Doug Wilson’s Ongoing Gnosticism

“There is nothing bigoted in recognizing that certain cultures are superior to others… but they are superior only by grace & through grace.”

Doug Wilson
Pope of CREC

It’s hard to believe that this complete lack of intelligence passes for “deep thinking” by today’s clergy. Perhaps, equally as bad, is the fact that so few catch how thoroughly torpid this statement is.

First, that grace account for the superiority of one culture over another is banal because grace accounts for the superiority of anything over anything else. Whether we have been given ten talents, five talents, or two talents in any area is always only a matter of grace. God doesn’t owe any of us anything. So, Wilson’s statement is a NSS Captain Obvious statement that is right up there with the observation that “the Pope is Roman Catholic.”

Second, the person with a below average IQ would respond by noting that just as superiority of culture is all by grace so superiority of race is all by grace. As  ICor. 4:7 explicitly teaches; “What do you have that you did not receive?”  All blessings, talents, and abilities are gracious gifts from God. This is true of race and culture as well. Regardless of any superiorities we have — including our race and/or culture it is the truth that we are what we are by grace that keeps us from a selfish pride.

Third, to suggest (as Wilson is doing here) that one can have superiority of cultures by grace while still insisting that race has nothing to do with culture has to be the apex of Gnostic thinking. Culture doesn’t drop from the sky. According to God’s providence culture is the product of who a people are genetically as combined with what they believe about God. As peoples  think in their heart so they are.  Culture is driven by God’s grace in race and could not exist apart from race. To deny this is outright gnosticism.

Wilson’s attempt to divorce grace from race and race from culture are false dichotomies. If one culture can be, due to grace, superior over another culture than one race can also be, due to grace, superior to another. After all, reproduction does not exist outside of God’s divine sovereignty.

Keep in mind here that Gnosticism was the earliest and most effective heresy in Church history. It was so effective because it could often sound so much like Christianity and yet it was not Christianity.
 

McAtee contra Rev. Joe Spurgeon On The Comparative Ontology of Race & Sex

Let me say at the outset since some folks will find what follows to be controversial that I acknowledge that Rev. Spurgeon has a marriage that should be honored as Christian and so should be respected. The fact that I think that interracial marriage is normatively unwise and ill advised does not mean that where it is contracted that such a marriage should not be supported as much as possible short of endorsing such marriages and short of offering our own children to such marriages.

However, with that being said I have all of Church history before 1960 or so in repudiating Rev. Spurgeon’s offerings on the issue of race that we find below. Nobody, in all of Church history that I know of has ever come up with the logic chopping in order to justify interracial marriage as we find in Rev. Spurgeon’s offerings.

Indeed, two recent large anthologies of quotes from Church history substantiates that Rev. Spurgeon’s (as well as all Alienist’s) understanding of race and humanity is completely sui generis.

It would be nice if the Alienists like Rev. Spurgeon would admit that they are adamantly opposed to the received wisdom of the Church for two centuries on this subject but alas the Alienists remain silent on the Anthologies, “Who Is My Neighbor; An Anthology in Natural Relations” and “A Survey of Racialism in Christian Sacred Tradition” by Alexander Storen. Both these Anthologies mock Spurgeon and the Alienists attempt to justify their aberrant view of race and humanity.

Rev. Joe Spurgeon writes (hereinafter RJS);

One of the accusations I sometimes get is that I’m inconsistent for affirming sexual hierarchy while denying things like white supremacy. People say, “If you believe in male headship, why not racial hierarchy too?” Or they accuse me of making sex primary while downplaying race, and call that a contradiction. But I want to explain why that’s not inconsistent at all.

BLMc responds,

1.) Keep in mind that Rev. Spurgeon is in a mixed race marriage and as such he has a pronounced bias for arguing the way that he does on this subject. Also, keep in mind that if we were to own RJS’s arguments as legitimate that would by necessity mean nations (or even families) would no longer be defined as what we find in the 1828 Webster’s dictionary;

Nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe.

