About Contra Mundum, a study of the conditions of Christian culture.
About
Who speaks for Christian culture?
Every strong theological tradition has its view of the relation of Christianity to culture, or of the
independence of Christianity from culture. In particular the Reformed branch of theology early
evolved a strong view of the topic. Today there are many conflicting schools of thought each
claiming to be the Reformed view. The non-Lutheran reformers themselves were trained in and held
to the Via Antiqua, most being Aristotelians with Calvin apparently influenced by Duns Scotus. In
politics the best claim to represent the Reformed view would be that of Johannes Althusius in his
Politics, or some British Puritans. The problem is that almost no one holds the view today; even the
Confessions have been altered to remove it. Probably the closest would be the perspectives at
Wordbridge Publishing. Instead we have:
1) The older form of the two kingdom doctrine, emphasizing the separation of the institutions of
church and state that Philip Schaff called “the American idea of religious liberty”. “It is a free
church in a free state, or a self-supporting and self-governing Christianity in independent but
friendly relation to civil government.”
2) Dutch neocalvinism, or Kuyperianism, that sees all the social order, even culture, as composed of
independent spheres each with its own norms and authority. It also has a different, and probably
contradictory, idea of a common covenant that administers matters not related to salvation.
3) Late neocalvinism or the Reformational philosophy, that introduces a radical disjunction between
the created order, including culture, and God, who is beyond being, logic, meaning, etc.
4) The theonomic-presuppositional view, evolving out of neocalvinism, which preserves one side of
the original Reformed position with its emphasis on divine norms and even theonomy in some cases,
while falsifying the philosophical foundation of Reformed theology in favor of Karl Barth’s anti-
Thomist version of history. Presuppositional foundationalism becomes the Reformed philosophy.
5) The Radical Two Kingdom theology with natural law, which highlights the Reformers’
Aristotelianism, but falsifies their their view of the social order and the role of God’s law.
While the Radical Two Kingdom theology coming out of the seminaries seems to be dominant in the
Reformed church establishment, there are outsiders, increasingly Baptists, who are attracted by the
theonomic-presuppositional view, though the limitations imposed by their theology and ecclesiology
prevents them taking this too far toward the position of Althusius.
A good way to see this is to contrast two recent, massive Biblical theologies. Kingdom Through
Covenant, by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum take the Baptists view, which is to separate the
covenants as much as possible to minimize the amount of content, and therefore of obligation that
carries forward to today’s church. In contrast is A New Testament Biblical Theology by G. K. Beale,
which officially takes a creation/new creation model, but it turns out that new creation is moved as
much as possible into a future pie in the sky thing, and is not so much about Christians as the new
creation now. With this comes a certain amount of Presbyterian judaising; they like their
institutions, clergy, and sabbatarianism. It’s the old model: the less salvation for us the more power
to the clergy.
The ecclesiastical-institution model of Christianity has failed. The more institutional structure there
is the more more it dedicates itself to pumping money from the people and from kingdom work to
officials, and these in turn devote themselves to betraying the beliefs and values of the people as
fast as they can get away with it. The focus has to go back to Christianity as something that is lived,
and if it is lived, culture cannot be ignored.
Contra Mundum is not related to any institution, foundation, church or commercial entity. Opinions
expressed by the writers are solely their own and may be and sometimes are contrary those of the
editors.
contramundum@contra-mundum.org
The problem of the relation between Christ
and culture immediately concerns the
fundamental questions of Christian thought
and action. Therefore a Christian must
continually contend with it. The one who
does not touch it neglects his direct calling.
— Klaas Schilder
To say that culture is man's calling in the
covenant is only another way of saying that
culture is religiously determined.
— Henry R. Van Til