RSSTransformationalism? Yuck!
It has been a while since I have posted. Synod and other responsiblities have kept me from actively engaging the blog but I have been reading and keeping up.
Reading the blog gives me pause. I feel divided. In Frank Luntz fashion, Darryl has been able to give a pejorative name to advocates of Christian civil government: Transformationalist. What a dirty sounding word to anyone who stands upon anti-liberal ground. Surely Christian civil government must be rejected, it is an ideology that seeks to change (transform… yuck) society through politics… to tinker (transform) with human nature to conform with our NAPARC dreams.
But then I ask myself the question. What if the gospel takes root in China? Will China remain unchanged? Will its culture not be… transformed? Not on the basis of politics, but through the inpact of souls who have been ordered according to the standards of a Christ and His law.
This is how it was in the West and I am grateful for it. Grateful for our heritage of ordered liberty, economic freedom, and respect for humanity as made in the image of the living God. It has checked the power of the beast, it has made daily life more humane, and given honor to the church as the eschatological Kingdom dwelling in our midst.
stevez
July 19th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
But, Bill, don’t you think that while you may be able to discern some apparent “good” things (which some might take issue with even then, like saying democracy is immutably a good thing) that this overlooks whatever foibles and blunders that happened by the same token? I am not going to try and innumerate examples on both sides. It seems like common sense to be able to say that for every example of something “good” there is something “bad,” and that it all seems to wash out in the end, leaving us wondering. Meanwhile, the Gospel is neglected.
And, does it strike you as in any way odd to assume that the Gospel has *not* “taken root in China,” as if the evidence for this might be that very certain things like elected officials? Our church just welcomed back a 32-year long missionary from Africa where things are still a relative mess. Shall I tell him, “thanks, but since strongmen still run things it appears you did, in effect, very little. Just look at what *didn’t* happen”?
I am as patriotic as the next American (I like to think) and am grateful for my little slice in the KoM, etc. But does this mean that the believer in Switzerland should hang his head a bit lower because his kingdom is not like mine?
“Will its culture not be… transformed? Not on the basis of politics, but through the inpact of souls who have been ordered according to the standards of a Christ and His law.”
Ah. Some won’t like this, but here is a good example of correctly responding to objective forms of trans’ism and wondering if more subjective forms might be the answer. I still say no.
Steve
W.H. Chellis
July 19th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I am not shifting things from the objective to the subjective. Do not mistake my intent.
Yet, to distinguish the Christian tradition in Swtizerland and the Christian tradition in America is a silly form of American exceptionalism. I am surprised to hear you make such a suggestion… especially in light of Switzerland’s contribution both to Christianity (Geneva and Zurich) and freedom (remember Winkelried).
Now, on point. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe in sanctification?
W.H. Chellis
July 19th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
And while I am at it…
2) What do you make of the power of Satan over the kingdoms of the world?
3) Why do you think missionaries from lands that have not been saturated by the gospel come home with such outlandish tales about the power of the demonic realm?
4) What do you mean when you pray “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (the evil one)”?
5) What do you make of the Beastly power in the book of Revelation? The beast that comes out of the Sea? What does he represent?
stevez
July 19th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
“Yet, to distinguish the Christian tradition in Swtizerland and the Christian tradition in America is a silly form of American exceptionalism.”
I chose Switzerland at random. The only point I am trying to make is that it sounded to me like you may be judging the effectiveness of the Gospel by its civil contexts, that’s all.
“Do you believe in sanctification?”
Yes.
“2) What do you make of the power of Satan over the kingdoms of the world?”
I am not sure I understand. I would guess to say, “it’s a bad thing” would be a non-answer. I guess my understanding is that he has power, but it is limited and entirely subject to God to carry out God’s purposes.
“3) Why do you think missionaries from lands that have not been saturated by the gospel come home with such outlandish tales about the power of the demonic realm?”
Again, I am not sure I agree with your use of “saturated.” What does that mean? There are hosts of missionaries everywhere. If that’s true, why can’t we say their contexts are “saturated”? Could not missonaries come to America from somewhere else and return with outlandish tales? Or is everything in “godly order” here?
“4) What do you mean when you pray “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (the evil one)â€?”
I mean that God would keep us from falling away from the Gospel or being hoodwinked by false gospels; to keep us from ways to self-justify and hold to the promise once given, by faith alone; from fallin ginto any form of sin or unbelief.
