PCA Pastoral letter against Racism

[rmwilliamsll]

from: http://www.byfaithonline.com/partne.../0,,PTID323422|CHID670978|CIID1810742,00.html

God calls us to repent of the sins of our history.

Both the Northern and Southern Presbyterian traditions, out of which most of the founding congregations of the PCA came, allowed extensive propagation of error and confusion on the matter of race. Through both verbal and written statements these errors were freely presented not only as pragmatic realities, but also as sanctioned by Scripture: that certain races are inherently inferior to others; that slavery is justified; and that segregation based on race is justified, even if forced by law or institutionalized. The Southern Presbyterian tradition, in particular, publicly promulgated views of this nature to such an extent that they are inseparably identified with the teaching of the Presbyterian Church in the minds of many. Thus the Presbyterian Church failed to stand for biblical truth in these matters. Even where the official positions of the church did not reflect racist views, the silence of many in the church allowed the free expression of racist sentiments that were then perceived as the official position of the church.



One of the express motivations for the founding of the PCA was a desire to be the continuing Presbyterian Church. The founders of the PCA sought to establish a church in continuity with past biblical Presbyterianism, the distinctives of which were being eroded by non-biblical and even anti-biblical liberal theology. PCA founding leaders articulated the entirely positive and biblical motivations of preserving the inerrancy of Scripture, reaffirming the reformed system of doctrine and moving ahead boldly to fulfill the Great Commission. Since we are a product of this expressed intention to be the continuing Presbyterian Church, it is crucial that we repent of those teachings and actions in our history that are sinful, make a clear break from them and establish a new beginning in obedience, by God’s grace. A number of biblical texts present examples of such repentance.
...
Just as we celebrate those aspects of our history of which we are proud, we must also acknowledge with sadness and turn from those practices in our history that do not reflect biblical standards. We must profess, acknowledge and confess before God, before one another, and before the watching world, that the tolerance of chattel slavery, forced or institutional segregation based on race, and declarations of the inferiority of certain races, such as were practiced and supported by many voices in the Presbyterian tradition, were wrong and cannot be accepted within our ranks today.



For years we have left unattended in our midst the vestiges of racism, and the reality of its raw presence within corners of our denomination. We have been comfortable to let our brothers and sisters of races other than Caucasian quietly acquiesce to our unwillingness to make changes on their behalf, in contrast to Christ’s laying down His life for us. We repent of our offenses against our brothers and sisters in Christ. Both as individuals and together as a church, we are compelled by the Gospel to repent of racism in our own hearts and in our actions, and we are compelled to commit ourselves to wrestle against it personally and publicly. We repent of our sins of omission and commission in this area. We confess that we do not have the strength to overcome the power of racism and that we need Christ to be our Rock in this struggle. We confess that we do not know how to be the New Community of God’s People, and we confess our inadequacy to reflect the Gospel as it will be expressed in its fullness in Heaven. Yet, notwithstanding our inadequacies, we commit to seeking the leading and empowering of the Holy Spirit, believing in the sufficiency of His sanctifying power to transform us, and we commit ourselves to follow that leading as we, in cooperation with other branches of Christ’s universal Church, pledge ourselves to ministry among every nation, tribe, people and language, both in North America, and in all other regions of the world. (For further discussion of practical ministry among the people groups of North America, see the resources listed in the Introduction.)


God calls us to repent of current racial attitudes and practices that are sinful, and calls us to deeds in keeping with repentance.

Racism is deeply entrenched in North America. Today, in the United States, there are many proponents, and even entire organizations, devoted to the acceptance of slavery, segregation, and the belief that one race is superior to another. Such views have an impact even within our own church community. We affirm that such practices are abhorrent to the Holy Word of God, are contrary to the proclamation and living out of the Gospel, and cannot be allowed in the church of Jesus Christ. Where segregation is no longer forced by law but has become institutionalized in our society, we are called to live out and apply the Gospel, so that people are treated as equals without regard to their race. This means not only addressing wrong doing, but also seeking racial reconciliation, acting justly and loving mercy as we walk humbly with our God and with one another (Micah 6:8). In North America today, there is a great influx of new immigrants from other regions of the world. The call to biblical witness among all peoples without prejudice or favoritism applies to our treatment of new immigrants. In our fallen human condition, it is difficult to avoid generalizations about people of a different race, whether based on our firsthand experience or the reported experience of others. God calls us to minister among the strangers within our gates; God calls us to minister among our neighbors without regard to their racial background.


