CHAPTER FOUR
THE NGK AND ESCHATOLOGY
Recapitulation and Restoration of Creation
Redemptive history is not static but moves. It began with a "very good" creatio ex nihilo (Ge 1:1). Next, God worked both directly and through human agents to develop this creation, resulting in growing differentiation (Ge 1:2-11:32). In the process of this growth came the Fall (Ge 3). Next, to prepare for the coming comprehensive restoration of the fallen creation, he chose Abraham's family (Ge 12). He then sent the law and the prophets and promised a final Davidic monarch. When he came, the final stage arrived. To the present, his people are involved in the progressive application of Christ's finished work until the end (see Dooyeweerd 1979; Wolters 1985; Spykman 1992).
A classic, reformed eschatology is both optimistic and victorious in its outlook (see Murray 1971; De Jong 1970). Paradoxically, it accepts a backward looking, creationist perspective yet remains both forward looking and socially progressive. It looks forward to the recapitulation of a matured protology. In other words, it expects a return to the first things, that is the creation design, in developed form. Thus the classic Reformed faith is a dynamic and restorative faith. As the only restorative, recapitulative faith, it looks to creation for its norms (e.g., Ge 2:2; Ex 20:8; Mt 19:4; 1Co 11:7-9; Col 1:15-16; 1Ti 2:12-15). Christians fulfill the first Adam's mandate by means of the second Adam's Great Commission.
The antidote to anti-creational worldviews is the "comprehensive and balanced trinitarian approach" (Spykman 1992, 142) pioneered by the Apostolic Confession. This is constructed around the work of the Father (creation, world), the Son (his humanity, historical redemption, kingdom), and the Spirit (the formation of the church and its bodily resurrection) (see Wingren 1971, 1979, 1981). Calvin follows this "order of right teaching" (Institutes 1.2.1; 1.61; 2.1.1; 2.6.1). It is the basic redemptive-historical order the Institutes follow: creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
Reduction of the work of any one of the three Persons "inevitably results in a one-sided gospel and a sectarian church" (Braaten 1974, 79). As Braaten shows, throughout church history the consequences of such doctrinal reduction is quite evident. Thus, ironically, movements over-emphasizing the Second Article, for example the Roman Church, neo-orthodoxy and pietism, all tend to reduce Christianity to the church institution. That institution is always sectarian and culture bound even when attempting to model the kingdom, which is above culture and sect. Nineteenth-century theological liberalism over-emphasized the First Article. It tended to reduce the church to a vanguard group espousing the secular humanist agenda. That always divides the church. The Holiness Movement, enthusiasm or Schwärmerei, and revivalism over-emphasized the Third Article. The result is the tendency of schismatic groups to withdraw into an inner-worldly utopia, as found in radical communalist groups such as the Shakers, Amish, and Hutterites. Or, they withdraw into congregations of believers with an other-worldly future vision of a rapture-escape from this declining world.
The twentieth-century church has had a share in all three areas of imbalance. First, modernism as the heir of nineteenth century liberalism had an unbalanced emphasis on the fatherhood of God. This is a first-article theology. Neo-orthodoxy over-reacted with Christomonism, a second-article theology. Pentecostalism and modern Theologies of Hope "drift . . . toward third-article theology" (Spykman 1992, 146).
Among ecumenical theology, at present, the "gravitational center" of doctrine is indeed shifting steadily towards futurist, Third Article emphases. These are especially influenced by Moltmann and his disciples. In this imbalance, "creation gets absorbed into the process of salvation history" with evident ramifications in social theology (Spykman 1992, 60).
Brunner's and Moltmann's views on creation, eschaton, and ethics reveal this absorption process (see Schuurman 1991). These future-oriented theologians are typical of much modern theology. Both cut culture and truth off from any normative design framework in the past. They postulate a radical discontinuity between the protos and eschatos.
Schuurman has done a masterful study of these two scholars: Creation, Eschaton, and Ethics: The Ethical Significance of the Creation-Eschaton Relation in the Thought of Emil Brunner and Juergen Moltmann. In that work, he summarizes Brunner's and Moltmann's rejection of creation based ethics. Future orientations, they claim, lead to "an open future and a revolutionary social ethic" (Schuurman 1991, 139, n. 1). Backward looking norms they reject as "the conservative ethics of creation" (Schuurman 1991, 139, n. 1). These are "closed to the future" (Moltmann 1979, 55).
Thus future oriented social norms and structures, seen "primarily in light of eschatology" of hope, will leap over the social forms of this age. These antiquated norms are built on the protos, the "created" beginning. Furthermore, they assume that this protological creation actually was not good. Therefore, futurist theologians teach that protological-creational social forms are inherently evil. Moltmann names these the inevitably declining "forces of history [that] bear the names of law, sin and death" (Moltmann 1979, 53). Thus, implicitly, the norms of the Mosaic law are outdated.
In place of Mosaic and creational norms, only the good, "desirable and hoped for future" is normative. This new thing cannot "be extrapolated from the entrails of present [evil] history" (Moltmann 1979, 55). The future social forms are totally different from the oppressive present orders of creation (Schöpfungsordungen). Extrapolation from the present orders and social structures "kills the very future character of the future" (Moltmann 1979, 43).
Therefore, "the only people who have any interest in prolonging this rule of the present over the future are those who possess and dominate the present." Those victimized by the present structures, that is "the have-nots, the suffering and the guilty, however, ask for a different future; they ask for change and liberation" (Moltmann 1979, 43).
Only in "the Christ who was condemned according to the law and crucified by the state," do we find the desirable "anticipation of God's future," breaking into this evil age. The gathering place, thus, in the "social order" where future hope and love "ought to be found" is where the people with whom Christ identified are.
The church should be a radical church not allied to the "progressive leaders of society, the spearheads of economic development," those on top of the social order. Christ identified himself with the "victims" of the powerful spearheads of development (Moltmann 1979, 53-54). He identified with the marginalized and outcast, the lowest rank of society. The motivation for at least Moltmann's radically futurist perspective, thus, seems to be a socio-political option to side with the struggle of poor and oppressed to cast off the backward looking structures of present society.
Throughout church history there have been three chief options for the relationship of protology (creation) to eschatology (creation consummated): (1) Annihilation of the world (annihiliatio mundi) with a completely new creatio ex nihilo in the eschaton (nova creatio). (2) A simple return to the first creation, a restitutio ad integrum or repristination. (3) A transformation of creation (transformatio mundi) by restoring, in a matured form, that which was lost through sin (recapitulatio) (see Schuurman 1991, 147-152).
Futurist theologians who base their doctrine on the Third Article of the creed tend to opt for the first of the above. They tend to believe in a radical discontinuity between the proton and the eschaton, the first creation and the new creation (Schuurman 1991). The new creation is a virtual nova creatio. Futurist oriented dialectical theologies thus conceal a utopian agenda. Utopia, in this meaning, retains the original sense of the word utopia, that is "no-place." For them, the history of redemption is moving to a future form never before seen or imagined by man in this creation.
