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McAtee Unravels Lusk’s Lunacy on Kinism — Part V — Behold Calvin the Kinist in His Own Words

RL writes,

Calvin held similar ecclesiocentric convictions. Calvin was a kind of exile in Geneva, and while in Geneva, he ensured the city accepted religious refugees from countless other European cities and lands. He also trained and commissioned missionaries who traveled to other lands, including South America. His love and concern were not limited to people of the same skin color but extended to all people groups. Yes, Calvin loved his homeland of France. But he left his fatherland precisely because his commitment to the the gospel, the cause of the Reformation, and the Protestant church trumped his love of his native country. In the introductory preface of his Institutes, addressed to King Francs, Calvin shows he embraced the cause of Christ above the cause of his nation:

Even though I regard my country with as much natural affection as becomes me, as things now stand, I do not much regret being excluded. Rather, I embrace the common cause of all believers, that of Christ himself – a cause completely torn and trampled in your realm today, lying as it were utterly forlorn.

BLM responds,

First notice here that RL is intimating that Kinists would never do what John Calvin did in welcoming in refugees who were being hunted down because they were Biblical Christians. In so doing RL seeks to paint Kinism with the darkest of colors. However, it is just utter tripe to hint that a Kinist would not, like the Kinist John Calvin, not help fellow Christians being persecuted by Christ haters. Love of family does not translate, despite Lusk’s best efforts, to hatred of fellow believers.

Second, Lusk says that Calvin left his homeland because of his commitment to the Gospel. Let’s keep in mind though that if Calvin had not left his homeland there can be little doubt that he would have been roasted on the bonfire of the French vanities. This is not to say that Calvin was not committed to the Gospel. It is to say that commitment to the Gospel is increased several fold when absence commitment to the Gospel means you need to flee your country lest you be killed.

In the quote that Lusk provides notice the phrase, “as things now stand.” Calvin, being a good Kinist, loved his France however “as things stood” during his life he knew that if he wanted to stay living above the ground he could not return to France. Lusk’s quote does not prove that Calvin was not a Kinist. Can anyone doubt that Calvin would not have returned to his homeland and his people if the cause of Christ had not been trampled in his beloved France being utterly forlorn?

RL writes,

Calvin knew he served a greater King than Francis – the Lord Jesus. He knew the church of Jesus Christ was primary home, and this ecclesial allegiance was to be maintained, whatever earthly, temporal loyalties had to be sacrificed. He put kinship with fellow churchmen above his kinship with fellow Frenchmen.

BLM responds,

Well, lets look at some of Calvin’s quotes and see if they can substantiate Lusk’s above claims.

“Now, we see, as in a camp, every troop and band hath his appointed place, so men are placed upon earth, that every people may be content with their bounds, and that among these people every particular person may have his mansion. But though ambition have, oftentimes raged, and many, being incensed with wicked lust, have passed their bounds, yet the lust of men hath never brought to pass, but that God hath governed all events from out of his holy sanctuary. For though men, by raging upon earth, do seem to assault heaven, that they may overthrow God’s providence, yet they are enforced, whether they will or no, rather to establish the same. Therefore, let us know that the world is so turned over through divers tumults, that God doth at length bring all things unto the end which he hath appointed.”

John Calvin
Calvin’s Comm. on Acts 17:26

At the point where Calvin says, “every people,” he has established that different people groups exist and that Christianity does not destroy the reality of people groups. Calvin implies a good deal more than that but at this point all we are seeking to sustain is that the Historic church, reaching behind the past 200 years understood that Christianity didn’t eliminate the idea of race, ethnicity, clan, and kin.

