Someone sent me this quote yesterday and I couldn’t resist playing with it.

1.) Of course the chief problem here is that the Baptist Durbin does not give a thorough definition of racism, so one can’t be completely sure of what Jeffy is talking about here. Personally, I don’t know anybody who glories in the color of their skin though I know lots of people who think that race is real and being real should be taken into consideration when talking about social order issues.

2.) Jeffy would seem to be suggesting here that the matter of race is only about skin color as if only all the races had the same skin color then the issue of race would no longer exist. But as has been said countless times skin color is only the eponymous name given to a far larger reality. If one could make white people have black skin they would still be white people in every other way.  For example, Forensic Pathologist can tell you if somebody who died in a fire who no longer has skin what race the deceased was. For example, bone marrow transplants don’t care what color one’s skin is but they do care what race one is. The idea that race is only about skin color, or the amount of pigment one has is ludicrous beyond naming.

3.) I can’t help but wonder if Jeffy here would consider “creates divides” as meaning something like churches that are specifically “Korean” for example. I know of churches that are specifically Hmong for example. When I lived in the South it was common to speak of “black churches,” and the black folks would speak of “white churches.” Are these kinds of churches examples for Rev. Jeff of “creating divides.” Are the Korean Presbyteries that exist in some denominations guilty of creating divides here according to Jeff? And if if is acceptable for Koreans, or Hmong, or Black to worship in their own churches where is the problem in whites doing so and why is that racist?

I mean, Dr. John Frame doesn’t agree with Rev. Jeff here;

“Scripture, as I read it, does not require societies, or even churches, to be integrated racially. Jews and Gentiles were brought together by God’s grace into one body. They were expected to love one another and to accept one another as brothers in the faith. But the Jewish Christians continued to maintain a distinct culture, and house churches were not required to include members of both groups.”

John Frame,
“Racism, Sexism, Marxism”

I wonder if Jeffy thinks Dr. Frame to be racist?

4.) We have to quit being scared of the word “racist,” or of being accused of “racism,” because the word today, meaning everything, means nothing. I suppose that there does exist people out there who, for example, hate white people merely because they are white and so are “racist” but that doesn’t mean that all people who want to remain distinct in cultural habits, grandchildren, or dispositions or habits are racist against white people. Mohammed Ali was not a racist because he said this;

I take absolutely no offense at what Ali said above. I don’t accuse him of being “racist.” I don’t fault him if he wants to worship with his own people. Because of that I think Rev. Jeff Durbin is intellectually dishevelled.

5.) Jeffy says that “racism is hatred” but as he hasn’t defined clearly what racism is and has not given examples of what he considers “racism” then it is hard to know if hatred is really that which is animating people who do create some divides. I wonder if Jeff would accuse Muhammed Ali of hatred?

I picked on this quote because “racism” is the accusation dujour today. It is what is flung at anybody who won’t conform to the civil rights racial narrative bequeathed to us from the 1960s. It is some of that which lies beneath the whole divide percolating right now between the Moscow Mood and the “Moscow is full of skubala” mood. And Durbin is in the thick of all that.