Category: Marxism/Cultural Marxism

Rod Dreher’s Magnificent Hypocrisy

Rod Dreher decided to be the messenger of many of the worst aspects of the whole Achord affair. (Is “the Achord Affair,” our version of the “Dreyfuss Affair?”) As such he is fair game in this whole matter. Let us consider the hypocrisy of Rod in his excoriating of Achord.

1.) Dreher now lives in Hungary. Hungary is about the whitest of white Nations in existence which is doing all its can to pursue its Christianity and its ethnic roots. If ever there was a nation that was interested in White Christian Nationalism it is Hungary. Yet, here is Dreher living in the center of a nation that is the very epitome of what he is criticizing Achord for in his championing Christian Nationalism.

2.) Dreher talks about the putative moral failings of another man. These are failings that are only moral failings as existing in a New World Order social-order. There is no moral failings by Achord when you compare him to the Christian men he quotes in his book “Who is my Neighbor; An Anthology in Natural Relations.” The irony here is that Dreher is accusing Achord of moral failings while being the embodiment of failing morally as seen in his recent divorce. Apparently its acceptable for a immoral man, when measured by God’s standards, to accuse a moral man of immorality.

3.) Consistent with #2 is Dreher talking about how is “wife” resigned her position with the school in question because of her horror at Achord’s beliefs. When he talks about his “wife” having to resign we are supposed to feel sympathy. Yet, Dreher is no longer married to this woman he is calling “his wife.” If Dreher has not sympathy for her as seen by his divorcing her why is he insinuating that the reader of his drivel is supposed to have sympathy for a woman he just cast aside? Note that Achord has not cast his wife aside.

4.) Dreher writes his Benedict Option advocating the necessity to “embrace exile from the mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture.” Well, if Dreher is going to embrace exile then let him shut the Hades up concerning those who are attempting to push pack against the current darkness. If Dreher is in exile let him stay in exile and not involve himself in the culture wars he has decided to exile himself from.

5.) Dreher advocates exile and yet when he decides to get back in the cultural ring, if only for a moment, it is to the end of punching to the right.

6.) Dreher, by his complaint, seems to communicate the thought that if he sacrifices his fellow Christian who are to the right of Dreher then somehow the left will admire him and play nice with him. I have news for Rod. If the Revolutionary left is ever successful the first people they are going to consume is useful idiots like Dreher. Dreher, ultimately, is cutting his own throat by going after people like Achord.

7.) Dreher complains about Achord’s book, “Who is my Neighbor,” yet to date nobody from the Christian community has engaged the material in that book. If Dreher was consistent he would have to say the Church father’s quoted in that volume are every bit the “racist” that he accuses Achord of being. If Achord is saying things consistent with the Church fathers how can he be accused of those things that Dreher is accusing him of?

8.) In the end the screeching at Achord by Dreher et. al. is a screeching at the Church Fathers and at Church history. They can be enraged at what the Church fathers have said all they like but in doing so they are communicating that they are sons of another Father (John 8:44-45)  besides the Fathers throughout Church history. Indeed, they are the sons of the Fathers of the Cultural Marxist and Achord’s chief sin is that he is not a cultural Marxist.

9.) Dreher wrote a book titled; “Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents.” I’m laughing so hard at the irony that my belly laugh is having a belly laugh. Dreher pens the aforementioned book and now we find the hypocrite living by lies as well as attacking a Christian Dissident. Rod, thy name is IRONY.

Fie upon the opinion of these Anti-Christs who are going after a man who merely is guilty of standing in concert with the Church Fathers who have gone before.

I would love to see Dreher, or Roberts, or Littlejohn, or any of these harpies actually tell us why the Church Fathers in the book, “Who is my Neighbor”  are wicked men and then why the book is a wicked book.

Doc Sandlin’s Whine and Moan about Kinism

“That kinism and kinists have wormed their way into the mainstream postmodern Calvinian movement exhibits its deep defects. The Leftist accusation that conservative Christians are racist is a vicious slander. But tragically, not always.”

Doc Sandlin

When you think of Doc Sandlin think of Doc Brown in the “Back to the Future” series. You remember… the white haired guy whose hair was seeking desperately to escape his scalp, with the bug-eyed demeanor, and the irrational high pitched speech. That’s the way I think of “Doc Sandlin.”