Again from Calvin the Kinist,

“He then promises that he will cause Jacob to increase and multiply, not only into one nation, but into a multitude of nations. When he speaks of ‘a nation,’ he no doubt means that the offspring of Jacob should become sufficiently numerous to acquire the body and the name of one great people. But what follows concerning “nations” may appear absurd; for if we wish it to refer to the nations which, by gratuitous adoption, are inserted into the race of Abraham, the form of expression is improper: but if it be understood of sons by natural descent, then it would be a curse rather than a blessing, that the Church, the safety of which depends on its unity, should be divided into many distinct nations. But to me it appears that the Lord, in these words, comprehended both these benefits; for when, under Joshua, the people was apportioned into tribes, as if the seed of Abraham was propagated into so many distinct nations; yet the body was not thereby divided; it is called an assembly of nations, for this reason, because in connection with that distinction a sacred unity yet flourished. The language also is not improperly extended to the Gentiles, who, having been before dispersed, are collected into one congregation by the bond of faith; and although they were not born of Jacob according to the flesh; yet, because faith was to them the commencement of a new birth, and the covenant of salvation, which is the seed of spiritual birth, flowed from Jacob, all believers are rightly reckoned among his sons, according to the declaration, “I have constituted thee a father of many nations.”

John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Volume 2, Chapter 14

Here we see Calvin embracing the idea of many nations belonging as nations in the one Church. Abraham remains the Father of many nations as those nations are brought into the Church, nation by nation.

____

“…. delightful to every one is his native soil, and it is also delightful to dwell among one’s own people.”

John Calvin
Calvin’s Commentary – Jeremiah 9:2

Here we see a clear indisputable Kinist comment from Calvin.

___

“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)

Here Calvin refers to men like Lusk as flighty and scatterbrained dreamers because he denies the kind of order among us that the Kinists alone are contending for.

McAtee Unravels Lusk’s Lunacy on Kinism — Part IV

In A Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis writes about a man who ordered milk and eggs from a waiter in a restaurant. After tasting the milk he commented to the waiter that it was delicious. The waiter replied, “Milk is only the secretion of a cow, just like urine and feces.” After eating the eggs he commented on the tastiness of the eggs. Again the waiter responded that eggs are only a by-product of a chicken. After thinking about the waiter’s comment for a moment the man responded, “You lie. You don’t know the difference between what nature has meant for nourishment, and what it meant for garbage.”

Here we find an example of how Rev. Lusk uses language in service of defending his Alienism. The man twists with panache the meaning of words so that when he is done they stand on their head for those with eyes to see. However, to those who don’t see his linguistic tricks and can’t measure out his piling up of contradictions he begins, if you can believe it, to make sense. Lusk was that way when he wrote on the Federal Vision heresy long ago and he remains that way now as he attacks Kinism.

We continue here our fisking of Rev. Lusk in his assault on Kinism.

RL writes

People and place do matter. Blood and soil matter. Biological and ethnic connections matter. We are not gnostics. But we are also not kinists. We are Christians, which means the blood of Christ is the ultimate tie that binds for us. The covenant is the most important connection we have.

BLM responds,

Lusk’s first three sentence above or merely a fig leaf. Except for these occasional throw away lines everything RL has written is pure on Alienism and bespeaks a hatred of blood and soil. It’s as if RL is saying that “People and place do matter. “Blood and soil matter. Biological and ethnic connections matter, as long as they don’t really matter.” How can “blood and soil” matter when RL keeps insisting that race is only about skin color. That constant refrain of Lusk’s testifies that his first three lines above are just insincere decorations to pull in the unsuspecting.

Clearly Lusk is indeed a Gnostic as we have pointed out repeatedly now. Lusk diminishes the corporeal in favor of his unbiblical ecclesiocentric paradigm where everything gets reduced according to its “spiritual” importance.

Lusk appeals to the blood of Christ but let’s keep in mind that the blood of Christ was the blood of a Hebrew who belonged to the line of David. We don’t have the blood of Christ apart from the blood and soil of Christ. In the same manner the blood of Christ which ties us does not first, in a Gnostic type manner, disembody us before it ties us — the Church together. We don’t come to Christ as atomistic individualistic integers. We come to Christ in our maleness of femaleness. We come to Christ in our ethnicity/race. We come to Christ in the context of covenant family lines that God graciously calls. The blood of Christ does not work so as to destroy nature. Grace restores nature. It does not destroy it.

Next, let it be said here that because of Lusk’s Federal Vison writings I am not confident that Lusk, by way of Doctrine, is a Christian.

