Spirit Water Blood

This debate was waged on the “Presbyterians” listserv in August/September 1997. It began with a post about Christian Identity. A minister wanted someone to tell him what it was all about. As the discussion proceeded, some comments were made regarding racism and the South. The ball was rolling.

The posts in the debate will demonstrate what a vast ignorance exists today among many of the best ministers in America, even the South. It will also demonstrate how intimidated the vast majority of ministers are to deal forthrightly and truthfully with the subject of “race.” And it will further demonstrate how that this intimidation has become so ingrained in the minds of the intimidated that they cannot even discuss the subject objectively and dispassionately as they would virtually every other topic dealt with in the Christian ministry.

Part 1

At 09:01 8/24/97 -0400, you wrote:

What is Christian Identity?

Quickly, Hank, it is a new and nasty variant on the old “British Israeliteism”. The “ten lost tribes” are really the western Europeans and white folk here in America. Jews, blacks, and so on are (depending on if you talk to Christian Identity Lite or Pro) second class humans or demonic animals. Lots in the KKK, Aryan Nation, and so on have bought into this, as it gives a supposed Biblical basis for their wickedness. It is, of course, a gross perversion of Scripture and the Gospel itself, for it tends strongly to a confidence in the (bogus) ancestry instead of the Covenant of Grace, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. See ya.

Phil Pockras

Minister, Belle Center, Ohio, USA, congregation

Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America

#2.

Originally from: “Hank Ingram”

Originally dated: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 06:44:17 -0400

We don’t have this in the South. Racism is still fairly ingrained in our society so these folks would get a yawn.

Hank

Originally from: “Rev. Chuck Baynard”

Originally dated: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:03:15 -0400

Hank,

Wake up and smell the coffee. Tis right here with us; this monster born of the devil is nourished by racism.

chuck

---------http://www.loclnet.com/epc (Church Home Page)

http://www.loclnet.com/co (The Christian Observer Home Page)

(Editor’s note: With the last message from Rev. Chuck Baynard, I thought it was time for me to wade into the discussion. I had no idea where it would lead, but I hoped for the best. All I knew at the time was that here was Rev. Baynard, talking about racism in the South.)

4#.

August 26,

Chuck, I’d be interested to hear a little explanation of your perspective on the existence and definition of “racism.”

I would say that it’s integration that has given impetus to the rise in the Christian Identity movement in the South. Because integration runs counter to God’s creation order of separate peoples and separate nations, integration, on any wide-scale, inevitably causes bitterness, hatred, malice, and murder. I see it as a violation of the sixth commandment.

And from the manner in which I’ve seen the word used, I can find no corresponding concept in the Bible or in historic Christianity. I see “racism” as a term and concept of very recent origin, that includes concepts that run contrary to the Bible.

For instance, in Titus 1:12,13, the Apostle Paul writes: “One of themselves, evan a prophet of their own, said; `The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.”

I know of no definition of “racism” that doesn’t include such a statement, which would make both Paul and the Holy Spirit guilty of it if indeed it is a valid concept. And if it a valid concept which is a moral evil, then it seems that both Paul and the Holy Spirit are morally culpable.

So I’ve set you out an important task. You need to explain your perspective in a way that doesn’t level moral condemnation at God Himself, which, until shown otherwise, I think is inherent in the term “racism.”

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

Originally from: “Hank Ingram”

Originally dated: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 12:06:14 -0400

Someone had written the following sentence: “And as a Southerner I would appreciate your giving me some examples of racism being “fairly ingrained in our [Southern] society”....

Here was Hank’s answer:

We still have “black” schools and “white” schools locally. Some schools are almost all black and some are almost all white. We are building new “white” schools but no new “black"schools. Most of this is due to the shadow of Jim Crow where blacks were kept in certain areas. Although black enrollment is increasing, we are not updating the black schools. I won’t even mention the segregation in churches.

Hank

(Editor’s note: I thought I should ask Hank a few questions.)

August 26,

Hank,

In a previous post, you wrote: “We still have “black” schools and “white” schools locally. Some schools are almost all black and some are almost all white.”

You have stated that “racism” is “fairly ingrained in our [Southern] society.” As an example of this you have made the above statement. I assume you believe “racism” to be a moral negative, although you haven’t stated this. And I also assume you believe segregated schools to be a moral negative, although you’ve made no case for this.

I am curious to know why you believe separate schools to be a moral negative and integrated schools to be morally superior?

You also wrote: “Although black enrollment is increasing, we are not updating the black schools.”

I am also curious to know what this means. I assume that by this you mean the county, state, and federal governments are not spending money in equitable allotments for schools that are predominantly black in porportion to the money they are spending on schools that are predominantly white. But that is just a guess.

And one more; You wrote: “I won’t even mention the segregation in churches.”

In the end, I may be glad you didn’t. But I’d like to say that the home and the church are the most intimate institutions and thus the hardest to integrate. I say this because in order to exercise the traits of an entire person, one’s culture and nationality must be exercised. In an intimate relationship that is integrated racially and/or culturally, one party must inevitably submerge the traits peculiar to his race, nation, and culture.

The church I attend is quite integrated. But it is a white church culturally, and the worship service reflects this. Sooner or later the integration will cause some trouble; and that will come when the blacks begin demanding the worship service and/or the church programs to reflect their blackness. As long as the blacks who attend are content to act “white,” the integration can work. When that changes, the whites will have to either submerge their culture or leave. I imagine that many will leave. But for now at least, no problem has emerged and hopefully, it will stay that way for a long time.

The same issues are at work in a family. That is why I think there is so little integration in the families, especially the Christian families.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

(Editor’s note: My questions and comments to Hank Ingram brought another gentleman into the fray. This was Rev. Terry Gorden.)

Originally from: AWVZ26A@prodigy.com ( TERRY D GORDEN)

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:09:55, -0500

Dennis,

Just look at the dirty geneology of Jesus. How could he be called perfect when he had those fereners Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in his family tree? Violation of the 6th commandment????

Did Boaz sin when he married someone from a separate nation?

I see God looking at sinful integration as the marriage and/or unequally yoked partnership between the people of the kingdom of God and the people of the kingdom of this world. We see this with Samson, Solomon, and even godly Jehoshaphat who was a partner with wicked

King Ahab, and whose son married the son of Ahab and Jezabel. When the sons of God notice that the daughters of men are beautiful and take them for wives or when Christians become business partners with pagans in an unbiblical manner, then we are looking at unbiblical integration.

Defining any sin biblically is very important, and I commend you for sticking it to us, but eisegesis is also a serious act that I believe that you are guilty of.

I have been a pastor in the South, and it really depends on where you are and the South and the group of people with whom you are dealing.

There is not such thing as the “SOUTH.” There are portions of Alabama that are almost like foreign countries compared to other portions of Alabama.

Terry

To: Terry D. Gorden

August 26,

Terry,

I qualified my remarks by refering to “integration, on any wide-scale,” which in my mind doesn’t include the occasional marraige to an outsider. In my way of thinking, a nation can absorb a limited number of outsiders and still retain its identity and remain true to the implications of God’s actions at the Tower of Babel and the separation of the nations (Gen. 9-11).

What I am refering to is the American policy of uniting two separate peoples as one. This not only violates the sixth commandment, in my view, but also has been the expressed desire of God’s enemies throughout world history. First Nimrod, then the Babylonians, then the Assyrians, then Alexander the Great—who gave great monetary rewards to Europeans within his empire who would marry Persians—then the Romans, and more recently, the Communists.

I believe the American policy demonstrates the influence communism has gained on the peoples and country. For the Christian Church to embrace this policy is probably its greatest failing in today’s society.

I was surprised to see you charge me with eisegesis, in my view, this is exactly what the modern-day proponents of integration are guilty of. They have taken a communist policy, ie. Yugoslavia, the new South Africa, Russification of the Baltics, etc., and imported it into the Scriptures, finding texts here and there that at first blush seem to supports some portions of the ideas being imported.

Philosophically, the American policy of integration is essentially unitarian in principle, as opposed to being trinitarian. It holds up as an ideal the unity of mankind, whereas the Bible teaches us that the diversity of mankind is also a valid concept, not to be tampered with. To quote Harold Stigers from his commentary on Genesis: “It may be said that, in general, nationalism is best for the world in its present state of sin and that to destroy those national boundaries is contrary to God’s present will. It may also be said that God’s wrath will fall on those people who by creating empires provide conditions that facilitate the increase of sin and so weaken men. God even causes empires to come to an end to hold down the increase of sin.”

Two comments on this: In America, we have seen a manifold increase in sin since the institution of the integration policy. And, second, as God has destroyed integrationist empires of the past, and we’ve seen the dissolution of the Soviet Empire in our lifetimes, I would expect him to destroy the United States too. And I believe that those Christians who go to judgement day having supported the American integration policy will have much to answer for. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.

Now I cannot accept your assertion that “there is no such thing as the South.” I believe we constitute a separate people. The Southern people are the descendants of two great immigrant waves to America. About 225,000 Scotch-Irish first settled in the Carolinas from 1625-1675. And about 40,000 Cavaliers settled Virgina shortly before that time. The great majority of Southerners can trace their physical lineage back to one of these two great immigrations. The Civil War was the defining event that forged these peoples as one nation. And at that time some other peoples joined with us with minority status, such as the Cajuns of Louisiana. We now have our own history, our own flag, our own heroes, our own dialects, our own folkways, including art, cooking, and music. In short, we are as much a nation as the Japanese or the Germans, except that we do not control our internal or external affairs. Since 1865 we have not controlled our external affairs, and since 1965 we have not controlled our internal affairs. Nonetheless, the Tibetans have been subjugated by the Chinese for a much longer period yet have still retained their identity and peoplehood.

Although the African-Americans have figured prominently in our history, we are a people whether or not we had ever come into contact with one of them. But from Northern Virginia to Orlando, from the Atlanta Ocean to El Paso, we constitute one of the great peoples of the earth.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

Originally from: “Rev. Chuck Baynard”

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:21:30 -0400

Dennis,

Racism isn’t in the Bible per se” (by word) but neither are other words that are part of sound teaching (trinity for example). While the word race as such isn’t used the word nations is, usually coming from the root word we use for ethnic. What is the difference between the Biblical nations, the missionaries ethnic groups, and race? God is no respecter of person, and Paul tells us there is neither Jew nor Greek. While these definitely refer to the heart or spiritual condition they can have racial implications, so racism would be wrong. I find no qualifier in the command love your neighbor as yourself.

Confronting a person, or in your example a race of people where sin abounds is Biblical. Separating the body into racial groups is not of God, but man.

Don’t know how I got in this one, but the ball isn’t in my court. That “Racism” exists is very evident to all but the most blind among us. The why is also simple the big T also continues its march in time. That it (racism) can be aggravated by forced busing, equal rights etc. isn’t debatable. Yet, heavy handed or not, it is the law of the land and cannot be used to cause

hatred where God has commanded love. Mankind has an awful hard time doing two things: “...so examine yourself...” and “...don’t think of yourself more highly ...” We dislike being “forced” to do anything, and that includes obedience to God’s word; so we play word games from our rears

instead of going into the world with His precious message.

chuck

(Editor’s note: Hank Ingram wasn’t through with me yet. Here he answers the questions I posed to him earlier.)

10#

Originally from: “Hank Ingram”

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:58:01 -0400

Dennis,

You wrote: “I am curious to know why you believe separate schools to be a moral negative and integrated schools to be morally superior?”

Schools where children are separated by race(as opposed to schools where they don’t mix) are inherently wrong. God made us all, no matter the race. Children have no choice when it comes to race. To demand they separate is evil IMHO.

You also wrote: “I am also curious to know what this means. I assume that by this you mean the county, state, and federal governments are not spending money in equitable allotments for schools that are predominantly black in porportion to the money they are spending on schools that are predominantly white. But that is just a guess.”

Black schools receive less money locally. That is a documented fact. Squeaky wheels receive the grease in our county government and whites still have a good control over government.

You also wrote: “In the end, I may be glad you didn’t. But I’d like to say that the home and the church are the most intimate institutions and thus the hardest to integrate. I say this because in order to exercise the traits of an entire person, one’s culture and nationality must be exercised. In an intimate relationship that is integrated racially and/or culturally, one party must inevitably submerge the traits peculiar to his race, nation, and culture.”

I am unaware of any white traits. There are traits related to different regions and cultures but it is not inbred. I have known blacks who attended white churches but left. It wasn’t because the churches didn’t act “black” but because they didn’t feel welcome. We have an oriental family attending our church. They don’t stay because the church acts “oriental” but because they feel welcome.

Hank

11#

To: Hank Ingram

August 26,

PS.—I’m putting the PS up front because I see you have answered my post to Terry Gorden before I could finish answering your post from this morning. I answered Terry’s post first and was half-way through answering your’s when I broke to go to the gym, which I do four nights a week. When I returned, you had already answered the other post. I’ll get to that one tomorrow.

Hank,

I read your post with great interest. Let me make a few comments,

First, you wrote: “Schools where children are separated by race (as opposed to schools where they don’t mix) are inherently wrong. God made us all, no matter the race. Children have no choice when it comes to race. To demand they separate is evil IMHO.”

This is obviously a strongly held perspective of yours. I’m not sure if you simply don’t have time to state your principles fully, or if you just don’t want to get into it, or what. But something as important as this is to you should be fully discussed. You have stated that forced segregation is inherently wrong, with no qualifier. And you have appealed solely to God’s creation of the human race as a support to your position. You haven’t made it clear what the implications of the creation are that makes this practice inherently wrong, so it’s hard to carry on any meaningful discussion.

I will say that in the South, our fathers fought against school integration for many decades believing that it would harm their children and our people if it took place. I think the integrationists’ experiment has proven our fathers right.

First, our children have experienced vast oppression, violence, and intimidation at the hands of blacks in the schools. I attended an integrated middle school in Daytona Beach 30 years ago and had to fight the blacks trying to extort or steal money from smaller white children many times. Also, the day after Martin Luther King was murdered, we whites were forced to line up in formation armed with sticks, broken bottles, and any other weapon at hand to stave off the black mass that was also armed and preparing for an attack. I’ve seen times in Atlanta when white parents at three high schools at the same time were holding their children out of school, fearing black violence. On this score, the segregationists were correct and the integrationists have been proven woefully ignorant of the unintended consequences of their actions.

Second, as Dabney argued in his essay “The Negro and the Free School,” the level of education must necessarily decline for whites in an integrated school. Although he knew from observation what has been borne out by both intelligence tests and books like “The Bell Curve,” government schools must pander to the lowest common denominator. The blacks, measuring about one standard deviation below whites in intelligence, have necessarily dragged the level of education down.

Third, in Corinthians, the Apostle Paul laid out the principle “Bad morals corrupts good company.” Although it is not all attributable to integrated schooling, it is true that white illegitimate birth rates have risen to the point where black rates stood in 1965, 22%. At the same time, black illegitimate birth rates have risen exponentially, officially standing at 65% today.

I have an idea that continued integration in the schools will have a large hand in raising the white rates much higher over time.

Culturally, history has need been rewritten to make it palatable to blacks. White children have been told that all the problems of America are their fault. This is much like the treatment an abused child gets, always being told the problems of the family are his fault. Southern children have for 30 years been subject to this mind molestation.

I can’t understand it if you are ignoring these awful maladies and pronouncing segregated schooling an inherent evil. Perhaps you weren’t aware of them. But I see many good and legitimate reasons for keeping segregated schools.

You also wrote: “I am unaware of any white traits. There are traits related to different regions and cultures but it is not inbred. I have known blacks who attended white churches but left. It wasn’t because the churches didn’t act “black” but because they didn’t feel welcome. We have an oriental family attending our church. They don’t stay because the church acts “oriental” but because they feel welcome.”

I was referring to cultural traits. I read a lot of the Christian Reconstructionists’ material and these books speak a great deal about culture. I’m not sure if you read these things or not. I am sure that much has been written by Presbyterians about the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28. And I know Francis Nigel Lee has written a great deal about the culture of peoples.

What you seem to be doing here is denying the existence of culture, a virtual denial that different peoples have different cultures. I hate to put words in the mouths of others, so I’ll wait until you have declared your principles further before walking down this road anymore.

As for white cultural traits, since this discussion began with an attempt to identify why Christian Identity had grown in the South, I’ll focus on Southern culture. First, we speak English. And Southerners have their own peculiar dialects. Most blacks have a very difficult time with the English language. Second, country music is a carry over from the music our ancestors used in merry old England. Black music is nothing like our music, although some blacks sing opera, others like Charlie Pride, sing country. This is not a musical form that emanates from that people. Third, in worship, white sermons deal with abstract ideas far more than black sermons. Black theology is quite distinctive from Calvinistic, Reformed theology. Black worship is much more emotionally based and much less cognitive than white worship. I could go on and on; food, clothing, art, writing ( recently I was on a plane with a group of blacks and one read a recent poem by a black author about killing the cops that were oppressing the brothers. This is in keeping with black culture rather than white culture.)

Heroes, flags, anthems, histories, and more all go together in forming the culture of a people. I didn’t realize this was arguable. But, I was wrong.

A stark reminder of the separate cultures and ideals of the whites and the blacks were the actions of the 10 black jurors on the O.J. Simpson jury. The jury, itself an Anglo-Saxon invention, is charged with applying the law to the facts presented before them and passing judgement on the defendant. These 10 failed to do this, but saw the situation as a black-white issue. They saw it as their duty to come to the aid of their embattled black brother. The two non-whites on the jury, who at first voted for a “guilty” verdict, were quickly intimidated by the 10 blacks and capitulated compounding the injustice of the murders committed.

If you can convince those 10 jurors that there are no peoples, only people, then perhaps I’ll rethink the issue.

I’ll just close with this quote by Charles Hodge: “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 variaties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose… God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit.”

Dennis Wheeler

(Editor’s note: The next entrant into the discussion was Professor Al Freundt. He is the professor emeritus of church history and Reformed Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.)

12#

Originally from:

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 18:33:15 -0400 (EDT)

When my PCUS Presbytery was asked to accept the Black churches and ministers into the geographical presbytery from the ethnic presbytery in which they held membership, the godly (conservative, fundamentalistic ) white, geographical presbytery refused. Some of us REFORMED and CONSERVATIVE ministers argued: (1) the Lord - the king and head of the church - did not make race a qualification for salvation, for church membership, or for entrance into heaven. We argued that the church had no right to make laws for membership into the presbytery that were different from those from the king and head of the church. By a slim vote a year or two later in 1968 or 1969 my presbytery voted to receive the black churches and ministers into its membership. This angered the conservatives so much, that wihtin a few years they withdrew to become a part of the PCA. There are not a lot of black churches in the PCA, if any.

Al Freundt

13#

Originally from:

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 18:38:47 -0400 (EDT)

Sorry, Dennis, but Christ is the King and Head of the Church, and he has made actually no racial distinctions for salvation, for membership in the church, or for entrance into heaven. In Christ there is no racial distinction in the Church. The church is not to be conformed to the society in the world.

Al Freundt

(Editor’s note: I had to answer him.)

14#

To: Al Freundt

August 27

Dear Al,

Yesterday you wrote: “Sorry, Dennis, but Christ is the King and Head of the Church, and he has made actually no racial distinctions for salvation, for membership in the church, or for entrance into heaven. In Christ there is no racial distinction in the Church. The church is not to be conformed to the society in the world.”

In the Old Testament law, converts to Judaism and certain new citizens to the Hebrew commonwealth were excluded from full participation for differing lengths of time due to the degree of moral debauchery their former cultures and societies possessed. This practice, of course, had God’s full sanction. The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) addressed a similar issue. Major conflicts would arise in the church because of the cultural differences of Christians from various people groups, which by the way, is the same issue faced by both missionaries in some foreign lands today as well as by the Southern Presbyterian Church in the 1960s. Rushdoony has this to say:

“It would appear from the evidence of the law that, first, a restrictive membership or citizenship was a part of the practice of Israel by law. There is evidence of a like standard in the New Testament church; instead of being forced into rigid uniformity, Gentiles and Jews were free to establish their separate congregations and maintain their distinctive character. Moreover, Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem, makes clear that the differences in cultural heritage and stages of moral development and spiritual growth made possible major conflicts in case of uniform membership. As a result, separate congregations were authorized. On the other hand, Jews were not barred from Gentile congregations, so that, while restrictive groups were valid, integrated groups were not invalid.”

In the 1960s South, integrated churches carried the connotation of an integrated society which segregationists in general believed would produce the ugly situation now existing in American society. The Council of Jerusalem had established the principle that congregations were not required to totally change their cultural expressions for the sake of uniformity. They were only required to change certain specific practices that expressly transgressed the law of God.

So as to the technical point of whether the churches should integrate or keep segregated, I think those who wished to integrate were free to do so and those who wished not to were equally free to do so. Therefore, the integrating of the PCUS, followed by the split of the segregationists, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as the church’s unity does not demand uniformity.

