Jacob,
Thank you for the civil interaction. So often people are breathing fire right out of the gate, thus demonstrating their inability to think through matters.
I will interact w/ your comment by fisking;
Jacob wrote,
Greetings Bret,
A small introduction – I am a Liberal Christian who occasionally reads your blog – primarily because you tend to distill the Christian Nationalist or Kinism movement down to its fundamentals in a very clear manner. Speaking of – this dog breed analogy was very insightful into how you construct your worldview.
Bret responds,
I wonder what you mean by “Liberal Christian?” That could be taken in numerous manners. Did you mean “neo-orthodox (Barthian)”, “Schleiermacher type Liberal,” “Libertarian Liberal” or something else?
Maybe a way to cut to the quick on this is just to ask if you believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. Do you believe in the Supernatural — snakes talk, axe heads float, Jesus walks on water, virgins conceive, dead people resurrect and ascend into heaven etc?
My knowing where you are at on these matters will help me know who I am interacting with.
Jacob wrote,
First – my agreements. I also think that genetic, national, cultural, and regional divisions are natural and something to be celebrated. I love visiting a new country or region and observing all the minute differences in how they operate, how they build things, how they cook, how they live. While I also hold these differences should never cause us to consider one another as sub human – I do think each of these cultures should take pride in their unique traditions and strengths.
Bret responds,
Fantastic… we are agreed here. All races/cultures have strengths to be celebrated and weaknesses to be repented of while praying for increased sanctification in those areas.
Jacob wrote,
Another point of agreement is that sin can be communal and generational. Certain groups will struggle with certain sins more than other groups and certain sins are passed down from father to son. I also think we are beings with both spiritual and physical components and there are consequences to believing that.
Bret responds,
Again… fantastic. These points should be rather obvious realities (consider Paul’s observation about Cretans in the book of Titus) but somehow in a weird combination of mixing those worldviews that shouldn’t be mixable we in the West have combined Gnosticism (the material is bad) with cultural Marxism (matter is all there is) in order to repeatedly deny your observation above.
Jacob writes,
Onto some of my disagreements.
First of which is the black and white nature of what constitutes any societal division. In your dog analogy there are clear lines between breeds. However – as far as I can tell there are no universal divisions in the real world. You might claim that your country should be the dividing line- but there are plenty of international borders in the world that cut right through culturally similar people. All similar singular attempts have similar problems – groupings by language, by genetics, by religion, by climate, etc. all have some major exceptions.
Bret responds,
I agree here. For example there has always been “Bordermen” — that is those men who lived as having a foot in two worlds. However, the existence of such people does not disprove the general rule. I mean, if we don’t have an idea of a particular set race, culture, language, or religion then how could we ever identify that which is shaded, jumbled, or a mish-mash? One can only identify syncretism when one knows the different distinct particulars that are being syncretized.
No universal divisions? I can’t agree there. Clearly there is a universal division between the Japanese and the Ndebele. Many other examples could be given but perhaps I am missing your point.
In terms of nations there was a time when the etymology of the word was taken seriously;
“Nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe.”
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Yes, all have exceptions but you wouldn’t know what the exceptions were if you did not know first what the non-exception was.
Jacob wrote,
So you might claim that the real dividing lines are often a combination of multiple factors put together. Which I might start to agree with. Can groups merge or can they split? Are labradoodles – if there are enough of them – eligible for a new division all together? I guess I see the real world with real societies throughout history as messy – changing affairs and I don’t see the Kinist often acknowledging this. They tend to want to clean things up with nice clean current borders.
Bret responds,
As Kinism does not have a headquarters to send mail to, and as Kinism is a variegated movement it is not helpful, I think, to speak of Kinism as if it has a Universal agreed on position on all matters. So, I will just speak for myself as one Kinist.
I think what the Kinists I personally know want is fewer exceptions and more acknowledgement that exceptions can’t exist as exceptions unless there is a prior rule of thumb. The Christian Kinists look over the global landscape, as they are reading their history, their sociology, and their theology and they see a real live threat that there is an agenda being pushed by very powerful people and Institutions to put the whole globe (cultures, languages, faiths, races, etc.) into a giant blender with the purpose of going all U2 wherein “all colors will bleed into one.” Kinists, following Scripture, are foursquare and adamantly against this plan nicely articulated by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi back in the 1920s. This migration agenda was also written down in UN Documents in the 50s and 60s. This messiness, as you put it, is preplanned and some of us are resolved that going back to Babel is not a healthy decision.
