I just finished reading The Escondido Theology by John Frame, which is perhaps the strangest title for a book, ever!  The subtitle of the book – “a reformed response to two kingdom theology” – gives the average consumer a gist of the content, and yet I still find it to be an absolutely awful title for a book.  The world “Escondido” means absolutely nothing to the average person, unless he or she happens to know that it’s a town in California where Westminster Seminary California is located.  The cover design doesn’t help sell the book either, it’s pretty bland to say the least.  I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but honestly we all do.  So this book has literally nothing going for it, except perhaps that it was written John Frame, who is one-beast-of-a-theologian (I mean this in a positive sense).

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, none of that really matters.  I decided to read this book at the recommendation of a friend, who said he thought it offered a compelling critique to some of the writings of Michael Horton.  I should mention that both myself and the aforementioned friend like Michael Horton and John Frame, and have read several of their collective works.  But no one’s theology is perfect, so it’s good to read one point of view and then to hear counter arguments.  If theological critique is done in a loving and irenic spirit, then arguably, everyone is the better for it.  I should also add, that I’m a church planter and I named the church that I’m currently planting “Basileia Church.”  Basileia is the Greek word for “kingdom,” and our church’s mission statement reads, “For the Kingdom of God in East Nashville.”  If there’s any one branch of theology that I geek-out about, it’s kingdom theology.  I find it an absolutely transfixing theological subject that is exciting and often overlooked.

A little bit of the backstory to this book is that John Frame used to work at Westminster Seminary California with many of the men that he critiques in this book.  He was not fired from the school, but claims that in the 1990‘s his theological views were increasingly scorned at the school because they differed from many of the other professors.  Due to this development, Frame took at job at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.  Now years later, Frame has written a book that is essentially a collection of longer, technical book reviews that critique many of the works that the men at Westminster Seminary California have published.  Frame argues that increasingly the professors at Westminster have formed a unique theological school of thought within the reformed movement that he refers to as “Escondido Theology.”

Frame assures the reader that he has not written this book to “get even” with his former colleagues, but because:

“The Westminster California professors have written prolifically, and though there is some good in this literature I believe the net effect of their work has been dangerous…Unfortunately, many have supported the Escondido literature, without, I think, quite understanding it…But anyone who thinks the Escondido theology is merely a conservative movement within the Reformed community has not seen it rightly” (Frame, xli).

So there you have it, a book of reviews, critiquing the particular brand of  Two Kingdom Theology that has developed in the last 30 or so years at Westminster Seminary California.

Specifically, Frame reviews the following works:

• Christless Christianity – Michael Horton

• Recovering the Reformed Confession – R. Scott Clark

• A Biblical Defense of Natural Law – David Van Drunen

• Kingdom Prologue – Meredith Kline

• Covenant and Eschatology – Michael Horton

• A Secular Faith – Darryl Hart

• Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down & A Royal Waste of Time – Marva Dawn

• A Better Way – Michael Horton

• With Reverence and Awe – Daryl Hart & John Muether

• Dual Citizens:  Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet – Jason Stellman

He ends the book with two short chapters titled, “In Defense of Christian Activism” and “Is Natural Revelation Sufficient to Govern Culture?”  In my opinion, these two small chapters are actually some of the most helpful in the book, and I wish Frame had done a little less reviewing and a little more personal writing on the topic of the kingdom and two kingdom theology.

My opinion of this book is that it’s interesting at times, ultimately unsatisfying, and not nearly as useful as it could have been.  Despite Frame’s intention to keep personal wounds from affecting his assessments, it still seems as if he unfairly criticizes his former co-workers.  In his reviews, he repeatedly mentions portions of their books that he agrees with, but he also seems to aim unnecessary jabs in their direction.  Perhaps most telling, is that if one searches the web, he finds Michael Horton, Westminster Seminary, and many others claiming that Frame failed to fairly represent their views.  It would have been more helpful to write a book that explained the two kingdom view of the Escondido school and then compare it to the one kingdom view of Frame and others.  In this proposed book, if the Escondido Theologians had agreed that Frame adequately represented their views, then the two sides could have discussed which view more adequately represented the content of Scripture, rather than just taking pop shots at one another.  I fear that instead, neither side completely understands the other, and they just keep talking over each others’ heads.

That being said, I do agree that a conversation needs to be had regarding the Scriptural appropriateness of the Escondido school’s two kingdom theology.  Is the two kingdom view the best way to formulate Scripture’s teachings on the interaction between the church and culture?  I personally don’t think it is.  At times when I read the Escondido Theologians, I feel as if they’re advocating an unhealthy separation between Christianity and culture for fear of falling into some sort of Nuevo-social-gospel-liberalism or as a reaction against the mistakes of the religious right.  So I actually find myself in agreement with Frame on many points, I just wish he had written a different sort of book.  Perhaps he felt he needed to take an aggressive approach to get everyone’s attention, or maybe this book was meant to be a launching pad for further discussions on the topic, but ultimately different sorts of books will need to written on this subject if any headway is going to be made.

Overall
2.5 of 5 black cups of coffee.

Not a book for most people, but interesting if you know the players or are already part of the discussion between one kingdom and two kingdom views.  Someone please write a more concise book that fairly represents both sides and allows readers to make an informed decision on this theological topic.

