Examining Rev. Dr. Jim Cassidy’s “Racial Supremacy and The Gospel” Sermon (II)

“It may be agreed right off that for those that can see only this world, whether claiming to be Christian or not, the passion for unity in and of the world must become a veritable obsession. It may be admitted that an overriding unity of creation is as necessary to human existence as food and air. As long as that final unity is consciously or subconsciously seen in the One who made all that is, then the separations, diversities, distinctions and differences which abound in creation become not an unendurable frustration, but a boundless vista of goodness and peace. But if all talk of God is only a facade of pietism, and if the only thing that matters really is this world, and the Christian hope of the world to come is better described in the famous Marxist sneer as ‘pie in the sky;’ if all the direction and purpose of life is found in this world, and if all that matters is improvement and ultimately even perfection of this world, then unity, too, must be achieved in terms of this world. Hence, integration—a plan for another step in the unifying process of the diverse parts of society. Integration is not an end in itself, but a supposed step toward the end of achieving heaven on earth. Integrationists, therefore, like all Utopians everywhere in all times are wildly determined to remove from their path all who would obstruct their progress toward ultimate unity and heaven on earth.”

T. Robert Ingram
Episcopalian Rector 

RDC sermonized,

“In this new Nation (the Church) there is neither Jew nor Gentile, Barbarian or Scythian (Colossians 3:11).”

Bret responds,

The point here in Colossians is much the same as Paul’s point in Galatians 3:28. The point is that in terms of being in Christ (the “New Man” in Colossians 3.) there are no racial nor national restrictions that stand in the way. God calls all types of men to Himself and no man, from any tribe, tongue or nation, is turned away from Christ because of his race or ethnicity.  That Paul understood that Nationalities exist after conversion is seen from the His special affection for His own people (Romans 9).

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

That the early Church understood Nationalities exist and must be dealt with as nationalities is seen by its appointing 7 Greek named deacons to deal with the Greek widows complaining against unjust treatment vis-a-vis Hebrew Widows in Acts 6.

Colossians 3:11 (or Galatians 3:28) does not teach that race and ethnicity go away or maleness or femaleness, or ethnic differences are undesirable, or that the Church ignores these realities, or insists they must go away.

The Church is indeed a new nation but it is a nation of nations. People from every tribe, tongue, and nation in their tribes, tongues, and nations comprise the one diverse but unified body of Christ. The one body of Christ is not all an eye or an ear. There is a maintained diversity within this one body of Christ. There is one wild olive tree but many branches. The Church is thus not all trunk or all branches. Unity in diversity. 

Dr. Geerhardus Vos understood all this when he wrote on Romans 11:1-2,

This (branches) 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

RDC sermonized,

“Ethnic differences are undesirable. Ethnic differences — Ethnic divisions among the Nations is a product of the divine curse…. A curse that is gloriously overcome by the Gospel.”

Bret responds,

If ethnic differences are undesirable what other godly course exists except to try and eliminate ethnic differences? They used to call that ethnocide.

With this statement, it is hard not to hear music in the background,

Imagine there’s no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace…

Certainly, the Gospel gloriously overcomes racial hatred and animosity but to suggest that it overcomes the reality of ethnic differences is to advocate for a kind of Marxist Gospel. A Marxist Gospel taught and embraced by another leader from a different kind of pulpit, once upon a time,

“Marxism cannot be reconciled with Nationalism, be it even of the ‘most just,’ ‘purest,’ most refined and civilized brand. In place of all forms of nationalism, Marxism advances internationalism, the amalgamation of all nations into a higher unity, a unity that is growing before our eyes…

The proletariat … welcomes every kind of assimilation of nations, except that which is founded on force or privilege.

The proletariat cannot support any consecration of nationalism: on the contrary, it supports everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove national barriers; it supports everything that makes the ties between nationalities closer and closer or tends to merge nations.”

Vladimir Lenin
Critical Remarks on the National Question

Can’t well-intentioned ministers see that when they say things like, “Ethnic differences are undesirable,” that they are reading off a sheet of music that is the very antithesis of Biblical Christianity? Are we to believe that God and Lenin agree? Are we to believe that this is one place Communism got it right? God wants us to imagine no more countries?

