RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's fair to an extent. Most establishmentarians are far more pious than I am. It's not even close. That said, I've been part of theonomic/postmil churches in my wilder days, and that's exactly how we (I) thought.
Public prayer a la 1 Timothy 2:1-2
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Exactly what I was going for (eventually) in this post.
Ben Zartman
Puritan Board Junior
Government should keep their hands out of religion. Each person in government has a duty to repent and believe the Gospel, but government itself needs to leave the conscience free. Punishing malefactors and defending borders and upholding an economy are a far cry from forcing people into a religion they don't have in their hearts.
That’s exactly what establishmentarianism isn’t. A biblical establishment of the church comes about when the hearts of the people are willing and desire to have the law of Christ as their rule.
Ben Zartman
Puritan Board Junior
So, never on this earth for the majority of the population.
Since when has what ought to be done decided by whether or not we believe it can actually happen in this world?
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
That's an interesting perspective. Does it imply democratic establishmentarianism - i.e. the majority voting for the establishment of religion and being happy to see it endorsed (that still presumably leaves an unhappy minority, who still want to celebrate Christmas/not baptize their children, even if only a small percentage of the population)? Surely that wasn't what the Westminster divines had in mind, as monarchists - the king was supposed to establish the true religion and the people had to fall into line? Biblically, in the OT wasn't that usually the case with reforms - they came from a godly king, not a democratic vote of the populace (look at Josiah for an example)? And should it be a tolerant establishmentarianism (the government supports the true religion [as it understands it] but tolerates dissenters) or an intolerant establishmentarianism (the government persecutes those of other denominations)? Just trying to clarify exactly what kind of establishmentarianism you have in mind, and therefore how it relates to OT examples.
Ben Zartman
Puritan Board Junior
What ought to be done is determined by God's preceptive will. He has not commanded that the government should establish religion during this NT age.
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's sort of what my post was getting at. It's easy to say "Establishmentarianism." It fails the moment you try to flesh it out (like, which Covenanter microdenomination will be in charge? Given the turbulent realities of the Second Scottish Reformation, that is still a burning question; it's not an academic one).
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's kind of iffy. Let's take the prime example: the Solemn League and Covenant. Swearing to this covenant really wasn't optional. Even Brian Schwertely, a man with whom I am usually in strong disagreement, is quite clear on this point.
That's not how God's prescriptive will works. The NT also nowhere commands that women partake in the Lord's Supper, yet we know they must. We also do not limit God's prescriptive will to the NT. It is ironic that you accuse establishmentarians of exercising some Dispensationalist pipe dream, yet this your most recent comment is textbook Dispensationalism.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
To be fair, I think that there is a way in which it is possible to say that you both are correct from a certain point of view (pardon me for sounding like Vern Poythress
). While it is true, as Iain pointed out, that in both the Bible and Scottish church history we see top-down covenanted reformations, I do not think that Jeri's point is without substance. In order for an establishment to legally come about in a constitutional democracy, it would require something like what Jeri has described as people would have to vote for it.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
No doubt that's true, but if it is going to come about by mass conversion, then it's kind of a moot point since everyone will be Christian, anyway.
Thank you Pastor Duguid. My thought is that since the OT, we’ve had only one period of Reformation resulting in an established church, and that was under a monarchy. However even then (focusing on just Scotland) the people by and large wanted it, and that desire came about gradually through the labor of preaching. God brought it about. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Psalm 110:3).
My thought is that we wouldn’t expect to be able to predict how God will always bring to pass Isaiah 49:23, or to prematurely solve all the attendant troubles and dilemmas that might go with it.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Everyone (or the vast majority) being Christian is not the same thing as the church being countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate. It would be possible for such mass conversion to happen and the existing Voluntary arrangements to remain in place.
I don’t think so since Isaiah 49:23 will never be moot, and as long as there’s the need for the office of civil magistrate there will be the need for their countenancing and protection of the church. Evil-doers, malefactors, plotters, and ne’er-do-wells will be around until Christ returns.
