On July 8, 2024, Charles Johnson replied to my first two articles on race realism. It seemed good to offer a written response here. I thank Mr. Johnson for his engagement on this important issue, and recognize his effort to answer with clarity, order, and logic, and to make Scripture the final rule in all matters of faith and life. I believe all who write on this topic or any other should desire the same.
In sum, I believe Johnson’s reply is in some respects uncharitable, and in its arguments does not refute race realism.
Failures in Charity
Johnson labors to be measured throughout, but his reply reveals two failures in charity.
The first is the statement of my ecclesiastical status in his introduction: “Michael Spangler, who was recently deposed from the ministry by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.” This is not true, and does not charitably protect my name. I was not deposed by judicial process, but divested by administrative process, “without censure, for reasons other than delinquency in faith or life” (OPC Book of Discipline, ch. XXVI, 2). Those who wish to learn more may consider the resources I supplied prior to divestiture in this thread, and this podcast episode.
Johnson’s conclusion deepens this misunderstanding: “We would therefore encourage Spangler to repent of this scandalous error, and to heed the admonitions of his church session and of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who have sought his repentance from his schismatic and scandalous behavior and positions.” Whether my articles themselves contain error or cause schism or scandal is one question. I deny this and will defend them below. But the assertion that my session and the OPC have addressed me is at best vague, and at worst false. Strictly speaking, I have no session. A session is the ruling body of a local church, and since ordination in 2018 I was a member of the regional church and its Presbytery, not a local church. Since divestiture, by the advice of my Presbytery, and in order to keep standing for bringing complaints, I have remained a non-ministerial member of the regional church under the Presbytery of the Southeast of the OPC. More loosely, I can say the Presbytery is my session, but so far they have not spoken to me at all about the articles. If the reference to “scandalous behavior and positions” was intended to speak of the prior process of divestiture, again, according to the OPC the Book of Discipline, divestiture is not the method used for dealing with scandal.
Second, he from the very first sentence applies the term “racism” to my views. This is uncharitable. Yes the term “racism” in the abstract could possibly describe my position, if only it were taken as a synonym for my preferred term, “race realism.” But who takes it this way? Johnson himself recognizes the problem of his choice a few sentences later, when he switches to “racialism” in order to “avoid confusion with simple racial bigotry.” In common use “racism” is a highly derogatory term applied to those whom our present ruling powers desire to destroy. To call a man a “racist” in public is to mark him as idiotic and hateful, and to threaten him with permanent unemployment. We of course do not decry the wholesome use of social opprobrium. However, Christians ought to carefully avoid even the appearance of handing fellow Christians over to a worldly outrage mob because of a difference in opinion.
Failures in Argument
As to the substance of his critique, after noting some agreements, Johnson presents sixteen summaries of my arguments each followed by his response, and then adds six further arguments of his own. I’ll address each point, laboring to avoid unnecessary repetition, but taking time to be thorough because of the importance of this issue.
Argument 1. Acts 17:26–27, God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord.”
Johnson’s Response. (1) The mere variety of nations does not prove deep racial differences, or racial inferiority. (2) God’s will of decree to divide nations should not be confused with a will of precept, that we have a moral duty to maintain those distinctions.
My Answer. (1) Not on its own apart from other arguments, but neither does it disprove them.
(2) Providence is not the moral law, but it has strong weight in determining duty. The fifth commandment, Honor thy father and thy mother, presumes a particular divine providence that has made a certain man my father, and a certain woman my mother. Compare Paul’s particular love for a particular people, the Jews, “my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3), which depends on his perception that providence has made the Jews his own people in a way others are not. God has made clear genetic divisions among mankind, of race, nation, tribe, and family. We have a moral duty to recognize those divisions, praise and thank him for them, and observe the greater responsibility we have according to the various relations of proximity they put us in.
This is a standard point in historic Christian teaching. To prove that I supply three testimonies.
