← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Texas Dissident
Thread ID: 14320 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2004-06-25
2004-06-25 16:36 | User Profile
[url=http://www.littlegeneva.com/mt/archives/000289.html]The PCA and Race[/url]
excellent commentary and biblical exegesis by Harry - June 24, 2004
I'm often criticized for talking so much about race. Henceforth I promise to stop, just as soon as everyone else stops talking about it. Summer is here, which means that it's time for the PCA to congregate for a General Assembly and moan about racial reconciliation. (For the uninitiated, racial reconciliation is when whites apologize to blacks for not giving them enough money.) It seems that the sackcloth and ashes two years ago were insufficient. Now we see a "pastoral letter" with a lot of "meaningless repentance," as Steve Wilkins puts it. But I have to commend them for making an effort at defining racism. "Racism is any want of conformity to or transgression of the Bible?s approach to race... Racism is the explicit or implicit belief or practice that qualitatively distinguishes or values one race over other races. Racism includes the social exclusion or judgment, or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals based on racial differences, which always include physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure that are hereditary and unalterable... From a biblical perspective, it is the position of the General Assembly that racism, as it is defined in the letter, is sin, and that repentance must follow both individually and corporately... The mystery of the Gospel upsets the status quo of race... while our racial, national, social and sexual distinctions remain, they no longer divide us. They have been transcended in the unity of the family of God (Galatians 3:28)... The church must therefore exhibit its multi-racial, multi-national and multi-cultural nature... planning for the growth of the church along natural affinity lines has become an obstacle to the supernatural work of the Spirit..."
There is "Racism in the sense of racial dogma: '...doctrine or teaching...that asserts the superiority of one race over another or others, and that seeks to maintain the supposed purity of a race or the races' (Webster's New World Dictionary)."
There is "Racism in the sense of racial prejudice: 'Prejudice implies a preconceived and unreasonable judgment or opinion...marked by suspicion, fear, or hatred' (Webster's New World Dictionary). Racial prejudice is judging people by the color of their skin, rather than by their character."
There is also "Racism in the sense of racial dominance: 'Any activity by individuals or institutions that treats human beings in an inequitable manner because of color."
One wonders where they draw the line. We all value our families above other families. Until recently, I assumed that we all valued our extended families above other families. But now Reformed pastors tell me that if even my mother is not a believer, she is not really my mother. (This puts an interesting spin on the fifth commandment.) Let's suppose that I take a sentence like this - "Racism includes the social exclusion or judgment, or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals based on racial differences, which always include physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure that are hereditary and unalterable" - and change it to this: "Sexism includes the social exclusion or judgment, or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals based on sexual differences, which always include physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure that are hereditary and unalterable." How many think that such a statement is legitimate? If it were true, it would make every man in the PCA a sexist. They continue to deny women access to the pulpit, which simply won't do if they intend to march down the yellow brick road of egalitarianism. Before long our logical fallacies come back to bite us. I know there are those who argue that the white race is superior to all others, but I don't know them personally. Rather, we argue (based on all of human history) that God has gifted the races in special ways, and life will be more harmonious when we recognize once again that we are not equal. We also argue that it is wrong to willfully disrupt the diversity of creation. Those who mock "the supposed purity of a race or the races" invariably believe (without scriptural warrant) that Pentecost has reversed the judgment at Babel. They are biological unitarians who wax philosophical about "the mystery of the gospel" but who seek to amalgamate through miscegenation. There is no mystery at all in "the one and the many" if the "many" no longer exists. If all members of the body of Christ suddenly turn into the liver, can we say that a body remains? As my friend Ralph puts it, "We may agree that the U.S. armed forces should be one, but does that mean that there should be neither Marines, Rangers, nor Seals? Is abolishing races the proper way to promote racial harmony? How can they harmonize if they don't exist? Is it hate for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to refuse to merge into one undifferentiated God?" I also find it humorous that they denounce inequitable treatment of races. I recently linked to a column by Walter Williams who calls for "educational triage" in light of the fact that black education has been such a disaster. He actually said that some blacks are not worth educating.
The PCA is only about 30 years old, but its founders were not so confused about the so-called "civil rights" movement. The Moderator of the First PCA General Assembly was Jack Williamson. At the 1969 GA of the PCUS, he and others filed a resolution that opposed Marren Loofer Keen, and it was ordered expunged from the record. They knew they were no longer welcome in the liberal PCUS. Now the PCA, which they created, has followed the same pattern, and the reasons are obvious. Just last year, on the issue of strict subscription to the Westminster Confession, Dr. Morton Smith reminded the assembly that the PCA was formed to be "a continuing Southern Presbyterian Church, which was clearly an Old School Presbyterian Church..." Dabney, Thornwell, Palmer, Smylie, Charles Colcott Jones, and John L. Girardeau were Old School Southern Presbyterians, and they would not recognize the PCA today. You might recall that Smith was a respondant, along with RCjr, at last year's Auburn Avenue conference. He once wrote that "integration would lead to intermarriage and that the 1960s social revolution would 'destroy the divinely created diversity of humankind and help establish Communist domination.' He argued that the church should not support integration. In How is the Gold Become Dim: The Decline of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (1973), he wrote: 'The fact is that slavery had been legislated in the Bible, and therefore the Presbyterians in the South refrained from condemning slavery as sinful. The same can be said of the matter of segregation. The fact is that God Himself segregated Israel from the Canaanites.'" On the occasion of the racial reconciliation measure two years ago, he complained that the "whole program" of some in the church is "to abandon the Southern roots from which the majority of the PCA has come, which goes counter to the founding of the denomination as a Continuing Southern Presbyterian Church." In the same year, the Rev. Merle Messer filed a resolution that would have counseled churches not to allow their buildings to be used for League of the South activities. It was voted down, but only because it would have involved the church in political matters (an escape hatch for weasels). As Steve Wilkins told Christian Renewal in April of 2000, "the denomination is unreformable." As Father Smith says of those in recent years who should have denounced political correctness, "They didn't know any other way of how to answer it, than to approve it." In other words, we are being led by the blind. Next stop is the ditch. The PCA, which was designed to "follow the pattern of the Assembly of 1861" has come a long way from the great Presbyterians (north and south) who taught that "the hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage," and "all virtue in civilization would be lost if women were emancipated from the rule of men." It cracks me up to think that, originally, the men's dormitories at Reformed Seminary in Jackson, MS, were named Dabney Hall and Thornwell Hall.
Race is not considered by modern Christians a legitimate divider of mankind, yet at least the OPC affirms that "Scriptural terms which refer to divisions within human society are: generation, race, kindred, nation, people and kind." The PCA has been greatly influenced by this OPC paper, which can't even get to the eleventh chapter in the Bible without injecting sophistry: "God did not separate men by changing their physical appearance, but rather by introducing linguistic differentiation. The Bible is silent as to the origin of race." So diverse languages caused separation which caused genetic differences, but God didn't create the races. Surely wisdom will die with these geniuses. And in the next chapter, "When God selects Abram and his descendants to form a particular nation, this selection is not primarily racial." Sure, that's why Abraham let his children intermarry with the Canaanites. They go on to say that a suitable helper for any man is any female who is not an animal. OPC pastors make it a special point to find wives who don't look like them, just to prove that any woman will do. They affirm that "racial and cultural divisions are not sinful in themselves. God orders these divisions so that each nation may seek God and find Him (Acts 17:27)." Yet they also believe that even sexual differences "are overcome for 'you are all one in Christ Jesus.'" (This was written in 1974, but they still haven't ordained female pastors!) "Every believer has the right to worship and participate in the body of Christ. He cannot be excluded from the local congregation on cultural-racial grounds." This is a clever bait and switch. Of course every believer is to participate in the body of Christ, but the body of Christ does not meet in one building. Segregation has value in preserving the diversity of creation. This in no way implies absolute separation. In fact, it is clear that ministry was more effective when races were officially segregated. It all comes back to marriage. Churches usually begin to be integrated when interracial couples are admitted. This points to the need for the active role of fathers in the church since they bear responsibility for making such decisions for their own children. The Amish, for example, don't really need to worry about this because they have complex rules for admission which happen to protect their ethnicity. Such legalism is very similar to what we see in the early church, when one side wanted to require certain behavior of the other. Our forefathers struck a healthy middle ground between these extremes.
It is ridiculous to say that if churches are not integrated, "The truth at stake here is the free offer of the gospel to all." Churches are barely integrated as it is now, by design of the members, yet whites are willing to help anyone in need, as has always been the case. "It may be argued that the best way to reach blacks is with a black church and whites with a white church. Therefore racial-cultural heterogeneity should be restricted." Yes, and likewise, we believe that the best way to raise black children is in black families, and the best way to raise white children is in white families. Subversive stuff! But the funniest part of this whole charade is that the men who are so eager to integrate races segregate themselves from fellow believers on a broad range of theological issues. Have you noticed that presbyterians and baptists do not fellowship together on Sundays? A good way to stir up contention is to force them into one local body on the presumption that to "restrict the social-cultural composition of any local body of Christ is not only a violation of true doctrine but also Christian love." Hogwash. It is only because each group loves the other that we respect the boundaries between us and have determined to resolve our differences amicably. A sure recipe for apostasy is to mimic non-denominational churches, throw everyone together, and pretend that the ideas that previously separated us are of no importance. If such is the case with doctrine (which is of man), how much more should distinctions be respected in race (which is of God)? For all their faults, the OPC touches on this: "It may be that linguistic or cultural differences make the formation of separate congregations often with their own type of preaching and worship advisable; in these cases it is wise not to force an outward and therefore artificial form of unity but to recognize the differentiation within the circle of God?s people." Likewise, in the PCA letter, "Natural affinities of background, culture, and language are often powerful vehicles for the transfer of the Gospel and for unity in worship." But these New Age thinkers insist that there must be nothing that smacks of "forced" segregation, which all sounds well and good until it is considered as a practical matter. History attests that segregation has not been a matter of supremacy but a matter of avoiding miscegenation. This was the very reason for Jim Crow laws, and nothing has changed, practically speaking. But now, rather than confronting the issue like men, we turn tail and run to the nearest place that's whiter than our own. The hypocrisy is so thick that I am suffocating.
There is plenty more that could be mentioned in these letters. The OPC says that the Holy Spirit was poured out on "all flesh" in Acts 2, but Peter addresses the crowd as "men of Israel." And here's a howler: "Revelation 7:9,10. Here we see the chosen race worshipping the Lamb in heaven. They come from different backgrounds, yet worship with one voice." Well, that's not exactly what the Bible says. "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb..." It would be more accurate to say, "Here we see the chosen races worshipping the Lamb in heaven. They come from different nations, yet worship with one voice." The racial diversity in heaven looks a lot like racial diversity on earth, and the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations.
From a companion piece on PCA News by a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary: "It is because of the impartiality of God that repeatedly in the law of Moses the people of Israel were absolutely forbidden to make any distinction in their laws between those who are native born and those who are aliens. They were forbidden to discriminate between those who are strangers, those who are from other nations, other peoples, other races who are in their land." The perceptive among you will notice the bait and switch here. The first sentence is very true. There is no partiality with God, and race has no bearing on soteriology. The second sentence is patently false, and we are left to conclude that the PCA is simply lying. These men know the Scriptures very well, and they are deliberately ignoring a great deal that undermines their thesis. To name just a few: a stranger was never to rule over the people of Israel; a stranger could be charged interest; a foreign slave could be held permanently. The church is in sad shape when ministers of the gospel lie to us in order to keep their jobs.
"Christ's desire is not Asian-Americans here and Latinos there, Afro-Americans here and Anglo-Americans somewhere else, but rather that we may be brought to complete unity." As I said, unity in diversity is a mystery that is only possible through the Spirit. The "complete unity" mentioned here "set[s] aside the mystery of the Gospel." It is the desire to rebuild Babel, and it is contrary to what Acts 17:28 says about the bounds of our habitations. It is also a complete acceptance of the American geopolitical empire. Why not go whole hog and conquer the world in the name of unity? I can hear them 50 years from now: "Christ's desire is not Hmong-Americans here and Icelandic-Americans there, Argentinian-Americans here and Canadian-Americans somewhere else, but rather that we may be brought to complete unity."
"Yet we live in a time when it is widely taught that if we want to grow our churches more quickly and more effectively, we must make them purposefully homogeneous. Just one group, one race, one culture, one people, one economic class, one group all the same. Such a plan for the growth of the church is a sin against Jesus Christ." The author of this b.s. and every one of the people reading it live in homogenous neighborhoods. Far from being sinful, they think this contributes to peaceful relations with their neighbors. "The things that stand in the way are our pride of heritage, our security in our cultural identity, our comfort in our color ? all of these things stand in the way." Yet the Bible tells us to honor our fathers and mothers, and our forefathers and foremothers. What does the word honor mean to these people - sending Hallmark cards? This is not putting "confidence in the flesh" because it has nothing to do with salvation by grace. It has everything to do with obeying the commands of the Lord, and it is the Lord who tells us that we are worse than infidels if we do not provide for our own. "We need to be prepared to say with the apostle Paul, 'I am white, I am English, I am Reformed, I am Presbyterian' ? or whatever it may be for you ? and say, 'I consider this manure.' Those are Paul?s words." [We interrupt this broadcast to inform you that Harry has retired to the adjacent room for 10 minutes to break furniture and yell about lying hypocrites. Now he's pacing in circles out in the street, kicking at imaginary things. Here he comes again.] No, it is quite clear, to anyone who is not a charlatan, that Paul does not consider himself to be justified by any of these things, as the Pharisees did. Here are Paul's words that are ignored by lying liars who lie even when they lie: "For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites..." Paul was apparently guilty of pride, security, and comfort in race, according to the PCA, because he wished he could have been accursed in order to save his physical kinsmen. In all seriousness, have our preachers been body-snatched?
We've wondered for some time when Steve Wilkins would chime in to affirm or deny the scriptural stand on slavery he took years ago with Doug Wilson. We wondered if he would back away from his words, as Wilson has. We are sad to report that he has caved to political correctness just like everyone else: "We believe that any race-based system of slavery, past or present, is an abomination and cannot be defended by anyone who takes the Bible seriously." This is a blatant contradiction of the law of the stranger. His definition of racism is still very good, though. If the PCA adopted this definition of racism, they would be on solid ground. There is only one caveat. Our position is that God gifted the races in various ways, thus making them superior in certain respects, and we believe that He did this so that the human race would seek harmony in applying those gifts. Again, it is helpful to consider the analogy of the parts of the body. It is not entirely inaccurate to talk about the "inherent" superiority of one part over another as it relates to the function for which it has been gifted. But there must always be the understanding that harmony is the ultimate goal. We must force ourselves to think in trinitarian ways, which is exactly what the PCA and OPC are refusing to do. Harmony was the goal in the antebellum South, and it was successful in almost every way. It was a great benefit especially to those parts of the body who were too barbaric to govern themselves. Thus we look askance at anyone who declares that "the institution of slavery as it existed in this country prior to 1865 did not follow the Biblical requirements and therefore cannot be defended and certainly should never be resurrected." Despite the faults of individual men, it was an infinitely more humane system of slavery than that which currently exists. Since there has never been a time when slavery has not existed, it seems the height of stupidity to castigate our forefathers (without proof) for "Biblical requirements" they failed to attain when their society was superior to ours in almost every way.
