Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: The City of God vs The City of Man (Part 2)

We'll jump right in where we left off. At our last lecture, I had begun talking about man's cultural development and how the Bible shows us in the fourth chapter of Genesis, the development, the beginning of the development of man's impulse toward cultural development. We noted that that was a gift that God gave man, but it was also a duty that God laid upon man, as we see in the cultural mandate and then the renewal of the cultural mandate in Genesis 9, we see inferences. We can draw inferences to that effect from Matthew 28 and the great Commission and then throughout the New Testament, where we're told that all areas of life, all of earth and every thought are to be made captive to Christ or serve the glory of God, or reflect holiness, so that God calls man to a progressive growth in culture as being basic to the subduing of the earth. And yet, on the other hand, culture can aspire to full autonomy from God. And early in the Bible we see this in the story of the Tower of Babel, culture would try to usurp divine prerogatives. Instead of being under the direction of God, it would take take the place of God. And for that reason, culture must be restrained and it must come to be directed by godly men who understand properly God's plan and who have been redeemed by the Messiah. Those who understand that Jesus has come to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found and want to see the alleviation of the effects of sin on all areas of life, including society and economics and politics. So then culture will either place its confidence and find its guidance in man, or it will place its confidence and find its guidance in God. Humanism would attempt to regain man's lost paradise in its own wisdom and in its own strength. But the church sees paradise regained by the recovery plan and the power of the triune God. Indeed, the Christian understands that present culture is only allowed to remain and allowed to expand by the grace of God. For the Bible says that God withholds judgment from the earth for the sake of the elect. The Bible says that God insists on fulfilling his kingdom promises and that God will not surrender history and the world to Satan. And when there was this rebellion on earth, God did not say, well, then so be it. If Satan wants that, then he can have it. That isn't the attitude of God. If culture is moving in a satanic direction, away from God, glorifying ends and under the dominion of sinful men, it's not because that is what God is willing to see happen. But it's because godly men are not exercising their prerogatives and responsibilities. God is withholding judgment for the sake of the godly, for the sake of the elect. And God will not allow Satan to thwart his kingdom promises and his intentions for the earth. And so there is going to be and always has been an inevitable clash between the city of God and the earthly city of man. That is, in a sense, the essence of historical eventuation. The events of history are all categorized, in a sense, summed up by that one expression, the clash between the kingdom of God, the city of God and the earthly city of man. What is it that will be the key factor in a culture's development? What religious commitment, what faith, what ethic, what goal for life shall determine the course of events? Now a person's world and life view is going to be complete. It's going to cover these kinds of questions. But people don't always self consciously, reflectively and intelligently come to their world and life views. Sometimes world and life views are assumed by default. Sometimes people come to their outlook on life and society and the course of history and ethics and so forth, mainly by listening to tradition or piecing things together of an emotional character, hearing what their peers have to say, not really thinking through the options. And when a Christian does that, it's not at all surprising that idolatrous unbelief gets mixed in with, if not dominates, that person's Christian outlook when it comes to matters having to do with extra ecclesiastical affairs. And that is what we're seeing all about us today. We're seeing the warfare between the city of God and the city of man, the idolatrous city of man. And so often Christians, rather than wanting to see the dominant principle of culture be the religious commitment we as Christians have to the triune God, will allow the dominant commitment of culture outside of the church to be whatever happens to be the order of the day, or the thinking of the day, or the traditional thinking of their society, and in that sense capitulate to idolatrous unbelief and our very poor soldiers in this ongoing warfare with respect to culture. H. Richard Niebuhr, in his book Christ and Culture, Christ and Culture, has offered a helpful formal classification of attitudes that can be assumed toward culture on the part of the Christian or the religious person. And Niebuhr's classification has assumed something of, seems to me, classic proportions or status. You'll hear it referred to over and over again. It's a helpful breakdown of attitudes, classification of attitudes, and I'd like to go over it with you briefly here. Niebuhr says that when you try to relate Christ to culture, there are three basic attitudes that can be taken. The first is the attitude of Christ against culture. The second is the attitude of Christ, the Christ of culture. And then thirdly, Christ above culture. Christ above culture. Let's look at those three individually. First of all, Christ against