Examining Doug Wilson’s Argument For The Differences Between Races

“Not that many centuries ago, my ancestors were engaged in idolatry, human sacrifice, and mindless superstitions… [but] their descendants would be building cathedrals and writing symphonies. The gospel is the issue—grace, not race.”

Doug Wilson

Wilson exposes his Gnosticism with this quote. However there is some truth in what Wilson writes here as seen in I Peter 1:18

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

I Peter 1:18

However, Wilson tries to make these kinds of texts prove too much. Wilson’s problem here is that he wants to insist that culture is only a product of what occurs in the thinking that goes on between people’s ears without taking into consideration that men in their variegated existence are composite beings whose genetic inheritance impacts the way that thinking they do is processed.

Wilson’s naked fathers once visited w/ the Gospel are not going to build cultures that look the same as the culture that Mongolians or Hutus build who are visited by the Gospel. History has demonstrated that white people visited with the Gospel build superior cultures compared to non-white people who have been visited with the Gospel. By God’s grace alone White people have been the civilizational carriers of Christianity. This explains why white people are so hated. They are so hated because they are perfumed with the perfume of Christ on a civilizational basis that has never been true of other races.

Herein we find the Gnosticism in Wilson’s (and others) thinking. They refuse to take the manishness of man in his diversity seriously. They think that if all men think all the same way (if they all think Gospel thoughts) they will be all the same building all the same exact cultures.

THAT is both GNOSTIC & IDIOTIC.

Yes, Wilson’s later ancestors (well, the non-Jewish ones … Doug likes to boast of his Jewish admixture) were building Cathedrals and writing symphonies and yes that was all of God’s grace. However, God’s grace was not only found in their regeneration and so change of thinking patterns. That grace was also found in the genetic inheritance (race) that God in creation and in His providential ordering determined they would have. To deny this is Gnostic, and frankly, on this subject, Doug is Gnostic.

Christ’s Death And Ours

God came near in flesh and blood
Which to Adam was a snare
And in that now incarnate state
Adam’s fall, is now repaired

And with this divine remedy
The Redeemer does provide
A death for us as substitute
For in His death we died

In Union now with Christ our head
His Resurrection secures
The healing of Adam’s wound
And warriors who endure

Ephesians 6:1 & Infant Baptism

Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

1.) The phrase, “in the Lord” marks the identity of the children as being the Christian children of Christian parents which points to the inclusion of these children in the new and better covenant just as they were included in the old and worse covenant. If the children were not included in the new and better covenant Paul could not command the pagan children to obey their parents “in the Lord.”

2.) This reading then correlates to I Corinthians 7:14 where the same Apostle under the same inspiration of the Holy Spirit says that the children of even one believing parent are indeed “Holy.”

“Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.”

Children are set apart by their relation to the covenant. At the very least they are outwardly related to the covenant, though we extend them the judgment of charity by believing that they have the essence of the covenant (Christ) until such a time, (may it never be), when they forswear their covenant privileges and obligations.

3.) Since that is the way the Apostle speaks of the children (“obeying parents in the Lord,” and “not being unclean but holy,”) it is without dispute that infants should be baptized with the sign and seal of their inclusion. They cannot obey their parents “in the Lord” unless they are “in the Lord,” – which is what the sign and seal of Baptism proclaims, and they can only be considered “holy” by having the sign and seal of the covenant.

4.) The continuity between the old covenant and the new and better covenant which we are insisting should find infants baptized is seen also in the fact that the promise of the old and worse covenant (“that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”) remains in the new and better covenant. This is a lesser to greater argument. If the promise remains to Christian children as articulated in the Old Covenant “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth,” then how much more so should it be obvious that the promise is extended to only those who have been first given the sign and the seal of inclusion into the covenant of grace?

The New Testament makes no sense unless their is a covenantal unity that is presupposed between the old and new covenant.

John Locke’s Vision Of Religious Tolerance … McAtee’s Exposure Of Locke’s Error

“Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated.”
 
John Locke

A Letter Concerning Toleration

I think what we find above is what today is embraced by many who styles themselves as advocates of “Principled Pluralism.”

1.) These types of chaps are all for toleration and pluralism of religions in one social order as long as it principled and so reasonable. However, the minute one advocates for “principled pluralism,” and a “reasonable toleration,” one has rejected a pluralism that could include a religion that insists “Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me,” for a religion that insists, “Thou Shall Have Other Gods Along With Me.” You see, the God of the Bible does not allow for “reasonable tolerance,” or for “principled pluralism,” because a reasonable tolerance does not allow for His intolerance and a principled pluralism does not have enough plurality in it to allow for a God who allows no plurality.

2.) Locke denies toleration to those who tolerate the denial of the being of God. Subsequently, Locke affirms that the public square can be flooded with all the gods of all those who affirm the being of God. Only atheists it seems, need not apply. The problem here is that the position of allowing all the gods in the public square is not a great deal different than allowing none of the gods in the public square. If all the gods are in then no God is really God and so the State is the only entity left who must decide how far any one of these different gods are allowed to go in the public square. In essence Locke’s position makes the state the God over the gods.

3.) Locke forbad the atheist from creating a system that forbad all religion but he ended up creating a system that likewise forbad all religion except the religion that had the State as its head, determining how far any one god or god could or could not go in the public square. This is where Locke’s system eventually led. Locke’s principled pluralism finally did what he feared the atheist would do … Locke’s principled pluralism destroyed all religion save the religion that announces that “in the state we live and move and have our being.” We live in the condition that Locked feared … “all is dissolved.”

4.) Locke, like many today, did not understand that religion is an inescapable category wherein one and only one religion must dominate. The religion that Locke bequeathed to us, through our Founders, is a religion wherein the God of the Bible is not allowed to be the sole God over the public square. Instead, Locked bequeathed to us a system where the State, acting as the god over all the gods in the tolerant public square, determines what is and is not allowed in terms of morality, religion, and law.

