This Week’s Accusation Du Jour … “Pastor Bret uses ‘Racist’ Words”

Last week I was informed by Chloe that I was being accused in some quarters of being a “white Supremacist.” As such, I posted a response trying to point out how ridiculous such a charge is and how it can only be lodged by someone who has been influenced by Cultural Marxist categories and who could possibly themselves be an unconscious part of the new Cultural Marxist proletariat crafted to overthrow historic Christianity. I tried to use quotes from some of the Dutch Reformed Church fathers to demonstrate that you can not fit a slim dime between what I was trying to communicate and what several of the Dutch Reformed fathers wrote as they handled Scripture.

This week, a friend of mine (Michael Fort) has pointed me to a blog where the accusation was recently made by an eminent person who has repeatedly (three times at last count) made the accusation that my words are racist. Color me stupid, but even I can begin to see the beginnings of a bad Zombie apocalypse movie where I serve a bit role for being devoured by the ravenous hordes. You will forgive me, dear reader, if I am to be served up as the main course if my intent is to at the very least give the Cultural Marxist Zombies a bit of indigestion on the way down.

So, here I am in the situation where the Zombie Apocalypse hordes are gathering and they are giving off that high pitched signal that you hear in those kinds of films for other Zombies to come and also shriek and dine. In this case, if I am to survive the rest of the film I am thus put in the position of having to provide a defense for why I am not a “racist.” The way things are rolling I’m sure I’ll be back the next few weeks defending myself from being a misogynist, homophobe, and one who enjoys grilling babies over an open flame.

Let me say, at the outset, as I have noted before that I am working at somewhat of a disadvantage here since I have no earthly idea of what “racist” means.  The word has no objective meaning apart from its intended work as a polemical sobriquet. If no one embraces for himself the definition of “racism” or “racist” as given by the Cultural Marxists and if further the definition is only attached to something that is in and of itself inherently wicked per those who sling around the word who would ever admit that they are a racist per the definition of Cultural Marxists? I sure don’t. The word becomes kind of a verbal biological weapon that is intended to poison the well before the conversation can begin.

But for the sake of argument lets just say that “racist” means a person who hates non-Caucasians. (Warning here … in the not too distant past I was told by another eminent person that the term non-caucasian is “racist.” I was also told by someone else that using the phrase “person of color” is “racist.” What’s a guy to do?) If the accusation that I am a “racist” means that I hate non-Caucasians then the proof that I am not a “racist” is the job of producing evidence that I don’t uniformly hate non-Caucasians.

The problem here however, is now I am put in the position of the Apostle Paul who said he spoke “as a fool” and “as a madman” in having to march out his bonafides in order to sustain his ministry among God’s people as he was dealing with the False Apostles (II Corinthians 11).  I am not comfortable in doing what follows since Scripture mentions that our deeds of charity should be done secret. However, what else can I do if I am not to be eaten alive by the Cultural Marxists Zombie hordes?

I have been in the ministry 30 years this September. Along the way, I have been honored to try and help people from countless numbers of tribes, nations, and tongues. In my first ministry in South Carolina, where I spent 6 years, for two of those years I was instrumental in creating and putting together an old-fashioned tent revival for the tiny community that I served. We went out of our way to include and invite the black churches in the area. Many folks came from both the black and white churches. One of those two years we invited a friend of mine who I graduate Seminary with — a black pastor — who gave the message on each night of the “Revival meeting.” We put up a  huge banner over the town thoroughfare (imagine a tiny version of Mayberry RFD) and we rented and pitched a huge tent. We brought in a top-notch music guy who generously donated his talents. We put down sawdust. We had the black choirs from the black churches do some of the music. We had fellowship. The children played on the lawn as children do. Then we went back to worship in our respective churches week by week. I don’t know how much of an impact that had? One can never know or measure those kinds of things. No one asked me about this before deciding to launch the potential professionally career-ending charge of using words that are “racist.”

Then there was the work my friend Karl and I did. Karl was the Presbyterian minister in the city Church (population 500) and I was the Presbyterian minister in the little country rural Church. We had attended Seminary together. I came to love Karl like a brother. And like brothers, we were involved in each other’s life at the time. One of the things we did together at Christmas time was to have our congregations wrap up and donate gifts for children which he and I would then distribute to families in need. Karl and I went to white homes and we went to black homes trying to bring a wee bit of good will to impoverished people.