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Jeri, perhaps your knowledge of Scottish history is better than mine. What dates are you thinking of for this ideal "Reformed Established Church" that almost everyone in Scotland wanted? Scotland has officially had a "Reformed Established church" from 1560 to the present day, which has always been a very mixed multitude, sometimes better sometimes worse, but never fully Reformed as we would speak of it. The closest would be during the time of the Westminster Assembly, when for an eyeblink it seemed like it might become the official church of England also. But even during that period, I suspect you would have had a hard time finding many solid congregations in the Highlands, for example. There's a reason Bonnie Prince Charlie landed where he did. And within twenty years, you have an anti-Presbyterian monarch again, enforcing antiBiblical religion, utilizing the power of the established church to crush the Covenanters.
I think the New England Puritans might be a better historical example of a thoroughgoing "established" settlement, of the kind that you envisage (Baptists not welcome). But they quickly ran into the inevitable question of what to do with the next generation: when do you send away your sons and daughters from your country, if they fail to profess the true religion? Or do you force them to stay and violate their consciences? And at what point do you slaughter or exile all the native Americans who refuse to convert on the grounds that they are analogous to the Canaanites left in your new Jerusalem? Or do you settle for a halfway covenant?
It's easy to speak in generalities about the establishment principle, but until people address the real challenges that such an approach brings with it, it's a rather utopian concept that is distant from Biblical examples and real church history.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That depends partly on a highly specific (and by no means self-evident) interpretation of that passage.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
You are at least thinking through the very difficult particularities of this. I commend you for that.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
The halfway covenant and its ensuing disaster is the key to this discussion.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Similar practical difficulties emerge with various things in life such as church discipline, child-rearing, and running seminaries. Yet I have yet to see anyone abandon those concepts as utopian on account of practical difficulties. Of course, the biblical category of wisdom comes into play with many of these things. The Bible does not always give us cut and dried answers to every possible question that might arise (it would need to be a much bigger book if it did so).
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
One practical problem with modern Voluntaryism: How do you stop the church from splintering into a zillion denominations?
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
The establishment principle doesn't necessarily prevent church splits. Witness the abundance of small Presbyterian denominations presently in Scotland who all believe in the establishment principle, but broke off from the Auld Kirk (and subsequently from each other).
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
No, but the church existing as a zillion denominations is inconsistent with establishmentarianism. I am not convinced that the same may be said of Voluntaryism. One point worth keeping in mind in relation to Scotland is that the old doctrine of church unity seems to have been lost with the split between the Protestors and Resolutioners (Chris Coldwell might be able to say more about that issue). From what I can see, the result has been endless purity-spiralling and schism ever since.
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
You know I have the highest possible respect for you and I am only pushing back because I know you have intellectually worked through (or at least are aware) of the tough questions. As we are now at Voluntaryism: what do you do with Baptists? This is a key question because church membership will functionally overlap with political citizenship.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
By "we" are you talking about the church? Are you asking whether or not they should be accommodated in the established church?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Obviously, the church doesn't have civil judicial power, so it has to be the state. But on this gloss it is going to be a Presbyterian state. I guess. I presume.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
My answer is to leave it to the discretion of the magistrate to work through on a case by case basis. Is that answer likely to satisfy everyone? By no means. Yet was it not one of the criticisms of theonomy that its adherents were too simplistic and thought that the OT law was like a slot machine, wherein you put a nickel in the slot and the right answer to every question came out of it? If so (and this description of theonomy is a rather bad caricature), then we can hardly complain when establishmentarians refuse to give simplistic answers to such questions.
The reason I asked about the church was that your question occurred straight after a discussion on establishment and schism.
I most definitely am a know-nothing compared to your knowledge (and Chris Coldwell's and many others). And I greatly appreciate your pointing out these gaps in knowledge and mistakes in expression to me. Maybe it's more accurate to say that in the place(s) in scotland during the days of John Knox and following, where Reformation preaching was known and took hold and was embraced, enough people rejected the papacy and prelacy and desired the pure worship of God to cause reformation principles to be accepted, including the desire of the magistrate to countenance and protect the interests of the church. My thoughts are that the establishment of the church is surely an ideal outcome of Isaiah 49:23. And we have seen that in the history of the church since Christ's ascension, it was worked out, of course imperfectly, for a brief moment in time. I pray for such reformation again.
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