So, on Ethnicity, Kinism, and Nationalism

This post is a catchup on social media discussions.

Feel free to disregard if you haven't followed it!

Calling racial preferences inherently racist as I did is an overstatement.  I recant.

 

And yet.

 

Those ethnic or racial preferences within us are not justified by their natural existence, much less are they obligated by Scripture or natural law.

 

They are like any natural impulse or temptation, which must be disciplined by the Word.  When I hear “God Bless the USA,” I can agree and even get emotional, but I need to temper it with “God may judge the USA, instead.”

When we say grace perfects nature, we mean exactly this.  Natural affection needs sanctifying, not celebrating or justifying without qualification, just because the Left vilifies whites or America, or just because we feel it well up in us naturally.  C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, on Storge, is excellent on this. 

 

(To clarify, I have no qualms about tearing up watching a Trump rally where Lee Greenwood sings, “God bless the USA.”)

 

So equating natural affection for one's own tribe or race with the fifth commandment obligation to honor our fathers seems a mistake to me.  I shouldn’t come to hate my country and its founders.  But neither should I  adore it without qualification, without some theological lenses on, evaluating that nationalism.

 

 

One of you defined racism as “the belief, explicit or implicit, that one race is born morally superior to another race. It creates arrogance and pride in one group while also lowering the other group, sometimes to sub-human status.”  That is hard racism, but there are lower-grade versions that are not the woke-white-guilt variety.  I would add that Kinism asserts some level of principled segregation or preference for one’s own ethnicity, with NO inherent animosity or belief of superiority toward other races.  (Though some strands of it are undoubtedly white supremacist.)  This is a view I believe should be soundly rejected by church leadership.  I stand by Uri’s post. 

 

When Uri says “chased out of the church,” realize that we do this all the time with other issues: “We’ll have no talk of women in leadership here.”  “You want to blow up abortion clinics?  You are NOT welcome here.”  I’ve had to do this once or twice at church, in my years of ministry.  All the talk charging that I want to excommunicate people with different social theories, or throw out discipline procedure, is uncharitable to my and Uri’s position.  The question is simply where the Overton window is.  I’m deeply concerned that it has shifted recently in our circles, toward allowing and justifying ethnic preferences, in reaction to the immigration crisis and leftist reverse discrimination for minorities, which we now face, and should oppose.  However.  Whatever happened to judging people by the content of their character, instead of the color of their skin?  That is a sound Scriptural principle, regardless how some may want to ad hominem attack the man who said it.

 

Right now the church I serve has no minorities attending.  That is not a problem to fix, out of some white guilt.  I am not virtue signaling like the leftists, as I’ve been accused of.  But if the Asian or black visitors who come are made to feel awkward or excluded by things we say about this, that IS a problem.

 

More on preferences.

Yes, as of now I prefer that my single daughter marry a nice, white, Dutch Reformed boy.  The controversy isn’t over that abstract preference, but over what you will do when she brings home a black or Latino boy instead.  If he’s a gangster in lifestyle, we all agree on urging her back to a Christian way of life, and leaving him.  But if he’s a Clarence Thomas type, it seems we don’t agree.  Maybe I’m wrong.  My preference then needs to give way to God’s providence.  I don’t dig in and say my preference is based in the natural order, and God forbids or at least frowns on such a union, because He set the boundaries of nations, etc.  If it’s a problem that a black or Asian settles in to a white, Dutch Reformed church, or that a Moabite convert to Yahweh marries a faithful Israelite, or that a Hittite soldier becomes one of David’s mighty men, I define that as unbiblical Kinism, which should be (r)ejected from the church.

On Baptism and Peter Leithart

When I read Peter Leithart  I am generally edified.

When I read Peter Leithart on baptism, I usually get heartburn.

 

Here is a good review of his latest book (of several) on baptism.

The positive side is that Leithart emphasizes what Scripture emphasizes, instead of using systematic and confessional language.  This is refreshing.

The negative side is that Leithart clearly asserts that baptism regenerates the soul from death to life.  “The Bible speaks of baptism as an effective rite: baptism… regenerates (Titus 3:5); and saves (1 Peter 3:21).”

Baptism IS effective in naming us, and ushering us formally into covenant union with Christ and His people, the Church.  But Leithart wrongly conflates this with effectually saving us and giving us new life in Christ.  Baptism proclaims and announces this, but does not do it, in itself.

I can go as far as to say that baptism ushers us into the regeneration: the kingdom of light, the people of God.  But in that kingdom here on earth there remain weeds among the wheat.  Baptism does not regenerate in the “born again” John 3 sense, that we are truly saved, converted, and given eternal life.  If it did, then many have gone from born again (not just feeling or believing they were, but actually God had regenerated them), to rejecting and losing the faith.  (They were baptized, but died rejecting any faith in Christ.)  That cannot be, since no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand once they have eternal life (John 10:28-29).

In John 6 Jesus jarringly asserts that if we don’t eat His flesh and drink His blood, we don’t have life (John 6:53).  But He qualifies it a bit later, saying that the Spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing (John 6:63).  Scripture makes the same qualification after saying typologically that baptism saves us, in 1 Peter 3:21.

