Uncategorized – Page 22

From the Mailbag … Jack takes Pastor Bret to the Woodshed … Bret Demurs.

As I look at the list of authors you seem to adhere to, who are the usual suspects tied to Christian reconstruction, it is no shock at all you speak out against folks like Horton, because it is a necessity on your part. It is also not a shock to see one who is tied to Christian reconstruction twist what one has to say, because it has been my experience to witness this being the case. As an example, in the quote you supply by Horton, he does not in any way say, “Islam is not an external threat to the United States.” Rather, what Horton actually said was, “Islam is not an external threat to Christianity.” Let us look at the quote you supply again,

“Islam is not an external threat in the United State to Christianity”

There is a tremendous difference between saying, “Islam is not an external threat IN the United States” as opposed to saying, “Islam is not an external threat TO the United States” as you have Horton saying. In other words, Horton is saying, Islam is not in any way an external threat to Christianity in the U.S. If you are under the impression Islam is a threat to Christianity, then I would have to wonder who you think is in charge? In other words, if it is Christ who is advancing His Kingdom, then how can Islam, or anything else be a threat to this advancement? The bottom line here is though, Horton does not say anything, “about Islam not being an external threat to the US” as you have him saying. Therefore, one is not reading very carefully. Or are they are being less than honest about what was actually said?

Allow me to end here by saying, I have no stomach at all for, Christian nationalism, Christian reconstruction, Federal vision, and the like. I have no interest in engaging in the culture wars. Because you see, while a large portion of the Church has been so preoccupied with what is going on outside the Church, with the likes of science, the homosexuals, abortionists, and what Disney World is doing, it has failed to actually nurture those inside the Church. It is a fact that the Church has involved itself in the culture wars, and it is a fact the Church has lost the war. The Church lost the war, not because of science, homosexuals, abortionists, and Disney World, but rather because the Church itself has produced more atheists, than any of these other perceived threats, because the Church is more concerned about culture, (what was going on outside the Church) than it is about what was going on inside the Church. Therefore, while the Church was so busy outside, it’s children were leaving the Church in droves, as atheists. Maybe it is time for the Chruch to worry about those inside the Church, ensuring the flock is thoroughly equipped, getting the Gospel correct, in order for the flock to go out in order to share the true Gospel to a world in desperate need, instead of being under the impression that law has the power to save us as opposed to Gospel.

This sort of reminds me of when Paul said,

“For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?”

So then, it does not seem as if Paul was concerned with the behavior of those outside the Church. Rather, his concern seems to be with those inside. Just before Paul said this, he had this to say,

“I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.”

Again, where is the focus? Is it with the culture war? My point is, maybe it is time for the Chruch to focus upon those who name the Name of Christ, instead upon those who do not? In this way, instead of the Church boycotting the likes of Disney World, who does not name the Name of Christ, we would instead boycott those ministries who do name the Name of Christ who are preaching a false Gospel forbidding any of our members from supporting such ministries. If this were the case, it would have been impossible to have such ministries as, Praise the Lord Club, Oral Roberts, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, and the like. Instead, we are concerned about Disney.

Jack O’Neal Hanley

1.) As I read your comment I see that you are a fanboy of some kind of version of Radical Two Kingdom theology. It’s not a shock that you speak against people like me or that you have a bad case of understanding historic Biblical Christianity as that is a necessity for your Weltanschauung.

2.) Reconstruction is basic Christianity. Reconstruction is an inescapable category. By your refusal to engage the culture wars (culture is merely religion externalized) you are, by your retreat, reconstructing the culture in a non-Christian direction inasmuch as your absence allows the wicked to reconstruct religion externalized as they like without your loyalty to Jesus Christ being advanced in the culture (which is defined as religion externalized). All who reconstruct by not reconstructing are cowards. That’s right. I called you a coward. A Nancy boy. A Pajama boy. One of Christ’s soldiers who refuses to engage the enemy under a cloak of pietistic “but we’re not supposed to hate that which is evil and cling to that which is good.” We’re not really supposed to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” We’re not really supposed to be “pulling down strongholds, ⁵casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” You say to me … “Don’t you know that Christianity is a private matter. It is not supposed to impact the public square.”

3.) Your sophistry is epic. On the one hand you fault me for saying that Horton did not say the Islam was not a threat to the US while on the other hand you say that because God is sovereign therefore Islam can not be a threat to Christianity in the US. But if God is sovereign than it is also true that Islam can’t be a threat to the US. If God is sovereign Islam was never a threat to the northern littoral of Africa in the 7th century and neither was Islam ever a threat to Christianity in the Northern littoral of Africa in the 7th century. Indeed, we may as well lose the word “threatening” since God is sovereign. God is sovereign therefore stupidity is no threat to your ability to reason. God is sovereign therefore the enemies design on His Kingdom can never be spoken of as a “threat.”