Another thing we must keep in mind is that ethnicity is merely an extension of the family. Ethnicity is the next concentric circle outside of family and clan. If Ethnicity is gloriously overcome by the Gospel what else are we to conclude but that the family is gloriously overcome by the Gospel? 

Finally, on this point, we would note that ethnic differences can’t really go away. Large-scale ethnic intermarriage does not reduce ethnic differences, but rather, by their million permutations, increases them. This is what happened in Brazil as this documentary captures,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g29P3-xj7GQ&feature=youtu.be

RDC sermonized,

 

“That means that the differences that separate us as human beings are, in one sense, lamentable. We have to understand that in a certain respect the differences that make us different from one another, that separate us as different ethnicities, with different races, with different colors of skin, different cultures, different languages that put us apart from one another is, in fact, a lamentable thing that should be and is overcome by the Gospel. Now, we have to say just as a sideline here, in another sense many of the differences that separate us as cultures is quite understandable. They’re not sinful. There are certain differences that separate us as cultures. Things that make each of our cultures distinct. And those cultures have good things and bad things that characterize their cultures that make them distinct from other cultures.”

(Gives Illustrations about Irish)

Bret responds,

First, this is difficult to respond to because of what sounds like double speak. On one hand, our differences like ethnicity, race, the color of skin, culture, languages, are lamentable. On the other hand differences, that separate our culture are quite understandable. I submit that if one subtracts ethnicity, race, the color of skin, culture, and language there is nothing left of a culture that can make its difference understandable.

What all this sounds like is the idea that grace destroys nature, or, to say it a different way, this sounds like Redemption negates creation. The effect of salvation is that we lose the identity God created us with. The Reformed, have always said instead, that Grace restores nature. Redemption does not make our creaturely identity markers go away. After conversion, I still retain race, ethnicity, and gender. Upon Redemption, I do not quit being a Father, a Son, a Daughter, a Wife. Rather upon Redemption, I am a new man in regards to those unerasable creaturely realities. When regenerated, I lean into my creatureliness as one translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son.

The Gospel does not overcome man’s God assigned creatureliness and it is errant to say that it does. The Gospel overcomes the twistedness in which I handle my God assigned creatureliness.

Examining Rev. Dr. Jim Cassidy’s “Racial Supremacy and The Gospel” Sermon (I)

“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; Bishop Of Hippo (A.D. 354 – 430)
City of God, book XV, Chpt. 16

At the below link we find a sermon that I was directed to by the Minister who preached the sermon. It is my conviction that it is not faithful to the Scriptures on a subject that is of grave importance. I trust that will become evident as we examine Rev. Cassidy’s sermon.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=86161140386

I have not transcribed the whole sermon. I provide the link in case anybody desires to examine whether I have cherry picked the sermon. I have no intent to be unfair to Rev. Cassidy or to bushwhack him. Anything I have left off from the sermon I left off because I thought it repetitive or I thought it not germane to the issues at hand.

I do not know Rev. Cassidy. I have never talked to him or interacted with him. I know one person who knows him and that person tells me that Rev. Cassidy is a good man. I will take my friend at his word. Otherwise, fine people can be mistaken on different subjects. I know I have been in the past. I would have hated for people to have completely written me off just because of some inconsistency in my theology or life.  Still, this subject matter requires a response.

Rev. Dr. Cassidy (hereinafter RDC) preached,

“Paul’s attitude then, as must be the attitude of every Christian, is that of a servant towards others…. Now how can we do that — how is it possible that one can serve others, how is it possible that we can think our minds as being the servants of others when we regard our race as superior to theirs, whatever race that might be.”

Bret responds,

First, RDC seems to assume that different views on races besides his automatically translate into some kind of supremacist attitude. We will see RDC making this connection repeatedly in this sermon. We need to insist at the beginning that this is not a necessary connection.  One can affirm that God has ordained the distinct races and nations without at the same time embracing any kind of supremacism.