On the other hand, those who wished to integrate because they were being compelled to do so by the forces of revolutionary humanism, the spirit of the age, were serving a false god and burning Ceasar’s incense. I try not to judge people’s motives, so I’ll let you decide where you are on the spectrum.

Today the situation is much different. The society has already had the moral collapse the segregationists saw coming. It is a fait accompli. An integrated church doesn’t carry the important moral consequences for the society that it did in the 1960s. Like I said, I attend an integrated church. My Sunday School teacher is a black man. Fine fellow he.

But what I expect to happen is this: the American society will go the way of all multi-ethnic societies and at some point in the future the government will collapse under its own weight of debt, corruption, and decay. This will happen because of God’s creation order of separte peoples and separate nations. Then, like the situations we’ve seen in Yugoslavia and Burundi, we’ll see ethnic wars in which no factor will be important other than which group you belong to. And when North America is divided ethnically, the process will start all over again.

In a second post you wrote: “When my PCUS Presbytery was asked to accept the Black churches and ministers into the geographical presbytery from the ethnic presbytery in which they held membership, the godly (conservative, fundamentalistic ) white, geographical presbytery refused.... By a slim vote a year or two later in 1968 or 1969 my presbytery voted to receive the black churches and ministers into its membership. This angered the conservatives so much, that within a few years they withdrew to become a part of the PCA. There are not a lot of black churches in the PCA, if any.”

I’m glad you have demonstrated the tether between ethnocentricity and the history of the Southern Presbyterian Church. If I’m not mistaken, the slavery issue was one of the driving forces in the original split of the Prebyterian Church into northern and southern organizations. (By the way, now that the Southern Church has recanted and accepted the Yankee [read Humanist Nimrodian] view of slavery and ethnocentrism, they have merrily rejoined forces.

The PCA was intended to carry on the Southern Presbyterian position. Although I’ve never been there, it is my understanding that in the beginning, the men’s dormitories at Reformed Seminary in Jackson were named Dabney Hall and Thornwell Hall, two of the most prolific Southern Presbyterians in American history.

It is quite ironic that since the Civil Rights War of the 1960s, when the mainline denominations took an anti-trinitarian, pro-unitarian position by accepting the tenets of the Civil Rights movement, attendance has fallen off by around 50%. Nonetheless, much of the PCA seems doggedly determined to follow them in this error.

The state of liberty in America depends on the state of the Southern Presbyterian Church in America. I hold fast to the teachings of the historic Southern Presbyterian Church, the teachings of Dabney and Thornwell, though most others have moved from their moorings. I believe in the things that made America great and made American Christianity great while eschewing those things which tend toward the destruction of both.

The issues being discussed the past few days are the most relevant social and theological issues facing the Church today. Much of American church history has turned upon them and this will continue into the future indefinitely.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

14#

To: Rev. Chuck Baynard

August 27

Dear Chuck,

I hope no one is taking my words as being overly argumentative. I believe these issues are quite important and think that no one should flinch from a full evaluation of the subject matter.

This all began with a request for information about Christian Identity. I recently had a conversation with a CI minister in Biloxi. He started in about how Adam was the progenitor of only white people. It was funny how he brought up arguments about the early chapters of Genesis that were similar to ones used by the liberals of an earlier era in their attempts to disprove the historical accuracy of Genesis. Such as: If Adam and Eve were the only people on earth, from where did Cain get his wife?

His explanation was that there were other people on earth, non-whites. And this is from where Cain got his wife.

I replied with the Henry Morris argument that the racial differences of mankind were caused by the inbreeding necessitated by the small ethno/linguistic groups into which God divided man at the Tower of Babel. But he wasn’t buying that.

So, I switched tracks and tried to find an erroneous implication he was drawing from his position. I thought I had him when I asked him: “Are blacks made in the image of God?” Since there are black Christians, some of which have suffered valiantly for the Christian faith, if he answered no, then he had a big problem. At this point though, he backed off and said: “I don’t know. I can’t take it that far.”

Figuring we had dueled to a draw, we dropped the subject.

I don’t know how to answer all the skeptical questions that arise from the first few chapters of Genesis. But I do know the answer to some of them. So, I’ve found it effective to see what implications people draw from their skepticism. If they are contrary to the Bible and/or manifest reality, then you have them.

With that aside, I’d like to comment on a few of your ideas. You wrote: “Racism isn’t in the Bible per se (by word), but neither are other words that are part of sound teaching (trinity for example). While the word race as such isn’t used, the word nations is, usually coming from the root word we use for ethnic.”

My point is that any workable definition of the word “racism” directly contradicts the teachings of the Bible on one or more points. In looking at the Webster’s New World Dictionary, we find this definition: “1. a doctrine or teaching, without scientific support, that claims to find racial differences, in character, intelligence, etc., that asserts the superiority of one race over another or others, and that seeks to maintain racial purity of a race or races. 2 any program or practice of racial discrimination, segregation, etc., based on such beliefs.”

The passage I quoted from Titus violates this definition as it claims to find racial differences. Therefore, Paul is practicing racism as he writes the Word of God and is thus a racist. To me, this casts serious doubt on the validity of the word and concept.

I think it’s notable the word “racism” does not appear in Webster’s 1828 dictionary. It is word of recent origin, although I’ve never been able to trace its exact origin.

You also wrote: “What is the difference between the Biblical nations, the missionaries’ ethnic groups, and race?”

I don’t see any substantive differences between the first two, if I understand the second one properly. A nation is a subset into which God divided mankind. Strong’s definition stresses “of the same habit,” which I take to mean a distinct and similar culture. And the word “ethnos” obviously carries ethnic connotations with it. Yet in Genesis, language is held up as the ultimate criterion.

But with this linguistic division, went something deeper. Keil and Delitzcsh wrote: “The differences to which this great event [Babel] give rise, consisted not merely of variations in sound, such as might be attributed to differences in the formation in the organs of speech (the lip or tongue), but had a much deeper foundation on the human mind. If language is the audible expression of emotions, conceptions, and thoughts of the mind, the cause of the confusion or divisions of the one human language into different national dialects must be sought in an effect produced upon the human mind, by which the original unity of emotion, conception, thought, and will was broken up.”

So it would seem that the nations into which God divided mankind destroyed the unity of mankind by destroying the basis for that unity. Rev. Wayne Rogers is a PCA pastor in Jackson, Mississippi, the last I heard. He put it this way: “The significance of the dispersion at the tower of Bable was that now God would cause nationalism to restrain human revolt against God.... Acts 17:26, 27 point us in the same direction. God created nations, separate nations, in order that men might seek after God rather than seeking their own salvation in a one-world utopian society after the fashion of Babel.”

This being true, the definition of a nation is a matter that every Christian should seek earnestly.

A race is a different animal. Dr. Henry Morris has this to say: “The Semites have been predominant in theology, the Japethites in science and philosophy, the Hamites in technology. Note that these three streams of nations are not three races. Though some have thought of the Semites, Japethites and Hamites as three races (say, the dusky, the white, and the black races—or the Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid), this is not what the Bible teaches, nor is it what modern anthropology and human genetics teach.... The Bible does not use the word race nor does it acknowledge such a concept. The modern concept of race is based on evolutionary thinking. To the evolutionist, a race is a subspecies in the process of evolving into a new species.... The actual descendants of Ham, Shem, and Japeth are identified in Genesis 10.”

This is a tough issue. For the word race has become so ingrained in our vocabulary, it’s difficult to carry on a conversation about race without using the word race. Oops, I did it again. So I think we have to cut each other a little slack on this, and if there’s any confusion about what is being said, ask for clarification.

You also wrote: “God is no respecter of person, and Paul tells us there is neither Jew nor Greek. While these definitely refer to the heart or spiritual condition they can have racial implications, so racism would be wrong.”

Now I can’t understand how you can condemn racism until you’ve made a Biblical case that it is actually a valid concept for the Christian to live by. You hold it as an assumption and say “That racism exists is very evident to all but the most blind among us.” If it exists, then it should be able to be explained. There should be some insight from the Bible to demonstrate its existence—and validity.

You also wrote: “I find no qualifier in the command love your neighbor as yourself.”

I hate to put words in a person’s mouth. But you haven’t explained what implications come from the second great commandment to demonstrate the validity of racism. I’m assuming that you are defining love as “unconditional acceptance, equality, and tolerance,” instead of a more Biblical view of love as “keeping the law of God in relation to.” (Romans 13: 8-10, I Cor. 13:6) We love God by keeping the first four commandments. And we love man by keeping the last six. The Larger Catechism is very detailed and specific about what our duties are toward our neighbor in relation to each commandment. And fulfilling these duties, which are manifold, we have loved him.

To tear down the God-made divisions of mankind is not one of these, as I see it because love does not mandate political and social equality. In Ephesians 6:9, Christian slaveholders are enjoined: “And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening; knowing that your Master is also in heaven; neither is there respect of persons.”

I think the phrase “do the same things unto them” refers to the admonitions given to Christian slaves in verse 8: “Knowing that whatever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.”

Notice the duty of the Christian slaveholder does not include granting the slave social or political equality.

The same is true of our actions toward women in the church. Are we being unloving by refusing to grant them political and social equality in the church in our refusal to allow them to exercise preach or exercise authority in the church? I don’t think so. But my point is to show that love does not include political and social equality, which is what you seem to imply in your statement.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

15#

Originally from: “Hank Ingram”

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 21:33:55 -0400

Dennis,

You wrote: “Two comments on this: In America, we have seen a manifold increase in sin since the institution of the integration policy.”

Absolute nonsense. We have seen an increase in sin since we RIPPED God from the schools.

You also wrote: “As God has destroyed integrationist empires of the past, and we’ve seen the dissolution of the Soviet Empire in our lifetimes, I would expect him to destroy the United States too. And I believe that those Christians who go to judgement day having supported the American integration policy will have much to answer for. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”

I would hate to be in the shoes of a man who says that some men are not made in the image of God. This same concept you support has caused the rampant support for abortion. This concept that some people are not really humans or aren’t worthy of the same considerations. We are all the same. All God’s people. Period!

You also wrote: “Although the African-Americans have figured prominently in our history, we are a people whether or not we had ever come into contact with one of them. But from Northern Virginia to Orlando, from the Atlanta Ocean to El Paso, we constitute one of the great peoples of the earth.”

We are ALL people, no matter the color. All made in the image of God. Pigment is a pretty lousy way to pick your friends if you ask me.

Hank

16#

To: Hank Ingram

August 27

Dear Hank,

I’d like to make a few comments from the post you sent today, but before I do, I need to reprove you for your actions. Yesterday, you wrote: “I would hate to be in the shoes of a man who says that some men are not made in the image of God. This same concept you support has caused the rampant support for abortion.”

