One Timothy L. Cho decides to labor in proving that the Holy Scriptures speak out against “Racism.” In this piece I labor to refute Timothy L. Cho.
First, note Cho’s proofs provided from the Scripture don’t by themselves give us a definition of “Racism,” as we will see as we respond. Most of the passages that Mr. Cho provides really don’t have anything to do with modern day constructs of “Racism.”
Right out of the gate we should note that this whole idea of “Racism,” as used in our modern Cultural Marxist context, was popularized by the Marxist Leon Trotsky in the 20th century as a means by which White Christianity could be weighted with false guilt and so eventually destroyed. As such, the charge of “Racism,” has been nothing but a tool of the Marxist Left to clear the field of their opposition – ultimately, to the end of triumphing over Christ and His Christendom. The fact that this idea of “Racism” has gained so much traction in the 21st century is proof positive that the Trotskyists have won the day. The fact that Mr. Cho can hurl this charge at Christ’s Church is proof positive that he is (perhaps unknowingly) riding the Cultural Marxist Trotskyite train.
Having given this introduction, let us turn to the article in question, Cho beings his article:
“An honest look at the history of Christianity in the United States will quickly reveal the appalling truth that racism has too often gone hand in hand with the gospel.”
Now, keep in mind that Cho hasn’t yet given us a definition of “Racism,” so we can’t be absolutely sure what he is talking about here. Still, Cho is clearly convinced that presumably White Christians have been uniquely guilty of not treating non-white people very well. He doesn’t seem conversant with the history of white-slavery in America, which long preceded the “Racism” he seems to be complaining about. That white slavery existed as it did is indicative that whatever sins may have been perpetuated among non-white people they were not unique in their suffering. This dulls the charge of “Racism.” If all ethnic people groups suffered under the same conditions, at one time or another, then it is hardly the case that “Racism” is afoot.
The fact that Whites were, at one time in America, held in the same bondage as non-whites would one day be is seen by just a few quotes. First, David Brion Davis writing in the New York Review of Books, Oct. 11, 1990, p. 37 states:
“From Barbados to Virginia, colonists.., showed few scruples about reducing their less fortunate countrymen to a status little different from that of chattel slaves… The prevalence and suffering of white slaves, serfs and indentured servants in the early modern period suggests that there was nothing inevitable about limiting plantation slavery to people of African origin.”
L. Ruchames in “The Sources of Racial Thought in Colonial America, states that, “the slave trade worked in both directions, with white merchandise as well as black.” (Journal of Negro History, no. 52, pp. 251-273).
With this accusation of “Racism,” Cho has fallen into the false narrative contrived by the enemies of White Christians and White Christianity. For those interested in reading the true narrative that counters the Cultural Marxist false narrative that Cho is espousing, I recommend the small booklet, “They Were White and They Were Slaves,” by Dr. Michael A. Hoffman II. Hoffman, in the opening pages, offers a truth that Cho and many others should consider,
“The height of academic and media fraud is revealed in the monopolistic trademark status the official controllers of education and mass communications have successfully established between the definition of the word “slave” and the negro, while labeling descriptions of the historic experience of Whites in slavery a fallacy. Yet the very word “slave,” which the establishment’s consensus school of history pretends cannot legitimately be applied to Whites, is derived from the word Slav. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word slave is another name for the White people of eastern Europe, the Slavs. (Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, p. 2,858). In other words, slave has always been a term for and a definition of a servile condition of White people. Yet we are told by the professorcrats that it is not correct to refer to Whites as slaves but only as servants, even though the very root of the word is derived from the historical fact of White slavery.”
What we have established already (and we have much more to deconstruct from Cho’s article) has proven that the idea that American Christianity has often gone hand-in-hand with “Racism” is just so much progressive white guilt cant.
Cho presses on:
“Unfortunately, when confronted about their racism, many within the church have defended their way of life by arguing that the Bible is silent on racism. The purported silence of the Bible on this topic and its related issues – racial supremacy, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia – is used to claim that Christians should have liberty to hold or not hold these sorts of views. Racism in all of its forms is considered a “social issue” or a “political issue” rather than a “gospel issue” or a “spiritual issue.’”
Let us concede here that if “Racism” is sin, it cannot be dismissed by merely labeling it as a social or political issue. However, “Racism,” in the way it is construed by modernity, is not a sin. Neither is ethnocentrism, which we find everywhere in Scripture. St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit communicates his ethnocentrism:
“I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race.”
Romans 9:2-3
When it comes to “racial supremacy,” it is simply the case that all races have their own unique superiorities which allow them to believe with certainty that they are, objectively speaking, racially supreme in one area or another. Who can look at modern professional athletics and not conclude that blacks own their racial supremacy?
Just as clearly, when considering racial supremacy there can be no dispute that white Christians are superior when it comes to building civilization. That this is true is indisputable. Any walk through a museum or a library proves the racial superiority of white Christians. Any examination of the history of inventions, discovery, industry, the arts, or warfare techniques testify to the racial superiority of white Christians.
Jesus Himself articulated racial superiority.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
John 4:22
Note here that Jesus is clearly articulating that His people were superior to the Samaritans when it came to the issue of worship. He also insists that salvation comes not from Samaritans, but comes from the faithful Jews. Clearly there is racial superiority being communicated here. Now, the Jews were the carrier of salvation only by God’s grace alone, but that doesn’t overthrow that there was racial superiority on this matter among the Jews.
The superiorities of any race is by God’s grace alone. There is no reason to boast because these superiorities are gifts of God. The attitude of any race should be one of humble gratitude for God’s goodness to them, and how he has set them apart to be superior while beseeching forgiveness for where they are responsible for their inferiorities. To deny racial supremacy where it exists is to embrace the fatuous idea that all peoples are equal (i.e. the same). Clearly, that idea is observably nonsensical. It is only Cultural Marxism that requires us to be blind to what would be obvious to any precocious four-year old.
John Calvin did not buy into equality,
“All are not created on equal terms … This God has testified, not only in the case of single individuals; He has also given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation was entirely at His disposal.”
Calvin, Institutes …,bk.iii, pp.206-205 Beveridge translation
Finally, as it pertains to xenophobia, there have been many times when xenophobia is the very essence of wisdom. I know that were I alive in the 15th century I would have been xenophobic towards the Aztecs. As such, contra Cho, I conclude that Christians should be allowed to hold these sorts of views when appropriate. Cho is in sin by claiming others are in sin for embracing ethnocentrism, racial supremacy, and xenophobia when it is properly required.
From here, Cho attempts to use the Scripture to condemn what he hasn’t even defined and what he, so far, hasn’t successfully demonstrated as sin.
In Part II we will turn to Cho’s putative Scriptural proofs.
-By Pastor Bret McAtee
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
I hate to put it like this (well, not really, but you know what I mean), but any “theologian,” or any person who fancies himself a theologian, carrying the surname Cho, and bearing the image and likeness that such a surname instantly projects in the mind’s eye, is, almost invariably, not someone whose “biblical knowledge and prowess” (or whose hermeneutics, in other words) I’m generally going to put a whole lot of stock in. That isn’t “racism” on my part per se, but it’s definitely a form of bigotry. I’m not especially ashamed of that, God help me.
I did follow your link and read the first few paragraphs of Mr. Cho’s article, btw. For me in particular the first few paragraphs were plenty to confirm my worst suspicions. I’ll still read your take down of Mr. Cho in future parts with some interest, however, so keep ’em coming as far as I’m concerned.
One of the remaining vestiges of the heresy of democracy (yes, I said heresy) is that ‘all men are created equal.’ This is the shibboleth that must be destroyed, before any honest critique of any theological or political issue can be discussed by civilized (i.e., Christendom) men.
As someone who has become Orthodox, one of the first elements that needs to be addressed is the heretical nature of a Democracy. I say this, as an American citizen born and bred in the US.
As Vladimir Moss (an Orthodox author has penned) “There are three major forms of State structure that differ radically in their relation to God and man: autocracy, despotism and democracy. In modern parlance, “autocracy” is virtually equivalent to “absolutism” or “despotism”. But in this work it signifies something different: monarchy in union with the Church, respectful of her essential independence and submitting to her in matters of faith. Despotism is monarchy that attempts to control the people in all aspects of its life, including the Church. And democracy is the despotism of public opinion regardless of the teaching of the Church. Autocracy is the only form of government that is pleasing to God; and in the Byzantine and Russian empires it has guided multitudes of men to the Church and salvation, in spite of the sins of its rulers. Despotism and democracy are two aspects of the same bipolar disease; in them Providence still guides men to salvation, but in spite of rather than with the help of governments, insofar as the dominant ideology is now not Orthodox Christianity but paganism, heresy or atheism.’
‘This is not an original thesis. In 1877 the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev made essentially the same distinction when he identified three basic forces incarnate in his time especially in Islam, the West and the Russian Orthodox Autocracy.” – https://www.academia.edu/41435720/THE_AGE_OF_FAITH?email_work_card=view-paper
If one is to be honest, as ‘free, white Englishmen’ we ALL were under a form of Monarchy, until the FOREIGN monarch (George III was a Hessian, and could barely speak English) caused the disrupture between us and the motherland. Since then, we were as close to a ‘more perfect union’ as could be imagined, until a second heresy arose- that of imagining that another race (the Negro) was our ontological equal. Since then, everything that has befallen these United States has been a consequence of the first two fallacies- that all White Men are equal, and then, that all Hominids are equal.
Cho is merely the ‘shabbas goyim’ of the Enemies of Christ, in his attempts to smear Christendom Man (i.e., White, European, Christian man) with his heresies. For this IS a religious issue, ladies and gentlemen, for ‘there is no neutrality.’