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 101, art. 1, translation cited from here):
Man is made a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits he receives from them. In both respects God holds the highest place, since he is most excellent and is for us the first principle of being and government. In the second place, the principles of our being and government are our parents and our fatherland, by whom and in which we have been born and nourished. Therefore, man is a debtor especially to his parents and his fatherland, after God. Hence just as it pertains to religion to worship God, so it pertains to piety, in a secondary degree, to honor one's parents and one's fatherland. Included in the honor given to our parents is the honor given to all our blood relations, since they are called our blood relations because they descend from the same parents, according to the Philosopher. In the honor given to our fatherland is included the honor given to all our fellow-citizens and to all the friends of our fatherland. Therefore piety extends principally to these.
William Ames (Marrow of Divinity, bk. 2, ch. 16, “Justice and Charity toward Our Neighbor”):
21. But if any apparent disparity appears, either in their nearness to God or to ourselves, then the one who exceeds in any nearness, is more to be beloved—that is, when we cannot exercise the act of our love alike toward all, we are more bound to place our love on those whom God has commended to us by some special nearness or communion, than on others. Therefore, even though we should equally will the salvation of others, yet the exercise and care of this will is chiefly due those who are joined near to us in some special respect. For example, though a Soldier ought to wish well to all his fellow Soldiers, yet he is bound to take most care of those who are of the same band, and closest to him in Rank. This appears in that example of Paul, who more fervently desired the conversion of the Israelites than of other Nations. He gives one reason for this affection: because they were his brethren, and kindred according to the flesh, Rom 9.3.
22. Yet in this prerogative of charity, we must wish for those who are near to us, those good things which pertain to that conjunction by which they are near—such as wishing spiritual good things to those who are most spiritually joined to us, and natural good things to those with whom we have a natural nearness. It is not that those kinds of good things are to be separated from one another in our desires, but because of the very kind of conjunction, it is as it were, a beckon from God by which he stirs us up to bestow our pains chiefly in this or that kind.
23. Hence it follows: First, that kindred in blood, caeteris paribus, all other things being equal, are more to be beloved than strangers, in those things which pertain to the good things of this life; and among those who are near in blood, those who are nearest are most to be loved.
Petrus van Mastricht (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2.3.2, “Love and Malevolence toward our Neighbor”):
The order of this love is such that, because God is to be cherished with love first and most highly, thus he is the formal reason as it were of love for neighbor. Then closest after God, we love ourselves with that love that aims at true blessedness, for by loving God with a love of union, we immediately love ourselves with the highest love that aims at our spiritual blessedness; and we love others as it were secondarily, as we want them to be partakers with us of the same good. Among men, although no one is to be excluded from our love, yet the same degree of love is not to be observed toward all. Indeed, with regard to the good that we ought to will for our neighbor, there is no inequality,because we ought to will the highest good for each neighbor, as we do for ourselves; nor with regard to the affection of willing or wishing that good ought there be any inequality of intensity and remission. But with regard to the exercise and effects of this affection, an inequality of frequency, order, and extension occurs, as the concurrence of circumstances makes the operation of love necessary. For (1) we ought to elicit more frequently the act itself of charity toward those in whom the reasons and causes of love more frequently come before us. (2) An order ought to be observed according to the occasion that is offered, and the proportion of acts to their objects. (3) There ought to be an extension to more or nobler effects, according to their necessity, and the worthiness of the things loved. See Ames, Cases of Conscience (bk. 5, ch. 7, q. 4). Now, with these points introduced generally, among men those are to be loved more than others who draw nearer to God, and in God to ourselves (Gal. 6:10). Consequently, with other things being equal, believers should be loved more than unbelievers; blood relatives, other things being equal, more than strangers; and among blood relatives, those who are more closely conjoined to us than those who are so more distantly, but that according to the nature of the conjunction by which they draw near to us: if the conjunction with someone is physical, physical things are owed more to him;if spiritual, more so spiritual things; that is, if an act of charity that regards both cannot be exercised equally toward both at the same time.
The substance of this response to Argument 1 is repeated various times below, so it seemed worth addressing at greater length.
Argument 2. Genesis 9, regarding the spreading out of Noah’s sons.
Resp. This again confuses the “indicative and the imperative.” And regarding v. 27, “Japheth ‘dwelling in Shem’s tent’ hardly seems like the sort of segregation that Spangler advocates for.”
Ans. Again, God’s providence in separating mankind into three large racial groupings has moral weight.
Moreover, the prophecy of Japheth’s dwelling in the tents of Shem does not oppose all racial segregation. The text itself presumes and does not destroy the distinction between the two racial lines. Nor is geographical proximity, or even some measure domestic cohabitation, itself necessarily race-mixing. The mere presence of a minority of foreign strangers in a household or nation—e.g. Abraham and his foreign servant Eliezer of Damascus (Gen. 15:2), or Israel and its foreign residents like Ebed-melech the Ethiopian (Jer. 38:7)—in itself brings no dilution of their racial identity. In fact, common experience among today’s American Southerners teaches that geographical proximity to other races can in fact increase one’s reasonable conviction of the imprudence of mixing with them.
However, we believe v. 27 is most properly taken as a figure for the conversion of the Japhetites, dwelling in the tents of Shem by believing in Shem’s son Jesus Christ. This is notably fulfilled in the New Testament progress of the gospel throughout the Roman empire, then to Northern Europe and its colonies. This advance of the true religion in no way taught the propriety of racial mixing. In fact, when Protestant Japhetites in their colonizing efforts found themselves in close proximity to highly distinct racial groups, they notably enacted laws against miscegenation, as we proved from American history. And just as notably, the Papists, whom Johnson and I agree are grossly corrupted in religion, followed a policy of racial mixing which resulted in the large mestizo populations that today inhabit the nations they colonized.
Argument 3. Gen. 10:32, “after their generations.”
Resp. This is irrelevant.
Ans. It is not irrelevant: it is a clear scriptural statement that races are differentiated from each other, and into their various subordinate nations, in the normal course of natural generation. Race and ethnicity are genetic realities.
Argument 4. “The Bible says people are different colors and passes some aesthetic judgment on it, in Jer. 13.23, Acts 8:27, Song. 1:5-6, Gen. 10:6, Lam. 4:7-8, 1 Sam. 16:12, Song 5:10, etc.”
Resp. (1) In Song 1:5, “black” and “comely” are not opposed. (2) Metaphors of light and dark to speak of moral things do not presume aesthetic judgments. (3) The Bible “places very little value on physical beauty,” per Prov. 31:30 and 1 Peter 3:3–4.
Ans. (1) “Black” and “comely” are opposites. This is a standard historic interpretation of this verse, and fits well with v. 6, “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.” On this address to the “daughters of Jerusalem,” James Durham explains,
First then (saith she) I answer, by conceding what is truth, I am black, both with crosses and corruptions, that cannot be denyed. 2. She qualifies her concession, though I be black, yet I am comely, that is, I am not universally or altogether unlovely, mine estate is mixed, being made up of crosses and comforts, corruptions and graces, beauty and blacknesse.
(2) Metaphors of light and dark do presume aesthetic judgments. White is universally recognized as a color of purity, and is accordingly opposed to black. Of course the color black, or dark brown, considered in itself has its own proper beauty, as do black people, but all we asserted was that Scripture “passes some aesthetic judgment.” This assertion stands.
(3) The Bible often speaks of relative importance in absolute terms. Prov. 31:30, “Beauty is vain,” needs to be read in light of God’s own commendation of physical beauty (Gen. 12:11; 26:7; 29:17; etc.), even in terms of fair skin (in David, 1 Sam. 16:12;and metaphorically in Christ, Song 5:10).
Argument 5. Geographical separation of the nations.
Resp. “Again, a great difference lies between the indicative and the imperative.” Travel is sometimes required, Gen. 12:1, etc., and movement of peoples or individuals not forbidden.
Ans. Travel and movement in themselves do not themselves imply any racial mixing, or deny that races have their own proper geographical homes. The millions of immigrants crossing the U.S. border, documented or not, are no less foreign for setting their feet on American soil. Modern migration has pressed ethnic boundaries, but not destroyed them: China is still overwhelmingly ethnically Chinese, India still Indian, etc. Many migrants still consider their foreign land their proper home. Africans who have been in the United States for centuries still call themselves “African-Americans.” Similarly, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt were still called Hebrews even at their emancipation four hundred years after migrating there.
Argument 6. “People speak different languages.”
Resp. (1) “Many languages are spoken by multiple races, and no race speaks just one language,” e.g. Paul, whose multilingual cross-cultural ministry was not “an abomination.” (2) At best this argues cultural, not racial difference. (3) Blacks and whites both speak English, does this not mean they have closer kinship than whites of different nations?
Ans. (1) Any capable person can learn foreign languages, but the languages are still foreign. The universal phenomenon of distinct “native tongues” is a strong witness to racial and ethnic divisions. To imply a Christian race realist would call foreign language preaching an “abomination” is gratuitous. We assert instead that it is a necessary part of the fulfillment of the church’s great commission (Matt. 28:19).
(2) Culture and race are distinct, but usually not separable. We grant language in the abstract is separable from genetics. However, it does not follow from this that culture broadly conceived has no genetic basis.
(3) White and blacks in the U.S. do have a linguistic affinity. But there are other significant respects in which whites in far-removed nations have more affinity with each other than with blacks in their own lands. And the well-known differences between white and black English are clear enough linguistic markers of their racial division.
Argument 7. “National sins exist. The Canaanites were exterminated.”
Resp. (1) General national sins have exceptions in individuals. They are imputed to individuals only insofar as they are individually guilty of them. National sins change over time and place. (2) This would imply “that kinship between honest, godly, protestant blacks and whites is far greater than the kinship between Christian whites and heathen, atheist, or Roman Catholic whites.”
Ans. (1) Of course there are individual exceptions. But when speaking of groups, we have to speak generally, in terms of aggregates and averages. If we cannot do this, we cannot say anything meaningful of any race or nation as a whole. We grant plainly with Peter, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34). This is not the point in question.
(2) We gladly affirm spiritual affinity between sincere Protestant blacks and whites. And moreover, that this is the best and most precious form of affinity: “To the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight” (Ps. 16:3). But spiritual affinity does not remove many other weighty marks of difference between races, nor their importance.
Argument 8. “Some nations rule over others. Canaan shall be a ‘servant of servants.’ ‘“Servant of servants” would aptly describe the future fate of many of Ham’s black African children.’”
Resp. (1) Rule comes from God’s sovereign choice, not immutable or inherent superiority. God gave Israel greatness not for any merit in them, Deut. 7:6–7. And he removes superiority from nations for proudly attributing it to their own virtue. (2) “There is no biblical basis upon which to assert that sub-Saharan Africans are descendants of Ham.”
Ans. (1) Yes, “God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another” (Ps. 75:7). But to assert he never does this, at least in part, by granting in providence certain intrinsic racial characteristics fitting to rule, or to subjection, goes too far. We may speak of mercy or grace in God’s giving of natural gifts, in order to cultivate thankfulness, and destroy all pride and arrogance, which God hates. But temporal rule is usually in part a matter of natural endowments, and we do not usually speak of strictly natural abilities as gifts of mercy, at least not of saving mercy, but rather as gifts of God’s more general kindness and love for man. Moreover, if a gift is truly natural to a man, it is immutable in the respect that if it changed, it would require a change in his nature. God can make such a change, but he does not commonly do so. There is an analogy with races and nations: though they are subject to some change, usually in the long term, the natural characteristics that distinguish them are fairly permanent and stable, at least over the course of a normal human lifetime.
Compare Samuel Rutherford (Lex Rex, q. 13):
The degree or order of subjection natural is a subjection in respect of gifts or age: so Aristotle (Politics 1.3) says, “Some are by nature servants.” His meaning is good, that some gifts of nature, such as natural wisdom or aptitude to govern, have made some men of gold, fitter to command, and some of iron and clay, fitter to be servants and slaves. …
Aquinas (II-II. q. 57. art. 3). Driedo (De libert. Christ. bk.1, p. 8). following Aristotle, (Politics 7.14) hold, though man had never sinned, there should have been a sort of dominion of the more gifted and wiser above the less wise and weaker, not antecedent from nature, properly, but consequent, for the utility and good of the weaker, insofar as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger, which cannot be denied to have some ground in nature.
We address a practical point Johnson raises here. He asks, “Will God not also judge the European or the White American who boasts that his power and prosperity is a result of his own merit and not God’s mercy?” We answer, yes, and duly warned. But we ask in return, “Will not God judge the European or the White American who in false humility refuses to take up the responsibility of his God-given superiority in order to serve others, and promote Christ’s kingdom?”
(2) We leave the informed reader to Johnson’s argument from linguistics. It seems fairly evident to us that sub-Saharan Africans are descendants of Ham, if only because Jer. 13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” attributes notably distinct skin to the “Cushite” (per the literal Hebrew), and Cush was a son of Ham (Gen. 10:6), as Johnson admits. Samuel Bochart, a French Protestant, was considered an expert on these matters in the 17th century: in his Geographia Sacra (here) he asserts that in the division of the world, Ham received, among other places, “Egypt and all Africa.” He goes on to affirm a common speculation, which we echoed in our second article:
In Hebrew cham means hot, and chum black. Thus the name of Ham came either from heat or from blackness. Nor does this seem to have happened apart from the divine will, since the Africa that fell to Ham labors under immoderate heat, and nearly all his posterity were burned and darkened by the intensity of the nearby star.
Argument 9. “Nations have different religions.”
Resp. (1) Spangler uses testimonies only from the Old Testament. “How foolish,” given the promise that Egyptians will know the Lord, etc. (Isa. 19:21–25). (2) This implies a strong kinship between Protestant Christians of any race.
Ans. (1) I note he answers with a testimony from the Old Testament. I affirm Ps. 72:11, “All nations shall serve him,” and that remarkable progress has been made toward this already under the New Testament. No doubt Johnson would affirm with me that for a pagan nation to put away its false gods is a miraculous work of God’s grace (Jer. 2:11), as it was among our white pagan ancestors. But we should not make generalizations about race according to miracles, and certainly not unknown future miracles. For example, I reasonably expect “Indians are Hindus” to be a safe generalization at least for the rest of my lifetime, though I pray and long for the day when India will bow the knee to Jesus Christ.
(2) We answered this above under Argument 7, (2).
Argument 10. “Israel’s civil law implies a certain level of nationalism.”
Resp. (1) If so, to exceed that level is sin by excess. Forbidding interracial marriages is a sin by excess. (2) Nationalism does not mean “racism.” “Black Americans and white Americans all pertain to the same state and nation, and are ‘natural born citizens.’”
Ans. (1) This is not how the general equity of the Old Testament civil law is applied. If we agree nationalism is a principle of general equity, then the manner of its civil application depends on prudent observation of our contemporary circumstances. As the civil law of Israel has expired, nations today are not bound to its particular limits and degrees, only to its equity. However, we are bound to recognize that none of the particular laws of Israel, being divinely given, were unjust in themselves. Given therefore that at least certain interracial marriages were forbidden in Israel’s civil law, Deut. 7:3, it cannot be true that legal prohibition of certain interracial marriages is a sin in the abstract. It would have to be proven to be sin in the concrete circumstances.
(2) We note the recurring term “racism.” We also note the failure to divide the question, and the begging of the question, that blacks and whites “pertain to the same state and nation.” It is evident that blacks pertain to the same state as whites in the U.S., having been given legal citizenship. That they are of the same nation presumes membership in a nation can be entirely separated from blood ancestry, which we deny. They are a distinct black nation, “African-Americans.”
Argument 11. Israel’s tribal land ownership.
Resp. “The specific laws concerning the inalienability of property in Canaan were typological,” citing Matthew Henry on the Jubilee, and on the distinction on this point with the laws of England.
Ans. Yes, the civil law taught spiritual truths, and pictured future spiritual realities. This did not make it no longer a true civil law, or remove its general equity. Israel and Judah’s kings were certainly types of Christ. Yet this did not mean Samuel Rutherford was wrong to draw many political lessons from those kings in his book Lex Rex. So for all other sound use of the Bible in political theory, or in various branches of philosophy and science. Nor was England required to replicate the Mosaic civil law in its details, only in its equity.
Argument 12. “Israelite law discriminated against foreigners in matters of slavery and interest.”
Resp. Political difference does not imply “profound intellectual, moral, and religious differences between different races.”
Ans. Lawful discrimination between ethnic Israelites and foreigners in the civil law shows more than a “political difference.” It is a witness to the reality of ethnic difference, which precedes and is presumed by the legal distinctions in question. “Israelite” and “sojourner” are not categories created by the law, but rather observed by it. Ethnic difference is not merely political. We grant this smaller argument in itself it does not bear the weight of our whole case: it is one small witness among many to the reality of racial difference.
Argument 13. “Israelite law required that their ruler be a fellow Jew.”
Resp. “Our commonwealth has a similar law in the constitution that the president be a ‘natural born citizen.’ But a law requiring he be white would be of quite a different nature. Like the last point, this one confuses citizenship and race.”
Ans. It is rather Johnson’s response that confuses citizenship and race. We grant that removing racial rules for citizenship in America has contributed to this confusion. But in light of the history of early America, in which all “natural born citizens” were white, the requirement of a native president was a racial requirement, just as it was in Deuteronomy 17:15.
Argument 14. “Israelite law required separation from foreigners.”
Resp. This was for the sake of religion. “Converts to Judaism, however, were integrated into the people and their offspring were afforded all civil rights and privileges of full-blooded Israelites.” The assimilation of Ruth testifies against the “one-drop rule” of American segregation.
Ans. It remains to be proven that there were no other reasons for the laws in question than religion. Did God not at all desire to preserve his people’s ethnic identity for its own sake, out of love for them? Should not we? Or might not there be other other evils and inconveniences besides false religion that those laws were intended to prevent? Or that such laws wisely applied today could also prevent?
Even if they were only for religion, this would lend a strong argument to the equity of such requirements today, e.g. strictly forbidding all Hindu immigration to the United States. However, note that the laws in question are written in ethnic terms, naming particular nations (e.g. Deut. 7), though with religious reasons given (v. 4). So properly the analogy would be a law today forbidding Indian immigration to America, for the sake of preventing the influence of Hinduism. Would Mr. Johnson affirm such a law?
Moreover, it is simply false to assert that converts to Judaism, simply because they were converted, “were integrated into the people and their offspring were afforded all civil rights and privileges of full-blooded Israelites.” Johnson cites Num. 9:14, which only says that strangers may keep the Passover. His claim confuses the two kingdoms of Christ, the church and the state, the spiritual and the temporal, which two things were clearly distinct in both Old and New Testament. It is analogous to saying that when a foreign visitor is converted in an American church, he and his children thereby become American.
Such a claim might be expected from an Erastian, or a Voluntaryist, but not from a Presbyterian Establishmentarian. George Gillespie rejects it in his refutation of Erastianism in Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, saying of Old Testament proselytes (citing with approval John Selden, though himself an Erastian),
They were initiated into the Jewish religion by circumcision, baptism, and sacrifice; and they were allowed not only to worship God apart by themselves, but also to come into the church and congregation of Israel, and to be called by the name of Jews,—nevertheless, they were restrained and excluded from dignities, magistracies and preferments in the Jewish republic, and from divers marriages which were free to the Israelites, even as strangers initiated and associated into the church of Rome have not therefore the privilege of Roman citizens. Thus Mr. Selden, who hath thereby made it manifest that there was a distinction of the Jewish church and Jewish state, because those proselytes, being embodied into the Jewish church as church members, and having a right to communicate in the holy ordinances among the rest of the people of God, yet were not properly members of the Jewish state, nor admitted to civil privileges; whence it is also that the names of Jews and proselytes were used distinctly, Acts ii. 10.
Also, we did and do affirm that marriage is a means of ethnic assimilation, citing the case of Ruth and Boaz. This of course is presumed by every historic law against inter-racial marriage: the whole purpose of them was to prevent undue or harmful ethnic assimilation. Moreover, the “one-drop rule” was not universal in historic American jurisprudence, and it should not be used to mock the difficulty of determining exact ethnic boundaries when answering relevant legal questions. Hard cases do not make laws impossible.
Argument 15. “The burden of proof lies on those who would prove that interracial marriages are lawful.”
Resp. “On the contrary, the doctrine of Christian liberty and liberty of conscience demands that the burden of proof always lie on the one who would prove something unlawful. See Dt. 12:32, as well as chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession.”
Ans. Mr. Johnson fairly accurately summarized my arguments above, but here he has not. This is what I said on this point in article 2, emphasis added:
In light of all these things, if some would assert that race realism in general, or in specific a preference for intra-ethnic or intra-racial marriage, is unique to the Old Testament economy, and not at all a matter of universal, permanent, general equity, we would simply say here, the burden of proof for this assertion rests entirely on them.
This was barely an assertion on my part. I softened it rhetorically on purpose to gain a better hearing for a view that I know many find very offensive, and which I promised to expand upon later. To speak more directly here, I do not assert that inter-ethnic or inter-racial marriage is in itself unlawful, strictly forbidden in all its forms by Scripture and nature, as in the case of so-called “gay marriage.” I did and do affirm there are examples of it in Scripture, and though examples do not themselves make law, I do not assert that they are all bad examples. What I do assert is this, that given various serious factors—the enormous importance of the choice of one’s spouse, the weighty consequences that choice brings for the couple, their children, their family, and their nation, the blessings that come from affinity and similarity in marriage, the special love we owe to family, kin, and nation, the differences God has established in providence between races and nations, the woeful reality of racial strife, which appears only to be increasing, and other not insignificant special challenges that come to spouses and their children through inter-racial marriage—it is usually not wise, not prudent, not best to marry across a large ethnic boundary, and all the less so the greater that boundary is. And yes, we do affirm, as should all people, that it is a sin not to be wise, not to be prudent, and not to choose the best we can, even among things that may be lawful in themselves.
To address Mr. Johnson’s concern directly: I do not assert that what is unlawful is inter-racial marriage per se. Rather, what is unlawful is to be imprudent. And inter-racial marriage is often imprudent. Indeed in some extreme forms it is always imprudent, or at least so often imprudent that rules should be enforced against it, in the family, or even in the state, as in Christian America until 1967.
I believe this has fully answered the charge from Deut. 12:32, against adding to God’s Word, or as it more popularly expressed, “That’s legalism!” It is not legalism. It is wisdom, and we ignore it at our peril.
Argument 16. “‘A special love for kin and nation is a part of natural affection.’”
Resp. “Am I, a white man from Wisconsin, closer kin to a white Russian speaker in Siberia than a black man that lives next door?” Christ in Luke 10 says the Samaritan was more a neighbor to the injured man than were the priest and Levite.
Ans. Yes, you are closer racial kin to the white man, though you are have more affinity with the black neighbor in other ways. In Luke 10 Christ commends an example of mercy toward a nearby stranger in immediate need, and condemns the self-righteous withholding of love from him. We affirm this heartily, and deny that special love for kin and nation oppose this in the least. Luke 10:36–37 and 1 Timothy 5:8 are in perfect harmony.
Johnson’s Arguments
We move now to Johnson’s own arguments against racialism, with my answers.
1. “Children from unlawful unions are cursed in Scripture. But children from interracial marriages are not cursed. Therefore, they are not unlawful.”
Ans. This is answered well enough in Argument 15 above. We do not affirm the parallel of fornication and interracial marriage. Also, either his major premise is false, or his logic unsound. For the syllogism to work the major premise would have to be, “All children from all unlawful unions are cursed in Scripture,” but his citations of Scripture only prove this is so for some children from some unlawful unions.
For his refutation of the potential objection from the Ammonites and Moabites, we refer the reader to Argument 14 above.
2. “No prohibition exists on these marriages. Therefore, they are not prohibited.”
Ans. See Argument 15 above.
3. The lowest-level biological category in Scripture, across the boundaries of which miscegenation is forbidden, is the species-level boundary. Therefore, it is not racial boundaries.”
