Category: Ethnic considerations

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.

 

 

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

“The ancient fathers… were concerned that the ties of kinship itself should not be loosened as generation succeeded generation, should not diverge too far, so that they finally ceased to be ties at all. And so for them it was a matter of religion to restore the bond of kinship by means of the marriage tie before kinship became too remote—to call kinship back, as it were, as it disappeared into the distance.”

Augustine; Bishop Of Hippo (A.D. 354 – 430)
City of God, book XV, Chpt. 16

At the below link we find a sermon that I was directed to by the Minister who preached the sermon. It is my conviction that it is not faithful to the Scriptures on a subject that is of grave importance. I trust that will become evident as we examine Rev. Cassidy’s sermon.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=86161140386

I have not transcribed the whole sermon. I provide the link in case anybody desires to examine whether I have cherry picked the sermon. I have no intent to be unfair to Rev. Cassidy or to bushwhack him. Anything I have left off from the sermon I left off because I thought it repetitive or I thought it not germane to the issues at hand.

I do not know Rev. Cassidy. I have never talked to him or interacted with him. I know one person who knows him and that person tells me that Rev. Cassidy is a good man. I will take my friend at his word. Otherwise, fine people can be mistaken on different subjects. I know I have been in the past. I would have hated for people to have completely written me off just because of some inconsistency in my theology or life.  Still, this subject matter requires a response.

Rev. Dr. Cassidy (hereinafter RDC) preached,

“Paul’s attitude then, as must be the attitude of every Christian, is that of a servant towards others…. Now how can we do that — how is it possible that one can serve others, how is it possible that we can think our minds as being the servants of others when we regard our race as superior to theirs, whatever race that might be.”

Bret responds,

First, RDC seems to assume that different views on races besides his automatically translate into some kind of supremacist attitude. We will see RDC making this connection repeatedly in this sermon. We need to insist at the beginning that this is not a necessary connection.  One can affirm that God has ordained the distinct races and nations without at the same time embracing any kind of supremacism.

Second, I would ask, “why is it that knowledge of non-ontological racial superiority is impossible to co-exist with a servant’s heart.” Who can argue against the reality that when the Christian Western White man went to Africa to bring Christ to Africa that the White man’s race was superior in a myriad of ways, in a non-ontological sense? And yet clearly the White man had a servant’s heart as seen in his sacrifice to bring the Gospel to Africa.

This is not necessarily an argument that any one race is superior to another in a totalistic sense. All races have the superiorities and inferiorities when compared to other races. It is an argument insisting that thinking one’s race is superior is not inconsistent with having a servant’s heart contra to RDC’s assertion.

Albert Schweitzer, Liberal Missionary extraordinaire, spent a career in Gabon serving sundry African people all the while believing his race was superior. Schweitzer wrote in his,  “The Primeval Forest”

” A word in conclusion about the relations between the whites and the blacks. What must be the general character of intercourse between them? Am I to treat the black man as my equal or as my inferior? I must show him that I can respect the dignity of human personality in everyone, and this attitude in me he must be able to see for himself;  but the essential thing is that there shall be a real feeling of brotherliness. How far this is to find complete expression in the sayings and doings of daily life must be settled by circumstances. The negro is a child, and with children, nothing can be  done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: “I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.”   — Albert Schweitzer

We need not agree with Schweitzer to see that he is an example that contradicts RDC’s claim that it is not possible to think one’s race as superior while still retaining a servant’s heart.

Third, Scripture teaches that all races are ontologically equal. That is to say that we are equal in our being, having all descended from a common set of parents. Scripture does not teach that all races  – nations are functionally (economically) equal. In point of fact, economic equality as applied to human relations is a surd. No two men, no two nations, no two races are equal in a functional sense. Equality in a non-ontological sense is an idea imported from mathematics. Human relations are not mathematics. As such superiority is an inescapable category as can be seen in the confidence of Egalitarians who view themselves as superior to inferior people who do not embrace their egalitarianism.

Fourth, our Lord Christ himself communicated a racial superiority in Scripture when he dealt with the Syrophoenician woman (Matthew 15). Christ revealed His priority of love for His own when He referred to the non-Israelite Syrophoenician woman as a “dog,” in comparison to His people, who He referred to in His response to the woman as “the children.” Would any of us fault our Lord Christ claiming superiority while yet remaining a servant?

