Category: Apologetics

Was Judas Predestined to Betray Christ? … Answering a Pastor’s Objection

“Things Jesus never said:
 
Judas, I wanted to let you know that my Father has predestined you to betray me, so it’s really not your fault.”
 
Rev. Duncan Bryant
 
Bret responds,
 
 This statement was made tongue in cheek but I thought I would answer it as if someone really did believe that because Judas was predestined to betray Christ therefore he it was really not his fault.
 
Turning to the matter at hand we know from Scripture that the final days of the life of Jesus on earth were foreordained to include the betrayal of Judas, just as were the cross and resurrection (Mark 14:17-21; Acts 1:16 and Psalm 109:5-8).
 
17 And in the evening He came with the twelve. 18 And as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, one of you who eateth with Me shall betray Me.” 19 And they began to be sorrowful and to say unto Him one by one, “Is it I?” And another said, “Is it I?” 20 And He answered and said unto them, “It is one of the twelve that dippeth with Me in the dish. 21 The Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Good were it for that man if he had never been born.”
 
Jesus went as it was written and every detail that led Jesus to the Cross was planned as well. Judas’ role was understood as ordained as seen by Peter’s words in Acts 1,
16 “Men and brethren, it was necessary that this Scripture be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before concerning Judas, who was the guide to those who took Jesus.
 
In Psalm 109 Luther found Messianic material touching on Judas’ role. The heading given for the contents of this inspired poem is in a modern Luther’s German Bible: “Prophecy Concerning Judas and the Unfaithfulness against Christ by the Jews, and Their Curse.” Luther in a collection entitled: “The Four Psalms of Comfort,” dedicated to Queen Mary of Hungary, in the beginning of his exposition of this Psalm wrote: “David composed this psalm about Christ, who speaks the entire psalm in the first person against Judas, his betrayer, and against Judaism as a whole, describing their ultimate fate. In Acts 1:20 Peter applied this Psalm to Judas when they were selecting Matthias to replace him.” So, even though Rev. Bryant as a Pastor doesn’t see God’s plan in Judas’ work, Rev. Martin Luther saw God’s plan in Judas’ work.
 
Clearly, if Luther is right that the Psalmist speaks of Judas as the betrayer then what else can we conclude that God determined for Judas to betray Jesus? Both Jesus and Peter, as well as the Psalmist, in the above passages, verify that Judas was specifically chosen for the job of betrayal. Following Scripture then we rightly insist that Judas was predestined, called, elected, and/or chosen to betray Jesus.
 
And of course, we can’t forget Peter’s sermon,
 
Acts 2:23 He (Jesus) was handed over by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.
 
Now it beggars the imagination that God planned the actual crucifixion of Christ without planning every particular moment to that end including Judas’ betrayal. If I plan an omelet I also must plan to break eggs. If God planned to hand over His Son then God planned the means by which the Son was to be handed over. So, Judas had no free will. However, this does not mean Judas had no choice in the matter.
 
The Westminster Confession teaches regarding causation,
 
ii. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
 
A “second cause” is simply “a cause caused by something else.” This expression is used in theology to distinguish between God as the ultimate cause of everything that comes to pass and the myriad smaller causes we see at work in the world. If I drop a cup of water gravity is the secondary cause that causes it to fall, but God is the one who causes gravity. He is the primary cause.
 
Judas was a secondary cause of Christ’s crucifixion. As a secondary cause, Judas did what he desired to do because of his fallen human nature. But behind Judas’ free choice was the God who ordains all things to come to pass. We certainly don’t believe that when Judas betrayed Christ, the Father said to Himself, “WOW, I did not see that coming,?” or, “Well, that wasn’t in the plan but I’ll work around it somehow.” Only a free will theist “reasons” that way.
 
Next, we would say that Judas was responsible (at fault) simply because God held Judas responsible. God is the creator and by being the creator all are responsible to Him simply because He holds them responsible. Can Judas say to the creator, “Why did you make me this way?”
 
So, we know, from Scripture that the eternal predestinating God did ordain Judas to betray Christ and that Judas remained responsible for this betrayal. All of this is why Scripture could call Judas, “The Son of perdition.”
 
This title of Judas (John 17:2), which he shares in Scripture with the Anti-Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:3) is a well known Hebrew idiom whereby someone who embodies a trait or characteristic or destiny is called the son of that trait, character or destiny. The name “Son of perdition,” as applied to both Judas and the antichrist represents them both as given over irrecoverably and totally to the final perdition; and this from the foundations of time since it was God’s destiny for them. A destiny they very much freely chose.
 
God predestined Judas from his conception to his hanging himself inclusive of his betrayal of Christ. To believe otherwise introduces us to a non omnipotent God and a completely different definition at all points of the Christian faith. 

This Week’s Accusation Du Jour … “Pastor Bret uses ‘Racist’ Words”

Last week I was informed by Chloe that I was being accused in some quarters of being a “white Supremacist.” As such, I posted a response trying to point out how ridiculous such a charge is and how it can only be lodged by someone who has been influenced by Cultural Marxist categories and who could possibly themselves be an unconscious part of the new Cultural Marxist proletariat crafted to overthrow historic Christianity. I tried to use quotes from some of the Dutch Reformed Church fathers to demonstrate that you can not fit a slim dime between what I was trying to communicate and what several of the Dutch Reformed fathers wrote as they handled Scripture.

