CHAPTER SIX:
COVENANT AND PEOPLENESS

Two Protestant Social Theologies

The two most prominent forms of Protestant social theology are (1) covenantal and (2) non-covenantal or individualistic social theology. These two forms result in two streams of thought with much intermixture of the types. British, North American, and Continental Calvinism are essentially covenantal. The Radical Reformation is consciously non-covenantal.

The cultural vision of the Radicals and that of the covenantal Reformers are antithetical (see following chart). One group saw the church as made up of believing individuals; the other saw the church and civil order as founded upon believing covenanted families.

Presuppositions of Covenantal vs. Anti-Covenantal Reformations

The Radical Reformation’s non-covenantal thought is a logical consequence of a rejection or re-interpretation of three classic Reformed doctrines. First is the understanding of Scripture’s infallible authority; second, its Trinitarian key; and third, its optimistic yet restorative eschatology.

This chapter will demonstrate that Church and Society reads alien presuppositions into Scripture. These assumptions are more akin to those of the individualistic radical Reformers than the covenantal Reformers. Secondly, this chapter will contend that C&S (1990) then applies these alien presuppositions primarily to the question of church unity and secondarily to the critique of Apartheid as a socio-political system.

Does C&S Overemphasize Individual Bliever’s Church Dogma?

An individualizing process seems clearly at work in C&S. The following quote has a distinctive baptistic emphasis. It does not mention covenant baptism, covenant children, and covenant family bonds as it logically should in this context:

The meaning of this "faith fellowship" is spelled out in C&S, 42. Significantly, again, the covenant children of believers are not mentioned as members of the church. This is a large gap that needed to be addressed: "This means . . . that faith in the Triune God and his revelation in Scripture is the only prerequisite for membership of the church of Jesus Christ" (C&S, 42; emphasis added; see also C&S, 249).

C&S, 64 clarifies this further. Individual people (mense) are taken out of (i.e., extracted from) the "peoples" (ethno-covenantal solidarities) and united into one people of God:

The above discussion is excellent as far as it goes. However, this crucial section does not mention that a local congregation is not made up of mere individuals "out of" all peoples. This seems to be the implication of what C&S is saying. It thus relativizes and individualizes the covenant family and the covenanted, extended family group. To C&S’ credit, however, it does not yet reject these and the biblical doctrine of covenant baptism as the seal and sign of that covenant.

Summary and conclusion

In summary, then, the Reformed, biblical viewpoint has always been that a child is a member of the visible church because he or she is a member of the covenant. The child remains part of the covenant body until he or she shows in action and non-Christian faith-confession that he or she deserves to be put under church discipline. This leads to eventual excommunication or at least removal from the rolls (Mt 18:17). Unfortunately, this is rarely consequently practiced.

A clear conclusion is that if the family solidarity is incorporated into the church as a group, then the gospel is not anti-group, and it is not built of groupless individuals.

This theme of extraction out of the peoples is inevitably individualistic if logically thought through. This will be unmistakably seen with a careful reading of C&S, 115 and 116 (below).

In summary, the section of C&S claims that the church is taken out of the peoples and thus shows cultural peculiarities of the various peoples. This is right and true. However, the church can never be identified with a such people group nor serve the function of giving religious sanction for a people’s values, ideals and ambitions. This is stated in absolute terms.

The following passage thus seems to imply that the unifying function of faith in Christ is more important than, and indeed something different from, any of its specific and particular groups that add up to the unity.

C&S, 115-117 are as follows:

This principle of unity in the church functions in the long run to destroy all the group parts that make up the whole. Logically this means that out of the gradual destruction of the group parts, something absolutely new is created. That something is a "third race," a new humanity not made up of any group parts of the old fallen humanity.

Therefore, there is no real, eternal, and substantial self-determining group diversity that comes from the old creation humanity. No family, extended family, or federation of extended families is eternal. They come from the old creation. Logically, then, every such old creation group must eventually be broken down to the individual. The reason is that every group is something smaller than, and thus less good than, the whole. These smaller group parts are considered divisive of the unity of the whole.

If the unity is more important than any group, then the smallest unit of that unity is the individual. All individuals must be united into unity in Christ. If the logic is pushed, even the individual as a part will be consumed in the inexorably growing unity, the oneness in Christ of all things.

Questions and discussion about the breaking-down process

Several questions need to be asked about this section.

1. Is this not using "confessing church" terminology in a manner virtually identical to the Radical’s dogma of an exclusive church made up of believing individuals (see also C&S, 34: "the church is a faith, confession, and worshipping community")?

2. What if those cultural ambitions, ideals and values are biblical values and the Afrikanervolk or any other people being discipled is becoming consistently more Christianized? Certainly this is good. Of course, this is true if those values are

non-biblical. If they are biblical where else can a people get specific norms for all of life?

