Welcome to the Christightenment

Clayton Milano

Note: If you are new to this series on the two-kingdoms, please take the time to read past articles. It will help you understand the issues at hand and the theological arguments in favor of the two-kingdoms approach. 

The church is very busy in this modern day. Busy with activities, busy with ministries, busy with administration. But now the church is busy with something new. The church is now busy “renewing” and “redeeming” the world around us. One more thing to do. And yet this activity of “renewing” and “redeeming” is unlike the other busy activities in that it’s naivete is almost hilarious were it not so theologically troubling. One almost wonders if the return of Jesus is really all that necessary if we ourselves can “redeem” the world around us. I believe that the two-kingdoms doctrine offers this type of thinking a withering critique and this post is written to that end.

Baptized in the Enlightenment-A New Mode of Progress

That old enlightenment myth of human progress just won’t seem to die. But this myth of progress is now taking up a new home. It is not so much in the minds of the anti-God rationalists but rather; this myth has found itself an odd bedfellow in evangelical ministers. And the supposedly conservative, evangelical ministers at that. What is undeniable is this: with each call to renew society, to make Christ lord of all, the church is moving, however unwittingly, on a trajectory toward a rationalistic, anti-supernatural Christianity. Indeed it is on a path that will find it fitting quite nicely with early twentieth century liberalism.

This talk of redemption and renewal inevitably is connected to the idea of progress. And these terms are also inextricably linked to the one-kingdom dogma. The idea of the neo-Kuyperians to renew and redeem culture is nothing more than the old progress myth that has been wrapped in religious jargon to make it carry an air of Christian flavor. Pull back the layers of the onion and the connection is unmistakable, we are talking about the age of Christightenment.

This fusion of enlightenment thought and Christianity has produced some rather ugly children in the past. You would think we learned our lesson a century ago but alas that appears to be doubtful.

The Destruction of Inaugurated Eschatology and the Exclusion of God

Indeed, though many one-kingdom thinkers don’t seem to realize it, their position threatens a core understanding of life in the present age called inaugurated eschatology. For those unfamiliar with the term, inaugurated eschatology means that the end times started with the life of Jesus. Thus we have really have been in the end times for about 2,000 years now. This inaugurated kingdom has an already but not yet reality to it. The Kingdom of God has present and future aspects. What is so important for our discussion is that one-kingdom thinking cuts away at the root of inaugurated eschatology. Indeed with the suggestions that Christians ought to be active in “renewal” and “redemption,” it appears as though we are being propelled forward, unabated, toward realizing the not yet aspects of the kingdom. We are in fact participating in the final redemption. And one can safely expect that the world ought to become more and more heavenly as Christians carry out their call to “renew” and “redeem.”

But what is most troubling about this call from the one-kingdom camp is that God himself becomes increasingly unnecessary in the life of the church. If Christians are the ones bringing about renewal and redemption, who needs God after all? And this is the most grievous error of those championing such cries for renewal and redemption: they take a task that is STRICTLY that of God’s in the pages of scripture and make it the work of man.  If the Reformation taught us one thing it should have been that all true spiritual reform comes about by the work of God, not the work of man. In this way, one-kingdom thinkers are nothing more than a form of post-medieval Catholicism.

The trajectory of one kingdom thinking is not good. It is not just possible but in my estimation probable, that this theological camp is currently sowing the seeds for some sort of evangelical neo-Catholic liberalism that will likely take a few generations to germinate. It is a most bizarre cocktail of genuine Christianity, the myth of progress and emphasis on the work of man. If history responds in typical fashion, one could expect to find the genuine Christianity stripped out within a few short decades, leaving nothing but more dead denominations in its wake, just like what happened to mainline churches in the early part of the twentieth century.

The Two Kingdoms Alternative

Standing in contrast to this theology and this mode of doing church is the two-kingdoms doctrine. On each point articulated above, the two-kingdoms doctrine offers a different viewpoint.

Two-kingdoms theology believes in progress but it is a God induced progress. It is a progress that is brought about through the death and resurrection of his son and the final consummation. Indeed, this progress comes about from the Lord of History, not from the work of his children. And this progress really is redemptive. The language which one-kingdom thinkers use (read: renewal and redemption), cheapens the biblical weight and value of those words. Who can redeem and renew but God himself? In Romans 8:22-25 we read of God’s renewal of all things:

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Notice that our hope lies in waiting, not bringing about. The foundation of hope for renewal is stripped away if we are the ones to accomplish it. I can hope because it is Him who brings it about. When one-kingdom thinkers talk of renewal and redemption, it has a distinctly modern flavor. The idea of redemption and renewal in the text of scripture invokes the idea of something super-natural, something we could never achieve.

In sum, the two-kingdoms doctrine teaches me to hope in God’s work for God’s definition of redemption rather than in my work for some sort of cheapened definition redemption.

