RSSDave Guthrie Thanks to Bill and Bill for the oppo…
Dave Guthrie
Thanks to Bill and Bill for the opportunity to participate in this blog. I hope that I can offer a few things along the way; I’ll certainly be a glad recipient of others’ wisdom.
First time through, several thoughts/observations/questions came to my mind as I read the early posts on the nascent blog. In no particular order they are (and I’ll try to be brief):
1. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the language of sacred/secular, though, of course, it can be useful in discussion. However, does equating the sacred with the church and the secular with all else (as it seems BC did in the latest post) suggest that there is neither anything “sacred” about “all else” nor anything “secular” about the church?
2. In an intro post, BC writes: “Rather, our declaration of the Lordship of Christ is nothing less than our testimony to His sovereign and absolute reign over men and nations.” Later he adds: “Into the hands of Christ have been placed the destinies of men and nations.” Now, perhaps this is just the nature of language, but is there any intentional difference between “the kingship of Christ over ALL things” (cf. Col 1, ta panta) and the “kingship of Christ over men and nations?” While the latter may be THE distinctive of the RP church, does it also “limit” Christ’s Lordship?
3. CS writes in his post: “I argued, essentially, that Christ’s Kingship must always be mediated to the world through his Church, an institution which approaches history with the patience of millenniums. Christ’s Kingship is mediated to the world through the centuries by the corpus mysticum which understands that the full expression of Kingship lies over the eschatological horizon.” On the surface, we can readily agree, right? But, is it not also true that both our Anabaptist and Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ would offer loud amens to this statement? Are we “reformed” folks cool with that?
4. DGH contends that “the evidence that we seek for his kingship may need to be sufficiently broad to include the notion that Christ reigns and his kingdom advances even through the sinful acts of wicked men.” I agree. I suspect that the RP church would agree with this statement as well, right? Would the RP church also agree that Christ’s kingdom advances through the sinful acts of nations? How about through the sinful acts of the church?
Too long already. But, hopefully, some grist for the mill.
W.H. Chellis
June 7th, 2006 at 9:59 am
I will begin to take a crack at your list!
First, I think we will have to do a significant amount of talking about the need to, or nature of, distinguishing the holy from the common/ the sacred from the secular/ cult from culture.
I believe that the spirituality of the Church demands that it’s mission and mode of operation be limited to the redemptive sphere of Word, sacrament, and discipline. Thus, I would oppose any idea of “common grace ministry” within the Church as is advocated by some neo-Calvinists (I am thinking of Richard Mouw).
Of course, as the custodian of God’s Word, a great many moral issues will need to be commented on by the Church that are secular in nature. This will necessarily include the denuciation of national sins and thus involve the Church in the realm of secular politics (but only as a teacher and adviser not a bearer of the sword).
What of holy or sacred aspects of life outside of the Church? Indeed, some exist. Most profoundly they exist in the context of the family which is a mixed (both sacred and secular) institution. It is the primary building block of both the Church and the state and it ties the two inextricably together (without confounding them).
At the level of less familial magistrates (from the local to the imperial), I continue to allow for the possibilty of a protective role in relationship to the holy. The realm of the holy is the soul of the republic. The magistrate should protect and defend the Church making sure that it has the best available means of propogating the gospel within his realm.
Finally, I take this seperation of cult and culture/ holy and common to be a part of life after the fall and prior to the consumation. It is built into God’s redemptive plan until the reality of the new heavens and new earth has been established at Christ’s return. To try to destroy this dualism before the consumation is to try to force the eschaton apart from the glorious appearance of Jesus Christ. A dangerous proposition indeed.