culture. This is the attitude that Christianity is at war with cultural development. Christianity is contrary to the world, where the word world here is not understood so much in its ethical connotation, but more in a literal or physical connotation. That whatever is happening outside the church and outside of the inner disposition of man is something that is opposed by the Church. We're against the world, we're against culture. And Niebuhr says that you find this attitude in tertullian and monasticism. And of course we can recognize that attitude so often in modern day fundamentalism. The world denying, indeed world escaping attitudes of we don't dance and we don't chew and we don't go with the girls that do. The important thing, world, is that we as Christians stand against its development, that we stand against anything that is outside of the Church. So we don't like movies, for instance. But now of course, fundamentalists use movies as much as anybody else. We don't like smoking, we don't like drinking or gambling or dancing. And then also I think we can see this in the attitudes that are portrayed to us with respect to scientific development. The attitude that if God wanted us to fly, we'd have wings and so were against air flight as Christians, even as they were against railroad to begin with. In our day and age, one wonders whether we don't see this reactionary and obscurantist attitude reflected even in areas that you'd ordinarily think would be endorsed by the Christian medical advances. The attempt of scientists to help infertile women or men to gain pregnancy through, say, in vitro fertilization or something. We have people who oppose that, often not on obscuritious grounds, but often enough on obscuritious grounds, that it's somehow against nature. It's unnatural, it isn't what the Lord would want. And so this is the attitude of Christ against culture. And that attitude is well summed up by Hal Lindsay's remark that we are called to be fishers of men, but not to clean up the fishbowl. That it is true that God wants us to be in the world, but he wants us to be in the world so that we can gain people for the kingdom, where the kingdom is understood as being raptured away from the world's problems. When the tribulation gets intense, begins to get intense, and capturing men from eternal destruction. However, we're not concerned with the present affairs of men and the way they live their lives and the problems that they may have to face. The important thing, according to this attitude, is that we take care of their eternal destiny and internal problems and perhaps ecclesiastical problems. But cultural matters are certainly not within the domain of the Christian or of interest to the Christian. Now, in our course on teleological ethics, we had occasion to see this attitude portrayed to some degree by those who say the cultural mandate is either cancelled and God doesn't intend for the cultural mandate to be followed. Today he's replaced it with the evangelical mandate. We also see it in the attitude of those who say although there is a cultural and an evangelical mandate, God certainly wants the emphasis put on the evangelical mandate. We should evangelize, pray, meditate, worship God corporately. But matters of economics, matters of politics, society, family and all the rest must definitely be subordinate to all this. Now, while that may not be a pure and simple attitude of Christ against culture, it is certainly an attitude that says culture is maybe a necessary evil. We can't flee this world. So we do have to be in this world and have some effect on it. But that isn't the main reason why we're here. And God isn't really directly interested in it. It just happens as a secondary part of the Christian life. So anyway, the first attitude that Niebuhr talks about and I've elaborated on is Christ against culture. The second might be called the attitude that develops the Christ of culture, the Christ of culture. Here we have Origen, Clement, according to Niebuhr, and I think we would add liberalism and secular Christianity movements in the history of the Church that have tended to a accommodate their view of Christ and their view of Christianity, thereby to accommodate their view of Christ to whatever is happening in the culture. So that in the early Church with Origen and Clement, on the one hand they had Mosaic and Biblical teaching, the New Testament, and on the other hand they had Greek philosophy, Platonism and Stoicism especially. And they would make an effort to devise a Christian theology that would reflect the main concerns and distinctives of pagan philosophy. And so Christ gets accommodated to culture, their vision of Christ, their view of Christ gets reformed. According to the leading thought of the day, the guidelines of the day in liberalism in the past century and our present century, early in our present century reflected the same tendency where the liberals would ask what the world is saying, what the world is looking for. This idea of the brotherhood of all men and the fatherhood of God and neighborly love and kindness, and then they make that the whole of Christianity. They'd make Christ out to be somebody who long ago was doing what now our modern world is getting around to saying. And so Christ becomes a pale reflection of the world. And of course, that is all the more true in secular and radicalized Christianity that has come out of neo orthodoxy, I think, of liberation theology. Christ is at work wherever barriers are being broken down. Quite simply, Christ is where it's at. Whatever is happening, wherever the action is, as