Gottfried Insists that WOKEism Doesn’t Arise Out of Marxism … A Conversation Part II

Over at Chronicles Magazine Jewish Intellectual Paul Gottfried advances the idea that “Marxism is not Woke.” In this conversation with Gottfried I am disagreeing with that sentiment. This is part II.

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/marx-was-not-woke/

Paul Gottfried (PG) writes

It was also the Frankfurt School theorist Marcuse who paved the way for the New Left neo-Marxism of the 1960s and ’70s by advocating an alliance of counterculture revolutionaries with anticolonial rebels in the Third World. Marcuse’s “Berlin Lectures,” delivered to cheering young German radicals in 1973, looked forward to a period of extreme change driven by collaboration between Third World revolutionaries and the Western student movement. By the 1970s, it was also becoming clear that the Western working class, which was moving decidedly to the right, could no longer be instrumentalized as a leftist revolutionary class. Marcuse added to his revolutionary brew, perhaps as an afterthought, the rage of angry young blacks.

Bret responds,

Here is one area where we see that Marx clearly was indeed WOKE. It was Marx who gave us the rise of the proletariat as the instrumental means of world socialist revolution. In the well known rallying cry of “Workers of the World Unite,” Marx envisioned a force animated by resentment and envy against the bourgeoise so as to bring about social revolution. With the rise of Cultural Marxism (CulMar, Frankfurt School) the idea of a necessary proletariat is not surrendered but rather the former proletariat is transmogrified into a different coalition force comprised of the wastrels, disenchanted, and outcasts of Western civilization. Whereas it was previously the workers of the world who must unite, with the rise of CulMar it is the minorities, feminists, academicians and  perverts, (call it the MF AP) who will unite into a new proletariat who will serve as the new shock troops engaged in the long march through the Western and Christian Institutions. The principle of Marx remains in CulMar but it has shape shifted to bring revolution to a new Era. Marx is WOKE.

PG writes,

This was a useful course of action because, by the 1960s, blacks had become more and more drawn into revolutionary activism, although they would soon be joined by others in what can be described as the post-Marxist left. Although members of what eventually evolved into the woke, antifascist left looked for an “oppressed class,” their choices had nothing to do with Marx’s proletariat. The real working class wanted nothing to do with cultural revolutionaries, and fights broke out between the two groups in American cities in the 1960s.

Bret responds,

But what PG misses here is that structurally speaking the WOKE anti-fascist (so called) retained the conceptual idea of a proletariat. The only difference between classical Marxism (CM) on this point and CulMar is who would do the proletariat dirty work. The concept of the proletariat remains but the team jerseys are changed. The proletariat is the same only different.

Secondly, I am not convinced that the choices of the WOKE left had nothing to do with Marx’s proletariat. Keep in mind that WOKEism still has an economic component. WOKEism still strums the string that the poor are oppressed. It is just that CulMar WOKEism has expanded the oppressed class to include more than the economic woebegone. The genius of  WOKEism is in how it expanded the base of the aggrieved so as to create a new proletariat.

PG writes,

Marcuse and his followers also fatefully redefined the “realm of needs,” as understood in traditional Marxism. No longer was it the labor required to sustain the working class but rather the acquisition of psychological and esthetic fulfillment. This lent weight to the complaint that capitalism was emotionally repressive. In the post-World War II Western context, the capitalist form of production was accused of leaving the youthful vanguard of a future revolution inwardly stunted. Marcuse believed Western countries were materially able to create a “rational economy”—that is, a socialist one—but simply lacked the will and the vision to establish the sexually and economically liberated society that he desired.

Bret responds,

Yes, the deck chairs on the Titanic are rearranged but it remains the good ship Titanic. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it not a pig. Cosmetic changes were made but, contra Gottfried, the essence and goal of both Classical Marxism and WOKEism remain the same and because of that WOKE is Marx.  CM and WOKEism both remain committed to the project of overthrowing Western Civilization with it Christian roots and though the players may have changed and the rules of the game tweaked, WOKEism is Marxist. Another way that is seen is the fact that Biblical Christianity remains the only force that can finally defeat both Marxism and its bitch chid WOKEism.