It’s helpful to remember that back around 2003 or so, “Doc Sandlin” called the leftist singer Bono a “prophet.” This is the same Bono who crooned,

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes, I’m still running

You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believe it

[Chorus]
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for
No, I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for

Yessiree Bob… now there is a Christian Prophet we can all get behind.

Sandlin also said New York Times columnist David Brooks is “a national treasure.” This was after Brooks had written that he opposed any limits on abortion, even partial birth abortions, and called for gay marriage to be legalized, a dozen years before Obergefell.

Then there was that time when Andy got on the “Reformed Catholicism” train. Yep, Doc Sandlin was going to find a way, after 5 centuries, of melding Reformed thought with Roman Catholic thought. He envisioned the world– Protestant and Roman Catholic — being covered with his Reformed Catholicism.

Oh … and did I mention the time with Andy told everybody that Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor was the clear Postmillennial vote?

 The point here is that Sandlin is not a particularly wise men. Neither is he particularly good at reading the cultural tea leaves. Neither is he a prophet or a son of a prophet. Only restraint and a sense of propriety keeps us from listing those things that Doc Sandlin is good at.

As it relates to the quote above, just keep in mind;

1.) Kinists and kinism didn’t worm into anything. I don’t know how much reading Doc Sandlin does these days but if the man would just pick up the book “Who is My Neighbor,” by Achord and Dow, Sandlin would realize that the Reformed (indeed Christianity itself) have always been kinist. Kinism, or some variant thereof, has been the expressed belief of our Theologians, Pastors, and laymen through the centuries until the last 60 years or so when real He-Men like Doc Sandlin came along to “fix our theology.”

2.) So, if there are any worms in the “Calvinian Movement” it is the slithering, slimy, backbone-less worms that are represented by Doc Sandlin, Alistair Roberts, Doug Wilson, Rich Lusk, Steve Hemmeke, Uri Brito, and the rest of the Wormy Worms and the Worms movement. Some of these people are such worms that instead of debating ideas they would instead go all worm like and doxx a good man and chortle and dance over his experiencing cancel culture. Others of them seem to purposely misrepresent what Kinists believe or resolve to misunderstand and misinterpret Kinists at every turn.

3.) Deep defects?

You can see that Doc Sandlin, when he is not supporting Reformed Catholicism and female law enforcement officers, moonlights as a stand up comic. Maybe the man is right though. Any Kinist who would associate with a movement that has Doc Sandlin as a mouthpiece is definitely teetering on having deep defects.

4.) Postmodern Calvinian?

Only a pseudo intellectual could come up with a phrase like that.

5.) The fact that any Christian (never mind a Christian of the “Postmodern Calvinian stripe) would take the charge of “racist” or “racism” seriously is itself a laugh riot. The word means nothing today. It is just a word the left hurls at someone when they are losing the debate. The fact that Doc Sandlin even worries about being called a “racist” by the left indicates just how far left the man is himself. Calling Calvinian’s “racist” today would be like calling Reformation Calvinists in the 16th century, “disrupters of the Church.”  I mean… the only way to respond to that charge is to say, “You say that like its a bad thing.” Really folks, except for the pink poodle owner types who gives a tinker’s damn what the left thinks of us?

6.) The problem Doc Sandlin (Andy) is that it is you and your types who are fouling up our movement. GET THE HADES OUT. Start your own damn movement called the effeminate, the limp wristed, and the pansy tush Calvinette’s movement. Our movement is for the remaining sons of the West.

The Point of Linkage Between the R2K Dispute & The Kinism Dispute

“The R2K crowd is willing to cede the point that Christ’s spiritual kingdom or mediatorial kingdom is synonymous with the church. This is the classic non roman position. But they are unwilling to admit that Christ’s kingdom of power exists at all. The Kuyperians are unwilling to admit that there is a distinction between the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of power at all. Thus they are unable to draw a distinction between grace and the natural order. Or if they do nature is bad and so must be eliminated. Grace eats up nature and your church membership becomes more fundamental to your being than your father’s blood.

Both are errors. Neither comport with magisterial Protestantism or confessional Christianity.”

Robert Hoyle

Over the years here at Iron Ink two of my main foils (though not my only adversaries) have been R2K and “Christian” Alienism. What Robert offers above shows the reason for that. There is linkage between these two errors. Now, Robert and I do not agree on Natural Law scholastic theology but all theologians talk about the relationship between nature and grace. It has been a Reformed motif over the centuries that “grace restores/renews nature.” 

