.   That shouldn't be surprising, since Recons really haven't done much in scholarship beyond the middle days of Gentry and Demar, and those two only wrote on two or three topics at most.  I suggested around this time last year that Christian reconstructionism was down for the count after the Doug Phillips sex scandal.   While Phillips himself wasn't much of a thinker and didn't offer any scholarship, he at least advanced Recon thought on a wide level.

Back to the paper.  Long story short, I was using several highly specific philosophy terms.  There is nothing intrinsically holy about those terms. It's just the current usage in philosophy.  These guys at this Facebook page didn't bother to understand these terms and merely started chanting reconstructionist slogans to each other.

One of these slogans was the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG).  It says in order to know anything, you must presuppose God.  That's fine and that wasn't my beef.  My problem was that if we try to tie this to internalist models of epistemology, then the argument runs into problems (and there are HUGE problems with the argument beyond what I have given).

Yet these gentlemen seemingly identified their formulation of the argument with the argument itself, which meant any questioning of their formulation was a questioning of the argument.  And if the argument, so they perceived, seemed to fail, then all hope of knowledge was lost.

Of course, I had no such intention, but their reaction was quite telling and it is what you see in a lot of cults.  A questioning of one aspect of a beloved leader = criticism of Our Glorious Leader.

Which is a shame, since I love Greg Bahnsen.  But it gets worse.  The nature of the TAG argument is that without it knowledge is impossible.

Sadly, it gets worse than that.  They could not tolerate any deviation from the "formula."  Whenever the words of a theory become sacrosanct and beyond challenge, what you have is idolatry in its crudest form.

Some notes on internalism and externalism

I made a bad mistake and tried to discuss philosophy with some Christian Reconstructionists.  I couldn't get them to move beyond sloganeering and cliches.   While this post will do nothing to help them, for those who want to grow and mature it should prove helpful.

Internalism in epistemology sees warrant as justification.

• justification is necessary for warrant.
• satisfaction of epistemic duty.
• Descartes: epistemic deontologism.
• formation of belief; hence, internal
• involves a view of cognitive accessibility (36).

1. Proper Function
   My belief-forming apparatus must be free from cognitive malfunction (Plantinga 4).
   They must be in their proper environment (hence, externalism?) .  However, functioning properly is not the same thing as functioning normally.  
1. The environment in which my cognitive faculties are functioning must be similar to that for which they have been designed (11).  
2. The Design plan
1. When our organs function properly, they function in a particular way (13).  Our faculties are highly responsive to circumstances.  

Warrant: Objections and Refinements

• Gettier:  knowledge cannot be just justified, true belief.  A fourth condition is necessary.  Internalist accounts of warrant are fundamentally wanting, thus the continuing epicycles added to the Gettier problem (32).  
• an externalist account of warrant would also take in the “epistemic credentials the proposition you believe has from the person whom you acquired it” (34).  
• credulity is valid when it operates under certain conditions:    
• Gettier’s problems show that even if internalism meets all of its conditions for knowledge, it can still fail to give knowledge.  If my internal cognitive faculties are working, and they arrive at a belief, there are still a number of counters- (ala Gettier) that show it can’t reach knowledge (36-37).  As Plantinga notes, “Justification is insufficient for warrant” (36).  

Knowledge of the Design Plan

• Knowledge of myself:  Any well formed human being who is in an epistemically congenial environment and whose intellectual faculties are in good working order will typically take for granted at least three things:  that she has existed for some time, that she has had many thoughts and feelings, and that she is not a thought or feeling(Plantinga 50).
• This can malfunction, however.   The cognitive design plan also includes, especially as it relates to testimony, the cognitive situation of the testifiee (83).  If they are deluded et al, yet are telling me the truth, do I have warrant?  Maybe, maybe not.  Plantinga calls these semi-Gettier cases, since Gettier was only trying to show that justification is insufficient for knowledge.  
• Further, in the case of testimony, a testimony, particularly one in which knowledge of X is passed down, the last member of the testimony chain will only have warrant if the previous members do (84).  
• Therefore, if there is a cognitive malfunction early on in the chain, then the following links in the chain will be suspect.  

Theonomy Files: The Collapse of Christian Reconstruction

I suppose the inevitable question, one loaded with irony, is that given Christian Reconstruction’s commitment to the bible and postmillennialism, how come the movement fractured immediately and society is not reconstructed?  Before we get into the individual faults of the men and camps, it is important to first note perhaps why they were prone to fracturing.

