I've
been a fan of RC Sproul Jr's longer than I've been
a fan of his famous father's. That hasn't changed,
even though he has decided to dispute me in public
(Every Thought Captive, Vol. 8, No. 1) rather
than in private, which strikes me as odd behavior
from a pastor. I never flinch from a debate, and this
will be no exception, but I can't for the life of
me understand how RC has the nerve to print such blatant
misrepresentations.
RC
and I have never discussed race (allow that statement
to sink in as you read on). However, I
did respond to an article he wrote last August
called "What
We Mean By We." One line from that article
sets the stage for what follows: "These United
States, we pray, will not become more European, but
more Christian." In
my comments to the article, I asked if he agrees with
this statement by Thomas Fleming: "Politicians
in Washington tell us we should be loyal to what they
call 'the American way of life'; if that phrase means
anything, however, it should refer to the customs,
religion, and culture of the British and European
settlers who came to the New World and replanted their
traditions in fresh soil, where they yielded a rich
harvest. If we are to trust the politicians, we should
be loyal to the Christian religion, Western culture,
European peoples, and the Anglo-American language,
political institutions, and legal traditions. But
all of these are under constant assault from the state
and federal government agencies that are now demanding
our loyalty. Christians cannot pray in the schools
they pay for with their taxes or pretend that their
traditions are equal (much less superior) to the religions
and cultures of devil-worshipers, cannibals, polygamists,
female-circumcisers, wife-burners, and child-sacrificers.
Americans not only must bow to the superiority of
non-Western cultures; they also have to import their
representatives in such large numbers as to threaten
the bare survival of their own people and culture."
I sincerely sought dialogue but received none. Yet
on Jan. 5, 2004, he kindly wrote to console me on
the loss of my job:
I
pray you and your family are well. I understand
through the grapevine that you have recently lost
your job. Welcome to the club. I pray this transition
won't be too traumatic for you.
I'm
writing because I understand that you have determined
to use this sad news in your thinking about moving.
Your dear wife mentioned to Debbie Saenz that you
were thinking of two places, but didn't mention
what they were. In fairness to you, on the chance
that one of those places might be here, I thought
I would write you. You are, of course, welcome to
come here. We would find, I'm sure, a great deal
in common. But you ought to know at least two things
if you are considering a move here. First, we obviously
have different views on race than you do. And our
views have actually taken on flesh here. By the
grace of God there are currently two little black
boys in our congregation, and three little babies
that are the fruit of an "intermarriage"
between a person of European descent and a person
of African descent. (We also have a half European
and half Mexican member of our church, and he married
another European lady, ***.) That's not to mention
the Indian, Cambodian, Korean, and Philipino children
in the church. I'm confident that every father in
the church would be delighted to have his daughters
marry any of these young men, assuming they continue
to grow in grace and reflect the godly character
of their parents. I don't know how important your
views on these kinds of issues are to you (nor am
I sure I know everything there is to know about
your views), but I thought it prudent to let you
know where we are.
Secondly,
we are going to be addressing some of these issues
in the January/February ETC. Our theme is, "Neither
Jew Nor Greek." What may surprise you is that
you are the recipient of the Open Letter. I pray
you will find it, as it seeks to challenge what
I perceive your views to be, a polite and gentle
rebuke from a friend, who, as yet, has no authority
over you.
As
I said, none of this means that you can't come here,
if such was a part of your thinking. It is simply
an attempt to let you know to what you would be
coming. Our convictions are not merely a craven
attempt to keep the liberals from getting mad at
us. We actually mean it.
I'm
glad you've given me this opportunity to make clear
what I believe. I hold no ill will against other
races. In fact, I think we would all get along better
if we truly respected the diversity of God's creation
and refrained from miscegenation. But I also hold
no animus against intermarried couples. I haven't
even called intermarriage a sin (though Ezra and
Nehemiah come close) because I don't see it explicitly
called a sin in Scripture. I've only said that it's
to be strongly discouraged (and in fact is rare)
because it and free immigration will lead to the
dissolution of our once white Christian country.
I've determined to write what I believe to be true
on Little Geneva regardless of who it might offend,
but I also hope I've put across the idea that, as
Christians, we need to love our brothers and sisters.
A part of that is knowing that we all fall short,
myself included. My paramount objective is to give
our people a taste of what our church fathers and
founding fathers believed, and try to return our
people to that path. Some of it is shocking because
we've been hypnotized by the media and trained to
parrot the conventional wisdom of the last 50 years
or so. I don't have much use for 1950 on.
