Daniel and his friends did the entire pagan program Babylon put them through, astrology and all. Where they drew the line was not in listening to false thinking but in doing wrong things. Paul says noto to be separate from the world but not to tolerate believers teaching heresy.
— Jeremy Pierce (@TheParableMan) May 2, 2022
The "third-way" campaign by those who are seeking to get Christians out of the public square continues. Using elements common to the 2-Kingdom theory, they assert that Christians are currently exiles and they are to live as among a pagan people, not to engage in activism to bring in a "Christian nation." All of this sound very pious, but the problem is that it is just unbiblical nonsense, and 2-Kingdom theory does not even teach that to be the case. 2-Kingdom theory merely asserts that there is the Kingdom of the church and the Kingdom of the world, and God rules both. 2-Kingdom by itself does not say how Christians ought to behave in the public square, unless one ignores the explicit words of its main proponent Dr VanDrunen.
The model for Christian living in the world is indeed the exilic model (c.f. 1 Peter 1:1-2). The Church today is not a theocracy, where Church and State are linked. Old Testament Israel is not our paradigm for living today. As exiles in the world, we are not seeking to dominate the world neither are we seeking to advance God's Kingdom by political means. However, does this imply that Christians are to be quietists and be totally apolitical?
Christians are in two kingdoms: the kingdom of the church, and the kingdom of the world. That means that we are to be engaged in each. Concerning our current presence in the world, we are to engage in it according to natural law, or the law God has instituted in creation. Concerning issues of morality and law therefore, our engagement is to be strictly creational and moral, not cultic, as in to say not of religion. Therefore, just as God condemns pagan nations for engaging in egregious behavior (Obadiah, c.f. Gen 16:15), and especially extreme perverse behavior (Gen 19:23-29), so likewise Christians even in the exile can speak up against such perversion. We note here the categorical difference between egregious violation of natural law and idolatry. Idolatry is sin, but is a sin against God not as Creator. There is therefore no inconsistency for Christians in exilic living among non-Christians, and addressing the wickedness of rank immorality in the world.
The problem of those promoting a "third way" is that they promote a view of sin that is unbiblical. They hold all sins to be equal in kind, though not in intensity. Therefore, who is to say one sin is worse than another? That is why they end up tolerating gross immorality since they see no difference between gross immorality and sin. In their view, someone who mutilates his body as a "transgender" is just as sinful as a glutton, and if the church can tolerate the latter as a member of the church, why not the former? Such people do not understand sin correctly, and it shows. Turning around to attack others as trying to confuse the Kingdom of God with the Church is a false accusation for the most part. In fact, taking their position implies that Christians must tolerate, even celebrate, all manner of sin and filth in society, with no limits whatsoever, a view that certainly goes against the injunction to sek the welfare of the place we are in (Jer. 29:7)
The fact of the matter is that Christ is king over BOTH kingdoms. Those who use the exile motif as an excuse to attack those of us who engage with society are functionally living in denial of the kingship of Christ over creation. They can ssert all they want that they are biblical, but actions sometimes do speak louder than words.
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