God calls us to seek racial reconciliation, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

a nice well argued pastoral letter, worth the time to read carefully.
the church needs to set an example of institutional and personal repentance, this is a good place to start. thanks GA.

 

[ClementofRome]

Amen!

 

[M. Wayne Bradley]

Unfortunately, I must take exception to the GA's letter. Racial matters and the division that exists between conservative Reformed folks on it is very troubling to me, so I'm reluctant to even bring it up or voice dissent, but a festering wound ignored won't go away, it will just get worse till gangrene sets in, followed by death. Though I'm not PCA, my parents are, and I came close to joining. Sadly, I find this letter on 'racism' long on assertion, short on scriptural support and sound exegesis, and to be honest, somewhat pompous and condescending in tone.

For some balance, here are selected comments on the PCA letter from another Reformed brother's website:

"I'm often criticized for talking so much about race. Henceforth I promise to stop, just as soon as everyone else stops talking about it. Summer is here, which means that it's time for the PCA to congregate for a General Assembly and moan about racial reconciliation. (For the uninitiated, racial reconciliation is when whites apologize to blacks for not giving them enough money.) It seems that the sackcloth and ashes two years ago were insufficient. Now we see a "pastoral letter" with a lot of "meaningless repentance," as Steve Wilkins puts it...one wonders where they draw the line. We all value our families above other families. Until recently, I assumed that we all valued our extended families above other families. But now Reformed pastors tell me that if even my mother is not a believer, she is not really my mother. (This puts an interesting spin on the fifth commandment.) Let's suppose that I take a sentence like this - "Racism includes the social exclusion or judgment, or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals based on racial differences, which always include physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure that are hereditary and unalterable" - and change it to this: "Sexism includes the social exclusion or judgment, or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals based on sexual differences, which always include physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure that are hereditary and unalterable."

How many think that such a statement is legitimate? If it were true, it would make every man in the PCA a sexist. They continue to deny women access to the pulpit, which simply won't do if they intend to march down the yellow brick road of egalitarianism. Before long our logical fallacies come back to bite us. I know there are those who argue that the white race is superior to all others, but I don't know them personally. Rather, we argue (based on all of human history) that God has gifted the races in special ways, and life will be more harmonious when we recognize once again that we are not equal. We also argue that it is wrong to willfully disrupt the diversity of creation.

Those who mock "the supposed purity of a race or the races" invariably believe (without scriptural warrant) that Pentecost has reversed the judgment at Babel. They are biological unitarians who wax philosophical about "the mystery of the gospel" but who seek to amalgamate through miscegenation. There is no mystery at all in "the one and the many" if the "many" no longer exists. If all members of the body of Christ suddenly turn into the liver, can we say that a body remains? As my friend Ralph puts it, "We may agree that the U.S. armed forces should be one, but does that mean that there should be neither Marines, Rangers, nor Seals? Is abolishing races the proper way to promote racial harmony? How can they harmonize if they don't exist? Is it hate for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to refuse to merge into one undifferentiated God?" I also find it humorous that they denounce inequitable treatment of races. I recently linked to a column by Walter Williams who calls for "educational triage" in light of the fact that black education has been such a disaster. He actually said that some blacks are not worth educating.

The PCA is only about 30 years old, but its founders were not so confused about the so-called "civil rights" movement. The Moderator of the First PCA General Assembly was Jack Williamson. At the 1969 GA of the PCUS, he and others filed a resolution that opposed Marren Loofer Keen, and it was ordered expunged from the record. They knew they were no longer welcome in the liberal PCUS. Now the PCA, which they created, has followed the same pattern, and the reasons are obvious. Just last year, on the issue of strict subscription to the Westminster Confession, Dr. Morton Smith reminded the assembly that the PCA was formed to be "a continuing Southern Presbyterian Church, which was clearly an Old School Presbyterian Church..." Dabney, Thornwell, Palmer, Smylie, Charles Colcott Jones, and John L. Girardeau were Old School Southern Presbyterians, and they would not recognize the PCA today.