Second, I would ask, “why is it that knowledge of non-ontological racial superiority is impossible to co-exist with a servant’s heart.” Who can argue against the reality that when the Christian Western White man went to Africa to bring Christ to Africa that the White man’s race was superior in a myriad of ways, in a non-ontological sense? And yet clearly the White man had a servant’s heart as seen in his sacrifice to bring the Gospel to Africa.

This is not necessarily an argument that any one race is superior to another in a totalistic sense. All races have the superiorities and inferiorities when compared to other races. It is an argument insisting that thinking one’s race is superior is not inconsistent with having a servant’s heart contra to RDC’s assertion.

Albert Schweitzer, Liberal Missionary extraordinaire, spent a career in Gabon serving sundry African people all the while believing his race was superior. Schweitzer wrote in his,  “The Primeval Forest”

” A word in conclusion about the relations between the whites and the blacks. What must be the general character of intercourse between them? Am I to treat the black man as my equal or as my inferior? I must show him that I can respect the dignity of human personality in everyone, and this attitude in me he must be able to see for himself;  but the essential thing is that there shall be a real feeling of brotherliness. How far this is to find complete expression in the sayings and doings of daily life must be settled by circumstances. The negro is a child, and with children, nothing can be  done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: “I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.”   — Albert Schweitzer

We need not agree with Schweitzer to see that he is an example that contradicts RDC’s claim that it is not possible to think one’s race as superior while still retaining a servant’s heart.

Third, Scripture teaches that all races are ontologically equal. That is to say that we are equal in our being, having all descended from a common set of parents. Scripture does not teach that all races  – nations are functionally (economically) equal. In point of fact, economic equality as applied to human relations is a surd. No two men, no two nations, no two races are equal in a functional sense. Equality in a non-ontological sense is an idea imported from mathematics. Human relations are not mathematics. As such superiority is an inescapable category as can be seen in the confidence of Egalitarians who view themselves as superior to inferior people who do not embrace their egalitarianism.

Fourth, our Lord Christ himself communicated a racial superiority in Scripture when he dealt with the Syrophoenician woman (Matthew 15). Christ revealed His priority of love for His own when He referred to the non-Israelite Syrophoenician woman as a “dog,” in comparison to His people, who He referred to in His response to the woman as “the children.” Would any of us fault our Lord Christ claiming superiority while yet remaining a servant?

RDC sermonized,

“The One people now become many peoples…. From this one nation (at Babel) many nations arise because of the curse of God on rebellious humanity.”

Bret responds,

We need to slow down a little bit here. I am willing to concede that the concrete nations arise out of Babel. However, I am not willing to concede that the Nations as Nations were a curse. 

When we look at Genesis 9 we get a sense of embryonic Nations that God always intended to flower. What I am saying is that the dividing of Shem, Ham, and Japheth in cursing and blessing implies, at the very least, the nations which would later arise in connection with God’s actions at Babel. Noah had to understand that by blessing Shem with early dominance, and then Japheth with latter dominance, and no blessing upon Ham except that his children would be servants, he was clearly segregating them after a fashion.

If we are going to use the language of “cursing” in reference to Babel we must at the same time use the language of “blessing.” It was the blessing of God to not allow rebellious mankind to build a unipolar world in opposition to Him. The blessing of Babel is further articulated in Acts 17 when we read the purpose of Babel was,

26 And he (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. 

Clearly, the division of the nations was a blessing with a salvific goal. Since God always had in mind the end he ordained from the beginning we must conclude that Nations were always intended by God.

RDC preached,

“Come the new covenant — the day of Pentecost particularly — that curse is reversed. All the Nations (at Pentecost) begin speaking each other’s languages. And we see something significant in Acts 2, the many peoples become one people. The many Nations become one Nation in Jesus Christ. That is the Church…. they are reconciled to God and they are reconciled to one another.”

Bret responds,

First here, I have to believe that RDC did not really mean to say “all the nations begin speaking each other’s languages. ” Clearly, the nations did not begin speaking each other’s languages. A quick perusal of Acts 2 reveals that.