3. To say that God does not make His covenant with people in their "peopleness" (volkgewys) rejects the covenant continuity of the Reformed confessions. In other words, this implies that God "cuts" His covenant in this age only with individuals out of the various ethno-cultures. He then melts them into a new humanity in which all the old creation groups are relativized, waiting to disappear. This is in direct opposition to the Prophets and Writings (e.g., Isa 19:23ff; Ps(s) 47:7ff; 86:4; see also Rev 15:4). Myriads of Old Testament passages predict the conversion of the peoples with their own leadership (see Campbell 1954; Kreitzer 1991a; Gentry 1992).

Therefore, C&S implies that because the church is made up of individuals out of the peoples, no local or geographical church can be exclusively limited to people from one people group (ethno-covenantal solidarity).

This concept includes several errors:

1. It confuses two differing types of churches and definitions of church unity. Visible unity, that is the local gathering of believers of one specific geographical and lingual-cultural area at one time and in one historical era (C&S, 249), is confused with invisible unity, that is the unity of all the true saints in heaven and on earth. Invisible unity cuts across history and exists in every geographical area of the world. Many Radicals

reject this distinction due to their emphasis upon a believer’s church of baptized persons (see Bender 1957).

2. It confuses the local congregation, as well as the circuit and regional synod, with the universal, catholic church on earth and heaven (Eph 3:15 NIV). It is logically incorrect to think that the "universal" of the universal church must be made visible in the local group to fulfill Christ’s prayer (Jn 17). A part of the whole is merely that, a part. It does not contain the whole. To make such unity visible would mean that all would have to meet at one time, in one place, in one language, perhaps all dressed in uniform white.

This dissertation accepts that Scripture clearly states that God made, designed and formed the peoples (Ge 10-11; Dt 32:8; Ps 86:8; Acts 17:26). It uses the same terminology as that used to describe the "forming" or creation of mankind (Ge 5:1-2).

Secondly, it believes that any attempt to theologically describe the Church as an absolutely new entity, one that is not made up of the renewed and regenerated "divided parts" of the first creation design, is not orthodox.

Louis Berkhof and creation design

Louis Berkhof agrees that any attempt to see imperfection and evil in the "divided" creation design is clearly Radical Reformational and Barthian.

Berkhof connects this rejection with various movements:

NGSK and the Radical Reformation

Furthermore, it is interesting to note how the NGK’s daughter, the NGSK, is becoming more radically consequent to these non-covenantal assumptions. These presuppositions flow from the individualistic-holistic philosophy expressed in the Belhar Confession.

Johan Retief’s proposed catechism, Bly by jou Bevryder: Katkisasie-Boek, shows the extent of the adoption of non-covenantal terminology It clearly uses the Radical Reformation’s terminology for the church. He says that the church is made up of groupless individuals who have broken all the bonds of race, color, gender, age, education, culture, status, and social class. He then calls this fellowship an "alternative community" (alternatiewe gemeenskap), in other words, "a new community in the

complete sense of the word" (‘n nuwe gemeenskap in die volle sin van die woord) (Retief 1988, 28).

Immediately afterwards, he explains this to mean:

Note that Retief denies that the New Testament’s central and most important witness to the world is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Ac 1; 1Co 15:1ff). Instead, he claims that holistic church unity is its primary witness. Now if one compares Retief’s quotation to C&S’ confession quoted previously, the similarities are startling:

Summary

Therefore, C&S and its sister documents in related churches seem to indicate that every group division in Christ is imperfect or, in a sense, "evil." The implication is that all group-dividing barriers must be broken down. These documents either

imply or blatantly state that each person comes to Christ as an individual alone. It seems to define the church as made up of the whole lot of those individuals who believe and experience Jesus Christ. These individuals have been extracted out of the peoples and groups (C&S, 42). They then form a new unity or a new humanity of individuals in which language and culture bonds are relativized.

Furthermore, it appears that C&S gives excessive, perhaps exclusive emphasis to the personal faith of the groupless individual in the formation of the church. According to this individualistic, "extractionist" type of theology, the church is a new society. In other words, it is a totally new humanity: non-ethnic, non-gender, non-classist and non-ageist oriented. The totally new humanity is made up of individuals taken out of their previous identity. Therefore, they are stripped or extracted from real and substantial age, gender, linguistic, etc. group identity. This standpoint is very similar, if not identical to, a consequent form of the Radical Reformation’s groupless individualism.

The Synod (C&S, 39, 40, see 100) tries to show that the old covenant church made covenantal faith (i.e., unity) primary and the family blood relationship (creation diversity) of only secondary importance. C&S implies that this creation-oriented, blood relationship is relativized in the New Testament so that faith remains totally primary.

