What Makes a Good Apologist?

There are those of us who feel strongly enough about a given position that we spend large amounts of time defending it against intellectual objections.  This is particularly the case in the Christian tradition, where objections to the Faith arise on a daily (almost hourly) basis.  But one need not be a Christian to be called an “apologist”.  There are Muslim apologists, apologists for the Democrat party and even big-tobacco apologists.

Having practiced Christian apologetics for over fifteen years, I’ve come to realize that there are (at least) four big things that make a good apologist.  And should I ever be fortunate enough to stand in front of a Sunday School class with the task of teaching them how to be good apologists, I’ll lay out these four traits on day one.

1.  A good apologist is in the right.

No matter how savvy you are with words, or how many books you’ve read, if you’re defending a position that is false, you’ll eventually lose.  Usually, it will be to some uneducated individual like the boy in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” story — the one who shouted:  “…but the king’s naked!”

This does mean, ultimately, that to be a good apologist (for any position at all) you must be a Christian, or at least, you must argue from a Christian perspective.

2.  A good apologist is in control of his emotions

When I’m teaching my hypothetical Sunday School class, I will pound this home, over and over.  In apologetic encounters, they’ll hear insulting rhetoric, experience arm-waving, chest-beating, and all sorts of deplorable statements and devices.  This is because the people involved have let their passions cloud their judgement.

The good apologist never *ever* lets his opponent control his emotions.  If he does, no matter how right he is, the discussion is lost and he may as well leave.  A really good apologist knows how play on the emotions of the other person — to unbalance them and show them to be unhinged to the entire audience.

Remember:  whatever rage is felt during an encounter, bottle it up.  Release it onto a library!  Funnel it all into research and meticulously deconstruct the opposition’s position.  This fuels the fires of motivation that the apologist needs for the next step:

3.  A good apologist does his homework!

Most apologetic encounters will be won or lost based on which side has done their homework.  It’s easy to get into discussions (whether on the internet or at the workplace) and casually mention this or that controversial opinion, then defend it off-the-cuff.  It’s a lot harder to defend that position against someone who has studied it thoroughly and is ready with a counter-argument.

Remember what Swayze says in “Roadhouse”:

“Someone that goes looking for trouble, usually aint a problem for someone who’s ready for it.”

Study!  When someone makes a seemingly-simple statement, you should know something about the sophisticated accounts of the argument going on in academia, and the back’n'forth on the issue in the relevant community.  You need to know where you stand.

For instance, when someone snidely asks: “if God created everything, then who created God”, the apologist should be able to bring to mind contemporary discussions of cosmological arguments, discussions about “cause” in the literature, and have a good idea of where he stands, as a Christian, in light of it all.

Sometimes this isn’t possible and the apologist has to respond on the fly.  It’s always best, in that situation, to simply admit that you’re not prepared to deal with that particular objection or question.  It’s far better for the apologist to admit that he simply doesn’t know something, than to try and bluff his way through a discussion to save face.

4.  A good apologist can think on his feet.

This is the really hard part of being an apologist.  Any Christian can be “right” about his beliefs.  Anyone can train themselves to be masters of their emotions, and anyone can read, study and research, but what makes a truly good apologist, is being able to keep those things together in the heat of debate.

The greatest apologetic encounters occur when both apologists are equally in charge of their emotions, and have equally done their homework.  Then, whoever comes out on top in that discussion (if either of them can), will be the one who can demonstrate that his position is the correct one, and this takes a certain finesse.

It’s not easy to take what has been learned, and tailor it to a particular debate encounter.  It’s a skill that can be learned with practice, although some take to it naturally.  In either case, the ability to defend one’s position from unexpected arguments as well as the ability to cleverly turn them back onto the opponent, is the mark of a really good apologist.

Slavery Defended

I don’t know who stocks the shelves of my college library, but they forgot to burn this book.  Peering into the back, I notice I’m the first one to check it out since February of  ’86.  Saner times, the 80′s.

And, God help me but, “Slavery Defended”, (edited by Eric L. McKitrick) has ruined me.  From this point on, I’ll be a more consistent Southern apologist, but it’ll be at the expense of a good name.  The book has convinced me that slavery, as it was known in Dixie, was not only morally-permissible, but a moral good.  *The* ideal organization for civilized society.

It’s a wonderful feeling: not being constrained by popularity.

I don’t even know any Kinists who would argue for the moral superiority of a slave-based social order.  Even among the most adamant of White Nationalist pagans, I’ve not heard slavery seriously defended as an institution. The anti-slavery meme has so thoroughly penetrated our nation that no one takes it seriously any longer.

Nevertheless — my ancestors faced canon-fire for their beliefs.  I can take a few jabs from pretentious liberals.

That McKitrick’s book was published at all in this country is miraculous.  It was published in 1963, so I’m guessing the complete domination of all publishing and educational institutions by the liberal elite, was not yet solidified.  McKitrick (associate professor of history at Columbia University) however, is all the more baffling since he takes a very fair, almost sympathetic position towards the essays in his book.  His brief commentary at the beginning of each article is sometimes critical, sometimes supportive, but always informative.  He’s obviously not an advocate of slavery.  But on the other hand, he doesn’t want the pro-slavery tradition suppressed by academia.  He says this in the introduction:

“Nothing is more susceptible to oblivion than an argument, however ingenious, that has been discredited by events; and such is the case with the body of writing which was produced in the antebellum South in defense of Negro slavery.  In the one hundred years since emancipation, almost the whole of that work has remained superbly unread.  What we know about the pro-slavery intellectuals and their writings is known not directly but through tag-names and hearsay.  History books refer to them, but with a flicker of impatience, having little time to spend on crackpots.”

This book has introduced me, not only to the major premise in the pro-slavery position, but to many of the great Southern thinkers who attempted to defend an institution that represented their entire way of life.  To read the articles of men like John Calhoun, George Fitzhugh, and Edmund Ruffin, in their frank and open (almost casual) defense of the unspeakably-taboo subject of slavery, was like hearing echoes of the past.  Polemics of ghost-men.  More than once, while reading this book, I wished that I could sit with these men — just for five minutes — and soak up their passion and integrity.

These are not essays chosen for their naivete’, so that a liberal editor can take easy pot shots at the authors.  No, McKitrick, it seems, really has chosen a sampling of the best, brightest, and most intellectually rigorous essays in defense of Slavery that Dixie produced.

John Calhoun has three articles (one of which I cited in my last blog).  The statesmanship inherent in his writing demonstrates why his name comes to mind when people think of an excellent politician.