The CREC wants grace at the expense of nature. This is seen in Doug Wilson’s silly diatribes against biblical Kinism…. well, except when it is his Kin who are at stake. When it is his kin at stake then suddenly we begin to smell ethnic puffery. Take for example these two paragraphs from Pope Douglas read back to back;

I.) Doug “I hate white Kinism” Wilson

“We of course reject all such ethnic pufferies, and we do so with just the right amount of loathing…By making absolutely everything about superficial ethnicity indicators, it turns out that some have learned this lesson in reactionary ways, and have embraced their superficial ethnicity indicators. Instead of being ASHAMED of this made-up reality, they became PROUD of this made-up reality. And that’s how we got a collection of Proud Boys going down to heckle folks at an Antifa rally, with the Boys in question made up of Scots, Norwegians, Germans, and a Ukrainian, arms locked, singing a Celtic war song. This is nothing more than playing tribal dress-ups, or ethnic cosplay, and all of it based on nothing more than a shared susceptibility to sunburn. ” –Doug Wilson

II.) Doug “I love me some Jewish Kinism” Wilson

“My affection for Israel is personal, in addition to being theological and political. My wife’s great-great-grandfather was Rabbi Cohn, one of my co-grandfathers is a Christian Jew, my kids and grandkids have cousins who are Israeli, and according to AncestryDNA, I myself am 2% European Jewish. Nancy is 11% European Jew, her mother 26%. What all this amounts to is that our family would be much more involved on an active personal level if terrorists overran Israel than we would be if terrorists overran Vermont.” — Douglas Wilson

At least in the first paragraph nature is just so much “ethnic puffery” that is to be met with just the right loathing of all those ethnic pufferers who share the common trait of susceptibility to sunburn. However, in the second paragraph its all bagels and matzo ball soup serious.

The CREC would replace the ethnic puffery of the first paragraph with ecclesiocentrism and grace. White boy summer ethnic puffery is not important. What is important for the CREC (at least for white boy summer) is grace over nature unless, of course unless all your grandchildren are descendants of Rabbi Cohn. This may be accounted by the wide spread admission of ecclesiocentrism that is found in the CREC.  What is important per the Moscow boys is not the family (the ground zero for ethnic considerations). What is important is the Church. Apparently, for the CREC types it is in the Church we live and move and have our being.

However, not to be outdone, R2K comes along with their famous condescending “tut, tut, tutting,” to remind us that the CREC is wrong. It is not grace eclipsing nature. Rather, it is grace and nature set in dualistic compartmentalization from one another. This explains why the grand Pu-bah of R2K can say things like;

“God is not redeeming the cultural activities and institutions of this world”…“Those who hold a traditional Protestant view of justification consistently should not find a redemptive transformationist perspective attractive.”

David Van Drunen — Westminster Seminary California Professor
“Living in God’s Two Kingdoms”, pp. 13–21.

One readily sees here that grace and nature have been compartmentalized from one another. Grace is an upper story reality and nature is a lower story reality and never the twain shall meet institutionally speaking.

So to reduce to a Venn diagram

CREC = Grace Supplants Nature (No unapproved of ethnic puffery allowed)
Materialism = Nature is all there is (The Cosmos is all there is)
R2K = Grace and Nature exist in a dualistic ying & yang (Secularism forever)
Rome = Nature must come under Grace for Nature to count
(This explains why for Rome everything had to come into the Church to be Holy.)
Animism = Spiritual is all there is

To the contrary, for right-minded people it is the case that the Church is a central expression of the Kingdom but it is not the only expression of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God, being among us, or in our midst (Luke 17:21) is a Kingdom that is not only redemptive as it works in the Church with its means of Grace in the Word and Sacrament unto the end of opening and closing the Kingdom, but the Kingdom is also authoritarian as it works as under Christ’s Kingship through redeemed Kingdom men, who, by the means of taking every thought captive to Christ and doing all things to the glory of God unto, labor unto the end of the ongoing expansion of the already present Kingdom of God so that one day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The model is found in the Incarnation. Taking seriously the Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the incarnation is how one avoids going off the road into either the R2k ditch or the CREC ditch which in the end both lead to Gnosticism by either over materialization or over spiritualization.

How Do I Love My Racist Neighbor? — A Parody

I think it is time we discuss how we can best evangelize our racist neighbor. This subject needs to be examined so that we know best how to build bridges to our racist neighbors as opposed to just offending them because everyone knows that our racist neighbors will never be won to the Gospel by just calling them “racist,” as if that is the only thing that might be thought of or said of them. There is more to the humanity of a racist than just their racism. Keep in mind inside every racists is a non-racist just wanting to get out and wanting to be loved.

