ecclesiology – Page 5

Newly Discovered Letter From Uncle Screwtape to Wormwood …”Destroy Distinctions”

Yesterday I was doing some research in the libray and I came across an old book titled, “From the Cutting Floor.” It contained passages from classics that ended up, for one reason or another, being edited out of the final published work.

The following passage did not make it into C. K. Lewis’ “Screwtap Letters.”

My Dear Wormwood,

Word us gone out from our Father below that an all-out assault on that which went by the detestable name of “Christendom” must be pursued. Even old Slubgob is going to be forced from behind his desk and be sent to the new front. Doubtless, once the fighting gets hot all resources will be poured in there.

Until the day arrives we are to prepare the ground by continuing our work in and among our assigned deep state human minions. Remember, our motto here continues to be, “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”

Our goal here remains the pulling down of the Enemy and his influence. The task that we’ve been assigned for the softening up phase of the recently announced assault is to make the minds of our oblivious humans no longer capable of making any distinctions at all. It really doesn’t matter what those distinctions are, our goal is to make damn sure that humans continue to embrace the facile idea that distinctions are evil and that noticing the differences that proper distinctions bring forth is a blasphemy worthy of being criminalized over. The fact that we are at this stage means our work thus far has been a success. Even the bureaucrats at HQ, Bleedbeard and Remphan have admitted as much.

However, we must not rest on our previous successes. We must continue to push our advantage against the Enemy. We must continue to resist, for now, the direct assault, and instead, do our sidewinder work. As I’ve taught you since you took this assignment, frontal assaults are not the work of Junior or even Senior Tempters. Our goal is to destroy people and peoples without them even knowing they’ve been destroyed.

As this remain true, in preparation for the grand assault planned, we are to continue to loosen people from those loyalties that the cursed Enemy has always used as his means of determining the ground where the fighting would be done. We have forever been fighting on his terrain. Our job is make him fight on our terrain. The way we go about that is to detach the verminseed (humans) from their natural loyalties. We are to detach them from their natural attachments of family, place, people, and faith. In doing so we isolate them from any context and support nexus that they might rely upon in order to withstand our coming direct assault.

Concretely this means we must continue to champion Internationalism in our politics pressing for a Globalist order which will eliminate the cursed idea of Nations. We must be careful here. We thought we had this battle won long ago at a place called Babel, but the Enemy decided to Nuke our work there and we’ve been in repair mode ever since.

This work of eliminating nations is part and parcel of the work of destroying distinctions. We do want our verminseed thinking in terms of borders or people groups. The presence of these kinds of macro distinctions in the verminseed’s heads makes it easier for them to continue to see the macro distinction that is the goal of all our destructive work; to wit, the Creator – Creature distinction. And so my dear Wormwood, your goal is to continue to sell Globalism. If you’re doing your job well you will make Globalism so attractive that it will be seen as the Christian (cursed be that word) position. Our highly placed “Christian” (cursed be that word) Clergy will teach this is the only position for those who believe in the Fatherhood of the Enemy and the Brotherhood of all men. Always keep before you that the goal here isn’t really Internationalism or Globalism. These are just means by which the real goal is arrived at and that is the destruction of that vile, maggot infested, bloody thing called the Christian (cursed be that word) faith.

The work of eliminating ethnic, family, and gender, distinctions follows from this Wormy. We will obliterate that bent and twisted faith called Christianity (cursed be that word), not by direct assault on the King of the Enemy above but rather as by sideways in pulling down all the Enemy’s infrastructure and institutions. We will eliminate the sense of belonging to ethnic and family structures. In doing so we will strip from people any idea that worthwhile distinctions exist in their identity. By belonging to everyone they will belong to no one and by belonging to no one they will then be ripe fruit falling into the hands of those who teach that there is nothing to live and die for and no religion too. If we can convince the verminseed that they have no identity then we can convince them easily that distinct identity itself is wicked. If they belong to no people, if they are neither masculine nor feminine, if family has no connection to blood so that any combination can be arrived at as “family,” if we can so reinterpret their faith as that which teaches and supports a distinctionless world then we have finally achieved our precious tabula rasa and we ourselves can start writing our full story upon them via the work of our social engineers Fathers Grimgrit and Glewglaub.