The fact that I might think that Islam is a threat to Christianity is grounded in the on the ground facts we are living. It is not a confession that Islam will stop God’s Kingdom advance. It is not surrendering. It is merely saying that God has ordained means to His sovereign ends and those sovereign means to His sovereign ends means conceding that certain areas are threatening.

As another example, when I say your kind of stupidity is a threat to Biblical Christianity, I don’t mean that in the end, I think your kind of stupidity might actually conquer all, though there are some days when my faith is smaller than other days.

4.) Yes you have no stomach for nationalism, Christian Reconstructionism, Federal Vision and the like. And you probably gag at the notion of shooting firearms, eating hot peppers, bench pressing weights, getting dirty or competing in any arena. I imagine when you filled out your Passport form when it asked for your sex you checked “other.”

And just for the record… this blog is filled with anti-Federal Vision posts. That was a swing and a miss on your part.

5.) “Failed to nurture those inside the Church”

LOL … I’ve heard your Escondido preacher-boys preach. Don’t try to tell me that they are “nurturing the Church.” The Escondido boys traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, they make him twice as much a son of hell as they are. The Escondido boys are poisonous sacks infecting the whole visible Church with their Gnosticism and their Reformed Dispensationalism. If they win out the Church will either collapse until the Augean R2K stables are cleaned out in some certain future day or the Church will end up being a pale reflection of the culture (religion externalized) as it already currently is.

6.) “It is a fact that the Church has lost the culture wars.”

a.) Can you give me a brief time period when the Church was fighting the culture wars? The Church has been filled with pietists and quietists and retreatists like you for decades if not centuries in America.

b.) Since God is sovereign how can you dare say that the Church has lost the culture wars? Here, I would have to wonder who you think is in charge? In other words, if it is Christ who is advancing His Kingdom, then how can the Church lose the culture war? (Psst… that’s a “you’ve been hoisted on your own petard argument.)

c.) Certainly the Church as asleep has lost the culture wars. Certainly the Church as disobedient has lost the culture wars. Certainly the Church effeminate has lost the culture wars.

7.)

“The Church lost the war, not because of science, homosexuals, abortionists, and Disney World, but rather because the Church itself has produced more atheists, than any of these other perceived threats, because the Church is more concerned about culture, (what was going on outside the Church) than it is about what was going on inside the Church.”

The Church lost you tihspid because it quit being salt and light to the area where religion is externalized (culture). The loss began way back in the American revision of the WCF where the American Presbyterians anabaptized the document by playing with the section on the Magistrate. The church lost because it turned Christianity into a privatized affair that is only relevant as between the individual and God and as occurring in the individuals “heart.” The Church lost because in the movement from Princeton to Westminster the pestiferous Dutch theologians with their ruinous Amillennialism changed the Reformed narrative from Postmillennialism to Amillennialism. Because of this the Church thinks it is winning when it is losing. “It’s the way it is supposed to happen according to the Bible,” says the militant Amillennialists. “Jesus is going to come rescue us just when it looks like we are swirling the drain.” The Church lost because it didn’t intellectually engage with the myth of Scientism. The Church lost because it didn’t insist that Homosexuality and infant murder remain capital crimes. The Church lost because it lost the backbone of men like Calvin, Knox, Rutherford, Cromwell, and Goodman. The Church lost because they got more of their theology from Walt Disney than they did Groen Van Prinisterer.

Finally, my little plaything, lets keep in mind that it was only because of the above explanation that the Church needed to start addressing Abortion, Sodomy, Disney, and Scientism because those came into the Church because the Church refused to FIGHT.

8.) “Getting the Gospel correct”

LOL … yep boys… belly up to the R2K bar where Reformed Dispensationalism and Rot Gut Lutheran Law and Gospel are the house specials. At the R2K “Bar & Grill” we will teach you the proper ordo salutis. We will teach you the proper view of Lapsarianism. We will teach you a High Presbyterian ecclesiology. At the R2K Bar and Grill you’ll be able to learn to recite the Westminster catechism (the long one even) but what you will never ever be equipped to do is to take that sharp sword and know how to use it. All we teach you will be abstractions. Concrete praxis need not apply. Worldviews? We don’t do no stinking worldviews. After all, we are too busy getting the Gospel correct.