Since nothing I have written supports this statement, you are bearing false witness against me. I would ask that you to desist.

On a philosophical note, Southerners are used to this sort of slander. One of the large lessons the Civil War taught Americans was that any opposition to the humanist revolution is to met with the stiffist of rebukes. The song “Battle Hymn of the Republic” commemorates this ideal. Movies like “Mississippi Burning,” which portray the Christian Southerner as so immoral, so sub-human, that to trample his constitutionally guaranteed rights is not only allowable, but commendable.

I get the impression you are following such a line of reasoning in telling others I made statements I didn’t make. I will be pleased for you to stop it.

Today you wrote: “You are condeming ALL of a race based on the actions of a few. I was also beaten by white kids. Do I condemn ALL white people?”

Although I see this as a misinterpretation of what I said, I don’t see it as a slander. The issue at issue was “what would happen if the schools were integrated.” It was not necessary for ALL blacks to misbehave for people to reasonably conclude that integrating the schools would be a bad and dangerous idea.

In the insurance business as well as others, there is an actuarial science which determines generalizations and probabilities. All men over 75 who smoke, don’t get enough exercise, are overweight, and have high blood pressure don’t die of heart attacks. But as far as an insurance company is concerned, you’re going to pay as though you will whether you do or not. This is because the probabilities are weighing against you and enough men in your group do. Actuarial science is a valid method of interpreting human behavior and future tendencies. What I’ve said is no less valid than this.

You also made this statement: “Your assumption is that pigment was the deciding factor in the unrest. I have a different take. If you beat a dog long enough, it will turn on you. In other words, we made that bed.”

Here you do two things: (1) assert that the blacks have been generally mistreated by whites in America, and (2) attribute their misbehavior to our actions rather than the sin nature that resides within each of them.

By asserting “we made that bed,” and I assume you mean “we whites,” you have now acknowledge the existence of the two groups and identified yourself with one of them whereas until now you have steadfastly denied their significant existence. So I think this is a step in the right direction, but it does point out how unrealistic any attempt to understand the broad spectrum of human behavior apart from the ethnic groups that play out the drama, if you will.

As to the whites mistreating the blacks in America, I think that is a fallacious idea based on communist propaganda. I’ll give a quote from the 1912 book “A Racial Programme for the Twentieth Century,” by the Jewish Communist Israel Cohen, which was placed into the Congressional Record in 1959 by a congressman from Ohio: “We must realize that our party’s most powerful weapon is racial tension.... By pounding into the consciousness of the dark peoples that for centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, we can mould them to the programme of the Communist Party.... In America, we will aim for a subtle victory. While inflaming negro minorities against the white, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the negroes.... which will deliver America to our cause.”

I would encourage everyone not to be taken in.

Dabney spoke at great length about the ongoing slander of the abolitionists against the Southerners concerning the treatment of slaves. The Rev. William White, Presbyterian pastor in Virginia, within whose congregation Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson served as a deacon, said this: “In all lands there are husbands and fathers who mistreat their wives and children. So, there are masters among us who maltreat their slaves. but the prevailing spirit is one of great kindness, showing itself in innumerable ways; their mutual dependence begets a mutual attachment. I could fill volumes with instances occurring under my eyes illustrating the statement. But I write this for my own people, especially my own children, and not for the abolitionist.”

I would also refer you to the Slave Narratives, a depression-era government study of the still-living blacks who had been slaves. Their testimony and statements of love and affection for their slavemasters shocked and confused the Washington government. But the Narratives are still around today, available through the Library of Congress and also in some libraries.

In more modern times, Rushdoony has written: “When he was transported to America, he was not taken from freedom into slavery, but from a vicious slavery to degenerate chiefs to a generally benevolent slavery in the United States. There is not the slightest evidence that any American Negro had ever lived in a `free society’ in Africa; even the idea did not exist in Africa. The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually as well as personally. The Negroes were sold from a harsh slavery into a milder one. Slavery was basic to the African way of life, to the point that slaves were the actual money of the African economy. Elsewhere, gold and silver served as money; in Africa, it was slaves.”

Even more recently a book has appeared by a black author, Keith Richburg, declaring his gratitude to the white slave traders who sold his forefathers into bondage. The book is entitled “Thank God My Ancestor Got Out.” You might find it instructive.

The whole idea of the blacks being dehumanized and oppressed in America doesn’t wash. The problems came about with the false teachings of Martin Luther King. He and his successors are the main ones responsible for the ill will present in the land today. And besides, even if it were true that blacks were oppressed, they would have no grounds for behaving in the manner we were describing above. God demands that we love our neighbor. No one has been enjoined to “get your freedom, hate your former oppressors, and then take vengeance on them as you are able.”

So although I am glad you have identified yourself with a white people, I am sad to hear you falsely accuse us and blame the problems of another people on us, when in truth, we have been the most positive and helpful influence that either they or their ancestors have ever encountered.

No, like everyone else, the sins of the blacks proceed from wicked hearts. The fact that their behavior is so wicked—high murder rates, great amounts of theft, great amounts of adultery, drinking excessive amounts of malt liquor, etc.—shows the moral debauchery of their society and people. Southern segregationists sought to keep their people out of this harm’s way.

Every tub must stand on its own bottom. And this applies to the blacks as well. Their problems are of their own making, humanly speaking. To say they are of our making misses the mark.

The rest of your statements were just reapplications of the above issues to different events, except the one concerning the intelligence tests. Your position that the foundation of an ethnic people is skin pigmentation is contradicted by the teachings of the Bible. I’ve covered that already.

About the intelligence tests you wrote: “This study is a ridiculous smear on blacks. They assume that blacks have the same socio-economic breakdown as whites, which is not true. Also, it assumes that groups like the CI don’t exist and racism is absent in society. They do, of course.”

The first intelligence tests showed that Jews were intellectually inferior to whites for the first two years. Knowing this to be inaccurate, adjustments were made to allow for cultural differences and the Jews immediately came up to snuff. No such adjustments have been found for the blacks. I think you statements are demonstrating an anti-white bias.

Also, it seems that you are saying that whites are so afflicted with racism they are not capable of neutral, unbiased scientific investigation. I’m not certain that’s what you’re saying but the words “it assumes that groups like the CI don’t exist and racism is absent in society” lead me to believe this is your perspective.

I can’t go along with that. We carry on unbiased scientific investigation in a number of fields and I don’t believe this field is that much different than other fields of scientific endeavor.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

17#

Originally from: AWVZ26A@prodigy.com ( TERRY D GORDEN)

Originally dated: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:17:34, -0500

Dennis,

Interesting sociological theory without a clear well thought out biblical foundation.

Terry

18#

Originally from: “Hank Ingram”

Originally dated: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 12:36:36 -0400

Dennis,

You wrote: “I will say that in the South, our fathers fought against school integration for many decades believing that it would harm their children and our people if it took place. I think the integrationists’ experiment has proven our fathers right.”

This is an unproven hypothesis. You need to prove this to state it. I disagree that intergration harmed us.

Second, you wrote: “First, our children have experienced vast oppression, violence, and intimidation at the hands of blacks in the schools. I attended an integrated middle school in Daytona Beach 30 years ago and had to fight the blacks trying to extort or steal money from smaller white children many times. Also, the day after Martin Luther King was murdered, we whites were forced to line up in formation armed with sticks, broken bottles, and any other weapon at hand to stave off the black mass that was also armed and preparing for an attack. I’ve seen times in Atlanta when white parents at three high schools at the same time were holding their children out of school, fearing black violence. On this score, the segregationists were correct and the integrationists have been proven woefully ignorant of the unintended consequences of their actions.”

I had to do the same. But you are condeming ALL of a race based on the actions of a few. I was also beaten by white kids. Do I condemn ALL white people? Your assumption is that pigment was the deciding factor in the unrest. I have a different take. If you beat a dog long enough, it will turn on you. In other words, we made that bed.

You also wrote: “As Dabney argued in his essay “The Negro and the Free School,” the level of education must necessarily decline for whites in an integrated school. Although he knew from observation what has been borne out by both intelligence tests and books like “The Bell Curve,” government schools must pander to the lowest common denominator. The blacks, measuring about one standard deviation below whites in intelligence, have necessarily dragged the level of education down.”

Louis Farrakhan disagrees. Who do I believe? This study is a ridiculous smear on blacks. They assume that blacks have the same socio-economic breakdown as whites, which is not true. Also, it assumes that groups like the CI don’t exist and racism is absent in society. They do, of course.

You also wrote: “In Corinthians, the Apostle Paul laid out the principle “Bad morals corrupts good company.” Although it is not all attributable to integrated schooling, it is true that white illegitimate birth rates have risen to the point where black rates stood in 1965, 22%. At the same time, black illegitimate birth rates have risen exponentially, officially standing at 65% today.”

So pigment causes high pregnancy rates? You need to think beneath the surface. Why are black illegitimate rates higher? Because they are darker than us? Or because they are poorer and have less hope. Are pregnancy rates higher for middle-class blacks than middle-class whites? Let’s compare apples to apples.

You also wrote: “I have an idea that continued integration in the schools will have a large hand in raising the white rates much higher over time.”

Why? Our pigment is different so we are immune to this problem.

You also wrote: “Culturally, history has need been rewritten to make it palatable to blacks. White children have been told that all the problems of America are their fault. This is much like the treatment an abused child gets, always being told the problems of the family are his fault. Southern children have for 30 years been subject to this mind molestation.”

Did we hold blacks as slaves in the South? We sure did. Were there repercussions from this? Yup. We made this bed. Now we want to cowardly run from responsibility.

You also wrote: “Black theology is quite distinctive from Calvinistic, Reformed theology.”

All of it??? Can you prove this? Every black person believes the same thing???

You also wrote: “Black worship is much more emotionally based and much less cognitive than white worship. I could go on and on; food, clothing, art, writing ( recently I was on a plane with a group of blacks and one read a recent poem by a black author about killing the cops that were oppressing the brothers. This is in keeping with black culture rather than white culture.)”

So all blacks enjoy poetry about killing cops? Amazing!

You also wrote: “I’ll just close with this quote by Charles Hodge: “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 variaties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose… God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit.”

Ridiculous. My Bible says that all of man is made in God’s image. Any revisions to this are self-serving blasphemy IMHO. I’ll take the Bible over Charles Hodge any day.

Hank

[Editor’s note: Chuck Baynard figured he had to get into this, too.]