Keep in mind that in all this one of our oldest tools remains our best tool. From the beginning, we have used the tool of Gnosticism to leverage them away from their corporeality. This is what we are still doing here in the modern world. We want them to disassociate themselves from their humanness. Get them so focused on being “Spiritual beings” that they conclude that acknowledging their corporeal identity as given to them by the Enemy is immature and even sinful. Sell hard the idea that our Father below himself came up with; “As Christians (cursed be that word) all are spiritually one, therefore, race, or ethnicity, or gender, or place does not matter because all are one in the Enemy’s King.” Tease out the implications for them and do so my using our Clergy henchman. Have our Clergy minions teach from their romper room pulpits that The Enemy above is pleased with all colors bleeding into one. Remember, Distinctions are the enemy and if we can so maul and bloody the reputation of distinctions then the Christian (cursed be that word) will forever be defeated. The defeat of Christianity and Christendom (cursed be those words) is the ultimate goal here. Everything else is subservient to that end.

Of course, it’s been policy since the spread of Christianity (cursed be that word) to Europe to especially seek to destroy the White European Civilization. They have been public Enemy #1 on our hit list in order to pull down that pretender who sits in Heaven above. It’s not that we think that the White European is special. Indeed, in and of himself he most certainly is not. But for whatever reason, that Old Fool in Heaven above has decided to set the White European people apart to be the carriers of his damnable religion. As such, if we destroy the Nations of the White European people we destroy the White European Civilization and if we destroy White European Civilization then we destroy the Christian (cursed be that word) faith as it has uniquely existed as a Civilizational creating reality. Sure, even once this is accomplished there will remain flotsam and jetsam non-European micro Christian civilizations that will have to be mopped up but if we bring down the White-European beast all others will soon follow. Cut off the head and the rest of the body will die. This is why your attack on the evil white man must continue Wormwood. Never let up on your rending and tearing of the Christian (cursed be that word) White-European’s wicked history of oppression and victimizing. Keep telling our hackneyed story of Colonialism and Conquering. Keep impressing upon their children how the world would have been a better place had it not been for Christian (cursed be that word) White culture. The critical theory of our foot soldiers, the Cultural Marxists, is our friend here.

I’ve spent time here encouraging you to do your work Wormwood but now I must give the other side of the coin. If you fail, if the ideas of Christian Nationalism and Patriotism and Patriarchy are allowed to return as ascendant, if White European Christian Civilization makes a comeback, if the recognition of ethnicity, family, gender, and place waxes strong again, if Distinctions are once again recognized as Enemy above honoring you and everyone else responsible will be reduced to ash. There will be no leniency. We have not done all this work to turn a blind eye to an incompetence that makes us lose all. Losses like those suffered at Babel, and Golgotha, and Tours, and Vienna, and Lepanto will not go unpunished and you know how our Father below excels in punishing those who have disappointed him.

So, your first assignment is to bring the heretofore “conservative” Church into the fold of our war outlined above. Your task is to weaponize the Church against the ideas of nation, ethnicity, family, gender, and place. I don’t care if your clergy clients weaponize the new Christianity (cursed be that word) as willing tools or as duped fools, but weaponize it against distinctions they must. Put the language of our brethren, the Cultural Marxists, on the lips of the Clergy. Make the clergy turn the politics of the Cultural Marxist into the politics of the Enemy above. That shouldn’t be hard. We’ve been doing that for over 100 years now.

You’re safe as long as you do your job. Fail to do your job Wormwood and I will be your first and worst enemy.