I despise the R2K Gospel. I spit on it. Any Gospel that apriori diminishes and negates the Mediatorial Kingship of Jesus Christ over every area of life is complete emesis. Any Gospel that says that there are some areas wherein Christ’s Kingdom never touch so as to be Reformed along Biblical lines is a treasonous proposition.

9.) “Law has the power to save.”

Insert loud buzzer sound.

Insert announcer’s voiceover: “I’m sorry Mr. Hanley you guessed wrong on the subject you chose: “What do Reconstructionists believe.” We are sorry to inform you Mr. Contestant that now Reconstructionists believes that the Law saves. You can now continue on with the game and experience ever increasing embarrassment and shame at being so consistently in error or you can quit now with your tail between your legs and save whatever little dignity you have left.

No Reconstructionists believes the law saves. However, basic Christianity does hold to the 2nd use (politicus usus) of the law and so there is a place for Christians to insist that the Magistrate rule by God’s law and God’s law alone. You do remember John the B. telling the Pagan Herod that he was not to have his Brother’s wife? Stupid John the Baptist… didn’t he know that the law did not have the power to save Herod?

Dude, your categories are so buggered up that I’d have to reconstruct them before I could thoroughly show you how completely wrong you are.

We agree … the law has no power to save. We do not agree that because God’s law in it’s first use cannot save therefore we should not employ God’s second use of the law as in the civil realm.

10.) “the Church itself has produced more atheists, than any of these other perceived threats,”

Now, I’m going to resist listing the prominent Reformed Pillars of the Church and their sons by name who have gone off the rails because I’m a polite guy. But I can think of five just off the top of my head. All of these sons were nurtured in the Church that you envision and all of them went belly up doctrinally or morally.

Which son can we NOT add to that list? I know … we can’t add Mark Rushdoony, son of the Reconstructionist R. J. Rushdoony.

11.) Now in terms of your spoof texting: Here i am Bubba … judging you who is in the Church just as you are Judging me who is in the Church. How’s that going for you?

12.) That’s God’s law is totalistic and applicable to all men is seen in Jonah’s ministry to pagan (non-covenant) Nineveh. It is seen in Daniel’s declaration to Nebuchadnezzar. Let’s remember the pagan Canaanites whose cup of wickedness was not yet full when God spoke to Father Abraham but when it became full God judged them for their violations against His law-Character.

It is seen in Paul’s words to Timothy;

“Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,”

Now … go away before you begin to irk me.

AP Lugenpresse Expresses the Vapors Over the Rise of Not Particularly Christian White Nationalism

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-religion-nationalism-8bf7a6115725f508a37ef944333bc145

Pity then mock the poor “intellectual” who fears the rise of “Christian White Nationalism.” It is precisely that he has spent his life seeking to obliterate and bury. Yet, despite all his efforts he is now writing articles about the rise and threat of Christian White Nationalism. He must be stone cold petrified at even the whiff of Christian White Nationalism since he knows that Christian White Nationalism alone can sink his hopes for his Luciferian New World Order. Furthermore, he knows, that should such a reverse happen at this late hour it would by necessity mean the pulling down of his own social order house and possibly his very life.

Just imagine if AP News came across the 100 proof variety of Christian White Nationalism. They would first wet, and then soil their pants. The Christian Nationalism they are whining about in the article is the watered down hooch. What they are scared of in the article is some variant of Dispensational, Pentecostalism, or squishy Evanjellyfishism. Just imagine how out of their minds they would be if a Calvin, Knox, Rutherford or Goodman showed up at the party.

Of course, before Christian White Nationalism can arise it must be driven by a Christian Church teaching garden variety Christianity — you know the kind of Christianity that built the West. Since that is true before there can be counter-Revolution in the social order there must first be counter-Revolution in the Church. There are many clergy that must have done to them what Friar Tuck does to the conniving money hungry Bishop in Kevin Costner’s Robinhood. They must be defenestrated — preferably, metaphorically. Christian White Nationalism will not return in the Social Order before the foundation is recognized again in Christian White Churches.

We see this assault against Christian White Nationalism by Doug Wilson in his CREC denomination. Recently the Maven from Moscow posted;

“So the need of the hour is repentance and reformation—and the reformation as outlined above is going to be genuinely radical. It will go to the root (radix), and so it will be radical reformation. Simple reaction to all the regnant follies may seem more radical, at least initially, but it is actually just the radicalism of a Kleenex fire. I am talking about all those possible Nietzschean reactions, of the sort that you can find among the proud boys, or the alt-right, or with white boy summer memes. “

Pope Doug Wilson I

Doug, “there is no such thing as races” Wilson never misses the opportunity to bang on some form of race-realism or ethno-Nationalism” and in the above we see that impulse again. This is especially seen when it is realized how the “White Boy Summer” memes have just been crushing the Alienism of Doug “open the borders” Wilson.

