Racial and ethnic arrogance are just as sinful and foolish as personal arrogance. Humility is a virtue in every domain of life.
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Some seem to think natural law teaches races should be segregated (a kind of natural law kinism of sorts). Wolfe leaned this direction in his book on Christian nationalism (though how far he leaned is debatable). But claiming natural law insists the races should be separate is quite different from actually making a natural law argument for segregation. Natural law could actually be used to argue for the opposite position — the natural connection of the races. We all trace back to one original couple, we all equally bear God’s image, we are all fallen into sin. We share a great deal in common, and what unites us is much weightier than what distinguishes us. We are all genetically related if we trace back our lineage far enough. The different races are more like cousins; in that sense, estrangement from one another is actually unnatural. And so racism (including racial malice and enforced segregation) is a violation of natural law. Likewise, there is nothing about interracial marriage per se that violates natural law.
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Neither is white supremacy a matter of natural law. The history of white people proves grace is the decisive factor in the cultural superiority whites have attained. Whites trace their ancestral roots back through people who were demon worshipping savages, just like other races. Many of the people groups that dominated the regions of Europe and Britain were this way for a long time. Consider what Paul says about the Gentiles in Romans 1:18ff and Ephesians 4:17ff. These texts are the closest you will get to a racial generalization or stereotyping in Scripture – and since most of the Gentiles he’s referring to would have been what we would call whites, we need to recognize it’s not exactly a flattering picture. Their skin may have been light, but their minds and hearts were darkened.
Or consider the polemic Paul develops in Romans 1-2, where he shows all of humanity is imprisoned by sin and depravity. No racial or ethnic group is exempted from the effects of the fall. But the Gentiles Paul was most familiar with were white Europeans.
This is not to say there are no biological differences amongst various people groups. There is no reason why we cannot admit various strengths and weaknesses genetically. But all of us trace our ancestry back to demon worshippers, and apart from divine grace, all of us would revert to that kind of idolatry and immorality. There are plenty of whites in the world today who are demon worshipping savages – many of them even hold office in our nation’s civil government.
I have a book on my shelf about how the Scots invented the modern world. But the Scots did not become a great people by nature alone; if that was the case, it’s hard to explain why they were living in huts and worshipping rocks for so much of their history. No – the raw material was there in (fallen) nature – but it took divine grace to elevate them and enable them to fulfill their potential. The same could be said for the Germanic barbarians, the Scandinavian Vikings, and other people groups in pre-Christian Europe — their potential was not reached by nature alone but by grace perfecting nature.
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In Scripture, ethnic/national generalizations are much more common than racial generalizations. Ethnicity and nationality are much more fundamental categories. As I’ve said many times, Scripture and nature both show us that God has organized the human race into nations, not races. Nations, like families, are covenantal entities. Races are not covenantal; they are biological.
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I fully believe that if Dabney was around today, he would repent of some of the racial views expressed in his writings. When contemporary racists say things like, “You’d excommunicate Dabney if he was around today,” they are not saying anything useful. I usually counter, “If Dabney was around today, he’d repent.” Why assume that Dabney would not be willing or capable of receiving greater light from God’s Word on the issue of race?
This is true of many great saints in history whose views were immature and have been improved upon. There are many early church theologians who would have gladly reworked and improved their Trinitarian formulations if given access to the insights of later generations. I have no doubt many medieval theologians would have welcomed the Reformational doctrine of justification by faith, if given the biblical arguments for it. And, yes, I think many 19th century Southern theologians (some of the first theologians in history to have to deal with the issue of race in such an experiential way!) would gladly receive further light from the Scriptures on the issue. There is no reason to assume their views are frozen in time or that they’d be unwilling to reconsider. I’d like to think that I’d be open to reassessing my views if strong biblical arguments can be made against something I currently believe. Why not grant Dabney the benefit of the doubt as well?
The kinist crowd today will claim that any view other than theirs is egalitarian and reflects the spirit of the age. But that simply isn’t true. I’m not advocating egalitarianism. And the “spirit of the age” charge is obviously reversible. Dabney was just reflecting the common view of his times. It took no courage for him to claim that blacks were inferior, that a black man was not fit to pastor a congregation of whites, etc. If those who stress the equal worth of the races today (since we share a common humanity) are virtue-signaling, why wasn’t Dabney virtue-signaling when he taught the inferiority of blacks in his day?