This week, a friend of mine (Michael Fort) has pointed me to a blog where the accusation was recently made by an eminent person who has repeatedly (three times at last count) made the accusation that my words are racist. Color me stupid, but even I can begin to see the beginnings of a bad Zombie apocalypse movie where I serve a bit role for being devoured by the ravenous hordes. You will forgive me, dear reader, if I am to be served up as the main course if my intent is to at the very least give the Cultural Marxist Zombies a bit of indigestion on the way down.

So, here I am in the situation where the Zombie Apocalypse hordes are gathering and they are giving off that high pitched signal that you hear in those kinds of films for other Zombies to come and also shriek and dine. In this case, if I am to survive the rest of the film I am thus put in the position of having to provide a defense for why I am not a “racist.” The way things are rolling I’m sure I’ll be back the next few weeks defending myself from being a misogynist, homophobe, and one who enjoys grilling babies over an open flame.

Let me say, at the outset, as I have noted before that I am working at somewhat of a disadvantage here since I have no earthly idea of what “racist” means.  The word has no objective meaning apart from its intended work as a polemical sobriquet. If no one embraces for himself the definition of “racism” or “racist” as given by the Cultural Marxists and if further the definition is only attached to something that is in and of itself inherently wicked per those who sling around the word who would ever admit that they are a racist per the definition of Cultural Marxists? I sure don’t. The word becomes kind of a verbal biological weapon that is intended to poison the well before the conversation can begin.

But for the sake of argument lets just say that “racist” means a person who hates non-Caucasians. (Warning here … in the not too distant past I was told by another eminent person that the term non-caucasian is “racist.” I was also told by someone else that using the phrase “person of color” is “racist.” What’s a guy to do?) If the accusation that I am a “racist” means that I hate non-Caucasians then the proof that I am not a “racist” is the job of producing evidence that I don’t uniformly hate non-Caucasians.

The problem here however, is now I am put in the position of the Apostle Paul who said he spoke “as a fool” and “as a madman” in having to march out his bonafides in order to sustain his ministry among God’s people as he was dealing with the False Apostles (II Corinthians 11).  I am not comfortable in doing what follows since Scripture mentions that our deeds of charity should be done secret. However, what else can I do if I am not to be eaten alive by the Cultural Marxists Zombie hordes?

I have been in the ministry 30 years this September. Along the way, I have been honored to try and help people from countless numbers of tribes, nations, and tongues. In my first ministry in South Carolina, where I spent 6 years, for two of those years I was instrumental in creating and putting together an old-fashioned tent revival for the tiny community that I served. We went out of our way to include and invite the black churches in the area. Many folks came from both the black and white churches. One of those two years we invited a friend of mine who I graduate Seminary with — a black pastor — who gave the message on each night of the “Revival meeting.” We put up a  huge banner over the town thoroughfare (imagine a tiny version of Mayberry RFD) and we rented and pitched a huge tent. We brought in a top-notch music guy who generously donated his talents. We put down sawdust. We had the black choirs from the black churches do some of the music. We had fellowship. The children played on the lawn as children do. Then we went back to worship in our respective churches week by week. I don’t know how much of an impact that had? One can never know or measure those kinds of things. No one asked me about this before deciding to launch the potential professionally career-ending charge of using words that are “racist.”

Then there was the work my friend Karl and I did. Karl was the Presbyterian minister in the city Church (population 500) and I was the Presbyterian minister in the little country rural Church. We had attended Seminary together. I came to love Karl like a brother. And like brothers, we were involved in each other’s life at the time. One of the things we did together at Christmas time was to have our congregations wrap up and donate gifts for children which he and I would then distribute to families in need. Karl and I went to white homes and we went to black homes trying to bring a wee bit of good will to impoverished people.

Then there was my friendship with Amos and Methrane Mateva. They belong to the Shona people and were from Zimbabwe. They lived in the trailer behind our trailer. We had classes together and had long conversations about what we were learning. My, at the time toddler-daughter Laura-Jane, and Amos’s toddler daughter Vimbai would often play together as we talked. When I took my first charge in South Carolina we continued to try and be of some service to the Matevas. We planted a huge garden together in the large plot of land that the new manse sat on. I remember Amos and I struggling together to pull up the Kudzu so as to clear the land and give our vegetable plants root room to grow. When harvest time came we shared the produce with the Matevas. I introduced the Matevas to the new congregation, Jane, I was serving. There were those in that Southern rural congregation who were at first, kind of uneasy with the idea but after Amos gave his presentation of life in Zimbabwe the congregation was largely won over.  That congregation was a wonderful place to start a career in the ministry and I praise God daily for them in my life.