However, this understanding is definitely not based on a covenantal exegesis. Both covenant faith, that is unity with all believers, and blood or descent, that is the covenant family as a part of true created diversity, are of equal validity and equal importance. Neither is to be rejected, nor prioritized, nor relativized.

Faith in Christ is indeed the basis for membership in the universal and invisible Body of Christ, the New Jerusalem above. Confessional faith is one of the several expressions of real unity (see Eph 4:3ff; 1Co 8:6). However, faith-unity does not necessarily mean that true creational diversity is destroyed. In other words, it could be that a right to vote and hold office of elder in a local congregation, classis/circuit, or synod may be an expression of real created diversity dwelling in harmony with the unity of the church.

Furthermore, C&S is clearly inadequate in its understanding of the old covenant church. The paragraphs cited above state that the "assembly of the Lord" was open to any person after he had performed "certain provisos" (perhaps meaning circumcision?). It attempts to make the confession of faith the first and most important fact above and beyond covenantal descent as a determining factor in allowing an ethnic alien into the assembly of Yahweh. However, this is not exactly accurate.

Biblical law did not allow the believing and circumcised alien male into full membership of the qâhâl yahweh until at least the third generation. Some peoples were not allowed in until the "tenth generation," whatever that may mean (see Dt 23:3ff). He was to be treated with kindness and dignity under the same legal standard as the "native-born." However, he is not given absolutely the same rights as the covenant-born and faithful member until his time of full adoption into the people had arrived. Thus it is illicit to read back into the Old Testament individualistic assumptions about the church of Yahweh as an exclusively faith fellowship.

What this implies, then, is that covenantal relationship involves more than merely individualistic "faith" alone. Covenantal "faith" is a trusting oath of covenant loyalty in the King. Covenantal faith also submits to the other necessary structural elements of covenant such as the covenant responsibility of following ethics and necessary sanctions for obedience or disobedience. Passing all of this on to the covenant partner’s seed is extremely important in any covenantal formulation (see Robertson 1980; Sutton 1988; Van der Waal 1990).

Implications of the confessing church theology

Lastly, as stated, it is not dogmatically accurate to claim that a confession of faith is the only condition for membership in the body of Christ. The church, thus, is not just a Radical "faith, confessing, and worship fellowship" (C&S, 40) ruled by Jesus "through the proclamation of his Word and the operation of his Spirit" (C&S, 27). Instead, it is a holy body that baptizes both covenant children and new adult believers. Furthermore, those members, child, teenage, and adult, are to be in submission to elders ruling by means of the Word. These elders practice discipline and teach the covenant standards of God (BC, 29; HC, ques. 3, 83-85). Both the commonwealth of ancient Israel and that of the New Israel, furthermore, have excommunicating sanctions. When the person or group violate the norm of God they must be cut off or expelled from the covenant of the People of God (see Mt 18:15ff; 1Co 5:13: Paul cites a case law found in Dt 17:7; 19:19, 22:21,24, 24:7). Why are these characteristics so uniformly left out of the C&S?

With the NGK’s new individualistic, Radical hermeneutic, the following scenario could easily happen. An ethnically different, materially poorer denomination or churches could demand unconditional admission to a materially better-off church that is predominantly made up of one ethno-linguistic group (as is the case with the NGK). The new members, all of whom are ethno-linguistically different, could demand the following because they are the majority: (1) English or Xhosa or any other language should be the language of the Synods. (2) Every pastor should be paid exactly the same as every other. (3) The leading bureaucratic positions of the uniting church be put into their hands as the majority.

In principle, this is basically what is occurring in the newly organized Uniting Reformed Church of South Africa. Will this mean that Afrikaans will become secondary in circuit and synod meetings? Will all pastors of Xhosa or Zulu linguistic background be paid the same as those from the economically better off Cape Afrikaans-speaking congregations? Will this make the church a ward of international, ecumenical welfare? This is what happens in socialist-unitarian, political systems as well as what is occurring in the South African state at present.

Both covenants teach blood/descent and covenant faith

That the New Testament continues the Old Testament’s emphasis on blood/descent and covenant faith is clear.

1. Paul strongly rebuked those who rejected honoring and providing for their blood family in God-given love. This included at least the extended family of parents and grandparents. Those who do neglect them, he says, have denied the faith and are worse than unbelievers (1Ti 5:3ff). This apparently includes even unbelieving parents and grandparents (see Pr 1:8ff; 13:1, 15:5; Eph. 6:1ff citing the 5th commandment).

Furthermore, Christ criticizes the Pharisees for not caring for their aged parents because that would somehow invalidate a faith-oath they made to the temple (Mt 15:1ff). This, Jesus said, violated the 5th Commandment.

