A Brief Review of "The Escondido Theology" by Dr. John Frame

My friend Daniel Wells has written a detailed review of John Frame's Escondido Theology here: http://danielfwells.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/a-young-preachers-thoughts-on-john-frames-escondido-theology/

While my review will not be as penetrating in analysis (or as long), I do want to share some of my thoughts after reading the book.

Format
I have a few frustrations regarding the book and its format. First, the editor at Whitefield Media Publishing needs to do a better job. There were countless times with the footnote numbers jumped. For example, on page 270, there is footnote 18; then on page 272, it jumps to footnote 282 instead of 19 (a significant difference in number!).   I don't expect a book to be perfectly edited. A book could go through 3-5 reviews and still have typos. However, when the typos are numerous enough to count and distract from the content of the book, then I have a problem (especially if I'm going to be $20 for the book!).

Next, the title of the book (The Escondido Theology) and the subtitle (A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology) seem to be at odds with each other given the actual content of the book. What I mean is that Dr. Frame's book reviews seem to go beyond responding to Two-Kingdom Theology (2KT) specifically, and address such issues as worship, preaching, and strict confessionalism. These issues do not seem to directly (primarily) flow from holding to 2KT. I would side with Horton, et. al., on their view of music in worship, but that does not mean I hold to 2KT. In fact, on this issue I side with Dr. Frame.  As such, I felt there were a few chapters that were unneccesary in the book: Chapter 3, R. Scott Clark's "Recovering the Reformed Confession"; Chapter 6, Michael Horton's "Covenant and Eschatology"; and Chapter 8, Above the Battle: 3 Books on Worship. These chapters were especially unhelpful regarding understanding and critiquing 2KT specifically. The subtitle of the book implies this will be the focus of the book, but the title and content of the book make it seem that Dr. Frame is going after more elements of these author's theology than just 2KT. If Dr. Frame wanted to specifically focus on 2KT, then he should have removed those chapters and expanded his last 2 chapters of the book (Chapters 10 and 11) which are helpful in addressing 2KT, but are too brief. Expanding these chapters would allow for a more sustained critique.
I would also rearrange the chapters so that the critique of Kline's A Kingdom Prologue (Chapter 5!) came first since he is one of the primary sources on which the author authors draw their 2KT views.

Beyond these 2 things, the next thing I found frustrating about the book was its use of endnotes rather than footnotes. I hate endnotes. There's nothing more annoying than having to flip through pages to follow a reference rather than having it at the bottom of the same page.

Finally, I think the format of chapters of book reviews to offer a response fails. Dr. Frame has offered a detailed, sustained critique of Open Theism (No Other God) which is quite good and I highly recommend. I believe he should have done the same here, rather than reviewing specific books (some of which are irrelevant to 2KT specifically).

Content
The two main thrusts that I sense from Dr. Frame's book is that 2KT abhors evangelicalism because it is not Reformed, not confessional, too relevant, too much application driven in their preaching, and their worship is too influenced by the world. I suspect that this abhorrence of mainstream evangelicalism is a driving force to their 2KT as it provides them another avenue to critique mainstream evangelicalism and their large association with the Republican party/conservatism.
The other main thrust is that 2KT holds to a modified version of Covenant Theology (not the traditional Reformed version) which allows them to to make their cult/culture distinction and other key 2KT distinctions.

Although I am not a 2K person and strongly disagree with them, I also have a few quibbles with some things Dr. Frame said in the book. On page 6, Dr. Frame writes, "Amillennialists play down the possibility of Christian cultural influence before Christ's return." Only a couple of pages later, he writes, "Most professors [at WTS during Frame's time there as a student], to be sure, were amillennial rather than postmillennial. But it was taken for granted that Christ's lordship should be affirmed in every aspect of human life."  So which is it? Do amillennialists downplay Christian influence of culture or do they not? For someone who throughout the book critiques 2K theologians as being confused, unclear, and not precise enough, these is a glaring case of the same on Dr. Frame's part in just a few pages.

In a footnote on page 198, Dr. Frame asserts that the various authors in the book The Law Is Not of Faith are followers of Kline though differing on some matters of detail. I don't want to accuse Dr. Frame, but that seems to me to be a downright lie as I have specifically talked with my own professor Dr. Belcher about that book and his contribution to it. He specifically told me that he does not want to say the Mosaic Covenant is a republication of the covenant of works, but he does believe there is a works principle still present in that covenant.
Also, I do not believe Dr. Waters (for whom I TA and have had lunch with) would call himself a follower of Kline. I believe Dr. Frame has overstated his case in this footnote. It seems to me that there is a lot of "guilt by association" done with this book. If a 2K theologian holds to a particular issue, then it must flow out of his 2KT. If a few 2K authors contribute chapters to a book, then all of the authors of that book must be followers of Kline.

In the final analysis, I was disappointed by this book as I eagerly anticipated it and even had some advance chapters sent to me by Dr. Frame a couple of years ago. I believe a better formatted and traditional book-length response to 2KT still needs to be written, while certainly drawing upon some key points that Dr. Frame makes against 2KT (for a review of those points, refer to Daniel's excellent blog post linked at the top of this page).