George Fitzhugh’s “Sociology for the South” is maybe the most brilliant essay of all the ones I’ve read.  Fitzhugh is certainly the giant of Southern apologetics.  His comparison of Free-Market economics with “warfare” was one I’ve been making for awhile, thinking it was original.  If you read any essays out of this entire book, make sure it’s Fizthugh’s.

If George Fitzhugh is my favorite of the intellectuals for his arguments, Edmund Ruffin has to be my favorite for his passion.  According to McKitrick’s introduction, Ruffin was given the honor to fire the infamous first shot on Fort Sumter.  And, upon hearing of the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, he “seized a pistol and blew out his brains.”  An honorable patriot to the end.  His essay “The Political Economy of Slavery” attempts to systematically interact with the economics of a slave society.

Kinists and Christians of all stripes, may be interested to turn directly to Thornton Stringfellow’s (a Baptist minister from Culpepper County, Virginia) article “A Scriptural View of Slavery”.  The premise is that God sanctions slavery all throughout the Bible, in many cases, explicitly, and in other cases, implicitly (by blessing slave-owners).

There is a review of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by George Frederick Holmes and an essay on the cotton industry by David Christy.  Also, perhaps more beneficial than all the essays is the “further reading” section in back of the book, which lists an extensive bibliography of pro-slavery works.

Since I don’t think the contents are listed on Amazon, I’ll provide it here for interested parties:

CONTENTS

Introductory Essay … The Defense of Slavery, by eric L. McKitrick                                                                                   pg. 1

John C. Calhoun … Disquisition on Government                                                                              pg. 7

… Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions                                                                                   pg. 12

… Speech on the Importance of Domestic Slavery                                                                                     pg. 16

Thomas R. Dew … Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature                                                                               pg. 20

George Fitzhugh …  Sociology for the South                                                                                        pg. 34

Henry Hughes … A Treatsie on Sociology                                                                                  pg. 51

William J. Grayson … The Hireling and the Slave                                                                                         pg. 57

Edmund Ruffin … The Political Economy of Slavery                                                                                      pg. 69

Thorton Stringfellow … A Scriptural View of Slavery                                                                                     pg. 86

George Frederick Holmes … Review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin                                                                                        pg. 99

David Christy … Cotton Is King                                                                                          pg. 111

James Henry Hammond … “Mud-Sill” Speech                                                                                     pg. 121

Josiah Nott … Types of Mankind                                                                                  pg. 126

Samuel Cartwright … The Prognathous Species of Mankind                                                                                   pg. 139

Nehemiah Adams … A South-Side View of Slavery                                                                                     pg. 148

Edward A. Pollard … Black Diamonds                                                                                 pg. 162

J. D. B. DeBow … The Interest in Slavery of the Southern Non-Slaveholder                                                                       pg. 169

Suggestions for Further Reading                                                                                   pg. 179

For the time they were written, these essays represent the cutting-edge of scientific thought on racial issues.  Henry Hughes, for instance, was the first American to use Auguste Comte’s newly coined term “Sociology” in the title of a book.  The South, it seemed, had scientific fact on her side.

So, what is the argument for slavery?

When Americans think about this issue today, they tend to think of it in isolation — abstracted from all political and social institutions.  They think about the morality of one human owning another.  They seldom think of slavery in terms of a political and social, even “economic” institution.  Our contemporary colleagues are not alone in this.  Appealing to Edmund Burke, Thomas Dew has this to say:

“No set of legislators ever have, or ever can, legislate upon purely abstract principles, entirely independent of circumstances, without the ruin of the body politic, which should have the misfortune to be under the guidance of such quackery.  Well and philosophically has Burke remarked, that circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect.  The circumstances are what render every political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind, and we cannot stand forward and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions and human concerns on a simple view of the object as it stands, stript of every relation in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction.”

Obviously then, “slavery” in the South — as an institution — must be critiqued in its concrete context and not abstractly, as Dew concludes:

“The historical view which we have given of the origin and progress of slavery, shows most conclusively that something else is requisite to convert slavery into freedom, than the mere enunciation of abstract truths, divested of all adventitious circumstances and relations.”

When people scoff at slavery, I’ve usually replied by asking them if they support America’s penal system.  “Well, why shouldn’t we?”, they ask.  When I point out that it’s just another form of slavery, they hoot-n-holler, but eventually have to admit that, under certain conditions, slavery is perfectly acceptable.

This is similar to the path taken by the authors of these essays.  They look at Southern social institutions as a whole, and treat the South as an entirely different economic system than the “free-labor” based, industrialized North.  The distinction between workers and the “Capitalists” is drawn repeatedly.  It’s argued that, in the absence of mitigating and formal institutions (like slavery), the Capitalist has no motivation to provide for his workers and, in effect, is actually at war with them and they, with him.  Furthermore, the unique economic situation created by slavery creates social stability and fosters cultural creativity among the ruling class.

Henry Hughes further highlights the economic distinction between the two paradigms by calling the Slave-system “Warranteeism” and the Northern system, a “Free Labor” economy.   In a Warrantist social-order, society is structured so that each class is “warranted” in providing for the other.   I’ll have to reserve an in-depth comparison of the two systems for some other blog as I’m still digesting these insights and marveling at how closely they resemble later ideals of British Distributism and Southern Agrarianism.  The Southern Agrarians inherited their economic criticisms of industrialism from the authors of these essays.

Much is also made of the Negro’s advanced position under slavery.  They learned to read, write, perform a trade, learned religion, and attained a higher form of civilization than they ever have in history.  This, combined with their status as slaves — who are provided for their entire lives, regardless of the health of the economy — make slavery an ideal situation for the Negro as well as for their white masters.

Seeing a critique of slavery as a critique of an entire social-order, was new to me.  These authors make it clear that a certain sort of unrestricted free-market ideology is disastrous for the human spirit, society, and the peace of a community.

Another interesting aspect of the essays was the prophetic accounts of what society would be like if the slaves were emancipated and given legal and political equality with the whites.  Thomas Dew has amazing foresight on this issue:

“Two totally different races, as we have before seen, cannot easily harmonize together, and although we have no idea that any organized plan of insurrection or rebellion can ever secure for the black the superiority, even when free, yet his idleness will produce want and worthlessness, and his very worthlessness and degredation will stimulate him to depths of rapine and vengeance…Let Virginia liberate her slaves, and every year you would hear of insurrections and plots, and every day would perhaps record a murder; the melancholy tale of Southhampton would not alone blacken the page of our history, and make the tender mother shed the tear of horror over her babe as she clasped it to her bosom; others of a deeper dye would thicken upon us; those regions where the brightness of polished life has dawned and brightened into full day, would relapse into darkness, thick and full of horrors.“

He was right…

…Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.