RDC sermonized,

“The One people now become many peoples…. From this one nation (at Babel) many nations arise because of the curse of God on rebellious humanity.”

Bret responds,

We need to slow down a little bit here. I am willing to concede that the concrete nations arise out of Babel. However, I am not willing to concede that the Nations as Nations were a curse. 

When we look at Genesis 9 we get a sense of embryonic Nations that God always intended to flower. What I am saying is that the dividing of Shem, Ham, and Japheth in cursing and blessing implies, at the very least, the nations which would later arise in connection with God’s actions at Babel. Noah had to understand that by blessing Shem with early dominance, and then Japheth with latter dominance, and no blessing upon Ham except that his children would be servants, he was clearly segregating them after a fashion.

If we are going to use the language of “cursing” in reference to Babel we must at the same time use the language of “blessing.” It was the blessing of God to not allow rebellious mankind to build a unipolar world in opposition to Him. The blessing of Babel is further articulated in Acts 17 when we read the purpose of Babel was,

26 And he (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. 

Clearly, the division of the nations was a blessing with a salvific goal. Since God always had in mind the end he ordained from the beginning we must conclude that Nations were always intended by God.

RDC preached,

“Come the new covenant — the day of Pentecost particularly — that curse is reversed. All the Nations (at Pentecost) begin speaking each other’s languages. And we see something significant in Acts 2, the many peoples become one people. The many Nations become one Nation in Jesus Christ. That is the Church…. they are reconciled to God and they are reconciled to one another.”

Bret responds,

First here, I have to believe that RDC did not really mean to say “all the nations begin speaking each other’s languages. ” Clearly, the nations did not begin speaking each other’s languages. A quick perusal of Acts 2 reveals that.

Secondly, what is reversed at Pentecost is not the existence of nations. If the existence of nations is what was to be reversed at Pentecost then what we would have expected is that all the nations would have been hearing in the same tongue. Instead, Babel and the nations are sanctified at Pentecost with the differing nations hearing God’s word each in their own tongue. 

So, we do not see what RDC sermonizes that we see. What we see is that each Nation as a Nation receives the Gospel in their own tongue thus teaching that the many peoples remain many peoples (diversity) but finding a unity (not uniformity) in that diversity in Christ. Acts 2 actually teaches the very opposite of what RDC preached. Acts 2 teaches that the existence of Nations as Nations remains.

Thirdly, it is true that there is reconciliation but this reconciliation is a spiritual reconciliation. The old animosities and hatreds are removed because the peoples have a oneness in Jesus Christ. However, we find nowhere in Scripture where this spiritual oneness requires an amalgamated ethnic and cultural oneness. Contemporary Reformed theologians have underscored this,

“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”

And finally, on this point, (and we will return to this point repeatedly) the presence of the Nations in the book of Revelation gives testimony that the “curse was not reversed,” at Pentecost.

21:24 By its (The Temple) light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,… 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

22:2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life[g] with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 

Sundry Observations On Genesis 11 … A Small Case For Biblical Nationalism

Genesis 11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone,and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused[a] the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

As we come to the passage we want to give some immediate context which will guide our understanding of the text,

The unfolding of the events in Genesis 9-11 is

1.) God makes covenant with Noah and so mankind

2.) God ordains that mankind will under Government, which compliment patriarchal rule. (Genesis 9:6).

3.) Noah’s descendants are then ordered to disperse (Be fruitful and multiply) and inhabit their own territory per ethnic/family divisions, (Gen. 10).

10:5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

10:20 These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

10:31 These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

Notice the connection between clans, lands, languages, and nations. Clearly, the idea is presented that languages are unique to the various unique Nations. This will be important later.

***When we look at Genesis 9 we get a sense of embryonic Nations that God always intended to flower. What I am saying is that the dividing of Shem, Ham, and Japheth in cursing and blessing implies, at the very least, the nations which would later arise in connection with God’s actions at Babel. Noah had to understand that by blessing Shem with early dominance, and then Japheth with latter dominance, and no blessing upon Ham except that his children would be servants, he was clearly segregating them after a fashion.