You might recall that Smith was a respondant, along with RCjr, at last year's Auburn Avenue conference. He once wrote that "integration would lead to intermarriage and that the 1960s social revolution would 'destroy the divinely created diversity of humankind and help establish Communist domination.' He argued that the church should not support integration. In How is the Gold Become Dim: The Decline of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (1973), he wrote: 'The fact is that slavery had been legislated in the Bible, and therefore the Presbyterians in the South refrained from condemning slavery as sinful. The same can be said of the matter of segregation. The fact is that God Himself segregated Israel from the Canaanites.'" On the occasion of the racial reconciliation measure two years ago, he complained that the "whole program" of some in the church is "to abandon the Southern roots from which the majority of the PCA has come, which goes counter to the founding of the denomination as a Continuing Southern Presbyterian Church." In the same year, the Rev. Merle Messer filed a resolution that would have counseled churches not to allow their
buildings to be used for League of the South activities. It was voted down, but only because it would have involved the church in political matters (an escape hatch for weasels). As Steve Wilkins told Christian Renewal in April of 2000, "the denomination is unreformable." As Father Smith says of those in recent years who should have denounced political correctness, "They didn't know any other way of how to answer it, than to approve it." In other words, we are being led by the blind. Next stop is the ditch. The PCA, which was designed to "follow the pattern of the Assembly of 1861" has come a long way from the great Presbyterians (north and south) who taught that "the hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage," and "all virtue in civilization would be lost if women were emancipated from the rule of men." It cracks me up to think that, originally, the men's dormitories at Reformed Seminary in Jackson, MS, were named Dabney Hall and Thornwell Hall."

 

[rmwilliamsll]

the notion of tying repentence to reparations is not just a nasty red herring but is a bad piece of theologizing as well.

it is to our God that we repent, it is to God that we acknowledge the sorrow that our forefathers in the faith were racists and culturally blind on the issues. Racism as was more than adequately pointed out is the re-establishment of the jew-gentile barrirer than Jesus destroyed with his sacrifice on the cross. if i look at a brother in Christ and see first the color of his skin and not the testimony of his faith, this is sin and requires not simple acknowledge but heartfelt repentence and a renewal of obedience to God to judge people on one standard...their profession of faith.

racism seems to be that special blindness of the rightwing in America, in the old south it finds expression in sites like: http://www.littlegeneva.com/mt/archives/000164.html where he writes:
"Confederate,
Agrarian,
Theocratic,
Mighty-White
Sociology"

here in the southwest it is an anti-spanish speaking racism, or an anti-first nations.

i was glad to see this pastoral letter and i will, contrary to my usual wishy washy intellectualist behavior take a strong state against the remnants of the racist right, not just in the greater society but in the church. it is evil, sinful, and contaminates everything it touches with the stench of a racially based slavery justified by an OT hermeneutic that is faulty and misleading.

 

[Donny_B]

I was glad to see the pastoral letter, as it addresses not only problems in the past, but also a dangerous movement that still exists among a minority, led by Steve Wilkins.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i can not find a discussion of the pastoral letter, is there one(at GA)?
other then googling and hit&miss does anyone know of a good discussion of the issues the pastoral letter addresses?
tia

 

[Donny_B]

The issues being addressed by the pastoral letter are probably in response to several articles that have appeared on the web site of the Southern Poverty Law Center, including these, which prominently features Steve Wilkins, a PCA pastor and League of the South member:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=235

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=376

Even Dominic Aquila, the official spokesperson for the PCA, says that Wilkins' church appears to be the "mother church" to this theonomic movement. Wilkins, he said, "is very aggressive."

....
The PCA now describes the York episode as an embarrassment. Aquila told the Intelligence Report that the PCA "really ran into a real stink there" and that what occurred "was a total aberration from where we are as a denomination."

 

[Donny_B]

Actually, after further reading, Steve Wilkins is a founding director of the League of the South. He is listed on their website on the national board of directors as a "senior advisor".
http://www.dixienet.org/ls-bod/wilkins.html

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Unfortunately, I must take exception to the GA's letter. Racial matters and the division that exists between conservative Reformed folks on it is very troubling to me, so I'm reluctant to even bring it up or voice dissent, but a festering wound ignored won't go away, it will just get worse till gangrene sets in, followed by death. Though I'm not PCA, my parents are, and I came close to joining. Sadly, I find this letter on 'racism' long on assertion, short on scriptural support and sound exegesis, and to be honest, somewhat pompous and condescending in tone.

It seems to me that the issue needs to start, as you point out, with good exegesis and sound Biblical principles. Not just hermeneutics to understand exactly what are the issues involved and how God would have us deal with them in ourselves and in our societies. But with the greater issues of how the brethren are to interact and how the church is to institute its prophetic office in our societies.
The Gospel is meant to be corrosive on the remaining sinfulness in our individual and collective lives, but it can't stop with the destruction of the old man, but must help usher in the Kingdom of God. Showing in this world a foretaste of the world to come.
It is here that the resounding voices of those who have gone before us is heard. The great crowd at the throne knows no tribe, or language, or color, or race, but all are clothed in the grown of Christ's righteousness.
In my mind's eye i can see Dabney standing next to a slave freed by the unCivil War, and i would hope that from where he is today, he would support the pastoral letter and the desires it gives voice to.