Related Posts:

• Book Review: Dual Citizens: Worship and Life between the Already and the Not Yet by Jason Stellman
• Book Review – Church Planter by Darrin Patrick
• Five Sentence Review: The Shepherd Leader by Timothy Witmer
• Five Sentence Review: What is the Gospel? – Greg Gilbert
• Book Review: A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsden

Initially promising, but ultimately unsatisfying.  That’s how I would describe Dual Citizens:  Worship and Life between the Already and the Not Yet by Jason Stellman.  Now I want to be clear that I’m not on a witch hunt for Jason Stellman’s head.  I’ve never met him, but clearly he’s a brother in Christ, and I would say that he seems like a pretty cool guy.  I randomly discovered his book while browsing Nashville’s local reformed bookstore (logos), was highly intrigued by the subject matter, and purchased it with an extreme excitement and eagerness to begin reading.  And, I’ll happily admit that the introduction to this book rocked my world – helping to construct some much needed theological framework.  But, by the end of the book I feel like Stellman kind of lost steam.

The basic concept of Dual Citizens is that there is a necessary division between the sacred and secular in the lives of Christians.  Contrary to the opinion of many – including John Frame (whom Stellman quotes and disagrees with in the intro – ballsy!) – there should be a distinction between how Christians operate when gathered for worship as a church and when scattered throughout the week as citizens of earth.  I should make clear that Stellman is not arguing for any sort of antinomianism position that allows Christians to act like “hell” during the week and act like “angels” during church service.  But, he is arguing that the main way in which Christians are countercultural is through their gathering on the sabbath to participate in the preaching of Word and the taking of sacrament (Lord’s Supper and Baptism).  He decries any sort of seeker-sensitive, “let’s be relevant” approach to church.  Church is not supposed to be relevant to culture, but obedient to the Bible.  And Stellman argues that the Biblical pattern for our gatherings are:  Word and sacrament, period.

The book is divided into two main sections.  The first seven chapters describe Christian worship, and the last seven chapters describe Christian life.  In my opinion, the first half (Christian worship) forms a more cohesive whole than the second half of the book.  I don’t agree with all of Stellman’s conclusions in this first section, but he does a better job writing this section than he does in the second section.  One of my main critiques is that, Stellman over-argues his point about the church gathering being free from cultural influences.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing or even possible.  He argues that “culture, then, is never to be the determining factor in a church’s worship” (8).  But I would argue that all churches necessarily take on cultural forms both because they are composed of people from specific cultures and because they attempt to clarify the gospel to these specific cultures.  Certainly the attempt to be “relevant” can go too far and water down the gospel, but so can the attempt to avoid this pitfall.  The opposite of the “relevant” pitfall is to be so culturally insensitive that the gospel fails to even be understood.  You can argue all day long that the church is not composed of seekers but of saints; however, any church that loves people will be filled with both saints and the seekers.  Cultural sensitivity and even acclimation will always be necessary to make the gospel clear.  Without clear cultural understanding the gospel may be mistranslated altogether.  Having argued this point, I still think that Stellman does a fair job of deconstructing a lot of seeker-sensitive nonsense that Christianity seems to be so captivated by, but I think he could have made his point in a more even-handed way.

My other critique of this book is that while the first seven chapters were captivating (if overstated), the last seven were kind of boring.  Having read Stellman’s arguments for “worship,” I had a lot of questions about his conception of “life,” but he didn’t really answer many of my questions.  This is why I say that the book kind of lost steam.  The last seven chapters were more of a shotgun approach with bits and pieces of the puzzle being put together, but clearly with some frustrating gaps in clarity.  Two of the chapters:  9) Egypt’s Unworthiness:  Joseph, Moses, and Vanity of Time and 11) Worldliness:  Puritans, Pagans, and the Proper Place of Pleasure were on point, but the other chapters seemed to deal with secondary or even tertiary issues rather than the main subject matter at hand.  Maybe Stellman is just lacking a conclusion or an introduction to the second half of the book, but I can’t shake the taste of confusion that the book left on my tongue.  I would have appreciated more information about how Christians should participate in the culture.  How should they work, enjoy and create art, raise families, and participate in politics?  I’m not looking for answers from the Religious Right, I’m looking for answers from the Bible, but Stellman doesn’t really help me any in this endeavor.  He does briefly touch on some of these issues, but never for long, and never in a complete way.  Personally, I could have done without a few of the chapters that he did write (even though they were fine in and of themselves) and done with a few of the chapters he didn’t write on cultural engagement.  And to reiterate again, I think Stellman would benefit from a conclusion to pull all the pieces together.

So…for a first book this is pretty decent (I mean I’ve never written a book!), but I think it could use some additional clarity in the second half, and a more nuanced approach overall.  Also, I couldn’t help but feel that Stellman occasionally mischaracterized some of those whom he critiqued (which is why I would appreciate a more nuanced approach).  (And hopefully it won’t be said that I lacked a nuanced approach while writing this review, which is brief at best, but I’ll gladly accept any dialogue about my comments if anyone disagrees.)  At the end of the day, I think it would be a blast to sit down with Stellman at a coffee shop and talk theology, and maybe some day I’ll run into him and we’ll do just that.  Probably not, but maybe.  Anyway, I hope he writes another book because the nugget of understanding that he provided for me in the introduction about cult and culture was worth the whole book.

I’ll end by saying that if you are interested in the subject matter of dual citizenship, I don’t think you can go wrong with Living at the Crossroads by Bartholomew and Goheen.  In my opinion it’s a clearer and more well-rounded approach to this same subject.  At least read it first, and then read this book second.

Related Posts:

• Two Great Quotes that are Currently Rocking My World…
• Book Review – Living at the Crossroads by Bartholomew & Goheen
• Book Review: The Escondido Theology by John Frame
• Book Review: A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsden
• The Kingdom of Christ by Russell D. Moore