RL writes,

As Christians, we are churchmen. The church is not our only nation, city, and family — but it is our first nation, city, and family.

BLM responds,

Keep in mind with this sentence we see the ecclesiocentrism that Lusk’s Federal Vision has always been known for. Practically speaking Lusk is collapsing the various jurisdictional realms ordained by God — Family, Church, and Governments — into one. The Church is so esteemed that the family and Governments fade into the background. Of course such a reading was highly disputed by Rushdoony who gave the family the pride of place. I disagree with both RJR and Lusk. The Church and the Family are as necessary in import as the right and left leg are to walking. Allow me to say again here that the Christian Church does not negate the importance of Christian family. Nor does Christian family negate the importance of the Christian Church. Lusk confuses the biblical jurisdictions in his ecclesiocentrism with the result that when push comes to shove the Church, as in medieval Rome, always trumps all.

RL writes,

Kinists like to point to the example of John Knox, who prayed, “Give me Scotland, lest I die!” Obviously Knox had a deep, natural affection for his homeland. But note a couple things. First, Knox did not equate his “people” with a race but with a geopolitical nation. He did not pray “Give me white people lest I die.” Knox understood the Bible does not categorize people according to skin color, but according to nations, tribes, peoples, and languages, which can include genetic ties, but can also be much more permeable and fluid.

BLM replies,

Knox is appealing to God for the Scottish people. Lusk is merely going all red herring here.

That Knox did not pray “Give me white people lest I die,” only proves that white people as a whole were not being sought out for elimination. If white people in the 16th century were in danger of being replaced then Knox may well have prayed “Give me white people lest I die,” as the Scots were one subgroup among white people. As it was it was the subgrouping of the Scots that Knox could plead for.

And what could possible be wrong with praying, “Give me white people lest I die?” Are white people any less in need of God’s visitation of grace and mercy right now than any other people? Why is Lusk so put out that someone might pray … “Give me white people lest I die?”

Next, as long as the Bible can talk about the inability of the Ethiopian to change his skin (Jer. 13:23) I can rightly believe that the Bible does categorize people according to races despite RL’s protestations to the contrary.

RL writes,

Second, Knox was also an ecclesiocentrist, willing to leave his homeland for Geneva to escape persecution and to get better pastoral training. He loved Scotland but he was also willing to leave it if necessary. He loved his homeland but it was subordinate to other loves. His top priority was the gospel. He prayed for Scotland not merely because of his natural affection for his national kin, but because of a supernatural affection that drove him to want to see his nation discipled in terms of the Great Commission. But precisely because he put the gospel first, Knox could find deep spiritual kinship with men from other nations, like the Frenchman Calvin and the German Bucer.

BLM responds,

Right, Knox was ecclesiocentric because he fled so he might not be killed. Everybody knows that fleeing one’s homeland in order to not be killed is proof that one is ecclesiocentric. Lusk asks us to believe that Knox, who was fighting the ecclesiocentric beast that was the Roman Catholic Church, was himself also ecclesiocentric and this despite the fact that Knox did not pray, “Give me the Church lest I die,” but rather prayed “Give me my extended kin lest I die.”

I quite believe all loves need to be subordinate to love for Christ but that is not the same as embracing the foolish ecclesiocentrism that one finds among the Federal Visionists and the CREC.

Finally, Lusk’s intimation that Kinists would never embrace spiritual kinship with men of different races is just grandstanding. I have several kinist friends who are not White. Like Lusk’s Bucer, Calvin, and Knox, my friendship circle includes a black South African kinist, and a Filipino kinist, and a S. American black kinist. My extended family also includes blacks. When we have family reunions we do just fine. None of this however need negate for any of us the realities of how we belong to both a shared faith and our respective different family kin.

Darrell Dow Unravels Lusk’s Lunacy on Kinism — Part III

I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel when it comes to dismantling nonsense. As such in this post I yield to my fellow Michigander and one of my best friends Darrell Dow as Dow just demolishes Rev. Rich Lusk’s claim that Colonial America was not Kinist in its conviction.