However, true to their inconsistent form, the Pharisees overemphasized blood descent and drastically de-emphasized faith. The modern parallel is the British-Israelite and Afrikaner

Israelvisie movement. To combat this sort of imbalance, John the Baptist said that God could create sons of Abraham out of the stones of the earth. The Pharisees’ pride in their "blood," without the fruit of faith-repentance, was worthless (Lk 3:7-9).

2. Paul said that circumcision with faith was of great benefit. "Circumcision" is a symbol of, at least, descent and birth. That symbol, however, without regeneration resulting in faith-obedience (i.e., love) was worth nothing (Ro 2:25-3:2; see Php 3:2ff; Col 2:20ff; 1Co 7:19; Gal 5:6, 6:15).

3. Christ said that his true brothers and sisters were those who do the will of his Father. That is, those who exercise true faith in every people group are part of the family of Abraham (Mt 12:50; Lk 8:21, Ac 10:34; 1Jn 2:17; see Gal 3). In other words, Christ predicted that his flock would include other sheep of other pastures. He would gather them also into the covenantal faith (see Ro 11; Eph 2; Mt 28:18ff; Jn 11:52).

The consequence was that the Pharisees who depended on the flesh (Php 3:2ff) were to be excommunicated out of the covenant. They were to be covenantally divorced (Ro 11:7ff; Jer 3:1ff; Isa 50:1). Furthermore, their city was to be burnt with fire (Mt 22:7) and the kingdom given to a new people (Mt 21:43).

The meaning of these sayings is clear. The renewed Israel of the new covenant was to be a multi-ethnic people of God. This people was to be made up of all believing peoples in their ethno-covenantal solidarity. The Abrahamic covenant promises predicted this new multi-ethnic solidarity (Ge 12:3, 17:5, 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, 28:14-15, 49:10; Ps(s) 22:27ff; 72:12; Isa 19:23-25). The Day of Pentecost fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant as a foreshadowing of a greater harvest to come. (See C&S 32, for correct interpretation of Pentecost).

All these themes can also be traced in the Old Testament. Jesus did not come to change the law, but to be in continuity with it and to correctly interpret it (Mt 5:17ff). Therefore, there is normally no need to choose between blood (i.e., descent) and faith. Peter says clearly that the new covenant promise of the Spirit of the resurrected Christ was "for you and your children" (Ac 2:39, echoing Isa 59:21).

Paul speaks about a covenantal-sacramental unity in First Corinthians (10:1ff): All of the believers (including, per implication, their children) were baptized into Christ just as the Hebrews were all baptized into Moses in the cloud when they passed through the Red Sea. Therefore, the church in the biblical, Reformed view is a covenantal unity of families in their intergenerational solidarity. This means both faith and descent. In other words, the everlasting covenant includes an oath of faith-loyalty and promises for the blood-seed of those believers.

C&S claims, emphasizing blood group is divisive

However, according to several passages in C&S, this concept of ethno-covenantal group solidarity remaining in the new covenant is divisive. In other words, it divides the new holistic unity of the church which Christ came to bring. Hence it is somehow not as holy as individual faith. This view contradicts biblical, covenantal exegesis. Note the following:

This contention is not based on covenantal exegesis. The visible, local church is a covenantal union of believing, that is, confessionally and ethically sound, Christian families and extended families. It does not consist merely of believing individuals as the Radical theologians claim. God does not reject blood bonds, that is extended family. By extension, it seems logical that he does not reject ethno-covenantal solidarity in the new covenant, as C&S, 42-43 clearly seems to do.

New Covenant, Ethno-Covenantal Solidarity, and Baptism

It seems quite clear that if the NGK continues on this Radical-like individualization path, it must also begin questioning the biblical basis for covenant baptism. If it rejects "group" in the universal church as "exclusive" and "discriminatory," logically it then must reject the ultimate of exclusive and discriminatory groups: the family group.

Covenant theology teaches that God did not move from "group" to "individual" when he instituted the new covenant. It is also clear that God’s law is not "non-discriminatory." The Bible teaches the ethical and covenantal continuity between the Testaments and the abiding validity of the Abrahamic covenant.

If the NGK holds to these three crucial biblical doctrines, it cannot reject a group of covenanted and intermarried families with a common religious confession. This dissertation proposed this to be the definition of a "people group" (volk) in biblical theology.

In the Old Testament, God holds people groups responsible for obeying his creation law as ethno-covenantal solidarities. He does exactly the same in the new covenant era as he did in the old covenant times. Time and time again, the prophets pronounced judgments on specific people groups for their evil ways. They also prophesied that when Messiah comes, the peoples as peoples with their leadership corps intact will turn to the Lord God of Israel.