In order to pursue a flattening of racial distinctions wherein theoretically the world could become one vast racial melting post RJS is willing to deny that racial distinctions can indeed mean superiorities and inferiorities in various races.

2.) To affirm that race is real is not necessarily to affirm White Supremacy though it might be to affirm White Supremacy in any number of different areas, just as might affirm Yellow Supremacy or Brown Supremacy in different areas.

3.) We will see here that Rev. Spurgeon is indeed involved in a contradiction and that his explanation while clever does not hold water. Whatever one makes of the mark of Cain or the blessings and cursings on the sons of Noah, one cannot doubt that there is some kind of hierarchy involved here even if one does not think it is racial, though through the centuries it has often been seen as racial.

RJS writes,

It actually rests on a biblical and philosophical foundation that distinguishes between what is essential to human nature and what is not.

BLMc responds,

Here we are being set up for the idea that Maleness and Femaleness is more important to who people are then any idea of race. By doing this RJS is setting up the idea that while sex is not malleable for human reality, race is malleable for human reality and therefor sexuality is essential for the mannishness man while race is not essential for the mannishness of man. However, here we would note that both sexuality (gender) and race were definitional of the manishness of man. Adam and Eve were created as genders and they were also created as the race they were as they fell from the hand of God. The fact that other races arose in God’s providence and ordination does not mean therefore that Adam and Eve were raceless. So, contrary to RJS we would say that both race and sexuality (gender) were endemic to man.

This idea that race isn’t essential to the manishness of man and thus isn’t as impactful as sexuality (gender) is to the psyche and disposition of individuals and peoples is part of what we call “Alienism.”  Our history here in the states, as just one example, suggests that it is just not true that race isn’t essential to persons and peoples. The history of South Africa also might be entered in to give testimony that there is ontological reality in the idea of race just as there is ontological reality in the idea of sex.

RJS writes;

 

The distinctions between sex and race are not the same. Both are real. But they are not on the same level. And to help us think rightly about this, I believe the language of classical philosophy—particularly the categories of substance and accidents from Aristotle—is extremely helpful.

BLMc responds;

We are being told here that distinctions do exist but as it comes to race they are distinctions that can be successfully ignored, unlike the distinctions between sex. But if God ordained distinctions exist (whether at creation or by providence)  is it proper to prioritize or ignore these God ordained distinctions?

Secondly, what RJS offers here concerning that the distinctions between male and female and the distinctions between races are not both essential to the mannishness of man is not supported by Scripture. Consider;

All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name – Psalm 86:9

Here we see that just as Eve was made female by God with all the distinctions that includes, so the nations were made by God with all the distinctions that includes. If this is true of nations how much more true of races?

RJS writes; 

A substance is what something is in itself—what is essential to its being. An accident is a property or characteristic that a substance has, but which is not essential to its being. That is, accidents can change without changing the nature of the thing itself.

BLMc replies;

Here we are being teed up for the claim that sex is essential to our being but race is not essential to our being. This, by necessity, if accepted, would mean that (as I said earlier) that race can, compared to sex, be ignored because it is malleable while sex compared to race cannot be ignored because it is not malleable.

But is it an argument that we really want to make that the macro distinctions that God created us with and as should be ignored?

RJS writes,

With that framework, my argument is this: Sex—male and female—is not an accident. It is part of the substance of what it means to be human. Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in His own image… male and female He created them.” You cannot be human without being either male or female. The male-female binary is foundational to humanity. It is how we were created to fulfill the mandate to be fruitful and take dominion. So sex is a property of substance, not an add-on. It is immutable and intrinsic.

Now contrast that with race. What race was Adam? What race was Eve? You can’t really say. And what race were their children? The truth is that race develops over time through ancestry, geography, and the providential unfolding of history. Race consists of inherited, accidental features: things like skin tone, bone structure, hair texture, other genetic features and even certain cultural traits that develop in communities over time. These are biologically real and passed down generationally—but they are not essential to what it means to be human.