Uncle Screwtape

Rev. McAtee contra Rev. Dr. Keller on Good Doctrine Being a Problem in Today’s Western Church

Starting @ the :52 second mark and ending at the 1:29 point

“I actually do think some people make an idol out of doctrine because there are sectors of the church that say if you have your doctrine straight, and if you have your doctrine right then you’re pleasing to God and then you are part of the solution, not the problem and you’re not like all these other parts of the church that are very heretical.

There is a pride and a smugness about having good doctrine that, to me, puts doctrine almost in the place of the saving grace of Jesus Christ and so it becomes an idol.”

Rev. Dr. Tim Keller, Pastor
Redeemer Presbyterian PCA,
New York City, NY

Rev. McAtee responds,

1.) Certainly, we must concede that as anything can be turned into an idol and so even doctrine can be turned into an idol. However, if and when that point has arrived the question that must be asked is whether or not the doctrine is the problem or whether the idolator is the problem. Of course, the problem is not the doctrine since it is only doctrine which will rescue the idolater from their making doctrine an idol.

2.) Keep in mind that if someone really has straight and right doctrine then it is not possible to be involved in idolatry since straight and right doctrine, by definition, is not compatible with idolatry. Indeed if one is making an idol of doctrine their doctrine certainly is neither straight, good nor right. This is a large part of the confusion inherent in this statement by the Rev. Dr. Keller.

3.) Keep in mind that the only solution for those who have turned doctrine into an idol is to tell them to return to doctrine. Since the problem is not with the doctrine but with the idolator the only thing that is going to solve their idolatry is more doctrine. As the problem isn’t the doctrine the only solution is doctrine. If someone has turned doctrine into an idol they can only be reached by giving them true doctrine. As such, contrary to the Rev. Dr. Keller, the doctrine isn’t a problem.

4.) Obviously, we are pleasing to God only as being in Christ and coming under His protection and covering. However, that is a doctrine that I must have straight before I am pleasing to God. God is pleased when we by searching the Scriptures look to see what it is that we should believe (doctrine) in order to honor God. Now, while as a judge God is either pleased with us or not, as a Father God is more pleased with His children who search out Christ wherein are the treasures of all wisdom and knowledge (i.e. — doctrine). That this is so, is seen in how the Lord Christ deals with the seven Churches in Revelation. All Churches are Christians. Five churches are condemned for some weaknesses that the Lord was displeased with while two were only commended. God was more pleased by their faithfulness to the true doctrine than he was with those who were not faithful to true doctrine.

5.) Would to God that every sector of the Church would connect increasingly straight doctrine with God, as Father, being increasingly pleased with us. What other option is there? Would we say that God isn’t increasingly pleased as we are led by the Spirit to increasingly get our doctrine straight? Is God non-plussed over whether our doctrine is increasingly straight or increasingly crooked?

6.) People with crooked doctrine are part of the problem, no matter their good intentions. In the same way, people with straight and right doctrine are part of the solution.

7.) Would the Rev. Dr. Kell have us pray that our doctrine would not be good so that we would not suffer from pride and smugness?

8.) Rev. Dr. Keller complains about doctrine being put in the place of the saving grace of Jesus Christ and yet the whole idea of the saving grace of Jesus Christ is a doctrine that we’ve been warned against as having right, straight, or good.

9.) Rev. Dr. Keller worries about pride and smugness and idolatry and rightfully so. However, each of those is an issue of improper orthopraxy (right behavior). As proper orthopraxy can only be present where good, straight, and right proper orthodoxy (doctrine) first exists we realize that we can never steer clear of improper orthopraxy (pride, smugness, and idolatry) unless we are good, straight, and right, in our orthodoxy (doctrine).

10.) Some sectors of the Church are indeed very heretical and they are heretical precisely because their understanding of the truth as it is found in Jesus Christ is severely deficient.