I quite agree that history and cultural sociology/anthropology can be quite a messy affair but it becomes even more messy when there is a mass top down push that intends to make the messy affair even more messy. You can’t really believe that all this third world mass migration into the former White Christendom is coincidental or an accident? Certainly, many of the elite are seeking to gaslight Westerners on this issue but some people are not “gasslight-able”
Finally, on this score, as to your “Labradoodle” question, I would say it is possible though historically I don’t see it as being that prevalent or sustainable.
Jacob writes,
This brings me to my second disagreement – that of America. America did not start and certainly did not grow by being a monolithic cultural group. America has always been a messy conglomeration of cultures. We are the proverbial mutts in your analogy.
Bret responds,
Yeah, I don’t agree with this. I believe this is an errant observation on your part. I would recommend reading “Albion’s Seed” by David Hackett Fisher.
Here are a couple quotes that would suggest that you haven’t got this quite right;
Here is Founding Father John Jay’s opinion,
“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people–a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
“Heaven hath provided this country, not indeed derelict, but only partially settled, and consequently open for reception of a new enlargement of Japheth. Europe was settled by Japheth; America is settling from Europe: and perhaps this second enlargement bids fair to surpass the first; for we are to consider all the European settlements of America collectively as springing from and transfused with the blood of Japheth … “
(J.Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution, as cited in Hall’s The Christian History of the American Constitution, p.382)
There are many more quotes like this from the founding fathers in the book “Who Is My Neighbor.” I don’t think your claims stands up to a close examination. We were never proverbial mutts until the 1965 Immigration and Nationality act.
Jacob wrote,
Which is actually another point in itself – your analogy did not account for mutts or the fact that genetic mixing can arguably produce the healthiest dogs even if they start to lose some of their specific strengths.
Bret responds,
I noticed your word “arguably,” and I would argue against your statement.
Jacob wrote,
I grew up in Texas on the Mexican border. I grew up as a white kid eating tacos and hearing a lot of Spanish spoken. And this wasn’t because of some DEI initiative –since European arrival Texas has been a mix of Indigenous, Latin, and European cultures. How do I draw a line around my self and someone from New Jersey that is stronger than a line around me and someone who I grew up but is of Mexican heritage? How do you reduce the culture of America to a white Englishman?
Bret responds,
So you take my “borderman” observation from earlier and say “I have lived that.” It still doesn’t make parts of Texas the norm.
Keep in mind also, that I am of the persuasion that America ought to be split up into several different nations so that your observation would be less of a problem. Indeed, I think at some point this is going to have to happen since America has become such a ethnically/racially and religiously divided country. We really no longer are a “nation” in any meaningful sense.
Jacob wrote,
My last point of disagreement is your application of the talents parable to national divisions. The tendency to want to rank cultures speaks far more of the parable of the splinter in the eye. If you want everyone to embrace national sins and don’t reflect on how your particular group sinned but instead constantly point out how other groups fall short in their sanctification – then I feel like you are doing it wrong.
Bret responds,
I have constantly and repeatedly said that white people must be the dumbest people on two legs on the planet as seen in their rebellion against God…. As seen in their unwillingness to see what is obvious all because they have embraced this silly notion of white guilt – as if white people are somehow uniquely guilty of racial crimes against humanity. If I don’t say that with everything I write you must understand I have said it so much I don’t always see the need to say it again, ad-nauseum. This nation is in the situation it is in because of stupid white people for several generations now just turning over their inheritance to other peoples and religions.
But that may well be all proper and fit since it can also be seen as God’s judgment against our wickedness against Him. It is not as if we have not earned being cast out of the land.
So, not to worry Jacob. I see our and my splinter with great regularity. But thanks for the reminder.
Jacob wrote,
If you tell me a pretty good analogy of a world of dog breeds but didn’t see yourself or your group as the Pitbull – again, I feel like you are missing the point. (Please correct me if I wrongly assumed that white American Christians were not supposed to be the Pitbulls).
Bret responds,
Nah… white American Christians are the collected retards of every breed…. exceptions notwithstanding.
Jacob writes,
Thanks for your time.
Jacob
Bret responds,
Thanks for the conversation. I will try to remember and pray that you will see the problems with your “Liberal Christianity.”
And thanks again for being so civil.