Against Kinism and Open Borders
A Christian Response to Political Polarities
We find ourselves in a strange cultural moment. For years, conservatives (and many evangelical Christians, my tribe) have rightly opposed “open borders” ideology of the globalist species. Against the idea that countries cannot limit immigration in any way, many have rightly argued that immigration must be carefully overseen. Christians welcome strangers per Leviticus 19:33-34 and other texts, but we do not make the leftist mistake of thinking that countries can offer open borders and unguarded territory. They can do no such thing (we think of Nehemiah building a wall in Jerusalem, for example).
Leftist globalism is a grave problem. It should be opposed in no uncertain terms. Further, wherever a given ethnic group is targeted, Christians should speak against such evil. Where, for example, “white” people are attacked by woke ideology, Christians should respond with vigor and conviction. So too for any people group demonized by politicians or cultural voices.
Nor is it wrong for Christians to support their nation. In general terms, the second greatest commandment—love of neighbor per Matthew 22:34-39—has major import for a right understanding of Christian citizenship, as does Romans 13, which teaches that the state is established by God himself. As believers, we do not live indifferently toward our neighbor, whether locally or nationally; we remember the example of the Babylonian exiles, who paradoxically were told to seek the good of the city in which they lived (Jeremiah 29:3-7). Compressing a larger biblical dossier, we who love Christ strive to do much the same in our day.
In seeking a biblical vision of citizenship, we steer well clear of a globalist and leftist framework. (Leftism, we recall generally, is poison.) Secular globalism, like woke leftism and socialism more generally, is unsound and gravely dangerous. But here is the startling truth today: if we merely disavow globalism, we have not done enough. It turns out that we face serious challenges from the opposite pole as well.
As one example (taken from an older Matt Walsh show clip that just surfaced), “white” or “Anglo-Saxon” Americans today are urged to perpetuate their ethnicity in order to preserve their nation. In practical terms, this means that “white” people should marry other “white” people and have lots of “white” children, lest “white” people en masse be replaced. If we fail to perpetuate our ethnicity, “Anglo-Saxon” culture will be lost, and the nation along with it.
When applied to Christianity, this argument ends up meaning that the mission of the church is to produce—or at least preserve—“Christendom.” In other words, the church’s program is to create or support a Christian nation governed by Christian laws, suffused with Christian culture, and directed by Christian leaders (even a Christian prince, as some would tell the tale). The church preaches the gospel, yes (though the gospel is rarely defined with clarity by “Christendom” advocates). The mission of the church, however, is not merely to save souls. It is to build a nation. It is to Christianize the earth.
As stated, a crucial part of this mission is the preservation of “white” or “Anglo-Saxon” identity. In national terms, American identity is inextricably connected to the people who have primarily shaped the spirit of the land, “white” people (who are often presented as generically Christian, despite the many “white” heretics, pagans, godless legalists, humanists, and general God-haters out there). In this feverish scheme, “white” people have what amounts to a moral duty to marry other “white” people and perpetuate “Anglo-Saxon” culture. Failure to do so entails that the nation will lose its identity and become the dreaded melting pot that white nationalists terrifyingly hang over the heads of their audiences.
Let me comment on this last phenomenon: while I am a thoroughgoing conservative, it is plainly true that fear and paranoia run rampant among people on both sides of the political divide today. In strange and hard days, fear is an easy sell. This is true of kinists as it is of globalists, and neither represents a glancing challenge to God’s church. Unlike deeply cynical and manifestly fearful proposals, Scripture clearly opens our eyes to the wildness of this fallen world, but always with God (and not the world) as the object of our interest. God is our hope, not America, not any civilization, not any ethnicity. God is our confidence. God is our goodness.
The Bible does not point us to any political outcome as our focus. It drives us to faithfulness to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and bids us be “stable and steadfast” by the Spirit’s power (Colossians 1:23). Stability is not popular right now among either the left or right. It is easy to sell people a plan for revolution grounded in the failed American experiment (a humongous claim that is rarely substantiated and often glossed-over, as if we should simply believe the assertions of empire skeptics without hard work or proof on their part). It is much harder to teach people a hopeful vision grounded in godly steadiness, the ordinary means of grace (2 Timothy 4:2), and the pursuit of what Scripture calls a “quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2).
