Fighting Windmills

Kinism is the new popular thing to hate in the reformed evangelical world these days. Before Kinism, it was Christian Nationalism, before that, it was the alt-right, and on and on. There’s are some interesting similarities between all of these things if you look back and consider how they were treated.

1. All of the above were not as widespread or dangerous as their detractors wanted you to think.
2. Massive misrepresentation and straw-manning. The awful evil views the accusers were purporting weren’t really what the victims believed at all.
3. Unwillingness to have reasonable discussion. Almost always, the people on the Right were the ones being accused of these things by the people to their Left. The people on the Right often wanted to discuss these things and the Left didn’t.

I think the reason for these similarities between all of these things is clear. These labels and tactics are used as a weapon to beat down conservatives. It’s an effective strategy to paint your opponent as a moral monster and then refuse to engage with them. We shouldn’t be giving monsters platforms, after all.

Recently, at this year’s G3, a reformed Baptist conference, Owen Strachan decided to take a stand against a supposed influx of filthy heresy called Kinism. Here he stands, he can do no other.

What’s Kinism, you ask?

Kinism is a loosely defined view from what I’ve seen, but the main issue I’ve seen attacked that’s labeled as Kinism is the idea that God created different races and those races should stay separate. No intermarriage. No immigration. People should stick exclusively with their kin, in other words. Many people use Kinism synonymously with racism.

If you’ve never heard of Kinism, you’re not alone. That’s likely because it’s not a popular view. Of course there are real degenerate Kinists out there, but there aren’t any big-name proponents of Kinism that have any kind of platform. It may not be dangerous, but Kinism is a very good label to put on a person if you don’t like them, want to destroy their credibility, and don’t want to have reasonable discussions about it.

Remember the Leftist strategies I mentioned above?

Owen Strachan was very woke just a few years back while he worked at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was a part of the quickly theologically crumbling Southern Baptist Convention. He then appeared to have an awakening of sorts, left the seminary, and wrote a book called Christianity and Wokeness. Since then he’s been an anti-woke activist. Though it seems like Owen is having trouble leaving all of his woke inclinations in the past, as he joins the fray to attack Kinists.

At G3, Owen made this statement.

The worst part about this post from G3 is that it’s so obviously true. Of course it’s true. So why would this stir any controversy at all?

It’s so obviously true that no one will disagree with it. Not even the Kinists.

That’s right.

Kinists don’t believe that God loves a merely white church in America. Kinists believe that God wants separate races in their own churches. What Owen perhaps meant to say is something like, “God does not love racially uniform churches.” That would disagree with Kinism. But is that even true? If a church is all white, can you really say that they are automatically unfaithful because of the skin color of the church? That’s exactly what woke and progressive Christians argue. They believe that churches should all be as ethnically diverse as possible, and any person of every race should be comfortable in your church (maybe unless you’re white) or you’re in grievous sin. Owen’s argument is exactly the same as it was a few years back when he was advocating for Critical Race Theory, as outlined in this Leftist article praising Owen for his past wokeness.

Stop being woke, Owen.

You abandoned part of it. Now abandon all of it.

Owen isn’t someone who makes a habit of publicly naming the people he attacks (Like the Apostle Paul did), but the people Owen has publicly called Kinists aren’t even Kinists, like Stephen Wolfe author of The Case for Christian Nationalism. And when he attacks Kinism, he doesn’t even attack things that real Kinists believe. That’s not a good sign.

Even the people that Owen would call Kinists if his feet were held to the fire, don’t have a problem with his statement. Overall it was very weird and painted Owen as a Don Quixote character who pretends windmills are giants and fights epic battles with enemies who don’t fight back because they aren’t real.

Stunning and brave.