Roots of a Christian Romantic Nationalism — Man in Context

“In Him, we live, move, and have our being.” ~ Acts 17:28

Nationalism must have its roots in sound philosophy or else it will never present itself as a viable political option in a post-Christian world.  And if the philosophy is to be sound, it must be Christian.

There’s a sense in which Romantic Nationalism, if it turns out to be a true accounting of the world, provides for its own downfall by creating a society that presupposes itself with little self-reflection.   So, with a measure of caution, I’ll consider the roots of a possible Christian conception of Romantic Nationalism.

The development of man into a society of men is important when considering ideal social orders.  So it’s best to begin a discussion of Romantic Nationalism by looking at man and his proper context.

What does it mean for man to have a context?

Without getting into the details of linguistic philosophy, it can simply be admitted at this point, that a word only has meaning when it’s used in a certain context.  Consider the word “dog”.  De-contextualized, it’s nonsensical.  The word has no meaning in and of itself.

“Dog” could be a man’s name.

“Dog” could be a word that describes our four-legged, furry companion.

“Dog” could be a nonsense word used to fill space in a song: “doggitta dog, a dang a dang dang”.

Until we place the word into a meaningful relationship with other words (to form a sentence), it cannot be defined.

In a very real way, the same is true of man.  In order to become self-conscious of his own identity, a man must see himself in a particular context.  Without context, man will be unable to recognize himself or distinguish between himself and everything else in his experience.

What is man’s context?

The most basic of man’s context is his physical existence in a world that has been created by an all-sovereign God.  It’s important to point to orthodox Protestant theology at this point, specifically as it has found voice in Christian theologian Cornelius Van Til.

Van Til’s accounting of God’s trinitarian nature, and God’s personal Covenant relationship with creation, provides the theological framework in which to view “nature” as man’s context.  God is man’s ultimate, metaphysical environment.  Every thing man experiences — every “fact” he knows — is what it is, because God has created it so.

But within this metaphysical relationship (between God and man), man is placed into the created realm as an actor, with will, abilities, honor and the capacity to love and feel.  God created man with the ability to interact with and change parts of the created realm.  Man is to observe and experience creation in the same way God observes and interprets it.   Van Til referred to this as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”

In this creation, there are rivers, streams, continents, and land features of all types.  There are also other animals and other men.  Man, by virtue of being created along side these other things, is automatically in a God-ordained relationship with them — similar to a word being written into a sentence.

Eventually, families and nations arose from the first two humans.  They migrated to different parts of the world.  This act of migration placed each of the families in different places within creation.

Here, societies were born; complex social relationships and interactions between groups of humans.

As we can see from this brief examination, man, by virtue of his creation, is automatically placed into a particular context consisting of social and economic relationships.  The Christian cannot allow ideas of “de-contextualized man” to have any merit, else he’s positing a man that can define himself, without being placed into a proper context by God.

Consider what the great Southern thinker and politician John C. Calhoun says on the matter:

“It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound reason, ever could have been so extensively entertained …. I refer to the assertion, that all men are equal in the state of nature; meaning, by a state of nature, a state of individuality, supposed to have existed prior to the social and political state; and in which men lived apart and independent of each other.  If such a state ever did exist, all men would have been, indeed, free and equal in it; that is, free to do as they pleased, and exempt from the authority or control of others–as by supposition, it existed anterior to society and government.  But such a state is purely hypothetical.  It never did, nor can exist; as it is inconsistent with the preservation and perpetuation of the race.  It is, therefore, a great misnomer to call it “the state of nature.”  Instead of being the natural state of man, it is, of all conceivable states, the most opposed to his nature–most repugnant to his feelings, and most incompatible with his wants.  His natural state is, the social and political — the one for which his Creator made him, and the only one in which he can preserve and perfect his race.”

Where I’ve been using the word “context”, Calhoun speaks of “natural states.”  He would refer to “de-contextualized man” as a man in the “state of nature” which, as we’ve seen, is only possible hypothetically.  It cannot ever be a possibility since man can never escape the context in which he’s been placed by the almighty.

Calhoun concludes this way:

“As, then, there never was such a state as the, so called, state of nature, and never can be, it follows, that men, instead of being born in it, are born in the social and political state; and of course, instead of being born free and equal, are born subject, not only to parental authority, but to the laws and institutions of the country where born and under whose protection they draw their first breath.” ~ Disquisition on Government.

These concluding remarks are important because they show that a man, being necessarily in a context, is necessarily defined by his place and role in a social-order.

It is not true as Rousseau says, “man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.”  He implies that man is born completely free from all binding “contexts” but as life progresses, is violently imprisoned by them.  This thinking is at base of all Existentialist philosophy and informs the thinking of trans-humanists, alchemists, and mad-scientists who wish to destroy all context in the world, since context implies that man is defined by forces beyond himself.   *THEY* want to determine which context they will be placed in, and thus, become the author of their own lives.

The same thinking informs the radical egalitarians who wish to see all racial contexts destroyed as well.  Race, sex, religion, nationality, ethnicity, family and any division among men, are all “contexts” that God has created — created for us to prosper in.

What does a proper social context look like?

As Christian Romantic Nationalists, we must support a social order that cherishes and nourishes these Godly contexts so that man can become fully man, and define Himself in a Godly way.  In this sense, we are applying Van Til’s maxim of “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” to society at large.

Our European ancestors had the greatest of these societies, where Godly contexts were formally respected.  Sir. Walter Scott’s novel “Quentin Durward” is peppered with wonderful illustrations.  Consider the following passage:

“I blame not thee, Jacqueline, and thou art too young to be — what it is pity to think thou must be one day — a false and treacherous thing, like the rest of thy giddy sex.  No man ever lived to man’s estate but he had the opportunity to know you all.  Here is a Scottish cavalier will tell you the same.

Jacqueline looked for an instant on the young stranger, as if to obey Maitre Pierre, but the glance, momentary as it was, appeared to Durward a pathetic appeal to him for support and sympathy; and with the promptitude dictated by the feelings of youth, and the romantic veneration for the female sex inspired by his education, he answered, hastily: “That he would throw down his gage to any antagonist, of equal rank and equal age, who should presume to say such a countenance as that which he now looked upon could be animated by other than the purest and the truest mind.”

Notice at first, that Durward’s chivalry was taught to him in his youth!

Not only was he taught to respect and defend the female sex, he was taught it formally.  Formal respect for these sorts of social conventions (social “contexts”) permeate Durward’s adventure.  Durward’s culture and society respected social contexts so much, that Durward even followed a certain protocol with whom he would or would not duel.

Just in this passage alone, we see that Durward was very self-conscious about who he was, his position concerning the lady, and his station in regards to who he would and would not fight.

Contrast that with the modern American male of Durward’s age who, upon seeing a woman insulted, if he didn’t laugh along with the other, would have no clear sense of duty or responsibility.

When man is de-contextualized, he loses himself.

The Fall of the House of Westminster

I’m almost done reading “The Escondido Theology:  A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology” written by John Frame.  The book has caused quite a stir in the Reformed community.  Frame reviews the writing of many popular Reformed scholars and levels uncharacteristically harsh criticisms against them.  They have responded with similar vitriol, although as I’ll soon suggest, their reaction befits their status as theological scumbags, where Frame’s response is better understood as righteous indignation.  And, naturally, all this infighting has trickled down to the common level, prompting the author of the popular Green Baggins blog to post this message:

To all my readers, since 2K theology and related subjects seems to bring out the most viciously childish side of the commenters (WAY worse than any Federal Vision posts!), I propose to cease my review of Frame’s book. To tell you all the truth, I am embarrassed by it all. What should have been a substantive in-house debate and discussion turned into a mere screaming match. I suspect that those with substantive points to make were driven off by the mudslinging going on. And no, I will not allow comments on this post, because that will only result in more finger-pointing. It will be a very long time indeed before I allow any more 2K discussion on this blog. ~ Click here to see the original post.

Many of the readers of my blog are not religious and couldn’t care less about the squabbling that takes place among Christian theologians.  And even among my Christian readers, most are not Reformed and, I’d even suggest, see no value at all in systematic theology.  Those in the world who do care about this debate (and Frame’s contribution to it) seem caught up in the doctrinal dispute and have lost track of the big-picture.

I have a more Romantic view of the situation.  While that leaves me open to charges of naivete, I think it affords me a level of clarity that others are missing.  Furthermore, to those non-Christians who, nevertheless (contrary to their fallen natures) esteem their race, I encourage you to pay attention to this debate.  The results of it are sure to affect not only the future of Christendom, but the West.

But here:  I’ll tell you my view and hopefully you’ll understand the significance of Dr. Frame’s book and why this debate is important for all Westerners.

The “Age of Enlightenment” (so called) was a bad time for Christians.  Men rose up to challenge the sacred ideals of Christendom.  They broke free from the chains of theology and went a whoring after Satan.  The Church wasn’t ready for this sort of thing.  Vicious ideologies emerged and demons fomented political rebellions.  Regicide became the norm in Europe and the old Christian order was overthrown by a new order of propositional nationalism.

The philosophers were the priests in this new world-order.  Kant, Hegel, Rousseau and others.  (I don’t think anyone knows the full extent of this movement or how far back the roots of it really go and how many thinkers are involved in it).  The church retreated into pietism and irrelevance, leaving the world to be governed by these monsters.

But, then something happened that changed the landscape of the battle.  A movement among Dutch Calvinists (Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck and others) began appealing to Scriptures as if God had relevant things to say about the world today.  They sought to make Jesus Christ Lord over *every* aspect of life!

This movement caught on and spread to America where it strongly influenced the thinking of men like J. Gresham Machen and Cornelius Van Til.  Responding to theological liberalism at Princeton Seminary, Machen left and founded his own seminary — a shining beacon of conservatism in an age of liberal dominance — Westminster Theological Seminary.

I’ve yet to visit Westminster, but I imagine it’s on a hill-top with a perpetual sunbeam flowing over the campus while a choir of angels sing a majestic note.  Machen eventually convinced Van Til to come teach at the seminary, and they, with the other wonderful theologians, brought on the fullest expression of Kuyper’s attitudes.  Van Til, especially, was able to show that God was sovereign over every area of life.  There is no neutrality, not even in philosophy or politics.

Some of the most passionate disciples of these men realized that *every* area of academia needed to be “reconstructed” along consistently Biblical lines.  Every subject, from sociology and anthropology, to economics and philosophy — all had to be brought under the dominion of Christ.  These “reconstructionists” eventually realized the need to apply God’s word and authority to the civil government as well.  Even the state was to yield to God.

The greatest defender of this Christian Reconstruction (and the greatest of Van Til’s students) was arguably Dr. Greg Bahnsen, whose clear and powerful defense of theonomy was like a lightening rod through the heart of Westminster Theological seminary.

But this position was so controversial — and demanded so much dedication and sacrifice — that few theologians at Westminster had the guts to endorse it.  They all flatly rejected Bahnsen’s view — especially the man Dr. Meredith Kline, who even suggested that Bahnsen might not be a covenant child of God!

Bahnen’s consistent application of Van Tillian theology forced Westminster to either give up a consistent Van Tillian approach to life, or face the entire might of post-Enlightenment Satania.

The faculty, including John Frame, caved in the face of Satania and decided to hammer Bahnsen instead of stay consistent with their Van Tillian theology.  Seventeen (!) years after Bahnsen’s “Theonomy in Christian Ethics”, the entire faculty of Westminster published a response “Theonomy: A Reformed Critique”.

But as Bahnsen pointed out in his rebuttal to the book, most of their “critique” couldn’t be counted as a critique at all!  Furthermore, much of the positions in the book, agreed with theonomy!  And worse still, when the authors finally get around to arguing against theonomy, they use arguments that were already refuted by Bahnsen years before (in some cases).  Westminster, it seemed, was unable to defeat consistent Van Tillianism.

Well, Dr. Bahnsen passed away but his memory lives on.  Westminster knew it had been defeated by Bahnsen and the Reconstructionists, but didn’t want to admit it.

Dr. Frame didn’t want to accept theonomy, but neither did he want to depart from Van Til’s tradition.  Over the years, in (what seems to be) Westminster’s attempt to come up with a way to defeat the theonomy movement, they’ve drifted into an incoherent position that Frame calls “The Escondido Theology” since the particulars of it are characteristic of a group of scholars out in Escondido California.

These men staged a gradual “coup” over the Westminster faculty (Westminster Theological Seminary opened a sister school in Escondido) and — following their mentor, Meredith Kline — began imposing a view of theology on Westminster that is viciously contrary to the Kuyper / Machen / Van Til tradition.  Of course, they still feel the need to coat their language in Van Tillian terms, and give lip service to the old-guard Westminster folk, but in practice, they no longer have any regard for the old seminary on the hill-top.