Conclusion

I believe the one-kingdom v. two-kingdom debate is a quite serious one that will have far reaching implications for the church’s ability to be faithful to the gospel message through the next century. It is not simply an applicational nuance or a matter of hair splitting but embedded deeply in the ideas of each camp, is a perception of the gospel message and its calling. As such it is crucial that the spotlight continues to shine on this discussion in various Christian circles.

Clayton Milano
Clayton is a former regular contributor to The Two Cities.

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3 responses to “Welcome to the Christightenment”

  1. Lue-Yee Tsang

    Here is a genuinely Protestant quotation from Dorothy Sayers (HT: Justin Taylor):

    The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work – by which She means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is church embroidery, or sewage farming.

    I get the sense at least that the gospel frees us even in this life, though not completely, to serve the Lord in our own vocations, each domain being judged on different criteria. An over-realized eschatology or a wrong view of the nature-grace relation, both of which are Anabaptist characteristics, will lead to improper aesthetics and loose use of the term gospel; a strict monergism regarding sanctification will leave Christians failing to work out their salvation in their proper vocations.

    Reply
    1. Ryan M

      Lue-Yee,

      Thanks again for commenting on my stuff. I appreciate it. I was trying to make a move away from theory and toward practicality this past week. Don’t think I was too successful, I will try better tomorrow though.

      Anyhow, onto your point. I think the comment that you have provided here by Dorothy Sayers is interesting. In some ways, I affirm. In other ways, I cannot agree. It is true that it is a tragedy that the “official church” is so bent on having people neglect their proper vocation to “do church work.” However, I don’t think we find it true in the same capacity. Can both secular work and sacred work honor God? Yes. But not in the same capacity. God has undoubtedly put people in one or the other for a reason. But it is one of the biggest one-kingdom myths to argue that all work is equally important in an ultimate sense. The work in itself is not important to the same degree. But the degree to which it contributes to propagation of the gospel, it is equally important. So for example, a shoemakers work is important to the degree that it helps advance the gospel both around the world and locally. But the work of shoemaking is not an ultimate end in the way that missionary work is. In other words, there is a priority of kingdom work, no matter what one-kingdom people say. Missionaries are not at work to advance the art of shoemaking. Shoemakers (Christian ones) are there to advance the cause of missions.

      Ultimately, I believe in Luther’s (and perhaps just as sharp in Calvin) eschatological antithesis. Some vocations (like mine currently) will be relegated to the scrap heap. They are temporal and will not last. However some vocations produce direct fruit of eternal significance. The unquestioned aim of the church ought to be world evangelization (as I will argue tomorrow) and work is only significant to the degree in which it contributes to that end.

      All that in reference to Dorothy Sayers.

      This is not to say that Christians should not evangelize those they work with and reach out to them. I believe they should take that opportunity as prudence and wisdom dictates in the workplace. There is a way in which the Christian life effects secular work but it is more of an internal battle than a matter of externally changing the actual work to make it look more Christian. I don’t deny a connection between Christianity and the secular world but I do deny that “secular work” is meant to be redeemed.

      -Ryan

      Reply
  2. J Hemmerich

    Apparently, I’m a little late to the conversation…

    I feel like this may be a distinction without a difference. Namely, you criticize progress on the human side but then bring it in on the God only side. Now, I think you are right about the “already not yet,” but one can believe in the already not yet, but then differ on what will become part of the already, and what will be forever not yet until Christ’s is made physically present. In terms of the work of salvation and the improvement of people souls, it would seem that there is human redemption this is part of an ongoing “already” kingdom event, for we are to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Phil. 2:12. It would seem that God is at work and that it is in and through people, if this is liberal theology then I guess this part is biblical. Isn’t there an inaugurated side to inaugurated eschatology? I don’t think the general maxims of eschatology really exorcise the devil that is in the details. Admittedly, you have dealt with some of the details in past posts, but leveraging the somewhat popular “already not yet” view to bring people around to a distinct version of it doesn’t seem to flow.

    I have been reading a little Luther on the subject (two-kingdom theologian par excellence if I understand things aright) and I’m tending to conclude that there is much less difference in the overall structure between the one-kingdom and the two-kingdom view than you make out. The reason for this is that the one-kingdom view (Kuyper. Does he actually ever use this phrase?) is famous for articulating sphere sovereignty. In effect this creates a civil sphere and an ecclesiastical sphere of distinct purposes. This is not unlike the two kingdoms view (that justifies religious liberty in the name of rights of conscience before God), but it also holds to a transcendent unifier, namely that the right to conscience is from God. There is one kingdom because metaphysically all morality and law comes from God. It is also acknowledged there are special rules and a call for the people of Christ because they voluntarily embrace him as Lord, and there is liberty to some degree for those who do not serve him. So my question is what’s the real difference in the archetypal structure of the one kingdom and the two-kingdom view?

    It seems to me that your problem with the One-kingdom view really is more about the particular rules that some people tend to want to impose through the state than it is about the one-kingdom or two-kingdom structure of the political philosophy. Do you see my difficulty?

    Reply

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