On a related note, I must disagree with one thing Rushdoony said in his essay The New Racism: "The Western mind, common to Europe and the Americas, is a product, not of race, but of culture, religious culture. Elements of it, none too good, go back to the barbarian peoples of Europe. Other aspects are from Greek philosophy, again none too good... The Western mind and culture, in all its advances, is a product of Biblical religion. It is a religious, not a racial, product." This is the old debate between nature and nurture. Rush is saying that culture is entirely nurtured, and 6,000 years of human history contradict him. Charles Hodge said it well: "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...these varieties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those causes as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose..." Greeks, Romans, and Celts had established great civilizations and republican government before they knew the gospel. Don't misunderstand! It is all equal to dung in comparison to knowing the truth, but it is obvious that the members of the body of Christ did not evolve. They were created very much the same as they are now. (It's a minor quibble, and far be it from me to disagree too much with Rushdoony on the subject of race. I wish he were still here to give these New Age preachers what for.)
There was a very telling OPC Q&A about race, in which may be found this statement: "The United States is an increasingly racially diverse nation, and similarly the OPC is increasingly racially diverse. As you know, there is large scale immigration into our country. In 1974 our country was struggling with the civil rights crisis, but in 2002 we are beyond that to the internationalization of our nation. This is God's providential doing. So we adapt our attitudes to the way things are as UNDERSTOOD FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE. As a denomination we don't ordinarily make declarations about such things; rather, we adjust to the present reality, but always biblically." I love that part about the "internationalization of our nation." It all leads to one-world government, as I never tire of saying.
There was also an article in Contra Mundum some years ago. The author said he holds no grudge against interracial congregations, but "I am puzzled, however, by the inordinate zeal to start such churches. Does it correspond to the clamor we hear for it in the world?" The argument that the "PCA must start multicultural churches because the church in Revelation is drawn from all nations and tongues is not persuasive. It is not necessary that characteristics of the church universal be found in every particular congregation."
The byline for the interracial movie Love is a Many Splendored Thing says it all: "5000 Years of Tradition Swept Aside in Thrilling Moments of Enchanted Love."
"It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." ~ Matthew 15:26
"As Christians, it's not our job to start a new country," he said. "It's our job to spread the kingdom and the kingdom is not of this world. It's of the heart." Sounds like gnosticism to me. Cory Burnell, the leader of the Christian Exodus to South Carolina, is quick to say that he is not trying to establish a theocracy. Wimp.
It's easy to believe that Larry Bird is being called a racist for saying this: "...as we all know, the majority of fans are white America. If you just had a couple of white guys in there [in the NBA], you might get them a little excited... But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever... I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because it's disrespect to my game... I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American." This kind of talk contradicts the orthodoxy (now popular in formerly Southern churches) that people are just people. On his first point, Steve Sailer writes, "It?s amusing to hear the same people who constantly accuse whites of being racist to then turn on a dime and say whites aren't the slightest bit ethnocentrist." He goes on: "White Americans only make up about 12% of the NBA. African-Americans are 77%. Worse, following the retirement of the great point guard John Stockton, white Americans supply almost none of the stars. The only white American to play in the All Star Game the last two seasons has been Brad Miller, hardly a household name... you can?t understand basketball today without thinking about race."
In 1650 there were only 300 negroes in Virginia, which was about 1% of the population. They and many whites came as indentured servants to pay for their passage to Virginia, after which they each received 50 acres. Lifetime servitude in Virginia began in 1654 when Anthony Johnson convinced the court that he was entitled to own John Casor. Both were negroes. In fact, Johnson was one of the first 20 negroes brought to Jamestown in 1619. By 1623 he had earned his freedom, and by 1651 he was wealthy enough to import five slaves of his own (slaves were not cheap). As a slaveowner, he was granted the headrights to 250 acres. As it says in the book Virginia, Guide to the Old Dominion: "Anthony Johnson ought to be in a 'Book of Firsts.' As the most ambitious of the first 20, he could have been the first negro to set foot on Virginia soil. He was Virginia's first free negro and first to establish a negro community, first negro landowner, first negro slave owner and as the first, white or black, to secure slave status for a servant, he was actually the founder of slavery in Virginia."
"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs - partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do do not want to lose their jobs." ~ Booker T. Washington
"From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future - that community asks for and gets chaos." ~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1965
A brilliant plan to purify Zimbabwe. Perhaps food will fall out of the sky, or out of Uncle Sam's deep pockets. And when South African blacks squat on the lands of white farmers, the farmers have to pay to relocate them. Orania is looking better all the time.
Michael Stipe of R.E.M. has not lost his religion after all! He says his faith is "a good faith. It's my own. I consider myself a person of belief. As someone living in the world I think faith is important." There are thousands of churches who will admit a man with that kind of testimony.
A very good one from RCjr.
Chocolate-dipped pork fat. Tasty!
Conservatives care less about principles than about winning. So do liberals. And conservatives are liberals. Oh spit, now I'm really confused.
Bush plans to screen everyone for mental illness. We trust he'll begin with his wife.
"And so, with no weapons of mass destruction yet found after 18 months of searching, the second pillar of the president's case for war falls to earth. Iraq was an unnecessary war." ~ Pat Buchanan
Bill O'Reilly's foreign policy: "Bomb the living daylights out of them." He must be running for president.
According to the Washington Post, this is the opening sentence of Bill Clinton's new memoir: "Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother in the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, a town of about six thousand in southwest Arkansas, thirty-three miles east of the Texas border at Texarkana." How would you like to begin 900 pages with a sentence like that?
Sixty-four percent of Israeli Jews favor ethnic cleansing.
Jews ask Texas Republicans to stop calling the New USA a "Christian nation." It used to be, and then the Jews arrived.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is backing to a new translation of the New Testament which deletes Paul's condemnation of faggotry and which also encourages Christians to have more sex.
The old Mark 1:10-11: "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from the heaven saying, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
The new Mark 1:10-11: "As he was climbing up the bank again, the sun shone through a gap in the clouds. At the same time a pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God?s spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, 'That?s my boy! You?re doing fine!'"
The old Matthew 23:25: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"
The new Matthew 23:25: "Take a running jump, Holy Joes, humbugs!"
The old Matthew 26:69-70: "Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, 'You also were with Jesus of Galilee.' But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what you say."
The new Matthew 26:69-70: "Meanwhile Rocky was still sitting in the courtyard. A woman came up to him and said: 'Haven?t I seen you with Jesus, the hero from Galilee?' Rocky shook his head and said: 'I don?t know what the hell you?re talking about!'"
Posted at June 23, 2004 10:35 PM
2004-06-25 17:25 | User Profile
Hey guys, I am sorry if I dont read long articles like this one but I like to go to the meat of the matter by skipping the salad.
2004-06-26 20:05 | User Profile
For our brothers and sisters in the Reformed/Presbyterian/Calvinist camp, if you aren't paying visits there already, I would highly encourage you to spend some time at Little Geneva and the sites linked to from the main index page. Harry Seabrook is just a flat-out, outstanding critic of 'mainstream' culture and religion and it is well-worth a daily read at the bare minimum.
[url]http://littlegeneva.com/mt/index.html[/url]
2004-06-27 15:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]For our brothers and sisters in the Reformed/Presbyterian/Calvinist camp, if you aren't paying visits there already, I would highly encourage you to spend some time at Little Geneva and the sites linked to from the main index page. Harry Seabrook is just a flat-out, outstanding critic of 'mainstream' culture and religion and it is well-worth a daily read at the bare minimum.
[url]http://littlegeneva.com/mt/index.html[/url][/QUOTE]
Thanks for the link, TD.