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. 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. The bulk of this thought, and of the interpretation of this thought, has come out of Kuyperianism, or some derivative of Kuyperianism. Even the criticism of, and the rejection of, Kuyperianism is usually basically Kuyperian. In the 19th century there were multiple attempts to rebuild Christianity on new foundations that would be modern and yet would resist the reinterpretation of everything in terms of materialistic science and of related forms of rationalism. The best-known instance of this is the theology of Schleiermacher. One of the last is Kuyper and neo-Calvinism. This involved changing the Reformed theological system from the Federal two-covenant system that unified the work of God in both Kingdom and redemption, to a three-covenant system that put general life on a separate track with its own principles. The second basic move of neo- Calvinism was to reject the philosophical basis of Reformed orthodoxy, the via antiqua that had formed the systems of Reformed scholasticism, and to try for something new. The new thing had to be both cultural and culture-proof. And this is impossible. The resulting series of eclectic and incoherent movements include Kuyper's own efforts, Reformational philosophy, and the American presuppositional systems. An account of these is in Theosophy, Van Til, and Bahnsen. A reaction is setting in taking the form of retropapism, that returns to the via antiqua while pretending that the history of philosophy and its lessons can simply be wished away. Ironically, this appeals especially to those who like to posture as culturally and religiously sophisticated. 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

About Contra Mundum, a study of the conditions of Christian culture.