***Genesis 10 gives us the results of Genesis 11. Genesis 11 explains how Genesis 10 happened in detail. I think it happened this way in order to put Gen. 11 and Gen. 12 in sharp relief.

***There is no contradiction here; Moses merely put the effect before the cause. Genesis 10 gives an overview, and then Genesis 11 fills in the details.

***Also, the way that it is organized with the placing of the Tower of Babel incident just prior to the stories of Abram and his descendants, the biblical writer is suggesting, in the first place, that post-flood humanity is as wicked as pre-flood humanity. Rather than sending something as devastating as a flood to annihilate mankind, however, God now places His hope in a covenant with Abraham as a powerful solution to humanity’s sinfulness. This problem (Genesis 11) and solution (Genesis 12) are brought into immediate juxtaposition

4.) Instead of dispersing they decide, in disobedience to God to fill the earth, to congregate at Babel to build what we can legitimately call an amalgamated and conglomerated New World Order Empire with the purpose of making a name for themselves.

5.) God confuses the tongues with the purpose of compelling what He originally intended, to wit, the separation of the Nations as nations. The confusion of languages was salutary discipline for the disobedience of not filling the earth by nations.

1.) One lip and one tongue

This seems to suggest that both the substance of speech and the form of speech were the same among the inhabitants of Babel. If this is correct then what is being pointed at here is that the denizens of Babel not only had a shared language but they also had a shared pagan worldview, as seen in the unified resolve to be disobedient to God.

God had told the families and nations (Genesis 10) to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:2) but the nations (Genesis 10) decided, instead, to congeal and coagulate on the plain of Shinar with the humanistic purpose to make a name for themselves.

Genesis 11 cannot be read accurately apart from the prior establishment of the table of nations in Genesis 10 and the command to multiply and fill the earth in Genesis 9. The natural reading of this, would be that God intended the nations as nations (Gen. 10) to multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 9)  but instead the nations decided to build a uni-polar world of no nations or all nations in order to establish themselves as God walking on the earth.

Brief Definition of Nation

According to Dr. Bruce Waltke, in his “Old Testament Theology,” a Nation. according to Scripture, is defined as

1.) A common people (Genesis)
2.) Sharing a common history (Exodus)
3.) Having a common law (Deuteronomy)
4.) With a common land (Joshua)
5.) And a Kin King (David’s Kingship)

2.) “As they journeyed Eastward” vs. 2

Traveling to the east, in Scripture, is often identified with traveling away from God’s presence and into exile, into captivity, or away from God’s presence. Moving east is a bad idea because it’s moving away from God.

Adam and Eve are sent away “East of Eden.” (2:24)

Cain was exiled to the east after killing Abel

People travelled east to build the Tower of Babel.

When Abraham and Lot decided to go their separate ways, Lot went east and ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Israelites were exiled to Babylon, in the east.

So, if we are to follow the hints of Scripture the very fact that we have this movement Eastward is suggestive that they are fleeing the presence of God.

2.) Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower

The desire to build a Tower lends the religious feel to the passage. In the ancient world this tower (Ziggurat) would have been the center building of a Temple complex where worship of the gods was practiced. The Ziggurat, in the ancient world, were believed to have been the dwelling places of the gods and naturally enough only the priest class were permitted on the ziggurat to care for the gods.

***Clearly, what is going on, on the plain of Shinar, is the building of a religious community in defiance of God. As all false gods are but man said loudly. Babel was the exercise of man made and defined religion committed to the end of man worshiping himself.

While we are at it here we should note that all social orders are held together by some religion or religious expression. Religion is an inescapable concept for both individuals and social orders.  In point of fact all social orders or cultures are, are religion externalized or made visible. When one looks at a culture or social order one is, at the same time, looking at religion.

“The culture of a people [is] an incarnation of its religion,” and “no culture has appeared or developed — except together with a religion. . . .”  
T. S. Eliot
Notes towards the Definition of Culture, pp. 32, 13

Now that is clearer in some social orders than others. We see it clearly in Muslim countries where the Koran births sharia law that all have to follow.

But we need to understand that all culture … all social orders are organized around religion, theology, and faith commitment.