Eventually, I would go on a 9-day fact-finding tour to Zimbabwe to investigate the possibility of my wife and I going there as Missionaries. While in Zimbabwe I stayed with a Shona family and ministered with a Shona pastor. I sat at their table and broke bread with them. I slept in their home. I visited the high-density suburbs of Zimbabwe and was stunned to see the conditions under which people lived. I went out into the rural areas of Zimbabwe with Rev. N. and was always graciously received by the rural people in their simple dwellings where we were uniformly offered Sadza, upon entry of each humble home. Sadza, for those accusing me of “racism” is a cooked maize staple in Zimbabwe. I often think how good it would be to have some Sadza again. On a Sunday I was in Zimbabwe I preached in the local church through a translator. I marveled not only at these people and how far they would walk to attend Church but also at the terrain they had to cover to get to Church. I also found it interesting that as they filed into Church the women sat on one side of the dirt aisle and the men sat on the other side of the aisle.

Obviously, the doors never opened to go to Zimbabwe to do Missionary work. Jane was especially disappointed as doing Missions had always been her dream growing up in a very missions-minded Pastor’s home and having spent 9 months in the Ivory Coast as a nurse just before we were married. Life has divinely ordained disappointments. You learn to trust God’s providence and move on.

We kept in touch with the Matevas as the years progressed, although we finally did lose touch with them a few years ago as communication with them became more and more difficult for several reasons. Before losing touch though, I introduced the Matevas to the congregation I was serving in Michigan and to a few folks who read this blog. Because of that, we were able to raise for the Mateva’s several thousand dollars to help them survive and do their Ministerial work in Zimbabwe among the Shona and Ndebele nations. If you type “Zimbabwe” into the Iron Ink search engine you can find fundraising appeals and correspondence from the Matevas. I’m sure this kind of action (fund-raising and friendship) is characteristic of all “racists.”

The world has become smaller and smaller because of the internet. Because of that, I have done my share of counseling and conversation over the phone with non-Caucasian friends. Several years ago, there was R from the Indian sub-continent who had married a white European woman and who called me a couple time to help with difficulties in the marriage. I tried to encourage him and counsel him the best I could in a difficult situation. Of course a “racist” would never have taken such a phone call but I gladly did and still count R as a friend. (R had been a personal friend with the Reformed Theological giant Dr. Francis Nigel Lee and we would spend considerable time online talking about that man’s abilities.)

More recently, “P” has come into my life by God’s ordination. “P” is a non-Caucasian who lives on the islands between the US Southern Coast and South America. “P” phones once or twice a month and we gladly chat for 60 to 90 minutes. I already consider him a friend. By his testimony, this twenty-something year old counts me as a mentor. I am embarrassed at how much he is impressed with me. I know I am not what he seems to think I am. “P” is starving for Biblical Christianity in a place where, by his testimony, zero Biblical Christianity exists. So he phones and we talk about God’s grace and God’s law. We talk about the challenges he faces. We talk about his relationship with his white European fiancee. To my recollection, I’ve never shrieked in racist horror. I count “P” a friend already. He and his fiancee, as well as his parents (who we have been honored to break bread with here in the States), have generously supported the ministry Jane and I are involved in here in Charlotte. I am overwhelmed with God’s goodness by putting these people in my life and by giving me the opportunity to help in whatever little “racist” way I can.

Allow me to speak a little of “G” who lives in one of the large metropolitan cities on the Eastern Seaboard. “G” is a black man who shares a common worldview and faith. Because of the wonders of the internet, we have chatted several times.  “G” tries to keep a comparatively low profile because he realizes it might well mean his job if he spoke out too boldly on the matters in which we agree. He is seeking to be as “wise as a Serpent and harmless as a dove.” I am more than confident from corresponding with “G” that he would agree with the words of Elizabeth Wright.

“White conservatives don’t want to take the lead in preserving what remains of this country’s now tenuous White, Anglo-Euro culture. To take on such a responsibility would make them even more vulnerable to the racial bullets and daggers they have been ducking for years.”

~ Elizabeth Wright, Black Conservative Author, and Social Critic

I highly recommend the writing of Elizabeth Wright. I have enjoyed reading her. I think you can still find them online.

“G” is a good man. His people and the Church needs many more like him.

Next we meet Dr. Jaime. I swear there are times when I think he is the humblest man who has ever lived. Actually, if it is possible to be too humble he certainly is too humble. Dr. Jaime is a Filipino professional living in the States. I will let Dr. Jaime testify in his own words to my “racist” disposition and teaching as he has recently on the blog where the eminent person is calling my words “racist.”

“I am one of the nonwhite Christian friends of Pastor Bret. We have known each other for 7 years or so. He has counseled me often, and I have financially contributed to his ministry.

I agree with the points he has made. I do not find them uncharitable. If whites can just closely observe how we are in the third world, they will realize that indeed we cause our problems that keep us stranded where we are. It is simple human depravity.

And we do critique each other in my nation, especially when we recognize how our Japanese neighbors are far more disciplined and advanced. I personally would not desire the collapse of Japan by inundating it with my own countrymen. I will not be upset if we are restrained by its citizens after they notice how we are in my nation.

For me, it is Christlike empathy, humility, and charity if we confess our own shortcomings, which we should work to repent of, and which we should not want to burden other groups with. That’s how I take Pastor Bret’s point that has been quoted about the third world here.

More importantly, I see it as a tribal issue. Even in ancient Israel, each tribe was responsible for its own members. It was so for other nations around Israel. We are to follow the same command of God.

There is nothing racist about how God has created specific tribes with their own historical evolution of unity by blood and faith. Scripture shows how Israel began as an abandoned and crying infant child ignored and rejected by greater nations around her. But then God Himself had much compassion to take her as His own offspring. Each tribe and nation can have such faith in His love, regardless of their state in history.

Here we also do see God eventually raise Israel as a mighty nation where noble kings, prophets, and warriors would arise. I find nothing wrong if anyone should note that Europeans, in particular, Anglo-Saxons, would have the most remnant raised by God to have special blessings similar to what ancient Israel and the kingdom of Judah once received from Him.

It does not offend me because it is the pleasure of God to do as He will with individuals and their tribes since the beginning of creation, all for the glory of His name. I am content and fully accepting of this truth as the sovereignty of God at work. I am neither European nor Anglo-Saxon. I am a Filipino, and yet my hope is that the remnant among my people does have its own gifts by the grace of Christ too. God has decreed in history that not everyone can be glorious Judah; others are nurtured by God to be repentant Naphtali and Zebulun.”

I would just note that Dr. Jaime is being humble when he notes simply that he has supported the ministry here in Charlotte.

Of course, I am no Albert Schweitzer, but it wouldn’t matter if I were because if the white South African missionary and Pastor, Dr. Peter Hammond can be accused of being a “racist,” as he recently has been by Dr. Joel McDurmon then any white person can be accused of being a racist simply because they will not hue the cultural Marxist line.

This is not all I could march out to provide an apologetic for why Pastor Bret is not “racist.” But I could drain every last episode and account in my life of cross-racial ministry and friendship but it wouldn’t matter to the Cultural Marxist influenced zombies who are seeking to destroy me both personally and professionally because, in the end, this isn’t about race, racism, or racists or white Supremacists. In the end, this is about theology, worldview, and ideology.  If non-Caucasians refuse to agree with the Cultural Marxist version of egalitarian reality then those non-Caucasians can just be dismissed as so many exotic “Uncle Toms,” by the Cultural Marxists. So, it doesn’t matter how many people, accounts, and friendships I march up to the microphone, I will still be condemned for being using “racist” words because I dare not fit into the zeitgeist. I challenge and so remain accused of using  racist words because I have deconstructed the Belhar Confession as proto-Marxist, and I will remain a misogynist no matter how many women would say to the contrary because I don’t believe women should be ordained as Pastors, and I will remain a homophobe no matter the friendships in my life that testify otherwise because I refuse to support sodomy as a lifestyle or an option for marriage, and I will remain being accused of using racist words because of my love for my people and my insistence that even their white lives matter. My opposition to these things is not going to change and I don’t care if I am frogged marched before courts, councils, and luminaries, I am not giving any quarter on these issues.

The reasons why I am giving no quarter on these issues have grown over the years. I now have 9 grandchildren and I know of a certainty that world that awaits them if this cultural Marxist one-worldism isn’t opposed and eventually stopped. I have sat by and wept at the accounts of the Soviet Gulags. I have been sleepless over what I have read at the French Revolution. I have cried out to God over the horrors of Mao’s “great leap forward,” as I have read the accounts there. Hitler’s concentration camps and the Turks treatment of the Armenians lingers in my memory. The Bolshevik slaughter of the Ukranian Christians, largely still unreported and unknown, taunts me in my sleep.  The future of my grandchildren is the present realities of the white Boers and Afrikaners in South Africa, where recently South Africa has just been upgraded to #6 on the genocide scale — the next to last step before the actual beginning of the slaughter. If I have to be personally and professionally destroyed in a fight for God’s glorious truth of the realities of nations and for the future of my offspring then let the destruction begin. I will wear that destruction as a badge of honor and will list it on my resume.

Maybe I am wrong here, however? Maybe the reason it has been said that I use “racist,” words is not because I hate non-Caucasian people. Maybe I have been said to have used “racist” words because of how many times I have written that white people have to be the stupidest people who have ever walked the planet. People, will come to me and talk about the controversial Charles Murray book, “The Bell Curve,” and my response generally is that my eyes tell me that white people should hardly be crowing about where they fall on the bell curve. Who else would give up their inheritance and patrimony in order to find satisfaction in the ability to virtue signal? Who else would embrace their own creeping destruction in order to have their enemies say nice things about them? Who else would gladly be led by women and children (Isaiah 3:12)? Countless are the times I have bemoaned that white people are the stupidest thing going because only stupidity combined with divinely imposed blindness can explain why a people would rebel against the God who has historically dealt so generously with them.  We, as white Christians, have sown the wind, and now for several generations, we have been justly reaping the whirlwind.  Part of that reaped whirlwind is the disease called Cultural Marxism.