5.) It is true that the atheist can “have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration,” but what Locke didn’t also see as true is that the principled pluralist can “have no pretence because of his tolerance principle whereupon to challenge the privilege of any god, from Allah to the Talmudist Demon God to Buddha to the Flying Spaghetti Monster God, to the God of the Mormons (much the same as the previous one mentioned) the privilege of toleration.” If all the gods are welcomed in then none of the gods are welcomed in. If all the gods are welcomed in then the state must be the GOD who rules over all the gods.

6.) In the last clause Locke basically says other religions can be allowed in a social order as long as they mind their own business. The problem here is that it is the very nature of religion to establish domination over others and so Locke is saying… “As long as other religions do not do what religions do they can be tolerated here.” That doesn’t strike me as a very good principle by which to support principled pluralism.

Principled pluralism was not a good principle even when the whole nation was still largely a nation consisting of squabbling protestant denominations (with Maryland as Roman Catholic and Rhode Island as Anabaptist) each seeking hegemony (Rhode Island finally won). It’s even a worse principle today when the whole “nation” consists of squabbling religions, the chief of which is the religion of no religion — those who call themselves “atheists,” or “no-religion.”

The Principled pluralism of Locke wanted a nation that allowed for tolerance and the presence of sundry expressions of Christianity. What it eventually birthed was a nation that has the presence of sundry religions with no tolerance for the one true religion of Christianity.

Some Praise For The Prophet Of Leaky Dispensationalism

Years ago I did a deep dive on Dispensationalism. I read over the course of time;

“Prophecy & The Church” – O. T. Allis
“Wrongly Dividing the Truth” – John Gerstner
“The Incredible Scofield & His Book” – Joseph Canfield
“Life Of Edward Irving: Fore-Runner Of The Charismatic Movement” – Arnold Dallimore
“Understanding Dispensationalists” – Vern Poythress
“Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” – Marvin Rosenthal
“House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology – Bahnsen & DeMar
“The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” – O. Palmer Robertson
“Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God” – Keith Mathison

These are the ones I remember. I know there were other titles I can’t remember now. I also read many books arguing for Covenant theology in general.

Because of this study I’ve been adamantly opposed to Dispensationalism in all its expressions. Gerstner goes so far as to say it is heresy. Allis’ work is perhaps the most devastating to this “theology.”

It is because of this foursquare opposition to Dispensationalism in all of its varieties (even of the so called “leaky Dispensationalism variety”) that I find it difficult to join in with the legions of Baptists and others who are now mourning the death of John MacArthur.

That is not to say that I am not a little bit saddened. It is to say that my sorrow is not anywhere near where it was when Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Van Til, Gordon Clark and others died.

As it pertains to MacArthur I respected his stand against Charismania and anti-nomianism (even though he fell into neo-nomianism in opposing anti-nomianism). I saluted MacArthur when he took on the Church growth movement and tore it apart. I saluted MacArthur when he refused to qualify his opposition to sodomy and other tough issues like the absolute requirement for a known Jesus Christ in order to be redeemed. These were issues that many other guys like Tim Keller or Billy Graham or Robert Schuller were constantly trying to nuance to death. To MacArthur’s credit he did not do that. I saluted MacArthur when he warned his Seminary students that it would be hard sledding in the ministry given all the opposition that they would have to spend their whole lives fighting. I could identify with that one. Of course, MacArthur stood against California Gov. Newsome during the Covid issue in Newsome attempt to keep the Churches closed. MacArthur was one of the few who did so. That perhaps, was MacArthur’s greatest moment.  In many respects John MacArthur was a man who could be admired because of these qualities.

I also admired him a wee bit because my Father-in-law admired him. Rev. Anthony Lombardi owned series after series of MacArthur’s taped sermons. I have that collection now sitting in my office. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to one. I always believed that I had better things to read or listen to, but my Baptist minister Father-in-law was smitten with John MacArthur. That stands to reason though since they were both Baptists and they were both Dispensationalists and they were both more than a little put off by the seeker sensitive movement.

For myself, I only ever read MacArthur’s book on Charismania and his two books on Lordship salvation issue. I thought Richard Gaffin’s book was better on the Charismania issue and I thought Mike Horton’s book was better on the antinomian issue. Also, several of the Puritans put faith in justification and faith in sanctification in a far superior way to MacArthur’s take. Still, that MacArthur was willing to take on the issues spoke in his favor, even if he didn’t get it completely correct.

Also, MacArthur clearly helped thousands upon thousands of people through his preaching, and writing. That is a good thing.

However, having said all that to honor him, I do pray that ministers who embrace leaky dispensationalism as did MacArthur did not will no longer be a presence in the Church today. I say this because I do not think Dispensationalism is a proper understanding of Biblical Christianity. I think the theology of that school is a hindrance to the furtherance of the  Christian faith.  It is sub-Christianity. If you read Allis and Gerstner they would say it is anti-Christianity.

Remember, it was MacArthur who boldly told his legion of followers that “We lose down here. Get over it.” This pessimism is a direct result of MacArthur’s leaky Dispensationalism. As long as the clergy believe that the Church and the Christian faith will be defeated in space and time history that defeat will become a self-fulfilled prophecy. The Church doesn’t need more clergy like MacArthur who not only believes this but who still think that the eschatological clock is tied to modern Israel and that we have an obligation to support Israel and is still looking for the Temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt. These characteristics of Dispensationalism need to be eternally put to rest.

So John MacArthur served his generation and now has been gathered to his fathers. We praise him for his strengths while not ignoring his weaknesses.