Dr. Frame’s book is an attempt to refute the Escondido “Two-Kingdom” theology, without being a consistent (theonomic) Van Tillian.  And while I, as a theonomist, object to Frame’s understanding of the law of God, I sympathize with his anger at these guys who are pursuing an incoherent theological system at the expense of the old Van Tillian orthodoxy.

A few criticisms of Frame’s book:

As wonderful as it is to see a theologian of Frame’s caliber tackle these theological revolutionaries, I feel like he’s aimed his book more at them than towards a lay audience.  I wish he would have devoted more time to explaining the overall narrative of *what* the Two-Kingdom position is for our benefit.  Instead, he presents a list of bullet points, offers some general criticism, then dives into his book reviews of the Two-Kingdom scholars.

I found some of his background information in chapter 1 very helpful — he discusses a bit of the history of this theological coup — but he never puts it in a broader historical context.  I suspect that’s because he realizes (as they all do) that the entire Two-Kingdom controversy is nothing more than a reaction to Dr. Greg Bahnsen.

On the plus side:

I suspect that Frame has problems presenting a coherent “narrative” of the overall two-Kingdom enterprise, because it’s such a confused position to begin with.  However, he comes closest in chapter four, where he reviews David Van Drunen’s book, “A Biblical Case for Natural Law”.

Van Drunen distinguishes between two “Kingdoms” in the world.  A spiritual kingdom and a civil kingdom.

Scripture is to govern the spiritual kingdom.

Natural law is to govern the civil kingdom. (see page 131 of Frame).

Any pagan can look at the world and see there’s a law to things that must be respected.  They’re obligated to obey that law (which was put in place when God made covenant with Noah, apparently).   The believer, on the other hand, is obligated to obey Scripture and govern churchly affairs in light of special revelation.  The unbeliever is *not* obligated to obey Scripture, then, since that would be an attempt to rule the Civil Kingdom according to the law of the Spiritual Kingdom.

Frame has many criticisms of this position (his entire book is a long refutation of this idea in all of its forms), so all I will say here is that — apologetically-speaking — if we are going to base our objective standard of morality in the nature of God, then we cannot be inconsistent by claiming that God’s nature is one way for Christians and another way for non-Christians.

No:  God doesn’t change.  Both the unbeliever and the believer owe allegiance to the same God and are obligated to obey the same moral standard.

Why this is important for Kinists:

In the wake of the Kuyperian tradition at Westminster, a popular movement sprung up among American Evangelicals — a movement that fostered political action, reconstruction of all areas of academia, and a consistent throwing-off of humanistic indoctrination.  We were finally fighting back.

Van Til’s theory of knowledge allows us to provide strong theological refutations of the alienists and social Marxists who are Hell-bent on destroying Western culture.

If the Two-Kingdom faction wins this war (and it looks like they own the field — John Frame is a lone voice in the wilderness) then all hope for bringing our Reformed brethren to sane racial views will have faded with the fires of Christian Reconstruction.

We can’t yield that kind of ground to a bunch incoherent anti-nomians.

The Rescue of Von Jones

Mr. Von Jones has gotten so feeble in his old age, that his daughter finally took him off somewhere; I’m not sure if it’s to a nursing home or if he’s moved in with her.  But before he moved, he lived by himself.

My uncle was his closest friend (that I know of).  He’s a Baptist pastor at a small church out in the country and I suppose he felt obligated to look after Mr. Jones.  So, he’d go out of his way to help him when he could.

I met Von Jones when I went to the local community college to talk to my uncle about joining the machining program.  In addition to being a small-town pastor, my uncle is also the master-machinist at the college and was more than happy to welcome me into a blue-collar trade that he’s been passionate about for years.

Von Jones was sitting in the office, half-asleep.  We had lunch, the three of us, and I got to know him a little better.  He was a fiercely independent old man.  He insisted on taking care of himself.  My uncle told me that Von kept a  house full of guns and ammo, even though I doubt he’d have the strength to chamber a round.  A defiant southerner to the end.

I’ve thought about Mr. Jones a lot over the past few months, especially when I get depressed about the state of Dixie and her morally-depraved institutions.   With so much depressing content in the news, it’s easy to despair.  “What has happened to the South” I’m tempted to ask?  “Where is the honorable society I romanticize?”

I think about Mr. Jones in times like this because of something that happened to him a few months ago.

I was at my uncle’s house, helping tear down his barn.  We had demolished the sub-structure but the rafters were still in tact, so we had to crawl around in the rubble with our hammers and crow-bars, dismantling them piece by piece.

During mid-hammer blow, my uncle stopped.  I glanced over in time to see him jump off the wood-pile and disappear.  “A wreck” he shouted!  I was on the inside of the rubble so I hadn’t heard anything, but I could tell by his eyes and tone of voice that something major had just happened.

I climbed out and took off running.  I could hear a car-horn.  One continuous beep — it didn’t bode well.  I didn’t know what I’d see when I ran around the corner of the house.

At this point in the story, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.  At least, that’s the way I remember it.  I get chills when I think of how it all played out.

I hold this memory up in defiance to all those who gloat over the death of old Dixie:

Von Jones had come for a visit but fell asleep during the drive.  Instead of taking the sharp turn in front of my uncle’s house, he went full speed off the road and into a tree.  His car was totaled and I saw him there, hunched over the steering wheel.  His horn was blaring, his airbags were out, and there was smoke coming from under the hood.

This is where the music starts in my narrative — inspirational music that matches the pace of my slow-motion account.

I ran to Mr. Jones.  My uncle and cousin were ahead of me, but I quickly caught them up.  I arrived at the car and tried to pry open the door.  It was hard because the car was in a thicket of briars.  I struggled.  Immediately, a second pair of hands were on the door.  Then a third.  Then a fourth?!

Hunters were materializing out of the woods.  Camouflaged men and women crawled out of the thicket and lent their strength to the rescue effort.  We got Mr. Jones out.  He was ok, but shaken.  Once he was safe, we focused our attention on the smoke and car-horn.

My cousin is an EMT and volunteer fire-fighter. Within minutes he had a rescue and fire-truck on scene.  One of the hunters was a deputy.  He called his partner, who arrived just after the ambulance.  The peaceful country-side erupted into a frenzy of dedicated service.

Now you — you degenerate, God-hating Satanists who despise old Dixie — you tell me that she’s dead!  You tell me that we don’t care for our own!  You tell me there isn’t a blue-collar heroism just waiting for evil to challenge it!

I thank God for Von Jones and I’ll always remember the day white heroes literally popped from the wood-work to save one of their own.

Deo Vindice.

Please Pray for Me

** Please Note:  This post recounts a story that disturbed me greatly and I don’t intend for ladies or young people to read it.  But I do hope Christian men will read and sympathize and pray for me.**

I hope my readers forgive me for starting another post with a vague question.  But given its nature and what prompted it, I’m sure no one will mind.  Has someone ever confided in you with something so terrible that it makes you sick and occupies your thoughts for days afterwards?

That happened to me recently.  It was so demoralizing that, when combined with all the horrible news on TV, it pulled me into a depression that I’ve been unable to shake.  Maybe you’ve noticed that I haven’t been blogging as much lately?  That’s why.

A young lady (who I’ll not identify further) told me of an event that left her broken and scarred.  When she began her story, I didn’t believe it, but the more I heard, the more I became convinced that it all happened as she said.  Given the brutality in the news, the evil she described isn’t too hard to believe.  What she told me, if true, is a sign that Hell has come to Earth — in the form of the black savage.

When she was seventeen, she attended a party with her boyfriend.  They had a fight, and he left her there.  A negro at the party offered her a ride home, but instead, took her to a house where he and his animal compatriots held the poor girl for days.  You can imagine what happened next.

This is maddening in itself, but it’s not what shook me.  There was something worse.  The rapist-animals had a sadistic and purely evil logic to their actions.  By a thorough regimen of humiliation and rape, they sought to brainwash the girl into freely giving up her virtue.  In their sick minds, repeated rape will eventually turn the white-woman’s sexual appetite so that for the rest of her life, she’ll reject relationships with her kin, seeking out negros instead.

This is an urban-legend among the negros.  I’ve heard them talk about it before (though it’s to my shame the beasts who mentioned it still walk the Earth).  It even seems to be supported by pseudo-scientific fact.  And I don’t know if it is a mixture of the Stockholm Syndrome (where kidnap victims begin to sympathize with their captors), the coddling and encouragement of miscegenation in pop-culture, and the psychological trauma that often prompts abuse victims to mimic their abusers, but this girl yielded to their crime.

A young girl with none of the benefits of Christendom, confronted by these monsters, succumbed to them and has been sexually unhealthy ever since.  She only dates negros (despite being an attractive girl) and has taken on extreme leftist views that are self-consciously hostile to whites.

I’ve told her that becoming a Christian can be an experience that overpowers her tragedy.  Honestly, beyond that I don’t know what else to say or do.  I do know that if there is a God (and we know there is), He will not let this stand.  This evil among us cannot continue.

Our elders are being robbed and murdered.

Our children are being burned alive in the streets.

And, our women — the heart of our hearths — are being brutalized and raped.

No Christian white-man with an ounce of blood left in his veins can stand by and allow this to happen — and on that, dear readers, I have set into motion my own plan of action that, for practical reasons, I will never mention again.  But, sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is faith that God has placed each of us in our time and place for a reason.

If the gates of Hell cannot prevail against His Church — and if we lonely few are all that’s left of His church — then imagine the power of our actions.  Imagine the angels standing at my back as I type this.

It’s not mass-man and voting that will save us.  It’s not the intellectuals.  It’s not booze or drugs.

It’ll be the Christian Knights — riding forth holding the banner of Christ, with angels at their backs.

Dr. Bahnsen on Galatians 3:28

One of the most often misquoted verses of scripture by our alienist friends, is Galatians 3 verse 28:

There is neither jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Any of my readers brave enough to challenge the alienist will likely hear this verse cited as proof that God not only allows, but ordains and encourages wholesale mixing of the races.  I’ve heard this verse appealed to as a support for grotesque sexual sins (homosexuality) as well.

But as Dr. Bahnsen shows, no serious Bible scholar can use this verse to imply the righteousness of wholesale race-mixing.  Even one of the most theologically-rigorous alienists out there, J. Daniel Hays, in his book “From Every People and Nation” admits that the verse does not abrogate physical distinctions among the church (see page 186).

It seems only the naive alienist, who isn’t interested in fair exegesis, or perhaps the lay-egalitarian who isn’t very systematic in his position, allude to this verse as the first volley in their attack against the walls of traditional European Christendom.  Dr. Bahnsen is no Kinist by any means (though his work has proven invaluable in helping form a Kinist case against Modernism) and has no intention of refuting the alienist in the following commentary.  If anything, he’s more concerned with upholding his theonomic interpretation of the NT and only makes a few brief concluding remarks about the passage.  However, these remarks are important and demonstrate a refreshing attitude towards the text, even though Dr. Bahnsen makes unfortunate concessions to contemporary whims.

The following citation is transcribed from Dr. Bahnsen’s lecture on Galatians 3:23 through chapter 4.  The file can be purchased at Covenant Media Foundation and is named: GB1162-Gal3.23-4.7.  The transcript begins at 30:55 into the lecture:

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Back in chapter 3, verse 28:

There can be neither jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ and have become the seed with Him.  The seed of Abraham and the children of God.  He tells us, there cannot be distinctions of rank within the household of God.

And he refers to three particular ones, but I think there are only three chosen examples because they were so prominent in Paul’s culture and day.  There are no distinctions within the household of God that puts one or another person ahead of the other in terms of spiritual privilege.

You know?  Whether you’re fat or thin or rich or poor or whether you’re black or white.  We can think about any number.  But the three Paul talks about are jew Greek, bond free, male female.  These are obvious distinctions, especially in jewish culture.  Jews prided themselves in being better than the Greeks and better than the Gentiles.

In Romans 2, Paul goes on and on about how, you know, “you pride yourselves in the law and you think you’re a teacher of the ignorant,” and on and on and on.  But the jews clearly thought of themselves as superior.  Paul now crushes jewish pride.  He says in Christ, jew or greek: makes no difference.

In Christ being master or slave, being freeman or bond servant means nothing.  In fact, we know in the days of the New Testament that some bond servants were spiritually much further along; saved or more mature than their masters. See?  Spirituality is not tied to privilege in this world.

And then he comes to another one which has been the source of unending controversy, it seems like, in my generation.  There’s neither male nor female.  You see?  To be a man, to be a male, is no better than to be a female if you’re in the household of God.  There’s no better or worse spiritually because of sexual differentiation.  Peter tells us in 1 Peter, that husbands and wives are co-heirs in the grace of life.  That they are on a par, spiritually, with one another.

