My letter to my pastors and consistory, published here as my public testimony against the proposed adoption of these memorials:
Dear brothers,
I want to tell you where my mind is regarding these statements being considered at council.
Our well-intentioned CREC, like most sincere Bible Christians have done when faced with statements against racism, will likely adopt these statements. In my opinion they are terribly written, unnecessary, performative, confusing, and historically novel—but likely to be endorsed because that’s how this works due to our history as a nation. It’s wired into American conservatives to self-destruct into liberalization and to feel principled while we do it. No church has permanently figured out how to buck the trend and the rate at which it happens seems to be increasing.
As people object to these statements once they are adopted (or even now before they are adopted) the discussion will quickly turn to “see how justified we are! We were right over the target! We’re ratting out the racists.” And it will serve for justifying further performative measures that pressure white people (because from experience that is the only way these statements are EVER used) to prove they aren’t racist.
But the modern diversity beast is never satisfied. You can NEVER prove you are adequately against “separatism” or “racism” or not being “vainglorious” or are not “anti-Semitic” or are “nationalistic” in just the right way. This is because, number one, none of these things are necessarily sins and number two they are fake laws and highly malleable. You are instead trapped in a perpetual struggle session.
These sorts of statements do one thing: They enshrine the method of liberalization into an organization and are eventually used to keep the organization returning over and over to that method.
Study the history of every declining Christian church and it includes these sorts of statements and virtue signals about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
When Christians are concerned about sins that have some racial context, we need talk about those sins and confront them from a biblical framework, teaching against actual sins. While remaining intelligible, we ought not adopt the world’s framework, definitions, and terms. No one I know of in the CREC will be able to stand against the way a statement like this will likely be used against our churches and people over the next years. Older men will say, “we didn’t mean it that way when we adopted it” and it will prove in their inquisitor’s minds that the men who made the statement were rank hypocrites: “Racists like Doug Wilson always try to cover their tracks. Antisemites like Peter Leithart who believe the church is the true Israel always try to hide their hatred through doctrinal nuance!”
Traditional Protestants like myself who spent our adult lives defending the reputation of the CREC and came into the CREC over the past few years as other conservative churches are crumbling keep hearing that there is no way the CREC will repeat the history of every other American denomination. But here we are entering a well worn path, one previously stepped firmly out of in resisting the COVID regime together. Already we have seen adjacent ministries like Davenant promoting liberalization using the same methods liberals have used over and over. And the recent publication of Gilder’s evolutionary psychology approach to gender and the blowback against criticizing his views from CREC voices evidences that we are more vulnerable than we might think.
I’d also like to say that the human toll from such statements as these can be very high. Real Christians will be officially set at odds against each other, not as a matter of mere discussion, difference, and iron sharpening iron, but by official church doctrine. To oppose it or to not adequately affirm it will necessarily cause divisions in families and churches. To me this further division of Christians by our shepherds, a true American tragedy, is one of the saddest parts of this.
Yes. I’m already sad, and already disappointed, because it looks to me that it is destined to play out like it has and does among every other Christian group. Maybe in God’s kindness I’ll be wrong.
I would recommend opposing these statements. I would also ask that this letter be forwarded to our presiding ministers.
With love in Christ,
Shane