I am here to tell you there will be no Reformation as long as the ideology that Pope Doug is selling is the currency in the Reformed Church. One wonders what world Pope Doug is living in? Is he still caught in the 1960’s Lugenpresse civil rights matrix narrative? Is he still drinking the swill from Brown vs. the Board of Education? Is he still caressing his Martin Luther King poster every morning? The man is unhinged on this issue — that is, he is completely divorced from the reality that Christians are living.

The NWO, Great Reset Crowd is obviously seeking, in the words of Clare Ellis to “Blacken Europe.” It doesn’t take many power of observation to see the same attempt is being made here. Note that the real agenda behind this blender reality pursuit is to deconstruct what little remains of Western Christendom, and Pope Doug, along with his alleged R2K opposition is paving the way for this Christian Replacement to occur.

You see what is interesting here is I also have no tuck with the Alt. Right and much of the Proud Boys but I have no tuck with it as arguing from the Christian Right and not the pagan left where Pope Doug is.

At the end of the day the man is embracing the deracinated, globalist, non-Christian, vision that the NWO and Great Reset and Agenda 2030 are advocating. Pope Doug is playing Sauruman to Klaus Schwab’s Sauron. Praying that God would raise up for His people a Gandalf type.

Let’s be clear here. I think what Wilson envisions is the same New World Order type of reality that NWO is after with the exception that Doug envisions this blender globalist reality to be Christian. So, the difference between Wilson (and his former running mate Leithart) and say someone like Justin Trudeau is that whereas for Trudeau the eventually globalist cosmopolitanism that arises by the mixing of all is aimed as being anchored in some kind of Luciferianism/humanism whereas for Doug the elimination of the Nations will birth a cosmopolitan coffee latte Kingdom of God that covers the globe. I think Doug thinks that nations will go into eclipse once Christ’s Kingship is established.

And if I’m right about this then Doug will understandably continue to seek to immanentize the eschaton that he envisions. Which means he’s not going to give up on his Alienism since it is how he envisions the coming success of postmillennialism.

I’d kind of like to hope that Pope Doug is not doing so intentionally but clearly, regardless of intentions, New World Orderism is what Pope Doug is pushing.

But… it’s not to late Pope Doug. If you will just repent you too can still enjoy the White Boy Summer.

It may be that in God’s inscrutable providence that the era of Christian White Nationalism and the Christian West is over. It may be that it will no more return than Czarist Russia or the Ante-bellum South. If that is so, God has something even better for the future. But until such a time that is clear we as God’s people — White or non-White, need to pray and work to the end that God would restore Christianity to the previous Christian White nations of the West.

Returning to the story linked we find some interesting statements:

“Scholars generally define Christian nationalism as going beyond policy debates and championing a fusion of American and Christian values, symbols and identity.”

Scholars are atwitter at the notion of Christian nationalism but they have no problem with the fusion of American and Humanist values. The reader should go look up the Humanist manifestos (they are the Humanist version of Creed or Confession) and see how much fusion has already occurred between American and Luciferian values. But of course the “Scholars” in question who are writing about the dangers of Christian nationalism and are sweating nervously about potential fusion of American and Christian values are themselves practicing Humanists/Luciferians whatever they may protest to the contrary. No Biblical Christian wakes up with the night sweats worried that a country may desire to bow the knee to Christ.

“Christian nationalism, they (scholars) say, is often accompanied by a belief that God has destined America, like the biblical Israel, for a special role in history, and that it will receive divine blessing or judgment depending on its obedience.”

Well, since Christians believe that God has destined everything then of course postmillennial Christians would believe that God has destined America for a special role in history. What is unsaid in that quote above is that these scholars believe that America’s teleology is guided by time + chance + circumstance. They hate the idea that God is sovereign. They hate the idea that all men everywhere are commanded to repent. They hate the idea that the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. They hate that the rock carved out of the Mountain mentioned in Daniel crushes all those nations that don’t pledge fealty to Christ.

Let it be said here also that White Christian Nationalist believe that every nation as inhabited by all the races of men finds God having for them a plan for them wherein they will glorify and honor the God of the Bible.

Finally, Scripture clearly teaches that God sanctions for rebellion and rewards obedience. That is Christianity 101.