BLMc responds;

Here I quote some correspondence from a friend overseas;

Spurgeon acknowledges the reality of racial differences but then dismisses them as accidental/incidental as opposed to the hard differences of male/female. Except that Scripture itself invokes FAMILIAL terms within a legal framework to describe kindred nations (thou shalt not despise an Edomite for he is your brother). In other words, racial brotherhood (inter-ethnic kinship) is to be understood in terms of Biblical family law. Therefore the Creational bonds of family run far deeper and greater than mere immediate family or even extended family. Indeed the same principles are in operation. And since family is Creationally foundational so too is race and ethnicity. Spurgeon’s arguments ignore what Scripture itself says about kinship and are therefore both false and irrelevant.

Also, RJS’s observations regarding biological sex isn’t exactly true. Mankind began with Adam even before Eve was created. This is a relatively minor point, but one that still bears on this conversation. This is important because all of his “reasoning” hangs on the fact that sexuality (gender) is more important than race as it relates to the manishness or man since Spurgeon is insisting that man wasn’t man until Eve was created. In brief, man was man before Even was created.

RJS writes;

This is why sex is ontologically higher than race. The male-female distinction is rooted in the very creation of mankind. There is no humanity without it. Race, by contrast, comes after. It is still natural, still real, and not merely a social construct—but it belongs to the category of accidents in the Aristotelian sense. It marks variation within the human race, not distinctions of essence between human beings.

BLMc responds,

Of course there is not a lick of Biblical support for this argumentation. What matters it if the distinction that God has placed upon men is by creation or by providence? Who is man that he should overturn those definitional and essential distinctions that God has placed upon us as humans? Understand that by this reasoning all mankind could well become a blenderized race, thus achieving one goal of the New World Order project.

RJS writes,

This distinction helps us avoid two extremes. On the one hand, we reject the liberal colorblind egalitarianism that pretends racial differences don’t matter at all. On the other hand, we reject the racial absolutism of the biodeterminist crowd that treats race as the most fundamental aspect of identity. Both are wrong.

BLMc responds;

1.) Under this arrangement how are we avoiding the liberal colorblind egalitarianism that pretends racial differences don’t matter at all. If racial differences mattered at all they would matter enough to determine the coupling of man and wife in marriage.  Spurgeon is arguing that race still matters but it doesn’t matter in the one area (marriage) where if it were to matter at all it would matter enough to consider such marriages unwise and ill advised at best.

2.) Notice how Spurgeon has labeled is opponents “biodeterminists” as if his opponents are all drinking from the well of Darwin or Herbert Spencer. One does not need to be a biodeterminist in order to believe that race is ontologically the equal of sex in who God has created mankind to be.

3.) In point of fact Spurgeon’s position does embrace liberal egalitarian notions. He wants to say “race is real” but at the same time say “but race doesn’t really matter that much.” If race doesn’t really matter as much as sex then why can’t race be a social construct?

RJS opines;

This also helps us when thinking about the structure of nations and the ordering of society. A nation is not merely an idea or a set of shared propositions. It is a people—a real and providentially ordered community bound together by more than just consent or ideology. While race is one of the accidental features that can shape a people, it is not the only one, nor is it always the most decisive. A people can be formed through shared language, lineage, customs, heritage, law, religion, heroes, and land. These are also accidents—not essential to humanity itself—but they are powerful instruments in the hand of God to forge real unity.

In fact, many of these accidental features can bind people together more deeply than race. The concept of a nation includes shared stories, a common legal and moral order, and a collective historical memory. You may have more in common with your neighbor who worships the same God, speaks your tongue, and lives under your laws than with someone who shares your genetic background but none of those things. For example, I share more in common with my black neighbor than a white man in Russia. So while race contributes to peoplehood, it must not be treated as the foundation of it. The stronger bonds of nationhood are forged by providence, not biology alone.

BLMc responds,

1.) Let us refocus on what, etymologically speaking, the word “nation” means;

Nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe.