Moltmann realistically modifies the revolutionary implications of this theory by accepting the already-but-not-yet tension of contemporary eschatology. However, even in doing this, the utopian future principle that his theory introduces into the present still acts now as a radical sign-post of a hoped-for future (Moltmann 1979). The institutional church, as the sphere of the nova creatio, must be the present model of the future.
The moderating function of Moltmann's theory comes from the patience and realism the already-but-not-yet schema introduces to his radical rejection of protological design-norms and creational structures. This allows him to reject most structure overturning, revolutionary violence, the methodology of classic Marxism-Leninism and many forms of Liberation Theology.
Moltmann and most other nova creationists seem to prefer the slow but steady incremental overturning of "backward looking" social structures through the ballot box. This is the methodology of European social democracy. It is as coercive as revolutionary violence. Both use the weapons of state police and armies. It, however, substitutes gradual coercion for revolutionary violence (see critique in Novak 1991).
Theologies of hope, as well as other related theologies, all reject "reactionary" creational theologies. The result is that they are sympathetic with structure-overturning ideologies seeking social forms never before realized in human history. Therefore, these theologies tend to favor the ordination of women and homosexuals and reject any form of church built upon ethno-cultural solidarity.
Nova creatio futurist theologies strongly tend to social radicalism even when structure-overturning rhetoric is moderated and an incremental approach to change is advocated. This may explain the difference between the radical doctrinal and moderate application sections of C&S (see chapter two).
This position of a future, nova creatio proleptively worked out now, is similar to that of several of the adherents of the Radical Reformation. Apartheid theologian F. J. M. Potgieter correctly cites Herman Bavinck to warn that the doctrine of nova creatio is "not Reformed but Anabaptistic" (Potgieter 1990, 45; see also Balke 1981). In contrast to this, the biblically orthodox position has always been that "grace does not destroy but perfects nature"; thus the "goal of grace [is not] . . . a creatio ex nihilo" (Schuurman 1991, 157).
The second alternative in the attempt to relate protology to eschatology is that of repristination, the return to a pristine Edenic existence in the end. This view has often had a small minority following throughout church history and is based on a cyclical view of history that inevitably returns to a mythical golden age. It normally manifests itself in libertine-communalist sects that imagine the first creation as a paradise without law, social class, marriage and work (see Cohn 1970, chapter 10: "The equalitarian state of nature;" Eliade 1965; Dahl 1964). In the end, these movements advocate a society similar to that envisioned by nova creationists.
Ironically, Moltmann accuses the orthodox recapitulatio or renovation (reparatio) view of being based on this cyclical return myth. Orthodox time orientation, however, has never been cyclical, but always linear. Creation moves inexorably on until the Final Day. This is the true basis for a doctrine of progressive dynamism (see Nisbet 1980; Eliade 1965). To be socially dynamic, the orthodox church does not need to look forward to a future utopia coming from the past.
Recapitulatio, the word Ireneaus used against the Gnostics, does not, therefore, imply a simple repristination of the creation in Christ, because Eden is gone forever. Recapitulatio "is rather the present and future restoration of the fallen creation to all it was meant to be" (Spykman 1992, 143).
The last alternative, therefore, in discovering the relationship of protology to eschatology is that of transformatio mundi. It has historically been the orthodox position. It found its culmination in Calvin and his followers. The renewed, transformed creation has arrived in Christ but is not yet perfected. There are several characteristics differentiating the Reformed position from other worldviews.
First of all, recapitulatio does not add something to an always imperfect nature as in dualist worldviews. In Roman Catholic dualism, for example, grace adds something to nature, so that "salvation is something basically 'non-creational,' supercreational, or even anticreational." These dualists believe that what Christ adds to creation is a holy, ecclesiatical realm, the holy Roman Church, while the creation itself belongs to a worldly or secular realm (Wolters 1985, 11). A similar sort of dualism is shared by many pietistic evangelicals and by dialectical theology (see Dooyeweerd 1979).
Secondly, recapitulatio does not leave creation Ordnungen virtually intact under natural law as in Luther's view. Sin has corrupted and polluted "every structure of humanity and the world." However, "God's abundant grace in Christ triumph[s] . . . even more" than sin. The Gospel is good news of the transforming renewal of "humanity, [it is] for the family, for society, for the state, for art and science, for the entire cosmos" groaning under the curse (Bavinck 1988/1992, 224).
Thirdly, the future in a Reformed worldview follows historic orthodoxy. Both see continuity with the past in the concept of creation design-norms, and extrapolation of the originally good creation into a future that is progressively partaking of redemption. Orthodoxy organizes history "around the central insight that 'grace restores nature.'" Salvation thus is "to salvage a sin-disrupted creation" (Wolters 1985, 11).
History is paradise lost; redemption is paradise regained. Sin perverts, and grace restores, the good creation. The eschaton, accordingly, is the full restoration of the good original creation. (Schuurman 1991, 104)
The end is thus a maturation of the beginning. "The Bible begins and ends with creation terms!" (König 1988, 108). Dahl ascribes this "positive correlation of 'eschatology' and 'protology'" as holding "a very firm position within the ancient Church" (Dahl 1964, 423). Not only the anti-Gnostic fathers, but the common tradition of the Church [agreed]. . . . The idea that God will make "the last things like the first things" (Barn. vi.13) is used as a [common] hermeneutical principle for the interpretation of Genesis. (Dahl 1964, 423-424)
Irenaeus used recapitulatio or a*nakefaloivwsi" to describe this process of correlating the end with the beginning. The word has several implications.
First, all things, including all men, are to be summed up under Christ's headship (see Eph 1:10, Ireneaus' key text). The protological sin never affected him. In him, all of mankind returns to his proper head as the only source of life. From this flows "the renewal of life in men's public and private lives" (Wingren 1959, 174). Irenaeus clearly saw redemptive history as the growth of the church in every people and tongue.
Second, the word recapitulatio implies restoration to a matured form of the original creation. Paul in Romans (8:18-39) clearly states that the first creation will "not be abolished. . . . [I]t will be delivered" (House 1992, 13). The future thus brings the maturity of the original creation. Just as a flower is the outworking of the created potential of the bud, or just as a child grows up into adulthood, so the City of New Jerusalem is the outworking of Edenic potentials. Recapitulatio implies, therefore, a backward and forward look. Grace in Christ restores and reforms the original creation, bringing with it a growing maturity which wars against and overcomes sin.
Third, recapitulatio implies repetition. The second Adam repeats the first Adam's history with opposite results. However, man in Christ has been growing and differentiating. Hence the word, in Ireneaus, does not imply mere reversion to mankind's original pristine immaturity. Recapitulatio "contains the idea of perfection or consummation" because "man's growth is resumed and renewed" in Christ (Wingren 1959, 174).
Christ, then, is the Recapitulator, the "pattern of the new humanity," in orthodox, anti-Gnostic theology (House 1992, 13). He repeated Adamic history in his sinless birth as the second Adam. In his life, resurrection, ascension he repeats, restores and consummates all things lost by Adam until his Second coming when he sums up all things in Himself in actuality. "There is an unbroken unity in the whole of Christ's work right up to the events of the last time � everything is recapitulatio" (Wingren 1959, 194; Ac 3:21ff). Ireneaus saw this clearly: "From beginning to end recapitualtio involves a continuum which stage by stage is realised in time" (Wingren 1959, 193).
