The CREC is chock full of ministers who man the walls of the “conservative” Left. Rich Lusk is one of them. Uri Brieto is another. Doug Wilson is the godfather of the WOKE LITE Left. These chaps, if you recall, were the ones who just a few years ago, led the charge in trying to redefine Reformed theology by giving us the heresy called Federal Vision. Now, they are back at it seeking to implement a kind of Christian Nationalism that is not particularly Christian nor especially concerned with Nationalism. As the old proverb goes these chaps on these subjects are all hat and no cattle.
One of their schticks is to try and gate-keep the Reformed world by thinking they can tell us who among the Reformed can be in the inner circle of the Christian Nationalism movement and who is going to be kicked out. They are the modern day version of Wm. F. Buckley kicking out one person after another (Sobran, Francis, Brimelow, Derbyshire, etc.) from the “Conservative” movement. These chaps of the CREC think they are the sheriffs of the Christian Nationalist movement and that they get to round up anybody who disagrees with them.
Well, I disagree with them. I detest their propositional nationhood type approach. I abhor their Boasian approach to race and nationhood. As such I routinely pray that they will fail and be tossed on the ash-heap of history. I especially don’t want to see their version of Christianity becoming hegemonic since Federal Vision is a return to semi-pelagian non-Reformed theology.
Recently, one of their acolytes, Rich Lusk, has been on the net insisting that certain people get read out of the Christian Nationalist movement. In this brief piece I interact with Lusk a wee bit;
Rich Lusk writes,
1. Whatever shift you think you’ve seen, none of us are multiculturalists or cultural egalitarians. Wilson, myself, and others are still happy to cite Rushdoony, Dabney, etc., when it’s fitting. I don’t subscribe to their infallibility but I do appreciate them. The question is not, “Would Dabney be excommunicated if he were in the church today?,” but, “Would Dabney make the same errors if he were in the church today?” I think Wilson has done a fair job evaluating Dabney.
Bret responds,
A.) Actually, Wilson, Lusk and company are soft multiculturalists. Sure, they aren’t as extreme as the Clergy in the mainline churches but if you compare them to Machen, or Rushdoony, or John Edwards Richards, or Clarence McCartney, or Francis Nigel Lee, or Morton Smith — Reformed theologians only a generation or two removed from Wilson — then the CREC chaps are indeed multiculturalists. It’s not even close. I have the quotes to prove it.
So, the question these blokes present to us is; “Do we want to settle for ceasing the multicultural slide thus sticking with the present status quo or do we really want to reverse and undo what is now known as the Post-War consensus that includes all the advances of the civil rights movement — a movement that was driven by Marxist ideology?” Getting on the CREC wagon means that we codify as normal where we are right now. Sure, it might mean an end to the continuing slide leftward (though I seriously doubt that) but it will do nothing to reverse the hell-ward slide we’ve been on since the 1960s.
B.) When Lusk says that he and his CREC mavens are happy to cite Rushdoony and Dabney when it is fitting he means that the CREC mavens are glad to cite Rush and Dabney when it is convenient. I promise you that both Rush and Dabney would want nothing to do with Wilson, Brieto, Lusk, and the CREC headcases. If Rush could criticize Francis Schaeffer (and he did) then Rush would certainly light out after these compromisers.
Secondly, on this score, keep in mind that Wilson has publicly said that he has no interest in being Rushdoony 2.0 preferring instead to be Rushdoony 0.5. Which being interpreted means that Wilson wants to dilute and water down Rushdoony. It means that he thought Rush was too extreme. Wilson wants to be a kinder and gentler Rushdoony, which means he’s not interested in Rushdoony except for when Wilson can cloak himself in Rush’s mantle.
C.) Note that Luks speaks of Dabney’s errors in the same breath as saying he appreciates Dabney. Lusk does so without saying what errors it is that Dabney would no longer embrace. I guarantee you that if Lusk were to list Dabney’s “errors” that Dabney would no longer embrace a vigorous debate would immediately break out as to whether or not what Lusk says was a Dabney mistake was indeed a Dabney mistake.
D.) The idea that we should take seriously Wilson evaluating Dabney is akin to saying we should take seriously Joel Osteen evaluating John Calvin.
Rich Lusk wrote;
2. A Christian, conservative political agenda can be accomplished without racial identity politics (the successes of the Trump administration are an excellent test case for this).
Bret responds,
First, we are way way too early to talk about the “successes of the Trump Administration as a test case for the CREC’s position on negating multiculturalism.
Second, a conservative political agenda might have been accomplished without racial politics back when Pat Buchanan was running for President but we past that exit long ago. There will be no genuine conservative political agenda accomplished apart from racial realism. This reality is seen by the voting patterns in Presidential elections. To this point only white people are voting in majority for conservative, populist, or nationalist candidates. This has been the case for several Presidential cycles and there is no reason to think this is going to change UNLESS Trump is able to send upwards of 30 million illegals back home while at the same time extremely narrowing the amount of legal immigration.
Rich Lusk wrote,
3. Racial identity politics from the right, including making a big issue of interracial marriage, is bound to lose. If you want to be a martyr for racial identity politics, go ahead. I’d rather win as a Christian – and I do think significant victories are possible if Christians will be wise and vigilant about it. The alt right, or Neo-Nazis, or whatever they should be called, are fools and a distraction from the task at hand.
McAtee responds,
Here we find the proof that the CREC is not serious. Our culture is being bombarded with the New World Order push for interracial marriage. It is being pushed in our advertising world, in our film world, in our television programs, on University campuses and in “conservative” churches and Lusk is saying that resisting this New World Order push for interracial marriage is a loser issue. This is proof that the CREC is multicultural. If they are willing to give up on this issue they have planted their flag on the side of the One Worlder types. This is an example of CREC pragmatism at its worse.
Lusk says he’d rather win as a Christian but I’m here to tell you if Lusk and the CREC wins like this then the Christian faith loses. Lusk wants to lose gracefully and then call that losing, “winning.”
Fools like Lusk from the Lite-left or Neo-Cultural Marxists, or whatever they should be called, are idiots and will only, in the end, at best temporarily slow down but not reverse the slide we are currently experiencing. People need to realize that “Conservative” denominations like the CREC and “Conservative” clergy like Joe Boot, Andrew Sandlin, Rich Lusk, Doug Wilson, Uri Brieto and Peter Leithart are in reality just a variant of what is called “controlled opposition.”
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Addendum
So similar analysis from Nate Keane;
They live in a complete echo chamber of their own creation. Any of us outside that echo chamber recognizes that a reckoning is coming on these issues, and a tearing down of all the presuppositions and theories that have undergirded the modern egalitarian world. They’re busy saying they’re not woke, while endorsing all of those assumptions. They think that because they can purge dissent in THEIR ranks, that they can stave off the reckoning by just Tabula Rasa-ing harder. That reckoning is coming, the question is Will Christians have a voice in it or not. They’re doing their best to ensure that we don’t. They won’t like what comes next. The lesson they took from WW2 is “we must root out racism and antisemitism” not, “when the magistrate abdicates his duties, you will get an Absalom”.
