BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

The "S" word...

(Tim) Senator Clinton's been hoping and searching for a smoking gun that will force Senator Obama's withdrawal from the presidential race. After this debacle, she may have her heart's desire. Check out this video of Senator Obama's offense and apology. It's all over now.

Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.

The costly biblical witness of Crystal Dixon...

(Tim) It's long been dangerous for followers of Jesus Christ to speak publicly of Scripture's teaching on fornication, child-murder, divorce, adultery, father-rule, sodomy, and a whole host of other subjects our culture opposes God in. And although we don't like bad news, here's a case we should all be following and exerting our influence in.

Editor in Chief of the Toledo Free Press, Michael Miller, wrote an editorial advocating sodomy and smearing those who oppose sodomy as resembling racists. This prompted University of Toledo Associate Vice President for Human Resources Crystal Dixon to submit an op-ed opposing Miller's editorial. Dixon wrote: "As a Black woman who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Toledo's Graduate School, an employee and business owner, I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are 'civil rights victims.' Here's why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a Black woman. I am genetically and biologically a Black woman and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended. Daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle...

What Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright got right...

(Tim) Speaking to the National Press Club this past Monday, April 28, 2008, Senator Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, forthrightly identified himself as a preacher of what he calls the Christian "gospel" of liberation. Or more specifically, the gospel of black liberation theology advocated by men such as Dr. James Cone which replaces salvation with liberation.

Here's a transcript of Dr. Wright's words. It's kind of rough slogging, since it hasn't been broken down into paragraphs, but it's fascinating, nevertheless. As a political ideology, it's not half bad. But as a statement of the Christian Gospel, Dr. Wright gets it right when he says,

...what we both mean when we say, I am a Christian, is not the same thing.

It would be possible to read Dr. Wright as saying only that the white man on the deck of the slaver and the black man below deck don't mean the same thing. Yet despite this being the immediate context of his statement above, the rest of his words indicate that his us vs. them extends far beyond slave owners and slaves, to the core of the Christian faith. Specifically...

Barack Obama's black church...

(Tim) Months ago I read a profile of Barack Obama that included quite a bit of information about his pastor and church. Change a few words in Trinity United's mission statement and it could well serve as the mission statement for most southern presbyterian congregations. (Thanks, Dan.)

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly White and Unapologetically Christian...

The state of comedy in France...

(Tim) Several years ago, I was talking with Doug Wilson about race relations and Doug said he feared racism was about to return, with a vengeance. At the time, I wasn't as inclined to pessimism as he was, but now I'm not so sure.

A recent New Yorker article on black French comedian, Dieudonné ("Letter from Paris: Laugh Riots" 11/19/07), recounts what Dieudonné referred to during several 2002 interviews as his "conversion." Since then, Dieudonné’s routines have had a virulent anti-Semitism at their center. Now Dieudonné considers Judaism to be "a scam. It's one of the worst because it's the first."

Some speculate that Dieudonné’s strategy is to ride the crest of a wave of racism taking western Europe, particularly France. According to the article's author, Tom Reiss...

Sharpton, Imus, and Jackson: birds of a feather...

So is this the only blog in the world that hasn’t commented on the Don Imus thing? Well, here’s our comment: Don Imus is disgusting. But he’s been disgusting for a long, long time. That’s why CBS hired him and paid him so well.

So the whole Rutgers thing is just a modern-day counterpart to the medieval morality plays. Today, public personas are supposed to know which disgusting is fine and which isn’t. Imus blew it and lost his job. No tears from us.

For our part, we apologize to the ladies of the Rutgers basketball team for the despicable behavior of this white man as well as the cultural climate that allows such a man to get rich spewing his filth on our air waves.

But this cloud, too, has a silver lining. America may finally have had enough of the race-baiting triplets, Imus, Jackson, and Sharpton, together with all their bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking friends. You want proof? Check out this editorial by Joe Hicks, a man I’d like to have as a friend.

Your post "crosses over into racism..."

Last night, I wasn't surprised to find someone had posted a comment saying my review of the preview of James in the Africa Bible Commentary "crosses over into racism."