As "an expression of recapitulation," (Wingren 1959, 171), the Body of Christ, as the people of God militant in culture, act as leaven, salt, and light in all institutions of society. Christ as the Recapitulator is now working recapitualtio in his body until the last day (Ps 110). "Christ's work in itself is finished and complete, but it has not yet extended to every part of human life" (Wingren 1959, 171). Christ thus is the proton and the eschaton, the first and last (König 1989).
In conclusion, this dissertation follows classic biblical orthodoxy in eschatology. Thus, the last things are "squarely based upon biblical protology, [in which] the ending of history could only be comprehensible within categories by which the beginning of history is described" (Gage 1984, 8). Mankind-in-Christ is restored in Christ already, but also looks forward to being restored both as individuals and communities. A recapitulated Christian person and a restored Christian society is fully and healthily human, as they were designed to be. Hence Christian society and Christian individuals are not eccentric or out-of-step with the development of history. The effect is that the church as God's steward "is turned outwards towards the world. Its function is to protect whatever has been created from the forces that destroy life" (Wingren 1971, 8). Only in this sense is Christianity conservative.
The recapitulatio principle of the classic Eschatology of Victory does not accept the radical perspective followed by Luther. This "puts an end to the law by announcing its fulfillment" (Braaten 1974, 119). Man was created in covenant with the Creator as Sovereign King and Lord of the Universe: "in creation God covenanted his kingdom into existence" (Spykman 1992, 11). Part of his kingdom's rule was an implicit covenant with an ethical standard, a law. The law of God was revealed in the heart of man and in the explicit words of the Creator (see e.g., Ge 1:26,29; 2:16-17,24). That law order, since it is based on the character of the Creator who is unchanging, is itself absolute and unchanging (Ps(s) 19, 119).
Mankind broke the royal law, and God sent a covenantal curse upon Adam, his seed through history, and the creation (see Ge 3; Ro 8:19ff). However, the Suzerain graciously consented to restore man and cursed creation through the redemptive renewal of the original covenant of creation.
Recapitulation assumes the continuity of the "historical covenants of Jahweh with his people" (Braaten 1974, 119). Those covenants began in the Garden and are progressively renewed until Christ completes their intention in his renewed covenant (see Robertson 1980; Dumbrell 1984; Sutton 1987; Van der Waal 1990). Christ the King restored the broken covenantal law by obeying it completely as it was originally designed to be (Ge 3:15; Ro 5:12ff, 16:20; Rev 12:7-9). Each renewal of the covenant of the King reaffirmed the originally revealed design-norms of Eden in a progressively more specific manner.
Grace thus neither abolishes the created covenantal design nor does it abolish the King's law, which is the norm of that design. Instead, Christ, the King's Anointed Son (Ps 2; Ac 2), affirms and restores the correct use of the creation as he restores the King's covenant law (Mt 5:19ff). The King commands dominion oriented, covenant keeping families to transform their various cultures on the basis of the comprehensive rule of the covenantal law-ethic first given in the Garden. "Covenant and kingdom are like two sides of a single coin" (Spykman 1992, 11).
The message of the covenant of redemption is kingdom oriented from the beginning. The "original covenant stands forever as the abiding foundation and norm for life in God's world" (Spykman 1992, 12).
The recapitulatio principle rejects the dialectical view of the law, followed by Luther, Anabaptists, most pietists, and neo-orthodoxy. These teachers and movements do not understand that the covenant law of Moses was essentially the original covenant law of creation. That, in turn, finds true restoration in the new covenant in Christ. Dialectical worldviews tend to teach instead that Jesus introduces a neo-nomos that "presuppos[es] [radically new] eschatological provisions of the [future] kingdom" (Braaten 1974, 119).
Futurist oriented, dialectical theologians often teach that the rule of justice through the law is an inherent part of the fallen order of this age (e.g., Moltmann 1979). The old law is not part of the "perfections of Christ" in the new order. This is similar to what the early Anabaptists taught. In Christ a "new law of love is at work in the same contexts of life" dealt with by the old law (Braaten 1974, 119). Again similar to the views of the Radical Reformation, this ultimately results in two differing norms for the secular and spiritual kingdoms.
The recapitulatio principle teaches the opposite because of its continuity principle. Instead of two norms, it teaches that there is only one normative order for all spheres of life and for all cultures. The Mosaic-Prophetic law is a model for all peoples (see e.g., Lev 18:1-23, esp. 24-30; Dt 4:5-8; Ps 9:5-12; Jer 50:14-15,29; Eze 5:5-6, 14:12-23). Jesus, the Davidic King, is thus a "second Moses," delivering from the Mount the correct interpretation of the law (see Ridderbos 1982). He is the Great Prophet foreseen by Moses (Dt 18:18; Ac 3:22-23, 7:37).
Christ's kingdom and his law, as understood in orthodoxy, is therefore not merely future looking. In a real sense it is also backward looking. The principle of recapitulation is both conservative, if that which is to be conserved is indeed built on created design-norms, and dynamically transformative. There is continuity between creation and eschaton, not conflictual, dialectical dualism. As a result, there is no theological necessity to give "hermeneutical priority" to either the beginning or the end (see Schuurman 1991, 151-153).
Secondly, recapitulation in Christ, the Second Moses, does not imply that the institutional church is the only part of the creation that partakes of restoration. All things have come under his sovereignty as an inheritance from his Father (Ps 2). All things are being brought under his headship, his grace, and his law. This includes all kings, families and peoples of earth. The last thing to be totally conquered by him is death itself (Ps(s) 2, 47 [NIV], 96, 110; Ac 2; Eph 1:20; 1Co 15; Heb 2). That occurs at the resurrection. In the meantime, he is progressively putting all his enemies under his feet (Ps 110).
This dissertation adds to the orthodox recapitulatio theme a modified form of the classic Puritan hope (see Murray 1971). An optimistic eschatology has been much refined since the time when postmillennialism was the consensus of most denominations (see De Jong 1970; Kik 1971; Murray 1971; Bahnsen 1976-77; Kreitzer 1991; Schirrmacher 1996; WLC, 191; see implicit optimism of HC, 48). This dissertation adopts the term, "eschatology of victory" (Kik 1971) or optimillennialism to describe this position of realistic optimism.
Optimillennialism combines the "already-but-not-yet" consensus of amillennialism with the realistic anticipation that the peoples and cultures of the world will be substantially discipled before the second coming (see McGavran 1955). This means that Christ's reign has earthly effects as it is progressively actualized upon earth by the collective, faith-filled works of God's people (Mt 6:9-13; Col 3:1ff; see WLC, 191; HC, 48).
