Category: Ethnic considerations

The term Jew is one that can muddy the waters a bit. Jew in the NT is mostly used geographically rather than referring to a specific nation. The Israelites were a distinct group of people with a distinct heredity. You are correct that non-Israelites could keep the covenant, celebrate Passover, and be circumcised. This did not make them Israelites. They were still recognized as a distinct group of people even after circumcision (Num. 11:4, Neh. 13:3). This meant that they were still ineligible for becoming civil magistrates (Deut. 1:13-16, 17:15, 2 Sam. 5:1, 1 Chr. 11:1) and permanently owning property (Lev. 25).

David Opperman

If one were to exert the same exact amount of air through different instruments one would not expect to hear the exact same sound because the instruments have been created and designed to sound differently regardless whether or not the air that animates them is exactly the same. Even so, different peoples can believe the exact same thing but because they have been created and designed to “sound differently” they will not produce the same exact culture. If music is sound poured over instrumentation then why can not culture be theology poured over ethnicity?

Why would we ever discount the reality that God really does love diversity and as such he creates a symphonic band of cultures, each sharing the same theology but each producing a unique sound in a wonderful harmony for His glory?

Does God desire us all to be Trombones?

Should we desire to change the metaphor we could ask what would happen if one took the same exact water and poured it over different citrus fruits. Obviously the reality of the shared water would not make all the juice to taste the same. Just so, different [ethnicities] can have the same exact theology poured over them and that will not mean that all those [ethnicities] will be the same exact juice (culture) because they were not created to be the same exact citrus fruit.

Why would we ever discount the reality that God really does love diversity and as such he creates varying citrus fruits, each sharing the same theology but each producing a unique flavor consistent with their created intent.

Does God desire us all to be Lemons?

Maedoc ap Opwain Gwynedd was a Norseman who settled in Wales and then made his way across the North Atlantic and was lost at sea. His story is woven into Welsh and Icelandic chronicles, often told as tragic tale of lost potential. But there’s an alternate ending as well. When European Settlers in North America in the 16th century first began to ask the Cherokee people about their history, one story was of a white skinned people who preceded them. They were large, fierce men with golden grain instead of hair. They called them the Welsh tribe of the Vi-Kings. The Cherokee claimed descent from white forebears who crossed the great water. A legend like this among the Cherokee would likely have gone unnoticed, except that in Wales there are tales of this same Viking prince named Madeoc ap Owain Gwynedd who sailed west and discovered land sometime after the year 1100.

There’s sufficient evidence for some to conclude that Maedoc’s company landed in Mobil Bay and made their way to Tennessee, thus meeting the Cherokee and thus accounting for several mysterious stone Forts in Chattanooga and Manchester. The reconstructed account theorizes that the band continued through the Ohio Valley to Louisville where they intermarried with the Mandan-Sioux and moved up the Missouri River to the Dakotas.

If the Cherokee legends and Welsh and Viking tales were the only support for this fantastic story, and even if we had a few stone forts that we couldn’t explain, the story probably wouldn’t have had enough strength to survive the centuries. However, in his Principle Navigations of 1589, Richard Hakluyt offered the story of Maedoc in support of English territorial claims to the New World….

Additional support for the legend is found in the writings of American artist George Caitlin. While drawing pictures of the Mandan Sioux in N. Missouri in the 19th century, Caitlin discovered Indians w/ uncommonly pale complexions and blue eyes. He believed that they may indeed be the descendants of the legendary Viking / Welsh colony of Maedoc and argued for the case in his famous book North American Indians written in 1841.

Dr. George Grant
Notes From His Lectures on Christendom
Lecture 19

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0311/Eric_Holder_Black_Panther_case_focus_demeans_my_people.html

“The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment (Congressman) Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the (Black Panther voter intimidation) incident (in Philadelphia) the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.

“Think about that,” Holder said. “When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, to compare what people subjected to that with what happened in Philadelphia, which was inappropriate….to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line for my people,” said Holder, who is black”

Re-read HOlder’s “my people” statement above. Isn’t it clear from that statement alone that Holder and the Justice Department have a mentality where the people they are most concerned with representing is not with Americans as a whole but with Blacks as a subset. It is almost as if a occupying force that distinguishes between the occupiers as a people and the occupied indigenous people and is concerned for the interests of the occupiers.

Would a Attorney General that was representing all Americans make a distinctions between his people and other Americans? In short Holder’s people are clearly not all Americans but rather Blacks. He is the Attorney General for Blacks and not for Americans.

Also, realize that as Attorney General Holder’s job is to enforce the law. It is not his job to enforce the law if he thinks some violation of the law doesn’t measure up to his interpretation of previous historical grievances. Either the law was broken or it wasn’t. If the law was broken, but not broken as egregiously as it may have been in the past, it does not matter. If the law was broken then the law must be enforced.