So, on the one hand RJS wants to say that a nation isn’t propositional but he also wants to say then on the other hand that a nation isn’t blood and soil by insisting that race is only an accident of a nation and does not belong to its substance. If race does not belong to the substance of a people than all that is left for RJS is the reality of the nation being construed by agreed upon propositions.  Those characteristics that RJS offers as providing common bonds all depend normatively upon the fact that there is descent from a common progenitor.

Not even a shared religion can unite a people into a people. This was demonstrated in Acts 6;

 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 

2.) I would contend that where racial harmony is absent in a significant majority expression in a nation there one will find a lack of a unifying motif to bind a people together. For example, Quebec, being French, has always had friction with the English Canadians.

3.) I can only speak for myself, but I do not take it as a given that I have more in common with my Black neighbor than I would have with a white man in Russia. I could easily not have enough in common with either of them to become friends. Generally speaking though, given the violent crime rates among blacks there may difficulty to have more in common with my black neighbor.

RJS writes,

 (The NT) does not uphold a racial hierarchy within the church. It acknowledges the ongoing existence of nations, tribes, and tongues—even in Revelation—but it does not rank them. It doesn’t assign spiritual authority based on ethnicity. So while distinctions persist, the church is not structured along racial lines, and we should not use race to exclude or subordinate fellow believers.

BLMc responds,

I am confident that when Paul said “All Cretans are liars” that statement should have been taken as a word of warning about placing Cretans in leadership positions.

Also, we have God’s Word to suggest that each people congregated in one set congregation should be led by their own people;

Deut. 17:15 –  you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

So, we see that RJS is wrong here. God’s Word does speak to this subject. People will have to decide to listen to God’s Word or to listen to RJS.

RJS writes,

Therefore, it’s not inconsistent to affirm sexual hierarchy while denying racial hierarchy. Why? Because the nature of the distinctions is different. Sex is part of the substance of human nature—it is binary, immutable, and foundational to image-bearing. Race is an accident—real, significant, and influential in the civil realm, but not essential to human personhood.

So, for example: A man pretending to be a woman is rejecting God’s created order and trying to alter something essential to his being. But a man marrying into another racial group is not denying the substance of who he is. You can’t transition your sex. But racial lines can and do change across generations through intermarriage and the passing of time. That’s because race, while real, is an accidental feature of nature—not an immutable one.

 

And ultimately, Christ redeems nature—He doesn’t erase it. He restores the natural order, puts it back in its place, and teaches us to walk in harmony with it. That means we can uphold the reality of race without making it ultimate. And we can declare the truth of biblical patriarchy while rejecting racial supremacy.

There’s no contradiction here.

BLMc responds,

We have seen the contradiction in RJS’s woeful thinking. The Church Fathers never thought such contradictory thoughts on this subject as Rev. Spurgeon does.

1.) It is past hilarious that Spurgeon implies that interracial marriage is an example of God restoring nature when God, by nature, made a person to be the race they are. In point of fact a case could easily be made that interracial marriage does not restore nature.

Indeed, on this point RJS has none other than John Calvin against him;

“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 will close here by quoting from my friend who lives overseas who brought this to my attention and who is even more apoplectic about this Spurgeon nonsense. (And I’m pretty exercised myself.)

So, race is essential to personhood and RJS denying that could easily be seen as merely a justification for his own marriage.

Look, in the end Rev. Joseph Spurgeon is suggesting that race be no barrier to marriage because being of one particular race isn’t essential to being human (whereas being male or female is)… over against this we need to point out that this is a nonsensical standard because someone with Down’s is just as essentially human as someone with a normal IQ … but that the qualitative difference, as opposed to any essential difference, is what discriminates between them. In other words, qualitative differences have just as much validity as essential differences.

Fisking Rich Lusk’s Multicultural “Christian” Nationalism

CREC ministers, typically, are epically bad when it comes to the issue of Nationalism. Rev. Rich Lusk is no different as we see in this post he placed upon TwitteX. In other posts you can find me disagree with Lusk on many different issues. Rich is definitely one of those really smart people who has the uncanny ability to articulate really dumb ideas. Increasingly, one comes across many of these types.

Rev. Rich Lusk (RL) writes;

It is not possible to take 16th century Reformational political theory and drop it into an American context unaltered anymore than it is possible to take the law of Moses and drop it into an American context unaltered.

BLMc responds;

I suspect there exist a few people who might argue that it is possible to take 16th century Reformational political theory and drop it into an American context unaltered, just as there may be a few people who would argue that it is possible to take the law of Moses and drop it into an American context unaltered. However, the number of such people on both counts are miniscule. As such, I take this opening salvo of Lusk to be a case where he is poisoning the well at the outset as against anyone who disagrees with what he says as he continues this missive. Lusk alone is the fountainhead of wisdom and anybody who would contradict him is a guilty of of being an antiquated nekulturny.

However, it is possible to take principles of 16th century political theory and advocate that the American context alter in order to adhere to a superior idea. After all, Rev. Lusk certainly doesn’t believe that the American context is inviolable in terms of political solutions that might find their origin from the 16th century political theorizing.

RL writes;

We cannot do with the Reformers what theonomists want to do with Moses because when it comes to politics, context matters and prudence is always necessary. Of course, biblical law should be an authoritative source of political wisdom and principles in every society. And we can certainly learn from and implement certain features from Reformational political theology – their political work is not irrelevant. But the American context is different — it’s different from ancient Israel and its different from 16th century Geneva.

BLMc responds,

Here RL takes gives back with his right hand what he took originally with his left hand. First, Rich said “you can’t use that antiquated stuff,” and now he says, “well, we can use some of it.”

Second, here Lusk invokes the use of “prudence” but of course we respond with; “prudence by what standard?” I suspect Rev. Lusk and Rev. McAtee would disagree strenuously on what is and is not prudent in this situation.

Finally, it is a rather Captain Obvious statement to observe; “The American context is different.” Does it pain anyone else when people blurt out painfully obvious statements? Yes, Rich, everyone who has a pulse realizes “The American context is different.” Does Rich really think that people exist who don’t realize today’s America is different than Calvin’s 16th century Geneva?

RL writes;

American problems call for uniquely American solutions. We have to deal with America as she actually exists in 2025. We have to play the hand we’re dealt. To give a couple examples: The American founders developed a system of limited government, checks and balances, federalism, individual rights grounded in nature and nature’s God, etc. We cannot simultaneously say, “the constitution is dead” AND honor our political forefathers. This is one reason why I have questioned the notion of a “Christian prince” in an American context — a “Christian prince” seems fitting in a European context, but not America. A Christian President, a Christian Commander-in-Chief — those would be fully American. But not a Christian prince.

BLMc responds,

1.) The first three sentences are more “No Duh” filler sentences.

2.) In terms of Rev. Lusk’s example;

a.) We can simultaneously say the constitution is dead (and has been since at least 1860) while still honoring our political forefathers. I guarantee you that if our political forefathers could be reanimated they would agree that their constitution is dead while hoping that we would honor them by agreeing with them that their constitution is dead and prompting us to return to the principles that made for their constitution.

b.) We could note that more than a few of our political forefathers wanted to make George Washington the Christian King of America.

c.) A Christian prince could easily be an American concept. Germany once had a Kaiser and the German context didn’t force them to continue with that. The same is true of Russia and any number of other contexts. The American context is not sovereign over what might need to be done in order to bring about ordered change.

d.) Now if we were to talk about the American context and moving forward I would suggest that the American context yields a perfect context for different secession movements that would break up these once united States. If we did that then we could have both Christian princes and Christian republics.

e.) The idea that the American context can’t support the idea of a “Christian Prince” is pure poppycock. Our Christian Prince could operate in the context of a Constitutional Monarchy. In such a way we might retain both a Christian Prince and Christian Commander in Chief.

RL writes;

There’s no need for Americans to hanker after European titles that we left behind a long time ago. We should work within the system our founding fathers gave us (and of course that system has provisions for change and adaptation). And yes, I’ve read Caldwell — I know we have gone through several constitutional revolutions, and the civil rights regime has created a new de facto order. But even rolling back what needs to be rolled back from the civil rights era has to be done in a way that works with and within our existing institutions.