Now, what conclusions — what inferences, can be logically drawn from this?  Can we conclude that, since in Christ there is neither Greek nor jew, that all ethnic distinctions have been biologically and sociologically eliminated?  That would be silly, wouldn’t it?

Would we conclude that, because in Christ, in terms of spiritual privilege in the House of God, there’s neither bond nor free, that therefore, slaves are not really slaves, and masters are not really masters?  Do we believe that all sexual differentiation has been removed because spiritually those that have these differentiations are one in Christ?   It doesn’t follow at all, does it?

When someone says “well, since there’s neither male nor female, then men can no longer have dominion over women.  Men cannot exercise authority over women in the church and husbands cannot have the dominance in the home!”

That just does not follow from what Paul is saying at all.  That isn’t what Paul is talking about.  Well, what is Paul talking about?  Our position of privilege in the Household of God.  And on that, though we are quick, and I am quick, to defend conservative theology against the intrusions of women’s liberation, I should be, and all of us should be, quick to insist that women ought not to be considered second class citizens.  And I do think there is that tendency to be rebuked among us.

Shotgun Learns to Forgive…

My mom tried to convince me to go to church the other day and once again, I had to turn her down.

I’ve seen what kind of man the modern church produces.  I know him well.  Whatever monster I might turn into for lack of fellowship and partaking of Holy Communion, it can’t be worse than the modern Christian man.  One in particular sparked this writing.  There are many out there like him.

Unlike the magic word that riles up the negros to no end, I believe there are two real insults that a man must react against if he is to be a Christian and a man.

We cannot be cowards and we cannot be liars.

Even criminals in the old white movies wouldn’t stand to be cowards and a few were even proud of their own honesty (“honor” among thieves).

The person I have in mind (who is typical of many Christian males today) is both a coward and a liar.  That is the worst possible thing I can say about a man — it’s the worst possible two things a man can be.  And Christendom churns out men of this quality by the thousands.

In our online discussions, this man likes bullying women around with his theology.

When a Christian man comes to the women’s defense, our scoundrel arranges matters so that the Christian can no longer see his words or read his writing, but the women still can.  He hides, like a coward.

His zealousness for a conceptual scheme lies behind his capacity for evil.  In his slobbering disposition, he’ll say and do anything to justify the commands of his neo-Gnostic god (who is nothing more than a syllogism).

How much evil has been committed in the name of a syllogism?

I dealt with this “man” tonight, for the first time in many months.  He hasn’t changed of course, but I have.  For some reason, my anger at his cowardice gave way to something very much like pity. I always think it sounds condescending to claim that you pity your opponent, but I honestly feel a genuine sense of pity.  I have no intention to be patronizing or haughty towards my enemy in admitting it.

Wasn’t it by grace that God provided me with a father who read from Lewis and Tolkien and who guided me through the forests of old Europe?  Wasn’t it by simple grace that I rejected my government school indoctrination?  Was my hand guided along the bookshelves until it stopped on James Harriot’s “All Creatures Great and Small” and did the Holy Spirit compel me to read it, even though it didn’t have a flashy cover or short, action-packed chapters?  Was it God who allowed me to fall in love with the people there, and a place that only exists now in stories?  Was it He who lead me to blogs like Spirit / Water / Blood, Kinism.net and Cambria Will not Yield?

Yes, I think it was.

It really is miraculous when you stop and think about it.  How many billions of dollars have been spent, not just in government education, but in pop-culture, federal law and beyond, to ensure that I never knew blogs like “Cambria Will Not Yield” existed — to ensure that I would never think of myself as anything other than a member of the de-racinated, propositional gang of American comrades?

The pressure on me to conform was overbearing and yet, here I am, blogging away about taboo themes that are so insulting I could never bring them up at a family reunion or in any church.

Can I not forgive our scoundrel for giving in to this tremendous pressure?

I can, and do, blame Christian men for their cowardice and their lying tongues.  I hate the dogmatism that gives them license to sin like this…

…but I think I’ve matured enough to forgive them for it.

Fueling the Fires of Racism

Everybody seems to be commenting on the Trayvon shooting in Florida. I think it’s been over-hyped and sensationalized for dishonorable reasons so the last thing I wanted to do was blog about it. But hearing all the violent rhetoric coming from negros around the country angered me to no end (hence my previous blog post). Also, I’m hearing about it non-stop on Facebook.

A friend of a friend wrote an article for Charisma magazine (seems to be an online “Christian” publication). The article is called: “Don’t Add Fuel to Racism’s Fire” and implores all the white liberals out there, as well as the kind and noble negros (who are quite-rightly up in arms at the moment) not to be quick to judge. The article tries to provide a moderating influence by appealing to Saint Martin Luther King Jr. He wouldn’t have appreciated all this violent rhetoric.

The author, Mr. Grady, is the sort who would plead with the negros, appealing to their noble-natures, right up until they’re hacking him to bits with their machetes. These people are blinded by their own dogmatism and zeal for a Satanic, egalitarian religion.

I replied to the article and a short discussion followed. Please keep in mind that I was trying to be civil, so I didn’t immediately unleash a flurry of swear words and wrathful condemnations: ‎

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“If we want the fires of racism to go out, why do we stoke them and blow more air on the hot cinders?”

The very sad truth of the matter is that Mr. Grady’s article, while articulate and fair in tone, is representative of the confusion in Modernism over very basic truths.

The fires of “racism” will never be extinguished because a strong affinity for one’s people-group is a natural part of humanity, written by God into the creation ordinances and are just as normal as a mother’s love for her child.

Mr. Grady is not defending a moderate Christian view, but rather, is upholding a nasty form of egalitarian “jacobinism” that grew out of anti-Christian sentiments fostered by the Enlightenment and which gained ascendency during the French Revolution and were cemented in place during the Civil-Rights era (so-called) in America.

Now, it’s taboo to oppose these ideals at all.

The natural inclinations of a Christian people (to respect gender-roles, family-units and by extension, racial stock) are under attack, not only by confused (but well-meaning) folk like Mr. Grady, but by those who are openly hostile to a Christian world order (like Jackson and Sharpton).

“Racism” (since Leon Trotsky popularized the term) has always been a vacuous bully-term used to silence opposition from old-world Conservatives who rejected the incoming ideological Satanism. Racial rhetoric and “race-baiting” of the current “Trayvon” sort, will never cease until all vestiges of the old Christian order are extinguished. But then, neither I, Grady, or any other pretentious Christian liberal, will be left to care.