Then there was my friendship with Amos and Methrane Mateva. They belong to the Shona people and were from Zimbabwe. They lived in the trailer behind our trailer. We had classes together and had long conversations about what we were learning. My, at the time toddler-daughter Laura-Jane, and Amos’s toddler daughter Vimbai would often play together as we talked. When I took my first charge in South Carolina we continued to try and be of some service to the Matevas. We planted a huge garden together in the large plot of land that the new manse sat on. I remember Amos and I struggling together to pull up the Kudzu so as to clear the land and give our vegetable plants root room to grow. When harvest time came we shared the produce with the Matevas. I introduced the Matevas to the new congregation, Jane, I was serving. There were those in that Southern rural congregation who were at first, kind of uneasy with the idea but after Amos gave his presentation of life in Zimbabwe the congregation was largely won over.  That congregation was a wonderful place to start a career in the ministry and I praise God daily for them in my life.

Eventually, I would go on a 9-day fact-finding tour to Zimbabwe to investigate the possibility of my wife and I going there as Missionaries. While in Zimbabwe I stayed with a Shona family and ministered with a Shona pastor. I sat at their table and broke bread with them. I slept in their home. I visited the high-density suburbs of Zimbabwe and was stunned to see the conditions under which people lived. I went out into the rural areas of Zimbabwe with Rev. N. and was always graciously received by the rural people in their simple dwellings where we were uniformly offered Sadza, upon entry of each humble home. Sadza, for those accusing me of “racism” is a cooked maize staple in Zimbabwe. I often think how good it would be to have some Sadza again. On a Sunday I was in Zimbabwe I preached in the local church through a translator. I marveled not only at these people and how far they would walk to attend Church but also at the terrain they had to cover to get to Church. I also found it interesting that as they filed into Church the women sat on one side of the dirt aisle and the men sat on the other side of the aisle.

Obviously, the doors never opened to go to Zimbabwe to do Missionary work. Jane was especially disappointed as doing Missions had always been her dream growing up in a very missions-minded Pastor’s home and having spent 9 months in the Ivory Coast as a nurse just before we were married. Life has divinely ordained disappointments. You learn to trust God’s providence and move on.

We kept in touch with the Matevas as the years progressed, although we finally did lose touch with them a few years ago as communication with them became more and more difficult for several reasons. Before losing touch though, I introduced the Matevas to the congregation I was serving in Michigan and to a few folks who read this blog. Because of that, we were able to raise for the Mateva’s several thousand dollars to help them survive and do their Ministerial work in Zimbabwe among the Shona and Ndebele nations. If you type “Zimbabwe” into the Iron Ink search engine you can find fundraising appeals and correspondence from the Matevas. I’m sure this kind of action (fund-raising and friendship) is characteristic of all “racists.”

The world has become smaller and smaller because of the internet. Because of that, I have done my share of counseling and conversation over the phone with non-Caucasian friends. Several years ago, there was R from the Indian sub-continent who had married a white European woman and who called me a couple time to help with difficulties in the marriage. I tried to encourage him and counsel him the best I could in a difficult situation. Of course a “racist” would never have taken such a phone call but I gladly did and still count R as a friend. (R had been a personal friend with the Reformed Theological giant Dr. Francis Nigel Lee and we would spend considerable time online talking about that man’s abilities.)

More recently, “P” has come into my life by God’s ordination. “P” is a non-Caucasian who lives on the islands between the US Southern Coast and South America. “P” phones once or twice a month and we gladly chat for 60 to 90 minutes. I already consider him a friend. By his testimony, this twenty-something year old counts me as a mentor. I am embarrassed at how much he is impressed with me. I know I am not what he seems to think I am. “P” is starving for Biblical Christianity in a place where, by his testimony, zero Biblical Christianity exists. So he phones and we talk about God’s grace and God’s law. We talk about the challenges he faces. We talk about his relationship with his white European fiancee. To my recollection, I’ve never shrieked in racist horror. I count “P” a friend already. He and his fiancee, as well as his parents (who we have been honored to break bread with here in the States), have generously supported the ministry Jane and I are involved in here in Charlotte. I am overwhelmed with God’s goodness by putting these people in my life and by giving me the opportunity to help in whatever little “racist” way I can.