The white supremacists will point to things like IQ to insist that blacks are inferior. But this isn’t really helpful for a number of reasons, including the fact that races are malleable, not static. For example, the Romans thought the Brits of their day were too dumb to even be slaves. Scots were considered idiotic barbarians. Etc. And there have certainly been many intelligent blacks (e.g., George Washington Carver, Ben Carson, Clarence Thomas), showing the race’s potential. The success of people in our culture today is much more tied to family structure than race per se, as Sowell and others have demonstrated. And we know from Isaiah 60 that every nation (and therefore every race) will have glorious treasures to bring into the kingdom of God at the last day.
As has been pointed out many times, whites are the main drivers of progressivism in the church and culture throughout the West today. It is mainly blacks, particularly from Africa, who have opposed the sexual degeneration of the Methodist, Anglican, and other denominations. To put it another way, in global Methodism and Anglicanism, blacks have been the “lone bulwark” against institutionalizing sexual perversion.
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ADDENDUM: A few responses to X discussions about the above post–
I think Dabney was a great and godly man with faults common to his time. He defended a system of slavery that, as a system, was way out of conformity with biblical slavery (he admitted as much after the war: “our failure to fulfill some of the duties of that [master and slave] relation is among the sins for which God’s hand now makes us smart…”).
It’s debatable the extent to which Dabney harbored malice or bitterness towards blacks as blacks. But I do think in at least a few places he expressed condescending views towards blacks (including believing blacks) unbecoming of a Christian man. I think there is evidence that he did not love his black neighbor as himself. Read, for example, his “The Ecclesiastical Equality of Negroes” and decide for yourself if he harbors unchristian prejudice towards black believers. His “racism” (for lack of a better term) was not all that different than other men of his time, including Lincoln, Sherman, etc.
Most problematically, he wanted the Presbyterian church to remain racially segregated (especially the clergy), in violation of texts like Ephesians 2:11ff. One historian summarizes it this way: “Dabney ended by insisting that if there were sufficient Black Presbyterians to support Black ministers, they should be encouraged to separate from the Southern Presbyterians, and form their own churches in their new denomination.” I think he was wrong about that.
There are other things in Dabney to criticize, particularly his “spirituality of the church doctrine” and some aspects of his sacramental theology. But I do greatly appreciate the insights he had into other aspects of modernity, like feminism and public education. He was a man of wide-ranging competence and brilliance. He left a beautiful final charge to his children in a letter written shortly before his death. Hope that helps.
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The whole discussion about disciplining men from other centuries is hypothetical.
The claim that people like me would excommunicate Dabney is just as speculative as the claim that Dabney would have repented. We have no way of knowing how such an ecclesiastical trial would have gone. My point is that the argument that people like me would excommunicate Dabney is not some kind of “gotcha.” I am not in any way committed to the infallibility of dead Christians. I am committed to the infallibility of the prophets who gave us the inspired Christians, but every other Christian who has ever lived got at least some things wrong. Yes, that includes Dabney. It also includes Hodge, Calvin, Augustine, Aquinas, etc.
Besides, the anti-FV crowd would beat me to it and excommunicate Dabney for his views on future justification before I could even get to him. So there’s that.
I do know that had I been in the synod in 1867 when Dabney gave his “Ecclesiastical Equality of Negroes” speech, I would have argued hard against him and voted against his proposal.
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Well, given how Aquinas regarded his own work at the end of his life, he very well might have ended up VanTillian. But I think it’s more likely he would’ve been Lutheran had he lived a few centuries later.
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What evidence of segregation do you have in mind? I see the opposite. Paul spent a great deal of time in the NT helping Jew and Gentile learn how to be one new man in the context of local congregations. Acts deals with this as well. Rodney Stark and other historians have demonstrated the multiethnic and multiracial nature of churches in Greco-Roman cities was transformative – his account of the church in Antioch is especially interesting. The Letter to Diognetus does the same. Etc. There is no obligation for churches to be multiethnic; in many places there is only one local ethnicity or race anyway. But in God’s providence, the churches of the apostolic era were planted in cities in an empire that were multiracial and multinethnic precisely so the truth of the “one new man” could be demonstrated.
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The view that early churches in cities like Ephesus and Antioch were ethnically mixed is definitely NOT a modern view. I read mostly pre-modern works and I cannot think of a single commentary or historian who would deny it, from across centuries of scholarship. In God’s providence, these people in the apostolic era already spoke the same language and so there was a way to integrate them that did not exist elsewhere. As I said, much of the NT is taken up with teaching Jew and Gentile believers how to live together – which makes no sense if they were just as segregated after the gospel as before. Paul confronted Peter in Galatians 2 in part because the latter wanted an ethnically segregated communion table – and Paul called it a denial of the gospel. Not sure how much evidence you need.
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Test everything and hold fast to that which is good. We have to use discernment in every area of life, and certainly that includes when we are sifting through church history. We are not obligated to believe everything our ancestors in the faith believed on every issue – and they often contradicted one another anyway on a wide variety of non-creedal matters. There’s a lot to love and appreciate about Dabney and a few things to criticize. Kind of like everyone else in the past, and kind of like how our descendants in the faith will view us someday in the future.
It’s not really about time, it’s about the posture of one’s heart towards God and his Word. Dabney was a godly man, and I think he would have been open to hearing arguments from Scripture he did not consider in his day. Obviously those other cases you list and all people who hardened themselves to God’s Word.
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The trial issue is a red herring. It’s mainly brought up by guys trying to carve out room for their own views when they get criticized. “You can’t criticize me unless you’d excommunicate all our fathers in the faith.” It’s dumb, tbh.
Everyone involved in this discussion should make sure they have actually read Dabney, etc. just so they know exactly what they’re defending and/or aligning themselves with. There is some content there that is simply bad. But there is also often a tone/spirit he has when talking about blacks that has more than a hint of malice and arrogance imo – obviously we can’t know the heart and shouldn’t assume motives that aren’t openly stated, but it’s a problem, and it undeniably grew into something much more sinister in the Southern church. We can debate what sins rise to the level of disciplinable offenses, but there’s definitely a sin issue there at some level (especially when you realize he’s talking about black *Christians*, not black pagans).
Finally, my original statement really says the exact opposite of what some are claiming about me. In my post, I give Dabney the benefit of the doubt (meaning he is a believer and would not be excommunicated) precisely because I believe that overall he was a good and godly man.
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Let’s turn the question around: If Dabney were around today would he disqualify Uri Brito from serving as a pastor simply because of the color of his skin? And would you personally agree with the answer Dabney would give to that question? (And, further, if you do agree, how do you stay in the CREC where our highest ecclesiastical office is held by a man with darker skin?). These questions are actually much more relevant and answerable than hypotheticals about whether or not Uri and I would excommunicate Dabney. Would Dabney bar Uri from the clergy (or even from church membership) because of his race/skin color, and if so are you ok with that?
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The 21st century is not a time of clear thinking about race. But neither was the 19th century.
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Dabney wrote:
“I would provide schools, separate from our own, for training black men to be pastors of black churches; and I would, if necessary, give ordination to enough men to form a separate Presbytery, when enough can be found possessed of constitutional qualifications. But I would make no black man a member of a white Session, or Presbytery, or Synod, or Assembly; nor would I give them any share in the government of our own church, nor any representation in it. “It is confusion.””
How is this a manifestation of the Galatian heresy (cf. Galatians 2)?
Dabney did not want to open church offices to blacks. It sounds like blacks are only allowed to be members of white churches because they do not have qualified pastors of their own. If black men do attain to the qualifications for pastoral office, he wants to segregate them into a church of their own so his own church can be for whites only. When he says “our own church,” he means an exclusively white church, a church with racial boundaries.
Again, I ask: How is this different than Peter not wanting to share a communion table with Gentiles? What if Peter said, once Gentiles have qualified pastors, they should form their own Gentile churches separate from those of the Jewish apostles? How is this not rebuilding the very wall Jesus tore down? There was no language barrier that would have made Jew/Gentile worship impractical in Galatians 2. Nor was there a language barrier that required racially segregated churches in the post-war South. The sole issue is race. So how can Dabney’s views be justified? He calls it “confusion” — but what if Peter thought mixing Jew and Gentile in a common church was “confusion” as well?
