These thoughts are in no particular order. Just some things racing through my mind.
- I have come to wince whenever I read a blog or a comment that begins with “First, I want to say that I condemn all racism; and white supremacy is bad and wicked.” I have found that whenever a comment begins that way, invariably the writer is about to say something horrible.
- I applaud this business for firing this openly racist employee.
- I wonder if the others who paraded the Nazi symbol and shouted inflammatory hate speech were immediately excommunicated from their congregations as soon as they returned. Something tells me not.
- God told Abraham that in his seed (who is Jesus Christ) all the families of the earth would be blessed. You cannot then shout curses at the families of the earth and have any part in Christ.
- God forbade the making of images to worship him. Images are powerful. When a statue becomes more important to you than peace and love, or even the lives of men and women in God’s image, you might have a worship problem.
- You might say to yourself, “It isn’t the statue, it’s what it represents.” This is exactly what Jeroboam would have said.
- If you are more committed to defending the confederacy than the proclamation of the gospel and the advancement of the kingdom of God, you have a worship problem.
- #7 can apply to any ideology or any nation.
- The kingdom of God is not the United States, the confederate states, or any nation under the sun. The color of your skin is not the criteria of membership in the kingdom of God, but faith in Jesus Christ.
- If your fear of other people causes you to take part in or support hate rallies, then you fear the wrong thing.
- “Well, the other side does it too!” is the argument of a 2 year old. Eventually, someone has to act like an adult.
- My heart breaks for the family and friends of the young woman who was killed. May God’s peace be upon them and may they find comfort in Christ.
- #12 has no “but”. Only that.
- The Scripture condemns all racism, idolatry, hatred, bigotry, and murder. There is no “but”.
- To my Presbyterian friends, something to think about: When you publicly defend the “good things” that Dabney wrote, you immediately alienate half of the country. I don’t understand why you do this.
- That’s all for now. I’m going to retreat. This kills me.
My Only Comfort 
Perfect.
Thank you for writing this. Sad that “there is no ‘but’” even has to be said.
Thank you for taking a stand. There are too few who do.
On #3, I’m pretty sure that there is a biblical process and instant excommunication is completely unjustifiable Matthew 18:15-17
Not really the point, but ok. See 1 Corinthians 5. I’m pretty sure that racism doesn’t just appear in a vacuum. By the time the guy gets to a white supremacy rally, he should already be under discipline. But thanks for illustrating my point.
You mean the passage about ongoing public sin?
Are you aware that it is not uncommon for people’s sin to not be known of by those around them? Do you imagine that everyone at these rallies goes around spewing hate all the time? If that were the case, it would mean the business in #2 already knew about the issue and only fired the employee for PR reasons (not very commendable).
You can not short circuit the call for repentance.
I am not disagreeing with the claim that it is an issue and that many churches do not properly discipline it but straight to excommunication no questions asked is also not proper church discipline. You don’t fix an issue by swinging to far the other direction.
Really? That’s what you got out of this post? Please stop. I hold to our book of church order, that isn’t the point of this at all. Goodbye.
Thanks for #15. My church is as blind as a bat when it comes to this.
Q. 106. But this commandment seems only to speak of murder?
A. In forbidding murder, God teaches us, that he abhors the causes thereof, such as envy,a hatred,b anger,c and desire of revenge; and that he accounts all these as murder.d
(a) Prov 14:30; Rom 1:29
(b) 1 John 2:9,11
(c) Jas 1:20; Gal 5:19,21
(d) 1 John 3:15
It is impossible to condemn the hatred from one side and give the other side a pass. If someone was there from a Reformed Church was there carrying a swastika that person should be excommunicated if heartfelt repentance was not forthcoming. Likewise if someone from a Reformed Church was there carrying a weapon for BLM or Antifa, ready for violence and fighting–that person likewise should immediately be excommunicated.
There is no “but” for any kind of hatred from either side. Christ condemns all hatred.
Agree. But in our pews, antifa and blm supporters aren’t sitting in the pews. White supremacist sympathizers are. It takes no courage to fight a battle where no battle is. What we need is courage to fight where the sin actually is. If Reformed churches were full of antifa sympathizers, I would have written a different blog. It’s easy to find sin in someone else’s camp, but that isn’t my calling
PS I’m on vacation, so I might not respond anymore until I get back. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading.