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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.”

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.

³ 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,

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.

“The huge weakness of this (Achord’s and Dow’s “Who is My Neighbor: An Anthology on Natural Relations;”) is that most of the quotations do not support the thesis of the book. To quote the Puritans or Jewish sources on the importance of family and patriotism is a far cry from what the authors argue for in the introduction.”

Steve Hemmeke Blog
CREC “Minister” — Herein after SH

Now keep in mind that Rev. Steve admits as he begins his review that he only spent 1 hour with this 650 page anthology and after 1 hour we are to believe that he can know that most of the quotations in the book do not support the thesis of the book. This claim leaves me credulous. It’s like someone saying that they’d only spent an hour with Augustine’s “City of God” and they know, after an hour of probing here and there in the book that Augustine failed in his work. Honestly, I can’t believe the hubris of this claim.

SH writes,

I’d like to lay out and then critique that thesis, from page 41:
Society is inescapably hierarchical, and so our duties are also prioritized, “favoring the near over the far. The implication is that we have obligations to our families, neighbors and countrymen over strangers and foreigners…. This is piety and gratitude.”

On one level, this is just common sense. I’m going to invest more time parenting my kids, than the kids next door. I take more time consuming news concerning my country than Zimbabwe’s, so I can vote and act faithfully where I live.

Bret responds,

Here the man says the book is just common sense. He, in essence, says he agrees with this common sense. But in true Wilsonian fashion he has to try to have it both ways and say that he doesn’t agree with the book.

SH writes,

“The problem comes with the flip side – a non sequitur which Scripture does not endorse: to favor those not of your kind is impiety. This turns out to be a call for segregation, though kinists don’t seem to like to use that word. A people’s culture should not be tainted by intermixing, they say, which breeds confusion in personal identity, and a dilution of energy which should be focused on positive, tangible culture building.”

Bret responds

Actually, to be precise, the flip side is not what Steve says. The flip side is “to favor those not of your kind above those who are of your kind is impiety.” Notice the subtle difference between what SL wrote and the corrected flip side. Now, there is no way that one can claim that Scripture teaches the kind of piety that SL initially says he agrees with and is common sense without at the same time affirming the teaching that the same statement stated in its negative (in the bold print above) is also piety. There is no impiety in that statement in bold and yet Steve wants to say that he does not agree with the exact opposite of what he affirms. What he affirms is piety. The same position expressed negatively he affirms is impiety and a non-sequitur. Only a CREC minister could “reason” like this.

Secondly, I have no problem with the idea of segregation as long as it is part of the whole idea of “freedom of assembly.” You remember that one don’t you Steve? For example The Washington Times recently ran an article stating;

Universities are increasingly offering graduation events focused on participants’ identities and segregated by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and even income, according to a report by a conservative education publication.

Campus Reform, which is published by the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia, reported last week that more than three dozen colleges and universities are holding graduation events this summer to recognize groups based on race, gender and sexual orientation.

I  have no problem with this kind of segregation in the least. Nor do I have a problem with Universities now offering dorm living according to segregated preferences. Is Steve saying that this segregation (freedom of assembly) is wrong? Sinful? If it is acceptable to Steve for this kind of segregation to exist why would he think that kinists’ believing in segregation is a bad thing?

Steve Hemmeke writes,

But this book’s thesis in the introduction is: don’t favor the foreigner over your own kin. That may be proverbial wisdom, like the common sense above, but it should not be made a moral absolute on racial or national lines.

Bret responds,

Now let me understand this dialectical reasoning.

1.) It is proverbial wisdom to not favor the foreigner over your own kin
2.) However, when our own kin is a racial or national phenomenon what is proverbial wisdom should now not be a proverbial wisdom absolute.

Steve Hemmeke writes

Let’s look to Scripture for guidance.

I believe the Kinist standing in Boaz’ field would rebuke him for looking favorably on Ruth, the Moabite.

He would look on with horror as a faithful Israelite of the tribe of Judah, Salmon, married a Canaanite whore from Jericho – Rahab.

He would believe that Ahithophel’s family was sinning to allow the Hittite Uriah to marry a daughter of their clan – Bathsheba.

Bret responds,

Steve gives three examples of marriage that would have been akin to marrying ethnic cousins. His examples amount to a German marrying a French lady. This is not the same as cross racial marriages.

Secondly,   even Ruth is disputed as to whether she was an ethnic Moabitess or an Israelite who lived in the former territory of Moab and so a Hebrew. Much the same way one might refer to a Puerto Rican living in New York City as a “New Yorker.”