Now, if God still sees a people-group (volk) as a responsible, religious and socio-political entity in the new covenant, then there is no logical problem in concluding that he sees it as a living and self-governing religious reality within the true unity and real diversity of the body of Christ.

C&S seems to read an individualistic version of holistic philosophy into "ethnic passages", the so-called Apartheid verses. With these philosophical glasses, the clear teaching is missed. With Trinitarian lenses, using the presupposition of the equal ultimacy of the one and the many, the message cannot be missed. The issue, then, is basically presuppositional.

Reformed theologians who do not have to respond to Apartheid, emotionally or otherwise, see this concept of ethno-covenantal solidarities or people groups distinctly.

G. W. Bromiley

For example, G. W. Bromiley, in Children of Promise: The Case for Baptizing Infants, writes:

Daniel P. Fuller

Fuller Theological Seminary professor Daniel P. Fuller also sees this. In Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum?, Fuller shows that the Pauline statement concerning "no distinction" between Jew and Gentile, does not destroy the ethno-linguistic

distinction between groups. Rather, the background of this statement is found ultimately in the Abrahamic covenant and the equality of all under the Lordship of the one God:

The Shema and the Abrahamic covenant were intertwined, being part of the same covenant from the beginning:

Fuller then draws out a further close interconnection in Pauline thought between the Hebrew confession and the Abrahamic covenant:

James Hurley

Reformed Theological Seminary professor, James Hurley substantiates this thesis in his study of Galatians 3:28:

Hurley then concludes:

To illustrate this contention, Hurley writes:

Summary

MARC scholars Dayton and Fraser summarize this biblical, covenantal theme by contrasting New and Old Testament terms:

Therefore, because the New Testament does not destroy real ethnic diversity, it does not reverse Babel:

When C&S states that no biblical conclusion can be made about the "diversity of peoples" (C&S, 22; see 101), it ignores much data. It seems, instead, that C&S is reading into Scripture the philosophical presuppositions of the Radical Reformation’s holistic individualism.

This discussion of Pentecost leads directly to the next point. As stated, Scripture explicitly claims that God formed or created the peoples (Ge 10-11; Dt 32:8; Ps 86:9; Ac 17:26). Secondly, it explicitly regulates inter-ethnic relations in the law of God. This is especially true of the stranger (ger) laws but also clearly in the Fourth Commandment. In other words, the ethnic alien servant must be allowed to rest one day in seven.

It is certainly true that peoples are destroyed and new peoples come into existence (like the Afrikaner and the American). The Bible witnesses to this fact itself (Ge 18-19; Isa 40:22ff, 41:2, 44:26; Jer 1:10; 18:5-10, 31:28; Eze 32:18; Da 2:36-45, 4:34-35; Am 3:6). However, God, not man, is the first cause of the creation and destruction of peoples (volke) based on their obedience or disobedience to his law (Lev 18:26-30 where this is applied to the Canaanite peoples’ violation of sexual morality).

God even condemns the king of heathen Assyria for arrogantly claiming, "[I] . . . removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings" (Isa 10:13; see Hab 2:8-10,17 of Babylon). Speaking of Cyrus, Yahweh claims that he alone creates such calamity and disaster (Isa 45:1-12; La 3:37-38). God says that he moved the Israelites, the Philistines, and the Arameans (Am 9:7). Surely, he has placed the Afrikaner and all the various Sotho and Nguni peoples, as well as the new emerging urban "Azanians" in southern Africa for his sovereign purpose. However, woe to the state that moves the peoples unjustly (i.e., not in a just war) and their "boundary stones" (Hos 5:10; Dt 19:14, 27:17) because God has set the boundaries of their habitation (Ac 17:26; see Isa 10:13 LXX showing a verbal connection between the two). This applies equally as well to the former "apartheid" state as to the present "democratic" state.

Is this not explicit ethical information on the diversity of peoples? God created that real diversity and does not want it to be destroyed by arrogant man. Therefore C&S’ conclusion (C&S, 108) is clearly wrong. It states that questions such as civil government policy concerning the maintenance or removal of ethnic identity are not discussed in the Bible.

The following seems to be another case of reading the Radical Reformation’s individualism into Scriptures:

C&S reverses HRLS’ interpretation of the Babel pericope

C&S’ exegesis. C&S, it seems, directly contradicts the interpretation of Babel in the earlier Synod document, HRLS. At this point, HRLS seems more biblically balanced. Discussing Babel, C&S definitely implies that the confusion of languages at Babel was a negative judgment of God. Certainly, it was a "judgment" in the sense of a judicial decree.

