McAtee Contra Layfield Pt. II

As we continue in this series, let us pause a moment to emphasize again that no Biblical theologian that I can find prior to 1950 or so ever challenged the idea of the reality and significance of race / ethnicity, or tried to dismiss it as merely a matter of melanin. I offer just a smattering of quotes that sustain that claim. I’ve posted these quotes and countless others like them over and over and have yet to receive a rebuttal to the impact of these quotes on the alienist (Steve’s) position.

Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains imbedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected, and they even proposed living in accord with the racial differences between Jews and Greeks as a wholesome rule.

St. Augustine
On Galatians 3:28

1200 years later Calvin takes up this Augustinian rift by preaching,

“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

The Puritans were like-minded on this issue as this quote from Samuel Davies reveals. Davies is roughly a couple centuries after Calvin.

“We now reply to the question, Can we know the sense of the prophetic law of Noah [Gen. 9:24-27; 10:1-32] with absolute certainty ? We answer most unequivocally, Yes. How, then, is it to be known? By the perfect conformity of the fulfillment of the law to its legitimate interpretation. Has such fulfillment occurred? Most unquestionably. “Where is it seen? In all quarters of the globe since the flood, but most sublimely in America. It is obvious in a universal and permanent trinity of races; in their political inequality of condition; in the Christianization of all the Japhetic nations, and of no others; in the occupation of the Shemitic wilderness of America by Japheth; and in the service of Plain to Japheth in the Southern States, in the islands, and in South America … (p.18) A perfect coincidence of events with any legitimate interpretation of prophecy is infallibly a fulfillment; and such fulfillment inevitably coincides with the Divine meaning of the text — God being his own interpreter. Fulfillment is to prophetic law what usage is to statute law. Usage specifies the meaning of statutes by a uniform manner of applying them; and fulfillment is but the usage of the Almighty.”

Rev. Samuel Davie
Dominion or, the Unity and Trinity of the Human Race, p.20

300 hundred years after Calvin and a century after Davies Dr. Charles Hodge gets in on the fun by writing,

” [The] differences between the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro races, which is known to have been as distinctly marked two or three thousand years before Christ as it is now. . . . [T]hese varieties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose. . . . God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit.”

Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Chapter 1, Section 3 (1872–73)


Now these are just three quotes from hundreds of quotes I could choose from that find the greatest Theologians affirming that race and ethnicity are real God ordained realities and are significant.

On the other side of this I have numerous quotes also from Marxists who are arguing like Steve and who want to deny the reality of race / ethnicity. So, in light of these quotes who am I supposed to believe… Steve and his fellow alienists / Marxists or the theological giants who have everywhere in every place, prior to 1950, spoken with a single voice on this issue? Honestly, I must say it gets frustrating for people like Steve (not Steve himself) to be constantly screaming at me that I’m a hell bound racist because I believe only what the Church at all times and all places has believed where it was orthodox. Not only that, I am opposed to that system of thought (Marxism) that has been trying to kill Christ since its inception – that very system of thought that desires to destroy the racial and ethnic distinctions that God created as the Marxists themselves have admitted in their own writings.

Turning now to interact with Steve. Steve writes,

The Fall

With the Fall, sin entered the world & corrupted the whole scene; Cain, Abel & Seth necessarily married their sisters. The gene pool at that primordial stage in human history was very pure. But contention & warring factions multiplied; through laziness & rebellion the dominion mandate (Gen 1:28) was neglected. Genetic purity was lost and longevity – a symptom of genetic health – began to decline. Methuselah was 969 years old when he died! Noah was 950. After the flood, patriarchal ages reduced until, with the Abrahamic family they had collapsed to 175 years.

BLMc responds,

1.) I have read other conjectures (So far most of what Steve has wrote has been conjecture) on why the life span was diminished. Those other conjectures had nothing to do with the gene pool purity being lost.

2.) This has absolutely zero do to with race – ethnicity.

SL writes,

Babel

God’s judgement of Babel is the most significant event we must consider. Quite suddenly, through the immediate generation of, let’s say two dozen different language groups, humanity was induced to spread out across the world and find settled accommodation away from their native homeland. The consequential inter-marriage of clans and families gave rise to the various ‘ethnic’ groupings which we are familiar with today.

BLMc responds,

1.) Steve doesn’t have any idea of how many language groups came into being. More speculation.

2.) Steve doesn’t know if inter-marriage of clans and families is what gave rise to various ethnic groups. This is all conjecture. It might have happened that way but the text does not tell us that it happened that way. Frankly, we just don’t know for sure how it is that God created the different racial – ethnic groups. However, not knowing how it is that God created those differing racial and ethnic groups doesn’t mean that those racial – ethnic groups don’t exist.

SL presses on,


Covenantal Redemption

Next, we must reckon with God’s redemptive plan ‘to destroy the works of the devil’ (1Jn 3:8) and ‘fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea’ (Is 11; Hab 2:14). God singled out Abraham to be ‘the father of many nations’ (Gen 17:5). His fatherhood, however, was not to be ethnic, based on blood lineage, but rather it was covenantal – based on the presence of ‘Godward’ faith within the heart (Rom 4:3). True faith potentially enjoys the covenantal blessing of God down through generations (Ex 20:6). Notice then, covenantal blessings are, in Scripture, enjoyed PRIMARILY through faith exercised by individuals. But, because God they spill over and may be transmitted down through generations, it may appear that there is a ‘blood-lineage’ aspect to them also. Scripture is however as loud as thunder in this regard: God’s covenantal blessings are to be sought and secured by faith. Indeed, so prevalent is the spurious attitude that they are granted on the basis of blood/ancestry that whole books are included in the cannon that refute that hypothesis (e.g. Ephesians, Galatians, Hosea, and vast portions of Isaiah, etc)BLMc responds,

BLMc responds,

1.) If Abraham’s fatherhood was not to be ethnic, based on blood lineage could someone please explain to me those genealogies used by Matthew and Luke to prove that Jesus, the Christ, was of the blood lineage line of David, Abraham, and Adam?

If genealogy isn’t important then why does Paul say,

Romans 1:3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,

If genealogy isn’t important then why does Peter say,

29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, [i]according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,

The idea that Abraham’s fatherhood was not to be ethnic is just ridiculous. Now, to be sure, not all of Israel was of Israel and God could raise stones up to be sons of Abraham but those realities don’t negate the covenantal promises which implied that salvation, while not based on race, nevertheless is a blessing that was visited upon genetic lines by God’s grace alone. Why else would God have talked about being God to us and to our children for a thousand generations (Psalm 105:8)? If the covenantal promises don’t typically run, by God’s grace alone, in genetic lines then why bother bringing our children to the baptismal font to receive God’s promises?

2.) No one denies that Israel was in sin for presuming that faith was not needed due to their covenantal relationship with the God of the Bible. However, to suggest that because Israel was in sin for wrongly presuming on God’s grace just because of their genetic connection to Israel doesn’t mean that God’s promises to work in familial covenantal lines is negated. My Children had to combine the promises with faith. So will my grandchildren. However, God has always remained faithful to be God to His people in their generations. To deny that God is faithful to His people in their generations plays havoc with the character of God.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane