The War Heats Up — McAtee Corrects R. Scott Clark #2

Quoting from Scott’s Libel against McAtee and Kinism piece;

Some are now also entertaining the heresy of Kinism, which is a feature of the darker corners of the Reconstructionist/theonomic/postmillennialist sub-cultures. The central tenets of Kinism, as given by one of its proponents are these:

Bret Responds,

Kinism a heresy?

“The ancient fathers… were concerned that the ties of kinship itself should not be loosened as generation succeeded generation, should not diverge too far, so that they finally ceased to be ties at all. And so for them it was a matter of religion to restore the bond of kinship by means of the marriage tie before kinship became too remote—to call kinship back, as it were, as it disappeared into the distance.”

Augustine – (A.D. 354 – 430)
City of God, book XV, Chpt. 16

“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] 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)

“Brethren according to the Flesh.”

Romans 9:3

Paul had two classes of brethren; those who were with him the children of God in Christ; these he calls brethren in the Lord, Philip, i. 14, holy brethren, &c. The others were those who belonged to the family of Abraham. These he calls brethren after the flesh, that is, in virtue of natural descent from the same parent. Philemon he addresses as his brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord. The Bible recognizes the validity and rightness of all the constitutional principles and impulses of our nature. It therefore approves of parental and filial affection, and, as is plain from this and other passages, of peculiar love for the people of our own race and country.

Charles Hodge
Commentary Romans 9

Causes of Separation in 1973 (PCA separates from PCUS) 

• The Racial Amalgamationist, who preaches that the various races should be merged into one race and differences erased in oneness.
• The Communist, who would have one mass of humanity coerced into oneness by a totalitarian state and guided exclusively by Marxist philosophy.

  John Edwards Richards
  One of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

  Look, I could go on with these quotes from the Reformed Fathers for dozens and dozens of pages. The snippet I have given above is enough to demonstrate the idea of Kinism and kinist like convictions completely eviscerates R. Scott Clark’s individual declaration that Kinism is heresy. One would think a Church historian would be more familiar with, well, er, uh … Church history.

  RSC next complains about a couple Kinist convictions listing them first;

1. 1. That sin is a universal deformity in human nature, and that no perfect society is possible this side of Heaven. That Christians should work to limit human error by seeking those conditions which are inherently productive of a harmony of interests, both in marriage and in society at large. That a harmony of interests naturally exists between people who are similar.

      Bret responds,

      Can there be any disagreement that a harmony of interests naturally exists between people who are similar? Dr. Clarence McCartney, co-worker with Dr. J. Gresham Machen, didn’t think so.
      

      “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
      20th Century Presbyterian Minister

      Next RSC complains about this Kinist tenet;
      

   2. That the God of the Old Testament, who forbade interracial, interreligious marriages to His covenant nation, is the same as the God of the New Testament. That marriage between parties who are not naturally congenial is unequal yoking. That unequal yoking in marriage or in society at large is destructive of Christian harmony, association, and growth.

      And then RSC critiques,

By “congenial” the author means “of the same race” and the “yoking” to which he refers is marriage. This was previously known as segregationism. Anyone old enough to remember or able to read a history text knows who George Wallace, Orval Faubus, or Hendrik Verwoerd were and what they did.

Bret responds,

They could also possibly be educated enough to read a history text and so know who E. Earl Ellis was;

“Segregation has the potential to develop into a partnership of mutual respect … Southerners often wonder whether integrationists are as interested in good race relations as in forcing a particular kind of race relations. The unfortunate fact is that ardent Christian integrationists, however conscientious, are one cause of the worsening race relations in the South today. Their moral superiority complex, their caricature of the segregationist as an unchristian bigot and their pious confession of the sins of people in other sections of the country have not been wholly edifying.”

And maybe Scott has heard of Dr. F. H. Henry? Dr. Carl F. H. Henry wrote that civil rights legislation ending segregation would be morally problematic,

“Forced integration is as contrary to Christian principles as is forced segregation.  A voluntary segregation, even of believers, can well be a Christian procedure.”

Dr. F. H. Henry
1957 Christianity Today Article

And maybe Church Historian RSC has heard of Church Historian Phillip Schaff?

“Wherever the governmental idea holds the mercenary so completely in check and yields to the influence of Christian morality, it may be a wholesome training school for inferior races, as it is in fact with the African negroes, until they are capable to govern themselves.”

Phillip Schaff
Slavery and the Bible, p. 24

So, whether RSC likes it or not, what Kinists defend is not so much this strange thing called “Kinism” as it is a defense of Biblical Christianity and its impact on peoples and social orders as held universally by the Reformed Fathers prior to the middle of the 2oth century or so. If RSC wants the Reformed Church after 1950 he can have it. I’ll take the Reformed from 1518 forward.

RSC next writes,

This is not to suggest that all Christian Reconstructionists, theonomists, or postmillennialists are Kinists. That is not true. Indeed, Joseph Morecraft, a leading theonomic Reconstructionist, and postmillennialist, has publicly denounced Kinism. It is also true that outside of those sub-cultures, one is not very likely to encounter Kinism, however,  inside those sub-cultures, it is more common. I learned about the existence of Kinism while researching the doctrine and practice of Doug Wilson, who has engaged in dialogue over the years with Kinists. The Anti-Defamation League has a helpful who’s who of the Kinism movement….

Bret Responds,

I’m sure that RSC has heard of the Gordon H. Clark quote that “we don’t come to truth by counting noses.” That Morecraft or Wilson or any other who are counted among those reputed to be pillars within the Church have abandoned the Biblical Christianity of their fathers in an attempt to do what RSC is doing in his desire to deny nearly all of Church history on this score really shouldn’t surprise anyone. There is a long historical record of Christians seeking to trim their sail in order to fit into the zeitgeist.

Next, we would note the utter astonishment that RSC would go to the ADL, an organization known to oppose the advance of Biblical Christianity to critique Christians is almost as insane as a boy saying that he is a girl.

RSC next writes,

The first I remember seeing anything about Kinism was on the website Little Geneva, which published a 2003 correspondence between Harry Seabrook and Wilson on slavery, racism, and Kinism. The former was an advocate of Kinism, and the latter has criticized aspects of Kinism. He has also engaged another notorious advocate of Kinism, who was removed from the Christian Reformed Church in 2019 for teaching this heresy. (Here RSC links to a Lansing State Journal article that references the Church I serve.) Charlotte Greco writes in the Lansing State Journal that this minister was dismissed from the Christian Reformed Church in 2019 for impenitently teaching Kinism. The CRC became aware that he was teaching Kinism in 2016 and finally declared it heresy, at Synod, in 2019. Rod Dreher has recently documented other examples of Kinism in connection to certain so-called Christian Nationalists.

Bret responds,

This issue was put before me in recent months as a couple of friends contacted me to ask about it or topics related to it. There is a self-published paperback volume that is being shared, in some small circles, devoted to attacking any sort of two kingdoms or (as I would rather say) twofold kingdom approach to Christ and culture and Christian ethics. Never mind that the phrase “twofold kingdom” is a direct translation of Calvin’s expression, duplex regimen.

Bret responds,

“If from this we may conclude that ethnic pluriformity is the revealed will of God for the human race in its present situation, it is highly questionable whether the Christian can have part in any program that would seek to erase all ethnic distinctions. That such distinctions may be crossed over by individuals may be granted, but it is at least questionable whether a program designed to wipe out such differences on a mass scale should be endorsed by the Christian. It is this line of argument that the average Christian segregationist uses to back his view. He fears that the real goal of the integrationist is the intermarriage of the races, and therefore the breakdown of the distinctions between them. Many who would be willing to integrate at various lesser levels refuse to do so, simply because they feel that such will inevitably lead to intermarriage of the races, which they consider to be morally wrong. . . .

The mass mixing of the races with the intent to erase racial boundaries he does consider to be wrong, and on the basis of this, he would oppose the mixing of the two races in this way. Let it be acknowledged that a sin in this area against the Negro race has been perpetrated by godless white men, both past and present, but this does not justify the adoption of a policy of mass mixing of the races. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God has established and thus revealed his will for the human race now to be that of ethnic pluriformity, and thus any scheme of mass integration leading to mass mixing of the races is decidedly unscriptural.”

Dr. Morton H. Smith (1923-2017)
(For more see: Dr. Morton H. Smith on Christianity, Race, and Segregation)

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