Dear Pastor,
I am glad to see that you agree that God’s actions in Genesis 11 are to be understood as a judgment and curse upon idolatrous man. Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant consitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me. Which ethnic/national/racial divisions? The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?
Bryan Peters
Johnston, Iowa
Dear Bryan,
First off, thank you for writing and working on clarifying matters.
Bryan writes
“Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant constitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me.”
Of course I assert this. I am Reformed. Reformed folk hold to a hermeneutic of continuity. It is very odd of you as a Reformed person to assume a hermeneutic of discontinuity. That is very Baptist of you. Why should you think that God who ordains ethnic division in the OT would reverse that in the NT? Where in the NT does God say, “I changed my mind on ethnic and national people groups. The death of my Christ eliminated race, nations and people groups as corporeal realities?” Really Bryan… who is the one stretching here?
Bryan wrote,
Your assertion that the blessings of the New Covenant constitute an affirmation of ethnic division seems very stretched to me. Which ethnic/national/racial divisions?
Bret responds,
Bryan, you offer me more of a riddle here than a question. You imply the impossibility of ascertaining ethnicity, nationality and race and yet you, as the questioner, takes for granted the reality of ethnicities, nations and races in asking the question. If you, and most others know your own ethnicity etc, your implying of the impossibility of identifying those divisions is edges on torpidity. If you assume the reality of races in order to impugn them, you are engaged in existential pretzel logic.
The NT has no problem identifying ethnicities, Nations, and races. The Lord Christ speaks of “Nations” in Mt. 28. Dr. Luke identifies Nations in the Acts record. In Revelation St. John speaks of Nations repeatedly and even as they exist in the New Jerusalem.
Bryan writes
Which ethnic/national/racial divisions? The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?
Here, Bryan you are practicing the “Loki’s wager” fallacy. Loki’s Wager, is a form of logical fallacy. It posits the unreasonable insistence, in this case, on your part, that a concept cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be discussed.
Bryan,
Where do we start in distinguishing legitimate divisions or do we merely affirm the de facto divisions which exist at any one point in time?
In reading various histories one thing that strikes me is the continuity of ethnicities spanning millennia. I read A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German people, and the author, Steven Ozment provides a glimpse of the continuity of the German identity well before Christ came. Political boundaries have shifted extensively, but we can still reasonably identify the major ethnic groups that exist today. Europe was populated by Southern Mediterraneans, Celts, Germans, Scandinavians, Alpines, Slavs, etc., and these groups go back to just after Noah. It seems you are conflating political boundaries for ethnic distinctions.
Bryan writes,
“The divisions which existed in the first century have morphed into very different divisions in our present time. “
Oh? How so? This looks like the fallacy of petitio principi to me.
Even so …. on this score consider what I wrote earlier,
In reading various histories one thing that strikes me is the continuity of ethnicities spanning millennia. I read A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German people, and the author, Steven Ozment provides a glimpse of the continuity of the German identity well before Christ came. Political boundaries have shifted extensively, but we can still reasonably identify the major ethnic groups that exist today. Europe was populated by Southern Mediterraneans, Celts, Germans, Scandinavians, Alpines, Slavs, etc., and these groups go back to just after Noah. It seems you are conflating political boundaries for ethnic distinctions.
Finally Bryan, keep in mind that the very existence of Covenant constitutes an affirmation of ethnic division. Think about it.