 

This means that there are no “ages of irreligion,” or “ages of skepticism.” Organized religions may recede but they recede in favor of unorganized or embryonic religions. Curiously, it is the “so called” skeptics who write the books denouncing religion who are most obviously full of the inescapable religious impulse. Their objection is not religion as it is other people’s religion that they don’t approve of — a disapproval only arrived at as informed by whatever religion they harbor.

So, here men are denying God’s authority and sovereignty but they haven’t escaped the authority and sovereignty of some god, they have merely transferred the quality of godness to their city-state Babel. If man denies such qualities of God such as predestination to the God of the Bible, predestination doesn’t go away, it merely transfers to the new god in town.

Example — School to work program // Social engineering intended to push people in a set direction.

If man denies such qualities of God as transcendence to the God of the Bible, transcendence doesn’t go away, it merely transfers to the new god in town.

If man denies the qualities of God such as His authority as found in God’s law  divine law doesn’t go away, but that authority is merely transferred to a new god’s authoritative law.

Men are forever seeking to build new cities and new towers in defiance of the God of the Bible. Men will go to all lengths to escape the presence of God and part of those lengths they will go to is build religious-social orders on the back of false religions and false gods.

3.) With the Babel project we are right back to the fall in the garden in Genesis 11. Just as the Serpent had said there, “Hath God really said,” so man here has determined that God had not really said to “multiply and fill the earth.” Just as the project in the garden was man’s attempt to en-god himself by holding to his putative fiat word over God’s revelational Word so here on the plain of Shinar man is seeking to en-god himself by seeking to give reality to his fiat word as opposed to submitting to God’s Word which creates and governs all real reality.

***4.)  let us make a name for ourselves — Let us make us a name.

It is interesting that man attempts to make a name for themselves apart from God in Genesis 11, while in Genesis 12 God tells Abram that God Himself will make Abram’s name great (12:2). Obviously, therefore, the desire for a great name is not sinful in itself. The sin is found in seeking a great name autonomously, apart from God and His character and His Law-Word.

***In the desire to make themselves a name we find the desire to define themselves and to establish their own authority.

RJR offers here,

“Instead of being defined by the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28), man now held that he would be his own creature and creation and would define himself. If man becomes a self-definer, he then, like a god, names or defines everything else. ”

***4a.) Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth

In this new Babel religion which the social order reflected, there was a desire for uniformity. No scattering allowed. I submit to you that this fear of being scattered was theological. These men are seeking to unite as god to be god as is seen in their defiance of god in building babel. In order to do that, there had to be a unity of the godhead and that unity is found in fear of scattering.

Every  attempt to replace God with a one world order breeds a fear of scattering. There must be unity in the humanistic godhead. All people must be uniform under the god-state.

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” –

Benito Mussolini

This is why Socrates drank the hemlock rather than being exiled.

This is what we find in our social order. There is a fear of scattering in our speech and so we have Political Correctness to monitor speech. There is a fear of scattering in our thinking and so we have the equivalent of political commissars in Social Justice warriors in order to monitor proper thinking. There must be no scattering in our allegiance and so we have propaganda piled on top of propaganda to make sure we are not thinking contrary to those who would make war against the God of the Bible.

5.) And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built

This is not a case where God didn’t know about the details of what was going on in the building project at Babel. Often in Genesis we find divine investigation as prior to divine judgment (Genesis 3:11-13, 4:9-10, 18:21). What we find here, as opposed to a denial of divine omniscience, is a anthropomorphic setting forth of God’s investigative activity in order to communicate that God’s judgments are altogether just. As God is a personal God, God Himself personally investigates the disobedience of man.

6.) Behold they are One people

At this point the question needs to be asked, “One people as opposed to what (?)” God’s answer clearly is, per Genesis 10, “One people as opposed to the Nations in which I had divided them into.” God had ordained a Biblical Nationalism and man’s response was to pursue a pagan Internationalism. We can say perhaps, that this was the attempt at the first New World Order. The Shinar Ziggurat was the ancient version of the United Nations Building. God has set forth Nations and man responded in rebellion by pursuing an amalgamation that leads to an integration downward into the void.

God clearly did not intend the people to be one. Nothing in Scripture suggests that God today has changed His mind so that He today intends the people to be one.