However, C&S implies more than this. It implies that the judgment was something that caused humanity to move away from the ideal good, that is the unity of humanity. In that sense it was negative. Therefore division into ethno-linguistic groups was not God’s ideal even though he included both grace and blessing in the decree to ensure the future survival of man. The implication seems to be that God’s ideal was the former state of "one language and a common speech" (Ge 11:1):

Was the confusion of languages a negative judgment of God? In other words were it not for sin, humankind would not be divided? Or was it within the planned, creation-design of Yahweh? C&S seems to choose the first, following Radical and ecumenical opinion.

HRLS’ exegesis. After affirming, like C&S, the essential unity of mankind, HRLS, however, states the following:

In its analysis of the Babel pericope, HRLS gives the following conclusion about the connection between the Creation Mandate and the division of languages. This shows the intimate historical connection between the two, demonstrating that the division of languages was not a "non-ideal," that is an afterthought of God:

Analyzing the theme of the Babel story, HRLS concludes:

These conclusions cannot be overlooked or ignored.

Independent parallels to HRLS’ exegesis of the Babel pericope

The assumption that true, self-determining, ethnic diversity was not part of God’s original intention for righteous mankind is common. Much of ancient and contemporary scholarship, both in evangelical and ecumenical circles accept this presupposition. For example, Gerhard von Rad claims the outcome of Babel was "disorder in the international world . . . [that] was not willed by God but is punishment for the sinful rebellion against God" (Von Rad 1972, 152).

However, the view making cultural diversity rooted in human sin rather than in the creation-design itself is definitely not the only approach to the question of human ethnic diversity. There is a growing movement outside of South Africa, in another direction. Other theologians agree, at this point, with the HRLS document.

Andrew Greenley. "Theology of Pluralism" scholar Andrew Greeley, however, claims that the often negative interpretation of the Tower of Babel comes from reading holistic assumptions into Scripture, not true exegesis of the Babel pericope itself:

C. Peter Wagner. Church growth missiologist C. Peter Wagner agrees:

The reason for this rebellion was clear. Post-flood mankind

This parallel with HRLS’ understanding of a key socio-historical process is quite noteworthy: separation over time causes ethno-cultural diversity. Wagner shows no evidence of having read that NGK document.

Wagner then interprets Yahweh’s subsequent action as making it quite clear that ethno-linguistic uniformity was not his original design-plan:

Bernard Anderson. Another parallel is from Princeton Professor Bernard Anderson’s article: "The Babel Story: Paradigm of Human Unity and Diversity" (Anderson 1977).

However, this was not God’s original perspective:

In support of this contention, Anderson writes:

In conclusion, Anderson contends:

Lastly, Anderson gives the correct thematic connection between the proto-history and the call of Abraham:

Christopher J. H. Wright. Other recent writers are also not reticent to draw lessons about the existence and relationships of ethno-covenantal groups from (1) the Babel pericope and (2) the true unity and real diversity within the Trinity.

For example, Christopher J. H. Wright writes:

Preliminary conclusion. A significant minority of the Christian scholarly world is beginning to see the biblical justice of true, self-determining ethnic diversity within the confessional unity of the church. This is parallel to that of HRLS.

Unfortunately, HRLS tainted its biblical perception with a race-based worldview grid that caused it to justify many racial separation laws and methods abominable to Scripture.

In contrast to this, it is significant that C&S seems to be rejecting the biblically correct missiological insights of the HRLS and Afrikaner theologians. C&S so overemphasizes, almost

absolutizes, the biblical doctrine of human unity, that it neglects or tries to relativize the true ethno-covenantal (as well as gender, etc.) diversity.

Two crucial theological errors in Second Adam doctrine

The following quote makes two theological errors.

The second Adam and the division of humankind. The first error is crucial. The doctrine of the second Adam teaches the fundamental division of humanity, not its organic unity. Without this division, there is no redemption. It teaches that there are two federal or covenantal heads of mankind: Adam and Christ. All in Adam, individual and multiple peoples, are dead on account of sin (Ro 5:12-22). All in Christ, including individuals and multiple peoples, are alive because of his righteousness (Ro 5:17ff).

The second Adam is not a unitary, renewed humanity. The doctrine of the second Adam does not teach a unitary, renewed mankind. It teaches the recapitulative renewal of the original creation design in Messiah (Eph 1:10). All mankind, in all its beautiful diversity — ethnic, gender, and age — is now to be redeemed and transformed in the New Creation brought by Christ according to the promise of the Abrahamic covenant (see Eph 1:10ff; Col 1:15ff; Ro 3:29-4:18, 11:11f, 15:9-12; Gal 3:6ff). Pentecost is a substantiation of this (C&S, 32).

Now, in the age of the Spirit of the new covenant, the promise to Abraham will be fulfilled. The ethno-covenantal

mosaic, the "world" of peoples but not every individual, will be "saved" (Jn 3:16-17, 6:33, 12:41,47; Ro 11:12ff; 2Co 5:17ff). The miracle on the day of Pentecost was "tongues," languages of the "whole world." The miracle was not of ears: the listeners did not understand one new unifying language. C&S reads into Scripture non-covenantal assumptions.

C&S rightly rejects racism

Clearly C&S, 95 and 96 (cited above) lead the Synod to some biblical conclusions. These two quotations, along with the following example, rightly reject all racism:

Positive critique. It is true that mankind in Adam is a genetic unity. There are no genetically superior or inferior races. However, in rejecting group racism, C&S relativizes ethno-covenantal group solidarity. In the relativizing process, it does not absolutely reject it in the organizing of local congregations, at least as of this time (see C&S, 110-114).

Negative critique. However, contrary to C&S, 95,

Scripture clearly teaches that fallen mankind was existing in true, ethno-linguistic diversity and a real, rebellious unity.

Ethno-linguistic diversity is not merely a relative characterization of humankind. It is part of created design.

Secondly, that unity was a unity-in-rebellion of family-peoples, not a unity of mere individuals. Anderson, Wagner, and others have indeed made a thorough accounting of specific character, context, style, purpose, and historical situation and have come up with conclusions similar to those of NGK scholars of the past. Their exegesis cannot be written off as proof texting.

Furthermore, C&S seems hesitant to find any identification between a people and the Christian new covenant (C&S, 38-39, 65 cited above). This is an implicit denial of real, self-determining diversity. The reason for this seems to be individualistic assumptions, a possible overreaction to the non-biblical excesses of Apartheid and the excessive identification of all aspects of Western culture with Christianity.

To be fair, however, C&S gives a relative reality to present ethnic diversity. For example:

This is, however, contradicted later (C&S, 67 and 68):

All of this is certainly true of the universal Church, the New Jerusalem above. However, this again ignores the basic distinction between the Church, invisible and universal, and the church, visible and local.

Furthermore, the church of Jesus Christ on earth is not just an abstract Platonic spiritual form (concept). It incarnates (1Jn 1:1ff) a very concrete, specific organization. It must speak to the specific needs of a particular people group in that people’s own language which the Creator divided from all the others. The principles of the one universal church cannot be capriciously applied to local and visible churches that are of necessity divided from each other.

For example, the church universal and invisible has apostles and prophets. Does this apply to the church visible here and now? The foundation of the apostles and prophets was once and for all laid in the first century and we have built upon their ceased ministry ever since (Eph 2:20, 3:5; 1Co 3:10ff; WCF, 1.1).

Another example is the many hypocrites who are in the church visible. Hypocrites are found in both the pure, "believers’" or "confessing" churches, as well as in the confessional-covenantal Reformed churches. However, none are in the New

Jerusalem above, the ekklesia invisible. There are several other differences.

Contrary to the implication of C&S, 65-66, the NGK is not "the one universal people of God." It is only one ethno-linguistically and geographically bound manifestation of that one body that exists in true diversity on earth as well as in heaven. Here again C&S is much closer to the Radical Reformation than to the more biblical, Magisterial Reformation.

In adopting this terminology, C&S implicitly rejects the real, self-controlling indigenization of the gospel that it wants to accept (C&S, 38). While implicitly embracing Anabaptist individual-holism, it does not seem to comprehend all the implications this view holds for the covenantal understanding of the sacraments and for many other aspects of missiological, ecclesiastical, socio-political, and economic thought.

Wagner on church and culture

C. Peter Wagner writes further on this theme of no real identification of church and culture:

This leads to a sobering question. Would C&S agree with the Radical evangelical missiologist René Padilla, often cited with approval by the late, UNISA missiologist David Bosch? Both Bosch and Padilla vehemently reject the renewed ethnic emphasis of the Church Growth School of Missiology, calling it "cheap grace." Bosch thus claims that the deliberate "breaking down of barriers that separate people is an intrinsic part of the gospel. What is more; it is not merely a result of the gospel," it is the gospel! "Evangelism," Bosch immediately adds, "as such itself involves a call to be incorporated into a new community, an alternative

community" (Bosch 1982, 258).

Padilla, writing in "The Unity of the Church and the Homogeneous Unit Principle," agrees:

Certainly it is true that a person’s identity is found in Christ. This is the expression of true unity and the grace of the new creation. However, as Wagner has pointed out, it is also found in one’s own ethno-cultural group, gender, age group,

respect relationship to parents, and socio-economic class. This is an expression of real diversity and the creation design.