The easiest answer is that the American Reformed church didn’t want that kind of thinking within it.  I don’t mean the more wacky elements of CR.  Let’s stick with a mainstream figure like Greg Bahnsen.  Bahnsen stayed within the communion of the local Presbyterian church.  Bahnsen never associated himself within the wilder elements of CR.  Yet he was probably hated the most by so-called Reformed Institutions.  I think they correctly realized that if Bahnsen’s views on civil government are correct, then much of the Presbyterian mindset today needs to be revamped.  It was understood, however, that remaining good Americans was preferable.   Theonomy was blackballed.  It was never officially condemned, but still..

As a result, many CR leaders knew they wouldn’t be welcomed in the presbyteries.   So they reasoned:  too bad for the presbyteries!  For all the problems and limitations in local presbyteries, they do keep individuals from going off the deep end.   We will soon see why.

1. Rushdoony:  On one hand it’s a good t hing that Rushdoony’s (and by the way, it is spelled “Rushdoony.”  A number of moderators on Puritanboard adamantly insisted it was spelled “Rushdooney,” the typing of the cover of his books notwithstanding) errors are so easy to see.   Being egregious errors and out in the open, they are fairly easy to avoid.  His main errors are the dietary laws, ecclesiology, and shallow readings of some Reformed sources.  I won’t bother refuting the dietary laws.   I suspect his personal experiences drove his ecclesiology.  I don’t know the whole story, though Gary North has documented it here.   Evidently he got angry at some obviously wrong practices of a part of the OPC and separated himself from church bodies for the greater part of a decade.A bit more minor issue but one more prevalent is that many young CRs began their study of theology by beginning with Rushdoony.  As a result, many simply parroted his slogans without really understanding all the theology and philosophy behind it.  Their grasp of Reformed theology was very tenuous beyond the basics.   Once they came across sharp Anchorite apologists, they were toast.  They didn’t have the strong foundation in Turretin, Hodge, and Owen that older men had.  Had they begun with the latter and had a decent foundation, then they could have approached Rushdoony with the sense of applying some of his legitimate insights.Finally, people who really follow Rushdoony have a hard time accepting any criticism of the man.
2. Was the home-church movement an inevitable spin off from Rushdoony?  That he endorsed something like it is clear, but most Reformed people understand he is wrong on that point.  I think one of the dangers of the home church movement is that apart from any presbyterial oversight, there is nothing stopping the members fromembodying outrageous positions.
3. Gary North:  Gary North held the high ground until 2,000.  His Y2K debacle lost him his credibility.  Others have pointed out his refusal to condemn the Federal Vision, though truth be told, would it have mattered?  Most people stopped listening to him in 2,000.   Would his condemning FV in 2003 have changed anything?  It’s a shame that he got tied in with y2K predictions and Federal Vision associations.   Many of his key arguments were never refuted (or even addressed).  I have in mind the judicial sanctions in history argument.  It’s ultimately why I can’t hold to historic premillennialism in the long run (see future post).Another of his problems would be the Tyler connection.  This really isn’t that big a problem compared to Rushdoony.   Tyler had the bizarre mixture of independent congregationalism and quasi-sacerdotal episcopalianism.  Aside from some caustic and hilarious rhetoric aimed at the Institutional Reformed, there isn’t much to accuse him of.
4. Was Federal Vision inevitable?  This is hard to answer.  If you read Bahnsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics carefully, you will notice how mainstream and normal his method and footnotes are.  He is citing standard P&R and evangelical textbooks on hermeneutics and the Sermon on the Mount.   All of this is wildly at odds with the later Federal Visionists.  This would explain why Federal Vision advocates at least two generations afterwards rejected Bahnsen (some even ridiculed him).   Jim Jordan very clearly rejected theonomy. So to say that Bahnsen led to the Federal Vision is a classic instance of the correlation = causation fallacy.

Gary North notes that CR split into two camps:  Tyler Ecclesiasticalism and Rushdoony’s Home Church Patriarchalism (those theonomists remaining faithful to the local church and presbytery held to a theoretical theonomy, but kept it at that.  The exception would be the micro-Presbyterians like Joe Morecraft).