We continue with this series overturning the attempt by a Brit to unravel Kinism.
In the last installment I provided a few quotes demonstrating that the Church Fathers, throughout history have been kinists or proto-kinists or maybe we should refer to them as racial-realists. I have many similar quotes from many other Church Fathers I will post before this series is through. However, I thought I might open this entry by giving a Whitman’s sampler of quotes that demonstrate that the position that Steve and all Alienists sympathetic to Steve’s “reasoning” support is the very position that throughout history has been supported by Marxists. Now, in light of these quotes, either the Alienists have to declare that the Marxists got it right in this area or that they themselves need to rethink the matter.
“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
“… 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
National liberation then was a transitory factor. It was a prelude to a working class movement within the nation, and its ultimate aim was socialism and so the amalgamation of all nations into one.
“All advocacy of the segregation of workers of one nation from another, all attacks on Marxist assimilation … is bourgeois nationalism, against which it is essential to wage a ruthless struggle.
The theory and program of ‘cultural-national autonomy [is] petty bourgeois, for it converts bourgeois nationalism into an absolute category, exalts it as the acme of perfection, and purges it of violence, injustice, etc.
Marxism cannot be reconciled with Nationalism, be it even of the ‘most just,’ ‘purest,’ most refined and civilized brand. In place of all forms of nationalism, Marxism advances internationalism, the amalgamation of all nations into a higher unity, a unity that is growing before our eyes…
The proletariat … welcomes every kind of assimilation of nations, except that which is founded on force or privilege.
The proletariat cannot support any consecration of nationalism: on the contrary, it supports everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove national barriers; it supports everything that makes the ties between nationalities closer and closer, or tends to merge nations.”
Vladimir Lenin
Critical Remarks on the National Question
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
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:
Keep in mind I have more of these same types of quotes from Marxists where these came from. I just don’t want to overwhelm people. So, again, what we see here is that modern Christians who want to deny the reality and significance of race and ethnicity end up being fellow travelers in the same boat of the Marxists. As such, when I repudiate these men who insist that they are Christian I am repudiating Marxism. This ought to leave people scratching their heads.
Now, on to what Steve has to offer today,
SL writes,
Millenial Glory
God’s purpose throughout history has been to reverse the effects of the Edenic curse. In Isaiah 65:17f we read that in Earth’s future
… 17 “For behold, I create (AF)new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, And her people a joy. 19 (AG) I will rejoice in Jerusalem, And joy in My people; The (AH) voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, Nor the voice of crying. 20 “No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; For the child shall die one hundred years old, (AI)But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed. 21 (AJ)They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and (AK)another eat; For (AL)as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, And (AM)My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labour in vain, (AN)Nor bring forth children for trouble; For (AO) they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, And their offspring with them.
This passage promises that God will so successfully overturn the Edenic curse & cause grace to sanctify the created order that godly citizens will recover a significant measure of longevity – perhaps in the twilight years of earth history when…. He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. (Is 2:4)
BLMc responds,
1.) There really is nothing to disagree with here and SL’s observations here have no bearing on the issue at hand. All Kinists and postmillennialists agree with these observations.
Maybe Steve could clarify for us here what, if anything, these passages he cites above has to do with race – ethnicity?
SL writes,
Nationalism
Evidently, the Babel incident effectively triggered the population of the post Flood world to divide up into various distinct groups establishing the different nationalities (tribes, peoples & tongues, etc) throughout the world. But the important thing to notice is: this was God’s judgement upon the humanistic, rebellious culture of Babel. How were they sinning? What was their specific folly? They were indicted for refusing to fulfil the creation ordinance (Gen 1:28) of building civilisation to the glory of God. Instead, they thought to build a city for the glory of man. Their man-centred way of thinking which exalted the creature (Rom 1:18ff) and suppressed the truth of the Creator so accentuated the effect of sin in their culture that it needed a significant counterblow. The establishment of national identities and smaller people groups meant that future governments in which the ‘laws of man’ are exercised would be kept back from developing into full-blown tyrannies, etc. Limited government was the principled lesson future generations of earthly citizens would need to learn from Babel. ‘Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. The present human condition is one that warrants this mitigating influence of God’s Spirit commending nationalistic, local identity. God has furnished our hearts with a deep-rooted sense of identification with our local familial groupings. My own experience is that I’ll always feel like a Yorkshire man. Moreover, I want Britain to stand on its own two feet as a distinct nation, pro-Brexit!
BLMc responds,
1.) This judgment at Babel that Steve references was also a blessing of God for mankind. Steve misses that commonly throughout Scripture judgment and salvation walk hand in hand. So, while God’s confusing of the tongues at Babel certainly was judgment it was salvation at the same time. It was mankind’s salvation inasmuch as the judgment at Babel led to what God had originally commanded and that was to disperse and fill the earth. In this case God’s judgment was an absolute good for mankind — it chastened them unto obedience.
2.) We should note at this point that the judgment of God against Babel is never un-done. With Babel God forever ordained the dispersion and concretization of the races and nations. They would develop each in their own place, each in their own way. They would become distinct peoples never to have God’s sanction to be an amalgamated, mixed, and confused people. Not even at Pentecost, where God’s judgment on Babel is sanctified by God, is there a hint of God’s desire to conflate the races and nations. At Pentecost each people hear the Gospel in their own tongue thus signifying that God loves distinct nations and intends for them to remain distinct. And that is what we find when we get to the book of Revelation. The nations as nations come into the New Jerusalem. There remains then, per God’s social order intent and design, a definite un-naturalness to the conflating of peoples. Our fathers understood this.