Some might say, “Come on Rev. McAtee, you know what he means.” To that my response is, “I’d like to think I know what he means, but I honestly am not sure.” The Rev. Dr. Keller has had his bell rung on certain doctrinal issues that are important and where he has been less than clear upon. Is this a complaint on his part that people who dare disagree with him on his doctrine are examples of those who are pride, smug, and idolatrous?

Look, in our irrational age, it strikes me as passing odd to complain that one of the major problems of the Church is that it is over precise when it comes to its doctrine. This is like warning someone suffering from hypothermia that there is danger in sunstroke.

Will Dr. David Wright of Indiana Wesleyan University Clarify Himself?

Here

https://www.wesleyan.org/5716/elections-and-who-we-are

We find the President of IWU saying the below,

“We are an inclusive community that loves and embraces one another despite differences of political persuasion, race, gender, nationality, immigration status, or any other characteristic that people have used to foster division, suspicion, and strife. While some in our community feel better about the future, others in our community feel less safe, more vulnerable, less included today than they did yesterday. Let us affirm together that IWU loves and embraces our minority students and staff, those who come from immigrant families, those who are international students, or those who identify with some other group of people who feel vulnerable and pushed to the margins. I would ask all members of our community to remember and practice those values and virtues of Godly hospitality that represent the very best of what our Lord Jesus Christ taught us.”

Dr. David Wright
President — Indiana Wesleyan University

1.) “We are an inclusive community that loves and embraces one another despite differences of political persuasion, race, gender, nationality, immigration status, or any other characteristic that people have used to foster division, suspicion, and strife.”

IWU Alumni, Rev. McAtee inquires,

Dear President Wright,

What does “any other characteristic that people have used to foster division, suspicion, and strife” mean? In our current climate the characteristic most used, as alleged by the sodomite community, to foster division is heterosexuality vs. sodomy or heterosexuality vs. Transgenderism. Is it your opinion Dr. Wright that CIS Christians who insist that Heterosexuality is normative Christian behavior are fostering division suspicion and strife vis-a-vis the LGBTQ community?

A clarification is in order I think sir.

2.) “IWU loves and embraces … those who identify with some other group of people who feel vulnerable and pushed to the margins.”

Now who else could the IWU President, Dr. David Wright be referring to except those now commonly referred to as the LGBQT community? Let’s just ask the question directly of IWU President, David Wright;

“Sir is it your intent to lead IWU to “love and embrace” the LGBQT community and if it is your intent what does that exactly mean?

3.) In light of how President Dr. David Wright folded on the Indiana RFRA these questions present themselves even more obviously. Now combine this with the recent 1st annual Indiana Wesleyan University “Multi-cultural Day” and it is clear that Indiana Wesleyan University needs to respond to clarify where exactly Indiana Wesleyan is on these issues. Also, as the Wesleyan church is so tied at the hip with IWU it might be profitable if the denomination would give their Alumni a statement on their position regarding the sin of aberrant sexuality.

b.) Are we to understand that Typhoid Mary, Ebola Jane and TB Ted though hidden and shunned in the past are welcome at IWU?

Are we to understand that serial killers, though pushed to the margins of society, are welcome at IWU?

How about pedophiles who are still somewhat pushed to the margins and so vulnerable? Are they welcome at IWU?

A note of clarification is in order.

3.) Dr. Wright asks,

I would ask all members of our community to remember and practice those values and virtues of Godly hospitality that represent the very best of what our Lord Jesus Christ taught us.”

But the very best of what the Lord Jesus Christ taught us includes what we find in I John,

I John 2:9 — Anyone who runs ahead without remaining in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever remains in His teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you but does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home or even greet him. 11Whoever greets such a person shares in his evil deeds.

Will Dr. Wright not receive or greet those who do not remain in the teaching of Christ? Does Dr. Wright understand that this “not receiving” is also the essence of Christian hospitality? Scripture does not call us to be hospitable to those who would use that hospitality to tear down the house of Christ.

On the importance of attending Church … If you can find one

Once upon a time it was commonly understood, because it had been routinely taught, that it was the Church alone where one could find Word and Sacrament. Now, Word and Sacrament were the alone means by which God fed His people Christ so as they would grow spiritually. In attending Word and Sacrament in the context of Worship, God conveyed His favor in a way in which He conveyed His favor in no other way at no other place. Thus to absent one’s self from attending the means of grace, (Word and Sacrament) would automatically mean the shriveling of one’s soul. As such, devout Reformed folk looked forward to the Lord’s Day because in attending Word and Sacraments they knew that would be nourished and refreshed unto eternal life. The Lord’s Day was thus seen as a festive day of rest wherein one was spiritually rejuvenated.

This thinking has been lost among our people for several reasons.

1.) Reformed Churches are just reflections of the larger cultural landscape and as such there is very little if any of Christ to be found in Word and Sacrament on the Lord’s Day in many Reformed Churches. Much of the Worship of the contemporary Church has been reduced to the level of a bad Neil Diamond concert as combined with a relevant talk.

You wouldn’t go to a restaurant to feast on dog food. Why go to Church to be offered up a false Christ?

2.) Our people have been convinced that religion is defined by the tingling of emotions. Where there is no Pentecostal pizzaz, there Christ is absent, is the current thinking.

3.) People opt for the ephemeral “spirituality” category rather than the doctrine that undergirds Word and Sacrament. One can be just as spiritual staying home and baking cookies as they can be by going to church and attending to Word and Sacrament.

4.) A good number of people don’t even think in terms of “what is and is not good for their souls.” Materialism dominates.

5.) People have never even heard of God giving Himself via preached Word and dispensed Sacrament. Most believe that God can be accessed in any number of ways. This is why “spirituality” is in while theology is out.

Until the doctrine of Word and Sacrament is restored the Church will continue to either languish or recreate itself into something that isn’t Church.

Examining Rev. Dr. Jim Cassidy’s “Racial Supremacy and The Gospel” Sermon (III)

“The Javanese are a different race than us; they live in a different region; they stand on a wholly different level of development; they are created differently in their inner life; they have a wholly different past behind them; and they have grown up in wholly different ideas. To expect of them that they should find the fitting expression of their faith in our Confession and in our Catechism is therefore absurd.

“Now this is not something special for the Javanese , but stems from a general rule . The men are not all alike among whom the Church occurs. They differ according to origin, race, country, region, history, construction, mood and soul, and they do not always remain the same , but undergo various stages of development. Now the Gospel will not objectively remain outside their reach, but subjectively be appropriated by them, and the fruit thereof will come to confession and expression, the result may not be the same for all nations and times. The objective truth remains the same, but the matter in appropriation, application and confession must be different , as the color of the light varies according to the glass in which it is collected. He who has traveled and came into contact with Christians in different parts of the world of distinct races , countries and traditions can not be blind for the sober fact of this reality. It is evident to him. He observes it everywhere.”

Abraham Kuyper
‘Common Grace’ III XXXII

RDC sermonized,

“The good that is given to each culture comes by the undeserved blessing of God. The bad, of course, comes only from sin and to the curse.

Now, it is true that we can say that some Nationalities have produced some aspects of culture that are superior to others. There are (not that the race is superior, not that a particular ethnicity is superior) we can say, we have to rightly acknowledge that there are some aspects of culture that some Nationalities have excelled at advancing.

For example, think of the Germans. The Germans are known to have made a better car than the Irish. But the Irish are known for making better whiskey than the Germans. Fair enough. But see we also have to keep in mind on the negative side that the Irish drink way too much of their whiskey and the Germans drive their cars way too fast. Alright? So you’ve got good and you’ve got bad. But be that as it may, before the eyes of God — and this is the point — all Nationalities, all races stand condemned and each and every one of these races are totally depraved. You see sin becomes the great leveler of humanity. It’s not like we can find a race in the world that is morally superior to another, that is perhaps only 90% depraved, or that we can find a race of Ethnicity in the world that is only 70% depraved. No, all the people of all the nations are 100% depraved. That is what our doctrine of total depravity teaches us.”

Bret responds,

I am confident that RDC is mishandling total depravity.

When Calvinists speak of humans as “totally depraved,” they are making an extensive, rather than an intensive statement. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality — his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Not necessarily that he is intensely sinful, but that sin has extended to his entire being. So, total depravity is extensive, not intensive. Not all total depravity looks the same. People and / or Nations can remain totally depraved and still be morally superior to other people and / or Nations who are also totally depraved. Total depravity does not mean that everyone is equally depraved, in the sense that everyone is as equally wicked as they could possibly be. Total depravity most certainly is not the moral leveler that RDC contends. People and / or Nations who are totally depraved can be morally superior though that moral superiority lends no salvific aid.

Dr. Loraine Boettner put it this way,

This doctrine of Total Inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that any one is entirely destitute of virtue … What it does mean is that since the fall man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive but not necessarily intensive.

Further, God’s common grace can be more abundant to one people group than another people group so that the former group is indeed morally superior than the latter group. That common grace, in the end, makes the former group more ripe for judgment but total depravity does not make all men, cultures, or races, functionally or morally equal. Who would ever contend that the cannibal Korowai tribe from Indonesian New Guinea is on the same moral level as Victorian England? Yet, outside of Christ Victorian England perishes in its sins as much as the Korowai tribe does.

Now certainly when it comes to salvation sin levels us all in the sense that it makes all, outside of Christ, fit only for hell. However, total depravity does not mean that all people, nations, and cultures are equally functionally wicked.

RDC wrote,

“Now that doesn’t mean that any given people or any given nation is as depraved as it can be by God’s restraining grace. We know that sin is held in check but sin nevertheless does reign in each of us extensively. So where then could be our boasting? Sin becomes the great leveler of humanity.”

Bret responds,

I quite agree that any boasting of any superiority, as if that superiority is not all of grace, is an indictment writ against the one doing the boasting.

RDC writes,

“Sin is the great equalizer. We are all 100% depraved. What kind of deep-seated arrogance then, what kind of deep seated pride does it take to think that we, or our particular ethnicity, or our particular culture, or our particular language (whatever it is) is superior to another? You see sin, being the great leveler, renders all men under sin…. We are all equally depraved.”

Bret responds

The fact that all unregenerate peoples are depraved and so equally, spiritually shut out from God does not translate into all Nations are functionally equal. Japanese culture, as one example, is certainly superior to the Bush Men culture of Irian Jaya. Now, as outside of Christ, they are equal in being without God and without hope but that is not the same thing as saying that because of sin they are leveled in terms of ethnicity, race, or culture so that one is not superior to another.

RDC’s reasoning seems to make total depravity the handmaiden of cultural relativism. Total depravity, per RDC, is the great leveler of race, nations, and culture, therefore, no culture is superior or inferior to any other culture. The Reformed doctrine of total depravity does not teach functional egalitarianism.

There seems also to be a kind of double speak here again. On the one hand, sin is the great leveler, but on the other hand, earlier RDC admits that the Irish can be superior in making whiskey. The confusion here may be found in the fact that RDC keeps jumping the shark on categories. It is true that spiritually speaking all unregenerate people stand condemned before God but then there are times RDC wants to apply that category broadly so as to say, “therefore there is no functional superiority in terms of race, ethnicity, nations, cultures or languages.”

RDC sermonizes,

“The Gospel is also a great equalizer…. The Gospel teaches us that Christians especially must never regard themselves as …. superior over others. That is because the Gospel teaches us that was rent asunder at Babel has now been brought together and healed. What is more, since the Gospel means that God is the one who saved us, then we Christians stand on the same footing with one another before God, for we stand on Jesus Christ and in this sense there is equality…..”