This does not imply that mankind brings in the kingdom. Christ has already brought it in. However, as the King works now through his people, his kingdom acts as leaven upon all the peoples and cultures of earth (Mt 13). The Spirit of the King works now already, through obedient men, to bring comprehensive kingdom growth (North 1990a). That work, on the other hand, is not yet perfect, nor will it be until the resurrection. This allows for a realistic faith that the Great Commission can and must be fulfilled before Christ comes. In the world there always will be tribulation, but that does not mean we should not always look forward to ever greater works and an ever greater spread of his kingdom before the end.
Optimillennialism gives a biblical futurist orientation to God's people's dominion work under the Cultural Mandate. This is in direct contrast to much of the futurist orientation of contemporary theology. The modern theological consensus accepts the church as an exclusively "eschatological event," one not in continuity with the creation and covenants of the past.
Viewing the church as an eschatological event means that the church is not founded upon the past Edenic Dominion Covenant (Ge 1:26-27) and the covenant promises of the patriarchs and prophets. It is thus not modeled upon the design of Abraham's created extended family, a national unity in sub-ethnic diversity. This covenantal continuity perspective focuses upon a foundation consisting of both the individual and the family group(s). In direct contrast, the modern consensus seems instead to teach that the church is founded upon the work of Christ's kerygma exclusively applied to the individual hearer or responder alone. The groups of the Old Testament past are an anachronism, overcome by the always present of the word proclaimed (kerygma).
Emphasis upon group solidarity, because it comes from the past, is thus relativized or denied. The church, therefore, is the preliminary and anticipatory form in today's world of an exclusively future kingdom that Christ brought to humanity.
Most contemporary theology sees this exclusively future kingdom as proleptively present now. "Prolepsis" means "anticipation." Therefore, the kingdom is present "in the person of Christ first, and then in those incorporated into his love, into his freedom, his peace and the fullness of his life," that is, his church (Braaten 1974, 82). In other words, the present church anticipates now what will be in the future.
According to many proleptic theologians, the opposite of proleptic eschatology is anachronistic theology and anachronistic eschatology. Proleptic eschatology perceives the church to be a microcosm and anticipation of what the future world will look like. The church must therefore reject in its structures all backward looks to the creation such as is found in anachronistic eschatology. It must reject the anachronistic structures and social order built upon the past. "Just as anachronism limps after time, so prolepsis hurries ahead of it, already realizing today what is to be tomorrow" (Moltmann 1979, 47). Kuyperian and Latin Thomistic theologies and eschatologies that desire to recapitulate in the future the past creation structures are thus rejected.
The doctrine of prolepsis has further ethical implications. "Just as the coming God already antedates his future, giving it in advance in history," Moltmann states, "men and women can and should anticipate this future in knowledge and in deed" (Moltmann 1979, 47). The church and its ministry of word and sacrament are therefore the "spearhead of the kingdom of God, which moves through both the church and the world" (Moltmann 1979, 47).
The result of this spearhead effect is that the in-breaking Kingdom sets up "signs of the kingdom not only in the church's sacraments but also in the world's struggles for brotherhood, equality and freedom" (Braaten 1974, 83). Such proleptic anticipation creates hope for those who have identified with the poor, and "who with the poor hope for the new, liberating future of God." Proleptic eschatology then "is not content with the present, but does not take the place of consummation either. It is the 'now already' in the midst of the 'not yet'" (Moltmann 1979, 47).
In other words, the signs of God's kingdom for which people must now unite to work are the three slogans of the French Revolution: fraternity, equality, and liberty. This alone anticipates the final eschaton. Proleptic eschatology must therefore work backward from a postulated equalitarian future to the oppressive non-equalitarian present. Prolepsis teaches that there "cannot be an extrapolation of the future from history" (Moltmann 1979, 48). The opposite is the case. The present must begin to anticipate the never-before-seen future. The in-breaking future brings liberation into present oppression.
The WCC has published a comprehensive survey of the growing consensus in the world church (Roman Catholic, WCC, and Orthodox) concerning this proleptic eschatology. G�nther Gassmann, who was Director of the WCC's Faith and Order Commission, surveys the adoption of the "newly adopted ecclesiological terminology," which describes the unity of the church using the "terms sacrament, sign and instrument" (Gassmann 1986, 13; see also Dulles 1974).
In this growing ecumenical consensus, the unity of the church is never seen as an end it itself. It is a sign, that is a "pointer, symbol, example and model," and a sacrament, in the sense of "anticipation" in itself of the coming unity of humanity in the kingdom. It is also an "effective means or tool" in itself to help bring that coming unity into effect. "The church is sign, sacrament and instrument of God's love, of his rule, his universal plan of salvation for all humankind in Jesus Christ" (Gassmann 1986, 14). Thus the church in itself is the "sign of the coming union of all human beings in God's kingdom, the redemption of creation and the fulfilment of all things" (Gassmann 1986, 14).
Gassmann further explains that the unity of humankind that is to come was initially understood in realized eschatological terms (Cullman and Dodd) but has been shifting to an "eschatological perspective" (likely under influence of various futurist eschatologies spawned by J. Moltmann and W. Pannenberg). The totally new future is now proleptively present in the church. The church, thus, is the vanguard of the coming unified and just world. It is an "anticipatory sign" of a future perfected reconciliation and hope for the world and for humanity (Gassmann 1986, 14).
Thus, logically, the church in its institutional structures must model the future kingdom's unity, liberty, justice and brotherhood to the world. The church gives to the world an encouraging model of how it should dismantle and replace unjust, divisive relationships and oppressive social structures.
There is some truth in the concept that the present must anticipate the future. In orthodox theology, the church must indeed model or be a sign now of perfected kingdom relationships. "The Church is summoned to be the militant vanguard of God's
Kingdom in an ecclesiastical way" (Heyns 1980, 28). However, since WCC theology does not accept the classic recapitulative eschatological perspective outlined above, it departs significantly from orthodoxy. First of all, it must be socially antinomian (the subject of a later chapter) and secondly it must be at least moderately utopian.
In other words, the defining norm for justice, liberty, unity, and brotherhood is a never-before-seen future vision of the kingdom. That kingdom is cut off from any creational norms as summarized in the Decalogue. For example, using Moltmann's theology as a base, J. M. Lochman writes the following for a recent WCC colloquium. He claims that the Spirit combats all "obstacles and rifts between human beings which are barriers to the achievement of unity." He lists "cultural, social and religious" barriers as examples. Thus the Spirit, he says, is "determined to overcome obstacles and to tear down barriers which keep human beings apart . . . so as to renew human community." He concludes, "Every form of 'apartheid' is sin � indeed, in this concrete sense, the sin against the Holy Spirit" (Lochman 1986, 71).
Clearly for Lochman, since the defining social norms are not derived from a careful exegetical understanding of the law-order of revelation, they must be derived from the surrounding humanist culture. Biblical norms are then redefined by the
standards of humanist culture. What is rejected is the explicit biblical content of social norms as classically defined within the context of the one continuously present covenant of grace. This, as shall be demonstrated in this and following chapters, is also what the NGK's C&S document does.
Gassmann spells out some of the implications of this new understanding of the relationship of the church, the future kingdom, and its norms to the world's society.
The sign-character of the church is not purely "spiritual" but, according to an incarnational understanding of the church, needs to be set in relationship to the conflicts, needs and hopes of our world. (Gassmann 1986, 14)
For the WCC, the unity of the church is closely connected to the unity of humankind.