Secondly, what is reversed at Pentecost is not the existence of nations. If the existence of nations is what was to be reversed at Pentecost then what we would have expected is that all the nations would have been hearing in the same tongue. Instead, Babel and the nations are sanctified at Pentecost with the differing nations hearing God’s word each in their own tongue. 

So, we do not see what RDC sermonizes that we see. What we see is that each Nation as a Nation receives the Gospel in their own tongue thus teaching that the many peoples remain many peoples (diversity) but finding a unity (not uniformity) in that diversity in Christ. Acts 2 actually teaches the very opposite of what RDC preached. Acts 2 teaches that the existence of Nations as Nations remains.

Thirdly, it is true that there is reconciliation but this reconciliation is a spiritual reconciliation. The old animosities and hatreds are removed because the peoples have a oneness in Jesus Christ. However, we find nowhere in Scripture where this spiritual oneness requires an amalgamated ethnic and cultural oneness. Contemporary Reformed theologians have underscored this,

“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”

And finally, on this point, (and we will return to this point repeatedly) the presence of the Nations in the book of Revelation gives testimony that the “curse was not reversed,” at Pentecost.

21:24 By its (The Temple) light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,… 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

22:2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life[g] with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 

Dewey’s Expanding Democratic Ideal

” It is impossible to ignore the fact that historic Christianity has been
committed to a separation of sheep and goats; the saved and the lost; the elect and the mass…. I cannot understand how any realization of the Democratic ideal as a vital moral and spiritual ideal in human affairs is possible without surrender of the conception of the basic division which supernatural Christianity is committed.”

Thomas Dewey
A Common Faith

Notice that Dewey’s complaint about the basic Spiritual divisions of Christianity has now been transcended so that the inheritors of Dewey are now moving beyond Dewey to demand the end of basic Christian sociological distinctions. The complaint has moved beyond Christianity’s separation of sheep and goats; the saved and the lost; the elect and the mass to a complaint about Christianity’s historic sociological distinctions as embracing differences between peoples, genders, and hierarchy.

Now, it is the case, that Christianity must not only give up its basic spiritual divisions in favor of Dewey’s Democratic ideal but now Christianity must give up its basic patriarchal sociological distinctions of man vs. woman, of Superior vs. Inferior (eg. parent vs. child) and distinct peoples.

Any refusal to give up either basic historic Christian distinctions — Spiritual or Sociological — is a treasonous crime against the Democratic ideal and will be dealt with as all treason is dealt with.

The modern Church caves to this agenda and reinterprets Christianity through this Democratic ideal.

Inescapability of Religion In Driving Culture

 

“The culture of a people [is] an incarnation of its religion,” and “no culture has appeared or developed — except together with a religion. . . .”  
T. S. Eliot
Notes towards the Definition of Culture, pp. 32, 13

Of course, the drum that Eliot is beating here is a drum that is often beat  on Iron Ink. Religion is the animating spirit of culture and culture is the visible expression of religion. It is proper to make a distinction between them but they cannot be isolated from one another. Culture is the body of which religion is the animating soul. When I look at a culture I am seeing its religion. When I examine a people’s religion, their culture makes sense.

As an extension of this the form of civil Government of a people, being a part of their culture, is also a manifestation of their religion. All States are organized religiously. There is no such thing as a state that has separated itself from the religion of its church. Now, it may take some doing to locate what is serving as the Church to the State (Temple, Shrine, Government Schools, Mosque, etc.) but the idea of separation of Church and State is at best an illusion and always a surd.

Now, many of been my conversation partners who have denounced this idea. They have contended that it is past obvious that the Church is in decline, and if they are talking about organized Christianity or organized religion in general, they might be right. Recently, in the publishing world, it has been open season on organized religion and religious observances. It is understandable that people might observe that we are living in increasingly profane times.

Not so.

The total amount of faith of a people  (or a person) never dissipates though it may change the object of its affection that it sets itself upon. The faith tank remains full. Only the service of the god the faith fuel is being burned for changes.

To locate the new religion in service of the new god one has to identify the new sacred center of a social order. This is done by identifying a people group’s borders of what is tolerated and what is not tolerated. What kind of speech is blasphemous? Who defines unacceptable behavior and what must be done to remove the guilt of said behavior?

