Doug Wilson writes (DW)
So of course, kinism only starts to look like a responsible option in demented times. You know, I find that I am using the word demented far more often than I used to. But it has to be admitted that kinism can start to look reasonable in comparison to what the commies are doing. This is because the commies despise whiteness far more than the kinists love it.
Bret responds,
1.) LOL … talk about a backhanded compliment. It’s like telling a chap that his wife is a real beauty compared to all the ugly women she hangs around.
2.) Doug uses the word “demented” a great deal. Personally, I find myself reaching for “insane.”
3.) I seriously doubt that the commies despise whiteness far more than the kinists love it. My mates and I have taken tons of abuse from “Christians” all because we have defended Kinism. How many well platformed Christian ministers have told me and my mates we are “hell-bound” because we have embraced what the Church fathers through the centuries have embraced? (See Achord & Dow’s book “Who is My Neighbor”)
4.) Note here that once again Doug is equating Kinism with whiteness AND Doug is talking about race again when he denies elsewhere that he believes in race. The man just cannot get away from it. (Rightly so, since no one previous to 1950 or so except for the disciples of Franz Boas denied the reality of race.)
DW writes,
But you also have to realize that it only looks like a responsible option in the same way that a Calvin-Klein-hot-couple-in-their-skivvies ad looked back in the eighties, you know, sultry and miserable, when compared with a couple of body positive type models in one of their ads today, in which the probable-girl-unit has a beard, and the guy-unit is probably pregnant. The former ad was certainly sinful and worldly, while the latter is demented. See? There is that word again.
BLM responds,
You got to love DW’s writing ability. It’s hard to keep up.
I might say that DW’s “Christian cosmopolitanism” looks like a responsible option when compared to living in Mordor. Doug’s “Christian cosmopolitanism” is Sauraman’s vision coming to pass as compared to Sauron’s vision of social order. Nobody can deny it is a damn site better than living in Mordor but all the same I’d rather not pass the mashed potatoes to my Christian Uruk-Hai neighbor. I’m sure Uruk-Hai Christians are fine people and living with them would be better than living with the Orcs of Mordor but their conversion doesn’t mean that living together in one nation is ideal. To think otherwise is, well, insane.
DW writes,
All of this is to say that the powers that be (with most of them being as white as the back of Elizabeth Warren’s knees) are doing their level best to make it appear like the kinists are the only ones who haven’t taken a complete leave of their senses. So why do I still want to cordon that kinist realm off with yellow caution tape like I do?
Perhaps a little interaction with McAtee’s piece will help.
BLM responds,
1.) Doug is talking about race again. Something he says does not exist.
2.) Doug is suggesting again that only white people are kinists.
3.) I would dearly love to know where all these “powers that be” are who are doing their level best to make it appear like the kinists are the only ones who haven’t take complete leave of their senses. I mean, after being out in the wilderness all these decades it would be nice to meet some of these “powers that be,” so that I and my mates can come in from the cold.
DW writes,
Race and Ethnicity
And so first a little something on the vocabulary of the whole thing.
“Keep in mind that Doug keeps talking about race when Doug has said he does not think race exists. How can he do that?”
Bret McAtee, in aforesaid article
This is a fair cop, and there are two layers to my response. The first is that I have been talking about these issues for decades now, and over that time I have learned a great deal. One of the things I have learned is that a more biblical way to talk about these issues is in terms of ethnicity and not in terms of race. So while it is true that I believe that there are not difference races of men, there are different tribes.
The nations of men (ethnoi) are recognized as a thing in Scripture, while races are not. But a number of the things I have written on this subject were from the time before I came to this conclusion and hence I used the more common vocabulary of race, races, and racism. You will see that in some of the quotes below. Before I would speak of the sins of racial animosity and racial vainglory where now I would want to say ethnic animosity and ethnic vainglory. So if you run across me saying something like the former, just translate in your head.
BLM responds
1.) And yet as I have noted repeatedly above, DW keeps talking about white people and whiteness in this piece. This is a strange habit for someone who doesn’t believe in race or races.
2.) Let’s understand that what DW is saying here is that the only differences between Ndebele and Xhosa ethnicity and Saxon and Icelandic ethnicity is tribal. Prima facie that is insane… ok, ok… it’s just demented.
3.) DW may not believe that races don’t exist but God seems to believe that they do. Consider;
“A mixed race shall settle in Ashdod, And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. Zechariah 9:6.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. Jeremiah 13:23
DW writes,
The second layer is that I sometimes I still defer to the current usage, either to save time, or because I am reverting to my factory settings, and old habits are hard to break. But it is true that, given the option, I would much prefer to speak of the sins and temptations of ethnic groupings because I believe that this is way closer to the way Scripture speaks of them.
“Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”
Colossians 3:11 (KJV)
There was no racial difference between Scythians and the Greeks, but there were profound ethnic differences, which the blood of Christ came to address and reconcile. The difference between the kinists and me at this point is that we have both been asked to organize and catalog a vast library with various books from 13 different languages. I want to group the books topically and/or by language, while the kinists want to organize all the books by color—blue books over here, and red books over there. I think my way is more useful.
Bret responds,
1.) The blood of Christ came to address and reconcile but not to destroy and eliminate nature. After all, it is a Reformed maxim that “grace restores nature.” Before conversion and after conversion Scythian and the Greeks, remain Scythian and Greeks and Red and Yellow men remain Red and Yellow men. Their oneness in Christ does not eliminate the creaturely distinctions that which were assigned by God as unto each of them.
2.) Here again, DW is reducing race to a matter of skin color with his book cover illustration. This is a not a helpful reductio. It also finds Doug embracing the concept of race again.
3.) The kinists are looking at more than just the color of the book covers. Kinists understand that the color of the book cover is on every page and in all the ink. The color of the book is one thing that makes the book the book. The other reality that makes the book the book is the content of the book but those two things are not completely unrelated.
DW writes,
At any rate, I would really like to see us all retire the word racism. The word is almost completely useless by this point anyhow—I mean, the Left wants to apply it to everything, which has made it worthless as a designation of anything specific, particularly as a designation of a sin. It is not a biblical word.
BLM responds,
Here we can agree. Racism is a word popularized by Leon Trotsky for the very purpose of attacking the previous heretofore Christian normative.