Before turning it over to Darrell allow me to apologize if some find some of my responses jagged. You have to understand dear reader I have been going at this hammer and tong for over a decade now. It gets a bit frustrating when you have to answer the same questions and accusations over and over again. Rev. Lusk now shows up trotting out the same old tired accusations and arguments as if now that someone of his stature is making them somehow those arguments which have been repeatedly dismissed by Kinists over the years somehow gain more traction because they have fallen from his fingertips. It is well past aggravating. We Kinists keep returning the same service of the Alienists and all they can do is keep serving the same serve that was smashed returned for game, set, and match. Now combine this with the insults that come in our direction of being racist, or of identifying more with our people group then with Christ, or of being heretics and it just gets well past old — especially when we are the orthodox ones, bowing to the weight of Scripture and Church history.

Anyway, having said that we turn it over to Dow’s spanking of Lusk. Seriously, once Dow is done here with Lusk it becomes instantly apparent that Lusk should go sit down, shut up, and never write another work on this subject as long as he lives. This response reveals that Lusk is no better a Historian than he is a theologian.

Rev. Lusk wrote,

The question has been asked: Did the original American colonists have a kinist vision of people and place? I think the answer is quite obviously, no, they did not. The Europeans who came to America to settle the “new world” came precisely because they put faith ahead of their love for people and place. Leaving their native land, including many family members, behind in order to found a new civilization, they put their faith and their commitment to a purified church above everything else. The Europeans who settled on this continent were ecclesiocentrists rather than kinists, and if they had been kinists, they would have never left Europe. No matter how important people and place were in their minds, they put their commitment to the church ahead of them, which is why they were willing to leave people and place behind (much as biblical saints like Abraham and Ruth did centuries before).

Darrell Dow Responds,

Rich Lusk has written an article on race and nationalism. It should come as no surprise but there are numerous half-truths and logical fallacies, and good bit of misrepresentation. Untangling the various threads will take some work, but I want to begin by unpacking just one comment and comparing it with the historical record.

Lusk is effectively asking in the quote above if America’s Founders on the whole could be described as ethno-nationalists rather than propositionalists. In short, was citizenship tied to blood? Lusk claims that the answer is obvious, though he does not provide a single citation from any American statesman or early documents to make his case. He simply asserts that is true and expects his readers to believe it to be so. But is it? I’ll provide a sampler to help evaluate the claim. Note that I could have pulled MANY more quotes (see the link in the first comment). I begin with Revolution Era figures and also provide a number of citations from later figures. Again, this could go on almost indefinitely.

Let us begin with legislation offered in the state of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson which was designed to define citizenship in the commonwealth.

“Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any alien, BEING A FREE WHTE PERSON, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization,”

In a letter, Jefferson explains his concern with having too many German immigrants and the need to disperse them (Benjamin Franklin held this same view.)

“Although as to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation, yet English emigrants are without this inconvenience.” – Letter to George Fowler, Sept. 12, 1817

Alexander Hamilton who disagreed with Jefferson on many important questions in the life of the early republic, agreed with him on the debilitating consequences of immigration.

“The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived, or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”

Benjamin Franklin

“[T]he Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably [sic] very small… . I could wish their Numbers were increased…. But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.” – Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. “Which leads me to add one remark: That the number of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion ; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English make the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light to the eyes of inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the sight of superior beings, darken its people? why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such kind of partiality is natural to Mankind.”

– Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.

Here is the language of the Naturalization Act of 1790, which the first Congress passed.

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law to support the Constitution of the United States, which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer, and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States. And the children of such person so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States .”

James Madison endorsed colonization and indeed later ran the colonization society.

“To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the U.S. freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or allotted to a White population.”

Abraham Lincoln (who also supported colonization).

“I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold oﬃce, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical diﬀerence between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”

Stephen Douglas.

For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any form. I believe that this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the beneﬁt of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of conﬁning the citizenship to white men—men of European birth and European descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes and Indians, and other inferior races.”

Calvin Coolidge.

“There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend…. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”

McAtee Unravels Lusk’s Lunacy on Kinism — Part II

In Rev. Rich Lusk (RL) we learn that some people are more clever than they are intelligent.