There is such a thing as racism and I'm no stranger to being accused of it myself, nor to accusing others. But when made against a Christian, the charge is serious. A Christian racist has committed a significant part of the error of the Judaizers that the Apostle Paul fought throughout his ministry.

In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Peter didn't just aid and abet the continuation of circumcision when he suddenly stopped eating with the Gentiles in the presence of the Jews (Galatians 2:12). He also chose racial segregation. This is why the Apostle Paul's great egalitarian (in the right sense of the word) declaration appears in his letter to the Galatians:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Racism has always been with us and it won't die until Christ's return. Yet this is no excuse for fatalism or a lack of self-scrutiny. It's a godly and necessary work to expose it within the Body of Christ because it denies the inclusive love of God Who says His Only Begotten Son was given for "the world" and that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.

Sadly, though, the relentlessness of the charge works against repentance because it's hard to take such charges seriously anymore. Too many cries of "Wolf! Wolf!" It's become a ploy to silence critics rather than a call to make our hearts right before our Christian brothers and Heavenly Father.

So, substantive debate and mutual criticism across America's black/white racial divide languish. Fearing almost nothing as much as the terrible specter of being called a racist, Christian men today talk across the chasm with great circumspection and there's almost no humor or loving communication between us. Everything is about power and the only safe words from whites to blacks are words of self-abnegation and apology:

I apologize for my ancestors who participated in the slave trade.
I apologize for my grandfather who fought in the Confederate Army during the War between the States.

Happy birthday, Josiah!

To put a face and soul to the post directly below, here's a picture of Josiah Henock Ummel with his mother, Heather. Josiah had his first birthday this past week. He's being raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, a covenant child.

Out of the heart the mouth speaks...

Earlier today, I noticed a rather obscure post that I wrote and posted six months ago was getting a ton of hits. So I checked it out and here's what I found.

The racist site run by men who claim to be reformed Christians has posted this text under the headline, "I Saw Gooley Fly," the title of my Dad's collection of short stories:

I Saw Gooley Fly

If you're wondering why Tim Bayly is so filled with hatred for normal White people, wonder no more. The wicked always lash
out at the righteous to justify their perversion.

And under this short post, the racist site has had only one comment posted by a woman named "Joy":

I just get sick, everytime I see White folks with black kids. WTF????? And the stoopid idiots who are so blind. They earnestly believe that it is Christian to have mulatto children, and to adopt every child of every other race except a White child.They really do hate their kind.*&%%$##!!!I do not even wish God's mercy on them.

I've warned against these men on this blog, and now I do so again. If you've ever been inclined to read them, don't! Don't search for their site; don't read their vile bile; and don't be fooled by the kindler and gentler face they put on when they come on over and try to engage us in argument. Their pollution can (and will) harm you.

If there's anyone reading who's wondering whether this attack has caused me to have second thoughts about my son-in-law, Doug, and his wife, Heather's, adoption of Josiah, the answer is no--not in a million years. Rather, it's strengthened my resolve to call pastors and elders in the PCA to discipline these men.

Racism: Can we talk? Uh, actually, no...

On this blog the past week or so we've seen played out exactly what can be expected in any discussion of race in these United States today, whether outside or inside the Church. And it's discouraging.

Bring race up and about five percent of those listening at one end of the spectrum will be white racists, closely paralleled by another five percent at the opposite end who are black racists. (Here, though, we've only had the white racists present, yet they've done an effective job shutting down this discussion all by themselves, haven't they?)

Both groups shout their hatred and the ninety percent who really want truth and healing can only run for cover, more convinced than ever that, aside from the power of God, the issue is hopeless.

White racists are devious, race-baiters every bit as pernicious and deceptive in their tactics as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. There's no reasoning with them because they're more interested in winning than talking. And black racists are their mirror opposites, using their racial identity and the sympathy naturally accruing to the oppressed to issue edicts and demands. And the majority of us, black and white, sit in the middle plugging our ears.

So no, there can be no civil, let alone truthful or vigorous discussion of our nation's past, of the institution of slavery across the centuries, or of the exclusively white or black culture that pervades almost every last church in our country and is a perfect contradiction of Galatians 3:28...

