Theonomy Thursday: God's Law Made Easy Reviewed (Part 1)

I'm a really looking forward to this series. In a slow introduction to theonomy, I will be working through God's Law Made Easy written by Kenneth Gentry. This is part of a series of books written by Mr Gentry to explain some of the crucial minority views he holds. I am a great respecter of Mr Gentry and own two books of his defending his theonomy.

Instead of getting carried away with a broach approach to the subject. I figured a detailed interaction with Mr Gentry's introduction book would be a great place to start. There are nine chapters in the book and I will break each chapter up into multiple blogs. The result will be a new "Theonomy Thursday" that will continue for multiple months if not for an entire year.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Our Current Predicament

Mr Gentry begins his excursion with a description of our current American culture. Many are capable of standing up and simply ridiculing the lack of morals in secular society. Few Christians would need encouragement to blast our culture as deprived of Godliness or true righteousness. But these things are the point of this book. No those are the symptoms of the underlying problem,The American Church.

After offering a return to God's Law as the general premise for a solution to our problems. Mr Gentry comes out with "two pragmatic factors" that are often found in the modern contemporary (and conservative) church for rejection this solutions. First, "promoting God's law today requires too bold a commitment" and second "prompting God's law today is potentially embarrassing."

I can find little grounds for disagreement on these two points. I don't think these are half-baked reasons. I think they are well thought and should be described as the typical response to an introduction to theonomy. Theonomy requires an optimistic approach to human history and the eschatology of the church (essentially postmillennialism). Mr Gentry is right that this optimism plus focus on God's law receives the cries of  "that's the Old Testament!", "that will never work!" and "you assume Christianity will win the victory!" ... To which I can thankfully answer, "yes it is", "yes it will" and "yes I do".

The sheer audacity of such an approach can be embarrassing. I expect many will scoff at the conclusion of this blog, you can understand how more popular theonomist in the church have been received. And whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, this tends to have a huge affect on the theology of laymen.

A Proposed Solution

It is at this point that Mr Gentry gives us a simple outline for theonomy. I am actually going to close this post by simply listing the seven points. Next week I will begin my general response to them.

1. God's Law is binding.

2. God's Law is relevant.

3. God's Law is historical.

4. God's Law is adaptable.

5. God's Law is multifaceted.

6. God's Law is comprehensive.

7. God's Law is behavioral.

Think about these things and come back next week for some a casual walk through before we move deeper into Mr Gentry's book.