Racial division is reality, and it’s a tragic reality, when it isn’t necessitated by language barriers. During the Apostolic era, Jews and Gentiles joined hands and worshiped alongside one another. The cultural gulf that had separated them was every bit as extreme . . . Continue reading →
racism
Samuel Miller Contra The Peculiar Institution
Pride, indeed, may contend, that these unhappy subjects of our oppression are an inferior race of beings; and are therefore assigned by the strictest justice to a depressed and servile station in society. But in what does this inferiority consist? In a . . . Continue reading →
Outraged America
I grew up in a mostly white neighborhoods but, for several years, I went to mixed-race schools. There was a lot of racial tension in my hometown back then. There were “race riots” in 1968 and tensions simmered for years after. Maybe . . . Continue reading →
The Wild Card
Race is the wild card in all this. The idea that you can tell who is innocent and who is guilty by the color of their skin is a notion that was tried out for generations, back in the days of the . . . Continue reading →
The Kind Of Conversation We Should Be Having
Glenn Loury And John McWhorter On Defining Racism
(HT: Daniel Aims)
Houston, We Do Have A Problem
The traditional definition of racism, the definition that I learned as a boy and that was generally accepted until recently is this: racism (rāˌsizəm) noun. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s . . . Continue reading →
The Legal-Eschatological Religion And Racism
2017 is a “Reformation Year.” It is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses and an opportunity to remember the Reformation basics. One of those is the distinction between law and gospel. One of the five most basic distinctions Luther recovered for . . . Continue reading →
The Law Exposes Racism As Sin
In response to yesterday’s column, a correspondent to the HB asked how we know that racism is sin. It is true that I assumed that we all know that racism is sin, that it is obvious on the face of Scripture but . . . Continue reading →
Racism And The Second Use Of The Law (Updated)
Broadly, in evangelicalism, there are two stances toward the Ten Commandments or the moral law. For many, if not most evangelicals, it is believed that the Ten Commandments are so uniquely Mosaic, so identified with the Mosaic epoch in redemptive history, that . . . Continue reading →
Machen’s Letter To His Mother Or What To Do With Dead Sinners?
J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) was born in the American South. He was born fewer than 20 years after the end of the Civil War. He was born to wealth and privilege. He also inherited the attitudes of many in the American South . . . Continue reading →
Resources On Social Justice And Racism
Among the many resource pages on the HB is the resource page on the social gospel and social justice. Among the resources are a couple interviews I did with Chris Gordon on Abounding Grace Radio on the gospel and social justice. Here they . . . Continue reading →
What Is Really Going On? Watch This Video
An Organized Attempt To Keep Us From Talking To One Another
McWhorter: White Fragility Is A Racist Tract
White Fragility was published in 2018 but jumped to the top of the New York Times best-seller list amid the protests following the death of George Floyd and the ensuing national reckoning about racism. DiAngelo has convinced university administrators, corporate human-resources offices, . . . Continue reading →
Contra Favoritism: James’ Response To Injustice In The Church As A Model For Our Response To Racism
For the last several Lord’s Days I have been meditating on James 2:14 (and the surrounding context). I have been thinking about what James said to the largely Jewish congregation in Jerusalem. I think of James as a New Testament counterpart to . . . Continue reading →
Grammar Guerrilla: Punctuation Is Not Mean Spirited. Full Stop.
According to a number of media stories (the original story appeared in the UK Telegraph) Generation Z, those born 1995–2015, find certain punctuation marks threatening. The argument is that the use of the period (“full stop” in the UK) in text messages (and . . . Continue reading →
Critical Theory Seeks To Suppress Dissent In America
One of the several reasons that Americans ought to be concerned about the inroads being made by Critical Theory (e.g., Critical Race Theory, Critical Legal Theory) into American life is its fundamentally anti-American view of free speech. Rod Dreher highlights the latest . . . Continue reading →
Luther Delivered Us From The Doctrine Of Purgatory But Critical Theory Will Have It Reinstated
R. Scott Clark, professor of church history at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, California, told Campus Reform that “Dr. Thompson calls Lutherans to repent for ‘systemic racism’ and takes for granted that we should all accept this new, rather radical redefinition of racism which, in her account, entails a new, decided un-Lutheran definition of repentance.” Continue reading →
In A Shocking About Face Some Americans Want To Go Back To The Pre-Civil Rights Era
I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself. Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop . . . Continue reading →
Who Gets To Criticize Machen?
I was thinking about Machen as I was listening Mike and Steve on NoCo Radio discussing the new collection of Machen’s radio addresses, Things Unseen. Continue reading
Your Ethnic Identity Is Important But It Is Not Ultimate
Christians are not Gnostics. Against the Gnostics, Christians have, since the first quarter of the second century, affirmed the essential, inherent goodness of creation. Against the Gnostics and Marcionites we also affirmed the unity of the covenant of grace. Both of those truths help us to address the problem of ethnic tensions in Christ’s church. Continue reading