#19

Originally from: “Rev. Chuck Baynard”

Originally dated: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 00:34:25 -0400

Dennis,

“The whole idea of blacks being mistreated in America doesn’t wash.” Man how old are you? I must be really a lot older than I thought. Even well into the sixties this was FACT.. I was with the federal troops in Chicago for the Democratic convention and at King’s death. You didn’t live down here and think that blacks were human, they were still treated like chattel though free.

Personally I tire of your unsupported rhetoric. Put some Scripture to this, dead theologians without the backing of Holy Writ mean nothing. A stray line or two from Hodge, Dabney or any other man is just that, and though you have hundreds of them, it still proves nothing about what we as Christians should be doing, that comes for diligent and “good” exegesis, of which I have saw none. Your belief that a commandment is being broken carries no more weight than the one who has the opposite belief.

chuck

20#

Originally from:

Originally dated: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 18:44:07 -0400 (EDT)

Dear Dennis,

Thanks for your thorough reply. Having lived through the days described, the integration of the PCUS, I appreciate your critique of those days. However, the great problem of so much of the PCUS in those days was their conformity to the society of the times. This is the worst, most insidious form of worldliness. It is still being perpetuated in those churches which refuse to allow members of other races than that of the dominant culture.

Al Freundt

[Editor: The debate was about to take a huge turn. Thomas Roche, a Christian Reconstructionist from New York, was coming into it. He approaches this entire matter from a much different point of view that the guys who had already spoken. I thought this would really be a war. His style will be laborious to read, though, because instead of creating his own post, he just reprints mine and intersperses his comments between paragraphs. So unless, I reprint my posts, which are long, you won’t know what he’s talking about.]

#21

Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:31:24 -0400 (EDT)

Thomas Roche speaking: Still more spirtual pyrite from Dennis W:

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Dear Al,

Thomas Roche speaking:This might have been a better argument for black segregation when the first African slaves were brought here, but then, and until the War of the Rebellion, southern churches were integrated. It was only after the defeat of the rebels that vengeful whites kicked the ignorant (not having been allowed to learn to read) black folks out and exposed them to their own devices, creating the largely defective modern black church.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In the 1960s South, integrated churches carried the connotation of an integrated society which segregationists in general believed would produce the ugly situation now existing in American society. The Council of Jerusalem had established the principle that congregations were not required to totally change their cultural expressions for the sake of uniformity. They were only required to change certain specific practices that expressly transgressed the law of God.

Thomas Roche speaking: The object is to unify N. America ethnically, not Balkanize it.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In a second post you wrote: “When my PCUS Presbytery was asked to accept the Black churches and ministers into the geographical presbytery from the ethnic presbytery in which they held membership, the godly (conservative, fundamentalistic ) white, geographical presbytery refused.... By a slim vote a year or two later in 1968 or 1969 my presbytery voted to receive the black churches and ministers into its membership. This angered the conservatives so much, that within a few years they withdrew to become a part of the PCA. There are not a lot of black churches in the PCA, if any.”

the things that made America great and made American Christianity great while eschewing those things which tend toward the destruction of both.

Thomas Roche speaking: “Come and listen to my story ‘bout a man named Jed...”

Y’all get the rest.

TPR

#22.

p> Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:03:49 -0400 (EDT)

More is wrong with Bro Wheeler's racist diatribe here than can easily be commented upon, but I will nonetheless try:

[Roche then reprinted my above post to Terry Gorden.]

Thomas Roche's comment: In light of the notion of southern peoplehood espoused above, if Cavaliers, Scotch-Irish, and Cajuns, none of whom had even the same denominational tradition, could all be amalgamated into one "people", why couldn't the black folks in the south also be so amalgamated, especially since they were brought there against their will be the white folks, who rather successfully impressed their language, religion, and general culturalia on the Africans, and even took a great deal from them as well? If the answer be merely skin color, then you deny thereby the very reason that Jesus instituted a New Covenant demanding that his Jewish followers spread the faith to all the world, and integrate all peoples thereunto.

Tom Roche

Yankee

#23.

p> Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 21:19:14 -0400 (EDT)

More critical analysis of racist Southernism:

[Here Roche reprints my post to Hank Ingram and intersperses his comments into it.]

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I will say that in the South, our fathers fought against school integration for many decades believing that it would harm their children and our people if it took place. I think the integrationists' experiment has proven our fathers right.

Thomas Roche speaking: Yes, but only because both sides have abandoned the God of the bible, who may well be judging America for 350+ years of racism and ungodly attempts to use His word to justify such policies. At least the black folks' pagan ancestors didn't try to use the Word of the One true God to defend similar racist policies they practiced in Africa.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: First, our children have experienced vast oppression, violence, and intimidation at the hands of blacks in the schools. I attended an integrated middle school in Daytona Beach 30 years ago and had to fight the blacks trying to extort or steal money from smaller white children many times. Also, the day after Martin Luther King was murdered, we whites were forced to line up in formation armed with sticks, broken bottles, and any other weapon at hand to stave off the black mass that was also armed and preparing for an attack. I've seen times in Atlanta when white parents at three high schools at the same time were holding their children out of school, fearing black violence. On this score, the segregationists were correct and the integrationists have been proven woefully ignorant of the unintended consequences of their actions.

Thomas Roche speaking: White southerners refused to let the black folks develop as a people after Emancipation, and gradually achieve integrated equality in the manner Brother B. T. Washington advocated, and so they gradually were driven into the arms of ML King,… or Malcom X.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Second, as Dabney argued in his essay "The Negro and the Free School," the level of education must necessarily decline for whites in an integrated school. Although he knew from observation what has been borne out by both intelligence tests and books like "The Bell Curve," government schools must pander to the lowest common denominator. The blacks, measuring about one standard deviation below whites in intelligence, have necessarily dragged the level of education down.

Thomas Roche speaking: But why are they such, and is their condidtion permanent, or can it be rectified by giving them better access to education and cultural uplifts they lacked earlier? Like it or not, black folks are as a part of the "American" people, as any whites, and they have spilled as much of their blood and treasure to validate this. We are, or were and ought to continue to be, one people, or our society will be destroyed.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Third, in Corinthians, the Apostle Paul laid out the principle "Bad morals corrupts good company." Although it is not all attributable to integrated schooling, it is true that white illegitimate birth rates have risen to the point where black rates stood in 1965, 22%. At the same time, black illegitimate birth rates have risen exponentially, officially standing at 65% today.

Thomas Roche speaking: Perhaps this low level of morality on black folks' partr could be attributed to their having been denied the benefit of the superior preaching of most white southern preachers for generations.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I was referring to cultural traits. I read a lot of the Christian Reconstructionists' material and these books speak a great deal about culture. I'm not sure if you read these things or not. I am sure that much has been written by Presbyterians about the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28. And I know Francis Nigel Lee has written a great deal about the culture of peoples.

Thomas Roche speaking: He has some points, but is generally a nut.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: As for white cultural traits, since this discussion began with an attempt to identify why Christian Identity had grown in the South, I'll focus on Southern culture. First, we speak English. And Southerners have their own peculiar dialects. Most blacks have a very difficult time with the English language.

Thomas Roche speaking: "Black English" is really essentially just 18th century rural English from the south of England, transported to the Tidewater South.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Second, country music is a carry over from the music our ancestors used in merry old England. Black music is nothing like our music, although some blacks sing opera, others like Charlie Pride, sing country. This is not a musical form that emanates from that people. Third, in worship, white sermons deal with abstract ideas far more than black sermons. Black theology is quite distinctive from Calvinistic, Reformed theology. Black worship is much more emotionally based and much less cognitive than white worship. I could go on and on; food, clothing, art, writing ( recently I was on a plane with a group of blacks and one read a recent poem by a black author about killing the cops that were oppressing the brothers. This is in keeping with black culture rather than white culture.)

Thomas Roche speaking: "Just a good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm, beats all you never saw been in trouble with the law since ther day they was borned." Great Culture. I won't even begin to discuss the offerings of the Nashville Network.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: A stark reminder of the separate cultures and ideals of the whites and the blacks were the actions of the 10 black jurors on the O.J. Simpson jury. The jury, itself an Anglo-Saxon invention, is charged with applying the law to the facts presented before them and passing judgement on the defendant. These 10 failed to do this, but saw the situation as a black-white issue. They saw it as their duty to come to the aid of their embattled black brother. The two non-whites on the jury, who at first voted for a "guilty" verdict, were quickly intimidated by the 10 blacks and capitulated compounding the injustice of the murders committed.

If you can convince those 10 jurors that there are no peoples, only people, then perhaps I'll rethink the issue.

Thomas Roche speaking: Sadly, although you'll not like hearing it from educated New England white folks, there were very legitimate reasons for that jury to vote as it did.

DennisWheeler speaking: I'll just close with this quote by Charles Hodge: "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 variaties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those cause as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose… God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit."

Thomas Roche speaking: Ah, this just demonstrated that Hodge was, however great, a man of his time.

Thomas Roche

member of the Yankee people?

[After the three posts from Thomas Roche, it was my turn to answer him.]

#24.

To: Thomas P. Roche

August 28,

Like Zorro appearing from the shadows to bedevil the Mexican soldiers oppressing his beloved people of Los Angeles, Tony P. Roche has jumped into the fray. From his first salvo, it's obvious he knows how to cut to the heart of the matter. There will be no more dancing around the periphery of the issues; all side-door exits are to be closed. The Southern perspective of Christian nationalism will now have to be defended against the Reconstructionist ideal of Christian internationalism on "first principles," like two men dueling tied to a three-foot rope.

I've waited a long time for this opportunity—not necessarily to discuss the issue with Mr. Roche, but with any credible proponent of Christian Reconstruction. I hope I'm up to the challenge. So in the words of rap star R.C. Hammer: "LET'S PUMP UP THE VOLUUUUME!"

Dear Tony,

You start with an excellent question: "In light of the notion of southern peoplehood espoused above, if Cavaliers, Scotch-Irish, and Cajuns, none of whom had even the same denominational tradition, could all be amalgamated into one "people", why couldn't the black folks in the south also be so amalgamated, especially since they were brought there against their will be the white folks, who rather successfully impressed their language, religion, and general culturalia on the Africans, and even took a great deal from them as well? If the answer be merely skin color, then you deny thereby the very reason that Jesus instituted a New Covenant demanding that his Jewish followers spread the faith to all the world, and integrate all peoples thereunto."

Since you either haven't read or chosen to ignore much of what has already been discussed in the posts on this subject, I too will ignore all that has gone on before and begin at the beginning.