Putting its teaching into practice, the WCC has spent many millions of its parishioners' money to help build a unified, just, and more equal world. The Program to Combat Racism (PCR) in southern Africa, with the millions given to southern African revolutionary liberation movements, is an example (see Tingle 1992). This type of social activism is a logical outworking of the futurist, equalitarian eschatology adopted by the WCC.
The working for the unity of the church as a model pointing to the future of the world globalizes not just international
politics but also national and local politics. For example, the official documents of the WCC's World Conference on Church and Society in 1966 have a definite bias against decentralization of power. The conference clearly states that the implication of the fact that God "created and redeemed the whole world" was that national sovereignty must be diminished in the search for a global "just distribution not only of wealth but also of health, education, security, housing and opportunity" (WCC 1967, 89). The WCC was urged to study global taxation and certain "regional and world-wide institutions" to coordinate redistributionary social justice (WCC 1967, 92).
Thus the WCC interprets "protection or advancement of sectional interests" as morally repugnant and inconsistent with the love of God for the "whole of his creation" (WCC 1967, 89). The WCC defines "sectional interests" as particular nations, classes, industries, or individuals. To emphasize these is always "at the expense of the good of [the whole of] humanity" (WCC 1967, 89). Accordingly, centralized structures are best because de-centralized units of even a federal state can "preserve local injustices that the federal government seeks to remove" (WCC 1967, 99).
Furthermore, the WCC church and society documents gratefully acknowledged the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a standard for social justice. That declaration is praised as already having achieved a "significant impact" in social justice though not yet a sufficient impact (WCC 1967, 103). Furthermore, the documents claim that national unity with these universal human rights should be the goal in all multi-ethnic countries such as South Africa. This is because this ideal best serves the "effective mobilization of the economic resources of the state in order to achieve social justice" (WCC 1967, 107; see C&S, 184-205, 267).
The WCC here clearly opted as the ideal socio-political order a unified, powerful, centralized state checked only by human rights. This description would apply equally to most Social Democratic states including the United States. This ideal has been realized in the present South African constitution and anticipates, as shall be seen, the ideal state of Church and Society (1990) of the NGK.
1. A good creation implies that the universe is not in danger of falling into chaotic division destroying primal unity.
2. The structures of created reality are revelatory, not mere givens, even when polluted by death and sin.
3. Redemptive history is not a movement away from an always impinging human division. Redemptive history thus is not a movement toward social-equalitarian unity in centralized-unified institutions. History restores the covenant fidelity to the Creator's original design, in matured form for all spheres.
4. Gender, class, or lingual-culture group divisions are not evil in themselves.
5. Schöpfungsordungen, that is static and non-developing creation orders designed to protect against an ever-impinging human social chaos-division, are not biblical.
6. God gave man stewardship for cultivating, protecting, and advancing God's providential design. This includes God-created languages and culture groups.
7. Both indigenous church planting and the transformation of ethno-culture are top priority (see Gentry 1990).
8. To preserve an Afrikaner Christianized culture and language is just, if truly directed by biblical norms.
As seen in chapter four, C&S rejects, among other key passages, those found in the proto-history (Ge 1-11). The reason is that the Bible's "own nature and character" (C&S, 21) is an exclusively kerygmatic, kingdom oriented document: "The Bible as
proclamation of God's kingdom is not a textbook. . . ." Instead, it is the book of the "Good News [i.e. Gospel] that God in his grace seeks out human beings, . . . redeems them, . . . and entrusts them . . . with a supreme calling" (C&S, 19).
"The NGK and Scripture" (chap. 3) discusses this issue extensively. Of particular note are the comments concerning the use of Scripture as a handboek or manual for the social sciences. In sum, the General Synod explicitly denies that the excluded passages can be used "as a Scriptural basis for political models" (C&S, 22) and thus certainly cannot be used as a "textbook on, inter alia, sociology, economics or politics" (C&S, 19). All the excluded passages listed in paragraph 22 have been used by various groups to give norms for the judging of or "deduc[ing] a particular social or political policy" (C&S, 21).
First of all, the excised passages theoretically should exclude any Christian group from developing and applying biblical models for socio-political (re)construction. This does not seem to be the case. In actual fact, it seems those passages that would aid confessional conservatives in (re)building a Christian society are more likely to be excluded than those aiding social and theological radicals with their vision.
An examination of these passages is therefore in order.
1. Genesis 2:18 deals with the making of Eve as Adam's helper.
2. Genesis 10-11; Deuteronomy 32:8; Proverbs 22:28; Acts 2:8, 17:26; Galatians 3:28-29; and Revelation 21:3, 24 give factual, background information necessary to construct a biblical doctrine of (1) the creation of the ethnic groups, (2) their continuation into the eschaton, and (3) the necessity of all peoples coming into the one church of Christ. All of these, except Galatians 3:28-29, are used by the exclusivists and Afrikaner proponents of apartheid.
Other passages listed deal with the unity and diversity of the church (Jn 17:20-23, 1Co 12). Their excision from the corpus of relevant Scriptures implicitly denies that the structure of the church, as a unified Body, is a proleptic sign of how the future of the world will look. Thus C&S says that the excised passages teach nothing about what ideals socio-political and economic
institutions should follow. The unified structure of the church is not a metaphor concerning God's future plan for the rest of the institutions of creation.
If this is a correct implication, then C&S rejects the use of these passages by social radicals. However, it seems that the document is internally contradictory at this point. It definitely does say the church is a paradigmatic sign of the future, as shall be seen below.
In summary, the reason for these exclusions could thus possibly be explained by two theories. Either one or both of the theories seem to be the only viable possibilities for the arbitrary excision of the passages listed. In the case that both possible theories have some validity, then the document is internally contradictory at this point.
First of all, C&S could possibly have moved to a focus upon the kingdom as an exclusively spiritual phenomenon not dealing with specific mundane affairs. As seen above, this is common in pietistic circles and among dialectical theologians.
C&S (1986), 42-43 explicitly claimed that the Bible is reduced to a spiritual gospel. However, this passage has been removed from the revised edition presently being evaluated. Even though it has been removed, this could still remain an implicit motif within the document as a whole.
The second theory is that the NGK has adopted some form of Third Article futurism. Both will be examined in order. First, however, a possible motive for the paradigm shift needs to be examined.
Could expediency possibly be a crucial motive for the reason why such excised passages listed above are singled out as not applicable to the development of a viable Reformed social theology and ethic for southern Africa? As chapter two showed, there are very strong voices and directions in the church moving it towards rapprochement with the SACC and the WCC. Thus there would be a strong pragmatic need to reject the relevance of most of these embarrassing passages because they were and are used by proponents of ethnically exclusive church and state.
This the WCC emphatically rejects. For one representative example, note that the WCC's conference on church and society urged its member churches everywhere
to make organized efforts to eradicate from the Church and Christian community all forms of discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin in the selection of persons for church leadership, admission to the membership of congregations, and in adapting social and cultural values and traditions to the present" (WCC 1967, 175-176; see Richardson 1977, Webb 1994 for comprehensive documentation)
The evidence seems to point to such a pragmatic need.
