Based on a skim of that page, I would wear their insults as a badge of honor:)

anthony- i dont know what to say. i have been on their site before and read it more in depth last night. Its crazy, you know? I am angry and frustrated. you face racism and scrutiny that most can not experience. i hate the feeling of powerlessness in not being able to expose these men. I'd love to ... well, i'd love to do alot of things to them. the real shame is that someone out there most likely knows who it is and what is going on and have not done anything. "time looks the same at the ones who hate and the ones that do nothing."

in my eyes, the more this kind of persecution comes toward you the more beautiful of a man you become as you endure it. i really mean that. i don't know. not many people can do what you do and so that makes you a marked man. i guess that is one of the burdens of the father's gifts to you. does'nt make it any easier, though. i wish i could do something. i want to feel pity and graciousness towards them. can't say that i do right now. those pictures on their site, you know? so much pride and bigotry. how can they read about the heart of christ and his love for and identity with the most destitute of people and still reconcile those polarized beliefs. its some form of insanity.

http://bit.ly/d0oQNc

Cheer up Dr. Bradley. The challenge has started and it will eventually catch on in other places. The Spirit will continue to refine His people.

As for you, keep rebuking them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. Titus 1:12-13. (apparently the church has been dealing with this since the beginning.)

God Bless

So is that website mainstream and accepted? Is it tolerated? It seems like a bunch of whack jobs to me. I'm not part of any Reformed congregation so I don't know. I can't see stuff like that even coming close to be accepted at any church I've been a part of.

Brother,
What can I say? Firstly, I repudiate the evil nonsense on that site. I genuinely do not believe its authors are Christian, let alone reformed! No reformed person I know would support such hateful racist abuse. Brother, I am sorry for the hurt you feel. I hope that the John Piper sermon on racial harmony he just preached at Jubilee Church London I linked to above will be more encouraging to you. We love you man as a true brother in Christ.

Dr. Bradley,
I'm really sorry that you have to read this stuff. And I don't for one minute deny that racism is one of the many sins still indwelling in many believers. Doubtless many American Reformed believers included.

But a "safe haven"? That's a really serious thing to say. If the guy who wrote that post got up and said that *&^%@ in Presbytery or GA I can't imagine the results being pretty.

The stuff on that page is awful. But seriously, it's the Internet. Anybody can write a blog. I don't think it's fair to blame a whole denomination because this racist kook says terrible things.

Again: I'm not at all denying it's there, and I know you see more than I do. But to get from "there's a problem" to the big charge you make here, it seems to me that a lot more dots need to be connected.

As a member of the PCA and wife of a minister (he used to be in a multi-ethnic church in Calgary, now we are back home in California). That page you linked sickens me. It disgusts me that this rubbish is out there. I don't believe this kind of thing is tolerated broadly across reformed circles... but then Texas is the furthest "south" I've ever lived so I realize I am coming from a different world. Grace and peace as you faithfully follow Christ in this world of challenges.

Man, that site and anyone who goes there is totally whack. Try your best to ignore it, because I genuinely believe that while it is representative of some piece of the world, it is not representative of anything meaningful in your own social network or religious network of Christians. I genuinely do not recognize those opinions at all in anyone I know or anywhere I've been.

But I do think those opinions do start to rub shoulders with some of the things in the PCA that ultimately threatens its members with some nasty crap. I went through, for instance, a phase in college where I went from reading Francis Schaeffer, to Van Til, to Bahnsen, and then to the open waters of theonomy/christian reconstruction. And let me tell you my friend - those waters are like the oil spill covered Gulf of Mexico. There's nothing good there. But that's where you find a lot of this stuff. You turn over a rock or two in the most extreme, conservative, right-wing parts of the denomination, and you find some sick racist crap. I feel like I've spent most of my adult life as a Christian in the denomination trying to get as far away from it as I can and I still don't feel like I'm far enough.

I read on a previous post Peter Enns saying you have to decide whether (paraphrase) you want to work in a denomination that fights these old battles or one where they are gone. I think that at different times in our spiritual journey, that question wanes in terms of its importance. At some points, you can feel like, "yes. I've been called here to this group, in this place, in this larger community." And in other seasons, you can be like, "No, no more. This is BS, and life's too short. This is not for me." Those are both authentic responses for the place you're in. I don't know what is the right response for you, but they are important things and they are not always consistently easy to figure out.