What if Peter had said no Gentile believers can ever be officers in the church? He would have been wrong and he would have ultimately necessitated the creation of separate Jew and Gentile bodies.
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Doug Wilson gives a pretty good overview of Dabney in his book Black and Tan.
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People are complicated. They are not either perfect or demons. Dabney can be a great man with a blind spot, even as other great men had their weaknesses mixed in with their greatness. But glossing over the failings of our forefathers does not honor their legacy, any more than magnifying their faults.
As far as the CREC is concerned, read Wilson on Dabney in Black and Tan – it’s a similar assessment to my own. Dabney was a brilliant and insightful Christian man whose flaws should not be allowed to overshadow his significant contributions. So we are allowed to continue loving Dabney even if we disagree with him on something.
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One more post on Dabney, then I really have to try my best to move on. Sunday’s coming.
Some have argued (particularly those who want to defend the Old South while also not being saddled with its views of race) that Dabney’s views on blacks (particularly his prohibition on blacks holding office in the church) were circumstantial and prudential judgments that were not supposed to be timeless principles. (As you say, it was in the aftermath of a bloody war, and Dabney was obviously full of anger, grief, angst over the future of the South.)
To be honest, when I’ve defended Dabney in the past, I’ve made that kind of argument: Dabney was not making a pronouncement on black Christians for all of time, but one limited to his own era. Races and ethnicities are malleable after all. At one time in history, Brits did not look like they were a promising people group (the Romans said they were too dumb to even be slaves); centuries later they ruled the whole world. The typical American male of 2025 is not half the man his great grandfather was. And so on. If that’s the case (and again, many have suggested that as a proper reading of Dabney), then my claim that he might come to different conclusions on at least some matters if he were transported to today is fully justified. Now, the more I read Dabney, the more I’ve come to question that as a proper reading of what he actually wrote. But it is certainly a possible reading of him, even if unlikely.
There’s still the issue that Dabney was all but pleading for a strict segregation of races in the church — and in my opinion, the excesses of that segregation principle is one of the the things that led to the excesses of the Civil Rights movement 100 years after the war. Had Southern Presbyterians in Dabney’s day taken a different approach, perhaps the whole civil rights disaster of the 1960s and beyond could have been avoided (much as a different course of action after WW1 could have prevented the German overreaction that led to WW2). History is often a series of chain reactions — and if we think the logic of the civil rights movement was deeply flawed, we should be honest about the problems that led to such an outcome. The post-Civil-War-consensus was a contributor to what we now call the post-WW2-consensus. What Americans did to blacks after the Civil War and what Germans did to Jews had consequences, most of them ugly, and many of them tied together in the second half of the 20th century. The white guilt of today’s secularized Americans is a terrible thing, but it’s also historically understandable how we got here. As Dabney himself said, it’s crucial to our future that we properly grasp the past.
The best thing to do is to appreciate what Dabney got right (as I’ve said, he was a good and godly man overall, full of brilliant insights) but also be honest about what he got wrong. The church will not mature by glossing over the sins of her great saints from past generations. Dabney’s views of race were common to all great (and not so great) men of the time, including Lincoln, Sherman, etc. I do not condemn him for having serious blind spots; every generation (including mine and including yours) will have blind spots too, and if we want future generations to judge us with charity, we must do the same with past generations. So I hail Dabney as a hero of the faith even as I criticize certain aspects of his work and legacy. Let’s praise Dabney for what he got right, while making sure we do not repeat any of his sins and errors as much as possible. The problem I see right now is that some want to embrace and double down on the most problematic aspects of what Dabney said and did. That too is an understandable reaction given where our culture is in 2025, but it will not help the church going forward. In a lot of ways, Dabney pretty much got what he wanted in the aftermath of the war — an all white Southern Presbyterian denomination and a racially segregated church. But 160 years later, I can say I do not think it turned into the kind of victory he was expecting.
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Moderator Kevin DeYoung may have shut down Timothy Brindle at the PCA’s General Assembly, but this letter from Brindle on his background and critical race theory deserves a wide hearing.
