It strikes me that God has ordained these times to be those times when the moon is perpetually full and some house of one constellation is in another house of some other constellation which always means that there is a “bad moon on the rising,” and the “lunatic fringe” is filling in every crevice. I mean there are not enough digits in the land of six fingered children to fill all the holes in all the dykes where all the water is rushing in as in the Church — never mind everyplace else the water is leaking into our living quarters.
I’ve already dialogued with Rev. “All My grandchildren are descendants of Rabbi Cohn” Wilson a couple times recently here. However, though Wilson is clearly the moon-bat in charge of the CREC there are more than enough other moon-bat clergy in his denomination to fill all the belfries in all the Dracula horror films ever produced.
Now, I don’t want anybody thinking that I am prejudiced against the CREC. No sirree Bob. I am an equal opportunity disemboweler of almost all expression of our modern clergy corps. It is true there are times that I go on safari seeming to hunt only one breed of clergy — and lately that has been those of the CREC variety — but on the whole if you peruse Iron Ink you will see that I am not bias, prejudiced or discriminatory in the least when it comes to which stuffed shirts I enjoy stuffing.
This time we find the Rev. Steve Hemmeke of the CREC grazing in his natural habitat (his blog) as I discover him in my scope from 300 yards away.
Steve writes a piece titled, “So, on Ethnicity, Kinism, and Nationalism” In that piece he writes;
“Calling racial preferences inherently racist as I did is an overstatement. I recant.”
Bret responds,
Civilizations of the last 1000 years exhales with a sigh of relief over this recanting. Imagine all the shame that would have accrued if Steve had stuck to his guns on this overstatement.
However Steve is not done,
And yet.
Those ethnic or racial preferences within us are not justified by their natural existence, much less are they obligated by Scripture or natural law.
Bret responds,
Q. 124. Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?
A. By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.
Whatever happened to I Timothy 5:8?
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Whatever happened to Romans 9:3?
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,
What happened to Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman?
Just remember though… Rev. Steve has told you that “ethnic or racial preferences within us are not justified by their natural existence, much less are they obligated by Scripture or natural law,” and you have his word on that.
Rev. Steve presses ever on,
They are like any natural impulse or temptation, which must be disciplined by the Word. When I hear “God Bless the USA,” I can agree and even get emotional, but I need to temper it with “God may judge the USA, instead.”
Bret responds,
This is Steve’s impression of either Captain Obvious or his right hand man Lieutenant Nitwit.
Just exactly who is Steve writing to in the Church who really believes that love for kith and kin is rises above the necessity to be faithful to the Lord Christ? If Rev. Steve thinks that Kinists believe that (and that is the context Steve is writing in) he has never met a kinist but only writes about them as listening to the sounds that come from the fevered swamps that are called the CREC.
The Wise One from Howell Michigan writes,
When we say grace perfects nature, we mean exactly this. Natural affection needs sanctifying, not celebrating or justifying without qualification, just because the Left vilifies whites or America, or just because we feel it well up in us naturally. C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, on Storge, is excellent on this.
Bret responds,
Right … natural affection needs sanctifying and right now the natural affection that needs sanctifying the most is the natural affection of love for kith and kin. This is seen in Steve’s attack on natural affection as not being… well, natural. Seemingly, everybody wearing a clergy collar right now thinks its open season on love for kith and kin. From all quarters what we get relentlessly is how wicked it is to love our people over other peoples as if making love to my wife is somehow a sin because I didn’t make love to someone else’s wife.
I feel like I’ve fallen into Stan Lee’s Marvel Universe and I am Captain Kinist fighting for all the things that our Father’s took as routine. I am fighting against a spell that has been cast be evil Lex Gramsci that finds Christians entering into another dimension where natural relations are seen as yucky.
Rev. Steve writes,
(To clarify, I have no qualms about tearing up watching a Trump rally where Lee Greenwood sings, “God bless the USA.”)
Captain Kinist responds (Alias meek and mild shoeshine boy Rev. McAtee),
And here my instinct is always to laugh at the same.
A bunch of Dispensationalist waving Israeli flags getting all verklempt over a guy who poisoned the nation with his Operation Warp-speed.
Rev. Steve writes,
So equating natural affection for one’s own tribe or race with the fifth commandment obligation to honor our fathers seems a mistake to me. I shouldn’t come to hate my country and its founders. But neither should I adore it without qualification, without some theological lenses on, evaluating that nationalism.
Bret responds,
What kinist ever floated the idea of “My country right or wrong, still my country?” Anymore, I am against my people because I love my people. Indeed, I wouldn’t be so against my people if I didn’t love my people like a Kinist loves his people.
Nobody, in the Kinist camp (and believe me I would know) is getting teary eyed when Lee Greenwood strikes up the band. Nobody in the Kinist camp adore their people without qualification. Indeed, as we see in this column I am hardly adoring Steve — who I count as being a member of my people. There is no movement that is more critical of the history of these united States than the Kinist. We see every fault and paint it black. And we do this because we love our people.
That first sentence of Steve immediately above though is monumentally stupid. Indeed it may take the prize for the stupidest statement of the day by a member of the clergy. (And believe me that is no mean feat.)
The very essence of the fifth commandment is to have a natural obligation to one’s own tribe or race. See the Westminster Larger Catechism on the fifth commandment.
Steve Hemmeke writes,
One of you defined racism as “the belief, explicit or implicit, that one race is born morally superior to another race. It creates arrogance and pride in one group while also lowering the other group, sometimes to sub-human status.”