Harvey Cox used to put it, that's where Christ is working. Christ is the great liberator. Christ is whatever our society or the most vocal people in our society are saying. And so Christ is. Well, what happens here, of course, is that culture, modern culture aspiring to idolatry, often gets baptized with Christian terminology. So you have the Christ of culture, the Christ that is accommodated to culture. So first, Christ against culture, typically seen in fundamentalism. Secondly, the Christ of culture, typically in liberalism or radical Christianity. And then thirdly, we have the attitude of Christ above culture, where Christ is not against the culture, not working against it, as though he's trying to destroy culture and say cultural development is wrong. But of course not Christ submitting to culture so that he is directed and characterized by whatever the culture says, but rather Christ is directing culture itself. He is above culture. But now, having pointed out that this is another position, another positioning of Christ with respect to culture that supports possibility, there are at least three different ways that you can understand that. How is it that Christ is above culture? He may be above culture by way of synthesis, he may be above culture by way of dualism, or he may be above culture by way of transformation. And I'd like to lay out these three options with respect to Christ being above culture. First, Christ may be above culture by way of synthesis, in that Aquinas taught that Christianity fulfills human values, for grace perfects nature. And so what we see in Christianity is a synthesizing of natural and cultural development with religious and supernatural concerns. Christianity turns out to be the icing on the cake. Everything is built up, the cake is baked and developed. And then what are we lacking? The icing in Christianity perfects nature. Christianity is the finally, and, to use another image, the full flowering of what nature would incline us toward anyway. Grace is perfecting nature. So what Christ does as he takes cultural development and uses it for his own purposes. Christ becomes the apex of natural human inclination, cultural development, so that all human beings have certain natural desires. As we spoke in our previous course about natural law, there is an inclination toward things. And if people would but follow nature and the laws of nature, they would be led to take the final step, which is to go to nature's God and to find their ultimate happiness not in a natural form of happiness, but in supernatural happiness. The vision of God and culture on a broader scale is in the same situation as we as human beings. Culture is developing in a particular way, and Christianity approves of that. But culture must be taken to the final step in its development and that submission to Christ. So Christianity fulfills human values. Christianity synthesizes culture and Christ, supernatural matters. Now, second way in which we can speak of Christ being above culture, or another attitude that might like the designation that Christ is above culture and directing culture, is the attitude of dualism. Rather than taking one domain, culture and another domain, Christianity, and synthesizing them, the dualist says there is a kingdom of the left hand and the kingdom of the right hand. There are two different kingdoms. Man is subject, therefore, to two moralities. A cultural morality, a cultural ethic, and a Christian morality or a Christian ethic. And this is the traditional attitude of the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church, Martin Luther taught, as I've already said, the kingdom of the left hand and the kingdom of the right. Jesus rules over the world, over creation, but Jesus also rules over the church. And these two don't mix. You don't intermingle them. You have church and world. They're both Christ's kingdom, but in different ways, left hand and right hand. And so the way he treats the one kingdom is not the way he treats the other. Man is subject to both of these kingdoms and must operate then in a dualistic way. In the world. There is a natural cultural morality. And then, of course, there are supernatural values and Christian morality. And Christ is seen as being above both of these, but he doesn't mix the principles for the two. So you wouldn't want to bring moral standards, the law of God, duties that pertain to Christians to bear upon those who are not Christians. Now, the third attitude that speaks of Christ being above culture, the attitude that is closer to my own convictions, is the attitude of transformationalism. Christ is above culture in that Christ is transforming culture. Christ isn't just in a synthetic way. The apex of culture is not just in a dualistic way, riding over two different types of kingdoms, but Rather, Christ is transforming man's form, fallen culture, so that reconstruction is taking place in every area of life. This is the biblical view, and it has historically been the Reformed view that you'll find, for instance, in the writings of John Calvin, that God has sent his Son into the world to redeem the world. And when redemption comes to our heart, when we are converted, that is the Holy Spirit giving us a new heart, we are regenerate, we are repentant for our sins. And that means we want to turn from our sins in all areas of life and be committed to new obedience in the Savior. And that obedience isn't simply obedience with respect to our inner attitudes or obedience even in our churches, or obedience even in our families, but it's obedience in all walks of life. And lo and behold, it