By Enos Powell

Over at the OPC website, we find this gem:

https://opc.org/qa.html?question_id=523

I don’t know long ago this was written, though I think somewhere around 2013. I don’t know who wrote it. I do know that I can provide quotes from Presbyterians in the last 50 years which will prove that whoever wrote this dreck should’ve stuck to his Church growth textbooks and not decided to delve into theology.

Begin OPC article:

Question and Answer

Is interracial marriage sinful?

Question:

I have noticed a recent influx of online discussions in supposedly reformed groups saying that interracial marriages are a sin. I believe they consider themselves “kinists.” What is the history of this doctrine? Would the OPC consider it heresy, or just bad theology?

Answer:

Kinism appears to be one of those odd systems which pop up from time to time among those with a tendency toward conspiracy theories, an over-inflated sense of entitlement, and an unhealthy victim mentality. It being about as fringey as fringe can be…

Enos responds,

Odd system? The Presbyterian Dr. Rev. Francis Nigel Lee didn’t think so.

Dr. Nigel Lee (1934–2011)

I don’t believe [racial integration] is what the Bible teaches. Even though we may have transgressed the boundaries of nationhood and of peoplehood, it seems to me that God did create man of one blood in order that he may dwell as different nations throughout the world. But after the fall, when sinful man cosmopolitanly – meaning by that, with a desire to obliterate separate nationhood, with a desire to build a sort of United Nations organization under the Tower of Babel…attempted to resist developing peoplehood…[God confused the tongues of men]…because men had said, ‘Let us build a city and a tower which will stretch up to heaven lest we be scattered’… Pentecost sanctified the legitimacy of separate nationality rather than saying this is something we should outgrow… In fact, even in the new earth to come, after the Second Coming of Christ, we are told that the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the kings of the earth shall bring the glory and the honor—the cultural treasures—of the nations into it… But nowhere in Scripture are any indications to be found that such peoples should ever be amalgamated into one huge nation.

“In another fourteen years, the future looks bleak for White Christians everywhere. In 1900, Europe possessed two-thirds of the world’s Christians. By 2025, that number will fall below 20% — with most Christians living in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Then, nearly 75% of the world’s Catholics will be Non-Western Mestizos or Black Africans. Right now, Nigeria has the world’s largest Catholic Theological School. India has more Christians than most Western nations. And Jesus is more and more being portrayed with a dark skin. By 2050, more than 80% of Catholics in the U.S. will be of Non-Western origins. Only a fraction of Anglicans will be English. Lutherans, Presbyterians and other mainstream denominations will find their chief centers of growth in Africa, Asia and Latin America — often syncretistically absorbing large quantities of Pre-Christian Paganism as revived Voodooism and increasing ancestor-worship. This “Christianity” rapidly degenerates into an immigrationistic, prolific and socialistic jungle-religion.”

Dr. F.N. Lee circa 2011, Christian-Afrikaners, pg. 87

OPC Questions and Answers:

“A central tenet of kinism seems to be that God wants people to keep themselves within strict ethnic groupings.”

Enos responds.

WOW … how weird is the idea that Presbyterians might believe that God wants people to keep themselves within strict ethnic groupings?

However, there are those well known Presbyterians John Rice Edwards, Morton Smith, and Charles McCartney who believed just that.

John Rice Edwards, one of the founders of the PCA, listed as two reasons of several for why there was a need for the PCA to separate from the PCUSA in 1973:

1.) The Racial Amalgamationist, who preaches that the various races should be merged into one race and differences erased in oneness.

2.) The Communist, who would have one mass of humanity coerced into oneness by a totalitarian state and guided exclusively by Marxist philosophy.

Elsewhere Edwards offered,

“No human can measure the anguish of personality that goes on within the children of miscegenation… Let those who would erase the racial diversity of God’s creation beware lest the consequence of their evil be visited upon their children.”

Dr. Rev. Morton Smith also wrote about the weird idea of God wanting people to keep within strict ethnic groupings,

“If we may conclude that ethnic pluriformity is the revealed will of God for the human race in its present situation, it is highly questionable whether the Christian can have part in any program that would seek to erase all ethnic distinctions. That such distinctions may be crossed over by individuals may be granted, but it is at least questionable whether a program designed to wipe out such differences on a mass scale should be endorsed by the Christian. It is this line of argument that the average Christian segregationist uses to back his view. He fears that the real goal of the integrationist is the intermarriage of the races, and therefore the breakdown of the distinctions between them. Many who would be willing to integrate at various lesser levels refuse to do so, simply because they feel that such will inevitably lead to intermarriage of the races, which they consider to be morally wrong….”

The mass mixing of the races with the intent to erase racial boundaries he does consider to be wrong, and on the basis of this, he would oppose the mixing of the two races in this way. Let it be acknowledged that a sin in this area against the Negro race has been perpetrated by godless white men, both past and present, but this does not justify the adoption of a policy of mass mixing of the races. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God has established and thus revealed his will for the human race now to be that of ethnic pluriformity, and thus any scheme of mass integration leading to mass mixing of the races is decidedly unscriptural.

Dr. Morton H. Smith (1923-2017)

(For more see: Dr. Morton H. Smith on Christianity, Race, and Segregation)

And then there is Dr. Clarence McArtney, a Presbyterian who also seemed to support the frigney idea that God desires people to stay within strict ethnic groupings,

“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”

Dr. Clarence MacCartney – Presbyterian Minister

Sure looks like these Presbyterians just cited had no problem with the notion “that God wants people to keep themselves within strict ethnic groupings.”