PG writes,

Such ideas represent a countercultural alternative to traditional Marxism as well as to the still recognizably bourgeois Christian society that Marcuse and other Critical Theorists hoped to transform. Communist parties throughout the West as well as Soviet critics condemned this reconfiguring of Marxism as a distortion of Marx’s dialectical materialism. Instead of highlighting the class struggle centered on the ownership of productive forces, Critical Theorists were talking about fighting prejudice and increasing erotic satisfaction. If such notions passed for Marxist theory, so went the critique; these notions would reduce a true revolutionary doctrine based on an analysis of material forces to a bourgeois campaign against emotional repression and discrimination. The invective against this transmogrified Marxism among Communists and orthodox Marxists was every bit as furious as those denunciations against the Frankfurt School that have issued from the Christian right.

Bret responds,

Yes, yes, yes, among the purist Marxists the WOKEism of CulMar was heresy. However, if we are follow this Gottfried reasoning then Trotskyism was not Marxist, nor was Syndicalism Marxism, nor was Maoism Marxism, nor was Fabianism Marxism, etc. etc. etc. Marxism has had more facelifts than Madonna. However, under each facelift the leering visage of Marx remains.

Gottfried is correct that the WOKEism of CulMar is contradictory on the matter of Marx’s dialectical materialism, but as dialectical materialism is itself contradictory I am not sure why this matters except to the Marxist purists. Keep in mind here that the common Marxist thread that remains between CM and WOKEism is philosophical Materialism. Gottfried needs here to keep in mind Marx’s watch cry;

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Gottfried is playing the philosopher here insisting that Marx is not WOKE all the while the WOKEism of Cultural Marxism is changing the world.

So, PG and I agree that the WOKEism of Gramsci and the Frankfurt school has tweaked Marx but a tweaked Marx remains Marx. Some have even offered that the Marxism of CulMar and WOKEism is a return to the earlier writings of Marx as opposed to the later writings of Marx upon which Classical Marxism is based.

PG writes,

The woke left is an even more grotesque distortion of Marxism than anything the interwar and postwar Frankfurt School brought forth. This left has shed any recognizable Marxist theory, but it continues to venerate Communist heroes while appealing to the interwar struggle between the Communist left and “fascism.” Despite socialist proposals that occasionally enter woke wish lists, corporate capitalists are integral to the post-Marxist left. Nor are such capitalists likely to suffer any ill effects even if the green agenda that most Western countries are pushing is put more broadly into effect.

Bret responds,

It is kind of humorous to talk about something being a more grotesque distortion of Marxism than some earlier grotesque distortion of Marxism given how grotesque a distortion Marxism is itself. I mean when one is dealing with a grotesque distortion to begin with it might be a clue that if something is even a more grotesque distortion than the original grotesque distortion in question, that even more grotesque distortion might indeed be related to the original grotesque distortion.

Second, the fact that “this left” continues to venerate Communist heroes might be a clue for all of us “this left” of Gottfried identifies with Marxism. I mean who are we to question them on who their heroes are? If I tell you that my hero is Che Guevara or Barack Obama or Vladimir Lenin why would you question my Marxist bonafides?

Surely PG has to know that corporate capitalists were also integral to the rise and ongoing success of the Marxist left. The fact that corporate capitalists are integral to the left in no way proves that that left is not Marxist. Anybody who is familiar with the works of Antony Sutton

1.) Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution: The Remarkable True Story of the American Capitalists Who Financed the Russian Communists

2.)Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler

3.) Wall Street and FDR: The True Story of How Franklin D. Roosevelt Colluded with Corporate America

The fact that the Corporate Capitalists are integral to the left proves that what we are dealing with now is not Marxism, frankly is ridiculous. I’d be more inclined to believe that what we are dealing with now isn’t a Marxist variant if what we are dealing with now weren’t in bed with Mega Corporate America.  Corporatism and Marxism go together like Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light beer.