turns out that God is revealed standards for all walks of life. He's told us how to live in the agricultural domain and how to live in the political domain and how to live in the industrial domain and how to live in the educational domain that, as every area of life turns out, has moral standards laid down for it. And what the Christian wants to see happen is people are converted. So the Great Commission on Evangelism is important, but that isn't the end of things. I mean, then there's Christian nurture. And Christian nurture means the expansion in all areas of life, of holiness, so that we want to walk in God's paths, no matter where he has directed us to walk. We're going to be holy in all manner of life. And that means that Christ, by His Spirit, through His Church, his people, is transforming man's fallen culture. That isn't to say that the key interests of the Christian is culture are the primary interests of. Of the Christian is worldly, as Mr. Chantry has tried to portray in one of his recent books. That's simply to say that the scope of the Christian life is inclusive of these things and that because our hearts are changed and evangelism has taken place, that that's going to lead to effects in these areas and that God has an interest in these areas and he has direction for these areas. So that we should pay attention to reconstructing every area of life. So we see a broad spectrum of possible attitudes. We see the Christ against culture attitude that might be characteristic of fundamentalism, the Christ of culture, which is characteristic of liberalism, then Christ above culture by way of synthesis, which is the traditional Roman Catholic view, the dualistic view of Christ and culture, the Lutheran view, and the transformationalist view of Christ and Culture, the Calvinistic view. Now, since we see in terms of biblical theology and the development of themes in the Bible that there is a warfare between the City of God and the City of Man, the earthly idolatrous city of man in culture, that that culture is a gift from God, it's a duty laid upon us by God. Cultural development. And yet culture can aspire to idolatrous ends. And therefore there's naturally going to be this clash between those who belong to Jesus Christ and those who do not. Then we have to take an attitude. We have to either believe that Christ is against culture and our attitude should be of denying the things of this world, or we should say that Christ himself should be reformed by whatever the world is saying, so that he is the pale reflection of our own culture. Or we've got to say that Christianity turns out to be the synthetic apex for our culture, we've got to say there's two kingdoms and we just have to straddle these two as we live in this world. Or finally, we're going to have to say that we as Christians must be involved in culture. And the way the City of God deals with this culture is by trying to win it over to the city tries to win over the City of Man to the City of God, tries to, if you will, pursue the analog on a corporate and cultural level of what we do with individuals. We try to gain them from the domain of Satan for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We try to get them to stop living unto themselves and to live unto God, and therefore to follow God's direction. And if we're going to do that, our pulpits are going to have to move toward kingdom preaching, kingdom preaching, and away from individualism, away from ecclesiasticism, and toward the full scope of the kingdom of God. Now, Christ himself preached the kingdom. You see that in Matthew 4:17 and Mark 1 verses 14 and 15, Jesus came preaching that the kingdom of God was at hand. Jesus came preaching the nearness, indeed the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. And if our kingdom is going to be, excuse me, if our preaching is going to be Christian preaching, following Christ, we too must preach that the kingdom is here, not being put off to a later day, not being something that's just for our closed in group of Christian friends, the church. But the kingdom pertains to all of life. Wherever God is overcoming opposition to his rule, there the kingdom is being realized. And if we will not do this, I'm fearful that our believing brothers and sisters, if we do not give them the banner of Christ to march under. Sooner or later they will find other banners under which to operate. I think the European church has seen this in the last 40 years quite clearly, that if the church would not take an active role in matters of culture, politics and give Christian options here, definite Christian options, specifically defined by the word of God, that Christians young people will find some other banner to march under, maybe the banner of the Communist Party or the Socialist Working Party or the Liberal Party or what have you, and then baptize the jargon and the conceptions of these different things as being Christians. Because our people will know that Christianity isn't to be irrelevant and assigned to the ashcan of history, that in fact we are to have an effect because we're the salt of the earth and the light of the world. So then we're going to have to decide what effect we're going to have. And if we don't offer as pastors and teachers an option, then they will find other options and call them Christian. So the attitude of Christ and culture. Thus far, we've been looking at the transformational need for a Christian political stance. This has been the first basic unit in my presentation for this course. I began by asking the question, why is there this reserve among evangelicals