Let us pray that it will be genuine Christianity that is restored in America and not this rotgut Pentecostal/Dispensational crap that we find so routinely among us. It is only the Christianity of the Reformation that can once again successfully inform a successful Christian White Nationalism.

Responding to Rev. Steve Hemmeke’s Take on His One Hour Reading of “Who is My Neighbor” — Part III

Steve Hemmeke is a Pastor of a CREC “church” in Livingstone Michigan. This is the final part of examining Steve’s “insights” into a 650 page Anthology that he looked at, by his own admission, for one hour. In that one hour Steve knows all about what Kinists believe. This series demonstrates that Rev. Steve, on this subject, is absolutely clueless.

Rev. Steve Hemmeke writes,

Doing this contributes to keeping the tyranny of the state at bay (a prevailing motivation of most kinists). Mediating institutions are needed: church, art guilds, faithful extended families, universities, non-profit organizations, social groups, etc. Find ways to build these up. There were several quotes in this book by Communists, who sought to blur and eliminate natural distinctions, to eliminate mediating institutions, so it would be easier to control the masses. There’s something to that. But the way to counter it isn’t to promote segregation. We may need walls to protect the church or societies, but they need to be permeable.

Bret responds,

1.) There’s something to that? There’s something to that?

It has been the goal of the Marxist from time immemorial and it remains the goal of the Cultural Marxists to put all mortal distinctions in a blender and hit the “fast” button. It is most certainly not just a slight “there’s something to that matter.” That’s like saying “there’s something to the idea that sex has something to do with pregnancy.” The goal to blenderized everybody is the lay of the land in the West today. It is not a mere passing thought we can wave our hands at.

2.) Despite the fact that there are a gazillion quotes where we find the Church fathers promoting segregation.

“Segregation or separation is thus a basic principle of Biblical Law with respect to religion and morality. Every attempt to destroy this principle is an effort to reduce society to its lowest common denominator.”

R.J. Rushdoony

“A voluntary segregation, even of believers, can well be a Christian procedure.”

Carl F. H. Henry

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. . . .

The mass mixing of the races with the intent to erase racial boundaries he does consider to be wrong, and on the basis of this, he would oppose the mixing of the two races in this way. Let it be acknowledged that a sin in this area against the Negro race has been perpetrated by godless white men, both past and present, but this does not justify the adoption of a policy of mass mixing of the races. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God has established and thus revealed his will for the human race now to be that of ethnic pluriformity, and thus any scheme of mass integration leading to mass mixing of the races is decidedly unscriptural.

Dr. Morton H. Smith (1923-) (For more see: Dr. Morton H. Smith on Christianity, Race, and Segregation)

Causes of Separation in 1973 (PCA separates from PCUS)
John Edwards Richards

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

What does Rev. Steve do with all these quotes and many others like them? Does he just keep on using the word “segregation” as some kind of “scare” word?

And on this score, no one is advocating building legislated impermeable walls. All that is being advocated is a freedom of assembly for all people. Get the government out of passing legislation that forces integration. Allow people to decide for themselves who they have social concourse with. Is that so scandalous?

Rev. Steve Hemmeke writes

Too many liberal churches insist on no walls or boundaries at all. Everyone is welcome, no matter what you advocate for. Some conservative churches in response have a Checkpoint Charlie, shooting anyone attempting to cross the Berlin Wall they erect. The proper response is to fence the Lord’s Table each Lord’s Day properly, with the basic gospel. The dividing line is Christ, not kin.

Bret responds,

The dividing line is indeed Christ and not kin. We are to love Christ above all else including family. However, that does not mean that family ceases to exist as a category that we are responsible to in our living. Is Rev. Steve saying here that Christians must cut off all kin who are not Christian because the dividing line is Christ, not kin? Do my responsibilities to my non-Christian kin end because of regeneration?

Rev. Steve writes,

There are many such recent immigrants today in the middle class that we should rejoice over, patriotically, not despise or separate from.

Bret responds,

Here the curtain is pulled back. Rev. Steve believes that kinist’s despise people from other races. What is curious is that I think it is Rev. Steve that despises both other people and his own kin by his position. His position puts everyone in a difficult social-order setting as Robert Putnam demonstrates in his book, “Bowling Alone.” It is not a kindness to forcefully create a multi-cultural and multi-racial society. It is Rev. Steve who is guilty of despising people and not Biblical Kinists. It is Rev. Steve who, though full of good intentions, who is practicing hate.