Maybe this is why it is being said that I use “racist” words If my bemoaning of the utter stupidity of the white race as seen in what looks to be the majority attempt to live out the worse of dystopian realities is why it is being subtly suggested that I am “racist” then color me guilty.

Perhaps there is no defense against the label of “racist?” After all, if after being said to have used “racist,” words by a luminary, working for an organization committed to “racial reconciliation,” I am also told that “race is a biological myth,” what am I do to? One wonders how there can be any racial reconciliation between members of groups that do not exist? How can I defend myself against someone who at one and the same time says, “Race is a biological myth but then suggests to me that I am still a racist and  hater against something they don’t believe even exists?” It seems my real sin is believing that race is a real category and not a social construct. However, what I do to when we find studies like this being published?

https://www.forensicmag.com/article/2015/09/can-you-determine-race-fingerprint

Somebody better tell those fingerprints that they are being “racist.”

Like the Apostle Paul, I can at the same time, love both the whole family of God and my kinsmen after the flesh (Romans 9:3) and not feel an inch of shame for doing so.

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, 4 the people of Israel.

In Defense Of Nationalism … In Defense of Basic Christianity

“When evangelicals embrace an America-first nationalism, the gospel is co-opted and betrayed.”

“… Nationalism gives pride of place to ourselves, to regional or national assertions of primacy and the quest for power and success, control and dominance, legitimizing violence and pressing for victory.  Nationalism reveals that we have mis-ordered worship. Religiously motivated nationalism simply turns God into our “godling,” a deity subject to our bidding.”

Mark Labberton
President of Fuller Seminary

Naturally enough, there can be no “Nationalism” without the idea of “Nation.” So, just to make sure we are all working with the same definitions I offer some textbook definitions of “Nation” to begin.

Strong’s Concordance
ethnos: a race, a nation, pl. the nations (as distinct from Isr.)

Original Word: ἔθνος, ους, τό
Part of Speech: Noun, Neuter
Transliteration: ethnos
Phonetic Spelling: (eth’-nos)
Short Definition: a race, people, the Gentiles
Definition: a race, people, nation; the nations, heathen world, Gentiles.

KJV Dictionary Definition: nation 

NATION, n. to be born

1. A body of people inhabiting the same country, or united under the same sovereign or government; as the English nation; the French nation. It often happens that many nations are subject to one government; in which case, the word nation usually denotes a body of people speaking the same language or a body that has formerly been under a distinct government but has been conquered, or incorporated with a larger nation. Thus the empire of Russia comprehends many nations, as did formerly the Roman and Persian empires. Nation, as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe…

Having established what “nation” means, I offer here a definition of “Nationalism.” Nationalism is a proper love for one’s own people and for one’s own place.

 In this article, I intend to take issue with President Labberton’s conclusions regarding Nationalism. I am convinced this needs to be done so because the love of people and place (i.e. — Nationalism) has taken it on the chin lately as seen in the recent MLK-50 conference as well as sermons and postings by various putative leading light evangelicals.  “Nationalism,” like “racism” is become a pejorative to sling at people in order to shame them, fill them with guilt, and ultimately shut them up.

To my knowledge, no Evangelical has ever used the word “Nationalism” to describe their beliefs as President Labbereton has used the word “Nationalism” here to describe the beliefs of Evangelicals who self-identify as “Nationalists,” and who thus embrace “Nationalism.” As such, Labberton’s description above of “Nationalism” to define Evangelical Nationalists has no objective meaning apart from its intended work as a polemical sobriquet. If no Evangelical Nationalists embraces for himself the definition of Nationalism given by President Labberton and if further President Labberton’s definition is only attached to a construct (Nationalism) that is inherently wicked per Labberton, then the word and definition is only intended to be a kind of verbal biological weapon that is intended to poison the well before a conversation on Nationalism can begin.

Having noted the above it can be conceded that there have been many rancid and un-Christian examples of Nationalism, particularly in the 20th century. One only needs to consider the Nationalisms which combined with Marxist social theory to give us Mussolini’s Italy,  Hitler’s Germany, and Allende’s Chile. However, all, because Nationalism has been abused in practice, doesn’t mean that a proper Nationalism is inherently wicked everywhere and at all times. There are numerous examples of bad marriages but that does not prove that we need to denounce marriage as an institution. Similarly, all because Nationalism has been perverted that doesn’t mean we need to rid ourselves of a proper Nationalism where there is a proper love of our people and a love of our place.

 

Vis-a-vis President Labberton and his assault on Nationalism we agree with an older Christianity as expressed by Rev. Hugh M’Neile, in his 1839 sermon “Nationalism in Religion,’

“We cannot agree in that cosmopolitan view of Christianity which undermines the particularities of our National Establishment, any more than we could agree in such a cosmopolitan view of philanthropy as would extinguish domestic affections, in all their vivid and constraining peculiarity of influence.”

Christianity without Nationalism cannot be Christianity if only because the only other option left is Christianity as Internationalism or Cosmopolitanism. Such a creature is nowhere envisioned in the Scriptures, though to listen to many prominent clerical voices of “Christian” modernity the only option possible for Christianity in terms of social ordering is an Internationalism that finds all nations, and all colors, in the words of that famous theologian, Bono, “bleeding into one.”

