living in god's two kingdoms

Crossway Press

David VanDrunen

I bought this book deliberately as the author is often critiqued by those who favour the approach of Rousas J Rushdoony and Christian Reconstruction. David VanDrunen is the R.B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary, California. He is also a licensed attorney and an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The Christian Reconstruction movement argues for a rebuilding of society along Biblical lines. The movement often argues for a return of theonomic government and Old Testament penalties, particular the death penalty, for particular offences. On the other hand, Westminster (California) has established a reputation for arguing against this line of thinking and arguing for a different approach with regard to how a Christian should live within a secular society. Hence, the title of the book is living in God’s Two Kingdoms – ie. Living as a Christian (or a citizen of God’s eternal kingdom) and Living as a Christian in our society (or as a citizen of our temporal kingdom).

I stepped into the book expecting that there would be times where I would disagree with its’ American focus on ‘rugged individualism’ and the separation of Church and State – which I feel are heavily ingrained within much of American Christianity.  Scottish Presbyterians, especially those in Free Presbyterian circles, have often grown up with a rather different view of the way that the Church and State should mutually support one another, which is often simply called the ‘establishment principle’. Establishment thinking means that we accept that there is a sphere in which the state has its authority, and that there is a further sphere where Christ rules, through his ministers, over an ecclesiastical kingdom – and that both spheres are to mutually recognise one another’s authority and seek the benefit of the other. After the American revolution, Christians on that side of the pond have often been deeply suspicious of the state and the majority opinion has been for a ‘voluntary principle’, where in effect the two spheres don’t mix. This voluntary approach is found in the US constitution with its separation of Church and State and has echoes into today when we find the decision of the Louisiana Governor to put the 10 commandments on schoolroom walls being challenged in court for its violation of this division. Similarly, in my experience many small government Americans would recoil from the idea of a ‘state’ church, as rebelling against that rugged individualistic frontier spirit, and US Conservative Evangelicals would distance themselves from the idea of spending tax dollars on the advance of the Church. I was not wrong, there are times when I read this book that I felt a more solid view of the ‘establishment principle’ would have refined and adapted the point being made.

Long before the Reformation, and all those debates about established churches as opposed to Erastian or Papal views, there was Augustine of Hippo. Augustine writing around the fall of Rome, in his book The City of God, argues for the enduring success of the Church. Augustine presents the idea that Christianity benefited the Roman empire and despite its critics had become the ‘official religion’. Yet, he concludes that the primary responsibility of the Church is to lead people to Christ, the message of the Church should be spiritual rather than political and that when the church becomes involved in earthly politics it has lost its way and should be more focussed on guiding sinners to the heavenly city. I wondered as I picked up this book of VanDrunen whether I would find him presenting that Augustinian tradition and using this as a counterpoint to those who push for active involvement in the increasingly polarised scene of US politics.

There are occasions that VanDrunen makes points which are sufficient broadly to bring many with him, for example, he defends the effort that Christians pour into their lawful cultural vocations and notes that the Bible has examples of men, like Daniel, who involved themselves at the highest levels in the cultural life of the kingdom. Where his peculiar emphasis then takes this is to argue, that Daniel wasn’t trying to convert pagan Babylon to a model of early Israelite society. He sees Daniel as accepting a dualism in his role, that on the one hand Daniel acts as a believer and knows that he serves the Lord, but on the other he recognising the paganism of wider society and while trying to exercise a positive influence, he isn’t trying to rebuild that society on the model of the church. He says, ‘It is important to note that Christians presently participate in the cultural activities of Babylon… Christians engage in the same politics, the same commerce, the same music, the same institution of marriage that non-believers do. Though Christians are called to pursue these activities with righteousness and suffer persecution at the hands of Babylon, Christians and non-Christians share many cultural endeavours in common. Christians are not summoned to withdraw into their own cultural ghettos, but their cultural activities are intertwined with those of the world at large. As God required the Israelites of old to engage in normal cultural activities as exiles in the historic city of Babylon.’

VanDrunen begins by outlining perspectives with which he disagrees, the first is the ‘Neo-Calvinist’ approach of men like Abraham Kuyper (former Dutch statesman) and Dooyeweerd who talk about redemptive transformation of contemporary culture and establishing Christian schools. He notes the links with NT Wright (New Perspectives on Paul), Brian McLaren (The emerging church movement) and authors like A. Wolters (Creation regained) and C. Plantinga (Engaging God’s World) in building a vision for the future of Christianity that is synonymous with the future of contemporary culture. The contrasts he builds in this section, link very disparate viewpoints, Plantinga arguing the Christians should be striving for social justice and helping those in difficulty seems to me to be in a different space to NT Wright arguing against a focus on a future immaterial heaven and instead emphasising a renewal of the present earth in a new creation, or McLaren’s views of renewing humanity.