Ultimately friend, you need to respond to the call of Christ in your life, though. Who is he calling you to be? What is he calling you to? You of all people have a very large, very cosmopolitian view of the kingdom of God, because I can tell from things you've said at Acton conferences or in your columns, that you appreciate deeply what God is doing in all corners of his kingdom. But maybe God is calling you to this denomination a little longer to work for him on these things. He called you to himself via the mechanisms of friendships and ministries in the denomination. He nurtured you in the faith through teachings in the reformed faith. We can look back on these things and wonder at the counterfactual, like would you have done the same had you know more. But at the same time, maybe Jesus is preparing you for the tasks he has for you, and this was the method and the path he thinks will make you best at it. You are a mix of pain and suffering over the ugliness in our communities, and that in many ways makes you far more adept and qualified for pursuing faithfulness here amidst the rest of us in the denomination and your church than someone who doesn't.

I know I'm not probably saying something you do not already know. But I would like to encourage you. I'm sorry you have to hear these people say this. But the thing is, the internet has facilitated the congregating of racist reformed people online, and blogs give a small number of people the ability to say anything and have it heard. Try to ignore them if you can, and if you can't, go get a beer and watch a show with some of your real friends who love you and whom you love.

sc

That is a Kinism site. To what extent do kinists represent or speak for any number of Reformed congregations or organizations? I was under the impression that kinists were a marginal group. To what extent are there kinists leading or active in major seminaries, congregations, missionary boards, denominations or organizations? Because that stuff reminds me of some of those Council of Conservative Citizens sites, which incidentally are nondenominational, ecumenical and more motivated by race than religion or theology. If you search that site, you see very little about the Bible, theology, the gospel, salvation, the lake of fire etc. The site is really all about race. I am sorry, but using kinists to represent legitimate Reformed churches is no different from using Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan to represent black churches.

Okay, deep breaths. The site you linked to is pretty damned offensive, no argument. So much so that it's actually blocked by my employer's web filters. It's racist and anti-Semitic to boot. These guys are Southern wingnuts. They actually call themselves "kinist".

But using this as an example to ground the idea that Reformed Christianity is some sort of haven for racism just doesn't work. I mean, what's next, YouTube comments? The Internet is not Serious Business.

If you have complaints that you are consistently discriminated against or harassed in Reformed churches because if your race, I'd be ears. That'd be completely unacceptable. But random assholes yelling on the internet does not constitute any sort of crisis I'm prepared to shed tears about.

Chill.

Ryan, I'm completely ignoring your comments because you obviously must be new. This has been going on "repeatedly and consistently" for 6 years (including harassing phone calls to my employers attempting to get me fired and calls to one of my schools, while I was a student, attempting to get me kicked out of grad school).

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and your ignorance of this 6 year context renders your comments vapor.

Before you go telling people to "chill" I'd suggest you ask questions about the context before assuming knowledge of my journey with this.

Can you name the website that called me "an illiterate nigger" back in 2007?

"Slow to speak," bro....

By the way, when this stuff started back in 2004 what were you doing? Maybe in college? Could you legally drink alcohol yet?

Ryan -

Your comments are well intended I'm sure but they're amazingly naive...Playing the whole "don't pay attention to the evildoer" crap is just that a load of crap. Here's a little encouragement from one guy to another...the philosophy behind what you said reeks of cowardice. Sure there's a time and a place to let things go...like when someone cuts you off and then gives you the finger on the highway...but this is a totally different ball game...these are people who claim the name of Jesus Christ and yet constantly hound folks. Isn't this clearly something Paul would have addressed one of his churches on?

Also your tone reeks to high heaven of blind white western pie in the skyism. By the way I'm white and maybe you aren't, but the way you put things is:
1)Highly insensitive. I'm all for a swift kick in the ass sometimes but any good kick in the ass is motivated by empathy and a desire to see the good for someone else. Quit trying to help people keep their heads in the sand...
2)The way you talk about this issue makes it sound like you don't think there is really still an issue with this sort of stuff in America. Get your head out of the sand...
3)Like Anthony said context dude. This has been a consistent issue and not addressing it would be laying down and dying.

My two cents...just trying to encourage you to think before you speak

If it's any consolation, just remember that the writers on that website will be mighty uncomfortable in heaven -- if they get there at all. They may call themselves Christians, but they don't seem to have read the New Testament.