In other words, identity for a Christian is a case of both-and, not either-or. A covenantal view has always emphasized both blood (nature and covenantal family solidarity) and faith, not faith alone and isolated as the Radicals claim the New Testament teaches. Culture and identification of the gospel within a

culture is commanded by Christ in the Great Commission. He commands us to "disciple the peoples" as ethno-covenantal

In other words, Christ did not say, "Convert a few out of the peoples," or in other words, destroy God-created ethno-covenantal solidarity by extracting individuals out of their ethno-linguistic group. Again Wagner’s comments are poignant:

A Reformed, covenantal solution to this problem, which this dissertation follows, seems forthright. The problem of over-identification of Christianity with one or any culture is not to reject true ethno-covenantal solidarity and the real indigenization or contextualization of the gospel. C&S makes a valiant

effort to find this balance but fails.

The solution is to accept the Reformational sola Scriptura: the Bible as the sole judge of all spheres of life. This includes not just the New Testament but the whole universally valid equity of biblical law, especially as it is revealed in Moses and the Prophets. This leads directly into the next chapter.

Contrary to C&S, the universal Church is also a covenantal unity of various ethno-covenantal family groups, exactly as the Abrahamic covenant (Ge 12:3, etc.), the Prophets, and the Psalms prophesied it would be.

Biblical Data on Ethnic Solidarities in the Messianic Age

Paul discusses ethnic Israel and the ethnic Gentile peoples in Romans (Ro 11). Ethnic Israel was cut out of the covenant (with the exception of the remnant) so that the non-Hebrew peoples can be engrafted into enlarged Israel. Only then, out of jealousy, will all ethnic Israel be saved (except, by analogy, the remnant of unbelievers). In this, Paul is consistent with the Old and New Testament prophesies of the conversion of the peoples (see Ro 15:8ff, 16:25ff, 1:5, 3:29ff, 10:12, et al) (see: [Iain] Murray 1971; [John] Murray 1984; Moo 1996).

Yahweh promised that Abraham would be the Father of all believers, the heir of the world (Ro 4): "I will make you into a great nation . . . and all the families of the peoples will be blessed through you" (Ge 12:1-3: NASB).

Ethno-Churches Allowed within Biblical Framework

Contrary to C&S, within the unity of the Church universal, there can exist several self-determining, ethno-churches (volksekerke). However, the signs of unity listed in a previous chapter must be followed carefully in those churches. This is derived from the above discussion plus the following factors.

All believers can and must be invited into a church

building to hear the Word and partake of the sacraments. However, this does not imply that an ethno-linguistic alien can demand equal voting and leadership rights for himself and his ethnic companions (C&S, 37 is correct but not C&S, 39, 66, or 116).

This implies two tiers of membership for some churches that choose to be consequently indigenous: (1) full adult membership for those from the ethnos into which the church is indigenized; (2) honorary membership and counsel privilege analogous to Jethro’s relationship with Israel and Moses (Ex 18). This could included a non-voting membership on the elder board.

Voting membership and eldership, limited and exclusively reserved to one ethno-covenantal group of families, can be and indeed are an expression of true diversity. If the conditions of true unity are carefully followed, then the conditions for true diversity do not "touch human dignity."

Surely protecting sexual exclusiveness with one wife and the exclusiveness of Christian education for one’s children, does not destroy Christian unity with other believers. In fact, this exclusiveness is part and parcel of the love commanded in the Law of God (Ro 13:8ff).

According to the Psalms (see Ps(s) 19, 119), God’s Law is eternal and totally just. The argument cannot be used that these principles are merely valid for the Old Testament people of God. Therefore, an ethnic alien’s dignity is only affected if the universally valid standards of the Word of God are not upheld with respect to him or her. This will prevent the double standards of Jim Crow and apartheid types of caste systems.

Christopher Wright’s Concluding Thoughts

A Christian country and a Christian church has the right to distinguish between people on the basis of citizen and non-citizen if all are judged by one law. This is the principle of equal protection of law, as shall be seen from the next chapter. This principle also applies to the church if the principles of unity already mentioned are adhered to.

Holding to this principle of distinguishing between ethnic alien and ethno-citizen in church and civil orders does not in the least negate the full privilege of an ethnic alien in the kingdom of Christ. In his church and a Christian civil order, he or she possesses equal value, dignity, and protection of law. C. J. H. Wright, citing Zepheniah (3:9), agrees that unity does not destroy real ethno-national identity in the kingdom:

As intimated earlier, maintaining of ethno-national diversity has covenantal implications. In Christ, all peoples will become covenantal peoples analogous to Israel:

Conclusion: Danger of Individualistic Holism

Both general and special revelation confront us with the inescapable, created fact of ethno-cultural diversity.

To deny the existence in the new covenant of covenantally Christian people groups (see C&S, 118) in the church is to accept an individualistic form of theological holism. This dogma claims that the one body of Christ is primarily composed of believers extracted from created groups. That in turn infects the doctrine of redemption with platonic tendencies that reject the comprehensive, recapitulative work of Christ.