Visionaries,
Just a brief response to Andy:
I actually do think that R.L. Dabney had some racist assumptions, and these assumptions sometimes came out in truly odd ways. My favorite is found in his Systematic Theology, where he takes on redheads who do not know that they are objectively inferior. These racist assumptions of his are the result of accounting for discrepancies in cultural advancement by pointing to nature, or, as we would put it, genetics. But the real reason for the advancement of “the West” has been the influence of the gospel. For whites to preen themselves on their native genius and superiority is downright silly. Not very many centuries ago, my ancestors were probably painting themselves blue in order to run naked into battle. The savagery and primitivism of northern Europe (bastion of all those “good genes”!) matched any grotesquery you might find anywhere else. Left to their own devices, the white race is just like every other race among men — all screwed up. Thank God for forgiveness of sin. And thank God that this forgiveness is extended to all of us, (as I was taught to sing as a child), “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”
In response to any Internet racists or racialists that you all might google up (in imitation of John Fogerty, just a googling down to New Orleans), let me just say this. Please be tolerant of their mistakes because it is the same mistake being made by you so-called progressives throughout this flap. They (and you) think this is all about race, and it is not. It is about the Christian faith, and the righteousness of all the teachings of the Bible. One letter writer to the newspaper this morning had this point just right. He identified the crux of the issue. I do have a dog in this fight, but it is not defending the white race, or the old South, considered merely as such. I am a Christian, beginning to end. That is where my allegiance is. This is a much more insidious form of chauvinism, in that letter-writer’s view. Be that as it may, it is far more potent than any racial pride hooey.
Give me a Nigerian archbishop of Canterbury any day this week, and you can run out any corrupt poofter bishops you can find with a pitchfork. And as far as the Anglican communion is concerned, the future belongs to the black sheep, not to the white goats.
Cordially,
Douglas Wilson
Apologetics in the Void” are repostings from an on-going electronic discussion and debate I had some time ago with members of our local community, whose names I have changed. The list serve is called Vision 20/20, and hence the name “visionaries.” Reading just these posts probably feels like listening to one half of a phone conversation, but I don’t feel at liberty to publish what others have written. But I have been editing these posts (lightly) with intelligibility in mind.