| Old Life Theological Society » Blog Archive » Act Two, Scene Four: If the Bible Is the Standard, Are Faith and Repentance Required for Citizenship? | |
| I know I have said this before, but I do wonder if Dr. K. has actually considered where his logic leads him. | Whose logic? |
| First, only the regenerate can interpret the Bible correctly because they have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit. | This is not true. Any rank unbeliever can interpret the Bible correctly. But because he is not regenerate, he will not OBEY his otherwise correct interpretation of the Bible. He will not act faithfully. |
| Second, only the regenerate have the capacity to interpret natural law correctly. | Since unbelievers can correctly interpret the Bible, they can correctly interpret "natural law." They just won't obey it. Romans 8:7 |
| Third, unbelieving citizens have no possibility of participating in public life because they are unregenerate and cannot interpret the Bible correctly. Scripture cannot be a standard for them. | "Unbelieving Citizen" may be an oxymoron,
depending on the conclusion in "fourth" below. Non-citizens can still participate
in "public life," depending on how "public" is defined.
Clearly, Scripture is the believer's standard for unbelievers, and it is God's standard for unbelievers, but it is not the unbeliever's standard for the unbeliever. Unbelievers are their own standard. |
| Fourth, unbelievers may not hold public office for the same reasons as the third point. | This follows only if "public" is defined as "governmental" rather than merely "social." It is clear that when America was a Christian nation, only believers were allowed to hold public office, and unbelievers were excluded. |
| Fifth, Dr. K. is advocating a theocracy even though he doesn’t know it. He has no place in his scheme for unbelievers. If the Bible is the standard, the only people who submit to and read the Bible faithfully are those upon whom the Holy Spirit has worked. | Correct. The Declaration of Independence is a Theocratic document. America was a Christian Theocracy. If the Bible is the standard, only those who swear to abide by the Bible should be allowed to hold office (if anyone should). |
| So in his effort to bring the Bible back to the public square, Dr. K. has just vacated the square of all who cannot submit to Scripture. | Again, "public" is bigger than "government." In a truly Christian society, there will be no institution of systematic violence which we call "the government." But as long as we have such an institution, only those who openly promise to obey the Scripture should be permitted to wield such power. |
| Now, this is one possible solution to our predicament as Dr. K. understands it. All Christians can gather together in one nation (the Netherlands), or several Christian nations (the United States, Canada, and Scotland), and unbelievers can scatter to their nations. But haven’t we been here before? And isn’t that really the theocratic arrangement of the Old Testament? | A genuinely Christian Theocracy does not demand that unbelievers "scatter" to other nations, but rather, believes that as a "City upon a Hill," unbelievers will be attracted to Christian Theocracies and immigrants will pretend to be believers, and hopefully become genuine believers. |
| Or we can affirm that every person has the capacity, though flawed, to perceive the moral law that God has written on the human heart and that is writ large in the book of nature. This morality is not sufficient for salvation. And it won’t see justice roll down like a river, maybe only like a faucet leak. But it is sufficient for the magistrates whom God has ordained to do their jobs in pursuing a measure of justice and establishing social order. | "Capacity to perceive" is not the same as "capacity to obey," and still further removed from "swearing to obey." Clearly, false oaths may be taken by unbelievers, but no sane Theocracy will allow those who openly promise NOT to obey Scripture to wield power. |
| But if Dr. K. wants the Bible to be the standard without a Christian Taliban in power, how is it possible for non-believers to submit to the standard of Scripture for righteousness? That standard, the last I checked the creeds of the Reformed churches, includes saving faith and repentance for people to have any hope of complying with God’s law. | "Christian Taliban" -- how's that for neutral,
objective, unbiased academic terminology? It is not "possible for non-believers to submit to the standard of Scripture for righteousness." Social pressure can keep unbelievers in line and prevent them from causing the breakdown of social order. |
| The only way, then, that divinely revealed law could be used as a standard for the United States, which included Christians and non-believers, might be for Dr. K. to revise what Scripture requires as its standard for goodness. Maybe he has in mind merely outward conformity to the norms of Scripture, but not a love of God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind. But that would mean that Dr. K. had adopted an Arminian standard for public life. In which case his standard is no longer biblical. | There's no logic here. Scripture is an objective standard for both Christians and non-believers. Christians try to meet the standard, unbelievers do not. There is "one law" for both sons and strangers. It is not easy to discern whether someone is only rendering "outward conformity to the norms of Scripture," but eventually the truth comes out, and we can judge the unbeliever's heart. As far as I know, no "Christian Reconstructionist" has ever argued that purely theological hypocrisy is a crime as well as a sin. |
| Amazing the contortions we go through when we try to make the Bible speak to what we think is most important. |