Some excerpts below:
“There are two reasons why I am unconvinced that systemic racism is the main culprit for the fatherlessness which plagues African-American families
(1) Fatherlessness was way lower among African Americans in the 1950’s and 60’s during the thickness of systemic racism, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “According to the Census Bureau from 1960 and 2013, African-American children who lived in single-parent homes more than doubled from 22% to 55%.” That same source says that single-parent homes have tripled for white families. If fatherlessness has increased for African-Americans since the outlawing of racial discrimination, and fatherlessness has skyrocketed in white communities too, can we legitimately blame fatherlessness on systemic racism?
What has happened since the 50’s and 60’s? The answer is not simple, but since then, Biblical values and moral standards have been increasingly rejected in our country. Moreover, since then was the implementation of the welfare system by the Democratic party that increases money and welfare benefits to single-parent families. Along with this, there has been the widespread indoctrination that fathers are unnecessary in the home. While one could argue that such policies are themselves an example of systemic racism, the problem with that argument is many Democratic politicians now are non-white, propagating these same policies that are destroying black and white (and Latino) families. Are we being honest if we only point the finger at systemic racism? The removal of Biblical standards cultivating immorality, lawlessness, and the undermining of the nuclear family are much more likely the culprit.
(2) African-American Economist Thomas Sowell makes the point that the real economic disparity is not between blacks and whites, but between those who have college degrees plus wait to have children after marriage, and those who do not – regardless of one’s race or ethnicity. Whites who do not have education, do not stay married and have children out of wed-lock, are in the same place as African-Americans – if not worse.
In summary, then, a current systemic racism is not to blame for the fatherlessness that plagues African-American or white, or any racial group. Rather, the factors above are more likely behind it.
The purpose of my statements concerning fatherlessness and abortion being more destructive to the African-American community than a modern version of systemic racism, is out of a concern that the latter is keeping us distracted from addressing the real problems facing our country. I am also convinced that the leftist notion of systemic racism – which says that there is a current system of whites working to oppress blacks in 2020 – is not true.
The United States is not the same as it was 60 years ago. All of the hype about systemic racism today makes us overlook just how far black Americans have come despite the systemic oppression of slavery up to the civil rights movement. While we still have much room for improvement, has not the U.S. made corrections and pursued what Martin Luther King Jr. called America’s promissory note of equality and equal opportunity that the civil rights movement ushered in? A friend of mine said, “To see how far black Americans have come in such a relatively short amount of time is a testament to the ingenuity and hard work of so many in the black community, which is something that is rarely ever mentioned.” In light of the many well-educated, hard working, and economically successful African-Americans, Sowell makes the point that “American blacks are the most prosperous in the hemisphere– and in the world.” (“Race, Culture, and Equality”).
Furthermore, the educational and economic success of African immigrants, especially Nigerian, make it hard to believe that systemic racism is still a real force to hold back black people….”
“In summary, when it comes to THE SYSTEM, I have seen firsthand the plight of the public school system and the social welfare system. However, when it came to the school teachers, administrators, principals, psychologists, social workers, supervisors, policy makers – all the way up to the Mayor – half of them were African American and Latino. The majority of the administrators and policy makers were liberal Democrats. In hindsight then, I witnessed firsthand how the policies of a Democratic city are oppressive (or at least extremely unhelpful) for its citizens of all people groups. For this reason, I am unwilling to say that the major problem facing our country and cities and communities is a modern version of anti-black systemic racism from white people. If anything, it is full of white-black-Latino-Asian sinners who oppress each other. If anything, it is systemic oppression of image bearers suppressing other image bearers. At worst, we are a nation of godless pagans who have turned away from the living God and His ways, and preferred empty lies. The product: a ruined society.
What’s the answer? The solution is still for the Church of Jesus Christ to engage in Biblical discipleship of all nations and peoples that proclaims the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only hope to forgive sin, reconcile us to God and each other, set captives free, renew the mind, and embolden men to take responsibility for their actions and lead their families in truth. And yet, as those who are in (but not of) this world, we have a responsibility to pursue justice and righteousness among our neighbors – as a witness of the Righteous King and His agenda….
I totally agree any current racist, discriminatory, or oppressive practices in government (in any political party) must be addressed and rectified. However, policies and political agendas that remove Biblical morals, keep people dependent on welfare, promote abortion, and seek to undermine the nuclear family and the presence of fathers – these are things destroying all communities of all people groups.
Factually, as I said above, the disparity is not race-based; it’s between those who have college education, stay married, and have children in wedlock – and those who don’t. Thus whites are in just as bad (if not worse) a place when they lack education, have children out of wedlock, etc.
For the liberals, systemic-racism must be true – that has to be their narrative – so that they can tear down the constitution and deconstruct the system. Most of America, and now the Church, has bought into the Marxist idea that there is an oppressor-class (i.e., whites) and an oppressed-class (i.e., blacks). And it appears the left wants to destroy the constitution, but remember, men like Martin Luther King Jr. argued for equal rights of African-Americans and for all people – based on the constitution. For this reason, I do not see the current “social justice” issues as being equivalent to those in the Civil Rights era. Even this wise sounding Democrat makes the distinction between the recent and the past protests….
Unfortunately, the scheme of Satan to not only divide the nation along racial lines, has overflowed into the Church, which is his real goal: to divide the people of God. But in reality, Biblically speaking, the so-called system of racists is really a system of multi-ethnic oppressors, reflecting the system of Satan’s Kingdom – the authority of darkness (Col. 1:13). Ever since the fall, the serpent has sought to remake humans in his image, producing hateful, oppressive murderers of other image-bearers (Gen. 4:1-16). For this reason, our hope must still be in the good news of the Kingdom of God. King Jesus ended the reign of sin, death, and Satan when He died on the Cross and rose from the dead, for all who put their trust in Him. This kingdom rule is now expressed in His Jew-Gentile, Cross-Cultural Church. The LORD enables us to confront iniquity, stereotypes, ignorance, and racism in the Church with the gospel, since “you (LORD) have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” (Ps. 99:4)…
I admit I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Why? Because I thought she was the lesser of two evils. I assumed the Democratic party was more concerned for the issues of African-Americans and other minorities. I assumed that Donald Trump was just a sleeze-ball, and I paid no attention to his policies because I was so turned off by his personality. I rejoiced when Barack Obama was elected president. Finally! A black president! Aware of our country’s history, I was suspicious of whites in leadership. The Democratic party seemed to be a better fit for me, since supposedly they were all about helping the disadvantaged.
Many of you know that I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) since 2002. When the PCA made a statement in 2016 confessing our denomination’s history of racism and repentance and a resolve for racial reconciliation, I was thrilled. I preached it to everyone around me. I still agree it was necessary. But along with that, I bought into notions of white privilege, and the white guilt I spoke of above as a child, remained. A couple years ago my wife rebuked me for being so sorry that I am white. “Stop apologizing for being white,” she said. I recalled that as an Irish-Polish-German-Scottish-English American, this is who THE LORD made me to be. Glory to His Holy Name!
I realized I needed to begin to study issues of race and politics for myself, and not just be swept away with the current trends. I discovered, some time last year, that employment rates for African-Americans had gone up under President Trump’s administration. I also learned of his defunding of abortion initiatives that used American tax dollars, and policies to allow parents to choose any school they want for their child. With the tragic death of George Floyd, I learned how the tenets and assumptions of Critical Race Theory were beneath many of the ideas I promoted about white privilege and white guilt. More recently have learned much from African-American conservative thinkers such as Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, and Candace Owens. I am unashamed to admit that I am certainly voting for Donald Trump in 2020, not because I am impressed with his character necessarily, but because I think the Republican party has the best interests for African-Americans, minorities, and all Americans, and most importantly, to protect the right for Jesus Christ’s Cross-Cultural Church to worship Him freely in America.
I am still convinced we must keep our allegiance to King Jesus above our affiliation with any political party. However, never before in my lifetime have I been more aware of the close relation between faith and politics. While the “right” is not always “right-eous” and the Republican party must not be equated with the Kingdom of God, we must be honest that many of the Democratic policies are hostile in their opposition to the Christian faith. I know many of you are “in the middle” politically speaking. But brothers and sisters, there is no time for political neutrality when the left is at work to remove your freedom and right to worship Jesus Christ, pass policies to legalize pedophelia, remove God and Biblical morality even more than ever, promote the LGBTQ movement, fund and build more Planned_Murde_rhood centers, advocate for the destructive lies of BLM, defund law enforcement, and continue to increase racial tension between image bearers. These things, my friends, I cannot stand for….”
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