Bret responds,
No Kinist I know believes that some peoples/races are ontologically less than other peoples/races. Here we have (purposely I would say given how often Kinist have repeated what is to follow) the error of not distinguishing between Christian Identity (Dual seed) with Kinism. Some CI people might believe that but no Kinist believes that.
Now as it pertains to superiority and inferiority most kinists will tell you that superiorities and inferiorities run through all races/peoples so that some peoples are superior than others at some matters while at the same time being inferior to others in other matters. The white man, when looking at the last 1500 years seems to be inferior in remaining loyal to the God of the Bible who called him and made him great.
Steve blathers on,
That is hard racism, but there are lower-grade versions that are not the woke-white-guilt variety. I would add that Kinism asserts some level of principled segregation or preference for one’s own ethnicity, with NO inherent animosity or belief of superiority toward other races. (Though some strands of it are undoubtedly white supremacist.) This is a view I believe should be soundly rejected by church leadership. I stand by Uri’s post.
Bret responds,
I’ll stick with St. Augustin and John Frame’s analysis here,
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
“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.”
John Frame,
“Racism, Sexism, Marxism”
I know it is hard to believe I’d prefer the Bishop of Hippo, and John Frame over Steve Hemmke and Uri Briseto (not to mention the rest of Church history) but that’s just the way I roll.
Steve Hemmke writes,
When Uri says “chased out of the church,” realize that we do this all the time with other issues: “We’ll have no talk of women in leadership here.” “You want to blow up abortion clinics? You are NOT welcome here.” I’ve had to do this once or twice at church, in my years of ministry. All the talk charging that I want to excommunicate people with different social theories, or throw out discipline procedure, is uncharitable to my and Uri’s position. The question is simply where the Overton window is. I’m deeply concerned that it has shifted recently in our circles, toward allowing and justifying ethnic preferences, in reaction to the immigration crisis and leftist reverse discrimination for minorities, which we now face, and should oppose. However. Whatever happened to judging people by the content of their character, instead of the color of their skin? That is a sound Scriptural principle, regardless how some may want to ad hominem attack the man who said it.
Bret replies,
1.) Rev. Steve and Rev. Uri seem to forget that when they so glibly talk about excommunicating people they are talking about the declaration that said excommunicated persons are hell bound and outside the Kingdom. The keys of the Kingdom have shut up the Kingdom against those who are excommunicated. This is a little bit more than “You’re not welcome here.”
2.) The Overton window has shifted? Excuse while I carry on my belly laugh elsewhere.
If the Scripture allows ethnic preferences than who is the “church” to declaim against it? Remember all “ethnic preference” is, is “family preference” at the next level. I show my ethnic preference every day. I buy shoes for my children and not the children across the street (unless I have extra money and they are in need). I buy grocery for my relatives when in need before I buy groceries for strangers when they are in need. I attended my Uncle’s funeral who died of the State killing him with Covid. I have not yet attended the funeral of any other countless number of people who have also been murdered. This is just mush-head thinking on the part of Steve and Uri. It’s worse than that. It is WOKE in principle, as come into the Church.
3.) I’m all for judging people by the content of their character over the color of their skin and the history of the race they are from as long as we don’t ignore the reality that content of character is not absolutely isolated from color of skin. According to Steve and Uri St. Paul was in sin because he judged Cretans according to the history of their race and not merely by the content of their character.
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith…
Looks like St. Paul isn’t welcome in Steve and Uri’s churches because he is taking into account not only the content of their character but also the history of their race. Maybe MLK’s admonition is not quite as Biblical as Steve thought?
Steve wrote,
Right now the church I serve has no minorities attending. That is not a problem to fix, out of some white guilt. I am not virtue signaling like the leftists, as I’ve been accused of. But if the Asian or black visitors who come are made to feel awkward or excluded by things we say about this, that IS a problem.
Bret responds,
1.) Steve is virtue signaling. He doesn’t have to have minorities in his congregation to be virtue signaling. Steve is one giant glowing neon sign that says… “I love black people. I love yellow people. I love brown people.” Were I black I would find it all incredibly condescending. Another example patronizing.
2.) If minorities feel excluded by the things that I have said here than it is because, like Steve and Uri, they have been bitten by the Cultural Marxist bug.
3.) There is no problem with stating that God commands all men everywhere to repent. There is no problem with stating what Calvin said;
“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)
I mean … please keep in mind that it was Calvin who just called Uri and Steve flighty and scatterbrained dreamers and not me.
Steve writes,
More on preferences.
Yes, as of now I prefer that my single daughter marry a nice, white, Dutch Reformed boy. The controversy isn’t over that abstract preference, but over what you will do when she brings home a black or Latino boy instead. If he’s a gangster in lifestyle, we all agree on urging her back to a Christian way of life, and leaving him. But if he’s a Clarence Thomas type, it seems we don’t agree. Maybe I’m wrong. My preference then needs to give way to God’s providence. I don’t dig in and say my preference is based in the natural order, and God forbids or at least frowns on such a union, because He set the boundaries of nations, etc. If it’s a problem that a black or Asian settles in to a white, Dutch Reformed church, or that a Moabite convert to Yahweh marries a faithful Israelite, or that a Hittite soldier becomes one of David’s mighty men, I define that as unbiblical Kinism, which should be (r)ejected from the church.
Bret responds,
1.) Pity Steve’s daughters.
2.) See John Calvin’s quote above
3.) I will end with this quote from one of the Fahters, Rev. Clarence MacCartney
“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 MacCartney – Presbyterian Minister
Your posts have been cool, clean water for my head and heart. Please keep up the hunt.
Walt,
Hunt?
This is no hunt … the critters are attacking me.
This is survival.
Thank you for your encouraging words Brother.
I’m not giving up “the Hunt.”