Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 15:1 (NA 2010)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

DBSJ 15 (2010) p. 123

Book Reviews

Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought, by David VanDrunen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. x + 466 pp. $35.00.

For the past century or more, neo-Calvinism has exercised a tight hold on both the Reformed and American evangelical practice of social engagement, pressing upon the church what VanDrunen calls a “one-kingdom” model. “This kingdom,” he explains, “encompassing all human activities and institutions, was originally created by God in perfect righteousness, was corrupted through the fall into sin, and is now being redeemed from corruption and advanced toward its eschatological goal. Christians are not to dismiss any area of life as outside of God’s redemptive concern, and thus are to seek to transform all activities and institutions in ways that reflect the kingdom of God and its final destiny” (p. 4). In this model, the Christian (and more specifically, the church) makes no hard distinction between sacred/secular, cultic/civic, religious/political, evangelistic/social, ora/labora; instead, the Christian mission is to bring all aspects of life uniformly under the singular kingship of Christ. To suggest that the believer is a citizen of two kingdoms (spiritual vis-à-vis civil) is to capitulate to Lutheran or even Gnostic dualism.

In view of the preceding, a growing coalition of two-kingdom advocates with rigidly Reformed pedigrees commands considerable interest. David VanDrunen has emerged as a major contributor to the Reformed two-kingdom cause, joining the likes of Michael Horton, Darryl Hart, and Justin Stellman in defending the believer’s “dual citizenship.” In brief, the model understands the believer to have two distinct sets of responsibilities. As an individual Christian living in God’s civil kingdom, he has a responsibility to love his neighbor as himself, pursuing integrity, justice, and excellence in his industry, politics, social welfare, science, art, and every area of his secular life. As a citizen of God’s spiritual kingdom he has a responsibility to join with the church in worship, evangelism, discipleship, and edification. What is critical to the two-kingdom model is that the institutional church does not encroach upon tasks that God has assigned to civil society and the state does not encroach upon tasks that God has assigned the institutional church. As members of both kingdoms, individual Christians may and must operate in both realms, but the realms must remain distinct (e.g., while social responsibility constitutes an abiding concern of two-kingdom theology, it is a concern of Christians as individual members of civil society, and not of Christians as part of the institutional church).

DBSJ 15 (2010) p. 124