OPC Questions and Answers writes,

Were this (ethnic distinctiveness) so, (important) one would expect the Lord to have mentioned this some place in the Scriptures. Not only is there no such mention, but the Bible explicitly teaches that ethnic and tribal identity are utterly beside the point when it comes to one’s relationship to God.

Enos responds,

First off, no Kinist believes that ethnic and tribal identity necessarily forbids one from a relationship with the God of the Bible, That statement is utterly beside the point and so is ridiculous. It does however demonstrate how Kinists are constantly attacked by the straw man fallacy. It demonstrates how feeble minded the Reformed clergy are so that seemingly nobody actually has yet dealt with the issue of Kinism in a way that actually reflects what kinist’s believe. Thirdly, it also demonstrates that if these idiot clergy really believe what they are saying about the evils of Kinism then they should quit esteeming men like Calvin, Rutherford, Morton Smith, Clarence MacCartney, Machen, etc. because all those men and countless others were, at the very least, proto-kinists.

Next, Scripture is not silent on ethnic distinctiveness. See:

Yes, Jesus Was a Racist

Is God a Racist?

Orthodox Presbyterian Questions and Answers

What kinist scriptural arguments I have found are classic examples of eisegesis: that is, reading an existing belief into a Bible verse which does not in fact teach that doctrine. I won’t quote Romans 4:1–12 here, but you will note that faith in Christ’s work makes one righteous before God and a child of Abraham. Paul argues very strenuously that Jews (“the circumcised”) are not truly descendants of Abraham in God’s eyes unless they share his faith. If the Lord Christ has no place for gene pool considerations within his church, why would he be concerned with them among the nations which exist only to provide members for the church?

Enos responds,

Again… no kinist has affirmed the idea that “the Lord Christ has a place for gene pool considerations” within His Church in terms of who and who cannot be saved. That garbage accusation, like this whole column is a violation of the 9th commandment. What Kinists do affirm is that all gene pools comprise the Redeemed Church of Jesus Christ and that normatively as those gene pools exist as gene pools.

We see the OPC practicing this very thing in Westminster California where they have a Vietnamese Church (Resurrection Church). Should the OPC be telling their Vietnamese church that they have formed themselves on the basis of bad eisegesis?

But let’s let the Presbyterians in Church history speak on why we should be concerned with gene pool considerations in the Church. Calvin wasn’t a Presbyterian but I doubt if even the OPC will mind if I include him here in a quote,

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

Here is the Presbyterian John Frame on the issue of gene pool considerations in the Church,

“Scripture, as I read it, does not require societies, or even churches, to be integrated racially. Jews and Gentiles were brought together by God’s grace into one body. They were expected to love one another and to accept one another as brothers in the faith. But the Jewish Christians continued to maintain a distinct culture, and house churches were not required to include members of both groups.”

John Frame,

“Racism, Sexism, Marxism”

Here is Presbyterian John Edwards Richards, Professor of Theology. Presumably Edwards would have held this conviction about gene pool considerations in the Church.

“The vast majority of good thinking people prefer to associate with, and intermarry with, people of their respective race; this is part of the God-given inclination to honor and uphold the distinctiveness of separate races. But there are many false prophets of oneness, and many shallow stooges, who seek to force the amalgamation of the races.”

Dr. John E. Richards

So, what we see from the Minister who inked that OPC article is the practice of eisegesis, violation of the 9th commandment and the usual irrational ratiocination that we have come to expect from simpleton clergy in the Reformed world.

OPC Question and Answer article,

However, the kinist websites I looked at contained any number of deliberately insulting and demeaning racial epithets. A member of the OPC who engaged in such behavior would be seriously disturbing the peace, purity, and unity of the church, and could very well be brought to trial. Thus, while kinism may not be a gross heresy, it certainly is a schismatic (divisive) movement, one which any sane Christian should give a very wide berth.

I hope you, as I do, find kinism not only personally distasteful and morally repugnant, but fundamentally at odds with the Gospel itself. Because God has reconciled sinners to himself through the Cross, all sinners must be reconciled to one another. If kinism, with its offensive regard for the flesh, is true, the Apostle Paul is wrong.

Enos responds,

First, as a Kinist I have to admit that too often Kinists can be over the top with their language. I’ve tried to do my bit in reigning that in a wee bit. So, while I am hardly a spokesmen for Kinists (a fiercely independent group if there ever was one) I apologize where we and I have gotten carried away with our insulting and demeaning language. However, we must recognized that just as I don’t dismiss Christianity because the author of this OPC article has cast in the teeth insulting and demeaning language at Kinists, and just because the author of this piece has printed slander regarding Kinists, on that basis I do not reject the truthfulness of Biblical Christianity. Just so, Kinism can not be rationally refused because some Kinists use over the top language at times.

Similarly I would say that the author of this article is seriously disturbing the peace, purity, and unity of the Church and in a sane church world would be brought up on charges. So, while the alienism of this Minister author, I hope the readers of this response will find as I do the OPC Questions and Answers column personally distasteful and morally repugnant as well as being fundamentally at odds with the Gospel. People like this “minister” are being schismatic. His alienism is something any sane Christian should give a very wide berth.

We will end with smashing the author’s ludicrous statement implying that the Apostle Paul didn’t teach Kinism type doctrines.

Romans 9:3 For I could pray that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh…

 

Also read this article in full on Iron Ink.