This last comment aside, the foregoing discussion offers a great deal to take in and evaluate. Few are attempting to do so today, particularly when one considers the danger each of the aforementioned poles presents. (Agree with me or not, I warmly invite you to come to this conference in Atlanta in September 2023, which will tackle the themes found in this humble piece.) I could offer numerous forms of a response, but want to concentrate this essay on two specific matters: inter-ethnic marriage, alongside the inter-ethnic church. Let’s take each of these in turn.
As stated, it is not right to target any group as evil or in need of replacement. This is true of “white” people; it is true of any ethnicity, people group, or those sharing a common skin color. Prejudice, or what the Bible calls partiality, is fleshly and wrong. It is thus evil to demonize and try to root out “white” people from a place or nation, as one example.
But nor is it right to urge “white” people to preserve their ethnicity through inter-marriage. If you are “white,” you have complete freedom to marry someone similar to you. That’s not sinful in any way, necessarily. Many people of many backgrounds do just this. There should be no attempt to “destroy” or subvert such activity in a given nation or locality. The Bible offers no backing to such a push.
On the other hand, we should never assume that marriage to a fellow “white” person is a duty, a moral good in biblical terms, or a societal imperative. There simply is no biblical support for this; we see, as just one example, the Canaanite Ruth marrying into the family of Jewish Boaz (Ruth 3-4). There is no biblical exhortation to marry according to one’s kind; Scripture offers no such guidance or direction. We have freedom on this count, in truth; we can marry someone of shared background, or we can marry someone who has a completely different background. Inter-ethnic marriage is no evil, then, and marriage to one’s same ethnicity is no moral good, inherently.
Some will protest at this point, though, and say: “But if you encourage inter-ethnic marriage, over time your nation will lose its identity!” This may be true in some sense. Where a nation once looked homogeneous, relatively, it may look far less that way in days ahead. But that, again, is no moral evil. Further, a nation’s identity is not based in skin color or ethnicity; a nation’s identity is based in common ideals. This conviction is mocked, even ruthlessly, by people online today as limp-wristed liberalism. But it is a sound standard, and I know of none that better conforms to the biblical doctrine of the image of God than this (Genesis 1:26-28).
Of course, in saying this, we need not think that diversity for its own sake is an automatic good. Again, we do not have to enforce some kind of conformed diversity (ironic idea, this) in order to have a flourishing nation (or church). In other words, a country with 80% ethnic homogeneity is not inherently better than a country with 90% ethnic homogeneity. Woke leftists would feed us such a line, but this is not necessarily the case. As noted above, immigration must be carefully handled, and borders must not be open. Immigration is a practical matter depending on a country’s resources, infrastructure, and health. Nations are not lab experiments, and should not be treated as such.
But if a given nation changes in ethnic makeup over time, Christians should not necessarily grow alarmed by this. If, for example, there are less “white” children produced annually by families, this is in no way immediate cause for alarm. Will this mean change in that nation? Yes, it will. But from a distinctly biblical vantage point, again, Christians have exactly zero New Testament grounds for advocating the preservation of a dominant ethnicity in a given nation. This simply is not our mission.
We can support sound immigration policy, and should. Immigration should not be unbounded by any stretch (in any country). We can also honor distinct cultures shaped by distinct ethnicities, at least to the extent allowable by biblical ethics. It is God’s common grace that there be not one homogenized form of food, dress, music, and art in our world, but many. Even in the scattering of humanity after Babel, we seem, God’s common kindness yet intrudes.
This can include our own ethnicity and its culture. The gospel in no way summons us, upon conversion, to rejecting the particularity of our past. But we must be painstakingly careful on this count. While ethnicity is not evil, ethnicity is also not absolute. As Christians, entering an inter-ethnic marriage may change our cultural approach; at the very least, we will find ourselves celebrating our unity in Christ over our background. This does not entail that our background now vanishes, though, but rather that there is a greater unity found in Christ than our heritage, our ethnic community, our family.