Racism and the wrath of God...

I join Tim in finding those who try to turn our father's writing into a defense of their indefensible racism repugnant.

But the offense of their words and claims against our father is nothing compared to the offense of their words and claims against our Father, who will one day judge their racist bile as the murderous hatred of the heart it is.

David said to God after his sin with Bathsheba, "Against Thee and Thee alone have I sinned." This is equally true today. The words and attitudes of men such as those who write in defense of "kinism" are ultimately not an attack upon men, but upon God. And they will one day answer to Him for such sin. In the meantime, the calumnies of the wicked revert back on their own heads and we leave them to their self-flagellation.

An explanation...

This past week I deleted a comment because its author misrepresented what my father had said in a piece titled, "Lord, Raise Up a Negro Prophet," that was published in Eternity magazine back in October 1961. The writer of the comment found my father's article here on our blog in our archives by subject under the entry, "Race."

From the comment I deleted, here's what my father was said to have written:

Tim's own father said back in 1965 that the gross immorality and incredible levels of violence among Negroes (his own word) were the main reasons most white people didn't like them.

And here's what my father actually wrote:

I know that social change is accomplished one step at a time. I know, too, that God delivered His people from Egypt before He gave the Divine Law. But today we are not in the darkness of pre-Revelation. We have the Light of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Christian morality has never, to my knowledge, waited for social betterment. Those slaves (white) on the Island of Crete, about whom St. Paul wrote to Titus, were expected to influence their masters by their personal morality (Titus 2:9,10)-not by their demands for equality. And I sense that a significant decrease in the number of Negro births out of wedlock, in the number of unwed Negro mothers on the relief rolls, in the number of Negro youths embroiled in delinquency, a significant improvement in Negro morality would do more to change the climate of white opinion toward Negroes than all the pressure groups can ever achieve.

So my father said that a "significant improvement in Negro morality would do more to change the climate of white opinion toward Negroes than all the pressure groups can ever achieve," but the author of the comment reported my father as saying about Negroes that their "gross immorality and incredible levels of violence were the main reasons most white people didn't like them."

To suggest a likely remedy for a problem is not to explain the problem's origin, nor is it to justify the problem's existence in the first place. But reading the summary of my father's statement, an uninformed reader would think my father had claimed that "most white people didn't like Negroes," and that white people were justified in not liking Negroes because it was Negro gross immorality and incredible levels of violence that had led whites not to like Negroes...

Racism, private schools, homeschools, and the ministry of reconciliation...

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

Here's a comment that is Godly and will strengthen our faith. I've promoted it from beneath the very lengthy discussion of race that's developed under the post, "The World Cup, racism, and the reprobate." But first, a few words.

As in the time of the New Testament, race is one of the most difficult questions facing the Church today, both in the U.S. and around the world. The public policy debates of the past several months show its incendiary nature within our nation as we work through border control, immigration, and our balance of trade. And personally, my daughter, Michal, and I disagreed by E-mail in front of our family, recently, over whether or not our nation should have a single official language.

After fifty-six sermons, I'm finally coming to the sixth chapter of Galatians this Lord's Day, and although I'm not prepared to engage the entire New Perspective on Paul debate, it's inconceivable to me how any shepherd of God's flock could read of the Judaizing conflict in the New Testament church without recognizing the classic newbies vs. old-timers, people of God vs. goyim, citizens vs. wetbacks, imports vs. native-born, blacks vs. whites group conflicts that have divided us from the time we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. My mother-in-law jokingly hung a plaque in the bathroom recognizing her as a member of SNOB--the Society of Native Oregonian Born. And here we see within one state the same attitude toward outsiders being expressed against illegal aliens across our nation just now.

What is the Christian response to all the group-hatreds that entice us?

Always, the Christian starts with the personal and local. Jesus started with the story of the Good Samaritan, teaching us to ask ourselves, personally, "Who is my neighbor?" This is the question the Holy Spirit is asking us still today, and the answer each of us and our families give is one of the principal barometers of our heart faith. Do we pass on the other side of the road or do we stop and help?