Allow me to speak a little of “G” who lives in one of the large metropolitan cities on the Eastern Seaboard. “G” is a black man who shares a common worldview and faith. Because of the wonders of the internet, we have chatted several times.  “G” tries to keep a comparatively low profile because he realizes it might well mean his job if he spoke out too boldly on the matters in which we agree. He is seeking to be as “wise as a Serpent and harmless as a dove.” I am more than confident from corresponding with “G” that he would agree with the words of Elizabeth Wright.

“White conservatives don’t want to take the lead in preserving what remains of this country’s now tenuous White, Anglo-Euro culture. To take on such a responsibility would make them even more vulnerable to the racial bullets and daggers they have been ducking for years.”

~ Elizabeth Wright, Black Conservative Author, and Social Critic

I highly recommend the writing of Elizabeth Wright. I have enjoyed reading her. I think you can still find them online.

“G” is a good man. His people and the Church needs many more like him.

Next we meet Dr. Jaime. I swear there are times when I think he is the humblest man who has ever lived. Actually, if it is possible to be too humble he certainly is too humble. Dr. Jaime is a Filipino professional living in the States. I will let Dr. Jaime testify in his own words to my “racist” disposition and teaching as he has recently on the blog where the eminent person is calling my words “racist.”

“I am one of the nonwhite Christian friends of Pastor Bret. We have known each other for 7 years or so. He has counseled me often, and I have financially contributed to his ministry.

I agree with the points he has made. I do not find them uncharitable. If whites can just closely observe how we are in the third world, they will realize that indeed we cause our problems that keep us stranded where we are. It is simple human depravity.

And we do critique each other in my nation, especially when we recognize how our Japanese neighbors are far more disciplined and advanced. I personally would not desire the collapse of Japan by inundating it with my own countrymen. I will not be upset if we are restrained by its citizens after they notice how we are in my nation.

For me, it is Christlike empathy, humility, and charity if we confess our own shortcomings, which we should work to repent of, and which we should not want to burden other groups with. That’s how I take Pastor Bret’s point that has been quoted about the third world here.

More importantly, I see it as a tribal issue. Even in ancient Israel, each tribe was responsible for its own members. It was so for other nations around Israel. We are to follow the same command of God.

There is nothing racist about how God has created specific tribes with their own historical evolution of unity by blood and faith. Scripture shows how Israel began as an abandoned and crying infant child ignored and rejected by greater nations around her. But then God Himself had much compassion to take her as His own offspring. Each tribe and nation can have such faith in His love, regardless of their state in history.

Here we also do see God eventually raise Israel as a mighty nation where noble kings, prophets, and warriors would arise. I find nothing wrong if anyone should note that Europeans, in particular, Anglo-Saxons, would have the most remnant raised by God to have special blessings similar to what ancient Israel and the kingdom of Judah once received from Him.

It does not offend me because it is the pleasure of God to do as He will with individuals and their tribes since the beginning of creation, all for the glory of His name. I am content and fully accepting of this truth as the sovereignty of God at work. I am neither European nor Anglo-Saxon. I am a Filipino, and yet my hope is that the remnant among my people does have its own gifts by the grace of Christ too. God has decreed in history that not everyone can be glorious Judah; others are nurtured by God to be repentant Naphtali and Zebulun.”

I would just note that Dr. Jaime is being humble when he notes simply that he has supported the ministry here in Charlotte.

Of course, I am no Albert Schweitzer, but it wouldn’t matter if I were because if the white South African missionary and Pastor, Dr. Peter Hammond can be accused of being a “racist,” as he recently has been by Dr. Joel McDurmon then any white person can be accused of being a racist simply because they will not hue the cultural Marxist line.