“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”
Dr. Clarence McCartney
Early 20th Century Presbyterian Minister
“The vast majority of good thinking people prefer to associate with, and intermarry with, people of their respective race; this is part of the God-given inclination to honor and uphold the distinctiveness of separate races. But there are many false prophets of oneness, and many shallow stooges, who seek to force the amalgamation of the races.”
Dr. John Edwards Richards
One of the Founders of the PCA
SL writes,
Regeneration & Mount Zion
But, I must not let that natural, temporary reflex displace a more noble realisation wrought in me by God’s own regenerating grace. St Paul tells me that I am now a citizen of heaven! Moreover, that wall of separation established temporarily by God between the offspring of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob and the rest of the world (Gentiles) has, in Christ, been broken down and set aside. NT Scriptures abound to this effect: 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of (AF) the firstborn (AG)who are registered in heaven, to God (AH) the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men (AI)made perfect, 24 to Jesus (AJ) the Mediator of the new covenant, and to (AK) the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things (AL) than that of Abel. (Heb 12:22ff) Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called (U) the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:11ff) 26 For you (AK)are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For (AL)as many of you as were baptized into Christ (AM)have put on Christ. 28 (AN)There is neither Jew nor Greek, (AO) there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all (AP)one in Christ Jesus. 29 And (AQ) if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s (AR) seed, and (AS)heirs according to the promise. (Gal 326ff)
The main point is this: whereas under the Old Covenant, identification with God’s regenerate Church was closely associated with national Israel, under the New Covenant, that association has been abolished. In its place God has established His new spiritual Bride as the universal Church of Jesus Christ. It is, in Christ alone that we now enjoy the fulness of God’s ancient promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Indeed, possession and inclusion in God’s covenant community was only always through faith in Him expressed in obedience to God’s covenant promise, etc. That is the burden of Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. But now, that distinction which St Paul explains in 9:6-8: For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
BLMc responds,
1.) The wall of separation has indeed been set aside. Praise God. However, the fact that all the peoples have salvific access to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ does not mean that who God has created us to be in our creaturely categories goes away or is undone. We see that from Paul himself when inspired by the Holy Spirit he speaks of his special and unique love for his own people,
Romans 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
I am one in Christ with other Christians of all races and ethnicities. We all have access to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. This oneness in Christ allows us to have fellowship and gives us the ability to rise above previous racial and ethnic hatreds that perhaps existed previously. However, this oneness in Christ does not erase who we are in our gender, or in our race – ethnicity. Distinctions remain that should be honored. Just as we see a war between the sexes that will be resolved by men and women turning to Christ — and that without men becoming women or women becoming men — so the conflict between races and ethnicities can be resolved by different people groups turning to Christ, yet without those very real racial-ethnic distinctions disappearing.
Current theologian John Frame echoes these sentiments above when he wrote,
“Scripture, as I read it, does not require societies, or even churches, to be integrated racially. Jews and Gentiles were brought together by God’s grace into one body. They were expected to love one another and to accept one another as brothers inthe faith. But the Jewish Christians continued to maintain a distinct culture, and house churches were not required to include members of both groups.”
Dr. John Frame
“Racism, Sexism, Marxism”
In brief, our mutual spiritual citizenry in heaven doesn’t negate the creaturely distinctions that God deigned for us in our creaturely status.
2.) It is true that in the New Covenant one doesn’t need to become attached to Israel to be part of the people of God. Further, it is true, spiritually speaking, that Church becomes the new Christian nation. However, all of that does not mean that God no longer calls nations covenantally. It is still possible, by God’s grace alone, to be a part of a distinctly Christian ethno-nation. This is what Dr. Gerhards Vos was getting at when he wrote,
Romans 11:17, 19, with its “branches broken off” metaphor has frequently been viewed as proof of the relativity and changeability of election, and it is pointed out that at the end of vs. 23, the Gentile Christians are threatened with being cut off in case they do not continue in the kindness of God. But wrongly. Already this image of engrafting should have restrained such an explanation. This image is nowhere and never used of the implanting of an individual Christian, into the mystical body of Christ by regeneration. Rather, it signifies the reception of a racial line or national line into the dispensation of the covenant or their exclusion from it. This reception of course occurs by faith in the preached word, and to that extent, with this engrafting of a race or a nation, there is also connected the implanting of individuals into the body of Christ. The cutting off, of course, occurs by unbelief; not, however, by the unbelief of person who first believed, but solely by the remaining in unbelief of those who, by virtue of their belonging to the racial line, should have believed and were reckoned as believers. So, a rejection ( = multiple rejections) of an elect race is possible, without it being connected to a reprobation of elect believers. Certainly, however, the rejection of a race or nation involves at the same time the personal reprobation of a sequence of people. Nearly all the Israelites who are born and die between the rejection of Israel as a nation and the reception of Israel at the end times appear to belong to those reprobated. And the thread of Romans 11:22 (of being broken off) is not directed to the Gentile Christians as individual believers but to them considered racially.”
Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol. 1 — pg. 118
So you see Steve is just in error regarding his conclusion that somehow in the New Covenant we can or should no longer be identified with who God has created us racially-ethnically to be. Now, to be sure that familial identity can not and must not supersede our identity in Christ. We are not to make an idol of our race-ethnos. Christ must be supreme in all things. However, neither are we, as Christians, to ignore who God has created us corporeally to be in order to fit into some kind of Gnostic Christianity where “all colors bleed into one.”
God is the God of racial and ethnic distinctions and those distinctions don’t go away and should continue to be honored especially after we have been grafted into Christ.