Let me say this as clearly as I can. God is opposed to all plans which would end in an amalgamated faith (Chrislam) and amalgamated culture (multiculturalism) or an amalgamated people. God as Creator ordained distinctions between peoples, faiths, and cultures and Christ’s work of Redemption does not destroy those Creaturely distinctions but instead redeems them.

Christians do not sing

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today… Aha-ah…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace… You…

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world… You…

Instead Christians sing

3. We’ve a message to give to the nations,
that the Lord who reigneth above
hath sent us his Son to save us,
and show us that God is love,
and show us that God is love.

7.) “Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Here the question that needs be asked is who are the pronouns “their” and “they” referring to. The obvious answer is the inhabitants of Babel. However, we need to go on and ask, “Who are the inhabitants of Babel,” and with the answer to that question we are right back at Genesis 10 and the table of nations. So, the confusing of “their language” is the confusing of the language of the nations who had disobediently sought to create a uni-polar world in defiance of God.

Now, if we grant that it is a small step to think that the confusion of the languages was in keeping with the existence of the nations so that each nation, as descended from Noah, was confused with a language in keeping with its national identity.

The reason I point this out is that there exists a kind of school of thought that denies the familial-national dynamic in this passage insisting instead that the division here was not familial-national but only linguistic. The argument seemingly goes that the division at Babel was of such a nature that men from the different family-nations of Genesis 10 were all jumbled up together in the linguistic dispersion. We are therefore expected to believe that all those people who God divided by language were each and all nationally mixed in the linguistic division that God visited them with.

I am suggesting that the weight of the context of the passage is overwhelmingly against that kind of reading. Genesis 11 is not merely a linguistic division but it is a linguistic division in keeping with the already pre-existing familial-national distinctions. God wanted distinct people group Nations and the language confusion was pursuant to that end.

At Babel God makes the physical aspect of the divisions between the Nations explicit. One can easily envision that each Nation is given a distinct tongue at Babel.  This connection between peoples and tongues is underscored, when millennial later at Pentecost devout men from every nation under heaven all hear the Gospel in their own tongue. I submit in both cases (Babel and Pentecost) the differing tongues is emblematic for differing nations.

Those who would treat the passage as “linguistics alone” are also bedeviled by the reality that, per their theory, these jumbled up linguistic units comprised of men from all the varying nations (Gen. 10) in each linguistic sub-unit eventually, over the course of time, do become nationally distinct. If each and all of the linguistic units from Babel were amalgamated entities all sharing the same gene pool of the various nations in Genesis 10 how did they eventually end up being so ethnically distinct one from one another?

All of this then sheds light on Genesis 10:32

32 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

Babel was a nation spreading event and the way God spread the nations was to give them each a tongue so they could not create the uni-polar world that defied God and so they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him (Acts 17:27).

All of this is more than suggestive that God’s plan for the World is a Biblical Nationalism wherein there is a God-ordained unity and diversity honored. The diversity is found in the reality of nations and the unity is envisioned in each diverse and distinct nation submitting to God as their Creator, Christ as their Redeemer and the Holy Spirit as their Sanctifier.

There is no biblical postmillennialism that puts all the Nations into a blender as a result of the Nations being Redeemed. We do not lose the identities God has created us with all because God redeems us.

All this is supported by the fact we find the “Nations” in Revelation

Rev. 21:22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. …  22:5 The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations

**** 8.)  6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

Compare that with Genesis 3

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man,

In both cases there was an aspiration to be God. In both cases God prevents man from arising to the most high. In both cases God drives them from their respective sanctuaries. In both cases grace was mixed with judgment.

*****9.) So the Lord scattered them abroad

God scattering already is a theme in Genesis. God scatters Adam and Eve from the Temple-Garden.  God scatters Cain so that he is a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth. God scatters wicked humanity by drowning them in the flood. Here God scatters the inhabitants of Babel. They had gathered to find unity and instead were visited with alienation. They had gathered here to make a famous name for themselves and instead they made their names to be a byword of folly. They had gathered out of fear of being scattered and the result was their being scattered.

The last word in this judgment though is grace. In this expulsion and dispersal Nations are ratified with the purpose that in their isolation they may more readily turn to God (Acts 17:26-27).