However, a theological paradigm shift is most likely the deepest underlying motive. Therefore, a first hypothesis as to why C&S excises the relevant passages is that it adopts Second Article reductionism. Only a comprehensive biblical faith that uses such First Article concepts as design-norms, covenantal law, and so forth can develop socio-political models.
C&S teaches that Scripture must not be read directly into "our own circumstances and problems," reducing it to a "recipe book with instant solutions for all human problems" (C&S, 18). Instead, the distinctive "character, composition and style," and each book's "particular situation" must be taken into account. Thus "any superficial interpretation or application of biblical statements" must be "completely rejected" because they ignore "the specific nature, context, style, purpose and historical situation" of each pericope, book, and genre.
This could very well be harmonized with classic Reformed hermeneutics. However, as seen in chapter four, many in the NGK accept the higher critical assumption that Scripture is made up of more than one theology. This denies perspicuity and the concept that human nature and hence norms and remedies are the same for all humans in all times and cultures. Therefore, the Scripture has no direct application to today.
Secondly, most theologians in the NGK reject the Creation account and the rest of the proto-history as factual history. A great many would reject the fifteenth-century BC date of the composition of the Pentateuch, adopting some form of the Documentary Hypothesis. This means that no statement in these books can ever be taken at face value.
Taking the point to its logical conclusion, the Creation account or the Decalogue, for example, cannot be used as "recipe book with instant solutions" (C&S, 18) to the issues directly addressed in these accounts (e.g., Ge 1:28 and Ps 8; Ge 2:2 and Ex 20:11, 31:17; Heb 4:4; Ge 2:24 and Mt 19:5 and 1Co 6:16; Eph 5:31; Ge 1-2 and Ro 5:12ff).
Following Christ and the Apostles, classic Reformed theology has always taught that the Creation and the Decalogue are immediately applicable to every group and time in human history. The creation account is the necessary prolegomenon to both the law and the gospel.
Therefore, taking these higher critical assumptions as a given, C&S seems to mean that the excised passages have been subjected to complex higher critical syllogisms and have come out being rejected as relevant truth. The substratum of relevant truth left to the church is merely the gospel truths proclaimed in the Second Article.
The implication thus is that only ecclesiastical experts trained in the various Redaction and Form Critical theories or the various theories of the origin of the Pentateuch, the historical books, the pre- and post-exilic prophets, the pseudonymous books (e.g., Daniel), the Synoptics, Acts, the Epistles, and so forth can understand these and other passages. Scripture becomes a dark book to the man in the pew. By taking the Bible out of the hands of the people, the General Synod would be almost making itself into a collective, Medieval papacy � a virtual synodocracy.
Old Testament professor P. A. Verhoef, writing in a commentary on the C&S commissioned by the General Synod, tries to refute this conclusion. "Now does this mean, some want to know, that the Bible can only be exposited by experts?" Verhoef writes. "In this perspective, are we not in the process of becoming Roman Catholic? Is not the Bible meant for the normal believer?" (Verhoef 1987, 6).
Verhoef's answer is two-fold. First, he claims that the synod was mistaken on several things in the past and, in like manner, has now "come to other, deeper insights" (Verhoef 1987, 10). Verhoef, however, does not explain why in the new insights of the present, higher critically trained experts and theologians seem to contradict certain foundational truths validated by previous synods, including the one adopting the Belgic Confession. For example, to deny the use of significant Scripture passages, using the "new insight" that the scopus of Scripture is largely kingdom, kerygma and gospel oriented, is certainly a fundamental paradigm shift away from the classic Reformed position.
He secondly claims that "the Bible speak[s] in clear language," but only concerning the gospel. Thus it is only the gospel that people can understand "without necessary intermediaries to exposit the Bible for us" (Verhoef 1987, 11). The rest of Scripture not dealing specifically with the gospel, Verhoef concludes, cannot be understand apart from experts. For the rest, "theologians are necessary" (Verhoef 1987, 11).
All of this fits within the hypothesis that the General Synod has adopted a form of Second Article reductionism sketched in preceding pages.
A second theory is that C&S has adopted a form of Third Article futurism. As discussed earlier, this ecumenical theology views the kingdom as a future reality that introduces into the church totally-new creation (nova creatio) role relationships. In this nova creatio, the kingdom is always in the process of becoming, and hence it has always been cut off from any normative root in a literal creation. According to this interpretation, the passages excised from the proto-history are by and large based upon mythological accounts that do not teach fact but only a moral ideal. That ideal is the unity of mankind that has been "lost" and needs to be "restored" in the kingdom of God by the redemption in Christ. Therefore, the world is in itself "broken and
divided." The church, as the proclaimer of the unique, new creation-kingdom, must "make this unity visible" (see C&S, 81, pt. 2.9.3).
2.8 The church is a window to God's imminent new world
As God's new creation, and as the sphere of the Holy Spirit's
operation, the church must in all its activities provide a glimpse of the future. The divisions within the church must not be accepted as normal. In the church, love must triumph over enmity and hate, the truth over falsehood, unity over division, reconciliation and peace over violence and confrontation. Only In this way will the church be a true church, and prove to be a credible window to the future of our Lord Jesus Christ. (C&S, 72, bold in original)
This future new creation-kingdom focus of the church must flow out into all of life. The church thus seems to be the model for the world. Immediately after speaking about the kingdom focus of Scripture, C&S spells out its implications. C&S, 22, which excises the relevant passages listed above, is one of those implications. The following paragraph gives the next implication of the kingdom's gospel focus:
[This means] . . . that the new relationships in which the citizens of the Kingdom were placed . . . causes them to have a solemn calling which must be practised in all walks of life. (C&S, 23)
The implication seems to be that Christians must first center on the church as institution. This affects all human relationships.
For this reason attention is given firstly to the nature and calling of the church and the relationships which result therefrom, and secondly to personal and group relationships as viewed from the perspective of the [future] kingdom. (C&S, 23; emphasis in original)
J. Kinghorn understands the radical implications of this change in the definition of the church. The change, he perceives, has already begun to permeate the rest of the NGK's social theology as well. C&S' "church-centered" ecclesiology is experiencing a "de-ideologization" [ontideologisering] from apartheid's "non-ecclesial ideas." Individual faith alone, irrespective of ethnic or racial background, is now the only prerequisite for church membership (Kinghorn 1989, 38, 37).
This shift in ecclesiology, begun slightly in HRLS, has now reached parity in C&S (1986) with the older race and people based social theology of creation. This movement is of "greatest importance" because, he anticipates, it can "overflow in the end with a fundamental shift in the [NGK's] standpoint on apartheid [in society]" (Kinghorn 1989, 38).
This emphasis upon the future kingdom makes the church the unique sphere of a new creation. The church as institution thus becomes a "model" for all of society. In other words, the church as an equalitarian society must preview what all the rest of society should strive now to become.