And just to make a point … right now I despise Rev. Steve (a white man) far more than any imagined despise Rev. Steve’s construct would attribute to me in relation to my friends from other races.

Rev. Steve writes,

I am quite aware of the cultural relativistic dangers of woke-ism, and of the mass immigration of those who are intent on subverting our culture, etc.

But racial segregation, or even a milder definition of Kinism, is NOT the way to fight it.

Bret responds,

And on the authority of Rev. Steve alone we are supposed to accept his conclusions.

These idiots are going to get us all killed in the most massive civil war that one can possibly contemplate and that all because they want to be nicer than God.

Dow & McAtee Take On the Ecclesiastical Regnant Follies

“Below are a series of quotations from Reformed pastors and theologians defining “race”. Note their agreement with the purveyors of Critical Race Theory.

It is, of course, true that all people belong to the human race (Acts 17:25). However within the one human race, varying “races” exist — each fully human, each Image Bearers of God, but each a distinct expression of the one human race. Together they communicate the idea of the “One and the Many” character of God. Taking one additional step, within these broad racial groups (think in terms of large extended families) there exist different ethnic groups, tribes, and families.

Here is how a Roman Catholic explains this idea based on the teaching of his church:

“Consequently at the same time as acknowledging the diversity and singularity of races, the Church rejects, equally with the racist assertions of radical racial superiority and inferiority, the tendency towards a depreciation and leveling of races found at the opposite extreme. It does this in the confidence that Christianity, grounded in reality and truth, is able to harmonize the affirmation of the radical unity of mankind with the recognition of racial diversity…There can therefore be no better way of combatting racism and racial discrimination, than by a sane and realistic acknowledgement of the facts of race and of historical and cultural inequalities” –

Bonaventure Hinwood

Race, Reflections of a Theologian – p. 103

This is all quite conventional and was obvious to everyone with a pair of eyes until roughly three weeks ago. Whatever Doug Wilson’s dimmer acolytes may say–or your pastor–holding such views does not constitute heresy.

“There is only one race. The human race. And so I think races — the whole concept of races — is problematic. The one human race is divided by language. divided by culture, divided by tribes, divided by history.” — Doug Wilson

“I use ‘ethnicity’ because, as we shall see, ‘race’ is not actually a positive biblical reality, but a construct. On this point, ironically, I agree with CRT advocates, much as many of them state that race is a social construct, but then practically operate in many senses as if it is real.” –Owen Strachan

“Concepts of “whiteness” or “blackness” are DESTROYED by the radical equality of every sinner’s need and Christ’s perfect provision. Our identity is NOT determined by our ancestors—we have been transferred out of the kingdom where such relationships rule and divide.”~~James White

“”Race’ is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority.”

Dallas Statement on Social Justice

“One of the sad realities of antiracism is that it is 100 percent correct about race being a construct.” –Voddie Baucham

Darrell Dow

McAtee adds

We are living in a bleeping madhouse on this issue in the “conservative” Reformed church as we few sane people left in the Church are suffering under the politics of guilt and pity as it has come into the Church.

Should one hold to the historic position on race that the Church has embraced at all times and all places up until 1950 or so one is considered a heretic or a racist. When one produces the quotes from the Church greats who have gone before they are never interacted with. Nobody even pauses when you march Charles Hodge, Geerhardus Vos, J. Gresham Machen, Augustine, Aquinas, Francis Nigel Lee, Morton H. Smith, A. W. Tozer, Dagg, Dabney, Cyprian, etc. etc etc. up to the microphone to give testimony that you are saying the same exact things they said on the subject. Modern clergy seem to be so daft that they can’t realize that races were understood as corporeally real and existing long long before Charles Darwin came along with his foolishness. Nope… none of it matters. If you insist that races exist and should be taken seriously you are considered, by our modern divines as “racist,” “Darwinist,” and worst of all, clearly a not nice person.

It is not as if all this is not monumentally important. Indeed, I would say it is so important that anyone who denies race as existing has forfeited their privilege to be piloting a pulpit. I mean if someone can’t get Christian Anthropology 101 right how are they going to get anything else right? These people don’t seem to realize that error does not exist in a water tight compartment unaffecting all other disciplines of theology.

It is a hard time right now to be in the ministry because of this madness. Pray for the Church that God might be pleased to give in Reformation in its head and members.