RL writes,

There is certainly a connection between love of father (= patriarchy) and love of fatherland (= patritiotism). Kinists have that right. But the central driving force in history is the church, not any particular kin group.

BLM responds,

Of course Kinists have right the connection between patriarchy and patriotism. Kinists have an annoying habit of being right.

Once again, Lusk embraces the Christian faith as an abstraction, as if it can exist apart from and independent of particular ethnic groups/races. It is true that conceptually Christianity is a set of doctrines and confessional commitments. However, it is also true that the Christian faith in order to have hands and feet has to be incarnated into people groups. The Church that RL appeals to is a Church as it exists in a time and place as inhabited by a particular people. As such RL once again gives us a false dichotomy (do they sell false dichotomies in the CREC by the ton?) when he says that the central driving force in history is the church, not any particular kin group. The central driving force in world history for the last 1000 years (at least) has been the Church has it has been, by God’s grace alone, inhabited to the White European Christian. Now, to say this anymore is not considered in good taste and it definitely is now thought to be a hate fact but, as they say, it is what it is. It is the White European Christian Church who brought the Christian faith to pagandom. It is the White European Christian Church who claimed pagan lands for Christ. It is the White European Christian Church who gave us Christian Western civilization. It is the White European Christian Church that gave us the printing press, gave us the age of exploration, gave us the Reformation, gave us these United States as a Reformed nation, gave us the possibility of science in the best sense of that word, gave us Martel, Sobieski, Calvin, Knox, Cromwell, Viret, Beza, Rutherford, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Hus, Luther, Wycliffe, Warfield, the Hodges, Machen, Vos, Turretin, Lavellette, Whitfield, Lloyd-Jones, Clark, Van Til, Bahnsen, Sproul, Singer, Kuyper, Chalmers, Dabney, Thornwell, Girardeau, Palmer, Van Prinesterer, Bavinck, These are all men of the Church who are also at the same time men who were White European Christians. So, we see again that all because the central driving force of history is the Church that does not mean that no particular kin group, completely as in God’s providence, hasn’t also been a central driving force in history. Like so many of the Chieftains in the CREC Rev. Lusk specializes in false dichotomies.

RL writes,

Or to put it another way, water is thicker than blood. Spiritual kinship will always trump genetic kinship.

BLM responds,

Another false dichotomy. It is true that the water of Baptism is thick but keep in mind that God hath also said;

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,

And again,

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Of course blood alone does not save just as water alone does not save. However the thick water of Baptism is, in God’s grace and providence, runs in blood generations. Is water therefore really thicker than blood?

RL writes,

The Christian’s primary culture will always be the culture of the kingdom of God. “My people” are first and foremost those who are in God’s family, those who are in the covenant of grace, those with whom I will spend all eternity. This does not make personal identity an abstraction and it does not destroy localized connections. But it does situate my personal identity as a white, male American (or whatever) within the larger story of the kingdom of God, which is destined to overtake and transform all the kingdoms of the world (Rev. 11:15).

BLM responds,

That is not what St. Paul says in Romans 9:3. Paul can still speak of the unconverted Hebrew people as “His Kin” whom he loves with an especial passion. As such we have to qualify carefully on this matter of “My People.” Is the Iranian Christian in Christ that I don’t know really more “my people” than my Father who is a pagan? In some sense “yes,” and in some sense “no.” Careful distinctions have to be made here Rich.

And despite Rev. Lusk’s protestations to the contrary his argumentation does make personal identity a Gnostic abstraction and it does destroy localized connections. Lusk wants to have it both ways. He wants to hint that he is a little bit kinist while being whole hog Alienist. Sorry Rich … it is not possible to be a little bit Country and a little bit Rock -n- Roll.

