An Inexcusable Error
Last year, an elder and noted theologian in the Presbyterian Church in America was given a task of such immense importance the General Assembly diverted overtures to make it happen. Pastors had come that year lamenting of how young men in their churches were becoming lost to an ideology not just of authoritarian political theory, but of racial superiority. Only a month before, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church had passed a resolution anathematizing ideologies of racial superiority, after excommunicating one of its pastors for falling into a notorious group of white-nationalist pastors, led by divested white-nationalist Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor Michael Spangler. Now, elders in the nation’s largest conservative Presbyterian denomination were sounding the alarm.
The alarm was in no way hyperbole. Representatives of a nebulous group of businesses, run from the same Dallas office, known, for years, to be partnered with personalities promoting exactly what the ARP had just anathematized, had set up shop. Announcing their own off-site event at a location that would not be disclosed to prospective attendees until they registered and were vetted, they had invited not only the PCA elders they are publicly allied with—one currently under investigation by his presbytery for, among other things, liking explicitly racist tweets and publishing an openly racist associate of Spangler—but a whole host of other personalities they work with, who by then or by now, have explicitly endorsed eugenic racism. They had also invited then OPC church member Stephen Wolfe, their movement’s most prominent political theorist, then an open compatriot of Spangler who had publicly rebuffed the ARP statement and antagonized its author, pastor Benjamin Glaser.
This did not fly under the radar. The presbytery hosting the assembly, knowing of “their continued platforming and networking with open racists,” barred American Reformer, the journal front of the group, from tabling in the vendor area. Since then, sources within the PCA have told me there is considerable movement to make the ban permanent. All of this controversy led to ruling and teaching elders at the assembly overwhelmingly passing both the ARP resolution and an overture to begin a study commission on Christian Nationalism, the moniker of the movement American Reformer’s allies had given themselves. For this task, moderator Kevin DeYoung chose as an advisor Scott R. Swain, President of the Systematic Theology department at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, a school that currently has a seminarian who was the first of several American Reformer contributors to justify the political theology of an unrepentant Nazi jurist in its pages.
Sources within the PCA tell me they have personally spoken to Swain about not only who and what American Reformer promotes, but how their figureheads libel and send an internet mob after those who publicly criticize them. This is no secret, anyway; many of their critics who have received this treatment are well-known Presbyterian theologians, such as R. Scott Clark and Brad Isbell. PCA church member, Cofounder of American Reformer and CEO of New Founding, the group’s investment arm, Nate Fischer, has made a name for himself for reviling people, both publicly and privately, when they criticize his businesses. Their most vocal and antagonistic front-man, William Wolfe, has spent the last few months repeatedly delving into open racism, even going on the podcast of an open eugenic racist and Klan apologist, to lament being called racist himself. It’s really become that stupidly overt.
Regardless of whether or not he was previously briefed, it’s been nearly a year since Swain was made an advisor on the committee specifically formed to holistically investigate the Christian Nationalist movement, which is most prominently expressed within the PCA by American Reformer and its allies. The committee has reached its primary conclusions; much, if not most, of the report has been written and is likely being passed around to members and advisors alike. To think that he isn’t fully aware of who and what American Reformer is beggars belief. This is why there is no excuse for what he did yesterday, when he promoted an article from American Reformer.
Again, Swain, a highly-regarded elder in the PCA, was given a task so important overtures were modified to form his committee, because pastors were begging for help with young men becoming lost, and, before his committee has released their conclusions, he tipped his hat to the group of racists everyone knows are the instigators. Now, anything in the report short of a full-throated denouncement of American Reformer and its allies for promoting eugenic racists, something that, at this point, is ubiquitously recognized by anyone not friendly to them, and the more liberal voices in the PCA can dismiss the report, saying, “Well, Scott R. Swain promotes their work.” This is a disaster. The perceived objectivity of the PCA’s study committee, the best hope for landing a major blow to this antichrist movement, is now shot, due to a glaring conflict of interest caused by its most notable advisor.