Responding to Rev. Steve Hemmeke’s Take on His One Hour Reading of “Who is My Neighbor” — Part II

Rev. Steve Hemmeke of the CREC continues,

Now, do we favor them (the Stranger and the Alien) to the impoverishment of our own estate and family or nation? Of course not. American immigration policy is insanely impoverishing us. But Kinism seems to go too far the other way, calling for separation. Ruth should have been sent back to Moab: “let her own kind take care of her.” I believe they would say this, regardless of her assumed spiritual conversion. Even as believers across cultures (it appears to me they assert), we ought to keep distinct tribes and cultures to flourish best.

Bret responds,

1.) Notice that Rev. Steve says that Kinism seems to go to far and that quite without establishing a definition of Kinism. Maybe Kinists do go to far but we will never know without a definition of Kinism that Kinists would agree as being representative of their position.

2.) Here again we find Rev. Steve saying two opposite things at the same time. On one hand we should not favor the stranger and the alien to the impoverishment of our own estate, family, or nation, on the other hand we should favor the stranger and the alien because to not favor them would be the “sin” of calling for separation. Someone tell Rev. Steve that one cannot at one and the same time not favor the stranger and alien by separating from them because of not desiring to bring down our own house (along with them) while favoring the stranger and alien by not separating from them.

3.) Yes, kinists do believe — for the benefit of all distinct peoples, regardless of their race — that races and cultures that are distinct should remain distinct. At one time this belief was common place.

This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

Now, lest some kind of wild accusation be cast here, that Kinists are after “racial purity” let it be said that Kinists understand that no culture is ever going to be unmixed to some degree. For example, America was over 85% white for time immemorial. White persons constituted 88.6 percent of the total population in 1960 and 89.3 percent in 1950. Very few people were going around saying that we had to get rid of the other 11%. Does Rev. Steve think that our Fathers and Grandfathers were sinful for this type of planned separation?

4.) Yes, Kinists do believe that different peoples remain different even if those different peoples are all Christian. This is not to say that any of the differences are superior or inferior. It is just to say that conversion and regeneration don’t wash out the natural differences that exist among peoples — differences that God purposely created us as having. But again, this belief is not somehow new to Christians. Allow me to let Theologian Dr. Francis Nigel Lee speak on this issue. These kind of quotes can be easily multiplied;

“I don’t believe [racial integration] is what the Bible teaches. Even though we may have transgressed the boundaries of nationhood and of peoplehood, it seems to me that God did create man of one blood in order that he may dwell as different nations throughout the world. But after the fall, when sinful man cosmopolitanly – meaning by that, with a desire to obliterate separate nationhood, with a desire to build a sort of United Nations organization under the Tower of Babel…attempted to resist developing peoplehood…[God confused the tongues of men]…because men had said, ‘Let us build a city and a tower which will stretch up to heaven lest we be scattered’… Pentecost sanctified the legitimacy of separate nationality rather than saying this is something we should outgrow… In fact, even in the new earth to come, after the Second Coming of Christ, we are told that the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the kings of the earth shall bring the glory and the honor—the cultural treasures—of the nations into it… But nowhere in Scripture are any indications to be found that such peoples should ever be amalgamated into one huge nation.

“In another fourteen years, the future looks bleak for White Christians everywhere. In 1900, Europe possessed two-thirds of the world’s Christians. By 2025, that number will fall below 20% — with most Christians living in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Then, nearly 75% of the world’s Catholics will be Non-Western Mestizos or Black Africans. Right now, Nigeria has the world’s largest Catholic Theological School. India has more Christians than most Western nations. And Jesus is more and more being portrayed with a dark skin. By 2050, more than 80% of Catholics in the U.S. will be of Non-Western origins. Only a fraction of Anglicans will be English. Lutherans, Presbyterians and other mainstream denominations will find their chief centres of growth in Africa, Asia and Latin America — often syncretistically absorbing large quantities of Pre-Christian Paganism as revived Voo-dooism and increasing ancestor-worship. This “Christianity” rapidly degenerates into an immigrationistic, prolific and socialistic jungle-religion.”

Dr. F.N. Lee circa 2011
Christian-Afrikaners pg. 87

Rev. Steve of the CREC writes,

Another way to come at this problem is to examine Acts 17:26:

“He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”

The Kinist emphasizes the second half of this, to the detriment of the first, assuming it means that the times and boundaries of nations are more static and set in stone than the verse intends. The point was more to assert God’s sovereignty over proud Greece, not to give Greece pride in its distinct civilization.

Bret responds,

Steve asserts but does not offer any proof that the Kinist emphasizes the second half of Acts 17:26. Kinists vigorously affirm that God indeed hath made from one blood every nation on the earth. Rev. Steve also asserts without offering proof that the point was what he says it is, or that Kinists believe that Acts 17:26 believe that it was given to give Greece pride in its distinct civilization. Rev. Steve also asserts without providing proof that times and boundaries aren’t to be static and that God no longer desires particular peoples to be particular peoples. Rev. Steve is blowing exegetical smoke.