In the last sentence Lusk tips his hand in how he views the Kingdom of God. Lusk views the Kingdom of God like we would expect an Alienist to view the Kingdom of God. He views it as an amalgamated multicult Kingdom where all the peoples are jammed together without kin or national distinction. This is not what we find in Revelation 21 where

24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

Notice it is the nations as nations that are walking by its light and it is the Kings are Kings over their respective nations who will bring the splendor of their distinct nations into the new Jerusalem. Further on in Revelation we learn that the “leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” Once again it is nations as nations … peoples as peoples who are considered as gathered in the New Jerusalem. Scripture does not teach that we will enter into a multicult heaven but rather we will enter into the New Jerusalem as part of our Christian National and Church community. The Church we can conclude therefore is comprised as a confederation of nations having a one and many unity. The Oneness as found in our joint confession of the great and magnificent Lord Jesus Christ. The diversity found in the retaining of our assigned distinctive creational reality. We will no more lose our ethnicity in the Kingdom of God then we will lose our gender.

The Kingdom of God will indeed transform the Kingdoms of this world but He will transform them from pagan to Christian. He will not be transforming them by way of deleting from them their ethnic identity.

This quote of Dr. Vos points in the direction I have laid out above;

Romans 11:17, 19, with its “branches broken off” metaphor has frequently been viewed as proof of the relativity and changeability of election, and it is pointed out that at the end of vs. 23, the Gentile Christians are threatened with being cut off in case they do not continue in the kindness of God. But wrongly. Already this image of engrafting should have restrained such an explanation. This image is nowhere and never used of the implanting of an individual Christian, into the mystical body of Christ by regeneration. Rather, it signifies the reception of a racial line or national line into the dispensation of the covenant or their exclusion from it. This reception of course occurs by faith in the preached word, and to that extent, with this engrafting of a race or a nation, there is also connected the implanting of individuals into the body of Christ. The cutting off, of course, occurs by unbelief; not, however, by the unbelief of person who first believed, but solely by the remaining in unbelief of those who, by virtue of their belonging to the racial line, should have believed and were reckoned as believers. So, a rejection ( = multiple rejections) of an elect race is possible, without it being connected to a reprobation of elect believers. Certainly, however, the rejection of a race or nation involves at the same time the personal reprobation of a sequence of people. Nearly all the Israelites who are born and die between the rejection of Israel as a nation and the reception of Israel at the end times appear to belong to those reprobated. And the thread of Romans 11:22 (of being broken off) is not directed to the Gentile Christians as individual believers but to them considered racially.”

Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol. 1 — 118

Also, listen to Calvin Seminary Professor Martin Wyngaarden from the 1960’s on Isaiah 19 thus suggesting that it is you Rev. Lusk who is in error;

“Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will therefore be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, THOUGH EACH REMAINS NATIONALLY DISTINCT.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. YET the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Wyngaarden, pp. 101-102.

McAtee Unravels Lusk’s Lunacy on Kinism — Part I

I’ve been away for awhile with various matters drawing me away from Iron Ink. However, Rev. Rich Lusk has a way of bringing me back to my love of writing. This is not the first time I’ve had a go at something Lusk has written on Kinism. Last year on the same subject we find

McAtee Contra Lusk’s Gnosticism

Lusk and I also in years past have tangled on his support of the heresy of Federal Vision across different sites on the web. I’m not a big fan of Rich and I suppose he is not president of my fan club — such as it is.

Before I engage Rev. Lusk’s offering let me say that my Spidey senses are tingling on the matter of the CREC (Doug Wilson’s own personal paedo-creedo denomination) and Kinism. That is to say that there is some circumstantial evidence that begins to suggest that there is unrest in what is thought to be the last Elven home (Rivendell) of “conservative” Reformed denominationalism. Members of the CREC keep turning to the issue of Kinism in denunciation which makes one think there must be some kind of threat of Kinism prospering in the denomination. I mean, why else do CREC types online keeps returning to the subject?

Rev. Lusk (Hereafter RL) writes,

Love of people and place is virtuous. It is good to love one’s family, and love of one’s family easily extends to a love of nation, which is largely an extension of the family. One way to honor my mother and father (and grandmother and grandfather, etc.) is to honor the land in which I was born. Cultivating love of people and place is an application of the fifth commandment, among other things.

BLM responds,

This paragraph is pure on Kinism. I’m glad to see Lusk confessing what the Scripture routinely teaches.