For instance, every form of education chosen by Christian parents for their children has its own strengths and weaknesses...

The World Cup, racism, and the reprobate...

My thirteen-year-old son, Taylor, is a midfielder on a traveling soccer team and we share a love for soccer. Anticipating the World Cup beginning this Friday, we watched an ESPN special on racism among European football fans.

In 2004, Spain's World Cup coach, Luis Aragons, was fined after making racial remarks about Arsenal superstar, Thierry Henry. Things started to come to a head last year when Messina's Ivory Coast defender, Marc Zoro, was reduced to tears by Inter Milan fans hurling racial epithets at him. Having been abused beyond his ability to endure, Zoro picked up the game ball to hand it to a referee, and tried to walk off the field. Some of Inter Milan's quite-sportsmanlike players did their best to silence the abuse. They put their arms around Zoro and convinced him to keep playing. Racial epithets and bananas are thrown at black players on the field, but they're expected to shrug it off and keep playing.

This past March, in the Brazilian league, defender Antonoi Carlos was suspended for 120 days plus four matches after he shouted at a black opponent, calling him "monkey." Then, on April 3, Spiegel Online ran a story about FC Sachsen Leipzig's star Nigerian midfielder, Adebowale Ogungbure, being tormented after a game by fans who ran up and spit on him, calling him "Dirty N-gger," "Sh-t N-gger," and "Ape" as he walked off the pitch.

Racism threatens to tarnish the World Cup and there's a lot of talk about what FIFA officials are and aren't going to do about it. When the ESPN special was over, neither Taylor nor I had much to say to each other. This aspect of the beautiful game is ugly.

Then, this morning, I followed a link to our blog posted on another blog that is racist to the core, and also obscene, sacrilegious, and blasphemous. In the past, David and I have tried to get these wicked men not to link to us, but to no avail. They told us they'd link to anyone they wanted to and we couldn't stop them. They're right.

These United States...

In a post on my children's blog my son-in-law, Doug Ummel, reminds his Yankee friends and relatives that the War Between the States brought the typical spoils to the victors--the writing of the history books. And he makes the right case that Yankee history is a perversion of the truth. To which I respond:

It is one of history's great ironies that the authority and power assumed by Washington DC since the end of the War Between the States--a war defended as being entirely focused on ending the oppressive institution of slavery--has become the very authority and power Washington used in 1973 (and since) to silence the laws of almost every State of the Union forbidding the killing of unborn children.

Bill Cosby on the moral agency of black men...

My friend, Steve Moxey, suggested that a column my dad wrote forty-two years ago might finally have been answered by Bill Cosby who, with Jesse Jackson at his side, has issued a jeremiad to the black community.

Dad's article was titled, "Lord, Raise Up a Negro Prophet," and it appeared in the November, 1962, issue of Eternity Magazine, a publication founded by Donald Grey Barnhouse who was for many years pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

While not in any way discounting the sins of the past and the present (including continued white racism within my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America), there is a real black racism directed inward, and it's lethal. When blacks call each other 'nigger,' often they mean precisely what whites meant when they used the term decades ago, and it becomes clear to those living within the black community that a combination of well-meaning, disparate initiatives such as welfare payments to husbandless mothers, affirmative action, and calls to racial reconciliation at Promisekeeper rallies have all had the unintended consequence of diminishing, and even denying, the moral agency of the black male.

No one bears a more direct responsibility for this than pastors such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who have spent their lives making a name for themselves by purporting to speak for the black underclass while never finding it within themselves to be a prophet to that underclass--particularly its men.

Scripture teaches judgment must begin within God's Household, not among the unbelievers:

For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God's own children. (1Peter 4:17a)

Surely Reverends Jackson and Sharpton understand this principle, so where in our nation are black pastors spending more time calling their own men to repentance than the white MAN?

Yes, I know there are exceptions to the rule--there always are--but speaking of our national scene, the reason Cosby is getting all the press is that he is the exception to the rule. He is an African American speaking first to his own community. May God grant him favor.

Now then, to my father's piece. And as you read, please keep in mind it was written forty-two years ago: