On July 17, 2024, Pastor Doug Wilson wrote a reply to my first article on Christian race realism, entitled “The Shimmering Unreality of Race Realism.” We respond here against his arguments, showing that they contain various absurdities, and veer into some serious unkindnesses, but that his postscript does offer some hope for the cause.
Absurdities
The substance of Pastor Wilson’s main argument is that because racial boundaries are somewhat fuzzy, race realism is not true. In my article I spoke of racial differences as “relatively permanent,” and I say that race is “practically” immutable, because there are peripheral cases, and races do change somewhat over the long term. He says my concessions spell the ruin of the entire cause. For example,
If ethnogenesis is possible in the short term, and for every young earth creationist it mostly certainly is, then stick a fork in race realism. It’s done.
We note already that his terms need stricter definition. I granted in my article that “new races may form by ethnogenesis,” as for example in the separation of the three sons of Noah (Gen. 10:32). But now thousands of years after that, it seems most racial development we observe is more modest and limited. What we describe as “ethnogenesis” is usually no more than the development of a distinct nation within one race. For example, the American Revolution helped forge the English majority and the various other Northwestern European ethnic minorities in the colonies into, in John Jay’s words, “one united people”:
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give us this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
But note Jay’s assumption of a pre-existing descent “from the same ancestors.” Contrast this to our African slaves, who struggled with us through the same war but were not amalgamated in the heat of same furnace into “one united people” with us, though we could rightly say that through their own particular furnace they were forged into a distinct ethnicity within the black race, “African-Americans.” Note how in these two cases “ethnogenesis” did not at all disturb the boundaries of larger racial categories. Just as the parallel Wilson implicitly draws on, speciation (more on young earth creationism below), did make canines diversify into wolves and foxes and domestic dogs, but presently does not remove those now long-fixed distinctions, just as it does not remove the created distinction of “kind” between all canines and all felines.
However weak this argument from ethnogenesis, the others are embarrassingly more so. For example, he says,
A black man could easily have a great-grandchild, bearing his last name and everything, within his lifetime, descended from his loins, who could easily pass for a native-born Norwegian.
Is it not obvious that this example assumes the race realism it sets out to disprove? In this case the identifiably black man has identifiably white great-grandchildren, precisely because he intentionally replaced most his black genetics by successive generations of miscegenation. The racial reality has not changed, the boundaries between black and white have not changed; rather, one man, together with generations of his offspring, has labored intentionally to cross those boundaries. The countless millions of blacks and whites who did not do this with him still remain just as black and just as white as before he set out on his transgenerational, transcontinental journey of racial immigration. And once his own great-grandchildren have “become white,” that’s what they are, which again reaffirms that white and black are really different.
The above example is plausible, though it proves nothing against race realism. However, a later hypothetical example leaves the realm of plausibility entirely:
And so if we put 500 single blacks and 500 single whites on a deserted island the size of Tahiti, and we ensured that they were all Christians, all spoke English, and were all demographically similar in other ways, and we left them there for some 500 years, when we came back to see what had happened, the thing most likely to have changed would this very thing that Spangler is calling immutable—what he calls race. They would still be speaking English, with their own accent certainly, they would still likely be Christian, at least formally, and they would all be a color that was not one of the two originals. Race is not immutable.
The unreality of this hypothetical is manifold, and dare we say, “shimmering.” Besides the fact that few sane whites or blacks would even assent to such a strange experiment, the qualifiers “all Christian” and “all spoke English” make false tacit assumptions, namely that they would be the same sort of Christians, and speak the same sort of English. We would ask, where in America can you find five hundred blacks and five hundred whites who are religiously compatible enough to marry prudently? Or five hundred who would not have to resort to perpetual “code switching” to speak in a dialect not considered strange to their hypothetical inter-racial partner? This is not to mention the countless other ways in which whites and blacks are not “demographically similar.” Yet these are small problems, relatively. The glaring false assumption of the scenario is, that even with those other things all somehow being equal, the whites and blacks would even have the desire to marry each other. My generation of white men grew up well after Loving v. Virginia. Black-white marriage was daily set before our eyes by zealous social propagandists. Many of us had daily close social interactions with black people. Yet statistically, we still almost never married them. We simply were not interested. To assume the likelihood that this would change drastically, even on that strange imaginary island, asks too much of any thinking reader.
But even if we granted this implausible scenario resulting in the implausible conclusion of a perfectly mixed new black-white island tribe, so what? We’ve already affirmed that ethnogenesis is possible, and that it doesn’t deny race realism. The millions of whites and blacks not on the island would remain just as white and black as ever. We’d have a new small nation, call it a very small new race, but even so, both it, and the races it was formed from, would be just as real as ever.
I can’t address all the other examples of absurdity in Wilson’s article, but a few more should make it clear. One is this specious claim:
But as our knowledge of genetics has grown, the very rudimentary conceits of the early 20th century racialists can now be found on that now overcrowded ash heap of history. Human beings from all ethnic backgrounds are 99.9% the same. And the differences that strike us as being so “total,” like skin color, are the result of differences in 0.01% of our DNA.
This should barely need refuting. Yes, the difference in DNA among mankind is found in a relatively small portion of our genetic code. But this does not argue in the slightest against the fixed racial differences which common sense observes. It simply means the DNA that accounts for those differences does not take up much space. Humans and chimpanzees share up to 99% of DNA. Should we therefore deny “species realism,” and push for a revolution in inter-species relations, a “civil rights movement” to grant total social equality to the rest of the great apes? Of course not, nor do we think Pastor Wilson would say otherwise.
I pass over the reference to “skin color,” which throughout he uses as a synonym for race, to make the race-realist position look ridiculous. This also is absurd, and quite unfair. Skin color is important, but not the most important racial difference. Like a jersey, skin color helps identify a racial “team,” but has little to say about the manner in which that team plays the game.
We already considered the earlier example of the intentionally miscegenating black man. Wilson apparently finds this sort of argument compelling, as he later goes on to make as much as possible of various “impossible tangles” that come from racial mixing. He mocks the “one drop rule” used in some earlier American jurisprudence, but fails to offer a solid alternative for how our courts may best define the boundary of black and white, though this remains relevant for legal purposes even under “civil rights.” He then says,
Researchers have also found that when people have less than 28% African ancestry, they tend to identify as European-American. And this is not all that hard to do, depending. I have an acquaintance whose grandfather was born a black Roman Catholic in New Orleans, and died a white Lutheran in Ohio.
All he has identified here is that, at some point through miscegenation black genes are sufficiently replaced by white genes that the offspring count as white. Again, this assumes fixed racial boundaries. The most the strange case of this acquaintance’s grandfather can prove is that such racial migration has a midpoint where it can be hard to tell which side of the line a certain man is on. But this assumes the line is there.
We note that the man’s identity as possibly both “black” and “white” is just asserted. Some observers may have found the man more obviously one or the other. But if we grant this one man could convince all others that he could be either black or white, still, such a man would be exceedingly rare—“one in a million” would be underestimating it. And to use this odd wayfaring racial stranger as a proof that black and white are not fixed racial categories is, again, absurd. As absurd as standing on the beach, seeing the wet sand, the crashing waves, the moving tide, and arguing from this that our prior assumption of a real, fixed boundary between the land and sea was hasty, yea “both manifestly and dangerously false.”
This absurdity is as glaring as it is tiring. But in our day it is also a huge liability. We cannot ignore the formal similarity of Wilson’s arguments to other more sinister claims. For example, take the “intersex,” those who through no fault of their own, by chromosomal or anatomical abnormalities, are born with some sexual ambiguity. “Transgender” advocates argue from this exceeding rarity that sex is fluid, and men can become women. We do not attribute this perverted argument to Pastor Wilson. But we do challenge him to reckon with the fact his arguments about race take the same tack: arguing from strange cases at the edge of natural boundaries in order to deny those very boundaries exist.
If Wilson will not hear us on this point, we beg that he would hear his “favorite papist,” G. K. Chesterton (quoted here from “The Patriotic Idea”):
Lastly, if he says, as he certainly will, that it is unreasonable to draw the limit at one place rather than another, and that he does not know what is a nation and what is not, we shall say: “By this sign you are conquered; your weakness lies precisely in the fact that you do not know a nation when you see it. There are many kinds of love affairs, there are many kinds of song, but all ordinary people know a love affair or a song when they see it. They know that a concubinage is not necessarily a love affair, that a work in rhyme is not necessarily a song. If you do not understand vague words, go and sit among the pedants, and let the work of the world be done by people who do.” It is better occasionally to call some mountains hills, and some hills mountains, than to be in that mental state in which one thinks, because there is no fixed height for a mountain, that there are no mountains in the world.
Unkindnesses
Wilson began his article with the ominous warning we already saw, that one of my central claims is “both manifestly and dangerously false.” He then is more conciliatory about some agreements, and says, “I think we can talk about this without anybody freaking out.” Though recent experience has shown this statement to be true only if the subject “we” is judiciously narrowed, I do share in his hope that God’s grace is sufficient for brothers in Christ to learn to have productive, charitable discussion on this matter. But I cannot grant that this is what Wilson’s article has done, or helped others to do. For besides the concerns mentioned above, certain things he says are also lacking in Christian kindness, as they strongly condemn fellow Christians without sufficient evidence.
We would not ourselves be unkind to Wilson by this claim. We are not speaking here of disagreements plainly stated, or sharply defended. Nor do we speak simply of public warnings against public error, which when warranted, are necessary. We speak rather of three things, two stated, the other left unsaid.
The first unkindness is his insinuation that race realists are implicit Darwinists. We saw already how he flashed his “young earth creationist” credentials. He later goes on a tangent about how long it might have taken for the “Ethiopian” (Jer. 13:23) to develop his distinctive skin, calculating at most 79, and at least 10 generations, which is either “short term” or “really short term.” Besides the fact that this contributes to his false equation of race and skin color, why would he assume we disagree that a population could develop black skin within 10 generations? All I assert is that change within a race usually takes place slowly enough that we don’t see it in our lifetime. I even grant that by God’s unexpected intervention racial change can happen in one generation, though I would not assert particular instances of this without evidence, or make empirical generalizations according to this speculative possibility. Nor if it happened would it prove racial boundaries are fluid: if Asians tomorrow all somehow developed blue skin, they’d still be Asian, not white, and not black, though “yellow” might become officially retired as a racial nickname.
Prior to this, Wilson draws the connection with Darwinism more clearly:
Because of the passion for “scientific” categorization in the early 20th century, and under the hegemonic sway of Darwinism, all the smart people began classifying us in “racial” categories. We had always known about tribes, but it was not until the 20th century that people started measuring the width of our foreheads with calipers. …
Racialism and attacks on racism are both products of this mentality. One glorified the distinctions between the races, ranking them hierarchically like dutiful Darwinists, and the other attacked such distinctions as being at odds with the rising egalitarianism. But in the first half of the 20th century, the racialists were still riding high, a trend that continued until old Adolph kind of ruined the eugenics party.
We pass by the gratuitous connection of our position to that of Adolph Hitler, which strikes us as a cheap leftist tactic. But honestly, saying “racialism” is a “product of this mentality,” i.e. Darwinism, simply because we also assert fixed racial categories, and some measure of racial inferiority and superiority, is not any more equitable. It must be proven, not asserted, and certainly not merely insinuated.
I know well the arguments between Young Earth Creationists and Darwinists, about the speed of speciation, about “millions of years,” about Genesis 1–2 and 9–11, about biblical chronology, and so forth. I myself stand firmly in the former camp on all these points, as do most of the race realists I know personally, as do the historic race realists which I commend, men like Jonathan Edwards and R. L. Dabney. Pastor Wilson will have to find a better argument to make us all into closet Darwinists. Until he does, these insinuations are not charitable.
The second unkindness follows up with an implication of the first, that race realists have replaced the gospel. Wilson states in various ways that the undeserved gift of widespread Christianization was a massive boon to the culture of the West. We agree with this. But in context of that argument he states, a bit coyly, but not unclearly:
This has led some to confuse the effect with the cause, but that’s all right. They want to treat whiteness as the gospel, while their counterparts, the dumb people on the other side, want to treat whiteness as though it were the devil.
Who are the “some,” the “they,” who want to “treat whiteness as the gospel”? They are the “counterparts” of “the dumb people on the other side.” A few sentences later he makes clear who these two sides are:
In this moment, the CRT commies are preaching their false universal, while the race realists are telling us that we can find secure footing in our tribal particularities.
So Wilson is saying “race realists” “treat whiteness as the gospel.” No matter how cute the rhetoric, this is tantamount to saying, race realists are heretics. He gives his readers the choice between “whiteness” and “the gospel,” then implies race realists have made the choice for whiteness, and therefore that they have rejected the gospel.
We defend ourselves against this charge by two arguments. First, simply stated, we are not heretics. As mentioned above, we stand in this matter with some of the most orthodox and godly Christian ministers who ever lived. In our article which Wilson is replying to, we say nothing heretical at all, and rather assert the contrary: “Race realism is no excuse for error, sin, or schism,” an admonition which Wilson himself mentioned positively in his first paragraph. As to the specific claim, that we have chosen whiteness over the gospel, we said the exact opposite in no uncertain terms:
Race does not have ultimate importance. Heavenly things, God, Christ, the gospel, faith, hope, love, and so forth, are far more excellent. Grace excels race as far as heaven excels earth. Racial religious privileges are real, and can be a help unto salvation—God works in families, nations, and generations—but they never in themselves saved anyone. Paul, for example, speaks in this way of the privileges of Jews in Romans 9:1–8. There will be no ancestry test to enter glory: the sole criterion of the last judgment will be “faith which worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6).
We note that Wilson just said in another blog article, “The first rule of debate is that you should be able to state your opponent’s position in terms that he himself would own, and then undertake to answer that.” We say, “Physician, heal thyself.”
Second, Wilson’s argument rests on a false foundation, namely that all that has made “the West” (i.e., white Christendom) to be great, is the gospel.
It is the gospel that shaped the blessings of the West, and not the skin color of those who were so blessed. …
The gospel is only for wretches, which the Europe of that day was full of—wretched savages. Being proud of whiteness on that account is like somebody noticing that the first six people who went forward at a Billy Graham crusade all had blue eyes, and concluding from this that blue eyes were the key factor, and not the prayer of repentance. …
But all of it was the grace of God, promised centuries before, and not one ounce of it deserved.
“God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; And Canaan shall be his servant.” – Genesis 9:27 (KJV)
And so we see that God is immutable, and the grace of God is immutable. Race? Not so much.
We gladly affirm that all gifts that any man or race possesses come from God, and ought to make their possessors not boastful, but humbly thankful, and deeply impressed with their responsibility to use those gifts for God’s glory and the good of man. We are gratified to see Wilson himself later say, “I am very grateful for my ethnic heritage.” We join him in this. But—as Wilson admits when describing his American ethnic affections for “football, apple pie…guns, road trips,” and so forth—our shared white racial heritage is much more than the gospel and Christianity. We affirm that is the best part, but we deny it is the only part, or the only good part.
Wilson, for example, is wrong to assert that Europe was only full of “wretched savages.” The ancient Greeks and Romans were pagan idolaters, but they were not “wretched savages.” They were on the whole far more advanced in learning, culture, government, and infrastructure than various remote sub-Saharan African tribes of our own day, not to speak of ancient times. Moving through the centuries, the great medieval church buildings, which Moscow-adjacent classical educators tend to adore, were marvelous, yet they were monuments to superstition more than to true religion. The civilizing power of the Renaissance came at least in part due to the work of esoteric astrologers and self-righteous Romanists. The printing press was not properly a product of the gospel. Neither was the steam engine, or the Internet. Have these things been helps to the progress of the gospel? Absolutely. Are such great inventions in part attributable to how the Christian faith enlightened the European mind, seeing as grace restores and perfects nature? No doubt in part. Can we humbly interpret modern technological advancements as God’s gracious and unmerited reward upon Northwestern Europeans for their embrace of the true gospel in the Protestant Reformation? I suppose in part, though the intervening history of Enlightenment unbelief does complicate this question. Moreover, is the present supremacy of the white “global American empire” a result of gospel? We love our nation and its greatness, but we would flatter her in her present apostasy if we answered this with an unqualified yes.
In asking these questions, it should be clear to everyone, it is not the gospel alone that has made white men great. To draw on the prophecy Wilson cites approvingly, we do not find that the fulfillment of “God shall enlarge Japheth” is entirely exhausted in the next promise, “And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” We praise God most of all for supernatural racial blessings, for his leading our Japhetite forefathers to profess faith in Shem’s son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But we also distinctly praise him for natural racial blessings, how he has marvelously expanded our fathers above many others on this earth. And in specific, we are grateful for the natural, genetic, and yes, relatively permanent characteristics of our race that, themselves being kind gifts of God, were natural means to the end of this further kind gift of global expansion.
We therefore protest against Wilson, that our distinct gratitude for these distinct blessings by no means shows that we “treat whiteness as the gospel.” That is an unkind false assertion.
Third, we must uncover an unspoken unkindness. Wilson recognized that I referred in passing to one of his articles as one proof that “anti-race realism is the white church party line, which no one may cross with impunity.” His present reply further proves this claim. But neither he nor I chose to mention a stronger proof of it, also on his blog, on February 5 of this year. In it he cited a “doxing” thread by a known accuser of the brethren, Blake Callens, written to the harm of particular men associated with a church in Wilson’s own ecclesiastical communion. Now, Wilson in that article does tell Callens to “pound sand.” Good. But he does so only after naming the church publicly. He alleges, in agreement with Callens’ hit piece, that some of the men associated with that church posted various things “offensive to God.” Our judgment (echoed here) is that those things were mostly just offensive to liberals. That Wilson takes the opportunity to push certain proposed Race and Diversity Memorials does not improve matters, for they are subject to the same criticisms we have brought here. Wilson went on to defend his actions in a February 7 blog post, but we find this defense unconvincing. Moreover, we fear that this present attack against my article merely continues in the same vein of uncharitable dealing with fellow Christians, who are actually more orthodox, and more agreed with him, than his strong assertions make it seem.
Hope
We are sorry to have to write against these absurdities and unkindnesses, but are compelled to do so for the sake of truth and the good name of Christian men. We would conclude however on a more pleasant note, that Pastor Wilson’s postscript gave some hope that the conversation may improve.
In it he praises Jeremy Carl’s book The Unprotected Class, and grants to his readers, tongue in cheek, “You do have permission to start thinking like Jeremy Carl, and so I suggest you hop to it.” This book has certain weaknesses in our opinion, but it is important for the cause of race realism in that it documents beyond all doubt the war that’s being waged on the white man. And though Wilson will not, or will not yet, grant that race is real, he has granted in this postscript that we have a practical need to treat whiteness as real, because our enemies do so:
If you lived in a city where the whites and blacks were at daggers drawn, and then one day riots broke out, you don’t have to choose up sides. The other side does that for you.
It matters not that your mind is full of nuance regarding your Scots/Irish background, which is the only ethnicity (other than American) that you feel any affection for. You need to budget for the fact that other people care very much what color you are, and so it is frankly irrelevant that you don’t feel any solidarity with the Dutch, who are the same color as you, and who are hiding in the alley behind the same dumpster that you are.
We ourselves do feel solidarity with the Dutch already, for our shared blood, shared history, shared Protestant religion, and yes, even our shared appearance. But when those who do not are forced at least into the solidarity of shielding themselves from the same anti-white bullets, this is likely to stir up their sympathy for our race realist cause. May the God of Japheth grant this, and deliver our people from all evil.