 

[M. Wayne Bradley]

the notion of tying repentence to reparations is not just a nasty red herring but is a bad piece of theologizing as well.

I don’t think that’s what he was doing, but moving on.

it is to our God that we repent, it is to God that we acknowledge the sorrow that our forefathers in the faith were racists and culturally blind on the issues.

With all due respect, rm, I think that if you and the people who drafted that letter think you are guilty of an ungodly attitude or actions, then by all means, repent away. But accusing all Presbyterians, or just even all PCA’ers, of ‘racism’ and calling them to repentance seems a teensy bit arrogant and self-righteous to me. I think it’s out of line. And then to accuse our forefathers of being racists and culturally blind because some of them defended slavery and segregation (which Scripture does not decry, btw, contrary to the claims of the letter) is also sad. You would think the PCA had better things to attack such as the Arminianism, Dispensational quackery and rampant materialism infecting the broader evangelical world, but no. I am offended, and I reject it.

racism seems to be that special blindness of the rightwing in America, in the old south it finds expression in sites like:

http://www.littlegeneva.com/mt/archives/000164.html

I strongly disagree. I don’t even like the word racism because it means different things to different people. I also deny that, insofar as I’m aware, Little Geneva expresses unacceptable or sinful ‘racist’ views.

…where he writes: "Confederate,
Agrarian,
Theocratic,
Mighty-White
Sociology"

What’s wrong with being Confederate, Agraration, or Theocratic? You manufactured the “mighty-white sociology” bit, which isn’t on the site, and to be honest I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, but it’s a cheap shot.

here in the southwest it is an anti-spanish speaking racism, or an anti-first nations.

What?????? ANTI-SPANISH speaking racism? As in, those who come to this country which was founded by European, English-speaking people shouldn’t have to learn the language? We should accommodate then instead of the other way around? And if I disagree, that makes me a racist? I’m sorry, but I think that’s sheer nonsense.

i was glad to see this pastoral letter and i will, contrary to my usual wishy washy intellectualist behavior take a strong state against the remnants of the racist right, not just in the greater society but in the church. it is evil, sinful, and contaminates everything it touches with the stench of a racially based slavery justified by an OT hermeneutic that is faulty and misleading.

The Gospel is meant to be corrosive on the remaining sinfulness in our individual and collective lives, but it can't stop with the destruction of the old man, but must help usher in the Kingdom of God. Showing in this world a foretaste of the world to come.

I agree with that.

It is here that the resounding voices of those who have gone before us is heard. The great crowd at the throne knows no tribe, or language, or color, or race…

What? Verses?

...but all are clothed in the grown of Christ's righteousness.

Definitely!

In my mind's eye i can see Dabney standing next to a slave freed by the unCivil War, and i would hope that from where he is today, he would support the pastoral letter and the desires it gives voice to.

Dabney was a great man and one of our best theologians, and deserves better than to have some 21st century upstarts label him as a sinful racist, outright or by implication. I do not think he would support support the letter at all, but would thunder against it.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i appreciate your answer, but more importantly the proper tone of conversation, i apologize for the tone of my previous postings. It is a serious and heartfelt issue with me, but that doesn't excuse the wrongful tone. i am sorry and it is to your benefit not to have responded to it.

With all due respect, rm, I think that if you and the people who drafted that letter think you are guilty of an ungodly attitude or actions, then by all means, repent away. But accusing all Presbyterians, or just even all PCA’ers, of ‘racism’ and calling them to repentance seems a teensy bit arrogant and self-righteous to me. I think it’s out of line. And then to accuse our forefathers of being racists and culturally blind because some of them defended slavery and segregation (which Scripture does not decry, btw, contrary to the claims of the letter) is also sad. You would think the PCA had better things to attack such as the Arminianism, Dispensational quackery and rampant materialism infecting the broader evangelical world, but no. I am offended, and I reject it.

i think the church has been racist. But how to prove it, or how to convince others of that, i am uncertain. The fact that our congregations are primarily white and middle class, or that congregations leave central cities for the suburbs is not persuasive to those who would see this in mere sociological terms(what the pastoral letter refers to as "There are natural associations of people, along homogeneous lines, which are not necessarily wrong."). i see that on this i can only ask God to illuminate hearts, mine as well to be sure i am not projecting my own sins on the greater church unrighteously as you argue.

