Quoting from Scott’s Libel against McAtee and Kinism piece;
Some are now also entertaining the heresy of Kinism, which is a feature of the darker corners of the Reconstructionist/theonomic/postmillennialist sub-cultures. The central tenets of Kinism, as given by one of its proponents are these:
Bret Responds,
Kinism a heresy?
“The ancient fathers… were concerned that the ties of kinship itself should not be loosened as generation succeeded generation, should not diverge too far, so that they finally ceased to be ties at all. And so for them it was a matter of religion to restore the bond of kinship by means of the marriage tie before kinship became too remote—to call kinship back, as it were, as it disappeared into the distance.”
Augustine – (A.D. 354 – 430)
City of God, book XV, Chpt. 16
“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
“Fourthly, mutual love serves the purpose of mutual refreshment. Animals of the same species frequently walk together and citizens of the same nation stay together when they are in a strange country.”
Wilhelmus a’Brakel
17th Century Dutch Kinist Theologian
” [The] differences between the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro races, which is known to have been as distinctly marked two or three thousand years before Christ as it is now. . . . [T]hese varieties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose. . . . God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit.”
Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Chapter 1, Section 3 (1872–73)
“Brethren according to the Flesh.”
Romans 9:3
Paul had two classes of brethren; those who were with him the children of God in Christ; these he calls brethren in the Lord, Philip, i. 14, holy brethren, &c. The others were those who belonged to the family of Abraham. These he calls brethren after the flesh, that is, in virtue of natural descent from the same parent. Philemon he addresses as his brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord. The Bible recognizes the validity and rightness of all the constitutional principles and impulses of our nature. It therefore approves of parental and filial affection, and, as is plain from this and other passages, of peculiar love for the people of our own race and country.
Charles Hodge
Commentary Romans 9
Causes of Separation in 1973 (PCA separates from PCUS)
- 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.
John Edwards Richards
One of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
Look, I could go on with these quotes from the Reformed Fathers for dozens and dozens of pages. The snippet I have given above is enough to demonstrate the idea of Kinism and kinist like convictions completely eviscerates R. Scott Clark’s individual declaration that Kinism is heresy. One would think a Church historian would be more familiar with, well, er, uh … Church history.
RSC next complains about a couple Kinist convictions listing them first;
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That sin is a universal deformity in human nature, and that no perfect society is possible this side of Heaven. That Christians should work to limit human error by seeking those conditions which are inherently productive of a harmony of interests, both in marriage and in society at large. That a harmony of interests naturally exists between people who are similar.
Bret responds,
Can there be any disagreement that a harmony of interests naturally exists between people who are similar? Dr. Clarence McCartney, co-worker with Dr. J. Gresham Machen, didn’t think so.
“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”
Dr. Clarence MacCartney
20th Century Presbyterian Minister
Next RSC complains about this Kinist tenet;
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That the God of the Old Testament, who forbade interracial, interreligious marriages to His covenant nation, is the same as the God of the New Testament. That marriage between parties who are not naturally congenial is unequal yoking. That unequal yoking in marriage or in society at large is destructive of Christian harmony, association, and growth.
And then RSC critiques,
By “congenial” the author means “of the same race” and the “yoking” to which he refers is marriage. This was previously known as segregationism. Anyone old enough to remember or able to read a history text knows who George Wallace, Orval Faubus, or Hendrik Verwoerd were and what they did.
Bret responds,
They could also possibly be educated enough to read a history text and so know who E. Earl Ellis was;
“Segregation has the potential to develop into a partnership of mutual respect … Southerners often wonder whether integrationists are as interested in good race relations as in forcing a particular kind of race relations. The unfortunate fact is that ardent Christian integrationists, however conscientious, are one cause of the worsening race relations in the South today. Their moral superiority complex, their caricature of the segregationist as an unchristian bigot and their pious confession of the sins of people in other sections of the country have not been wholly edifying.”
E. Earl Ellis
1957 Christianity Today Article
And maybe Scott has heard of Dr. F. H. Henry? Dr. Carl F. H. Henry wrote that civil rights legislation ending segregation would be morally problematic,
“Forced integration is as contrary to Christian principles as is forced segregation. A voluntary segregation, even of believers, can well be a Christian procedure.”
Dr. F. H. Henry
1957 Christianity Today Article
And maybe Church Historian RSC has heard of Church Historian Phillip Schaff?
“Wherever the governmental idea holds the mercenary so completely in check and yields to the influence of Christian morality, it may be a wholesome training school for inferior races, as it is in fact with the African negroes, until they are capable to govern themselves.”
Phillip Schaff
Slavery and the Bible, p. 24
So, whether RSC likes it or not, what Kinists defend is not so much this strange thing called “Kinism” as it is a defense of Biblical Christianity and its impact on peoples and social orders as held universally by the Reformed Fathers prior to the middle of the 2oth century or so. If RSC wants the Reformed Church after 1950 he can have it. I’ll take the Reformed from 1518 forward.
RSC next writes,
This is not to suggest that all Christian Reconstructionists, theonomists, or postmillennialists are Kinists. That is not true. Indeed, Joseph Morecraft, a leading theonomic Reconstructionist, and postmillennialist, has publicly denounced Kinism. It is also true that outside of those sub-cultures, one is not very likely to encounter Kinism, however, inside those sub-cultures, it is more common. I learned about the existence of Kinism while researching the doctrine and practice of Doug Wilson, who has engaged in dialogue over the years with Kinists. The Anti-Defamation League has a helpful who’s who of the Kinism movement….