Who does Gottfried think profited from the rise of the USSR besides Western Mega Capitalists? Certainly Gottfried has heard of names like Armand Hammer, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Guggenheim, the Vanderbilt family, and many other less known names that were part of what we call the Corporate Establishment.

The Mega-Corporatists very seldom suffer ill effects from the rise of Marxism.

Gottfried Insists that WOKEism Doesn’t Arise Out of Marxism … A Conversation Part I

One of the things I try to stay up on is Cultural Marxism. I believe it is the nursery from which WOKEism grows. I further believe that Cultural Marxism is the number 1 theological threat right now to Biblical Christianity as a religion in terms of worldview hegemony.  If Christianity can’t find a way to choke the life out of Cultural Marxism then Christianity will go into the catacombs until it can find a way to eliminate this enemy.

As such, I find a article like this;

Marx Was Not Woke

interesting.

In this piece Jewish Intellectual Paul Gottfried argues that;

“Wokeism arises out of the failure of liberalism, not out of the theory of Marxism.”

I think I can argue convincingly that Dr. Gottfried is in error here. I provide the link for your convenience because I want you to be able to access the article for yourself to make sure I am not misrepresenting Gottfried’s argument. Also, I may not fisk Gottried’s entire article and as such you can make sure that I am not leaving out context that would make a difference in Gottfried’s article.

Allow me to say before we begin that I have read several of Gottfried’s books with profit. However, like any author Gottfried has to be read presuppositionally and through one’s own worldview grid in order to catch the errors that might be in any otherwise fine work.

Begin Gottfried (PG)

Yoram Hazony provides what is perhaps the best exposition of how the woke left represents an “updated” form of traditional Marxism. His argument, which is ably presented in his book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, is summed up as follows:

Bret responds,

Generally speaking, it is widely accepted that WOKEism is indeed an “updated” form of traditional Marxism. Updated because it is Marxism as coming through the grid of one Antonia Gramsci. Some have argued that Gramsci’s “Marxism” was a return to Marx’s earlier writings. So, I would argue that WOKEism is just another label for Cultural Marxism while noting that Cultural Marxism is a nuanced form of Marxism. Keep in mind that as Marxism by definition does not work, therefore there are going to be continued updated versions of Marxism. Marxism changes like your I-Phone and like updated I-phones it is always the same only different.

PG argues

Marx’s principal insight is that the categories liberals use to construct their theory of political reality (liberty, equality, rights, and consent) are insufficient for understanding the political domain. They are insufficient because the liberal picture of the political world leaves out two phenomena that are, according to Marx, absolutely central to human political experience: the fact that people invariably form cohesive classes or groups and the fact that these classes or groups invariably oppress or exploit one another, with the state itself functioning as an instrument of the oppressor class.

Bret responds,

And here we see WOKEism in spades. We see the two phenomena that Gottfried speaks of screaming from the balcony.

(a) The presence of cohesive classes or groups (b) accompanied by the fact that these class and groups invariably oppress and exploit one another. 

This is pure WOKEism. WOKEism exists by marginalizing and even eliminating the individual in favor of group identity. Further, WOKEism provides a narrative, like Marxism, where people in their identity groups fall into either oppressors or oppressed categories. WOKEism with its intersectionality sliding scale of oppressed status provides a methodology where a sliding scale of the degrees of oppressed and oppressor can be measured.

Now the difference between WOKEism here and Classical Marxism (CM) is that CM measured the oppressors vs. oppressed in terms of Economics (proletariat as oppressed vs. bourgeoisie as oppressor), whereas Cultural Marxism (CulMar) measures the oppressors vs. oppressed in terms of Religion and Race (Christian white man as oppressor vs. Heathen minority/pervert/feminist/Academician as oppressed). CulMar as such as expanded the oppressed category beyond economic categories though not exclusive of economic categories, while at the same time distilling the former bourgeoisie to what was always implied; to wit, the evil Christian.