A second line of evidence concerning a possible Third Article futurist orientation is the direct use of terminology claiming that the church is a window upon the coming future kingdom. For example: "The church is a window to God's imminent new world." Therefore, "as God's new creation, and as the sphere of the Holy Spirit's operation, the church must . . . provide a glimpse of the future" (C&S, 72, see whole quote above; bold in original).
Another example is C&S' point 3.4.3, which states: "The church must summon its members, equip them, and send them out to serve the coming of the kingdom in society" (C&S, 227, see also C&S, 72).
Taken by itself, many orthodox theologians could have written this. However, the following paragraphs clarify the meaning. "3.4.4 The church must furnish society with a living example of what God's work of re-creation accomplishes in people's lives." To accomplish this, and to "lend credibility to its [kingdom] proclamation," "the church must in its very existence establish a visible symbol and concrete expression of the Kingdom of God." This means further that the "church must be a living display window of what God in his grace accomplishes" (C&S, 229).
The following paragraph (C&S, 230) shows the social structural implications of this social ethic:
In contrast to the social structures emanating from creation, the church is the only social structure which is the fruit of God's re-creation. It is the first-fruit of his new creation. (C&S, 230)
This paragraph is then a commentary on the phrase used several times in C&S concerning the church as a "unique" fellowship.
It seems certain that here C&S is not in continuity with covenantal thought on the nature of the church. Classic Reformed theology defines the church as the people of God through the ages beginning with the first family in the Garden and continuing into the family of Abraham, then fulfilled in the family of Abraham's seed, who is the Second Adam (BC, 27).
Reformed Theology teaches that the New Testament ecclesia is a multi-national people of God, the qahal Yahweh in every people. It is not merely an institution which is a "unique wonder of regeneration by God in a sinful and broken world" (C&S, 24). The church of Christ is the community of faithful, covenant-bound families, who live out their obedience in the socio-political order, the family, the school, private organizations, and in the cultus (see Olthuis and others 1972; Rushdoony 1986).
The church institute is not the center of life but only one of several institutions partaking of new covenant life. This does not deny, however, that the church as the people of God in all walks of life is the mediating channel of God's salt and light to the unbelieving world-system. The goal is to have the world and its kingdoms become in deed what they are in title, the kingdom of God, which his Christ has inherited (Ps 2; Jn 1:2-3; Col 1:13-20; Heb 1:2-3; Rev 11:15).
C&S sees the church as the immediate opposite. As a "unique creation" (C&S, 25), the "unique nature of the church" must be respected. We must "not assess it in terms of the notions of this sinful, passing world, or confuse it with the institutions of the present sinful reality" (C&S, 26).
Again the above could perhaps be read in the light of orthodox theology. However, two theological errors need to be taken into account first to correctly understand what C&S seems to mean here. First of all, most NGK theologians do not believe the creation account of the proto-history is literal history. This would then imply that death and evil must be inherent in the world itself. The church, then, must become the only institution that has ever partaken of creation newness. The new creation is thus not a recapitulation of the first creation. It is in this sense, C&S seems to be claiming, that the church is unique. In itself as structure, it anticipates the "total newness" of the future kingdom. At this time sin and divisive evil will no longer be a constituent part of the essence of the old creation called in C&S "the passing world."
If this perspective on C&S is accurate, then Kinghorn's deduction concerning the meaning of this "uniqueness" of the church is again correct:
Logically . . . then . . . the church is not bound to the structures or biases of the society in which the church operates. In (the body of) Christ the normal distinctions between man and woman, slave and free man, and there also between race and nation, are not normative.
Obviously, this has far-reaching implications for the question as to how the unity of the church should take visible shape. (Kinghorn 1990c, 30)
Verhoef's commentary on C&S supports this understanding of an implicit nova creatio principle in C&S. He claims that the church is not "rooted in the nation, but in the incarnation." It is not built upon creation but upon the recreation (Verhoef 1987, 19). The General Synod Commission (GSC) similarly criticizes the Faith and Protest (F&P) apartheid theologians for rejecting C&S. F&P, they claim, determines the nature of the church by means of the fallen creation, not the new creation: "Thus the origin of the church is situated not in nature but in grace" (GSC 1988, 10, 11, 18).
To accept this dichotomy between the creation and new creation is virtually to accept (1) a semi-Docetic christology claiming that Christ has a humanity not derived from the inherently imperfect creation and (2) a form of the Radical Reformation's dictum that Christ's body was a heavenly body not derived from Adam through Mary (see Balke 1981; Potgieter 1990). Both destroy Christ's right to recapitulate Adamic history in reverse, because to do so, Christ has to partake in the same created humanity that Adam possessed before the fall.
The implicit assumption here is that the original creation was not "very good," as the Scripture states. Contrary to Verhoef and the GSC, the church is built on both the creation and the new creation, both Adam's creation and the Second Adam's incarnation. New creation and incarnation are both in recapitulative continuity with the good original creation. Thus it is not evil to build the church upon creational design-norms and creational forms (e.g., the family and the extended family). As shall be seen, this is fundamental to the Reformation's covenantal doctrine of the church.
While denying that Christians may use Scripture-based models for social transformation, C&S actually turns around and uses one. This model's worldview assumptions are actually similar to those of the Radical Reformation and of dialectical theology. As Professor André Dumas of the Protestant Theological Faculty of Paris said at the WCC conference on church and society, "Revolutionary leaders find it hard to resist the messianic drawing power of a myth of absolute newness." However, as Dumas goes on to point out, once in power these leaders always "re-establish links with their ancestral and national past" (WCC 1967, 21). Creational design-norms are inescapable for those who wish, even pragmatically, to build a lasting social order. This is true for all secular and religious prophets of newness.
This pragmatic reality is what Dumas and other ecumenical leaders often point out when they note that Christ does not promise a "pure other-worldly utopia" (WCC 1967, 21). According to many of these leaders, however, Christ does introduce the other-worldly future principle into the present fallen, passing, and divided world. This future principle as something not founded upon the institutions of creation creates tension between the old and new. This tension is what drives history forward.
Thus Harvard theologian Krister Stendahl, for example, can write about how the radically new future breaks into the present, using Galatians (3:28). The old creation order oppressed women (and powerless ethnic minorities), he implies, but the new gives them equality. Thus the church does not need to be reminding people of the oppressive not-yet (i.e. the present oppressive reality). "We need badly the reminder of that which is new [the already]. . . . the forces toward renewal and re-creation" (Stendahl 1966, 37). When the church now gradually sets up equalitarian signposts of the kingdom, the new future order will gradually transcend the old. The church thus models for the social order what the totally new future kingdom looks like in practice, serving as a gradual leavening force there.
To accomplish this gradual transformation of the present by means of the future, the Radical Reformation proposed the "withdrawal model" (e.g., Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites) and the "revolutionary model." To its credit, C&S denies both models.
Concerning the withdrawal model, C&S is forthright: "The church is not intended to be an alternative society replacing existing social structures" (C&S, 230). However, this is actually not as straight forward as it at first seems. The paragraph continues by explaining that "within society it must be an exemplary fellowship." In other words, the church
ought to be a fellowship that serves as an example to all, and in its very existence . . . provide an inspiring example of the power of the Holy Spirit who can also completely renew human relationships. (C&S, 230)
Immediately, however, the already, futurist vision is again softened by the not-yet: "Yet the church may never imply that it has attained everything or that it has reached its goal" (C&S, 230).