What’s wrong with being Confederate, Agraration, or Theocratic? You manufactured the “mighty-white sociology” bit, which isn’t on the site, and to be honest I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, but it’s a cheap shot.

i didn't modify anything, what was in quotes was a direct cut and paste from the links bar on the left hand side of their homepage, far bottom.

What?????? ANTI-SPANISH speaking racism? As in, those who come to this country which was founded by European, English-speaking people shouldn’t have to learn the language? We should accommodate then instead of the other way around? And if I disagree, that makes me a racist? I’m sorry, but I think that’s sheer nonsense.

perhaps just defining terms would be the right way to start.
here in the desert southwest, language becomes the dividing line between cultures, mostly because there aren't clear skin tones differences.

i live in a spanish speaking barrio, for a number of years we were the only native english speakers here. with the drastic increase of housing prices that has significantly changed in these last few years however.
the racism that i see on a daily basis is either directed at Mexican ancestory by whites or spanish speaking prejudice towards black people which is in fact more vocal than anything my mother ever expressed outloud.

Dabney was a great man and one of our best theologians, and deserves better than to have some 21st century upstarts label him as a sinful racist, outright or by implication. I do not think he would support support the letter at all, but would thunder against it.

i honestly don't know how Dabney would feel. I expressed an image of hopefulness that the very real and very important extension of the Gospel from the inherent racism of the OT* and the genetic Hebrews to all humankind in the NT is something that being in heaven with "all nations kindred and tongues" present would illustrate.

i understand that we have cultural blinders on, that these elements modify and manipulate how we interpret the Scriptures. But an objective viewpoint is humanly unobtainable, but rather as people holding to very different cultural assumptions collide with ours, somewhere in the debris field will be pieces of a less culturally, more universally applicable Christianity. To me that is something desirable and worth striving for.

post editing note*

i don't know how to work this notion exactly.
racism is a natural human ethnocentricism. it was supported and intensified by the OT covenant with Moses and Abraham, where the bases of the covenant was genetic and therefore racial. The ancient Hebrews obviously thought themselves superior to their surrounding neighbors for being the covenant community. Whether this means the OT is racist is more a matter of definition than something significant. The NT however allows no ethnic bases nor individual distinctiveness as the central theme of election is anchored in God's love and nothing in the elect.

 

[M. Wayne Bradley]

i appreciate your answer, but more importantly the proper tone of conversation, i apologize for the tone of my previous postings. It is a serious and heartfelt issue with me, but that doesn't excuse the wrongful tone. i am sorry and it is to your benefit not to have responded to it.

This may sound silly, but thanks. I appreciate your reply also, because though I tried to be moderate, I thought I might have been too critical and not charitable enough, and half expected something harsh and scathing from you, which you did not deliver at all. I believe you showed real maturity and a willingness to dialogue with an open mind, as opposed to just yelling a person down, and it's sad, but that seems to be a rare quality.

Let me say that it's also a serious issue for me. I only want to be on the right, biblical side of things and conform my views to the teaching of Scripture. We should all be able to agree that that's the objective.

i think the church has been racist. But how to prove it, or how to convince others of that, i am uncertain.

I hear that, and I know you're sincere. But personally, at this point, I just don't feel I can accept the letter's broad definition of 'racism', and it makes me wonder a lot when I consider that their views seem to mesh rather well with the prevailing dictates of political correctness as preached by a decadent, secular culture that is by and large openly hostile (a mild word for it!) to Christianity.

The fact that our congregations are primarily white and middle class, or that congregations leave central cities for the suburbs is not persuasive to those who would see this in mere sociological terms(what the pastoral letter refers to as "There are natural associations of people, along homogeneous lines, which are not necessarily wrong."). i see that on this i can only ask God to illuminate hearts, mine as well to be sure i am not projecting my own sins on the greater church unrighteously as you argue.

Bless you, brother!

i didn't modify anything, what was in quotes was a direct cut and paste from the links bar on the left hand side of their homepage, far bottom.

You're right. My mistake. I apologize.

perhaps just defining terms would be the right way to start.
here in the desert southwest, language becomes the dividing line between cultures, mostly because there aren't clear skin tones differences.

Yeah, I agree with that. You had a good bit more to say that is interesting and worthy of comment, but for now I must leave it here. Glad there are no hard feelings.