BLMc responds;

1.) The idea of “Christian Prince” is hardly uniquely European.

2.) Again… we have not worked within the system our founding fathers gave us since 1860. (I too have read Caldwell, and Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens on the US Constitution.)

3.) Why does needed change have to work with and within our existing institutions? One could reasonably argue that if the existing institutions have bottomed out, then they need to go. Of course, one could also argue that the existing institutions can also be maintained while emptying them of their former function and filling them with a new function that gives the illusion of continuity, which is what was done after circa 1860, circa 1918, irca 1944, and and circa 1964. This is that for which Rev. Lusk seems to be arguing.

RL continues;

Another example: White Christian Nationalists will complain that no one accuses Japan of racism for wanting to be Japanese, so why is it wrong for whites to want to have a country of their own? Why is ethnonationalism ok in some countries but not others? But this misses the point, and the problem. American and Japanese history are entirely different. Racial identity politics will always function differently in America than anywhere else. America was multiracial from the days of the earliest settlers. We had black slaves here. We had Amerindians. America has to deal with the race issue differently from other nations because we have a different history. Advocating ethnonationalism here is a very different thing because our national story is very different.

BLMc responds,

Now, we begin to get to the nut of the matter for Rev. Lusk I believe.

1.) The question; “If Japan is not racist for wanting to be Japanese then why is it wrong for whites to have a country their own,” does not in the least miss the point. Not in the least. It is a legitimate question to consider and that especially in the American context that Rich finds so controlling. The American context finds these united States to be 88% white in 1970. In 1980 these united States was 83% white. In 1990 these united States were 80% white. It would seem the American context, per Lusk’s parameters of prudence, requires us to pursue a ethnonationalism that will once again stoke up these kind of prior percentages. If anything, it is Lusk who is ignoring the American context by suggesting that we shouldn’t pay attention to the necessity to be a overwhelmingly predominantly white nation.

3.) That American was biracial from its earliest days is just fairy tale talk. Sure, there was in these united States a sprinkling of this and that from other racial origins but biracial (really multiracial) in the sense of India? Never! This kind of advocacy on the part of Lusk is straight out of the Loving vs. Virginia Cultural Marxism playbook. A glimpse at the  Naturalization Act of 1790 in America bears out that Lusk is either ignorant or lying. In that Naturalization Act, the US Congress, with prudence, implemented requirements that doubtless took into account the American context. In that law naturalization was limited to “free white persons… of good character. Interestingly enough, for decades the US courts also associated whiteness with Christianity and thus excluded Muslim immigration into these united States until the 20th century (1944).

It is my conviction that Lusk is the one guilty of not taking into account the American context and is really suggesting that the American context that is really important in his opinion is the post civil-rights / post Hart-Celler Immigration act American context.

RL continues;

And before jumping to conclusions about what I am saying and not saying, I fully believe that we need to enforce our borders and deport illegals, we need to stop anti-white racialism, we need to continue dismantling DEI, we need to bring critical manufacturing back home, etc. But none of those things require us to frame the issues in terms of race. And none of those things will make America monoracial. They are all common sense proposals that serve the good of the nation. Period. Racializing everything is not the way forward.

BLMc responds;

1.) If we, per Rev. Lusk’s encouraging

Deport 30 million illegals
Stop anti-white racialism so that minorities don’t receive quotas
Dismantle DEI

This would mean that white ethno-nationalism is gaining traction. If this were to occur the race pimps would go insane and threaten to burn the house down. The race pimps would take these very actions that Rev. Lusk embraces and scream that America was turning back into a Klan nation. We wouldn’t need to frame any of this in terms of race in order for it to be framed by the left as a matter of race. Does Rev. Lusk think that the minority community that is so prevalent in the rank and file of the Cultural Marxist religion are going to silently sit by and not scream “RACISM” at the top of their lungs if this Euro-centric Christian policy was pursued?

2.) It may be true that none of these things will make America monoracial but it sure as Hades will once again put White Christians back in the overwhelming majority. Honestly, the absence of 30 million illegal immigrants, combined with the end of DEI WOKE and the roll back of the civil rights act (which was racial communism) would undo everything that the multicultural/multiracial left wants for this country. Rev. Lusk is just not being realistic in his analysis here.

3.) It strikes that Rich’s thinking is built on the mythology that says that anti-white racism (DEI) can be halted without the presence of white Christian consciousness which would drive whites realizing they have a need to act in harmony together in the attempt to replace/destroy them.

RL writes;

Trump won twice (or thrice), and did so without racialization. In fact, he sought to build a coalition that included blacks and Hispanics, and had more success than any other recent politician — and that’s because he knows coalitions are required in any movement if it’s going to be successful. The left *wanted* him to do racial identity politics, but he refused.

BLMc responds,

Like Nixon in 1968, Trump used a racial dog whistle in being elected. He talked about immigrants eating pets in Ohio. In the past he talked about the fact that we were getting all the immigrants from “outhouse countries.” It is true that Trump refused to give the Left an issue. He avoided that by using a dog whistle and by convincing the comparatively small number of minorities per their total numbers to vote for him due to the fact that this comparatively small number understood it really was in their best interest for the US to be a predominantly White Christian nation.

RL finishes;

Trump’s genius is that he’s shown a way forward, a way the right can win. I don’t see why some people want to mess it up by making it all about race. “White Christian Nationalism” is to “Christian Nationalism” what “Make White America Great Again” is to MAGA. Conservative blacks often point out that the best way to deal with race in America is to just stop talking about it. And I tend to agree: if we focus on building a *Christian* nation here (as opposed to, say, a *white* nation), the race issue will take care of itself.

BLMc responds,

1.) The whole idea of Nationalism (Christian or otherwise) implies race. Nationalism, coming as it does from the word “nation,” requires a geographic area populated by a people of a common descent or ancestor. When Rich argues that we need to lose the “White” in “White Christian Nationalism,” he is in essence arguing for propositional nationalism — that is a nationalism that is bound together not by blood but by a set of ephemeral and ever shifting ideas.

2.) The violent crime figure numbers tell me that “just not talking about race” is not a winning proposition.

In the end Rev. Lusk offers a solution that solves nothing. To be honest, in my estimation Lusk’s offering reads as if he has a plan to “Christianize the Tower of Babel.” Also, Lusk’s offering could be easily read as prioritizing the post-Civil Rights American context as the true American context that is to qualify and guide all action taken.

I resolutely reject this political analysis from Lusk. It’s not true. It’s not wise. It’s not Christian.

 

Johannes Althusius On Kinism

Kinism was endorsed by the founder of the Dutch Reformed Church, Johannes Althusius:

“There are two kinds of private and natural domestic association. The first is conjugal (conjugalis) and the second is kinship (propinqua). p. 29. Rights communicated among persons who are united in this natural association are called rights of blood (jura sanguinis) bringing together and sustaining advantages mutually among the kinsmen. Such advantages are, first, the affection, love, and goodwill of the blood relative and kinsman. Advantages and responsibilities are intensified as the degree of relationship among the kinsmen increases. Certain political writers eliminate, wrongly in my judgment, the doctrine of conjugal and kinship private association from the field of politics. These associations are the seedbed of all private and public associational life. The knowledge of other associations is therefore incomplete and defective without this doctrine of conjugal and kinship associations, and cannot be rightly understood without it.”

Johannes Althusius
‘Politica’ – pp. 30-1.

Instant Forgiveness In the Face of Violent Crime & The Color of Crime; The Texas Case

Recently, with the murder of a 17 year old white male in Texas by a black teenage assailant the issue of forgiveness has become a subject of conversations among folks. The Father of the boy murdered, shortly after the murder, went public with his announcement that he had forgiven the black murderer of his son.