In introducing a tension between the future and present, C&S seems to have adopted a perspective similar to Stendahl and the many ecumenical theologians who use similar argumentation. This can be termed radical gradualism or Fabianism.
The late David Bosch, former NGK minister and UNISA theologian, explains what will happen when the church, without withdrawing from society, gradually sets up signposts of the kingdom in the world. Most present leaders of the NGK would recoil from the logical extent to which Bosch pushes C&S' non-recapitulative, already-but-not-yet eschatology. Worldview presuppositions over time, however, have profound consequences in culture. It is wise to see what those consequences will be.
Without perhaps realizing it, Bosch is not arguing in a vacuum. The vision he expounds has never been held by the orthodox church. However, it has been the staple of the classic gnosticized-equalitarian vision that has fed visionary, utopian renewal movements for centuries (see Cohn 1970; Shafarevich 1980; bibliography of Bolt 1991).
Bosch writes: "Once Paul became aware of the reality of the new community he suddenly discovered that he was now living in another age and time" (Bosch 1982, 28). Bosch continues, citing Juan Mattheos with approval, saying that this gradually radicalizing community, provides "no privileges [for any individual], either racial, national, social, . . . class or sex (1Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11)." This new fellowship results in "a group where all barriers have fallen (Eph 2:13-16). . . . There is no one on top or beneath. . . . Here there is no mine or thine (Acts 4:32). . . ." Bosch continues the citation of Mattheos: "It is a group . . . where no rivalry or partasionship [sic] exists, but all are united in love . . . and authority means greater service not superiority" (Bosch 1982, 29).
Therefore, if this second theory is indeed true, as it seems to be, then the NGK church has adopted a moderate form of the "unique," nova creatio perspective (C&S, 24-26). Several of the exclusivist theologians surveyed in chapter three give evidence for the validity of this charge.
Secondly, it seems clear that C&S rejects HRLS' use of the First Article of the creed and thereby reduces it to the Second and/or Third Article. In so doing, C&S rejects HRLS' First Article doctrine of the creation of the peoples (HRLS, 9.3). C&S explicitly states that the "existence and the diversity of peoples per se . . . is accepted as part of the given reality." As such it is "neither positively commended nor negatively viewed" (C&S, 103; bold in original). The peoples and their territories on the earth are merely described in relatively neutral terms as "a historic reality which occurred by God's providential ordering" (C&S, 16).
As shall be discussed, this seems quite clearly parallel to how Barthians see peopleness. Merely a "historic reality" or part of "given reality," such passages as those concerning (1) the confusion of languages (Ge 11; C&S, 106), (2) Abraham's call (Ge 12; C&S, 107), and (3) the creation of the peoples (Dt 32:8 and Acts 17:26) speak of nothing more than "God is in control of everything" (C&S, 16).
According to C&S, the cause of this doctrinal reductionism is that ostensibly the "Bible does not concern itself with the discussion of such issues as national policy or the maintenance or abrogation of national identity" (C&S, 109).
A paradigm shift from creation-oriented, Kuyperian theology to a pluralistic theology deeply influenced by higher criticism and Barthianism seems to be the cause of this reductionism. Since Barthian theology rejects "peopleness" (volk) as a creation founded social sphere, there seems to be more than a circumstantial connection here between the theological paradigm shift and the change in the understanding of ethnicity.
Second, Scripture explicitly states that God created the peoples to worship him (Ps 86:9; Ac 17:26). C&S denies the relevance of this type of passage for any sort of political model (C&S, 22). This can again only be explained by the theological paradigm shift that has occurred. Both the christological, gospel focus of C&S and neo-Orthodox views of revelation relegate created social, historical, and material entities to the irrelevance of mere packaging around the real message of the Bible. With the denial of a literal creation and the proto-history, Barthians (and C&S) make the existence of the cultural mandate and Babel irrelevant for social theology and social ethics. They are not historically factual.
Third, all social phenomena, including the existence and continuation or extinction of ethno-cultural groups, occurs at the specific command of the Creator God who guides providence. This is the doctrine of the correlation of creation and providence. Thus, all socio-cultural phenomena are revelational of God's will and foreordained plan.
Especially with the guidance of the Word, therefore, such phenomena can be evaluated positively if honored and protected according to biblical design standards, or they can be negatively viewed when deified or denigrated. Clearly, then, ethnicity, nationhood, and related concepts are more than just a mere observational given in present reality.
Lastly, if the Barthian background for the shift from HRLS to C&S on ethnicity is rejected, then the only other explanation for reducing the creed to christology, which this passage does, is escapist pietism as Wingren shows. However, C&S rejects such pietistic reductionism. Several paragraphs espouse the classic Reformed perspective of the relevance of the Scriptures for all of life (see esp. C&S, 222-224, 227-228).
Here, clearly, C&S is self-contradictory. It wants to limit the relevance of many applicable passages and still maintain a comprehensive, classically Reformed vision for the transformation of all of society.
Thus it can state: "By virtue of its particular nature God's Word contains no direct prescription regarding the regulation of relationships among peoples" (C&S, 123), because of its unique kingdom focus (C&S, 19, 21, 23), yet it immediately then states that "this does not mean the Bible has no message concerning group relationships" (C&S, 123). These are found in the ethics of inter-individual relationships: "we have to look for [that message] . . . in the biblical guidelines for interpersonal behaviour" (C&S, 123). In making these claims, C&S forgets the stranger laws of the Pentateuch, the background of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The principle of love between peoples is more than mere inter-individual ethics.
C&S seems to deny a wholistic tri-article creed. It seems to reduce Christianity to the Second Article when useful to deny odious aspects of apartheid theology based on creation ordinances. This would appear to be pragmatically useful in the attempt to re-enter the world-wide ecumenical discussion. However, when it appears convenient to emphasize the all-comprehensive nature of kingdom norms, then C&S returns in a contradictory manner to a more classic Reformed perspective.
A paradigm shift away from a Reformed doctrine of the recapitulation of a matured yet literal creation in the eschaton can explain this adequately. That shift brought with it a reduced creed that focuses on either christology or Third Article futurism (or both), common in dialectical and neo-orthodox circles. While denying that Scripture can support socio-political models, C&S does indeed have an imbedded covert model. The future kingdom of God in the church breaks into the world with a totally nova
creatio. The church, then, must model to all the world what the future looks like (see e.g., C&S, 303).
To adequately critique apartheid social theology, however, this shift is not necessary. Creation design-norms elaborated by Moses, the prophets, Christ, and the Apostles, did not create the genuinely oppressive aspects of apartheid theology. Following the lead of Wingren and others, Barth and his followers could have used many varied sorts of creational-legal and Old Testament prophetic material to refute nationalistic idolatry and inter-ethnic oppressions justified in the name of love of nation and even in the name of love for one's neighbor. The C&S theologians could have as well.
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