The epistemologically self-conscious paedo-Reformed have often wished that Roger Williams would never have been let off the boat that brought him here. Baptists – even the best of them – with their contradictions and inconsistencies drive us nuts.
The series of quotes below from Dr. James White provides just such an example. White fancies himself a critic of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Cultural Marxism in general. Dr. White even signed the Dallas Statement which inveighed against the issues just mentioned.
That Dr. White looks to be on the side of the angels on this subject is seen by a tweet thread from 2018 where he wrote;
“If powerful (and wealthy) multi-national interests who benefit from cultural decline and degradation in the US find Neo-Marxism a useful tool for the creation of division and anarchy, should we stop identifying it for the fear of offense?”
James White – 2018 Tweet
“We who are opposing this very American, very sociological, but (we believe) very unbiblical movement do so because we see it requiring a new paradigm, a new way of interpreting the entire gospel message.”
James White – 2018 Tweet
Of course, we plebes who sit on the sideline and watch can’t help but cheer for these kinds of blows well laid. “Hip Hip Hooray,” and all that.
However, our cheering suddenly dies in our throats when we go on to read what else white says in the same tweet thread;
“The renewal that is the reality of true Christians is one that obliterates social, ethnic, and historical connections — the beautiful and radical unity that marked the apostolic message is based upon a truth that sociologists and politicians cannot grasp, and cannot overthrow.”
James White from 2018
“Concepts of ‘whiteness’ or ‘blackness’ are DESTROYED by the radical equality of every sinner’s need and Christ’s perfect provision. Our identity is NOT determined by our ancestors—we have been transferred out of the kingdom where such relationships rule and divide.”
James White
Holy Bogomil Batman! What Cathari demon suddenly possessed White in that thread? Is James a secret member of the Paulicans? There is more of Jan of Leyden in those last two quotes than there is of Jesus Christ.
You see, this is what makes us go very slowly when we are around Baptists. They are prone to these kinds of crazy Ivans.
Let us examine briefly these last two quotes;
I.) The renewal that is the reality of true Christians most certainly does not obliterate social, ethnic and historical distinctions. That kind of sentiment is straight-up Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels.
You tell me, dear reader, who is Dr. James White channeling?
1.) ”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?
The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”
~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847
2.) “The equality of races and nations is one of the most important elements of the moral strength and might of the Soviet state. Soviet anthropology develops the one correct concept, that all the races of mankind are biologically equal. The genuinely materialist conception of the origin of man and of races serves the struggle against racism, against all idealist, mystic conceptions of man, his past, present and future.”
—Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959
“The Origin of Man” (Moscow)Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959:
3.) “The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and end all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer together but to merge them….”
Vladimir Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination — pg. 76
4.) “… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “
Vladimir Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination
5.) “Even the natural differences within species, like racial differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:
What White is advocating as Christianity, knowingly or unknowingly, is Communism.
II.) When White talks about unity in the quote above he is not talking about any unity that any Reformed Christian every embraced. Instead what the man is talking about is uniformity. White is talking about the unity of the garbage can/scow. It is the unity of everything being in a non-distinguishable mess of corruption.
Contrast White’s statement about the beautiful and radical unity that marked the apostolic message with a statement by John Calvin;
“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”
John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)
III.) While our identity is not absolutely determined by our ancestors it is simply the case that in many respects our identify is determined by my ancestors. Physical characteristics like my height, my eye-color, my IQ range etc. were all determined by my ancestors. The Gospel does not put me in some kind of Gnostic world where my physical identity makers as inherited from my ancestors goes away. In the same way, many non-physical characteristics inherited from my ancestors don’t disappear with inclusion into Christ. I am Scot-Irish. My stubbornness/determination comes to me naturally and the Gospel, while working to sanctify that stubbornness/determination is not going to make it go away. White is wrong.
IV.) When White says, “we have been transferred out of the kingdom where such relationships rule and divide.” he is once again in error. Certainly the wall of division that divided Jews and Gentiles has been broken down. We now all have access to the Father through Christ. However, that does not mean that we have been transferred out of the Kingdom, where for example, only one born of one’s own nation should rule that nation.
Dt. 17:15you are to appoint over yourselves the king whom the LORD your God shall choose. Appoint a king from among your brothers; you are not to set over yourselves a foreigner who is not one of your brothers
A foreigner many be a Christian but the fact that that foreigner is in the Kingdom of Christ does not mean that his relationship with Christ means that he can rule in a Kingdom with which he is not indigenous. Being a Christian doesn’t mean there are not going to continue to be proper divisions among Christians.
In the end White’s problem is that he is contending that Grace destroys nature whereas the Reformers always insisted, quite to the contrary, that Grace restores nature.
Honestly, it is hard to determine how one man in the space of a few minutes can vehemently oppose CRT while at the same time argue from the principles of CRT as if they are the very essence of Christianity.