First, the differences between peoples is not merely "one of skin color"; it embraces language, thought patterns, abilities, history, and many other issues. There are three great families of nations detailed in Genesis 10-11. Because God chose to describe them to us in terms of the descendants of Ham, Shem, and Japeth, it is reasonable for us to understand them in the same terms.

Therefore, some peoples are more closely related to some than they are to others. The Cavaliers, Scotch-Irish, and Cajuns were European peoples, free peoples, part of the American body politic, while the Africans were none of these. The three European peoples had much of a shared history for many decades if not for more than a century. Your argument seems to be to tie the blacks and the whites in the South together culturally and hold they were no more religiously diverse than the three European peoples and thus paint us into the corner of refusing them admittance to nationhood on the basis of skin color alone. But the blacks in the South bore a similar relationship to the Southern people that aliens bore to the people of the Hebrew Republic (Deut. 23:1-8). In the Old Testament economy, all aliens and strangers living in Israel received justice under the law without respect of persons, but could only become citizens after three to ten generations.

It is clear from reading the Bible that these alien peoples were separate and distinct from the Hebrew people and that God did not consider them Hebrews by virtue of the fact that they lived among the Hebrews and believed in the Hebrew God.

So it was in the South. The blacks lived among the Southerners as slaves and servants—or even freemen, but they weren't part of the Southern people merely because they lived here. All blacks, whether slave or free, had no opportunity to become citizens of a Southern state. And this principle was even upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857.

The War of Northern Aggression was the event that forged the white peoples of the South into one people and one nation. The Cajuns were in and they acquitted themselves valiantly in battle. Although they are different from the rest of us in some ways, they are in and although it's possible religious differences could tear them out in the future, for now, they're in.

Your observation about the three European peoples not sharing similar denominations is interesting. In your thinking, what does that have to do with peoplehood?

Also, it is not clear to me how your perspective that "Jesus instituted a New Covenant demanding that his Jewish followers spread the faith to all the world, and integrate all peoples thereunto" is pertinent to the discussion. I would like to hear more.

In one post, you introduced your remarks with a headline: "More critical analysis of racist Southernism." What do you mean by racist? I would like to hear a biblical definition of this word from you, please.

In answer to my statements on why Southerners fought against school integration, you wrote: "Yes, but only because both sides have abandoned the God of the Bible, who may well be judging America for 350+ years of racism and ungodly attempts to use His word to justify such policies. At least the black folks' pagan ancestors didn't try to use the Word of the One true God to defend similar racist policies they practiced in Africa."

Upon what basis do you make such an assertion? I will wait patiently for your biblical definition of "racism" and I would like to hear some specific examples of these "ungodly attempts to use His word to justify such positions."

Also, you are here juxtapositioning the moral position of the two peoples, one, children of the Reformation, the other, descendants of slaves, both morally and physically. It is interesting that you come down on the side of those of pagan ancestry as the morally superior. Perhaps it was just on this one issue they held moral superiority, in your view. I don't know. Is there some conclusion to draw from this statement, or are you demonstrating an anti-white bias?

At any rate, the most base and nasty of peoples, even Southerners, hold the right to self-defense. This is where we were coming from. And unless you've adopted the view of Ronald Sider that if we would just show kindness and compassion to those who could harm us, then they will in turn respond with equal amounts of love and kindness, I don't see how you can criticize the South for wanting to keep its schools segregated.

In another place, you wrote: "White southerners refused to let the black folks develop as a people after Emancipation, and gradually achieve integrated equality in the manner Brother B. T. Washington advocated, and so they gradually were driven into the arms of ML King,… or Malcom X."

I see two problems here: (1) you have no evidence to conclude they would have ever "gradually achieve integrated equality." This is pure speculation on your part. No where in the history of the world has a black African people attained anything resembling Western Civilization. To believe they would have in the South had we allowed it is to hang your hat on an imaginary peg. (2) There is a biblical principle, stated repeatedly by my late grandmother and I believe stated first by Jeremiah that "every tub must stand on its own bottom." Blacks were not driven into the arms of King and X by us. They went there freely of their own accord. Their responsibility is to love God and their fellow men and worship God according as He has commanded in His word. They haven't done this and on judgement day, they'll have no one to blame but themselves. I think to hold otherwise, you are denying the biblical principle of personal and corporate accountability.

In the South today, we have many sins. And although Billy Graham says our biggest sin is "racism," I assure you it's not. Adultery, blasphemy, and theft are running neck and neck for first place in the Southern Sins Sweepstakes. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. We won't be able to blame our sins on someone else on the last day. And I'll not allow you to abdicate the responsibilities of the blacks and place the blame on us.

In answer to my observation about the low scores blacks post on intelligence tests, you wrote: "But why are they such, and is their condition permanent, or can it be rectified by giving them better access to education and cultural uplifts they lacked earlier? Like it or not, black folks are as a part of the "American" people, as any whites, and they have spilled as much of their blood and treasure to validate this. We are, or were and ought to continue to be, one people, or our society will be destroyed."

As to whether or not the condition of the blacks is permanent, I don't have the wherewithal to know. I have no evidence to suggest that it will improve and it's not a matter that Scripture addresses, to my knowledge. (If it was, then I imagine you would have pointed it out to me already.) As to whether or not "it can be rectified by giving them better access to education and cultural uplifts," I hope so but am not hopeful. Man is not a product of his environment and for over 30 years in the new America, they've had every opportunity to show what they're made of. According to the book "The Bell Curve," they have made some progress. Hopefully, this will continue.

You have referred to the "American" people and placed the blacks within the group. I would deny there is any "American" people in a biblical sense any more than there were a Soviet people, or a Yugoslavian people, or a Burundian people, or an Ethiopian people. There are several peoples who inhabit the United States. And since the Immigration Act of 1965, a conscious effort has been made by Washington to ensure that more and more peoples are brought into country.

We used to operate under the Melting Pot theory, whereby people that were easily assimilable into the Anglo-Saxon people were encouraged to come, and those not easily assimilable were either discouraged or prohibited. The first American immigration act specified that only "free white persons" were eligible. As late as Eisenhower, Operation Wetback was operative to keep Mexicans out. But in 1965, the Ted Kennedy Immigration Act threw the doors open to the world.

Today, we operate under the Salad Bowl concept, where a variety of peoples are resident within the country, each to celebrate the diversity of its own culture and proudly display its cultural distinctions, except the Southerner. He alone is denied the proud display of his cultural symbols and an unremitting war is waged to tear down his flags, monuments, and memorabilia.

To believe there is an "American people" is believing the Nimrodian lie of a unified mankind.

As for our society being destroyed, much of mine has already been destroyed. Join the club, it's not so bad. But in truth, integration is ruinous to any people. In Deuteronomy 28, integration is what God promised as a destructive plague upon the people of Israel if they turned from him. This is what has happened to America. "The foreigner who is within thee shall get up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be the head and thou shalt be the tail." There's much more in Duet. 28; I would encourage everyone to read it.

(And what shall I say; it was the President who signed the Martin Luther King Holiday bill that presided over this country while it went from being the largest creditor nation on earth to the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.)

On my commentary about the O.J. Simpson jury, you wrote: "Sadly, although you'll not like hearing it from educated New England white folks, there were very legitimate reasons for that jury to vote as it did."

I don't necessarily disagree with you. But my point was to show the racial solidarity systematically shown by a great majority of blacks. This puts us at a great disadvantage. While we are trying to be fair, democratic, and raceless, they are unflinchingly marching toward taking all that we have, materially and physically.

I quoted Rushdoony on slavery and you wrote: "This might have been a better argument for black segregation when the first African slaves were brought here, but then, and until the War of the Rebellion, southern churches were integrated. It was only after the defeat of the rebels that vengeful whites kicked the ignorant (not having been allowed to learn to read) black folks out and exposed them to their own devices, creating the largely defective modern black church."

Black segregation was not an option in the beginning. The British were running the show and demanded it. The great majority of Southerners were opposed to it as they new that having millions of non-Southerners in their midst was potentially ruinous. Nonetheless, once it became established, and since the Bible was not opposed to it, and the entire economy came to depend on it, it was here to stay in our eyes.

Your term War of the Rebellion is telling. The South was the section loyal to America and the Constitution. It was the North that rebelled against both of these and the Bible as well. Once having entered into a contract, the North was bound by its provisions. Once they believed they could no longer morally abide by the terms to which they had agreed, it was there duty to approach the South and beg to be let out of the contract, which we would have been graciously more than willing to allow.

Instead, they attacked with arms and religious fervor. The American union you seem to cherish so greatly is built on nothing more than murder and the oppression of a free people. And remember those timeless words: "Thou shalt not kill."

As for Southern churches being integrated before the War, this is true but needs some explanation. Because although the slave and freeman worshipped together, there was no relationship of equality between them. I doubt black men were voting members of the congregation. As long as that is understood, then I can accept the idea they were integrated. But it wasn't in the sense they are today. Southerners have held one racial policy from George Washington to George Wallace, only the circumstances have changed.

For the record, some blacks were taught to read prior to the years leading up to the war. Only when abolitionist material urging them to revolt and kill their white masters began showing up in the South did the prohibition against teaching blacks to read surface. Again, the right of self-defense was at work.

Had our people been vengeful, we could have killed great amounts of blacks after the Reconstruction Era ended. We didn't do this and vengeance wasn't a big portion of the picture. Again it was self-defense. During slave days, the blacks were no political or social threat to whites in the South. After the passage of the 14th amendment to the Constitution, they became both. Once the Reconstruction troops were gone, the South again reclaimed control of her internal affairs.

At the urging of R.L. Dabney, we took advantage of the loopholes in the new, dismembered Constitution and found ways to limit the black political and social threat to our people. This was known as Jim Crow. In 1896, this policy won the approval of the United States Supreme Court and remained in effect in full force until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka decision of that court began tearing from us the control of our internal affairs.

Laying the blame on us for the "defective black church" will not wash. Again, the blacks are just as responsible to run their churches as God has commanded as we are, regardless of anything that has happened to them in the past. They are what they are and they believe what they want to believe, humanly speaking.

To my prediction of coming ethnic war in America—see Carl Rowan's book "The Coming Race War in America—you wrote: "The object is to unify N. America ethnically, not Balkanize it."

Upon what basis do you make this assertion? It seems clear that God's creation order mandates separate peoples and separate nations. And it seems equally clear that you are calling for the overthrow of that order and the implementation of some sort of new world order. I'll be anxious to hear your ideas on this.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

#25.

Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 15:15:03 -0400 (EDT)

To: Douglas Wheeler

From: Tony Roche

Thomas Roche speaking: As you say, crank it up. There is fruitful material available here.

[Thomas is still quoting me at length and then giving a brief answer.]

Dennis Wheeler speaking: First, the differences between peoples is not merely “one of skin color”; it embraces language, thought patterns, abilities, history, and many other issues. There are three great families of nations detailed in Genesis 10-11. Because God chose to describe them to us in terms of the descendants of Ham, Shem, and Japeth, it is reasonable for us to understand them in the same terms.

Thomas Roche speaking: Is this OT history relevant? Are black folks clearly Hamites? In any case, Europeans are Japethites, and the Semites were the chosen line. You see where I am going here, if you want to resort to Genesis evidence to prove your points, you will need to be most careful.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Therefore, some peoples are more closely related to some than they are to others. The Cavaliers, Scotch-Irish, and Cajuns were European peoples, free peoples, part of the American body politic, while the Africans were none of these. The three European peoples had much of a shared history for many decades if not for more than a century. Your argument seems to be to tie the blacks and the whites in the South together culturally and hold. They were no more religiously diverse than the three European peoples and thus paint us into the corner of refusing them admittance to nationhood on the basis of skin color alone. But the blacks in the South bore a similar relationship to the Southern people that aliens bore to the people of the Hebrew Republic (Deut. 23:1-8). In the Old Testament economy, all aliens and strangers living in Israel received justice under the law without respect of persons, but could only become citizens after three to ten generations.

Thomas Roche speaking: Are you saying that the European southerners were the chosen people of the land, given exclusive ruling rights to it by God, and thus did not have any need to grant full equality to the Africans they brought it, and of course also had the right, as they did for good in the 1830s (note, before the Yankee war) to expel the Red natives of the place fromtheir own land, on analogy of what Israel had been ordered to do by God to the Canaanites?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: It is clear from reading the Bible that these alien peoples were separate and distinct from the Hebrew people and that God did not consider them Hebrews by virtue of the fact that they lived among the Hebrews and believed in the Hebrew God.

Thomas Roche speaking: So God does not consider the black folks Christian southerners just ebcause they live in the South and believe in the Christian God? Even OT law allowed a man to convert to Judaism.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: So it was in the South. The blacks lived among the Southerners as slaves and servants—or even freemen, but they weren’t part of the Southern people merely because they lived here. All blacks, whether slave or free, had no opportunity to become citizens of a Southern state. And this principle was even upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857.

Thomas Roche speaking: Wow, they were sinning. Proves nothing you want it to prove.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Your observation about the three European peoples not sharing similar denominations is interesting. In your thinking, what does that have to do with peoplehood?

Thomas Roche speaking: How exactly do you define “peoplehood” then?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Also, it is not clear to me how your perspective that “Jesus instituted a New Covenant demanding that his Jewish followers spread the faith to all the world, and integrate all peoples thereunto” is pertinent to the discussion. I would like to hear more.

Thomas Roche speaking: What part of the above don’t you understand?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In one post, you introduced your remarks with a headline: “More critical analysis of racist Southernism.” What do you mean by racist? I would like to hear a biblical definition of this word from you, please.

Thomas Roche speaking: I shall endeavor to work on this.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In answer to my statements on why Southerners fought against school integration, you wrote: “Yes, but only because both sides have abandoned the God of the Bible, who may well be judging America for 350+ years of racism and ungodly attempts to use His word to justify such policies. At least the black folks’ pagan ancestors didn’t try to use the Word of the One true God to defend similar racist policies they practiced in Africa.”

Upon what basis do you make such an assertion? I will wait patiently for your biblical definition of “racism” and I would like to hear some specific examples of these “ungodly attempts to use His word to justify such positions.”

Thomas Roche speaking: Using bad Biblical exegesis and man-made religious and cultural tradition arguments to justify oppression.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Also, you are here juxtapositioning the moral position of the two peoples, one, children of the Reformation, the other, descendants of slaves, both morally and physically. It is interesting that you come down on the side of those of pagan ancestry as the morally superior. Perhaps it was just on this one issue they held moral superiority, in your view. I don’t know. Is there some conclusion to draw from this statement, or are you demonstrating an anti-white bias?

Thomas Roche speaking: If we follow your apparently covenantal thinking here, the white folks had an obligation to civilize and Christianize their African slaves, which they didn’t really do, because such a policy would have led to their becoming free. Remember, the traditional policy throughout Christendom had always been, that a pagan slave became free upon accepting baptism. The Southern folk did away with this by the end of the 17th cent.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: At any rate, the most base and nasty of peoples, even Southerners, hold the right to self-defense. This is where we were coming from. And unless you’ve adopted the view of Ronald Sider that if we would just show kindness and compassion to those who could harm us, then they will in turn respond with equal amounts of love and kindness, I don’t see how you can criticize the South for wanting to keep its schools segregated.

Thomas Roche speaking: No, I don’t suppose you do, since you are evidently committed to he notion of keeping the black folks in the south as an inferior ‘alien’ race for generations to come?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In another place, you wrote: “White southerners refused to let the black folks develop as a people after Emancipation, and gradually achieve integrated equality in the manner Brother B. T. Washington advocated, and so they gradually were driven into the arms of ML King,… or Malcom X.”

I see two problems here: (1) you have no evidence to conclude they would have ever “gradually achieve integrated equality.” This is pure speculation on your part. No where in the history of the world has a black African people attained anything resembling Western Civilization. To believe they would have in the South had we allowed it is to hang your hat on an imaginary peg. (2) There is a biblical principle, stated repeatedly by my late grandmother and I believe stated first by Jeremiah that “every tub must stand on its own bottom.” Blacks were not driven into the arms of King and X by us. They went there freely of their own accord. Their responsibility is to love God and their fellow men and worship God according as He has commanded in His word. They haven’t done this and on judgement day, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves. I think to hold otherwise, you are denying the biblical principle of personal and corporate accountability.

Thomas Roche speaking: Where did Western Civ come from? It came from the Near Eastern Christian missionaries who gradually Christianized and civilized the pagan Europeans. You do have at least some notion of what the Anglo-Saxons and Scots Celts were like in say, 500 AD, don’t you?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: You have referred to the “American” people and placed the blacks within the group. I would deny there is any “American” people in a biblical sense any more than there were a Soviet people, or a Yugoslavian people, or a Burundian people, or an Ethiopian people. There are several peoples who inhabit the United States. And since the Immigration Act of 1965, a conscious effort has been made by Washington to ensure that more and more peoples are brought into country.

Thomas Roche speaking: I repeat my question: what constitutes a people?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: We used to operate under the Melting Pot theory, whereby people that were easily assimilable into the Anglo-Saxon people were encouraged to come, and those not easily assimilable were either discouraged or prohibited. The first American immigration act specified that only “free white persons” were eligible. As late as Eisenhower, Operation Wetback was operative to keep Mexicans out. But in 1965, the Ted Kennedy Immigration Act threw the doors open to the world.

To believe there is an “American people” is believing the Nimrodian lie of a unified mankind.

Thomas Roche speaking: Your points on immigration are excellent, but the black folks have been here for almost 400 years now.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: As for our society being destroyed, much of mine has already been destroyed. Join the club, it’s not so bad. But in truth, integration is ruinous to any people. In Deuteronomy 28, integration is what God promised as a destructive plague upon the people of Israel if they turned from him. This is what has happened to America. “The foreigner who is within thee shall get up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be the head and thou shalt be the tail.” There’s much more in Duet. 28; I would encourage everyone to read it.

Thomas Roche speaking: Black folks are no more foreigners inn say, Alabama, than whiotes are.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: On my commentary about the O.J. Simpson jury, you wrote: “Sadly, although you’ll not like hearing it from educated New England white folks, there were very legitimate reasons for that jury to vote as it did.”

I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But my point was to show the racial solidarity systematically shown by a great majority of blacks. This puts us at a great disadvantage. While we are trying to be fair, democratic, and raceless, they are unflinchingly marching toward taking all that we have, materially and physically.

Thomas Roche speaking: Perhaps they feel that they are retaking things stolen from them.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Black segregation was not an option in the beginning. The British were running the show and demanded it. The great majority of Southerners were opposed to it as they new that having millions of non-Southerners in their midst was potentially ruinous. Nonetheless, once it became established, and since the Bible was not opposed to it, and the entire economy came to depend on it, it was here to stay in our eyes.

Thomas Roche speaking: The Bible does not support it sir, not unless you can successfully demonstrate that white southern crackers are the new Israel entitled to OT-style national separateness.

I used the Abolitionist term for the war to tweak you. My bad history does not make yours ok.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: As for Southern churches being integrated before the War, this is true but needs some explanation. Because although the slave and freeman worshipped together, there was no relationship of equality between them. I doubt black men were voting members of the congregation. As long as that is understood, then I can accept the idea they were integrated. But it wasn’t in the sense they are today. Southerners have held one racial policy from George Washington to George Wallace, only the circumstances have changed.

Thomas Roche speaking: Uniformity of heritage does not make right.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: For the record, some blacks were taught to read prior to the years leading up to the war. Only when abolitionist material urging them to revolt and kill their white masters began showing up in the South did the prohibition against teaching blacks to read surface. Again, the right of self-defense was at work.

Thomas Roche speaking: If you had taught them the scriptures earlier, they wouldn;t have been susceptible to abolitionist lies.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Had our people been vengeful, we could have killed great amounts of blacks after the Reconstruction Era ended. We didn’t do this and vengeance wasn’t a big portion of the picture. Again it was self-defense. During slave days, the blacks were no political or social threat to whites in the South. After the passage of the 14th amendment to the Constitution, they became both. Once the Reconstruction troops were gone, the South again reclaimed control of her internal affairs.

Thomas Roche speaking: And essentially rechattleized the darkies. Great. Why kill la bunch of fine sharecroppahs?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: At the urging of R.L. Dabney, we took advantage of the loopholes in the new, dismembered Constitution and found ways to limit the black political and social threat to our people. This was known as Jim Crow. In 1896, this policy won the approval of the United States Supreme Court and remained in effect in full force until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka decision of that court began tearing from us the control of our internal affairs.

Thomas Roche speaking: Dabney sinned here.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Laying the blame on us for the “defective black church” will not wash. Again, the blacks are just as responsible to run their churches as God has commanded as we are, regardless of anything that has happened to them in the past. They are what they are and they believe what they want to believe, humanly speaking.

Thomas Roche speaking: But they were denied tru preaching from those who knew when they didn’t, quite unlike the Europeans who had the advantages of say, Paul of Tarsus.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: To my prediction of coming ethnic war in America—see Carl Rowan’s book “The Coming Race War in America—you wrote: “The object is to unify N. America ethnically, not Balkanize it.”