Bret Responds,
I’m sure that RSC has heard of the Gordon H. Clark quote that “we don’t come to truth by counting noses.” That Morecraft or Wilson or any other who are counted among those reputed to be pillars within the Church have abandoned the Biblical Christianity of their fathers in an attempt to do what RSC is doing in his desire to deny nearly all of Church history on this score really shouldn’t surprise anyone. There is a long historical record of Christians seeking to trim their sail in order to fit into the zeitgeist.
Next, we would note the utter astonishment that RSC would go to the ADL, an organization known to oppose the advance of Biblical Christianity to critique Christians is almost as insane as a boy saying that he is a girl.
RSC next writes,
The first I remember seeing anything about Kinism was on the website Little Geneva, which published a 2003 correspondence between Harry Seabrook and Wilson on slavery, racism, and Kinism. The former was an advocate of Kinism, and the latter has criticized aspects of Kinism. He has also engaged another notorious advocate of Kinism, who was removed from the Christian Reformed Church in 2019 for teaching this heresy. (Here RSC links to a Lansing State Journal article that references the Church I serve.) Charlotte Greco writes in the Lansing State Journal that this minister was dismissed from the Christian Reformed Church in 2019 for impenitently teaching Kinism. The CRC became aware that he was teaching Kinism in 2016 and finally declared it heresy, at Synod, in 2019. Rod Dreher has recently documented other examples of Kinism in connection to certain so-called Christian Nationalists.
Bret responds,
1.) Only a man with the stature of Bret L. McAtee could serve as a bridge in order to bring Doug Wilson and R. Scott Clark together so that they can stand on common ground. Clark loathes Doug Wilson and yet I have brought them together in a common cause. Who says I am not a peacemaker?
2.) Clark is in error. I was NEVER removed from the Christian Reformed Church because,
a.) I was never in the Christian Reformed Church per their own standards
b.) Upon my request for release I was merely released from the Christian Reformed Church. This means I was NEVER disciplined by the Christian Reformed Church in ANY sense. A release means merely that a minister is released from the denomination.
Now, how one can be released if they were never part of the denomination is something you’ll have to ask the CRC. At the time I was told this was the way to go, so in order to get out that is the way I went, repeating all the time…”But I’m not in the CRC.”
Bottom line is I was NEVER removed if by removed one means I was disciplined by the Church. There was never any discipline in my case. Never any Church court trial. Never any pronouncement of guilt or innocence because I WAS NEVER TRIED.
Now that the CRC used me in order to try and cleanse itself and that the CRC wanted to give the impressions that they disciplined me there is no doubt.
But let it be said again and loudly…
I WAS NEVER “REMOVED” FROM THE Christian Reformed Church.
NEVER NEVER NEVER
I was merely released from their ministry upon my request. They called that release a “dismissal.”
3.) No Church counsel has ever declared Kinism to be heresy, unless you count a neo-Marxist denomination a Church counsel. Besides, even if they did they would be merely declaring themselves to be heretics since Kinism is, prior to WW II, what the Church has believed in all times and in all places where the Church has been orthodox.
Now as it pertains to RSC’s claims about the Lansing State Journal;
1.) Does Scott always believe everything he reads in liberal fish wrap Newspapers?
2.) I was NOT dismissed for impenitently teaching kinism.
a.) Dismissed here deceptively implies disciplined. All it means is “released.”
b.) I was released (dismissed) because I requested a release from that bat skubala crazy heretical denomination.
c.) Even the Pastor who was assigned to be the head of the governing body that was supposed to be overseeing the Church I STILL serve argued passionately that I should be given a honorable release, but the Classis in its infinite heretical wisdom instead of giving me a honorable release gave me a dismissal release.
However, my release was per my request and not due to the Classis saying… “Hey, we need to discipline this guy.”
R. Scott Clark is desperately confused. Are we surprised given what we have seen already?
Am I going to have to finally sue somebody over all this? McDurmon a year or so ago cast the same libel.
RSC Writes next,
This issue was put before me in recent months as a couple of friends contacted me to ask about it or topics related to it. There is a self-published paperback volume that is being shared, in some small circles, devoted to attacking any sort of two kingdoms or (as I would rather say) twofold kingdom approach to Christ and culture and Christian ethics. Never mind that the phrase “twofold kingdom” is a direct translation of Calvin’s expression, duplex regimen.
Bret responds,
1.) The paperback volume in question that Scottie refers to is my paperback volume demolishing R2K. The title of my little book is, “Saved to be Warriors; Exposing the Errors of Radical Two Kingdom Theology.” You can buy it at Amazon. If my book is causing Scott this much heartburn you know you have to read it for yourself.
2.) It is a lie that my book was self-published. I wouldn’t know where to begin to publish my own book. My book was published by the Academically respected, and promising contender, “Pantocrator Press,” an imprint of World Bridge Publishing located in the Netherlands. The publisher is the world renown Reuben Alvarado.
3.) Scott lies when he says my book attacks all expressions of Two Kingdom theology. In point of fact in the second sentence in my Introduction to this book reads;
“There is little argument here with historic Reformed 2K theology.”
Look, I’m trying to be not to over the top regarding RSC but one has to wonder if the man even knows how to read or failing that perhaps he has ZERO reading comprehension skills?
4.) The book may be running in “small circles” but the circle is obviously a circle that has enclosed Scott much like the flames of old encircled heretics at the stake.
We close with another expression of vanilla Reformed Kinist theology as before the rise of the neo-Marxist Civil Rights movement.
“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)