We see thus that PG is in error when he says that WOKEism is not the offspring of Marxism.

PG writes,

Part of this argument is undoubtedly correct. The form of liberalism that came out of the 18th-century Enlightenment did indeed stress individual rights and liberties, and it placed less emphasis on national and class identities than on individual advancement. This liberal tendency continued to manifest itself into the late 20th century, although liberalism itself underwent significant changes with the modern welfare state and the introduction of universal suffrage. Moreover, while self-identified liberals supported nationalist movements and movements of national liberation throughout the 19th century, to whatever extent they reflected Enlightenment liberalism, they stressed individual rights and individual self-fulfillment.

Bret responds,

And inasmuch as WOKEism does not stress individual rights and individual self fulfillment in that much it clearly is not the child of the Enlightenment Left.

However, keep in mind that both the atomistic individualism of Liberalism gone to seed and the hyper collectivism of Marxism end up in the same place when they are worked out to their inevitable end. Atomistic Liberalism and Hyper collectivism as social orders end up being Van Til’s two wash women who always take in each other’s laundry. Just as Fate and Chance end up being complimentary poles when the God of the Bible is surrendered so Atomistic individualism of Enlightenment Liberalism and Hyper-Collectivism of Marxist/WOKE end up working together towards the same goal. Only in Christianity where you find an Eternal One and Many can we find a place where the temporal individual and the temporal collective find a stable and complimentary meaning.

PG writes,

Hazony is correct that the woke left has outflanked self-described liberals in the media and the academy by defending collective identities. These privileged identities are ascribed to exploited members of designated victim groups. The contemporary left has therefore developed its own collectivism by incorporating a vocabulary and conceptual framework borrowed from the Marxist tradition. Like Marxism, the woke left divides humanity into oppressors and the oppressed, and it views the state as an instrument of power that should be made to fit the needs of the supposedly downtrodden. The woke left has abandoned the socioeconomic perspective of older Marxist theory but, according to Hazony, continues to imagine reality along similar lines: that is, as a confrontation between cohesive classes, consisting of the oppressors and oppressed. Thus the woke left conjures up a situation that calls for a revolutionary solution.

Bret responds,

The older socioeconomic perspective of older Marxist theory that the WOKE left has abandoned has been replaced by a totalistic religio-racial-cultural weltanschauung and has given us Biblical Christians the glad consequence of crystalizing the anti-thesis between Christ and Anti-Christ. For those with eyes to see we are living in a moment where the battle lines are drawn, without any illusion, between those who desire to kill Christ and those who desire to honor Christ. If there ever existed a religious war, some of us are now fighting it.

Still, PG is singing to the choir so far in his analysis.

PG writes,

Hazony relates his treatment of this left as an updated form of historic Marxism to the waning of anti-Marxist liberalism. In his judgment, liberals who fight Marxism in the name of individual rights are holding a poor hand. They are upholding individual natural rights against collective identity, a concept that now dominates in Western societies. The battle lines are no longer between the liberal defense of the individual and various form of collectivism. Rather the lines are drawn between conservative nationalism, that is, “conservative democracy,” and Marxism in its regnant woke form.

Bret responds,

Here my disagreement is going to be with Hazony since he has not gotten to the core of the matter. The contestants that Hazony lists are just not accurate except in a tangential sense. Hazony has given us some of the proximate contestants but he has not given us the ultimate contestants.

First, while “conservative nationalism” is certainly a factor it is more accurate to label this contestant as  “Christian Nationalism,” and it is perhaps even more precise to say ” White Christian Nationalism.” Now, this is not to say that only White Christian  Nationalists are fighting. There are many minority Christians who believe in Christian Nationalism who are fighting with us, however, considered collectively it is White Christian Nationalists that are in the cross-hairs. We have to admit that the primary target and foe of the CulMar is White Christians who believe in Nationalism, and from there we have to admit that this is fight against White Christian Nationalism is just a proxy war to throw off the authority of Jesus Christ in every area of life. The reason that the CulMar are going after White Biblical Christians is because they realize that if they can rid the world of that “pestilence” than any other opposition will be a mere mopping up matter. Considering all this Hazony’s “Conservative Nationalism” as one of the two major contestants is not going to get it done.