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Mrs. R. responds:

With all due respect, it is not as if my life has never been touched or affected by racial discomfort or fear. In the late 60s the first home my husband and I purchased was located about 5 miles from Watts, California. We lived there during the noted Watts riots. When Tom (my husband) went to interview for a job in Watts, there were black people coming up to our car as we sat waiting for the signal to change. Tom got the job and worked for Continental Baking Company for the next nine years in Compton, right next to Watts. Working in such a racially charged vicinity made us painfully aware of racial tensions and discrimination. We bought a house and lived in a racially mixed neighborhood where three of the eight families in our cul de sac were African American. It was a great neighborhood to live in and raise our children, and we enjoyed its ethnic diversity. We were very close to our next-door neighbors, Ed and Carol Lockhart and their son, Eddie, a wonderful black family. We had many meals together, and also went to one another’s parents’ homes for visits. My family also became friends with my music professor and his family–also African American. Our families went out to dinner together on occasion, and went to church together as well. My brother-in-law and my sister-in-law are both Hispanic, which brings another aspect of integration to our family’s love of all people–no matter the color. I could go on but time prohibits. I would say that our family is color-blind, but I believe this to be the height of insult and hypocricy. To say you did not notice the color of my skin is to say you have ignored the very essence of my history and culture. Our family loves all people and we celebrate our differences and love to learn new cultural differences and enjoy the new experiences that cross-cultural friendships bring to enrich our lives. We embrace all people–color makes no difference–matters of the heart DO!

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I reply to Mrs. R:

Mrs. R,

I’m greatly encouraged by your observation that politically-correct “color-blindness” rhetoric is insulting to all humans. It praises abstract notions of “manhood” to the detriment of particular men and women. Imagine telling our black friends that we love them, despite their color. I’ve coined a talking-point that I hope gains popularity: “We should love others in *light* of their race, not in *spite* of it.” (This forms the basis of a Godly cosmopolitanism).

But, when you conclude your comment by claiming that “color makes no difference” you’re saying that historical ties of racial affinity have no legitimate bearing on the contemporary social-order. That is an opinion that, while popular, has little to do with the Christian society of our ancestors. In fact, in practice, it has lead to massive discontent among all racial groups in America. You know who else thinks that “only matters of the heart” are important? The homosexual lobby. They’re classing “gender” in the same category that you classify “race” and propose that neither category “matters”. It’s worked for the racial egalitarians, why shouldn’t it work for the homosexual lobby? If only the content of a person’s heart “matters” then why harp on race? Why harp on gender?

We need a return to a Godly social-order where organic hierarchies based on racial-affinity, natural skill-sets, intelligence, and national loyalty are once again respected and self-consciously maintained. That’s the only way to bring peace among the racial factions in America.

We need to look to Christ, not Marx, to solve our racial problems.

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Mrs. R. replies:

Or–for that matter–our black friends telling us they love us despite our color–this door swings in all directions. Political-correctness represents the thought police of the 21st century. I apologize–in my attempt toward brevity (in light of my lengthy post)–I abbreviated my conclusion. As a truth, God calls us to love all people–He says if we say we love God but hate someone, we are liars and the truth is not in us. Thus our love for others must transcend all ethnic, racial, socio-economic (et al) backgrounds–we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Does that mean we agree with everything our neighbors embrace? Certainly not! The writer of Proverbs reminds us that there is a way that seems right to man but in the end thereof is death. We are called to love all people–even our enemies. Matters of the heart–and not color–are what concerns us. That is to say: at some point, the hearts and desires of those we love as friends will line up with principles set forth in the Word of God. Therefore we are called to love those who agree with the Word of God as well as those who oppose His marvelous Word, but our friends will become those with whom we have common ground based in the principles of His eternal Word. I hope this clarifies my previous post… Many blessings~ Mrs. R, DTh, DMin, PhD (c)

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I reply to Mrs. R:

Mrs. R,

Supposing you have children; do you love them more than other children, or think they’re superior in a special way that warrants your loving them differently than unrelated children?

If so — if there is a sort of “hierarchy” in our affections (of which God is admittedly at the top) — then aren’t ethical demands to “love all men” trivial in a sense?

I’m of the opinion that our love exists in “concentric” rings of affinity, starting with God, our family, our extended kin-groups and beyond. But my generic concern for the “everyman” doesn’t outweigh my concern for my own racial-group.

The great commentator Joe Sobran coined a term describing those whose affections for the “other” were stronger than their affections for family and kin. He called them “alienists”. This “alienism” infuses every line of Mr. Grady’s article, culminating in his praise for that Marxist degenerate Michael King Jr.

The alienist doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of concentric rings of affinity and holds to the absurd position that all men are to be loved equally, with fervor and zeal — although in practice, it amounts to a pathological altruism that unanimously favors non-whites and non-Westerners.

This can’t be Christ-like.

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A man named Nathan decides to comment:

You seem to be drawing false conclusions here, as was the case above. God’s grace transcends all boundaries, but it doesn’t physically change our sex or ancestry, it just makes such identities without value in the world to come, since there is no marriage and since we will all be a part of God’s family, regardless of our ancestry or gender or class. For now the various ethnicities are part of God’s love of diversity, and the fact that both men and women, poor and rich, and people of every ethnicity and culture are created in the image and likeness of God. And yet instead of acquiring the godly culture that would allow us to appreciate the diversity of gifts that God gives to all as the Father of all, we spend so much time fighting and dividing among our brethren, whether those divides are confessional or ethnic or anything else.

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I reply to Nathan:

I think there are serious problems with the view that the value of all physical distinctions will cease in Heaven. Christ never says that physical distinctions will be without value. In fact, I think there are a few prima-facie reasons to suspect that they will have great value (these are beside the exegetical case that could be made).

For one, I will still be distinct from you in Heaven. The radical egalitarians (that fill all Christian churches today) believe that the most basic unit of any society is the individual man. They overlook the very important distinction that physically exists between individuals. They simply presuppose it without consideration, while (in many cases) claiming that all distinctions will either literally cease or the importance they have on Earth will cease.

So, there is one physical distinction that must exist in Heaven — the distinction between individuals; and it will certainly be “valuable” since God will (presumably) still love us individually in Heaven.

Furthermore, our relationships will still remain the same, presumably. My grandfather will meet me when I get to Heaven and welcome me home. Pop will still be Pop. The mass of redeemed humanity will still be ethnically congregated, even if we all have new physical bodies that resemble each other physically. We’ll still be segregated by virtue of our causative relations (and special emotional ties to) our people-groups.

Or, so it seems to me.

In Honor of Trayvon’s Defenders

A helpful how-to video for my Florida readers: