Conservative Christians and Martin Luther King

You may have noticed, as I have, that certain reformed and evangelical Christians have an anachronistic love for the antebellum South. Though liberal Christians and even the unbelieving culture in America have largely put aside racial bigotry (at least in theory, in form, and in profession), we in the conservative wing of the Christian church have not done so well. Our failure is reflected in the refusal by some to acknowledge that black slavery, in both its theory and practice was immoral, and that the Civil War was the judgment of God against our nation for our national sin. Black slavery was immoral and God judged us for it. We are still suffering the after-effects of that judgment to this day. More unsettling is that our witness for Christ has likewise suffered and continues to suffer for our sin in this matter. But we have not yet learned repentance. I cite as an example -- and only as an example -- an issue of Credenda Agenda (Vol. 9, No. 1, c. 1997) entitled "True Defiance: A Memorial for Black Confederates." The lead article, written by Douglas Wilson, is ostensibly about the revision of history by today's academics. The relativists in academia would never, of course, call attention to the fact that southern blacks were Southerners, many of them loyal to the ideal of the Southern aristocratic society. Wilson seeks to correct this omission by calling attention to the service that blacks rendered -- bravely and loyally -- to the South during the Civil War (which Wilson predictably labels the "Southern War of Independence"). There is, unfortunately, a subtext. Toward the end of the article, Wilson interjects the modern mantras of the Southern apologist: "The war was over the meaning of constitutional government, the nature of federalism, the life of republics, and the definition of civic liberty." Yeah right. He also tips his hat to the sin of racism, while exhonerating the South from all blame in the matter: "We must recognize the racism that has afflicted many in the South since the war is the fruit of the Reconstruction, not of slavery and the war." Wilson continues, quite humorously in my opinion,

Those southern whites who today despise blacks, far from showing on-going resistance, are continuing to submit to that humanist nightmare which was first imposed at Reconstruction.

Thus does Wilson throw his little fagot on the fire of rebellion against the Federal government. If only Lincoln had not been elected, perhaps we never would have had FDR, the 60's, and Roe v. Wade. Wilson ends his article with this summary, which more or less shows the real motive for the article:

But we are convinced that we will not understand the current civil conflicts which surround us until we go back and learn the truth about the War Between the States. Until we get that particular history lesson straight, we will continue to get every other subsequent history lesson wrong. The battles we fight today are simply a later stage in the same war.

* * *

We cannot hope to fight the good fight now while repudiating those who fought the same fight earlier.

Wilson's penultimate paragraph relates the well-meaning advice coming from his milquetoast critics:

But still the apparently reasonable advice is offered to us. "give it up. Let it go. Stop fighting old battles. Quit tilting at windmills. Just accept the past. Let's just do what we can now. Don't inflame old wounds. Just let it go."

Wilson would, of course, carry on the struggle. The criticism Wilson doesn't mention -- perhaps he has never heard it -- is that we should tackle the history from the opposite angle. We -- as a nation, as slaveholders, as the Christian Church -- were wrong. Not because the modern-day relativists have declared us wrong, but because we committed grievous sin against God and against the image of God. Wilson and those like him are not nobly tilting at windmills, they are basely defending those who resisted God's law and demeaned those whom God loved. Rather than defend the immoralities of the past, we ought to put on sackcloth, sit in ashes, and murmur our contrite apologies. Repentance, not defiance, is the order of the day. It is way past time we learned that.

A.A. Hodge on Truth and Error

This is from A.A. Hodge's The Atonement, pages 17-18.

[A]ll error, especially all effective and therefore dangerous error, is partial truth. The human mind was formed for truth, and so constituted that only truth can exert permanent influence upon it. But the truth revealed in the Scriptures is so many-sided in its aspects, and so vast in its relations, and our habits of thought because of sin are so one-sided and narrow, that as a general fact, the mind of any Church in any single age fails to take in practically and sharply more than one side of a truth at a time, while other aspects and relations are either denied or neglected. A habit of unduly exalting any subordinate view of the truth at the expense of that which is more important, or of overlooking, on the other hand, some secondary aspect of it altogether, is certain after a time to lead to a reactionary tendency, in which that which has been too much exalted shall be brought low, and that which has been abased shall be exalted. This principle is abundantly illustrated throughout the entire history of theological speculation: as in the ever-repeated oscillations between the extremes of Sabellianism and Tritheism as to the Trinity, of Eutychianism and Nestorianism as to the Person of Christ, and in the history of speculations on the doctrine of Redemption. Every prominent heresy as to the nature of the Atonement ... embraces and emphasizes on its positive side an important truth. The power, and hence the danger, of the heresy resides in that fact. But on the other hand, it is a heresy, and hence an evil to be resisted unto death, because it either puts a subordinate principle into the place of that which is central and fundamental, or because it puts one side of the truth for the whole, denying or ignoring all besides the fractional truth presented. It is plainly the policy as well as the duty of the defenders of the whole truth, not only to acknowledge the truth held on the side of their opponents, but to vindicate the rights of the perfect system as a whole, by demonstrating the true position and relation of the partial truth admitted in the larger system of truth denied. By these means we double the defences of orthodoxy, by bringing into contribution all that is true, and therefore all that is of force, in the apologies of error.

This reminds me of Tony's thoughts on stereoscopic Calvinism and his image of the magic glasses. The fight for balance in our thinking is a constant effort; but it is our duty to engage in the struggle.

Blogging

Well, one can't hold out forever. I guess I am going to blog. Let's see ... what to say? Comments about other bloggers. That's good. Phil Johnson has the best looking blog site. Tony at Theological Meditations has the best blog on theology. Keith Plummer has the best Christian critique of contemporary culture. Sarah is my favorite Intellectuelle. If I've left you off my list and you want to be recognized in a blog entry nobody in the history of the universe will read other than you, please let me know. Me? I hope to have the most enigmatic use of key lime pie in connection with theology. I also hope not to spend too much time writing -- especially not useless drivel. (Though that may be curmudgeonly, I think Annie would approve.) More coming on theology, philosophy, apologetics, law, logic, chess, culture, pie, and maybe pi if I think of something interesting to say about it. Steve P.S. My apologies to Key Lime Pie, which I am sure is a very fine blog. I hope you don't mind.