Bret Responds,

Yes, we are equally saved by grace alone in Christ but that does not mean that are races or ethnicities are functionally equal. This would be to teach cultural or racial relativism. Cassidy has confused categories here. He wants to make a Redemptive equality of outcome in terms of any people and / or person looking to Christ to translate into a Creation equality of outcome in terms of culture and / or race. This is a category confusion. Many are the people that have come in from comparatively backward cultures and who will be in the New Jerusalem but that doesn’t mean their comparatively backward cultures, in the present, are equal to other clearly superior cultures.

RDC is correct when he says, in that last sentence above, “in this sense there is equality.” If he had stuck to the idea that Paul presents in Galatians 3:28f that temporal position or status doesn’t advantage or disadvantage one in terms of Redemption he would have been fine but RDC constantly wanders from that wonderful truth and seeks to apply it into functional realities.

Because RDC has muddied the waters earlier it makes his statement about “the Gospel being the great equalizer,” suspicious, if only because historically it has been the Anabaptists who were known as thoroughgoing socio-cultural “levelers” and “equalizers.” Historically the Anabaptists have believed that Jesus Christ is our great High Priest and Chief Leveler. Historically, the Reformed have always spoken out against Anabaptist socio-cultural levelers and equalizers.

And RDC is wrong about Christians never thinking themselves superior. Clearly St. Paul is making the case of his superiority of the more inferior false Apostles in II Corinthians 11. Now, Paul thinks it is folly that he is forced to do so, but there is no doubt that he is making a necessary case for his superiority in that passage.

The fact that Babel has not been brought together and healed the way the RDC thinks has been dealt with earlier, but I will note again here that all those nations walking around in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22) testify that the Church is a nation of nations and not Babel restored.

RDC wrote,

“God forbids that we would segregate in the Church. Peter tried that and Paul was very upset about it. We do not separate the people of God based on race or nationality. Ethnic churches while in one sense understandable are far from ideal. What is glorious however is when we see the people of God gather for worship and we see among the people of God many nations represented in her midst. That is Pentecost.”

Bret,

1.) In Galatians., Paul was the one in favor of segregating in the Church. The Judaizers and Peter were arguing that in order to be justified one had to become a soci0-cultural Jew and keep the same laws. Paul, on the other hand, was reasoning that one could remain an ethnocultural Gentile and still be Christian. The Judaizers and Peter were the ones trying to force an integrated uniformitarian Church and Paul resisted them to their face and insisted that one could have a Gentile diet and be justified … Gentiles could be segregated and have their own Church. (see also Acts 15)

2.) Quotes that contradict RDC’s claim that “we do not separate the people of God based on race or nationality;

a.) (See opening quote by Abraham Kuyper)

b.) “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 in the 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”

c.) “As a matter of fact, the early church was segregated. First of all, in New Testament times it was segregated between the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. And there was… a good reason for that. The Jewish believers were so far superior that to integrate the two would have meant more often confusion. And when you realize that in, say the Corinthian church, they didn’t even know that fornication or adultery was a sin because in the Greek world there was nothing wrong with that. After all the chambers of commerce in Greece and Corinth and elsewhere… in Corinth, the chambers of commerce maintained regularly around two thousand prostitutes for all visiting businessmen. It was a manufacturing town and so on… and no one thought there was anything immoral about that. Or about men having relations with prostitutes. This was all taken for granted. So in the Gentile churches, the moral standard was pretty low. It was a lot of hard work for a couple of generations and more to bring them up to any kind of standard. Well, the Jewish congregations represented a far higher moral standard and Paul saw nothing wrong with that, nor did any other apostle. So the principle of segregation was present there from the beginning.”

R. J. Rushdoony
Audio – On Segregation

God does not forbid segregating in the Church.