WHY WE SHOULD NOT “PRESERVE WHITE AMERICA” (🧵)

Apparently, I offended the ethnobois Saturday when I said that I have a problem with enforcing the whiteness of America. Many and varied were the responses, and great was the anguish which I endured, as I felt the crushing weight of Twitter‘s super-masculine middle-school mean girl community.

For those who would like to continue to ignore my arguments and who would prefer to make fun of my face, I have conveniently located a picture of it on my profile page. It is a remarkably handsome portrait. You should go check it out.

For those of you who are adults and prefer rational dialogue to mockery, name-calling, and an odd fascination with pictures of other men, let’s take a look at what the Bible says about this issue. 1 - On Houseguests

The arguments for racial purity rely heavily on the natural law construct of Ordo Amoris. I have no problem with this principle, but I do have a problem with this principle being used to interpret the Bible, instead of the other way around.

One of the go-to examples from the white preservationist community is that of someone coming into your house. “Oh, so you wouldn’t enforce the security of your house, huh? You would let some Mexican come in and abuse your family?”

To which the answer is: "of course not." I would deliver a few high velocity freedom seeds directly to his vital areas.

Am I being inconsistent?

Not at all. I would deliver said freedom seeds, not because he is a Mexican, but because he is a wicked man seeking to steal and kill.

Let us continue with this analogy. If a man comes to my door and asks for a glass of water, and I tell him to pound stand, and I do this, not because of anything that he has done, but because I can tell by looking at him that he is not of the same ethnic heritage as I am, was this a Christian response?

The answer is no. Obviously no.

Lest I be accused of making an emotional appeal, let’s reframe the question. If there are multiple families at church, but I only show hospitality to the white ones, and I do so specifically because they are white and I don’t like non-white people, is this a Christian response?

I am not objecting to having immigration policies or borders. I am objecting to making ethnic heritage the deciding factor in whether or not someone is welcome in our country. The analogy about a guest in the house is a perfect analogy. I absolutely would not just let anyone into my house. However, if I only let white people into my house, I am now judging with partiality based on an immutable characteristic – much like if I only let males into my house, to borrow a parallel from @CoreyJMahler.

Now, this may be perfectly fine under natural law. Freedom of association, right? It’s my house, I can do as I please!

Except that I am a Christian. Which means that it is not my house. The house belongs to Jesus, and I live as His slave to do His bidding. Therefore, when His Word makes abundantly clear that I should not disregard the needs of the foreigner (Lev. 19:34, Deut. 10:18-19), that I should not judge the foreigner with partial judgment (Ex. 12:49), that I should not withhold Gospel love or brotherhood from the foreigner, that I should not even sit at a different table from the foreigner (Gal. 2:11)- I do not care what natural law says. Or, rather, I recognize that the God Who spoke nature into existence is King over natural law, and is the One Who provides its proper interpretation.

The ethnobois' house analogy requires a logical bait and switch. Again, quite obviously, I am not saying that you should let anyone into your house indiscriminately. I am saying that you should not be maintaining the "ethnic purity" of your house – you should be maintaining the justice, righteousness, and Gospel love of your house.

The inescapable conclusion of this white preservationist way of thinking is that interracial marriage is sinful. Of course, no one will say this, because it is Biblically indefensible, and many of the folks who are advocating these positions are cowards and snakes who spend their time dancing around these obvious conclusions because they know that they cannot actually defend what they are implicitly arguing for.

Nevertheless, the conclusion is inescapable. Interracial marriage must be wrong, because it is perverting the racial purity of the household. It is abandoning the heritage of your fathers. Never mind that God specifically provided for interracial marriage in Scripture (Num. 12).

Once again, natural law must trump the patterns and precepts of the Word of God.

SAMUEL SEY VS. COREY MAHLER DEBATE REACTION 🧵

(Yes, I just finally got around to finishing it.)

1. Scripture. By the end of the debate it was clear that @SlowToWrite was arguing from the Bible. He was constantly referring to Scripture, using It accurately and faithfully, and letting It speak.

@CoreyJMahler handles Scripture like the cults do. He has a few favorite verses, and then he zooms in on them extremely close and tells you to squint your eyes and stand on your head and forget about the rest of the Bible. Once you have done this, you will see that what he is arguing is correct.

He strengthens this argument by saying that God has written two books – Scripture and nature – and then by observing that there are natural realities that are true of different races. And the fact is, these are all true things.

This is a classic tactic of emphasis cults – groups that are creating bad fruit and bad theology not primarily by saying untrue things, but by saying minor truth to the exclusion of major truth. The result is still error.

God has revealed many things about Himself in natural revelation. How do we know if we are interpreting natural revelation correctly?

By Scripture. (2 Tim. 3:16)

Otherwise, by Corey’s logic, the marriages that are most pleasing to God, according to natural revelation, are marriages between third cousins. 2. “That’s not what I meant, it’s just what I said.”

Mahler is also guilty of extreme levels of the Motte and Bailey fallacy. He quickly dismisses all of the egregiously sinful and wicked things that he has (publicly!) said as “Twitter hyperbole.” (Therefore, Biblical standards need not apply.)

But this is simply a dodge. If I say “blacks are scum” and then go on a podcast and say “oh, that was just hyperbole,” the correct response would be “well it’s disgusting hyperbole and you should repent. If you don’t believe it, then it means that you lied, and if you do believe it, then it means that you have a wicked view of blacks.”

Mahler wants everyone to believe that he is intellectual and honest, and he has made such a complicated construct of over-analysis, disputes about words, and endless genealogies – as excellently pointed out by Samuel – that it sounds really convincing.

It doesn’t help that many of the points that Corey makes, if taken at face value, are true. Of course there are genetic problems that follow from sinful lifestyles. Of course it is fine and normal and natural to prefer your own skin color or people (more on this in a later post).

None of this is the point, but Mahler keeps going back to these things because if he stays on the point, which is that he has said wicked and vile and partial and hateful and fundamentally anti-Christian things- and encouraged that worldview in others- he has no defense. So he has to retreat from what he has said to defend the things that can be defended.

At least sort of.

If you squint.

THE JOEL WEBBON/ELI MCGOWAN FIASCO

Yesterday @elimcgowan released an article about @rightresponsem contending that he was not qualified for office. You can go read both men’s statements in their own words; the short summary is that about 12 years ago Joel Webbon- as an unmarried and un-ordained man, but wearing the title of “lead pastor” of a church- was in a fornicating relationship with a woman in his congregation (whom he was dating at the time). There are other accusations regarding Webbon’s conduct, but this is the foundational one. I have read both men’s responses; the following is my analysis of the situation.

It should be obvious at the outset that most of us who are discussing this issue online do not know the people in question personally, and therefore we are making judgment calls based on publicly available information. This is already sketchy, and why things like this really should not be handled on the internet.

However, since this has become a public issue, we need to have a Biblically calibrated opinion on the matter. The following is my best attempt to do so.

First, we must establish at the outset that if we are going to pursue justice we MUST do so impartially (Lev. 19:15). This means that if you already think Eli is an effeminate snowflake, or if you are excited to hear that the wolf-pastor Joel Webbon is finally getting his just desserts- then check your heart before entering this discussion. Truth isn’t tribal, and the tribe that we should be concerned about is the Church of Jesus Christ.

So you are welcome to disagree with me, but if you’re going to read this, please promise me that you will read the whole thing. Please. There’s something here to offend everybody. At least hear me out before you start throwing vegetables. 1. I am satisfied by Joel’s explanation. I do believe that sexual sin of any sort is disqualifying from the ministry for at least a significant period of time until true repentance is proven and trust is rebuilt. That being said, I do not believe that Biblical standards are supposed to be applied like math formulae, but rather that we need to apply the spirit of the law in the context of the situation.

It seems perfectly plausible to me that a young and naive guy who is a gifted communicator would jump into a “pastoral” role with a bunch of zeal and not much knowledge- or self-control. That was not a good situation, and Joel acknowledges it as such. He should have had church leadership that told him to step down- but he did not. He was a foolish young buck, he sinned, he confessed and rectified his sin, and the counsellors in his life at that time were satisfied with that confession.

He himself agrees that it was not handled how it should have been at the time; I am not convinced that this is enough cause to demand that he step down now and be punished retroactively. Sometimes life happens and it doesn’t always fit as neatly into our theological boxes as we would like it to.

A POST MORTEM ON THE WEBBON/OGDEN DEBACLE (a thread with receipts)

I’m not planning to make this issue a consistent focus; my perspective in these situations is that if God is behind a movement, then it will flourish, and if He is not, then it will fail; our duty is just to speak the truth in love and then move on. But last week’s dumpster fire left me with some concluding thoughts that I think will be worth bringing to the table, along with a bunch of receipts handed to me by some very thoughtful and considerate folks online who didn’t want me to have to do any digging.

There are plenty of people who will post a random tweet or sermon clip from @Brian_Sauve, @rightresponsem, or @Eric_Conn, as a knockout “gotcha“. Usually, after 30 minutes of research, the posted quote turns out to mean something much less egregious than it does at first glance. That’s not the route that I’m going to take- largely because I find very little to disagree with in the actual teachings of these men, at least when understood carefully and with a lot of context.

I do think that if they’re going to use social media, they should not keep putting the questions on the bottom shelf and the answers on the top shelf. The people who are following their ministries, writ broadly, do not appear to be the kind of people who are ready for a thoughtful discussion on whether or not the Gospel affects genetics. Perhaps greater emphasis should be placed on basic Christian discipleship, and less on these valid and interesting but fringe conversations. But I digress.

Right now I would like to exclusively look at the fruit of this community – and this is only fruit from my own personal harvest, ignoring bushel upon bushel of what many others have seen and continue to see. I post this as a warning to onlookers, a justification for objectors like the much-beleaguered @HwsEleutheroi, and a final plea to these brothers whom I would love to support and work alongside.

I know if it were me, and if this was my reputation, and the reputation that I was giving to doctrines that were dear to me, and ultimately to the Name of Jesus Christ, I would be deeply concerned.

My question is a simple one. Does this look like good Christian fruit? If the answer is yes, then don’t change a thing. If the answer is no, then brothers, please prayerfully consider why this is the fruit that your tree is bearing. This is why so many people are walking away from your ministries and your teaching. Physiognomy jokes cut so deep. But after I cried myself to sleep for a few nights, I realized that just because I’m ugly it doesn’t actually mean that I’m wrong.