Upon what basis do you make this assertion? It seems clear that God’s creation order mandates separate peoples and separate nations. And it seems equally clear that you are calling for the overthrow of that order and the implementation of some sort of new world order. I’ll be anxious to hear your ideas on this.

Thomas Roche speaking: I am no new world order man, sir, merely a Reconstructionist who wants a unified and godly society.

Sincerely,

Thomas Roche

Rule New England, New England Rules and Saves

[Editor’s note: During a lull in the action with Thomas Roche, another skirmish erupted between myself and Chuck Baynard.]

#26.

p> Originally from: “Rev. Chuck Baynard”

Originally dated: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 20:48:28 -0400

Dennis,

One time only, and I am out of this, for I find it boring and without Biblical support, and do not think I will convince your nor anyone else assuming your position anything. BUT Since you have verse before us, let us take a closer look at it, it does anything but what you say IMO (and we all have one of those.)

Titus 1:12-13 cannot be grabbed alone, context please! “One of themselves” who is being referred to? I submit it is the Jewish element trying to subvert the Gospel, not the Cretians. “this witness is true” Whose witness to what? I would submit that Paul is speaking of his own witness as being true and that the judiaziers are to be confronted for aying such to bring division, not the Cretians for being lazy, slow bellys etc. Look to verse 10 for the key here, “Specially they of the circumcision” Do any of us doubt who this is referring to as being the false witness that is to be confronted?

Calvin’s favorite word for arguments like this was “cavil,” so it is. Perhaps a bit egotistical sounding to some, but we have some of the greatest theological minds of the day on this conference. This isn’t a theological argument when solid research and foundation in Scripture isn’t used to lay the foundation for an argument. One or less verses tossed out because the words fit, is sloppy at best and perhaps even insulting considering the level of discussions we have seen here in the past.. Let us be careful and lay such a foundation for the arguments presented, and I think perhaps we will see more knowledge forth coming and less of the personal words tosses that have hung around the edges of this thread (self included, for I tire easily when we are too lazy to do our own expositions).

chuck

#27.

To: Chuck Baynard

August 29

Dear Chuck,

I’m not sure why you find it necessary to berate me personally along with your attempts to disprove my position. But your tub will have to stand on its own bottom.

And I’m glad you have made an attempt to address the issue at hand. However, I don’t think you have interpreted the passage correctly. You say the phrase “one of themselves” refers to the Jewish element trying to subvert the Gospel.” I can’t agree.

John Calvin wrote: “When the Apostle says that this author was `one of themselves,’ and was `a prophet of their own,’ he undoubtedly means that he belonged to the nation of the Cretans.”

Matthew Henry says: “`One of themselves, even a prophet of their own,’ that is, one of the Cretans, not the Jews, Epimenides a Greek poet, likely to know and not likely to slander.”

Verse 12 constitutes a new thought. He had been talking about the Jews, now he switches to compare them to the Cretans.

Concerning the phrase `this witness is true,’ you say: “Whose witness to what? I would submit that Paul is speaking of his own witness as being true and that the judaizers are to be confronted for saying such to bring division, not the Cretans for being lazy, slow bellys [sic] etc.”

But upon this topic Calvin writes: “How worthless soever the witness may have been, yet the truth which has been spoken by him is acknowledged by Paul. The inhabitants of Crete, of whom he speaks with such sharpness, were undoubtedly very wicked. The Apostle, who is wont to reprove mildly, those who deserved to be treated with extreme severity, would never have spoken so harshly of the Cretans, if he had not been moved by very strong reasons. What terms more reproachful than these opprobrious epithets can be imagined; they were `lazy, devoted to the belly, destitute of truth, evil beasts.’ Nor are these vices charged against one or a few persons, but he condemns the whole nation.”

In deciding who Paul was talking about, I think William Hendriksen sums it up quite nicely and I can see why you thought he was talking about the Jews: “These Jewish church-members of the Pharisaic type and tinged with incipient gnosticism, which led at times to licentiousness and at times to asceticism, were Cretans ù there were many Jews in Crete ù and, in addition to being influenced by unbelieving Jews, had absorbed the worst characteristics of their non-Jewish countrymen. This had not been a chore, for the Jew and the Cretan had something in common. The employment of trickery or deception for selfish advantage characterized both. An honest Jew or an honest Cretan seems to have been an exception. And certainly the combination of Cretan-Jew was not a happy one.”

I agree with you that it was the judaizers from verse 10 who were to be rebuked sharply. But that was not my point. My point was that Paul’s characterization of the Cretan people, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, violated the definition of “racism” and therefore rendered the word invalid as a moral standard of conduct.

The reason Paul used the phrase “this witness is true,” is because he was afixin’ to quote someone who belonged to a people that were known liars. If believing this were a sin, it would seem more realistic for Paul to reprove his listeners for holding generalized beliefs about various groups. But no, he actually validates the practice.

BTW, am I to assume you have accepted the dictionary definition of “racism” that I gave as a standard by which moral conduct is to be judged? You have offered nothing against it. I’d like to know where you stand on this.

Having said all this, even if my interpretation of Titus 1: 12,13 had been erroneous, it would not have proved your case. You have taken the position that racism exists as a valid concept. But disproving the example I used to argue against your position, would in no way prove yours. (By proving something is not blue, does not prove it is green.) Although this bores you, I would be pleased if you would make the effort to give some evidence for your position.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

#28.

[Editor’s note: Chuck would not answer me directly. He was trying to maintain I wasn’t worthy of his lofty attention. But the next day in a message to Mike Broadwell, he wrote the following paragraph.]

CB The passage I shared in another post (Titus 1:12-13 ) is a prime example of all this. I could really care less what Calvin said about the verse, he was human fighting his own war in his own day. What does the passage say to you with prayer and fasting? What does the “clear” meaning of the words in proper context say to you personally? No need to move to allegory or perhaps when the verse is clear as written

[Editor’s note: Now there’s a fine how-do-you-do. He mentions Calvin as some sort of authority, then he twists the Bible verse to mean exactly what it does not mean. And when I use Calvin to show how his interpretation of the verse was wrong, this guy says he doesn’t care what Calvin said.]

#29.

To: Thomas Roche

August 31,

Thomas,

I’m awfully sorry about misstating your name. Please accept my sincerest apology. And thank you, Mr. Underwood, for pointing out the error.

Before I start, I’d like to give you a word of personal advice, for your own safety: “Don’t go to Mississippi.” I heard some of the boys talkin’ the other night. And after your last post, they are waitin’ for you down there. So, please, stay out of Mississippi.

(1) You wrote: “Is this OT history relevant? Are black folks clearly Hamites? In any case, Europeans are Japethites, and the Semites were the chosen line. You see where I am going here, if you want to resort to Genesis evidence to prove your points, you will need to be most careful.”

As a youngster, I was indeed taught that the blacks were the descendants of Ham and the curse of Ham was still valid. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. I believe Arthur Custance placed the blacks in the family line of Shem. My main points from Genesis are that God’s world order of separate peoples and separate nations were enunciated there first, and that a lot of information is given there to define a people and a nation.

Arthur Pink wrote: “Without these two chapters [Genesis 10-11], we should be without any satisfactory solution to the ethnological problems presented by the different nations and tongues;”

So I think there is important instruction in Genesis for us.

(2) You wrote: “Are you saying that the European southerners were the chosen people of the land, given exclusive ruling rights to it by God, and thus did not have any need to grant full equality to the Africans they brought it, and of course also had the right, as they did for good in the 1830s (note, before the Yankee war) to expel the Red natives of the place from their own land, on analogy of what Israel had been ordered to do by God to the Canaanites?”

No, I’m not saying that, although I see how you could reasonably draw such a conclusion. I used the comparison between the relation between the Hebrews and their slaves and the Southerners and their slaves as just that, a comparison. If God sanctions an event one time, then it cannot be said to be wrong under all circumstances. Perhaps in the future I should use a different comparison.

(3) You wrote: “So God does not consider the black folks Christian southerners just because they live in the South and believe in the Christian God? Even OT law allowed a man to convert to Judaism.”

That’s correct. When Abraham dwelt in Canaan, he sent his servant back to his own people in Chaledea to fetch a wife for Isaac. Physical proximity doesn’t beget peoplehood.

(4) You wrote: “How exactly do you define “peoplehood” then?”

Truly an excellent question. Genesis 10:5 states: “By these were the lands of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

In previous posts I have shown how this linguistic division meant more than simply the words one spoke, but included the mindset which caused one to conceive of certain concepts in certain terms, while others of a different mindset conceived of the same concepts in different terms.

Also, the Greek word for “nations” is “ethnos,” which Strong has defined as “a race, (as of the same habit), i.e., a tribe; specifically a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually by implication pagan): Gentile, heathen, nation, people.” I’m assuming that “of the same habit” equates to our phrase “a common culture.”

These nations, or ethnic groups, into which God divided mankind early in human history, shall persevere into eternity. Revelations 21:24 states: “And the nations shall walk by its [the New Jerusalem] light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.”

In the NT, there is a differentiation between a nation and a geopolitical empire. John 11:48: “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” Israel was a separate nation within the Roman Empire.

John 18:35” Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delievered thee unto me; what hast thou done?”

An even better verse is found in John 11:50, where Caiphus declares: “it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish. Two things: we are not to believe he was speaking of the Roman Empire when he used the word “nation,” but of the Jewish nation which existed within and was governed by the Roman authorities. And the next verse says he didn’t speak this of his own initiatve, the implication being that God put the words in his mouth.

So the distinction is drawn between a nation and a government. And the same distinction is drawn between a nation and an area. Perhaps you could state a working definition of the above concepts better than I can, but I’ll say that peoplehood revolves around family—blood lineage and marraige—a common language and mindset, resulting in a common culture.

The Humanists of the Civil Rights Movement have removed these God-given aspects of peoplehood and replaced them with an ideological relationship—belief in democratic, equalitarian, integration is said by them to make one an American.

(5) You wrote: “If we follow your apparently covenantal thinking here, the white folks had an obligation to civilize and Christianize their African slaves, which they didn’t really do, because such a policy would have led to their becoming free. Remember, the traditional policy throughout Christendom had always been, that a pagan slave became free upon accepting baptism. The Southern folk did away with this by the end of the 17th cent.”

Dabney freely admitted we hadn’t done enough, although evangelism is not the duty of the society, but of the church and in the case of slaves, the family. Certain of our people did introduce them to the Christian religion; and did provide for them access

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Great Presbyterian Race Debate 1