VanDrunen outlines his hope that the contemporary Christian can focus on things more important than a promotion at work or any of the recent Supreme Court decisions. He wants to emphasise the work of the Saviour, the missionary task of the Church and the hope of heaven. He is against trying to Christianise society as a whole, preferring to try to draw people into the Church. He makes statements that leave me with many questions – for example, in relation to Adam’s task to be fruitful, multiply and exercise dominion, he comments on Adam’s failure and says ‘We are not little Adams’ – ‘Our cultural activities do not in any sense usher in the new creation…. Cultural activity remains important for Christians, but it will come to an abrupt end, along with the present world as a whole, when Christ returns.’  After outlining an antithesis between a believer and an unbeliever in their response towards God, morality and eternity he notes the common nature of many of their cultural pursuits. He presents the Noahic covenant as being about securing justice and procreation and the Abrahamic covenant as being the promise of salvation and eternal life of the worshipping community.

He goes on to speak of the fall, where he is right to acknowledge that sin has an effect on the way we think as well as our outward actions. However, he says that ‘the first Adam failed in his original cultural mandate and now all of his descendants’ cultural activities are pervasively corrupted’ and ‘Sinful human beings continue to engage in cultural enterprises and to accomplish many humanly worthwhile things. But whatever value other people many ascribe to such works from an earthly perspective, none of them can earn God’s final approval’. He goes on to suggest that all of present contemporary culture will be swept away in eternity – and notes that when Christians are focussed on cultural change that they are working hard for something that will be ultimately lost. He says, ‘if the present natural order is destined for radical dissolution, then what does than mean for present human culture? Will the products of human culture – or at least the good ones, or the ones produced by Christians – somehow survive the consuming fire of the last day and adorn the new creation?... Scripture treats our cultural labours as meaningful and honourable, but this does not mean that they are meant to last forever. The New Testament teaches that the entirety of present cultural activities and products will be brought to a radical end, along with the natural order, at the second coming of Christ.’ Here I am not sure that I agree, is he saying that the cultural achievements of John Bunyan’s pilgrim, of the works of John Owen, Newton’s amazing grace or Johann S. Bach’s joy of man’s desiring will all be utterly lost to us in eternity?

When he takes the familiar Biblical parallel, between Adam and the Lord Jesus (as the second and last Adam) he rightly explains that the Lord through his life, death, resurrection and ascension has accomplished for believers what the first Adam did not, but then says, of believers, that ‘God first grants them all the rights of the world to come as an accomplished fact and then calls them to cultural labour in this world as a grateful response.’ Later in the same chapter, he points out that justification is accomplished, ‘we are declared righteous and obedient’ and that believers can now claim the rights, privileges and responsibilities of the world to come because of the active obedience of the Lord Jesus. Here, I suspect many of my readers would agree with him, but then he adds the following. ‘Thus the Christian life should not follow the pattern that the first Adam was supposed to follow. Christians are not to pursue righteous obedience in this world and then as a consequence, enter the world to come. Instead, Christians have been made citizens of the world to come by a free gift of grace and now, as a consequence, are to live righteous and obedient lives in this world… Christians should view their cultural activities in a radically different way from the way that the first Adam viewed his. We pursue cultural activities in response to the fact that the new creation has already been achieved, not in order to contribute to its achievement.’