So
I'm not sure how our views on race are different,
except possibly, as you say, the potential willingness
in the congregation to intermarry. I acknowledge
that not all races are the same, but all are equally
loved by God. He is the one who made us different,
and I see no reason to rebuild Babel by pretending
either that race doesn't exist or that nurture is
the only thing that makes us different. I do not
call intermarriage a sin, but I strongly oppose
it, and I am not smart enough to know where the
line should be drawn. So when in doubt, I think
we should let the fifth commandment guide us. If
the parents involved are willing, let it be. (Our
forefathers would have also added that the clear
line of demarcation is between the descendants of
the sons of Noah.) One point I've made repeatedly
is that we have about a 3% rate of miscegenation
in this country. If we still had arranged marriages
or courtship as the norm, we would probably have
a rate of zero percent. Far be it from me to say
that every single exception to the rule is wrong.
I'm hated only because I say out loud what everyone
already knows and the statistics prove: interracial
marriage is an abnormality. By the way, if we look
back far enough, we are probably all of mixed blood
to some extent. I happen to have at least one Cherokee
ancestor, but I identify with the white race. That's
how my children are raised, these are the customs
we hold dear, these are the people like us and who
make us comfortable. I'm sure this is true of the
*** family as well. I had Confederate ancestors
who escaped to Brazil, joined a large pool of other
refugees, and intermarried with the natives. You
might say they formed a new race that is not entirely
like the American Confederates and not entirely
like the Brazilians. They have their own distinctives.
The point is that we associate with those who are
like us, and nothing could be healthier. Only the
most dire circumstances cause us to change. War
is one. I would say that you're in the middle of
another unusual situation. My guess is that most
of your congregation is assembled from various parts
of the country because they are so starved for biblical
fellowship and biblical teaching. They are willing
to uproot themselves from ancestral lands in order
to pursue it, and I applaud them.
Rushdoony
said that the burden of the law regarding being
equally yoked meant that cross-cultural and inter-racial
marriages are as wrong as inter-religious marriages
because the woman is unable to fully be a helper
to her husband. There is just not enough in common.
I agree with him. Racial commonality is important,
and our common faith is important. We have Christian
brothers and sisters all over the world, but that
may be all we have in common.
RC
chose to reply publicly in the newsletter, which did
not arrive until early March, rather than correspond
with me. Notice, in the "open letter" addressed
to me by first name only, he writes: "I have
written you before, though in an entirely different
format, trying to help you understand where our identity
is, trying to help you see that believers of every
stripe are closer kin to us than unbelieving, anti-leviathan,
agrarian, southern patriots. Your sad response seemed
to concede that heaven will have a Jew or two, and
some people of color." What he doesn't say is
that he wrote to me (above) to notify me of his intention
to make me the subject of his newletter. He received
the clarification of my views, and rather than make
further inquiries personally, he simply reworked the
open letter he had already written. Does this strike
anyone else as odd? Are you aware of any other pastors
who do this? Does the reader gather that I "seem
to concede" any such thing as that "heaven
will have a Jew or two, and some people of color"?
Might it behoove the competent journalist to ask if
this is indeed true before announcing it? I'm only
getting started with the questions, but let's cut
to the chase:
0
Brother
Dear Brother Harry,
I
pray you will remember that the Bible tells us that
the rebuke of a friend is like a kiss. I do indeed
consider you a friend, and pray that when you have
finished you will be able to say the same of me.
I have written you before, though in an entirely
different format, trying to help you understand
where our identity is, trying to help you see that
believers of every stripe are closer kin to us than
unbelieving, anti-leviathan, agrarian, southern
patriots. Your sad response seemed to concede that
heaven will have a Jew or two, and some people of
color. You then virtually grudgingly determined
that you think you might be able to enjoy heaven
anyway. You then went on to explain to me that race
is simply family extended, and that we have a duty
of loyalty there. But I'm far more concerned about
helping you, my brother, and your friends who profess
the name of Christ, than I am trying to eradicate
the same errors from those Scots who will not name
Him.
Words
like "seemed" and "virtually" are
useful because they convey the impression that the subsequent
words were actually spoken.
I can't pretend to know what drives you. I can admit
that after years of having our shared commitments
to the sovereignty of God, and the evils of the
state looked upon as the ravings of a madman, that
I am tempted not to join our ideological enemies
because I can't beat them, but drive them mad by
taking ever more extreme positions. I can admit
that I am tempted to reaction, to adopt an epistemology
and an ethic that says, "Whatever the left
says, the opposite is true." (And I trust you
have seen already that the left is often wildly
wrong on issues of race.) I don't understand what
you're thinking, how you can be so right on so many
things, and so wrong here.
What
I can do is call you to repent. Not only do you
seek to tear asunder what God has brought together,
the very bride of His Son, but you have muddled
the proclamation of the gospel to the lost. No,
I'm not saying you have to be racially sensitive
to call people to repent. I'm not saying that we
should meet people where they are by trying to talk
in ebonics. Rather, I'm arguing that you must call
people to repent for their sin, not their ethnic
heritage.
I
hope you're beginning to see why all of this confuses
me. If there are people out there who don't like me,
the feeling is probably mutual. But to accuse me of
sin is another matter entirely. No examples are offered
for how I am tearing apart the body of Christ or muddling
the proclamation of the gospel. These are serious charges,
and it seems to me that some evidence would be in order.
For instance, when have I ever called anyone to repent
for his ethnicity? There are three years of Little Geneva
archives that can be searched in a matter of milliseconds.
That
is, even if there were some sort of Jewish conspiracy,
the problem would [sic]
the conspiracy, not the Jews. If assorted Jewish
businessmen are "running" Hollywood, and
spewing forth cultural garbage, the issue isn't
what they put on their census, but what they put
on the screen. You can't call someone to repent
of their parents. They can only repent of their
sin. The answer isn't for them to somehow become
uncircumcised, but that by the grace of God they
might have their hearts circumcised.
Those
last few lines are profound. I wish I had said them
first.
The
strange irony is your racism is an implicit denial
of your post-millenialism. Jesus rules over all
things. As such, there is no neutral thing we call
"culture" whereby we politely note that
some blacks or Jews will go to heaven, but that
here on earth we go our segregated ways. No, the
Lordship of Christ transforms every culture, or
rather consumes every culture as He builds His own.
Such doesn't mean a lack of variety, a denial of
all distinctives, but it does mean a true blending
of those distinctives.
And
there's the rub. "Racism" is one of those
words that never needs to be defined when preaching
to the choir, but it seems that the risk of tarnishing
a brother's good name would warrant circumspection.
It's difficult for me to say anything other than "Did
not!" since no specific examples of my speech
have been offered, but hopes are high that we'll see
a few.
Segregation
is a guiding principle in the life of every man and
woman. This is why RC moved to Bristol rather than
Detroit. I'm sure that the minorities in his church
are fine people, but it is hardly a news flash that
most blacks, whites, Koreans, etc., prefer to congregate
in separate churches and neighborhoods. Until about
30 years ago, most people considered this healthy
and natural, not racist. The members of St. Peter's
Presbyterian also choose to segregrate themselves
to some degree, as do all homeschoolers. I'll retract
that statement if they choose to put their money where
their mouths are and move to an inner city. The mission
field awaits!
It
is both true that we are all one loaf, and that
the kingdom unites, and yet keeps distinct unleavened
bread, corn bread, and even our pathetic culture's
contribution to the bake-off-- anemic, Gnostic white
bread. All the colors will not bleed into one. They
will be what they are, and what they are will still
be one. The kingdom of God rejects both a Unitarian
uniformitarianism, and a polytheistic Balkanization.
There is no dingy brown melting pot. Nor is there
a bag full of marbles. Instead there is a tapestry,
a beautiful marriage of complexity in harmony.
The
truth is, Harry, I admire you. You have a courage
that earns respect. You have an insight that demonstrates
deliberateness. You have, at the same time, the
character that defines the southern gentleman, and
the racial confusion to [sic]
defines the bigot, whatever side of the Mason-Dixon
line contains his home. I also think I know something
about what it's like to be you. I'd wager this isn't
the first time you've heard this from your friends.
I have dozens of friends who likewise think I'm
a swell guy, full of courage and wisdom, but whose
blind spots turn the world off. When people tell
me to tone down the rhetoric, to become a softer,
gentler me, I hear the voice of the devil. I can
only hope that because we have shared that experience,
that you will believe that I am not the devil.
My
hope is that you will repent. That your virtues
are apparent doesn't diminish your sin. For racism
is not only the failure to love ordinately, it is
the failure to love those whom the Father loves,
those for whom the Son died, those in whom the Spirit
dwells. I know, I know. You would not characterize
your views as racist. But if such were so, race
would never be an issue with you. You would not
turn up your nose at your distant cousins. Far less
would you love those in your temporal family more
than those in your eternal family.
Wow!
I have said that God gives various races different
gifts, and it is absurd to say that one race is better
than another. No man can quantify such a thing. It
is enough to say that races are different. But all
races have in common the potential to be saved because
the gospel has gone forth to the Gentiles. We will
see all the colors of the rainbow in heaven, but as
the last chapter of the Bible tells us, these saints
are described as "nations" (plural). I would
have gladly told all of this to RC if he had bothered
to ask.
Race
is an issue of concern to me because our once-mighty
nation is disintegrating as it integrates. By all
means, let's continue to baptize the lost, but let's
also recognize that there is strength in homogeneity
and weakness in heterogeneity. He implies that I love
an unsaved white man more than a saved black man,
but this is a distortion of my comment to his article
"What We Mean By We." I said, "You
probably have believers and non-believers in your
extended family, but you are still kin, and I would
worry about you if you didn't love them more than
strangers (even strange fellow believers). If I say
I love my children more than the children down the
street, it doesn't mean that I hate the children down
the street. (In fact, I wish the best for them and
will gladly help them in need.)"
Harry, please, repent. Our enemies are the seed
of the serpent, wherever their ancestors spring
from. And our family is the seed of the woman, wherever
their ancestors spring from. And as time goes on,
my brother, remember that more and more of the seed
of the serpent, from every corner of the globe,
will become the seed of the woman. Where their ancestors
spring from is, to quote a sometimes insightful
heathen, "of no more significance, than the
color of their eyes." Remember that we too
were strangers to the covenant, that we who were
once not a people are now the people of God. Remember
that if the nature could be cut off, so too could
we. Love your Father, how He works for you. Love
your Mother, she bore you. Love your sister, she's
good to you. Love your brother, your brother.
Your
Brother,
R.C. Sproul Jr.
A
nobody like me is an easier target than RJ Rushdoony,
even though our
racial views are practically indistinguishable.
By the way, refuting RJR from Scripture would be a
commendable challenge for an enterprising and foolhardy
young theologian, if someone out there is man enough
to accept it.
Stick
with us, because we'll be cutting into the meat of
this newsletter in the days to come. We've only seen
the first page so far.
To
my knowledge, RC only makes one other reference to
Little Geneva, on his "Spirit of the Fruit"
lecture. He says that he does not believe in race,
but then he entirely proves my point that racial loyalty
is concentric. He also acknowledges Steve Sailer's
dictum that a race is an inbred extended family. So
when RC says that he doesn't believe in race, he is
railing against an idea that is not only hard for
me to understand but hard for him to express. All
he can imply in this lecture is that Little Geneva
is a website for foolish Galatians who are repeating
the heresy of the Judaizers. "All the Judaizers
cared about was flesh, flesh, flesh." Therefore,
racialists are Judaizers. Legalists add to the grace
of God, he says, and deny that both Jews and Greeks
can be saved. I'm doing my best to decipher because
he doesn't say exactly what he means. Presumably,
because we come from a traditionally obedient people
(whom he doesn't call a race because he doesn't believe
in race), we are prone to trust in our heritage for
our salvation. Does RC even bother to ask if we believe
the color of our flesh can save us? He has never asked
me. He took it upon himself to accuse me of sin, and
he owes me an apology.
I'll
be curious to see who comes to my defense and the
defense of my compatriots in the days to come. The
battle is joined, through no choice of my own. I wish
to live at peace with all men. It just so happens
that I have a very old-fashioned view of what is required
to secure the peace. And for this, I am accused of
sin by those who should know better.
One
final quibble before I end section 1 of this gentle
fulmination: Every other open letter I've read clearly
addresses the recipient. There's a very simple reason
for this: to allow the recipient to defend himself.
If the recipient is not allowed to defend himself,
the writer has a duty to refrain from indicting him
publicly. Otherwise, we are left with rhetorical flourish
and nothing more. "That RC shore is a purty talker."
"Yeah, he really gave someone named 'Harry' what
for." I would hope that even those who don't
particularly like me are outraged at these cowardly
tactics.
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