Indifference & Racism: Why just being "not racist" isn't enough
Over two years ago there was a bit of a scuffle among the theonomic community. Dr. Joel McDurmon (a fellow Lamb's Reign founder) had recently published his excellent work The Problem of Slavery in Christian America. As can be expected, he received backlash from outspoken racists and radical defenders of Southern slavery and the Confederacy. The kinist blogs called Joel a "Marxist" a "race traitor" and every other political slur in the books. We saw this reaction from a mile away.
But there was also another community among the reformed (many theonomic but not exclusively so) who questioned the value in focusing on historical American slavery. They didn't necessarily defend slavery or even contest the content of Joel's work, but they did make several complaints that amounted to them, as Southern men or men who associate themselves with "Southern ideals," feeling picked on. And regarding the injustices of the past, only indifference was shown.
Not long after this, Joel wrote an article discussing two prominent examples in modern reformed ministry who teach that interracial marriage is sin. Both Peter Hammond and John Weaver were exposed as either kinists or at least as teachers holding dangerous and racist ideas. See this and this followup regarding these men.
Yet even after this, a regional reformed conference still chose to platform and support Peter Hammond regardless of his views on race (also regardless of his lawful excommunication, neo-Nazi affiliations, long list of lies, etc.)
There were those who affirmed these racist ideas and ethnocentric philosophies, but there were many more who only showed indifference and annoyance at these injustices being brought up.
Yes, there’s a crowd of ultra-conservative, patriarchal, theonomic, and reformed men who aren’t necessarily kinists, but who you should mark out when you see them. However, we shouldn't think that this indifference to injustice is unique to this clique. These guys are irrelevant and won't matter in the long run.
Christians, indifference is cancer. Indifference never stays neutral because there is no such thing as ethical neutrality. Indifference against injustice is not neutrality, but just another form of injustice. My theonomic friends should know that there is no neutrality. When men attempt to remain neutral (not just gentlemanly and level-headed, but neutral) they take a side. Over time their complacency and indifference evolves into something more. Like a tumor, the apathy spreads and transforms. The root of indifference is a lack of understanding and knowing justice, goodness, and truth. The ability to tell good from evil is the cornerstone of justice, and failing at this most fundamental level can quickly lead from not caring about injustice to practicing injustice. Indifference towards racism turns into sympathy for racism and that sympathy turns into advocacy for racism. The heart of indifference reveals a susceptibility towards injustice.
About eight years ago I became an abortion abolitionist because simply being pro-life was not enough. Abolitionism was a call to action and an active declaration that you were not just personally pro-life, but you actively sought out justice on behalf of the preborn. For years I called on Christians to not just set themselves apart as people who wouldn't personally abort a child, but as someone who is active in abolishing abortion. I stand by the same ideals today.
In the same way, simply not being a racist or not being a kinist is not enough. Neutrality was never a real option, and it still isn't. When the moment to take a stand comes (and that moment has come again and again) we can’t just claim innocence while being a bystander. We, as Christians, cannot claim that a fight for justice is not our fight but we're "good" because we don't actively participate in the sin. This is true of injustice in general, but specifically, it is true of the Christian duty to war against hateful racial partiality. It's time to come to terms with the importance of being an anti-racist or an abolitionist of injustice, as opposed to just "well, I'm not racist." It has never been enough and the call to work against injustice isn’t a “woke” or “Marxist” paradigm, but the simple insistence on the positive aspect of God’s Law. God’s Law calls on us to not only forsake evil, but to answer evil within society.
An excerpt from answer 145 of the Westminster Larger Catechism on bearing false witness shows that the positive duty of Christians extends beyond simply not telling lies.
“concealing the truth, undue silence in a just cause, and holding our peace when iniquity calleth for either a reproof from ourselves, or complaint to others”
The Westminster Divines saw “undue silence in a just cause” as sin. Not only caring about our own personal sins, but also speaking out for just causes is a duty of the individual Christian. This means that Christians do not only have a negative command to not give false witness, but they also have a positive command to speak and act on behalf of a just cause.
A few years ago the public persona of the beforementioned indifferent reformed men included indulging in their “southern heritage” pride and shrugging off kinism as "not a big deal." Now, about two years later and still palling around with all of their openly racist best buddies, I’m entirely unsurprised to see many of them openly declaring that they want a “Christian” nation-state with ethnicity as a central attribute. In other words, a white, English speaking, nation. See the below screenshot. All the usual suspects liked and agreed. The indifferent of two years ago are the ethno-nationalists of today and unashamedly so.
Indifference towards injustice is not neutrality, it's sin.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” ― Elie Wiesel