In a later interview with Laura Ingram the father in question somewhat clarified his earlier blanket forgiveness, thus making more clear what he had said earlier.

This is not the first time that we have seen this kind of  blanket “forgiveness” by folks in the face of heinous crimes against their loved ones. In the past few years I remember another case in Indiana where a white man forgave the black murderers of his white wife.

Now, the way this “forgiveness” can come across, especially when offered in the context of this kind of horrid sin, is that the person forgiving is willing to let “bygones be bygones,” as if we are going to ignore the necessity to hate unrighteousness. However, the God who instructs us to forgive is the same God who commands us to “hate that which is evil,” and it it is no hatred of evil to come across as if one treats grievous sin lightly.

I think somewhere along the way the Christian church has done a disservice to its members by teaching them to respond to glaring evil with a seeming nonchalant “I forgive you for raping and murdering my wife,” or, “I forgive you for driving a knife into my son’s chest because he told you to go sit somewhere else.”

Allow me to suggest that our forgiving someone doesn’t mean that the consequences that sin brings are no longer in force. Horizontal forgiveness does not mean the offender gets repeated opportunities to do us harm. “I forgive you” is to release us from vindictiveness and bitterness but it does not mean we put ourselves again in the position to be offended against by the perp. In a realistic world the husband of the murdered wife in Indiana could have said in one breath; “Personally, I forgive you thus releasing my personal vengeance against you but I will do all that I can to see that you get the death penalty.” There is no inconsistency in this statement. Neither would it be inconsistent at that point to plead with the criminal by visiting them in jail repeatedly that they repent and trust Christ, all the while insisting that they be visited with capital punishment.

I may forgive a babysitter for doing something harmful to my children, but that person will never babysit my children again no matter how much they repent. Further, I will make it known to others that the abusive babysitter should not be brought into their homes to babysit. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t forgiven the abusive babysitter.

Forgiveness, in these kinds of cases, has to have not only in mind our relationship to the person who has violated us but it must also have in mind other people who will in the future have interaction with the perp. Do we really want to argue that my personal forgiveness of someone means that the perp should not be met with the full weight of the law? This kind of forgiveness would put others in the cross-hairs of future similar behavior. This kind of forgiveness – a forgiveness that would diminish the just penalty against public crime – would be a violation of the 6th commandment. Similarly, a kind of forgiveness that would divert from the awfulness of the crime could also be seen as not giving the 6th commandment its full weight.

Wilhelmus à Brakel’s in his systematic theology, “The Christian’s Reasonable Service” writes;

  “To say, “I forgive you” when such is not warranted is a triumphant boasting of your kindness and will harden the offender in his sin.”   

Vol. 3 —  p. 565-566

I am not confident that the kind of forgiveness that we see in these kind of tragedies is really a biblical forgiveness.

Rev. Zach Garris pointed me to a quote here from the great Southern Presbyterian Benjamin Morgan Palmer which sustain what I have been teaching/preaching for some years. While insisting that Christians must forgive the perp, Palmer noted here;

 “Forgiveness does not necessarily include restoration to full confidence, as before the offence,” as “the offence may disclose attributes of character.” So while we must forgive others, “it may be sometimes our duty to protest against a wrong which we heartily forgive, by the withdrawal of intercourse—not as an act of resentment, but as a judicial testimony against sin.”

Secondly, we must continue to plead with people to be realistic concerning the issue of race. It is no surprise that the perp who killed the white lad was black. This is not to say that all black people are murderers but it is to say that statistics overwhelmingly bear out that when it comes to violent crimes people of color are more likely to be the perps.  Only in a brain dead world is it considered bad form to notice significant and repeatable patterns in various people groups.

Click to access Color-Of-Crime-2016.pdf

Even Rev. Jesse Jackson confirmed my point when years ago he wrote;

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Jesse Jackson

If Jesse Jackson can recognize the reality that people of color are more likely to be perps in violent crimes than there should be no shame in agreeing with him by saying that when around non-white people in large numbers white people’s heads should be on a swivel looking out for danger.