Even, labeling the white contestants as “Conservative Democracy” is not helpful since Biblical Christians (the true combatants) are not in the least interested in “Conservative Democracy,” as that is currently defined. What Biblical Christians desire is a governmental arrangement that honors and is beholden to Jesus Christ as King of Kings and His expressed Law-Word. Hazony’s “Conservative Democracy” is part of the problem.

And of course Marxist in its regnant form is correct so far as it goes but it would be better to reduce the enemy to their essence and the essence of the enemy here is “antichrist.”

PG writes,

Unfortunately, Hazony cannot escape the materialist foundation of Marxist historical theory. Marx was not in the least concerned with nonbinary oppression, raging homophobia, or the inherently evil nature of being white. This father of “scientific socialism” focused on socioeconomic antagonisms expressing themselves as class conflict. His historical materialism, however, was overhauled in interwar Germany, as the Frankfurt School and its Critical Theory came onto the scene. This new iteration of the left developed what has been called “cultural Marxism,” and it defined as a pressing socialist task the reconstruction of the bourgeois Christian family. This reconstruction was supposedly necessary to stand firm against the rampant spread of fascism. Among Frankfurt School theorists, attempts were also made to assimilate Marxism to a variant of Freudian psychology; and in Herbert Marcuse’s work, Marxist socialism was fused with the vision of polymorphic sexuality.

Bret writes,

True, Marx was not concerned per se with “nonbinary oppression, raging homophobia, or the inherently evil nature of being white,” but Marx and Engels were concerned with the socialist task  of reconstructing the bourgeois Christian family and I am convinced that Marx and Engels would have embraced “nonbinary oppression, and raging homophobia”  if he was convinced that by doing so the Christian concept of family could be destroyed.

“Only when we have led every woman from the home into the workplace will complete equality be achieved, by the destruction of the institution of the family, which is the basis of capitalist society.”

Friedrich Engels,

Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

So, this is one thing that CM and CulMar have in common as seen in this observation from Dr. Francis Nigel Lee in his “Communist Eschatology” ;

“The earthly family, then, roots in the Holy Family in heaven, and although Marx inverted the primordiality of the Holy Family to the earthly family, he well realized their relationship. This is why Marx stated in his famous Theses on Feuerbach thatonce the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice.'”~

From the Mailbag: John Holzmann Writes Telling Me I Am Being “Deeply Offensive”

Dear Pastor Bret,

 I don’t understand how and why you get so hot and bothered about some of the issues concerning which you seem to get hot and bothered.

Here you say (correctly, I think), that “Of course that message is ‘not white, black, green or blue.’” On the other hand, you then go on to say, “The question at hand is, ‘which kin group . . . has been . . . serving as the bulwark against moral insanity in America?’” And, for some reason, you seem intent on defining the “kin” in racial/racist terms: “[W]hether Dr. White wants to admit it or not, the answer to that is the White Anglo Saxon Christian people.” Really? “‘[T]he‘ White Anglo Saxon Christian people”? This “people”?

No non-White Anglo Saxon Christians (in other words, only White Anglo Saxons) have been opposing moral insanity in America? And, somehow, it is the White Anglo Saxons’ “peoplehood”–you know, their being White and Anglo Saxon–that fitted and enabled them, somehow, uniquely, to stand up for their high standards? It is their kinship in racial and ethnic identity that leads to such moral righteousness? And we ought to recognize this kinship–and make sure to exclude righteous brothers and sisters in Christ–brothers and sisters of other racial or ethnic backgrounds–from honor for their courageous stands?

I am concerned that you are confusing certain realities to the detriment both of the morally confused White Anglo Saxons who may claim to know the Saviro but really don’t . . . as well as to the detriment of our Christian brothers and sisters of other racial and ethnic heritages who find your (seriously confused) declarations deeply offensive.

John Holzman

Pastor Bret responds,

Friend John Holzmann,

I don’t know how you or any Biblical Christian can not get hot and bothered by the things I get so hot and bothered about. So, I guess we are even on that score.

I don’t define  the current contest in solely racial terms because I clearly offer, in the piece you are complaining about, that it is White Anglo Saxon CHRISTIANS who are the bulwark and not merely White people. White non Christians (normies) are clearly contributing to the moral insanity.

I don’t define the current battle in solely racial terms because I’m not “defining” anything. I am merely noticing the facts. All one as to do to find those facts John is to look at the minority groups, group by group, to see  the percentages by which they vote for the party of moral insanity (DEMS). (Though just to be fair, I thoroughly despise Republicans as well, but at least they work at fooling the White Anglo Saxon Christian.)

I am defining the current battle primarily in racial-theological terms because that is the indisputable reality. Now, when something is defined primarily or generally it doesn’t mean “universally.” I never said that there weren’t minority people who weren’t in the fight with the White Anglo Saxon Christian (WASC), I merely agreed with Stephen Wolfe that WASCs are the serving as a defense or safeguard (bulwark) against moral insanity.

Here is Wolfe’s statement again in case you missed it.

“White evangelicals (as a group) are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America…. It is simply true that white evangelicals, as a group, have been essential to the success of the GOP and conservative causes, and they remain the most reliable voters for those opposing woke and trangenderism…. “Lone bulwark” means that the absence of the white evangelical bloc would torpedo us into moral insanity. There is no other group (that I’m aware of) whose absence would cause this.”   Stephen Wolfe

The point here John is that were one to take WASC’s out of our societal mix the culture would go belly up. This is indisputably true and it no insult to Christians who are not white unless one is dallying with being WOKE. Are you dallying with being WOKE John?

And I clearly said in my piece that WASCs were not made of better dirt. Did you skim the piece or read it John? I wrote in the piece:

The question at hand is, “which kin group, as completely in God’s providence and grace, quite apart from any idea that they are made of anything but dirt, has been that kin group who are serving as the bulwark against moral insanity in America?” And whether Dr. White wants to admit it or not, the answer to that is the White Anglo Saxon Christian people.

Please forgive me Rev. Dr. White (and now John Holzmann) for committing the sin of noticing.

Nobody is excluding anybody here. Why some of my best friends are minority Christians. (That’s a throwback to the 60s joke though I’ll doubt you will get it).

You have completely misread my piece John and it has been my long experience that people who do that still are infected with cultural Marxist categories. I have said nothing (nor has Wolfe) that is pejorative to minority Christians. One can only come to that errant conclusion if one is reading what I am saying with colored glasses on (pun only slightly intended).

Wolfe’s OP and my agreement has not only been demonstrated statistically but also taken for granted by people who hate white evangelicals. It’s even in the front page of books their books!

See Kristen Kobes DuMez’s book, “Jesus & John Wayne.”

So, in the end I am confusing nothing John. If anybody finds anything I write offensive on this post than it is because they are taking offense, and not because I am giving offense. If I don’t say these things in this climate I will definitely be offending my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Just ask my minority friends who share a Christian worldview. 😉

John… give this a read. It might help

http://www.thedailygenevan.com/blog/2022/11/17/naturalvsnonnatural

And view this to see the danger WASCs are in

https://odysee.com/@Counterpoints:5/the-truth-about-the-great-replacement:d1

James White Attacks Stephen Wolfe …. McAtee can’t Resist

James White on Twitter;

There is absolutely, positively NO PLACE in Christ’s Church for “white,” or “Asian” or “Black” or “Latino” or anything else *used as a divisive label.* The unity of the body is in the singular, undivided, indispensable righteousness of Christ, NOT in skin color, kin, tribe or nation.

Bret responds,

1.) What counts as a divisive label? When Stephen Wolfe speaks something that is objectively and indisputably true on a Twitter thread that;

“White evangelicals (as a group) are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America…. It is simply true that white evangelicals, as a group, have been essential to the success of the GOP and conservative causes, and they remain the most reliable voters for those opposing woke and trangenderism…. “Lone bulwark” means that the absence of the white evangelical bloc would torpedo us into moral insanity. There is no other group (that I’m aware of) whose absence would cause this.”

Is that being “divisive” per James White? I think it must mean that in White’s World because he posted these comments in response to Wolfe’s observation.

So, I wonder if Rev. Dr. White might explain just exactly how such an observation is creating divisiveness in Christ’s church?

The inspired St. Paul could say that “All Cretans are liars.” Per Rev. Dr. White should St. Paul be sanctioned for that allegedly  divisive comment?  What about when Jesus called the Samaritan woman a “dog.” Should Jesus be sanctioned for that allegedly divisive comment?

2.) The Rev. Dr. White has a false dichotomy above. It is true that the unity of the body is found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ but that does not in turn mean that Christian people can’t also find a unity in “skin color, kin, tribe or nation.” Listen to Dr. John Frame on the matter;

“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”

White makes the popular mistake in that opening comment of thinking that somehow grace destroys nature. A Yellow man becomes a Christian and suddenly his Yellowness disappears, with all the implied cultural and racial heritage, into the Christian regenerating ether. Why can’t these people like the Rev. Dr. White realize that we can have both a unity with our Christian Kin that is unique but doesn’t violate a confederated unity with our fellow Christians who are not of our people and place?

Again, keep in mind, that the church has only begun to think this way with the rise of the Civil rights movement. Never, in the Church’s history has anyone ever thought like James White and his ideological clan on this subject except perhaps the Anabaptist levelers.

Rev. Dr. James White going all declarative writes;

“I will NOT stand with anyone who seeks to undermine that unity with the use of such labels. I stood up in 2018 after MLK 50 and said the EXACT same thing. One man called for an “ecumenical council” to condemn me as a heretic for daring to say the Lord’s Table is a place not for ethnicities or labels but solely as a place for focus upon Christ.”

Bret responds,

1.) Really, very few care who James White will or will not stand with. I think they call this “attention seeking behavior.”

2.) White is not angling for unity here. White is thumping for uniformity. There is a HUGE difference between the two.

3.) I’m not going to comment on the last sentence above because I suspect I need more context to know what really went on there. Still, if the Lord’s Table is not a place for labels, I think that means the Rev. Dr. James White is all good with paedo-communion since the work of disallowing toddlers to the table requires the work of “labeling” them.

Rev. Dr. White writes;

The only bulwark against the moral insanity of the West is found in *fidelity to Scripture as the revelation of God and its proclamation of Christ as Lord of the nations, the sole and only way of peace with God, and hence the only way of peace amongst men.* That message is not white, black, green or blue. I have far, far, FAR more in common with a Chinese pastor standing firm in the face of CCP torture than I do a white evangelical whose commitment to Scripture is weaker than his commitment to a political party or cause.

Bret responds,

1.) Here White snipes at Stephen Wolfe’s comment above. I don’t want to put words in Wolfe’s mouth but I suspect that Wolfe would say (and I know I would say) that the reason that  “White evangelicals (as a group) are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America” is precisely because of their, in White’s words, “fidelity to Scripture as the revelation of God and its proclamation of Christ as Lord of the nations, the sole and only way of peace with God, and hence the only way of peace amongst men.*”

As such the Rev. Dr. White has given us the fallacy of a false dichotomy. False dichotomies are all the rage these days among those reputed to be pillars in the Church today.

