A brief rebuttal to Bret McAtee’s critique of my Kinism post:
1. I’m not sure why CREC “minister” is in scare quotes. I am a pastor in good standing in the
CREC. Seems snarky, right from the get-go.
2. The book I
reviewed is not a sustained argument over 650 pages, but a self-professed
“encyclopedia.” I read all the original
arguments from the authors – roughly a dozen pages – and dipped into the
quotes. This took an hour. I don't see anything wrong with this.
3. Bret equivocates: “Here
the man says the book is just common sense.”
Of course, I meant most of the quotes, and the first premise in the
introduction, that people ought to care for those closest to them, before those
far away. Bret finds it inconsistent to
hold that, and that there are times to favor and help those not of our kind,
which does not follow at all.
4. Bret makes a distinction.
I said (summarizing the Kinist view): “to favor those not of your kind is impiety.”
Bret corrected me, that “to favor those not of your
kind above those who are of your kind is impiety.”
This is a distinction without much difference. When Boaz chose to pursue Rahab over the
other Israelite woman gleaners, or David promoted Uriah the Hittite instead of an
ambitious ethnic Israelite, David favored “those not of your kind, above those
who are of your kind.” This was obviously
okay with the Lord. Kinists can easily
argue that any kind of help or favor shown to others could have been given to
their own kind.
I assert that there IS “impiety in [Bret’s] statement in
bold [above].” It is not biblical. The Good Samaritan is the most obvious example.
I mean by this, in part, that it is permissible, both
- for believers to
marry believing spouses of pagan backgrounds, or of other races; and
- for God’s people to
love and help the alien and stranger among them, even when it is a sacrifice of
resources that could otherwise go to building up their own family’s (race’s?) estate
(Ruth 2:8-19).
To be frank, the physical lineage of Jesus Christ (the blood
He carries in His veins right now, sitting at the right hand of God) is mixed
with Canaanite blood. God has no problem
with that, and neither should we. God favored
those not of His kind, extending mercy to foreigners at great cost to
Himself. Gentiles are brought into the
body of Christ as no less than Jews, regardless of their race.
5. Next, on
segregation and freedom of assembly:
I have no problem with a club for Dutch historians, or
Zimbabwean hunters, but to form a club based on skin pigmentation is repugnant
to most, and I think rightly so. Why? It celebrates a physical trait, instead of a
hobby or ethnic heritage. It indicates
a crass racism that society ought not tolerate.
Is there a legal right to freely associate today as “whites-only”? I don’t think under current law there is, and
that’s fine with me. Questioning the
compatibility and wisdom of inter-racial marriages, like that between a
Ukrainian and South African, is legitimate.
But ruling out absolutely an inter-racial marriage because it involves
people of very different skin pigmentation, is wrong-headed.
6. I do not believe it is biblical or wise for a Bible-based
institution to allow segregation based on skin color. No.
7. Bret’s responses (and the articles he cites) on Ruth and Rahab are ridiculous. They were probably Hebrews? Kinist arguments like this are why I won’t invest
(waste) more time studying their arguments.
The text emphasizes in both cases that they were not Israelite, that they were
outside of Israel and brought in. That's the whole point. It's also the Gospel point of the New Testament inclusion of Gentiles in the church. See
Ephesians 2:11ff again.
8. Bret appeals to the Church Fathers, but then quotes two
professors from the 70s and from the South.
I am not a cultural Marxist, as Bret asserts, seeking to force mass amalgamation of races on the populous, because of these views of mine. That’s crazy. To be accused of this makes it clear to me the overly binary and blinkered perspective that Kinists have: you either agree with us, or you're a cultural Marxist. Come on.
I’d commend Carl Trueman’s work in “Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self,” or "Strange New World," in which he satisfyingly critiques and destroys cultural Marxism.
There are a whole lot of zealous, anti-CRT/SJW warriors
out there right now in my circles.
[CoughFightLaughFeastCough]
A lot of zeal to crush woke-ness. I agree with the goal.
But they are tending to believe as true anything that is the total opposite of that error. (Example: “if Stalin or cultural Marxism wanted to mix races, then we must keep them distinct.” Neither is a biblical priority.)
Don’t swing from woke-ism to Kinism.
Error is seldom diametrically opposite to the truth, but usually a
half-lie, mixed in with truth.
Such is the case with Kinism.
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