Third on the matter of Rahab see

Rahab the Hebrew: The Royal Genealogy Vindicated

And as to Rahab see,

Kinist Orthodoxy: A Response to Brian Schwertley, Part 4

Steve Hemmeke writes

Yet each of these are mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy. Not as cautionary tales, but as laudable examples to God’s people that we are to “welcome the stranger.” This is a ubiquitous phrase in Deuteronomy, “for you yourselves were sojourners in Egypt.” So it was astonishing to see in print that we should NOT favor the stranger and foreigner.

Bret responds,

So many of these I’ve responded to before. Here one can reference;

Random Notes From Hoffmeier’s “The Immigration Crisis”

Steve Hemmeke clearly does not understand the nuances that Hoffmeier brings out in the book discussed in the link above. And this is just the problem with people spouting off about this issue who haven’t done the spade work to discover other possibilities then the cultural Marxist narrative that they are drowning in.

Steve Hemmeke writes,

Now, do we favor them 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,

Just as Hemmeke did not read a book he is reviewing so he now is guessing at what kinists might and might not say in any given situation. Incredible.

If Kinism is asserting that we ought to keep distinct tribes and cultures to flourish best it is only because Kinists are learning from the Church Fathers. I reproduce just two of many more quotes of the same kind that could be appealed to. The Alienists, like Hemmeke, are revolting against the Church fathers on this issue. Kinists are seeking to be faithful to both Scripture and Church history.

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

Dr. John E. Richards
Theology Professor Reformed Theological Seminary appx. 1970’s

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 (1923-2017) (For more see: Dr. Morton H. Smith on Christianity, Race, and Segregation)
Founder — Greenville Seminary

“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”

Psalm 90:12

I am old enough to remember my Great-Grandpa Plumbeck’s funeral. He died in 1971 when I was 12 and at least as I recall his funeral was the first funeral I ever attended and so my first introduction to death as up close and personal. His daughter — my Grandmother Laura Jacobs — died 23 years later in 1994. A generation having turned since her father’s death I was now of the age to be officiating funerals having been called to the ministry and I officiated her funeral and that of her husband’s (my grandfather) who died eight days after her.

Now another generation has slipped away since 1994 and now Walter Plumbeck’s grandchildren and Laura Jacobs’ children — one in the same — are shedding this mortal coil and are being summoned into eternity by the only God who is — the Christian God. In 2021, 27 years after we buried their Mother and 50 years after we buried their grandfather Plumbeck we buried two of Laura’s children (Uncles Ralph & Jim).

None of them — not Walter Plumbeck, not Laura Jacobs, not Ralph Jacobs, nor his brother Jim lived anything but full lives. Walter was 85, Laura 75, Ralph was 80 and his brother Jim was 76 when they each respectively received their summons from God. They all exceeded the promised “three score and ten” of which God’s word speaks.

Of course, this means, by necessity, that Walter Plumbeck’s great-grandchildren and Laura Jacob’s grandchildren (one and the same) will be the next generation to follow Walter, Laura, Ralph, and Jim in the way all men must go. That would be the generation of my siblings, cousins and myself. Our great-Grandparents have gone. Our grandparents have gone. Our Parents and Uncles and Aunts are now slipping into eternity and with the turning of another generation (20-25 years) we too will follow. It will come and go in the blink of an eye. Then, the worst of all to contemplate will come — it will come after we are gone — our own children will experience the ultimate consequence of sin and will die. Our children will meet what the Scripture calls “the last enemy,” and will traverse the shadow of the valley of death.

So, goes the march of God’s providence. One generation rises up while the previous passes from the scene and yet it all happens so suddenly and so quickly despite the fact of our knowing that it is coming and is inescapable. For example as to the suddenness and quickness of it all, my Uncle Jim who we buried Saturday (27 November 2021)

Just two or three weeks prior to Uncle Jim’s death and only shortly prior to getting ill himself he attended a funeral of someone who was murdered by the Deep State as a result of the purposeful release of the Deep State virus.

There Uncle Jim was, comparatively healthy, attending a funeral with no way of realizing that in a very short time his kith and kin would be attending his funeral.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (James 4:14)

It seems — this whole death thing — at one and the same time, so odd and yet so natural. At the end of it all, when this life ends it will matter most if you will continue to live after death.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.  26 And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. (John 11:25-26)

Given that reality why be so unconcerned with the claims and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Why be so listless in thinking through what comes next after this life? Why continue to ignore your sin problem and the fact that the wrath of God abides upon the children of disobedience?

Prayer

Lord Christ thank you for being merciful to me a sinner. By thy grace awaken people to think about the end before the end is upon them. Grant them grace to be conversant with their sin and grant them grace crowned to be conversant with the only answer to the sin that stands between your just wrath that appoints men to eternal death.

Be pleased to open men’s eyes to the Good News of Christ for sinners that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as that Good News is properly understood in a Biblical and Reformed context. This is a boon that we beg of thee.