Ans. We affirm mixing of man with other species is unlawful and perverted, Lev. 18:23. “It is confusion.” As explained in Argument 15 above, we do not ascribe the same manner of unlawfulness to inter-racial marriage. Yet there is a principle of equity in this law, against undue confusion of things God has made separate. That principle remains relevant to the question of inter-racial marriage.
4. “The universal moral laws of Scripture, such as the ten commandments and the law of love, do not command segregation or sanction racism, but rather, they are inconsistent with it.”
Ans. This is a mere assertion, not proven, as if there were no possible respect in which morality or love could inform a moderate separation of races according to prudence.
The rhetorical question that follows is gratuitous:
Can it be imagined that such scenes that we have witnessed under Jim Crow in the United States such as refusing to serve food to paying black customers, allocating inferior facilities to them, denying them the use of the courts and the protection of the laws, refusing to admit them to schools and universities, and the use of racial violence to maintain white supremacy are consistent with laws like “love your neighbor as yourself”?
The various assertions of sin here are not permissible without clear proof and defining of terms. If they are false, they are slanders of an entire people, indeed the author’s own ethnic and political countrymen, most of them professors of his own Christian religion. The assumption that they can be asserted without proof, as common knowledge, we fear reveals an unthinking submission to a false historical narrative. They also are strange exceptions to the measured academic tone observed elsewhere in Johnson’s reply.
He then suggests a possible objection, “Black and white people are not neighbors.” This is grasping at straws. No sane white Christian would deny various respects in which blacks in his own country are his neighbors, and much less deny that he should show them mercy when they are in need, as he has opportunity. Race realists by no means deny the duty of love of neighbor, of all men, even of enemies. Rather, they affirm that true love is ordered, acting more strongly according as bonds of affinity are stronger, as explained above by Aquinas, Ames, and Mastricht, and that one important bond of affinity, among others, is race.
5. “All of mankind is alike created and renewed in the image of God in ‘knowledge, righteousness and holiness.’ Therefore, there are not the profound intellectual, moral, and spiritual differences Spangler posits.”
Ans. If he speaks only of truly converted Christians, this has little relevance for discussing racial or political matters, as most men are not renewed in the image of God. But even only among Christians, his arguments are not sound. Conversion does not change a man’s natural intelligence. Conversion does remove the dominion of sin, but not its presence, nor a man’s natural proclivities toward certain sins. No doubt truly converted American Indians generally have to struggle harder against abusing alcohol. Conversion does not immediately remove all religious differences either: the religion of Christian blacks in America is notably different from that of Christian whites, even among the best examples of the most sincere and godly people, and even within churches that claim the same ecclesiastical tradition.
6. “When Miriam and Aaron complain against Moses on the basis of his mixed race marriage, God sides with Moses. Therefore, their complaint was baseless.”
Ans. This argument fails to make proper distinctions. The main complaint was against Moses’ authority, Num. 12:2, “Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses?” It appears the claim against his Ethiopian wife was secondary to this, as God’s response in vv. 6–8 does not address it. Therefore, if Miriam and Aaron are alleging against Moses the charge of impropriety in marrying a foreigner, it does not follow that because they were punished for opposing Moses’ authority by this, that there is therefore never impropriety in marrying foreigners.
We also should be careful not to allege a greater degree of racial mixing that was actually involved in this marriage. It seems to us the wife in question was Zipporah the Midianite, called an “Ethiopian” (lit. “Cushite”) because the Midianites lived in the region sometimes called Cush. If this is so, Midian was a son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. 25:2), so racially speaking, not very distant from Moses.
Conclusion
Again, I affirm Mr. Johnson has made an effort to address this difficult matter with clarity, order, logic, and submission to the Scriptures. This is much preferable to the unthinking denunciations that often pass for discourse about race, even among Christians. I for one welcome many more such efforts. But as noted above this particular reply has failed to convict the present author of “scandalous behavior and positions.” I leave readers to consider the rest of my series on race realism, the latest article of which is here.
For further reading, I also highly recommend the essay “Natural Communities” by Michael Hunter, which, though published in 2022, is quite useful for addressing Mr. Johnson’s arguments.