2.) Of course that message is “not white, black, green or blue.” However, that is not the question at hand, though we are certainly thankful that the Rev. Dr. White has cleared that up for everyone. The question at hand is, “which kin group, as completely in God’s providence and grace, quite apart from any idea that they are made of anything but dirt, has been that kin group who are serving as the bulwark against moral insanity in America?” And whether Dr. White wants to admit it or not, the answer to that is the White Anglo Saxon Christian people.

Please forgive me Rev. Dr. White for committing the sin of noticing.

3.) But the question is does White have more in common with a WASP pastor who is his cousin standing firm in the face of the American Unipolar Party than he has in common with a Chinese pastor standing firm in the face of the CCP? I doubt if the Rev. Dr. White would get anywhere near to answering that question.

The Rev. Dr. White writes,

It is time we all took a deep, deep breath, backed up about a year or so, and said, “Let’s try this again, slowly, carefully, without the influence of undo emotion, and let us in grace and love toward fellow believers think this through.” As soon as it comes to our using ethnic groups as meaningful cohorts rather than the unity of the body in the gospel, we will know we have lost our way!

Bret responds,

It is time that those reputed to be pillars in the Church took a deep, deep breath, backed up about a year or so, and said, “Let’s try this again once we read Dow and Achord’s book, ‘Who is My Neighbor.’ Let’s read it slowly, carefully, without the influence of the emotions of Cultural Marxism coursing through our veins. As soon as it comes to the inability to admit creational categories exist within the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ we will know we have lost our way and instead are following the way of old Slewfoot who has convinced us that Bono was inspired when he wrote;

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

 

The Unity of the Godhead As Embraced By Socialists

For the Socialist heaven on earth must present perfection and perfection requires unity among all mankind. This kind of unity is a “atheistic” pursuit born of the theological convictions of their atheism. It is theological because this drive for unity is connected to the socialist’s god concept. Theologically, we know that one attribute of godhood is unity in the deity and since there must be unity in all Godheads, and since man is now the “godhead man,” due to the atheism of the Socialist, man must be unified as a atheistic theological necessity. Unity, for the progressive (socialist), means universal submission to a single sovereignty, and unity in and of the world means universal submission to a single world government. In such a unity, required by both the theology and the teleology of Humanism, two or more distinct races living side by side as segregated, in distinct cultural communities is intolerable. It is intolerable because it defies both their theology and their eschatology.

Because the above is true, totalistic integration into a unified globalist order therefore becomes the Holy Grail for which all “noble” men must strive per the Marxist (socialist). In point of fact, total human integration resulting in total humanistic unity becomes a life and death issue for the Social Gospelers, and the Progressives. (Marxists all). Integration is the necessary step to be taken down the long road of the totalitarian perfection that is heaven on earth. Anyone who dares to question integration is obstructing the Humanist god and worse yet, the sure introduction of heaven on earth. Those who oppose unquestioned integration are thwarting the will of the collective man god and the progressive vision for the inevitable destiny of man. Such a person must be dealt with by elimination. He must be denounced. He must be destroyed.

All of  the above provides the backdrop for why biblical Christians who advocate for a Christian social order are so thoroughly hated both inside and outside the Church. We are the ones who are standing athwart this project, because of our Biblical convictions, and are saying that this kind of pursuit of a New World Order, whether expressed among families or nations is neither Biblical nor natural. Biblical Christians have no desire to be drawn into the ever consuming maw of the socialist beast which exists to gnaw away all distinctions among men so that a “New Socialist Man” can be created. The Biblical Christian realizes that man is not God either considered individually or collectively and because of that the Biblical Christian sees no necessity to live in a world where “all colors bleed into one.” In point of fact, the Biblical Christian is adamantly resolved that this thinking “shall not pass.”

Yet, Legion is the name of simpletons in “Christian” pulpits and behind lecterns in “Christian” Seminaries who have not thought this matter through and so are on the socialist “love train.”

“People all over the world (Everybody)
Join hands (Join)
Start a love train, love train
People all over the world (All the world, now)
Join hands (Love ride)
Start a love train (Love ride), love train”

God save us from well intended simpletons.