“5) What do you make of the Beastly power in the book of Revelation? The beast that comes out of the Sea? What does he represent?”
My biblical theology is rusty, but I take that to mean that which is set up against the Gospel, the “world, the flesh and the devil.” The dragon that waited to gobble up the seed of the woman was the worldy power that sought to kill Jesus when He was born (i.e. when Herod heard of the savior’s birth and had the young boys slaughtered). It seems to be imagery for, simply put, that which stands in front of the work of Jesus’ Cross. Am I close?
Steve
D Hart
July 20th, 2007 at 6:24 am
The better title should have been “Transformationalism — Duck!”
Bill, the answer to your question about Christianity in China needs to involve the cultural background of the ones exporting the Christianity. Here is where your Covenanter boxers are exposed because your Kirk knickers just fell to the ground. The glories of the U.S., such as they are, stem as much from the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish peoples who settled here (not to mention my own German-Americans). That is to say, it is impossible to imagine Christianity as responsible (even solely) for America. The British background is way more important, and behind that the development of England as a nation within Christendom. (BTW, this may explain why Christians make bad historians — they try to attribute to divine agency matters that are better explained by human activity.)
And this is my point about Christ and culture overall. Christianity is not a culture or ethnicity. It is a religion that exists alongside cultural and ethnic identities. It may change wrinkles in those human expressions. But those identities remain, dare I say, independent of one’s Christian identity.
Does that assertion turn me into an enabler of godless secular neutrality? Bleep no. Because I believe that God, through his works of creation and providence, is the author of cultural and ethnic identities. I just don’t think that God the redeemer had culture or ethnicity in view (except of course during the days of Israel).
W.H. Chellis
July 20th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Darryl proves to much. He says very little that I could disagree with. America’s roots are in Europe and most specifically in England. I think this strenthens my case. England was the great champion of Protestant Christendom. The tradition of Anglo-Americanism is the tradition of Western Christianity.
Now, I want to stress that I do not see the application of Christ’s Kingship over the nations as some kind of universal ideology. I do not think that the English, or Scottish, tradition was somehow THE Christian culture. Rather, I agree with Daryl when he says, “Christianity is not a culture or ethnicity. IT is a religion that exists alongside cultural and ethnic identities. It may change the wrinkles in those human expressions. But those identities remain, dare I say, independent of one’s Christian identity.’
Well, I almost agree. I would suggest that the our Christian identity does leven and mold our cultural and ethnic identity. Grace restores nature it does not destroy it.
England (and the West generally) was heavily influenced by the faith and the West is the better for it. To argue against this proposition is to argue like liberals…. based on ahistoric abstractions.
stevez
July 20th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Bill,
For whatever it may be worth, I took your question about sanctification to be probe my understanding about just how I view the Christian life. And I took it to anticipate that if I answered “yes” then what exactly is my beef with what I seem to want to call “subjective transformationism.” But, as much as you and others may howl, I think that the language of “transformation” used in the vernacular of this age(i.e. “the transformed life of a believer”) is just a whole different language from biblical revelation. In other words, the language of the former is still power language which appeals to the sarx, while the language of “sanctification” is just.plain.different. The former seems to still want to utilize the revealed Gospel for the purposes of the flesh to both self-justify and solve the problems of the here and now. “Sanctification” language is befuddled by this. And vice-versa, of course.
An anecdote: When I came home from college and announced my conversion and had “become a Christian” I was met with relative hostility from an unbelieving family, for various and complicated reasons. At the risk of sounding overly-simplistic, I say that, ultimately, unbelief simply cannot fathom nor accept belief. My father, classically smitten by all things purely scientific, eased up once he read a study somewhere that “those who clinge to religious belief are happier and more content, less given to stress, etc.” Since religion seems to serve a felt need of the sarx, namely to be “happy, healthy and whole,” maybe this wasn’t the smack in the face he thought. But his reasoning always struck me as very odd and still does. I believe because it’s true and have been born from above, not by what I may get out of it in fast cash value. Add to that the fact that I am still waiting for my “happiness, healthiness and wholeness” to kick in, since when I examine myself I seem to be still subject to the same humanity as everyone else. As believers, I think we do in fact “transcend,” but not in the ways the sarx seems to naturally assume. So when I hear the language of “subjective transformationism” I get really quesy. It may seem to be different from “objective transformationism,” but it really isn’t. It plays to the same crowd that wants to transcend humanity and resist death an dits attendant categories, whether it be the health and wealth/higher life Keswickian stuff, all the way over to the more moderated and socially acceptable mainstream of popular pieties which promise happier households and kingdoms, nobody wants to die. And, yet, die we must.