The second part of the book is entitled Living in Babylon, arguing that Christians are already citizens of heaven and then asking how do we relate as exiles to earthly activities and institutions? Clearly, this language of ‘exile’ draws on the New Testament Jewish diaspora following the fall of Israel, and the period pre-Israel when the patriarchs were sojourners in the land and had a constant looking forward to the promised land. VanDrunen posits that due to the provisions of the Noahic covenant, that work, family life, the pursuit of justice and other kinds of cultural activities often mean that Christians and Non-Christians have a shared common culture interest, but that Christians doing this out of a loving obedience to the true God are doing it in a very different way. He says, that the family, state and justice are all legitimate regardless of the Christianity of those fulfilling those roles.  ‘No one would have mistaken the Roman Government and Roman Magistrates as ‘Christian’. Americans and other people living in Western democracies often like to complain about their governments, but we should keep in mind that we have it far better under our own governments – however badly they behave – than the early Christians had in Rome. Furthermore, the New Testament never indicates that civil authorities have any responsibility to make the social or political order conform to the redemptive kingdom of heaven. What Christians are to expect from the state is simply the enforcement of justice so that they may lead a ‘peaceable and quiet life’ (1 Tim 2:2, Rom 13-3-4)’. This idea of a common Kingdom that we both inhabit where Christians don’t seek to change secular living fits with the ‘rugged individualistic spirit’ but, seems to me to fall a long way from the efforts of the Puritans to build society and to pass laws that would bring the whole of the population more in line with godly living. I don’t think that when Paul writes about avoiding sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, drunkenness, swindling and greed that this only applies to Christians and that we shouldn’t try to promote these virtues in our work and our politics.

The third part of the book is entitled Christian Life in the Two Kingdoms. Here VanDrunen is critical that Reformed books on culture focus on education, vocation and politics and say little about the church. He says that the Church is primary for Christian life and the other institutions of the family, the school, our business life, the state are secondary to our practice of religion. He notes that believers share cultural activities with unbelievers in the common kingdom, but that worship is not shared. He says, Israel had prophets, priests, sacrifices, the temple but the pagans did not. Similarly, in exile he argues that Daniel and his friends would not join the Babylonians in worship. He feels that the primary Scriptural concern is with corporate worship, with Sabbath observance and with Christian fellowship. He argues for justice in the common kingdom but, that the Church should administer discipline differently to the state. The state enforce justice, whereas the church seeks restoration and forgiveness. This then expands into a Christian view on economics, a Christian perspective on ‘violence’ or war, a Christian perspective on the spirituality of the Church and the role of office bearers. Just as I was pleased to see his arguments for keeping the Lords Day, I was also pleased to see this section on office bearers argue for the regulative principle of worship and the importance of compassion in society. ‘ Individual Christians and groups of Christians may choose to set up their own community soup kitchens, medical clinics, job training centres. Physicians and nurses may choose to show Christian love for their neighbour through offering medical care for the poor, lawyers may choose to show it through doing pro bono legal work and carpenters and electricians may choose to show it through constructing homes for the homeless.’ You can see how this motivation drove the likes of Chalmers in the St Johns experiment, how the expansion of the cities overloaded this parish church model and how Christians have argued for these then forming part of the common approach of the state towards its people, but he does not draw these conclusions.

The final chapter is on Education, Vocation and Politics. He applies his arguments and says rightly that ‘Christians are Christians seven days a week, in whatever place or activity they find themselves, and thus they must always strive to live consistently with their profession of Christ.’ He argues against Christian consciences being bound by placing extrabiblical demands on fellow believers about a Christian way of teaching mathematics, or running a business, or supporting a particular politician. VanDrunen says ‘Our pastors and elders have not been called to micromanage our cultural activities, though sometimes we might wish that we could shift to somebody else the responsibility of deciding how to educate our children, whether to fire a difficult employee or whether to support a candidate’s political campaign. In the end these are decisions that we must make as individuals and as families, with the wisdom God gives us as we live out our Christian faith in our own particular life circumstances’. He then expands on his views about a Christian approach to education – where sometimes I find myself in guarded agreement and at others less so. He ends the book with vocation – in terms of a calling to a job and our recreations and then the role of Christians in politics.

There is much in this book that will make you think, there are times that he sounds an emphasis or pushes a point that is valid and is being missed by others, however, there are also times where I find that I simply disagree with him. He writes from an American perspective and is trying to moderate the views in their popular culture, yet, I am left with a sense that I don’t share his diffidence with regard to our ‘common kingdom’. I agree that it is right for individual Christians in their professional roles to provide for the needy, care for the sick and seek to educate their youth and we can both agree that at times the Church has been involved in these things as an extension of that individual Christian zeal. I fail to appreciate, why in days when the Christian Church is weak that the whole burden of these things should fall on the philanthropy of a few rather than the whole of society. I see aspect of this as being a proper outworking of Christian zeal affecting the whole of society for good.  I join with VanDrunen in his appreciation of the importance of the sphere of the church but, I think we need he has failed to understand the Christian principles behind being supportive of the proper role of the state – and I would prefer that he seeks an ’establishment principle’ approach to that relationship.