What this man is doing is basically saying … “Well, because my people had the law broken more egregiously in the 60’s and suffered far worse indignity than those white folks suffered in Philadelphia, therefore I don’t have to enforce the law now even though it was clearly violated.” Payback is a bitch don’t you know?

For Pete’s sake, the Attorney General even admits the action of the Philadelphia Black Panthers was “inappropriate.” Is that what we now call crimes by blacks against whites that we used to call “illegal?”

This is insane.

Pastor McDonald asks,

“Question — Why did God disperse the nations in the first place (Gen 11)?”

Answer

My understanding to date James is that God disperses the nations in order to finally frustrate man’s corporate effort to ascend to the most high so as to un-god god and en-god man. If Genesis 3 and the casting from the garden was the consequence to the action of sovereign individual(s) to cast off God, Genesis 11 and the dispersion of the nations was the consequence to the action of man, corporately considered, to cast off God.

My understanding is that Genesis 11 is a repeat of the theme of Genesis 3. I.) God commands (Gen. 3 — Do not eat, Gen. 11 — Fill the earth). II.) Man disobeys (Gen. 3 — Adam and Eve eat, Gen. 11 — Man say’s “let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered over the earth.”) III.) God Investigates (Gen. 3:9, 11:7) IV.) God brings judgment (Gen. 3:14f, 11:7f) by dispersion.

Pastor McDonald asks,

Does the Gospel provide any picture of reconciliation or even unification (i.e., Acts 2, 10, Galatians 2)?

Answer,

The Great Commission of Christ indicates that the picture of reconciliation that we are to expect is a reconciliation that confirms unity in diversity among the nations. It is the NationS that are to be made disciples. It is the NationS that are baptized. It is the NationS that are to be taught to all observe all things (Mt. 28:16f)

When we get to the book of Revelation we see the success of the Great Commission as it is the NationS that stream into the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:26) and it is the NationS which find healing from the leaves of the tree(22:2).

Acts 2 seems to indicate not the undoing of Babel but the sanctification of Babel. If Acts 2 had been the undoing of Babel one would expect that each would have heard the Gospel in a unitary language. Instead they each hear in their own tongue indicating a Unity (A Gospel shaped humanity) in diversity (That NationS each hearing the Gospel in their own tongue).

If Acts 10 speaks at all to this issue it would seem to likewise again speak to the idea of unity in diversity. Peter learns that “in every NATION whoever fears God and works righteousness is accepted by God” (cmp. vs. 35-36).

Galatians 2 teaches that all the NationS are saved by Christ alone through faith alone and that people don’t have to become Jews in order to become Christians. Galatians 2 really has very little bearing on the subject whether the Gospel creates uniformity in social order as the Gospel has worldwide success or whether the successful extension of the Gospel creates Unity in diversity in social order as it overcomes the world.

Pastor McDonald asks,

“Although we do have a rich mosaic of culture in the world, what do we do with the portions that are inherently pagan?”

Van Til informed us that since all reality is God’s reality that all inherently pagan cultures have within them capital stolen from a Biblical Worldview in order to cohere. Van Til loved the illustration that men had to sit on God’s lap in order to slap Him in the face. This is true of pagan cultures. Their cultures deny God but before they deny God they must assume God.

Because this is true I don’t know if there is any pagan culture that is “inherently pagan” if by “inherently pagan” one means there is no possibility that the success of the Gospel among that pagan group would not leave some kind of memory of what the culture was before it was visited with Gospel renewal. We must remember that Grace amends nature … grace does not destroy nature.

Now, naturally, such Cultures that are dripping in paganism will probably have more discontinuity with what they were culturally before Gospel renewal but I would still contend there will be enough continuity with what they previously were to be able to identify them as still retaining their unique culture.

On this one might want to read Don Richardson’s “Eternity in their hearts,” and “Peace Child.”

Pastor McDonald asks,

Is there a common Christian culture that transcends racial or tribal boundaries?

Answer,

If the question is whether or not there is a monolithic Christian culture that all tongues, tribes, and peoples, must embrace so that we have a monochromatic uniformity I think then, the answer is clearly “no.” One of the main themes of the book of Galatians is that Gentiles do not need to become cultural and religiously “Jewish” in order to be Christian. Acts 15 and the Jerusalem council likewise seems to suggest that a monolithic Christian culture is not the result of the success of the Gospel.

However, if the question is whether the various Christian cultures will have a point of integration the answer is clearly “yes.” That point of commonality will be the acceptance of all peoples in resting in Christ alone as well as a commonality in the moral rectitude that all will share as all look to God’s Holy law-word to be guided in their walk and informed as to the laws for their social order.

As such the Kingdom of God is a Nation of NationS. We see that clearly in the book of Revelation. We see that in the Abrahamic Promise given to God where the promise is that “In you all the NationS of the earth shall be blessed.” We see that in Isaiah 2 and 60 where they clearly speak of the nations coming to Mt. Zion. In Psalms 2 it is the Kings of the NationS who are required to Kiss the Son. All the way through Scripture we see God dealing with the NationS.