Steve
W.H. Chellis
July 20th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
My point about sanctification was actually corporate (but in light of nations being moral persons what is good for the Christian individual is ethically good for the Christian nation). Caleb will howl and say, not so Christian politics that embrace the ethic of the Kingdom will commit national suicide. I respond that his is no different from the Christian individual. Darryl has rightly asserted that if his wife was struck he would punch her attacker in the nose. I agree. Such is the tension of our age. I see no difference if you are an individual or a nation (I see many differences but I refer now the the specific point of eschatological tension and kingdom ethics).
The West has been blessed by its commitment to Christ. The power of the Dark Kingdom has not held sway as it has in much of the world. The rise of evil regimes like the French Jacobin, German Nazi, and Soviet Communist suggest a the danger of spiritual apostacy from Christendom’s metaphysical dream.
Transformationalism at Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
July 20th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
[...] Chellis writes: Darryl has been able to give a pejorative name to advocates of Christian civil government: Transformationalist. What a dirty sounding word to anyone who stands upon anti-liberal ground. Surely Christian civil government must be rejected, it is an ideology that seeks to change (transform… yuck) society through politics… to tinker (transform) with human nature to conform with our NAPARC dreams. [...]
GAS
July 21st, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I wonder what it is about our fallen state such that we love to reduce all distinction and package it into a single neat category by which we can whip all putative evils?
Liberalism = transformationalism. Roman Catholicism = transformationalism. Neo-Calvinism = transformationalism. Federal Vision = tranformationalism. If you listen close enough you can hear the PRC supralapsarians muttering how those URC infralapsarians are transformationalists.
The devil has a new name.
D Hart
July 21st, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Who’s this West, New York man? The West is actually more varied than Bill’s abstract conception of it allows. The Anglo tradition that came to America was also the one responsible for the “killing times.” The Scots and the English, and the Irish and the English still, don’t get along. The English gave us the middle way of Anglicanism — yuck (though I do like how Calvinistic the 39 Articles are). One more example to complicate things, Roman Catholic Christians, who were at least a large part of the West, colonized S. and Central America in ways vastly different from Protestants in North America.
So again, the question about missionaries going to China — it depends on which nation their coming from. Which for me is an argument about the degree to which culture shapes the cult, rather than the other way around. And while I’m at it, I don’t know what culture will look like when it’s the other way around — the cult shaping culture. Sounds like Bill agrees when he says the Christian is not a culture or an ethnicity.
stevez
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I agree with Darryl. But I am not so sure Bill does…maybe he does. But I still hear him suggesting rather strongly that the cult in the west has shaped the culture. Maybe it’s stuff like this: “The West has been blessed by its commitment to Christ. The power of the Dark Kingdom has not held sway as it has in much of the world. The rise of evil regimes like the French Jacobin, German Nazi, and Soviet Communist suggest a the danger of spiritual apostacy from Christendom’s metaphysical dream.” I guess I am not sure what else to conclude, other than God has been somehow beholden to nations for their “committment to Christ.” “We” were allies with that “evil regime” under Stalin…how does that figure in? Wouldn’t that be “an act of national apostasy” which would deserve some sort of punishment? I mean, if a nation can be “blessed” for her committment, she also is vulnerable to punishment for her apostasy. I still hear a works-righteousness at the national-corporate level in Bill’s words. Not only that, I always thought the intstitution God seems to deal with in Scripture is His Church?
Steve
W.H. Chellis
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
It is a matter of fact indisputable that, in the West, by various shades and tradjectories, cult has profoundly influenced culture. You may think it was a mistake but Christendom happened and I, for one, am thankful.
As for Steve’s last point: how do you reconcile this with the advise given to kings at the end of Psalm 2?
Your position is at best an ahistorical form of Christianty. Your position is the most problematic because, although you think you are parroting Darryl your position is lacking the nuance that his includes.
I am afraid your position, as an ahistorical anomoly, is a far departure from Thornwell, Dabney, and Machen (often pointed to as defenders of the spirituality of the church.
stevez
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
No doubt, Bill. The nuances are best left to the likes of Darryl, since conclusions like his seem to make the most sense. I am simply happy and content to be edified by them.
Steve
D Hart
July 26th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Okay, Bill. Christendom happens.
What exactly was it?