Christian Nationalism is everywhere seen in the NT. Indeed, there is no evidence anywhere of any such thing as Christian Cosmopolitanism or Christian Internationalism. Christ teaches Nationalism when He teaches, “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring.” Christ teaches Nationalism when He said that he originally was going only to the lost tribes of Israel. Christ teaches Nationalism when He calls a foreigner a “dog” and says that “it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Jesus teaches Nationalism when He says “before Him shall be gathered all nations.” In a less than flattering fashion, the New Testament teaches Nationalism when the inspired Apostle says, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons,” and then more positively when he laments, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 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, the people of Israel.” Paul supports Nationalism in the Galatians controversy when he resists Peter’s Christian Internationalism which required the Gentiles to become cultural Jews before they could be considered Christian. Nationalism is given Christ’s imprimatur when, in the great commission, He commands His men to go forth and disciple the nations. And the success of that work of the Church is testified to in the book of Revelation when we read that the nations in the new Jerusalem will walk by the light of the glory of God and when John the Revelator writes, “and the leaves of the trees will be for the healing of the nations.” So central are Nations to the Biblical mindset that the inspired St. Paul could write, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth.” The importance of Nationalism is testified to by the genealogical lines in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Jesus had to be a blood son of David from the tribe of Judah.

At Pentecost, those who were in Jerusalem heard the Apostles speaking in their own National tongue, not in a Gnostic Esperanto. The Church always took shape in particular cities (Colosse, Ephesus, Phillip) particular nations and among particular peoples. So nation minded is the New Testament that Paul in Acts 16 receives a call not from an Internationalist man but from a Macedonian man. From this plea of the Macedonian man, the most momentous event in the history of the nations of Europe and the West came to pass, to wit, the coming of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the sons of Japheth and the eventual creation of Christendom. Nationalism is God’s gift to mankind and apart from a Biblical Nationalism, there can be no Christianity.

Indeed, historically, the enemies of Christ have understood this very point even if modern putative Evangelicals do not. The enemies of Christ have written that their intent is to destroy the whole concept of nations. I offer just a few, mindful that the careless attacks by President Labberton and many other putative Evangelicals are really doing the devil’s work,

1.) ”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

2.) “The equality of races and nations is one of the most important elements of the moral strength and might of the Soviet state. Soviet anthropology develops the one correct concept, that all the races of mankind are biologically equal. The genuinely materialist conception of the origin of man and of races serves the struggle against racism, against all idealist, mystic conceptions of man, his past, present and future.”

—Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959
“The Origin of Man” (Moscow)Mikhail Nesturkh, Soviet anthropologist, 1959:

3.) “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

4.) “… 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 

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:

6.) “Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

Nikita Khrushchev

It has gotten to the point in the Evangelical and Reformed world that when one listens to lectures and sermons on social ordering one finds themselves wondering if they are listening to the mouthpieces of God or the mouthpieces of Gramsci.

Usually, at this point, the great Galatians 3:26 objection arises in order to authoritatively end any talk of the glories of a Christ-centered Nationalism,

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Briefly, let it be said that there is no fluid nationality suggested in this text any more than there is fluid gender; no more is a trans-nationality or uni-nationality implied by “neither Jew nor Greek” than feminism or sodomy, or transgenderism is implied by “neither male nor female”, nor is a universal declaration of human rights implied by “neither slave nor free.”

Nationalism is the biblical a-priori — the great presupposition of all the New Testament. This is so true that any and every attack on Christian Nationalism is an attack on the very foundations of Biblical Christianity. On this point, we agree with the 2oth century Reformed Christian Theologian, Dr. Francis Nigel Lee,

“One of the very reasons that Paul desired that the Gentiles become Christians was not only so that the Gentiles themselves may be blessed but also so that the Gentiles, then as Christians, may proceed to provoke his own Israelitic nation to jealousy and thereafter to faith in Christ. Accordingly, I think we must judge that every Christian who does not love his own nation is either an ungrateful cosmopolitan rascal and a rebuilder of the tower of Babel or otherwise is woefully ignorant of Scripture. And, I am sorry to say that the world is full of these kinds of people today.”

Eliminate the nations and you will eliminate Christianity because

1.) Nationalism is but the next concentric circle of familialism. One can not destroy nations without also destroying the family. Does anyone really want to argue that God intends families to integrate into oblivion?

2.) Christianity cannot take root in a petri-dish of Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism due to its covenantal nature. Even the promise of the Gospel is predicated upon nationalism as Peter says on the Day of Pentecost, “The promise is for you and for your children, and for as many who are afar off as the Lord our God may call.” But even those afar off who were called were called in their families as seen by the household Baptisms.

3.) You make void one of the earliest Gospel promises,

Genesis 22:18 “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.”

How can it be the case that all the nations of the earth will be blessed if one insists that we “imagine there are no countries?”