Rev. Steve writes,

The first half of the verse is an indirect rebuke of the pervasive racial superiority found in Greece and Rome. “Hey, the African, and the ‘barbarian’ in Gaul is one blood with you, by God’s design.”

Bret responds,

True, but the first half of the verse doesn’t negate the 2nd half of the verse. No kinist denies that all men are of one blood. Kinists teach that all men everywhere are commanded to repent. Kinists believe that there will be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, in their tribes, tongues and nations in the New Jerusalem. Kinists believe that inferiorities and superiorities both run through differing races and peoples. God made them all from one blood for His delight. God loves biblical diversity. However, diversity is no longer diversity if their is a sustained and ongoing disregard for the distinction of races and peoples.

Now, can we get the Alienist to admit that God has ordained the races and nations to be the races and nations that He ordained them to be?

Rev. Steve writes,

When the objection is raised that there is no Scripture commanding this, the usual response seems to be to agree, but also say that it is normal and according to nature.

Bret Responds,

1.) In Romans 9 St. Paul communicates his love for his own kinsmen. Does not that imply the normativity of the existence of particular people? When we consider that the command to honor our Fathers and Mothers was given in the context of a particular people group it is hard to imagine that one can define honor as contributing to “unmaking a people.”

2.) Rev. Steve is arguing like a Baptist here. (It is possible, I suppose that he is a Baptist.) Baptists argue “there is no Scripture commanding us to baptize infants.” and so they conclude that we must not Baptize infants. Steve can’t find a verse to his liking that commands what he is expecting therefore it can’t be Scriptural. And yet the whole tenor of Scripture has a Kinist sense. At least that is what Dr. Geerhardus Vos thought;

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

Rev. Steve writes,

But in the examples above, we see that conversion trumps nature.

Bret responds,

Conversion trumps nature? Can you get anything more blatantly Gnostic? To the contrary Reformed theology has always taught that “Grace restores nature.” That is to say that God’s grace moves to make nature to be what God originally intended. There is no conflict between what God’s first work of creation and God’s work of re-creation in men’s lives. The above sentence is awful.

Rev. Steve writes,

We ought to seek covenantal succession from one natural generation to the next. But there is also the Ethiopian eunuch. Cornelius the Roman. Luke, the Greek doctor. All are welcomed into the church. They don’t continue building their own separate ethnic cultures, while just playing church on Sundays. The church herself is a new polis – a city on a hill. We spend and are spent for her as a family, and even if our family rejects us for it.

Bret responds,

No Kinist ever argues that there are people who are not welcome into the Church. This is a red herring by Hemmeke. What the Kinist does argue is that Ethiopians, Romans, and Greeks are likely going to find worshipping with Ethiopians, Romans, and Greeks to be more fitting to whom God has made them. If there are no Ethiopian, Roman, or Greek Churches wherein to Worship and wherein they would be more comfortable then of course all men should be welcome in all of the House of God.

That what I’ve said above is true is witnessed by the presence of Korean Churches and Hmong Churches and any number of ethnic churches. There is nothing controversial in the least in any of this. Men, not unusually, prefer to worship with people like them and that is perfectly acceptable. I once had a friend (he’s since passed away) that fondly recalled worshipping in Frisian churches in America when he was a boy. There is no fault in that kinist impulse.

Rev. Steve writes,

Nurture can determine culture-building as much as nature. Uriah chose to fight FOR David and Israel, though a Hittite. Rahab believed and feared the God of Israel. God’s enemies become His friends by redemption. That’s the heart of the gospel.

Bret responds,

And of course no Kinist disagrees with that.

Rev. Steve writes,

And this gets very practical. Almost everyone today is of some mixed race. I’m German-Dutch, but most people have even more mixed of an ancestry. This is not a problem, but we should claim and work for some specific nation and heritage. Yet to work for a specific RACE, is not Scripturally warranted, or even allowed.

Bret responds,

This is an assertion that can not be proven. Love for one’s own people is directly taught in Romans 9:3.

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

So, not only is working for one’s own people Scripturally warranted but it is also clearly allowed and I would say even commanded.

Rev. Steve Hemmeke is yet another clear example of a muddle-headed clergy. I’m sure he is full of the best intentions but good intentions do zero good and positive harm when they are based on sound thinking.

Part III yet to come.