11.) Back to the Ziggurat

Remember, as we said earlier, the Ziggurat was in essence a “Stairway to Heaven.” (Cue Led Zepplen song.) This is man’s attempt to rise up to God. Just as in the Garden man had fallen by their ambition to be God so now man has fallen and now they are trying to ascend unto the heavens to arise unto God.

God blocks man’s efforts to arise unto God via this Ziggurat but that doesn’t mean that God will not lift man up to God on His own terms.

Turn a few chapter to Gen. 28:10-17

Jacob has conned his Brother and Father and is on the run. One night he has a dream of a Ziggurat. Only we call it a ladder. In your Geneva Study Bibles that we give to the graduates you will find a note that says,

“Probably a vast stone ramp with steps. The phrase in Gen. 28 “top reached to the heaven”  recalls the description of the Tower of Babel. Jacob may have seen a Ziggurat. This is supported by the reality that Jacob calls what he has seen “the gate of heaven,” and “the house of God.” One seldom refers to an extension ladder as the “house of God.”

On  that Ziggurat Jacob sees angels going up and down.

So, here we’ve got the image of another ziggurat. However, this time it is in a positive context. This time what is communicated is that God intends to have concourse with man on His terms. Those terms include establishing Jacob (later Israel) as a nation and then blessing the nations through the descendant of Israel.

And who is Jacob’s most famous descendent?

The answer is Christ.

Jesus, who in John chapter 1, tells his new disciple Nathanael: “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” The image echoes Jacob’s dream.

Concourse with God is NOT by us building Ziggurats to God.
Concourse with God is NOT by esteeming Israel as some kind of Ziggurat.
Concourse with God is a Cross as the only Ziggurat to God.

The real stairway to heaven the Son of Man – Jesus himself, through the Cross.

Conclusion

Babel = Confusion
Ancient Akkadian meaning = Gate of god

Both remain true depending which worldview you drop the word Babel in. If the word resides in a Biblica Worldview then it does mean confusion and it means confusion because man is seeking to create a world apart from the only one who can give order. Confusion results when any people seeks to create order apart from God.

If the word resides in a humanistic worldview then Babel does mean “gate of God,” inasmuch as man believes that by deleting God they can be on the cusp of being god themselves.

At Babel man is at war with God.

The good news is that Christ has come so that man can sue for peace. Christ has turned away God’s warrior wrath against insolent Babel builders who find themselves weary of prosecuting war against God.

Christ is our Akkadian Babel. He is the true gate of God. Only through a known Christ can men find peace with God.

 

 

The PCA and Resolution 43

“The first and fatal charm of national repentance, therefore, is the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing – but, first, of denouncing – the conduct of others.”

C. S. Lewis

In their 2016 General Assembly the Presbyterian Church of America passed resolution 43 by a overwhelming majority of 861 to 123. This resolution offered up corporate repentance for racial actions they were corporately involved in prior to their formation in 1972 and for racial actions they were corporately involved in after their formation.

The wonder of this document is the general assumption and declaration of sin with no corresponding detailed names of proofs that can be attached to the general assumption and declaration of sin. By making such a declaration of sin of one’s Fathers one doesn’t have to give due process to the dead. One doesn’t have to put together a court where the accused can face their accusers. One doesn’t have to convince a jury of their Father’s sins when one just assumes and declares their sins. One doesn’t have to come up with concrete proof for concrete cases against concrete Fathers. No, all one has to do is just give a general condemnation of one’s Fathers.

It strikes me that the the current PCA is condemning as “sin” those sins that the Founders of the PCA cited as reasons to leave the denomination they were previously associated with. If this is so the current PCA then can be regarded as the anti-PCA, at least as measured by their Father’s intent for the denomination they were creating. According to the current PCA it is hard to see how the current PCA doesn’t consider the Founding PCA as being in sin for leaving the PCUS given that the Founding PCA’s reasons for separation are now repudiated by the current PCA’s standards. As we will see in this post it is possible that the current PCA is most directly repudiating the particular founders John Edwards Richards and H. Morton Smith.