This is not all I could march out to provide an apologetic for why Pastor Bret is not “racist.” But I could drain every last episode and account in my life of cross-racial ministry and friendship but it wouldn’t matter to the Cultural Marxist influenced zombies who are seeking to destroy me both personally and professionally because, in the end, this isn’t about race, racism, or racists or white Supremacists. In the end, this is about theology, worldview, and ideology.  If non-Caucasians refuse to agree with the Cultural Marxist version of egalitarian reality then those non-Caucasians can just be dismissed as so many exotic “Uncle Toms,” by the Cultural Marxists. So, it doesn’t matter how many people, accounts, and friendships I march up to the microphone, I will still be condemned for being using “racist” words because I dare not fit into the zeitgeist. I challenge and so remain accused of using  racist words because I have deconstructed the Belhar Confession as proto-Marxist, and I will remain a misogynist no matter how many women would say to the contrary because I don’t believe women should be ordained as Pastors, and I will remain a homophobe no matter the friendships in my life that testify otherwise because I refuse to support sodomy as a lifestyle or an option for marriage, and I will remain being accused of using racist words because of my love for my people and my insistence that even their white lives matter. My opposition to these things is not going to change and I don’t care if I am frogged marched before courts, councils, and luminaries, I am not giving any quarter on these issues.

The reasons why I am giving no quarter on these issues have grown over the years. I now have 9 grandchildren and I know of a certainty that world that awaits them if this cultural Marxist one-worldism isn’t opposed and eventually stopped. I have sat by and wept at the accounts of the Soviet Gulags. I have been sleepless over what I have read at the French Revolution. I have cried out to God over the horrors of Mao’s “great leap forward,” as I have read the accounts there. Hitler’s concentration camps and the Turks treatment of the Armenians lingers in my memory. The Bolshevik slaughter of the Ukranian Christians, largely still unreported and unknown, taunts me in my sleep.  The future of my grandchildren is the present realities of the white Boers and Afrikaners in South Africa, where recently South Africa has just been upgraded to #6 on the genocide scale — the next to last step before the actual beginning of the slaughter. If I have to be personally and professionally destroyed in a fight for God’s glorious truth of the realities of nations and for the future of my offspring then let the destruction begin. I will wear that destruction as a badge of honor and will list it on my resume.

Maybe I am wrong here, however? Maybe the reason it has been said that I use “racist,” words is not because I hate non-Caucasian people. Maybe I have been said to have used “racist” words because of how many times I have written that white people have to be the stupidest people who have ever walked the planet. People, will come to me and talk about the controversial Charles Murray book, “The Bell Curve,” and my response generally is that my eyes tell me that white people should hardly be crowing about where they fall on the bell curve. Who else would give up their inheritance and patrimony in order to find satisfaction in the ability to virtue signal? Who else would embrace their own creeping destruction in order to have their enemies say nice things about them? Who else would gladly be led by women and children (Isaiah 3:12)? Countless are the times I have bemoaned that white people are the stupidest thing going because only stupidity combined with divinely imposed blindness can explain why a people would rebel against the God who has historically dealt so generously with them.  We, as white Christians, have sown the wind, and now for several generations, we have been justly reaping the whirlwind.  Part of that reaped whirlwind is the disease called Cultural Marxism.

Maybe this is why it is being said that I use “racist” words If my bemoaning of the utter stupidity of the white race as seen in what looks to be the majority attempt to live out the worse of dystopian realities is why it is being subtly suggested that I am “racist” then color me guilty.

Perhaps there is no defense against the label of “racist?” After all, if after being said to have used “racist,” words by a luminary, working for an organization committed to “racial reconciliation,” I am also told that “race is a biological myth,” what am I do to? One wonders how there can be any racial reconciliation between members of groups that do not exist? How can I defend myself against someone who at one and the same time says, “Race is a biological myth but then suggests to me that I am still a racist and  hater against something they don’t believe even exists?” It seems my real sin is believing that race is a real category and not a social construct. However, what I do to when we find studies like this being published?

https://www.forensicmag.com/article/2015/09/can-you-determine-race-fingerprint

Somebody better tell those fingerprints that they are being “racist.”

Like the Apostle Paul, I can at the same time, love both the whole family of God and my kinsmen after the flesh (Romans 9:3) and not feel an inch of shame for doing so.

³ For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, ⁴ the people of Israel.