RL writes,

(1) But kinists take the love of people and place to an unwarranted, unbiblical, even idolatrous extreme. (2) For the kinist, “my people” comes to mean primarily people of a certain skin color. (3) Skin color becomes more essential to identity than faith. (4) Skin color becomes synonymous with culture, so that defending one is the same as defending the other. (5) Kinists want to build a racially homogenous civilization because they believe racial unity is the key to social harmony. (6) But this is a misplacement of the antithesis, which divides people not according to skin color but according to their spiritual state. (7) Biblically, it is faith rather than skin color that is determinative. (8) To put it in concrete terms: I would much rather build a culture with Clarence Thomas and Voddie Baucham (who share my faith but not my skin color) than Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi (who share my skin color but not my faith). (9) Culture is not tied to skin to skin color in the way kinists seem to think. (10)Insofar as culture is the product of religious conviction (which it always is), white people do not share a common culture because not all white people share a common faith. (11) And many people with other skin colors might be much closer to some white people in culture because they do share the same faith. (12) God’s Word requires us to make careful distinctions. (13) Further, the Great Commission requires the Christian faith to permeate every nation — indeed, every culture and subculture — with the gospel. (14) If kinists claim that cultures should remain homogenous and closed off to all outside influence, they make the mission of the church impossible. (15) The Great Commission requires a certain level of cross-cultural intermixing and influence. (16) That is not the same thing as the borderless, multi-cultural “new world order” the globalists dream of, but neither is it identical to the racially segregated world he kinists want.

BLM responds,

(1.) I always get a jolt by reading what Alienists say kinists believe. It is akin to reading Arminians describe what Calvinists believe or listening to Baptists tell me what covenant means.

But, I must admit that just this morning I demonstrated my idolatrous extreme by entering my kinist shrine which I have in my house (all kinists have shrines to their ancestors in their homes). Once in my shrine I went through the steps of my idolatrous extreme by lighting candles and reciting chants to my ancestors. This was only after I forced my children to recite their ancestors names back to me going back 15th generations.

(2a.) Lusk writes in his first paragraph about how it is proper to love one’s own nation and yet he seems to forget that etymologically to love one’s own nation means to love those who are descended from a common ancestor. Webster’s 1828 dictionary notes,

“nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe…”

Now obviously, it is very unusual any more to be able to limit “nation” to this definition what with immigration, and conquest or forced intermixture, it still remains the case that nation by etymological definition means what we find italicized in the definition above.

If all men in a nation are descended from a common ancestor then obviously skin color is going to part of that dynamic. Therefore, Lusk has a serious contradiction between his first paragraph and the first sentence of his second paragraph.

(2b.) Next on this score Lusk goes all reductionistic on us by suggesting that people groups can be reduced to being just a matter of skin color (melanin level). This is the constant nonsense that emanates from the communication hole of Alienists. Kinists reject the suggestion that a people group is primarily only about skin color. Certainly skin color may be one particular aspect about a people group but to suggest that is all that Kinists care about is just stupidity parading as profundity.

(2c.) Is Lusk going to fault the Apostle Paul when he speaks of the special love for people of his own race in Romans 9:3? Has the Holy Spirit in that passage suddenly found himself involved in an unwarranted, unbiblical, and even idolatrous extreme?

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race — Romans 9:3

(3.) This is utter bull feces. The Kinist raises Christ above all other considerations. They can sing with Luther, “Let goods and kindred go,” unlike the Alienist who having no love for kindred think it no big deal to “let kindred go.” However, all because Christ must have the preeminence that does not mean that therefore there shouldn’t be a proper natural affection for one’s own people just as we find in St. Paul.

There is an implied false dichotomy in what Lusk writes. His false dichotomy is that a person can only love Christ or he can only love his God ordained extended family as if those two loves are necessarily exclusive and contradictory.

It is interesting that Lusk would never warn that maleness or femaleness not become more essential to identity than Christ. All Christians immediately understand that their maleness or femaleness is part of their identity that they have as in Christ. However, Lusk seemingly thinks that somehow we should automatically separate our belongingness to our people as not being part of our identity in Christ as if grace doesn’t automatically restore nature. Lusk is positing a false dichotomy here between grace and nature and thus demonstrates what he has been accused of before in the Federal Vision debate that he is a latent Gnostic.

