The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Michael Horton - What is the Gospel?

Dr. Lane Tipton is a "voice in the wilderness" in today's society, IMO. Love this man..... Thanks for providing his video.

Thanks, yeah, he’s my pastor and I dialogue with him often.

I’ve been bombarding him after I found out he was chosen for the study committee on Christian Nationalism.

I finally received clarity on modern two kingdom theology and natural law and realized that the Escondido doctrine of modern two kingdom is a bait and switch that fails to acknowledge that classical natural law legal theory is passé and has been manipulated and replaced by radical theories of law. If the agenda of those (trying) to lead and influence our country is to do so in a self-defeating direction - to bring order and tyranny out of chaos - then these modern theories of “law” will undoubtedly take us there.

Lane was independently targeting modern two kingdom theology as much as the radical strains of CN independent of me before we touched base on the matter.
I told him that despite their agenda to combat the gospel-compromising strains of CN, if DG Hart (and guys like RS Clark) keep opening their mouths they are going to create an army of politics first CNs (in response), because they also trample on what it means to be a Christian in society with their double minded modern two kingdom doctrines.

Ultimately, Christianity exclusively informed our laws and morals of our classically liberal nation. And God has preserved us in this manner. But the modern two kingdom guys are not - maybe by design - acknowledging the ways that our rule of law has been and continues to be undermined.

Even the doctrine of the “spirituality of the church” was exercised to keep the Church from speaking out against slavery, so the motives of church leaders & influencers are not always what they seem.
Radical Pluralism and “going along to get along” should not be what motivates us in any sphere.


Pastor Lane has also helped me more deeply comprehend Van Til, Protestant distinctives (especially from Aquinas) and the heretical influence of false philosophies.

“ Protestant distinctives (especially from Aquinas) and the heretical influence of false philosophies.”

Or shall I say, in contrast to Aquinas, who held that fallen man maintains an ability to reason rightly, even towards matters of faith. Aquinas was not a covenant theologian.

And one doesn't have to think very much to realize the vast majority of churches in this country follow Aquinas' views, aka: semi-Pelagianism, regarding the fallen nature of man and construct their false gospels around that unbiblical view. Is it any wonder, therefore, that Billy Graham had a good relationship with the RCC and even encouraged the 'victims' of his Crusade(s) to follow up with their local RCC priest?

This is a good presentation…



Waldron also does a good job touching on similar territory regarding Aquinas….

https://content.cbtseminary.org/aquinas/

All of the modern two kingdom guys are down on VanTil and absolutely love Aquinas. Why? To elevate radical
pluralism? It makes no sense.




To hear Hart say in the video:

"I've been in Turkey twice and um I actually think it's a kind of a amazing experience to to arrive late in the afternoon, have dinner, go to bed, and around 10:00 you hear a call to prayer throughout the city of of Istanbul because that's one of the designated hours."

"What's the natural law argument from a man be, you know, becoming a woman or a woman becoming a man when we have the technology to do that?"
Hart: "Well, I mean, I I I think um I'd want to hear from the experts about adults doing it. And as much as I personally think it's kind of grotesque to think about mutilating the body that way, but if you want to give people freedom to live their lives as they can and you and adults choose to do this fully informed about the consequences of it, I can live with that."

Hart: "Um, and you know, I I it's for me it's like the drag queen story hour. What are librarians thinking doing that? Um, if you want to support drag queens in some way or Satanists in some way, don't use public institutions like that. Unless that you have actually surveyed your people and think that everyone in your community is or most people are okay with this. Otherwise, you're just being inflammatory and and that's not good."

This is kind of jarring. Reveling in false worship to a false god? Turning a blind eye to the desecration of our purpose and design? If we know better we shouldn’t talk like this. He obviously doesn’t even care about a natural law argument. He’s arguing from a place of lowest common denominator. I’m sorry. If this guy keeps talking he’s going to single handedly create an army of hyper-Christian nationalists - a whole denomination may rise up just to combat DG’s 2k.
He’s taking for granted the Christian moral foundations that made America the country it is and has allowed religious pluralism to exist in the first place. But if he thinks radical pluralism / (false) “neutrality,” including default pagan and Gnosticism schools of thought/cultural acceptance (and legal normativity) are going to enable classical liberalism to flourish, he’s exhibiting cognitive dissonance. I feel like he’s using extreme CN to justify an anything goes status-quo. I’m sure he prefers government limited the way Machen does but that’s not really what he’s espousing in these discussions, (although he does pay some lip service to building a moral consensus among the citizenry of various religions sects). At least he was (kind of) honest and said he doesn’t put much faith in natural law. I hope he gives his modern 2k friends that memo.

Great conversation between those two. They brought up practical scenarios and applications concerning Christianity and it's fundamental doctrines in secular life. Those situations are always difficult to deal with and not compromise biblical truth or exceed the scope of what the Bible, in its proper context, is teaching. Thanks again for providing a helpful, albeit provocative, video on 'hard' subjects.

Yeah, no problem, although I find Hart (I do respect his contributions overall) a little frustrating now that I’ve done my due diligence on natural law.

This was my last email response to Pastor Lane. He’s been gracious and lovingly leads me but also seems to respect my attempts to grasp all this (even when I unintentionally sound like a know-it-all). I’m also going to share brief videos and links (in a separate post) that opened my eyes regarding the most widely accepted legal theories. Like any source I share, I try to be discerning but I recommend everyone due their own due diligence when reviewing suggested content.

“I would keep driving the point that advocates of modern two kingdom theology act as though natural law (aka. the moral law as revealed in the 10 commandments) is self revealing, well comprehended and universally accepted (even the second table). That is the most vital part that is glossed over. An acknowledgment of these realities essentially render modern two kingdom irrelevant (even if applied/compared to early American history where absolute truths were not so much in question but were known because special revelation -while not savingly known to some or even many- were not foreign moral concepts but predominantly accepted realities). Natural law and natural revelation are not self authenticating… but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

You cover all this.
These realities are not meant to compel people to embrace Christian Nationalism which absolutely makes matters of the state a normative concern and priority for the church. However, actively suppressing these biblical, theological and experiential realities for the sake of denouncing CN or Theonomy is detrimental to the Church in that it ALSO prioritizes civil matters and buries biblical/theological realities.
You have the extra benefit of having DG Hart on the committee who has little regard for building a case for natural law although he promotes modern two kingdom theology. This is an example of the deep theological, civil and moral contradictions in their position. Brother Hart doesn’t seem to want to even make the effort of putting forth a more nuanced position - not that such efforts would counter your biblically sound analysis anyway.”

“Fuller’s ideas about the distinctive contribution of good law-making to human flourishing were insightful but he was not a theologian. He rejected the idea that his eight principles were derived from ‘any “brooding omnipresence” in the skies.”…Another writer who wrestled with the Nazi atrocities was C.S. Lewis. He insisted that: “The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike.”[4] Fuller’s agnosticism about the existence of such an objective moral law leaves his account of freedom feeling translucent and ephemeral.”
https://theologyoflaw.org/fuller-the-nazis-and-law/





“Locke’s theory of natural rights—life, liberty, and property—proved especially influential. Law, in this view, exists to protect pre-political moral rights. Governments that violate these rights lose their legitimacy, a principle that would later shape constitutionalism and revolutionary movements.
Despite its influence, natural law increasingly faced criticism as societies became more pluralistic and skeptical of universal moral truths.
THE RISE OF LEGAL POSITIVISM
By the 18th and 19th centuries, legal theory began to shift toward a more descriptive and institutional understanding of law. This movement, known as legal positivism, rejected the idea that law’s validity depends on its moral content.”
https://www.globallawtoday.com/law/...-natural-law-to-modern-legal-positivism/

“ He came to argue that the state and its laws cannot make men good or even capable of performing any good act with the right intentions. Rather, it is punishment that constrains us to obey the law. The law does not and cannot reeducate us. Augustine’s mature conception of the state is that it is a temporal power that rightly has the monopoly of coercive force. This is so, regardless of any attempts by legislators or philosophers to justify by moral principle either the state’s foundations or the means employed to secure its end. Augustine thereby argued not for the moral but for the functional “reason of state”: The state and its absolute sovereign authority is the power that is ordained by an inscrutable but loving God” https://lawexplores.com/the-philosophy-of-law-in-the-writings-of-augustine/

“Natural law and natural revelation are not self authenticating”

I mean, they are, but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Meaning natural law/general revelation should not be divorced from special revelation.

and that cannot be divorced from regeneration which gives one the ability to comprehend all of God's self-revelation.

I definitely want to watch this particular video. At the moment I need to wait until I am not so busy.

However, I wanted to state, that when it comes to 2K. I have found there to be two main groups.

R2K and 2K.

R2K actually believed the government had the right to shut down Churches during Covid.

Where as most of those who held to 2K that I am aware of such as Samual Waldron, believed that the government overstepped their authority.

That information may or may not, be relevant to this conversation.

Tom