This means that there are no “ages of irreligion,” or “ages of skepticism.” Organized religions may recede but they recede in favor unorganized or embryonic religions. Curiously, it is the “so called” skeptics who write the books denouncing religion who are most obviously full of the inescapable religious impulse. Their objection is not religion as it is other people’s religion that they don’t approve of — a disapproval only arrived at as informed by whatever religion they harbor.

An interesting phenomenon when organized Christianity goes into decline is the rising of the Shaman. The Shaman is thought of being a person uniquely in touch with the spirit-world. Indeed, he is often the bridge between the unknown and the known. He often is the incarnation himself of the god’s will or even of the god.

Contemporary Shamans in our enlightenment culture are most often found in the field of Psychiatry. The Psychologist-Psychiatrist knows what the laymen  cannot know about himself and the laymen visits the Shrink-Shaman in order to be cured of what ails him. The Psychiatrist Witch Doctor identifies the sin, and for a price provides an incremental cure for the sin.

Contemporary Shamans in more animistic cultures will typically direct their customers to a potion or spell or a ghost dance or a spirit-animal to provide relief. But whether in antiseptic materialistic enlightenment cultures or in animistic spiritist cultures the Shaman always rises when objective Christianity goes into abeyance. In our religio-culture in the West, one can find both expressions. Whether it is some form of psychoanalysis for urban professionals or whether it is astrology or necromancy for those in the santeria cult in New Orleans or New York city the Shaman arises when organized Christianity recedes.

Note, though that religion never disappears. Never.  Man as Homo Adorans is a hopelessly religious being and all cultures are merely religion poured over ethnicity.

Oh … and as an addendum, this is why R2K is a lousy theology. There is no common square that is not an expression of some religion. R2K would have us believe that culture is religion free, operating instead on the basis of some potentially common Natural laws. Don’t you believe it! All law is religious law and the minute one surrenders Christianity as the cult behind the culture some other religion and god will own the culture.

The Connection Between The Second Amendment And Government Schools

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said to boos from the crowd.

“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he then added.

“Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Donald J. Trump

1.) Hillary Clinton does indeed support abolishing the Second Amendment. At a townhall meeting recently Clinton responded to a question regarding the desire to clamp down on gun ownership by saying,

“the [Australian] government was able to curtail the supply and set a different standard for gun purchases in the future.”

Clinton finished by saying,

“It would be worth considering doing it on the national level.”

Clinton wants to take your Second Amendment God given rights away. In such a context it is fitting and proper for her opponent to note that such an action may well lead to unfavorable consequences.

2.) Our Marxist media is hyperventilating over the fact that Trump noted that Americans in 2016 might take the same actions against a Government that seeks to seize their weapons as Americans in 1776 took when the Government sought to seize their weapons.

Trump is not calling for political assassination. He is merely saying that if the FEDS come for guns some people may not go quietly into the night. This is an objective fact.

Today’s media would have supported the British in 1776.

3.) People who are so exercised in protecting the Second Amendment are a curious lot. I say that because many many of them are so incredibly hostile to any idea of seizing their weapons and yet they turn right around and willingly give up their children to be brainwashed in Government schools. If all the people who are intensely pro-Second Amendment had not sent their children to Government schools to be propagandized into Cultural Marxist thinking no politician would ever dare bring up the idea of overturning the Second Amendment since there would not be the public support for such a policy.

4.) Clearly, rabid Second Amendment types, by their actions, demonstrate that keeping their weapons is more important than keeping their children. The same rabidness about protecting our guns from the clutches of the FEDS should be applied to protecting our children from the clutches of the FEDS. Indeed, keeping our children is more important than keeping our guns, if only because guns need trigger fingers to squeeze the trigger in order to be effective and if we keep our children there will be more children with more trigger fingers in order to fire back at the FEDS when they seek to exercise their tyranny. If you want your children to share your conviction about the Second Amendment and its importance then take them out of Government Schools.

5.) If people desire to be truly consistent about their opposition to gun control then they should be equally opposed to children control. If you really love your guns do your children a favor and get them out of Government schools.