with respect to Christian politics? And I've offered some reasons by way of response why there must in fact be a Christian approach to politics. And then we've been studying in the last portion of our lectures the attitude we should have regarding Christ and culture. Why the reserve? What reasons should we have for overcoming that reserve? And what should we see as the relationship of Christ and culture? I think this would be a good time for some discussion questions, clarification that you might want or need. Yeah, the question is, if there is a need for a Christian political stance, would we also want to endorse a, with respect to our American situation anyway, a Christian political party? And that's a natural development from the idea that there's a Christian political stance. If Christians have options and policies to advance, you know, before the world and try to persuade people of, then it only stands to reason that they would have a party that would want to do that, that would be dedicated to those ends. And that, I think, is an ideal after which we should strive. I think that makes sense. However, we have to take account of the situation in which we live. That's part of situational morality in the proper sense. We have to understand what is the condition of the world and means to end relationships, and what are all the effects going to be what consequences? And I'm hesitant when I do that, to think that we're in a position where we could have a Christian political party today that wouldn't bring a great deal of embarrassment to the cause of Christ. Yadistaf in terms of the last four years, the development in our country of these Christian groups interested in politics, Moral Majority and all the rest. And if you listen to what is coming out of these different groups, you'll notice there's a mixture of strong and weak theology, a mixture of insightful and less than insightful political wisdom. There's a mixture of good reasoning and poor reasoning, a mixture of American patriotism and Christian loyalty. And it's not always possible to get people to agree as to what the principles are by which we make decisions so that we can, when we get in areas of conflict, difference of opinion, how we can resolve these. What is the genuine Christian attitude toward nuclear power plants? Well, I may have an opinion, but it seems to me there are a lot of Christians around on both sides of that issue, even equally vehement that the only Christian attitude is pro or con. And I don't think the Christian church is in a very good position right now to know how to resolve those conflicts. I think some fundamental issues are yet to be resolved. This is interesting because what people want by way of literature today from those who are interested in Christian politics, political ethics from a Christian standpoint, is often, let's talk about the issues. Let's, you know, tell me something about genetic engineering or nuclear power or welfare or warfare or homosexuality or capital punishment or what have you, if that makes sense. However, we have to take account of the situation in which we live. That's part of situational morality and the prophecy sense. We have to understand what is the condition of the world and means to end relationships and what are all the effects going to be, what consequences. And I'm hesitant when I do that, to think that we're in a position where we could have a Christian political party today that wouldn't bring a great deal of embarrassment to the cause of Christ. You need to stop and think in terms of the last four years, the development in our country of these Christian groups interested in politics, Moral Majority and all the rest. And if you listen to what is coming out of these different groups, you'll notice there's a mixture of strong and weak theology, a mixture of insightful and less than insightful political wisdom, there's a mixture of good reasoning and poor reasoning, a mixture of American patriotism and Christian loyalty. And it's not always possible to get people to agree as to what the principles are by which we make decisions so that we can, when we get in areas of conflict, difference of opinion, how we solve these. What is the genuine Christian attitude toward nuclear power plants? Well, I may have an opinion, but it seems to me there are a lot of Christians around on both sides of that issue. Equally vehement that the only Christian attitude is pro or con. And I don't think the Christian church is in a very good position right now to know how to resolve those conflicts. I think some fundamental issues are yet to be resolved. This is interesting because what people want by way of literature today from those who are interested in Christian politics, political ethics from a Christian standpoint, is often let's talk about the issues. Let's, you know, tell me something about genetic engineering or nuclear power or welfare or warfare or homosexuality or capital punishment or what have you. They want to get to these particular issues and that's a natural enough inclination and it's got to be satisfied. Our Christianity does have to come up with concrete solutions and answers and guidance at some point. But before we can do that, we've got to work out the systematic basis of the upon which we're going to drive answers in all these areas and for all of these specific questions. But I find that there's kind of an impatience with that and there's even an impatience with that in our own circles, frankly. If you want to publish what should be the fundamental attitude toward the law of God and how, how this principal matter is to be