All of this is why Dr. Pierre Courthial can say in his book, “A New Day of Small Beginnings,”

“In giving the Church a mission to the nations, Jesus does not diminish the importance of the individual… At stake is the salvation, well-being, and peace of the nations, that is, societies as God would have them. The Son of God must ‘rule all nations’ (Rev. 12:5). The nations must bow down before the Lord and come to walk in His light (Rev. 15:4; 21:24). These nations, with their cultures, traditions, and religions turned away from the God of Holy Scripture, are called to be converted to a sure salvation. This conversion of a nation does not happen apart from the individual lives of faithful Christians, but precisely through the influence of such lives. Moreover, each nation’s conversion is to reflect the uniqueness of that nation.”

Nations, and by extension, Nationalisms are foundational to Christianity. God’s well-known intent to save the whole cosmos (world) happens via the saving of the Nations, which per Courthial, are converted consistent with their uniqueness as nations.

This warfare against nationalism in favor of cosmopolitanism/ Internationalism that we are currently living as witnesses through, such as is being waged by those bearing the ironic names of “The Gospel Coalition” and “American Vision” is giving us nothing but pure Cultural Marxist paganism claptrap wrapped up in Jesus talk. All of it goes quite against what the Dutch-American Reformed Theologian Dr. Geerhardus Vos wrote,

“Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral.

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in turn upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme… [In this] was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God, each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.”

God still deals with people as being members of nations, peoples, and races. This is a very unsavory truth for the modern Evangelical with their love affair for the erasure of all the creation distinctions God created us with. God has not given up on Nations anymore than He has given up on Families from where nations arise. When St. Paul wrote, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel,” the Spirit of the living God was teaching Nationalism. When Jesus, from the Cross, cared for His own Mother entrusting her to His kinsmen, John, Christ was teaching Nationalism. In Romans 9 where we hear St. Paul weep over his special love for his kinsmen the Holy Spirit is teaching Nationalism.

Nationalism is really a very simple idea. We have been redeemed by Christ with the intent that we should take on the image of Christ just as Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. And, like Adam in the garden, we are now restored to being Priests, and as Adam was a Priest of God tasked with the responsibility to guard and cultivate his family and land, so we now, as restored Priests under sovereign God take up the task of guarding and cultivating our God-given people and our God-given land. This is Nationalism.

If we will not have Nationalism, neither will we have Christianity.

Challenging Thabiti Anyabwile’s Marxist Narrative

 

“What we’re getting here is a “both sides” view of history that suggests all parties are equally guilty of racism. Now, I agree that something like racism, ethnic bigotry, and other species of alienation and animus and idolatry of self exists among all people. But I was talking about 1950-’60s America. I was making a comment about a particular setting in which it cannot be said that both sides were equally guilty in the animus. African Americans have never carried out lynchings. African Americans have never passed “Jim Brown laws” to retaliate for Jim Crow laws. We have never systematically ostracized and oppressed white people as a group. The sin of the period was unilaterally and systematically directed from whites toward blacks.

One of the amazing things about African Americans is that we have survived for so long without giving fully into the racial animosity that could exist given how we’ve been treated. It’s a wonderful providence and humanly speaking we have millions of mothers and fathers and the likes of the Dr. Kings of the world to thank for teaching us not to give in to hate.

Until we get these basic points of history correct we’re not having the same conversation. And when we appear to equivocate about where the guilt and responsibility actually lie, we make it far too easy for strains of that former behavior, attitude, and complicity to continue unchecked.”

 Thabiti Anyabwile

We are dealing with a different fact set in this discussion and so the good Rev. is quite correct about not having the same conversation. The good Rev. is embracing a particular Marxist history because of the influence of Marxism on his worldview. In Marxist history, the leverage point is the conflict between in groups and out groups. In classical Marxists history, the bourgeoisie is oppressing the proletariat. In classical Marxist feminist history, males are oppressing females. In recent Marxist history of gender, heteronormativity oppresses LGBTQ normativity. In classical Marxist racial history, whites are oppressing minorities. Elsewhere Rev. TA has said,

“For a long time, I’ve just let the phrase (Marxist) and its variants go. But it seems like it’s not dying, and no one seems to be producing any actual writing or research to substantiate the term. “

However, the term is substantiated if only by the history that TA is appealing to. The Worldview that is pushing TA’s history is Marxism. Secondly, observations that TA is practicing a kind of Marxism narrative is seen in his recent support for the candidate Bernie Sanders who is an avowed Socialist (Marxist).  Third, that TA is pushing a racial Marxist narrative is seen in the fact that his facts are disputed. Consider the following,

Myth #1 –African Americans never carried out any lynchings

In this link below, there are all kinds of examples of African-Americans carrying out lynching along with photos. Most of the information below is cut and pasted from this link.

https://theinjusticefile.blogspot.com/2012/01/blacks-who-lynched-blacks-truth-behind.html

There was without question a determined effort in the South among White people to have the Black race live separately. However, there was, prior to 1964, nothing illegal or even immoral in this desire. Nor was it an act of racism. One distinct people living separate from another distinct people was not just the norm in American history (up until 1964) but human history as well. Regarding lynching… When a White person was attacked (rape or murder) and the perpetrator was Black, this was seen as an attack on “the group” and White people responded more often than not with uncharacteristic ferocity. Blacks were rarely ever assaulted (rape or murder) by a White person in the South. 99.9% of the cases I have found where violence crossed racial lines, it was Black- on-White … and the result was a raging and maddened mob out for revenge. These were the times in which they lived. The vast number of attacks by Blacks on innocent southern White people, including rape, in this type of atmosphere, boggles my mind.

