After the posting of a series of quotes outlining Rushdoony’s kinist views, there are undoubtedly some anti-kinists (alienists) who would yet claim Rushdoony as among their own. This is due to a degree of unclarity concerning what exactly counts as “kinism,” which unclarity is exacerbated by those constructing ridiculous caricatures of kinist doctrine.
For example, some uninformed and slanderous alienists will say that kinism outlaws all interracial friendships, simply because some kinists (myself included) believe that the God-ordained design of the races includes some sense of geographical separation. Others, mildly less slanderous, will claim that anyone who does not affirm the strong-kinist tenet of miscegenation’s intrinsic immorality is actually an anti-kinist. This leaves such doctrinal positions as racial realism and racialistic freedom of association up for grabs. Certain notable anti-kinists affirm the biological reality of race (probably since it is absurdly difficult to deny), and some anti-kinists of a more libertarian, anti-statist bent will (correctly) believe that forced racial integration is ungodly and wicked of the state. They might also claim that a father is free to desire his daughter to marry within her race, since such considerations are not intrinsically sinful, and they may affirm that there is nothing unrighteous about preferring to be in the company and society of one’s own racial kinsmen, all other things being equal. Some anti-kinists are even so kinist as to admit that miscegenation is unwise! But because these men do not see any clear command in Scripture to prohibit miscegenation, they think that morally outlawing it would be the height of all evils, a desperately wicked, heretical, and satanic attempt to divide what Christ has united in one body. Calling miscegenation “unwise” is within the pale of orthodoxy to these anti-kinists, but calling it sinful beckons hellfire. Thus, even though they affirm a number of Christian-racialist (kinist) tenets, they will nonetheless see a sub-debate concerning the moral status of miscegenation (whether it is sinful or merely unwise) as not only the primary issue, but the sole issue. To them, as long as someone does not view miscegenation as intrinsically sinful (i.e. profess strong kinism), he is an anti-kinist.
But it should be evident that a number of issues besides the question of miscegenation’s intrinsic sinfulness are constitutive of kinism. All of the other tenets listed above are quite obviously under the umbrella of Christian racialism — kinism — and the modern “anti-racist” church hates them. For the anti-kinists to claim any of them as their own, treating only one tenet among many as the exclusive criterion for kinist beliefs, is ludicrous and disingenuous. Any who believe in the above tenets are with us in combating the zeitgeist, even if they do not go all the way to affirm strong kinism.
Thus, after the clarification of some of these issues, it should be manifest that Rushdoony’s thoughts reflected weak kinism. He affirmed the reality of race, he condemned the pseudo-guilt of whites undertaking programs of “racial reconciliation,” he acknowledged racial integration to be demonic, and he even considered 99 out of 100 interracial unions to be sinfully formed.1 While Rushdoony is certainly not our ultimate standard as kinists, any honest reader of him should understand him to be on our side — the side of science, of history, of nature, and of God’s Holy Word.
Footnotes
- Anti-kinists will be quick to mention an undocumented and uncited instance of Rushdoony’s officiating at an interracial wedding as proof of his alleged anti-kinism. But, clearly, even if that is true, it must be understood in the context of all that he has said. Would the alienists be content with merely saying that that wedding was among the 1% which Rushdoony approved? To ask the question is to answer it. ↩
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