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Archive for the ‘Race, Kinism, “Race Realism”’ Category

I came across this excellent piece by Virgil Walker, entitled “The Moment the Mask Slipped: How Christian Nationalism Opened the Door to Ethnic Hostility.” Extremely well-written, poignant, and so needed in the present hour. I also appreciate how he writes from a position of real sympathy for nationalism, patriotism, and acknowledgment of racial diversity—at least, as defined with confessional “guardrails.” This is hardly another tired liberal, globalist harangue, tone-deaf to real fears and grievances of young white Americans. In doing this, I think he meets those ‘halfway’ who find themselves drawn to the more radical online provocateurs out there.

I haven’t fact-checked this. What little I have done lends credibility to this account. But if anyone has evidence to the contrary, send me a note: michael@reformedparish.com.

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There are moments in cultural life when an undercurrent becomes undeniable—when quiet tremors surge into a cultural earthquake.

This week was one of those moments.

A friend and brother in Christ, Alex Kocman, posted a simple photo of his adopted son turning thirteen. A family milestone. A request for prayer. A moment Christians should instinctively celebrate.

But the post detonated into more than seven million views.
And what followed wasn’t merely disagreement. It wasn’t a debate about prudence or policy.

It was ethnic hostility.
Open. Public. Unmasked.

Comments attacking the child’s dignity.
Insinuations that a white father “wasted his time” on a black boy.
Suggestions that adoption should be limited to “your own kind.”
Warnings that interracial families “destroy the West.”
Accusations that bringing a child into the home from another ethnicity is “inviting a foreigner into your bloodline.”

And here’s what matters:

Many of those voices weren’t from atheists, leftists, or anonymous trolls.
They came from people who openly identify with Christian Nationalism.

Not the entire movement.
But a growing, vocal, unrestrained wing of it.

And that’s exactly what I warned about long before this week.

Read the rest here.

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A friend shared this very helpful article about a year ago that explores the actual contours of how Scottish Presbyterians dealt with Jewish questions, the emergence of the nation-state of Israel, and the very problematic other-rail of Dispensationalism in modern evangelicalism. It is very regrettable in the current context that there isn’t much nuance in how our Reformed fathers approached Jewish questions vis-a-vis the errors of J.N. Darby and his ilk. Abstract here:

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In the last few months, I finished a couple of really insightful non-fiction titles. The first was R. R. Reno’s The Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West. This was the most helpful overview of what the “post-war consensus” (PWC) actually is and why it is on life support if not in its death pangs. Basically, the PWC was birthed in the aftermath of World War II and the horrors both on the battlefield and in the concentration camps. “Never again!” was the motto in Europe and the U.S., and the modus operandi of the elites was to tamp down on all discourse—religious, political, or social—that could elevate the blood pressure of the nations and so risk a reprise of the world wars. Liberalism in the broader sense of tolerance, acceptance, and openness, was the prevailing doctrine. But what it ended up doing was fueling the populisms and nationalisms we have witnessed in the last decade or so. In the end, we are humans who need “strong loves.” Something to be passionate about—and even die for!

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I found this an able and persuasive rejoinder to Michael Spangler’s extreme kinism. Vogel is responding to a series of articles originally posted here. In my armchair studies of Christian nationalism, kinism, and the postwar consensus critique, there is quite a range of opinion: the good (or at least, acceptable), the bad, and the ugly. One thing is for sure: Spangler doesn’t fall within the first. Mark him, and avoid him.

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