Myth #2 — Blacks didn’t give into hate in a systemic fashion

Again, this is just not true as seen in just the Whitman’s sampler below. See link provided above for active links.

. Atlanta, GA. – 1900: Black male bully sat on a white male’s lap while riding a on street car, deliberately trying to humiliate and antagonize him. A fight ensued and the black male pulled a concealed gun and gunned down the young white male. Oh, and in the state of Georgia in 1900, the color-line mandate was not being enforced, so blacks could sit where they pleased.

2.Shreveport, La. – 1901: Black Supremacist organization advocated violence against white people. One white male was murdered. Link

3. Columbus, Ga. – 1900: Negro crawled into the bedroom of young white girl thru an open window and attempted to rape her. Link

4. Columbus, Mo. 1901 – Negro raped his employer’s wife…then shot her in the head
Brother-in-law of murder victim:  “I want to speak to him, how many times we cared for him and how kind Mary was to him, and ask him why he killed her. Then, when he has answered that, I want to see him burned.”  Link

5. Tuscumbia, Ala. – 1901:  It’s a MASSACRE – Negro petty criminal ambushed sheriff and deputy and murdered both – he then gunned down seven more white males – four dead.  Link (note: the death count was later revised)

6. Dublin, Ga. -1908: Two Negro employees invaded the home of their [white] employer, beat him senseless with an ax, gang raped his wife … then slashed her to pieces demanding to know the whereabouts of household money  Link

7. Satton, W.Va. – 1908: Home Invasion By Negroes – White male homeowner was tied to a tree then whipped — negroes then gang raped his wife (no, I’m not kidding) Link

8. Hot Springs Ark. – 1908: Negro cook decides he gonna have a little fun with hungry young white male – taunts him with food offer – makes him work in the blazing heat until he can’t work any longer… Negro then guns him down. Link 

9.Eufala, Ala. 1911: Prominent American woman was stalked by a negro sexual predator as she walked from a neighbor’s home to her home. The negro finally grabbed her and wrestled her to the ground. As the negro started to tear her clothes off … to rape her… her desperate screams for help saved her.  White males quickly came to her rescue. Link

10. Stephensport, Ky. – 1904: Negroes “Lynch” Young White Male – If Emmit Till murder was a “lynching” than this one should also be judged a lynching as well. Two negro brothers went after a young white male who , their sister claimed, “insulted her”. When they found the young white male … they slit his throat from ear to ear. source  

Let us consider the 86 years of American segregation (1882 – 1968). During that time period, there were 4,743 lynchings in America according to the black founded and run Tuskegee Institute. Of those, 1,297 (27%) lynchings were of white people. Why was this? Contra Hollywood and modern history textbooks, the purpose of lynchings was not “racism”, but the public and guaranteed punishment of crime. That is why 695 (14%) of lynchings took place in one of the 33 non-segregated states. Lynching was a method of criminal justice when a particularly grievous crime had been committed and/or the citizens were unsure if they would get justice through the courts.

We are not speaking about if we *agree* with the practice, we are speaking about the historical realities of it. Lynching was about punishing criminals, not “uppity blacks who were getting out of hand” as [ as many put it]. This is seen in the reasons the Tuskegee Institute lists for the lynchings: homicide 41%, felony assault 4%, rape 19%, attempted rape 6%, robbery/theft 5%. Only 85 lynchings (less than 2% of total) over the entire course of those 86 years in the entire country are listed as “insult to white person” as the reason.

The average law-abiding Southern black had nothing to worry about, the noose was for rapists and murderers. The fact that only 3,446 blacks were lynched out of the millions of blacks living in the South during that time period puts to rest the stereotype of a noose on every tree. To put this in perspective, there are currently 7,000 blacks murdered by other blacks every year in America. So every year blacks kill twice as many blacks as were lynched in total over a 86 year time period.

Rev. Anyabwile is correct when he says that “until we get these basic points of history correct we’re not having the same conversation.” If the facts were what TA says they were then, of course, his point would stand but those “facts” that he is citing are disputable and the worldview he is using as his interpretation of facts is likewise more than disputable.  TA is playing an old and dangerous game right now and the success of his endeavors is likely to continue since most of the people he is speaking to, ignorant of other historical narratives, just accept his version and worldview of the facts.

Let it be clearly noted that I’m not denying that there were white people who did shameful things to black people. However, I am denying that it was uniformly happening in the way TA places it in his Marxist narrative.

That blacks were not the innocents that TA suggests is dismissed by any reading of the Reconstruction period from 1865-1877, as well as by considering what was provided above.