(4a.) Once again Lusk continues with his reductionistic nonsense by constantly referring to races and peoples are merely a matter of “skin color.”

(4b.) While one’s ethnicity and/or race certainly is not exactly synonymous with culture it is also the case that the two can not be disentangled from one another. To think that culture has nothing to do with race as Lusk is proposing once again finds the door opened to bringing forth the charge of Gnosticism against Lusk. To suggest that culture and race have nothing to do with each other defies the definition that culture is the outward manifestation of a people’s inward beliefs. Culture is comprised of two realities; i.) a people groups genetic disposition — who God has created a people to be and ii.) what it is that people group believes regarding ultimate reality. To suggest that culture is only about what goes on between the ears of assorted and random individuals is just nothing but Gnosticism. It is a dishonoring of the corporeal side of who we are as humans as God as God has created us.

(5.) Kinists do not believe that racial unity is the only key to social harmony. However, they do believe it is one key to social harmony. Certainly, racial unity absent worldview/faith unity is not going to yield social harmony. However, we see in Acts 6 that neither does faith unity as existing among different people groups necessarily yield social harmony. So, we see that Kinists believe that social harmony is best achieved by the presence of both racial unity as combined with worldview/faith unity. Therefore, here we have established that Lusk is just in error with his assertion.

(6.) The antithesis is drawn so as to distinguish who is in Christ and who is not in Christ. The Reformed antithesis is not about what makes for the best social order circumstances. As John Frame has noted with regard to both Society and Church (which is a much smaller subset than a nation)

“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”

(7.) Biblically it is faith and not skin color that is determinative of who is in Christ. All agree with Lusk there but that has nothing to do with what makes for the greatest harmony among a nation and its social order.

(8.) Who can disagree with what Lusk says in #8 above? However, that does nothing to disprove the issue at hand. It may be true that I would rather build a culture with biblical Christians of other ethnicities/races than I would to try to build a culture with pagans who belong to my own ethnicity/race but it is even more true that people from different races/ethnicity would prefer to build a culture with Christians from their own race and ethnicity than with Christians from a WASP race/ethnicity. And there is not the slightest thing wrong with that or un-Christian about that. Being in Christ doesn’t mean that grace destroys nature so that being in Christ means that all nature differences and distinctions no longer exist. It is perfectly acceptable, for example, for Koreans to want to worship with other Koreans vis-a-vis worshiping with WASPs. It is perfectly acceptable, for example, for the historic American Black Churches to desire to remain an entity that remains Black. All of this is about natural affections that God made.

(9.) Another Gnostic statement from Lusk. Culture and ethnicity/race while distinct are not divorced and are intimately tied together.

(10.) See #4b above.

(11.) And many ethnicities/races might be even closer still to their own Christian peoples/races than they are to WASPs because those people of other ethnicities/races shared the same faith with their people.

Note again here though the Gnostic Lusk reducing ethnicity/race to “skin color.” This is like reducing the meaning of Christianity to people agreeing only on the statement “I love Jesus.”

(12.) And here I continue to wait for Lusk to make the careful distinctions necessary instead of the hatchet job he is making of all this.

(13.) Elsewhere we learn that water is wet.

(14.) No Kinist is so stupid as to believe that social-orders can be hermetically sealed off so that heterogenous influences don’t weigh on particular social orders. Only Alienists could be stupid enough to think this way.

(15.) Lusk needs to read Roland Allen’s “St. Paul’s Missionary Methods and Ours.” In that book Lusk would learn that St. Paul would stay something like 6 months in different lands before he would push on to the next land. In that time St. Paul would entrust the nascent church to indigenous leadership so that the Church planted there would be kinist. There would thus be comparatively little intermixing and influence.

(16.) What the Kinist pray for is for all the nations — all the distinct ethnic/racial peoples that God has ordained to exist to find themselves all swearing allegiance to Jesus Christ as in their nations.