First, we have to get out of the way of ourselves. It is true that it takes a lot getting used to the hound dogs in our racist neighbor’s yard and the chickens roosting everywhere. It is true that seeing bootleg copies of Luther’s “The Jews and their Lies,” and David Duke’s “Jewish Supremacism” and a copy of “The Best of Chrysostom and Calvin on the Jews” sitting right out in the open in their living rooms without any kind of book covers covering the titles can be a pornographic sight. It is true that we might find their lack of hygiene, as seen in so many of them only have one tooth remaining, to be repulsive but as St. Paul says … “Such were some of you.”

Second, we need to realize that our racist neighbors are image bearers just like we are. It is true that they have this great sin about them that we find so objectionable but when we look at them we need to see them as God sees them and that is as people who bear the image of God. We have to realize that although a racist disposition denies God’s will for human dignity, we need to affirm that people who prefer the company of their own people should not have legal rights to protect their legal and economic security stripped from them. Remember, we are required to do unto the racists as we would have them do unto us. As Christians it is the least that we can do. I would submit that only when we make our racist neighbors feel safe can we expect to have a harvest of souls from among them.

So, instead of insulting them or not welcoming them in our churches we should go our of our way to see them as whole persons and not merely as racist pigs. How would you like to be known just by your besetting sin of uniquely loving your children, or paying only your families monthly bills?

Think about it for a second. We don’t think about sodomites only in terms of their sodomy. We don’t think about Pedophiles or Zoophiles only in terms of their pedophilia or zoophilia. We don’t think about cannibals or trannies only in terms of their cannibalism or trannie-ism. Why should we think of racists only in terms of their racism? I mean after all, wouldn’t Jesus think about the feelings of racists before condemning them to hell? Can we do any less?

For my part, I can only tell you that some of the nicest people my wife and family and I have ever met are racists. We’ve known some of these racists to befriend not only other white people but actually to greet non white people in stores, to visit with non-white people in public gatherings, and even to help non-white people in their need. It is true that they still won’t give their children in marriage to non-white people and they still insist that multi-cultural social orders breed low trust societies but we need to learn to give credit where credit is due and realize that the grace of God can save such people. I’ve seen these racist people perform deeds of kindness that would put our church people to shame. Does not God’s common grace count for something?

Of course the wife and I are careful to teach our children that we cannot turn a blind eye to these racist friends lifestyle. We point out to our children the disgusting sin of inter-ethnic preference. In family devotions we expose the racist sin of our neighbors by pointing out to the children how they only go shopping in safe areas of town. However, I think we in the church need to get past only seeing the most grotesque thing about a person (their racism) as if that is their only truth. These are people who love their mothers and family just like we do. We need to build on that to give them the Gospel.

We need to recall that just as God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust so that same rain falls on the racists and non racists alike. This teaches us about God’s incredible mercy and if that mercy could reach us when we were not yet Christian certainly it can reach even the racist while they are not yet Christian.  Where is the tenderness and kindness that was characteristic of the Church through the centuries? Where is the historic love of Jesus for the least of these? Would you die for your racist neighbor to see them won to the Kingdom? If not, then maybe you should slow up in your ready condemnation of the racist.

Given all this we need to start treating our racist neighbors as real people. Go ahead and say “hello” to your racist neighbor. I know enough of them to assure you that they won’t bite you. Make them a meal. Help them get to the hospital if they are hurt. Donate blood or an organ to help them return to health and great will be your reward in heaven. Remember underneath that racist veneer is a human whom Jesus died for. His or her racism does not negate their humanity. Remember that.

Remember, without your willingness to be a channel of grace, your racist neighbor may well go to hell. Let that motivate you in your outreach to racists.

Addendum — Even some our clergy need help on this subject. Call up your parson and take him out to lunch and talk with your clergy member about his or her shrillness on the subject of racism. Remind your minister that racism is not the unforgivable sin. Remind your minister that your church as well as (s)he and the church staff may well can learn something from the racists.

Remember… it only takes a spark to get a fire going.

Inspired by Paul Tripp

 

Contra Steve Hemmke and Alienism

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 the 5th commandment?

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?

But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Even Jesus makes these distinctions but these denizens of the “IQ 70 good ole boy clergy club” boldly start ripping pages out of Scripture to make room for their pagan worldview.

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