Baptism is a great gift from God, and we should not diminish it, or just focus on the things it doesn’t do.

But neither should we over-react to that, and claim it does more than Scripture says.

 

Theopolis folks, whom I otherwise respect, take note.  This assertion that baptism effectually saves and regenerates, is a Scriptural PROBLEM.

The Bigger Picture

I’ve been caught up in some intramural discussions, to put it mildly.  So it’s time to think more irenically (charitably, peaceably) for a moment, and regain the bigger picture.
 
The Reformed world, and the Christian world in general I believe, is made up of certain types.
 - The pietist who just wants to love Jesus and others, and focus on personal godliness and holiness.
 - The thinker who wants to get Biblical truth right, and focus on the accuracy of confessional statements.
 - The activist who wants to transform the culture with the Gospel, and focus on apologetics and politics.
 
Ideally, these three emphases should mesh together in our lives, but sadly we often put them at odds with one another.

The pietist bemoans Christians who have gotten “distracted with politics.”
The thinker criticizes the shallow faith of the pietist.
The activist berates the pietist for “truncating the Gospel” to just personal faith.
The pietist bemoans the thinker, whose faith is all in his head and not in his heart.
The thinker criticizes the activist for focusing too much on earthly things, and not eternal truths.
The activist berates the thinker for being too Gnostic, focusing too much on heavenly things, and neglecting the Gospel’s physical impact on earth.
 
In my mind, it’s a 3-legged stool.  If one leg gets over-developed to the detriment of the others, you’re going to fall over.  When any one leg gets to thinking they are THE thing, it’s time for them to recover some humility and listen to the other two legs.  

Recalibrate your opinions on “what everyone has to do.”

Men and Women // Ukraine // D.A. Carson conference

 A sound, quick take on who men and women are, by Kevin DeYoung.

An informative article on Ukraine from a viewpoint I don't quite share.  I learned a lot, though.

D.A. Carson is speaking near me, Dec 2-3.  Livestream available!

Identity Politics on the Right

In my circles, we decry the identity politics of the Left.

It is right to denounce those obsessed with race and ethnicity.  It means too much to them.  Or they see themselves as victims from generations ago.  Or they are insisting on some intersectional social preference based on it.  Or they insist on equality of outcome by race in every way.

 

But on the right, we have our own style of unhelpful identity politics.

Ibram X Kendi focuses on his blackness, or my whiteness.  But I am prone to focus on my maleness, or your feminine identity when I interact with you.  This can be an equally unhelpful problem.

 

There is no inherent virtue or vice in being a certain race.  Or in being a certain sex.

It is not an absolute good to be a man, post-fall.  Granted, it is part of our “given-ness” by God, every trait of which is good in that He gave it.  But any man can use his greater strength as a man to intimidate or abuse those weaker.  Any woman can use her words and wiles to manipulate others.  Even before the fall, God Himself said being a man, alone, was not good.  No, rather, we have to use well the various, specific identities that God has given us.  Let us not glory in masculinity in itself, just because leftists decry toxic masculinity.  We boast in the cross of Christ alone.

 

(I see the same thing happening regarding ethnicity and nationalism.  "Black Pride" has its rejoinder on the Right with, "Proud Boys" or just "It's good to be white!"  The leftists push globalism, so in knee-jerk reaction, the right pushes nationalism.  Why are we focusing so much on physical traits, when Scripture points us to spiritual ones?)

 

Part of my concern is this.  I compare my Christian, conservative upbringing with the conservative world today.  When I was young, in the families and churches around me, the roles of men and women were background assumptions.  They were truths, used to do life.  Now, they are rejected on the left, and obsessed over in themselves on the right.  Neither is good.  As CS Lewis said somewhere, a society that obsesses over politics is a sick society.  To say that the husband is the head of the home is like saying that your knees should bend when they walk.  Out for a stroll, do you think every half-second, “My knee is bending!  My knee is bending!  It SHOULD be bending!  It’s good to have a knee!”

 

I don’t want to be uncharitable to my brethren who are reclaiming biblical truth regarding sex, though.  To continue the analogy, Christians have had their knees broken for decades, and are in physical therapy learning to walk again, training their knees to bend.  We don’t know how to do basic things, so we have to focus on the dance steps, instead of on our partners (another Lewis reference – don’t know where).

 

I’m just afraid that this stage of healing is assumed by many to be the end goal.  It is not.  God calls us to DO something with that biblically shaped (reformed!) home, not just focus on the shape all the time.

 

We are overly focused on our sexual identity today.  Not just on the left (“I’m gender fluid”), but also on the right (“I’m a man!”).  For the right, it may be a needed time of realignment.  By all means, keep teaching on the different roles of men and women.  But let’s also focus on the many virtues and spiritual temptations common to all people, regardless of physical traits.

Political Sweetspot // All Saints Day

Uri Brito helps us celebrate All Saints' Day today!

Dan Crenshaw sums up the way to be, on the political Right, right now.

When he says we need to persuade, he’s probably hinting at abortion.

When he eschews grievance, he’s talking about Trump.