So what I’m going to do here is interweave the stated reasons that some of the Founders gave for leaving the PCUS with the most recent Resolution 43 as passed by the current PCA by a vote of 826 – 123. Finally, I will add some quotes from men and organizations from the past who have agreed with what the PCA is calling for here.

Now it may be the case that a reader may agree with the old PCA or it may be that they agree with the new PCA but regardless who is agreed with we can at least conclude that the denomination is on a different trajectory from when it was formed.

I.) Resolution 43 — PCA General Assembly 2016

A.) Therefore be it resolved, that the 44th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America does recognize, confess, condemn and repent of corporate and historical sins, including those committed during the Civil Rights era, and continuing racial sins of ourselves and our fathers such as the segregation of worshipers by race; the exclusion of persons from Church membership on the basis of race; the exclusion of churches, or elders, from membership in the Presbyteries on the basis of race; the teaching that the Bible sanctions racial segregation and discourages inter-racial marriage;

B.) Where PCA Founders Disagreed with the 2016 PCA

1.) Causes of Separation in 1973 (PCA separates from PCUS) by one of the PCA Founders, Dr. John Edwards Richards,

  • a.) The Socialist, who declares all men are equal.  Therefore there must be a great leveling of humanity and oneness of privilege and possession.
  • b.) The Racial Amalgamationist, who preaches that the various races should be merged into one race and differences erased in oneness.
  • c.) The Communist, who would have one mass of humanity coerced into oneness by a totalitarian state and guided exclusively by Marxist philosophy.
  • d.) The Internationalist, who insists on co-existence between all peoples and nations that they be as one regardless of ideology or history.

    And again from Richards,

    e.) “The vast majority of good thinking people prefer to associate with, and intermarry with, people of their respective race; this is part of the God-given inclination to honor and uphold the distinctiveness of separate races. But there are many false prophets of oneness, and many shallow stooges, who seek to force the amalgamation of the races.”

    2.) This time from Dr. H. Morton Smith — One of the Founders of the PCA

    “If from this we may conclude that ethnic pluriformity is the revealed will of God for the human race in its present situation, it is highly questionable whether the Christian can have part in any program that would seek to erase all ethnic distinctions. That such distinctions may be crossed over by individuals may be granted, but it is at least questionable whether a program designed to wipe out such differences on a mass scale should be endorsed by the Christian. It is this line of argument that the average Christian segregationist uses to back his view. He fears that the real goal of the integrationist is the intermarriage of the races, and therefore the breakdown of the distinctions between them. Many who would be willing to integrate at various lesser levels refuse to do so, simply because they feel that such will inevitably lead to intermarriage of the races, which they consider to be morally wrong.”

    H. Morton Smith — A Founder of the PCA
    Christianity Race & Segregation

    Comment

    Now one group that does agree with the PCA are those found among the Marxists. That they agree with the PCA’s insistence that the bible does not sanction racial segregation and that they agree with the PCA that inter-racial marriage is Biblical is seen by examining these quotes,

    C.) Writers or Organizations Who Agree With the 2016 PCA Resolution 43

    1.) Frederick Engles

    Question — ‎”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

    The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

    ~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

    2.) Karl Marx

    And this time from Marx who agrees with the PCA

    “Even the natural differences within species, like racial differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
     
    K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
     
    As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
    Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:

    3.) Nikita Krushchev

    “Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

     

    Comment

    Now if the current PCA is indeed going after Richards and Smith, one of whom is still living, then let these men have their day in court. Let charges be brought against them and let them be tried and face their accusers. In Richard’s case let any trial be done posthumously. Prove that what these Founders — Dr. Richards and Dr. Smith  held — was sin. Prove their statements in error. Don’t just make declarations. Offer up proof and as you offer up proof make sure you don’t take up league with the Marxists.

    II.) Resolution 43 — PCA General Assembly 2016

    A.) the participation in and defense of white supremacist organizations; and the failure to live out the gospel imperative that “love does no wrong to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10); and

    B.) Where PCA Founders Disagree with the Current PCA

1.) Dr. H. Morton Smith 

“it may be said that the principle of segregation as such is not necessarily sinful in and of itself.”

H. Morton Smith — A Founder of the PCA
Some thoughts by a Southern White Christian:  The Racial Problem Facing America

2.) This time from Dr. John Edwards Richards

“No human can measure the anguish of personality that goes on within the children of miscegenation… Let those who would erase the racial diversity of God’s creation beware lest the consequence of their evil be visited upon their children.”