This last point is very important. We believers love the natural family. As God calls, we build families, love our spouse, and seek to raise children in the nurture and admonition of God. But even such a revered institution cannot trump our unity in Christ. The natural family does not dissolve into nothingness upon our conversion, but the family of God becomes our deepest and truest association. Nothing trumps it; nothing is on par with it.
This is why Jesus looked at his disciples and identified them as his true family, closer to him than blood itself. In Bible-forgetting times like ours, we do well to hear Jesus’ surprising words afresh:
[46] While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. [48] But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” [49] And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! [50] For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:46–50).
What Jesus teaches here completely reframes how we understand family, ethnicity, and church. The natural family is not ultimate but subordinate to the spiritual family, the body of Christ; ethnicity by inference is not ultimate but subordinate; the church is in no way composed of people just like us, but is made up of people from every tribe and tongue upon the earth (Revelation 7:9).
At this point, we can clarify one common misconception. If a given congregation is composed of one ethnicity, dominantly, that is not necessarily bad or a sign of partiality. We sometimes hear that, but that is not true biblically; there is no principle that enfranchises such a conclusion, automatically. However, it is also in no way the case that the church strives to preserve some kind of ethnic homogeneity. That is flatly against the in-gathering momentum of the gospel, which unites Jew and Gentile, such that they no longer regard one another according to the flesh. They no longer separate from one another, that is, but rather come together in shared faith (2 Corinthians 5:16). The two isolated peoples are now “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15).
In sum, all this means that—against the kinism currently creeping into the church and the conservative world—there need be no anxiety over inter-ethnic marriage and the sensibly inter-ethnic church. We have no teaching in the New Testament that directs us to preserve, as a matter of moral duty, our ethnicity in terms of the marriage we form and the children we produce. Arguing that we do means that we write a new law, a law that runs counter to the direction of the gospel.
On the other hand, this in no way means that we seek to extinguish or “replace” an ethnic group in a given nation or community. The Bible gives no support for this program, either. We cannot demonize or target anyone based on their background, for to do so is sinful partiality. Where globalism urges such a mission, then, we can only oppose it. In similar terms, we should not fall prey to the soft-minded idea that unbounded immigration is a necessary good, for it is not. Societies must be stable and healthy, able to support their citizenry.
Let me conclude by way of summary, then. If politicians are demonizing a given ethnic group, Christians should oppose that demonization in no uncertain terms. We should fight it tooth and nail. But if voices around us urge us to preserve our ethnicity through family-building as a matter of moral duty and civilizational health, we must fiercely resist such thinking as well. We must not be globalists; we must also not be kinists. The gospel reframes our entire approach to mankind, to the family, and to the church.
I will say this as well, and in doing so, must sharpen the spear. Just as globalist wokeness represents a false gospel if taken to its logical end, so too does partial kinism represent a false gospel if taken to its logical end. Some Christians may have been taught that their duty is to preserve their ethnicity so as to strengthen their nation; I hope to win them in love to the truth of God’s Word. But there are others who are not merely misguided or confused (as I read them), but are reading the Great Commission not in terms of salvation from judgment, but in terms of ethnic propagation unto political conquest.
This group is playing with fire. If you tweak the mission of the church from gospel advancement through the proclamation of the crucified and resurrected Christ to the ethnic Christianization of a given country or place, you have lost the Great Commission. No, more than this, you have rejected the Great Commission, and created a new one that has no divine charter at all. There is not a hint of “blood and soil” theology in the New Testament; there is no mandate whatsoever to preserve the ethnic particularity of a given people in the new covenant era.
This ideology represents, to repeat myself, not only a different gospel, but a false gospel. The mission of the Bible is not to preserve “white” heritage or save America through ethnic propagation. The mission of the Bible is to save sinners. Where sinners are saved, there will be 10,000 glorious gospel effects. This includes strengthened countries and enlivened civilizations, at least in some cases. But the effects of the gospel (that flow into our world as God ordains) are in no way the gospel itself.
We witnessed, just a few years ago, a major challenge to sound doctrine from wokeness. Today, we are watching a major challenge to sound doctrine from kinism. These are dangerous times, and there are snares on every side. Thankfully, we may all take confidence in this: King Jesus is with us, and he has gone on ahead of us, and he will show us the way home, side-stepping every trap as we go.