understood exegetically and how it comes to application and how it is to be defended, that sort of thing. A lot of people think, well, that, you know, that's just kind of dry and boring. It's kind of flat, if you will. What we want is what do we say about the salt treaties or about the next election? And the fact that there's so much impatience for, with matters of principle, fundamental commitments, and working out logically and reasonably not just what will persuade people as to what is true, but working out how we can know for sure and defend the truth, whether people like it or are persuaded by it or not. That impatience in our circles and much more beyond our circles has convinced me that we, we're not ready to work together in terms of a political party. If we were to have a political party that made decisions the way Moral Majority makes decisions, or even in our own circles, the way impulsively one leader says one thing and that person gains support without reflecting on the logic the empirical facts and that sort of thing, or even working out some of the principles that are relevant. Then I think the world looks at the mistakes that are made by the political party. And that is just, it seems to me, bringing more problems into the camp and bringing embarrassment to Christ and causing people to be turned away from Christian evangelism and Christian political option and what we would consider the kingdom of God. Now we're not going to achieve perfection in this world. Obviously none of us are going to become infallible. And so at any point that a Christian political party is formed, it's going to make mistakes. What I'm saying is it seems in our day it's going to make a lot of mistakes. There's going to be a lot of wrangling and a lot of dissension. And then what the world is told is what the world is told at the view of all the denominations that we have around us that Christianity is really different strokes for different folks. It means a lot of different things. And the Bible doesn't really have an option. It's just that people come with preconceived conclusions about nuclear power or about the salt treaty or about warfare or what have you. And then they make the Bible fit whatever they want. And so for that reason, I don't think in our day right now that we're ready for a Christian political party. But I think we ought to understand that that's the logical expectation, reasonable expectation, and I think we should work toward that. But I think there's just so many fundamental issues that have to be addressed first that we couldn't have it tomorrow. Yes. Why do you think that pietistic and charismatic fundamentalists, who groups like the 700 are picking up on Christian reconstruction and yet groups that are closer to us are. The question is why is it that pietistic and Pentecostalist groups, groups like the 700 Club and others, are today gaining an interest in Christian reconstruction social affairs from a Christian perspective. But the groups that are closer to our theological outlook, Reformed Calvinistic groups tend to be fleeing from that and renouncing it. Well, first of all, with respect to our own Calvinistic circle of churches, Reformed churches, what has happened is that the Reformed Church historically has been a kingdom preaching church with the full scope of the Kingdom in mind. Cultural mandate affirming churches interested in Christian view of culture and that sort of thing. However, over the years and in our own, what the Reformed outlook on this, that or the other subject may be in political ethics or social ethics or economic ethics that Attitude, what it's going to be has tended to move toward what is, if you will, middle ground or middle of the road thinking for the culture itself. Although the traditional impetus has been Christ transformed culture, the Reformed churches have tended to move toward the Christ of culture so that Jesus ends up affirming what is the best political wisdom of our day, that democracy or attitude toward World War II or what have you is the Christian attitude and tradition allegedly formed by our churches and and Christian people. The traditions of our culture certainly must be Christian. And therefore the Reformed churches have come to a kind of stand cat attitude toward cultural matters rather than a reflective, prophetic, creative understanding and influence in the culture. Now, when people come along who say, now wait a minute, we have to rethink some of these things, is it really the Christian, the Reformed, the attitude of God's law as we read the Bible, that we should support, say, the war in Vietnam, or that we should be against the war in Vietnam, or that we should do this or do that. And Reformed people being at ease in Zion and comfortable with the worldly situation, when they hear other Reformed people now criticizing the culture and calling for some drastic changes in the culture and saying that it really isn't sufficient just to, for instance, hold that homosexuality is not acceptable in the church. But we must also take the attitude that's unfocused today that it's unacceptable in society, that it's a crime as well as a sin, that these Reformed people are shocked by, that those who are at ease don't like the changes that have to be made. All people, even ourselves, but all people, tend to be intellectually lazy. They will gravitate towards the position of least intellectual resistance for them. So that if theonomic thinking is going to call for whole scale changes, wholesale changes in their thinking, if you will, a total upheaval of their categories for evaluation, their conception of the world. If it's going to call for admitting that we've made some real big mistakes in our outlook on society and that some terrific changes have to be made, some terrible changes have to be made. If that's going to take all of this alteration. People tend to take the line of least resistance and defend a point of view that's closer to where they are right now. This kind of intellectual laziness, as I call it, is found, I think, in everybody. You can see it in students they're studying for an exam. You notice that a student always wants the material on the exam narrowed to just exactly what's going to be on the exam. That's all they want to study. And there may be some value in that, and there may be something to be criticized in that. But my point right now is simply to say that most people are like that. They want to keep their thinking as much in the same line. They want to keep it along the same lines that they've been thinking in the past. They want to make minimal changes. So in the Reformed churches, what you have is a prophetic voice coming along saying, no, we've been wrong about this and we're not doing enough in this area. And the word of God really calls for us to challenge our culture, and people are lazy about that, and they don't want to make those changes, and they are satisfied with their traditions, and they're perhaps shocked at what God really calls for in this or that area. And so then they resist it. Now, if they cannot resist it by showing that the exegesis and reasoning, the logic, the argumentation that lies behind conclusions that they find abhorrent is wrong, if they're not able to defeat it on its own ground, there's always another option. They can say, that's not an issue for us at all. That was an issue for the Old Testament Jews. That was in the Old. In the New Testament, the church is interested in heavenly things, not earthly things. It's interested in eternal matters, not temporal matters. And so you see this kind of movement in Calvinistic churches toward what was pietism, really. It's a Calvinistic form of pietism that now wants to either deny or at least subordinate concerns of culture in the world. Since we can't defend alternative options on how to treat homosexuals or what our economic outlook should be, or we're too lazy to really study the hard issues of economics and politics and social policy, or we're scared that we might in fact be falling into the social gospel. If these things disturb us, you know, the work and the upheaval and the changes and the threat that's involved, then we'll move towards saying, well, that isn't really a concern at all. That isn't something the church should interest itself in. We shouldn't give our time to such worthless subjects as how we can change abortion laws in this country. We should be concerned with evangelizing people. But now, on the other hand, you have to look at the other side of your question. Why is it those who have been traditionally pietistic, otherworldly, Pentecostalist and that sort of thing, why is it they're now turning in the other direction? Well, these people have For a long time taken advantage of the effects of a Christian culture. They've enjoyed the freedoms we've known as Americans. For instance, they've been able to do what they want to do in their churches. And their culture hasn't been all that much of a threat to them, that is, to what they want to do in the church. It's been a threat, something to avoid in terms of the dancing and the smoking and the movies and that sort of thing. But now, in our day and age, the culture has turned against the church. We find that there's not really a peaceful coexistence between what's happening in our culture and what's happening in our churches. The culture is actually waging war on the church. So you have the teaching of evolution coming into the schools. Well, that upsets the fundamentalists. As long as the church taught things like mathematics and history and didn't get into anything that might conflict with what is taught also in Sunday school, then there was no problem. But now you see the world's teaching something that's infringing on what we say in the church as well, conflicting with it. And the world, after all, is getting harder and harder to avoid. Our kids going to public schools are not only being taught evolution, but they're learning sexual promiscuity and for all of the world, flight of the pietistic mentality. A pietist knows that sexual immorality is wrong, and the pietist parent is upset at what the child's learning in the cultural school, the state school, what kind of pressure is being placed upon the child toward drugs, sex, teaching, contrary to the word of God, evolution. And so perhaps they seek relief in a private school, only to find now that the government is waging war against the private schools, they don't even have the freedom to do what they want in the private schools. Well, now tells them something's wrong. And they look around us and they see that homosexuals are being defended while Christians are being persecuted. Okay, now, people who have, if you will, a kind of traditional Christian morality, we know drugs is wrong, we know sex outside of marriage is wrong. These sorts of things are having it forced down their throats and enforced in society or taught in the public schools, all of a sudden they're asking themselves what went wrong. After all, we are the mainstay of American culture. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I hope it's true. But they tend to think that. They say, you know, we really are the silent majority. We are the moral majority, when all is said and done. Most people are against homosexuality and against drugs and wouldn't want these things protected and coddled in our society. And so they have come to realize their own numerical strength and they are horrified sufficiently at the direction of the world that it's almost like a last ditch effort. We've got to get out there and do something. Now what I think we see happening, and I trust will continue to happen, I pray will continue to happen, is that as these fundamentalist, Pentecostalist, pietist sorts of groups more and more get involved, political change, social reconstruction, interest in these areas, that they'll begin to say, well, on the one hand my eschatology says this, but on the other hand I know the demands of living in the present world are the following and the two don't gel, they don't come together. And so maybe I'd better start rethinking my eschatology. I mean, if Jesus, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, and if his interest is enrapturing us from the tribulation, well, why fight it? Why get out here and be involved? But on the other hand, I don't want my children exposed to these things. I don't want to give up my culture to Satan. And so there's this kind of fighting spirit that may be, I trust, the hangover from, leftover from the Zeitgeist of the Puritans who would not put up with the destruction of culture and the ruining of Christian influence and would insist on Christian Reformation in all areas of life. And so I guess when all is said and done, I wouldn't want to say this at the beginning of answering your question because it might sound a bit harsh, but I think the reason the Reformed people are becoming indifferent or even hostile to cultural reconstruction is because they've been asleep in Zion for so long and that the others who have been indifferent and in theory against social reconstruction are now so appalled at what is happening in the culture round about them that they won't put up with it. And so they're going to find answers and they're going to get involved, they're going to be motivated and they're even going to start rethinking their eschatology if need be. Many people in the Reformed churches, not the Reformed churches themselves, but many people in the Reformed churches, and often those who are most vocal and those who have access to the printing press, put out books. Many people in the Reformed churches have even devised, if you will, a way of expecting what's happening in our culture roundabout us and have devised indirectly without going to try to do so, although some anti theonomists are trying to do so now, but have even devised a justification for non involvement in saying that we as Christians don't have an answer for all the wheat and the tares have to grow together to the end. The world lives under common grace and under special grace. The Old Testament kingdom, the Old Testament theocracy has been done away with and therefore so much of the Old Testament legislation has been done away with. They've developed this attitude over the years that now gives them some justification for saying, well, there's nothing we can do and nothing we should do. They've kind of fallen into it. Whereas the fundamentalist politics, pietistic churches haven't developed that sort of thing. They've just had the weak defense of dispensationalism. Well, that was one dispensation, we're in another. But you know, in the midst of this dispensation we're really getting beat down as Christians. So what are we going to do in the midst of this dispensation? And it's a lot easier, I think, to push through the artificiality of those dispensational distinctions than it is to overcome the, the alleged refined and sophisticated and subtle ways of opposing this that come in the wake of Reformed churches falling asleep. That's a long and rambling answer to your question, and it may not, and I'm sure it doesn't touch upon all of the relevant factors. But from my own way of thinking, the Reformed there's something of an inherent dialectic in the movements, in the historical development of groups. And the Reformed churches, just because of their interest in cultural transformation, that has now come to be at peace with the world and has started to justify that and to develop almost a disdain for a prophetic approach to these things, a justification for its tradition and culture lays itself open to becoming pietistic and world withdrawn when people who are Reformed say, well, we want to hold to biblical teaching, but we don't want to go along with these liberal people in the Reformed churches and how they're affirming the world. So let us say that we don't have an interest in that at all. On the other hand, the fundamentalist churches have been isolated from that kind of development because it's not been a question for them and it's just an easy matter of saying that's an old dispensation. We don't have anything to do with culture. But in the midst of our present situation now we're desperate and where do they turn? Well, the most obvious answer is if they hold that the Bible is the word of God, is that the Bible has answers for these things. So the reformed people end up saying the Bible is the word of God. But since the liberals have taken it in the wrong direction, the Bible doesn't any longer answer those kinds of questions, only spiritual questions. The fundamentalists say the Bible is the word of God. And if we've got a problem, we'll go back to the Bible and see after all, what it was saying for all these years. Well, let's take just a short break and then come back to our lectures.