John Edwards Richards
One of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)

C.) Some writers that agree with the PCA’s interpretation that love means do no wrong to a neighbor are found among the Socialists,

1.) Vladimir Lenin

“The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and end all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer together, but to merge them….”

Vladimir Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination — pg. 76

2.) Vladimir Lenin

“… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “

There are other “Resolveds” in Resolution 43 but they are more and less a repeat of the type that has already been quoted here.

In the end, how does the PCA and the Christian community in general deal with the fact that they seem to be advocating a policy that lines up rather nicely with the Marxist agenda from its beginning? Those of us who are concerned with the egalitarian revolutionary thrust found in Marxism and seemingly on display by the PCA and other denominations only want an answer on how they intend to stand against the great heresy of Marxism? How does the integrationist’s call to “love”  avoid being the Marxist call of hate that finds a bleeding of all things into a revolutionary egalitarian uniformity?

I close here by quoting Dr. H. Morton Smith. 

“The reason that so many see a Communist influence in the present movement is that the goal seems to be the same as that of the Marxist philosophy, namely, the leveling of all to a common uniformity. Even if the American Negro movement has not been started or backed by the Communist Party at first, it certainly plays into the hands of the Communists, especially when civil disobedience (Black Lives Matter — BLMc) can be encouraged, and the law and order of a city, state, or nation threatened. Enough of this disorder, and the Communists or some other tyrants may be able to step into the situation and seize control of our nation”

Certainly if there is a danger in a philosophy that demands too much segregation so there is a danger in a philosophy that demands too much integration. Yet, all we seem to hear from the modern denominations is siren calls about “racism,” “xenophobia,” “homophobia,” “bigotry” and “sexism,” and the siren calls seem to have the collected effect of pushing us ever further towards the socialist dream of a New World Order where we can imagine that there are no countries, and no religion too. A New World Order where there are no races, no genders, and no distinctions.

From Dr. Abraham Kuyper, to Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, to Dr. Geerhardus Vos and countless others there have been warnings against an amalgamation that would be destructive to all peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations and yet the Church seemingly keeps pushing that agenda, taking no heed to those of us who are pointing at and screaming about the original intent of the Christ haters named Engels, Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Khrushchev, and countless other Revolutionaries who have always imagined there is no heaven.

Will anyone ever listen to our warnings or answer our concerns that are born out of love for Christ and His Church and not out of hatred for anybody except for those who would pull down Christ or assault His Bride?

A Nation Legislated Out Of Existence

The fact that we are no longer a “nation” can be accounted by the invasion, since 1965, of alien peoples from alien cultures. What Americans and the West can’t seem to understand is that this non-European immigration invasion, assured by the 1965 Immigration Act with its opening of the borders to the non-European world, is a colonization and a conquering of this territory once called “these united States.” It is the replacement of the previous people and culture in favor of a differing people and culture. The passage of said legislation was a masterful piece of lying from beginning to end. Sen. Teddy Kennedy, one of the chief sponsors of the Bill promised,

“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…

Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…

In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think… The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Sen. Teddy Kennedy was a lot of things but stupid was not one of them. Kennedy, along with Sen. Philip Hart, Sen. Jacob Javits, Emanuel Cellar and others could not be so blind as to not know that the Hart-Cellar act would fundamentally transform America from a WASP nation to a Propositional Universal nation.

In this 1965 Act America was certain to cease being a nation, if only because the heart and soul of a nation is its people. The 1965 Immigration Act guaranteed the replacement of the nation’s people and so in principle, killed the American Nation that existed in 1965 in favor of a Universal Propositional Nation that exists now. In the words of Bertolt Brecht, what the Government did in 1965 was to dissolve the people and elect another. 

That Universal Propositional Nation is a failure. The Liberal magic dirt theory that posited that non-Christian Europeans would instantly become Christian Americans simply by setting their foot on American soil has demonstrated instead that Somalian cliterectomies, and Arab “Allahu Akbahr barking,” and the third world sex trafficking doesn’t cease just because new arrivals from non Christian European countries have US soil under their feet.