Doctrine, Sermons

A Study in Racism

247 Comments

Meet Stinnet Ballew, author, preacher, and racist. Ballew is the host of the Harvest Time Broadcast which is replayed on fundy radio stations all over the country. He’s also a speaker at various churches and conferences.

In the audio clip below you can hear him attempt to use Scripture to prove that interracial marriage is a sin against God. And lest you be tempted to dismiss this man’s racist rantings as an anomaly in fundamentalism, this kind of teaching was embraced widely through fundyland until recent years by men like Bob Jones Sr., J. Frank Norris and others.

It’s worth noting that clip was discovered on Twitter via @IFBJoshOwens who was using it to defend this statement that he had made previously:

My wife & I were lookin’ on the web a little while ago & found a picture of a young, single, Missionary-friend, who’s a Missionary to a part of the world with folk of another color/race. Jess made the observation that “he’ll probably get him a black wife” & she’s probably right. When a young, single, Missionary s to a field of another culture/color/race, more than likely, they’ll get ’em a wife of that culture/color/race. How sad/wicked. That’s why it’s not a good idea, to say the least, to be a young, single Missionary.

I can only hope that @IFBJoshOwens is a parody account which is using some really strange attempts at humor. But reading through Twitter and listening to his online podcast, I get no real indication that this is anything but legit.

Now here’s Stinnet Ballew to bless our hearts with more racist drivel in the same vein:

247 thoughts on “A Study in Racism”

    1. This man must work at the circus, cause he is quite the contortionist. As for his last point – Timothy.

    1. Because we all know their god is made in their own image. The man of god does not mean God’s man, it means the man who creates the god he is comfortable preaching about.

      2. Well said, Don.

        @Beowulf, weren’t you saying that over coffee the other day? Hypocrite. 😉

        1. @ Beowolf – don’t worry about pixelmaker’s comment, he’s a little silly today. He thought you were me.

          @ Pixelmaker – DA. bwahahahaha 😆

  6. BJU certainly has had a problem with racism, but applying “recent” to Bob Jones Sr. is not quite accurate, since he died more than thirty years ago.

      1. Evidence:

        2000 – Bob Jones III drops the interracial dating policy on Larry King’s show.

        2008 – Stephen Jones issues an apology for the school’s “racially hurtful” policies.

        If that’s not recent, I don’t know what is.

        1. And with the BJU instance, there’s no telling whether that would still be on the books had it not been for John McCain bringing that to light when he was running against George W. Bush for the 2000 GOP Presidential nomination (this coming after Bush was invited to speak there).

          I may be willing to give the sincerity of Stephen Jones the benefit of the doubt, but still feel like BJU was, in effect, FORCED to do the right thing.

        5. I will never forget sitting in front of the Larry King Show that night, listening to BJIII say that the interracial dating policy was not important, had never been that important, so getting rid of it was no big deal. Any student doing it could get expelled for it. They lost their tax exempt status for it. And then they turned around and said it wasn’t important???? 😯

        6. @grace2live: I was sitting in the FMA for that event as well. Changing the inter-racial dating rule, however, didn’t take away the pain they had caused my bi-racial friend when they forced him to chose which race he was going to date. They told him he had to pick a race and stick to it. I wonder if anyone apologized to him after the rule was changed???

        7. Wow. How does that make any sense?
          They claim that race is an immutable, natural, God-given trait by which we should be eternally separated, and then they tell somebody to pick which race he’ll belong to.

          Just taking a shot in the dark here, I’m guessing that classes in logic are not offered at that college.

        8. @Tim: My freshman year, I had a roommate who was from the Philippines and was about as mixed race as you can get. She, too, was told to pick one race and stick to it.

  7. I remember while at Hyles-Anderson, that Caucasions, Latinos, and Asians were free to date/marry each other without restriction, but as soon as African-Americans got involved, or even anyone that looked “dark” (we had several people from the Caribbean islands), they had to marry “after their kind,” i.e. other “dark” people. Very sad, and a lot of people hurt. I doubt yet that they have gotten over that philosophy that was rooted in the racist southern views of Jack Hyles: he of the oft used illustration “when I preached in a black church, the lights were dim, so we took attendance by counting the eyes and dividing by two” 🙁

    1. but ehn they came to the Ol’ Fashioned altar then “we counted their eyes and multipled by the last digit of the hymn number being used for the invitation.”

    2. interesting that he appeals to the law God placed in nature as support – where plants/animals reproduce “after their kind” Generally this means that animals who are capable of reproduction are in the same kind – (kind does not = species necessarily) In fact some animals can produce offspring but only sterile hybrid offspring. Humans of different “races” can easily reproduce and have reproductive offspring, indicating at least according to this man’s laws of nature that they are of the same kind.

      There is not nor has there ever been biblical support for this – nor does it make since in a rational common sense observation of nature and human beings. Seems pretty obvious that there is only one human race, with various genetic differentiation based on regional patterns of migration and isolation. Got news for these Racist Butts, there ain’t no “pure” races any more and if their were they would be inbred mutants. Genetic diversity is healthy for our population – again demonstrated by the “laws of nature” which were programmed by whoever built this freak show

    3. A singing group from Liberty showed up at HAC once to sing for some conference (this was obviously when Falwell and Hyles were friendly). The director got off the bus and met the staff member from HAC who told him the three big rules: No slacks (on women), No Trax (as in soundtracks), and No Blacks (as in..well, that one is obvious).

      My friend was in that group. He said they re-loaded the bus, turned around, and went back to Lynchburg. Neat stuff, there.

    4. “counting the eyes and dividing by two” Okay, have to admit that made me grin. But what would happen if you had anyone with an eyepatch in the pews? 😛

  8. “The Japanese didn’t choose Japan. The Russians didn’t choose Russia.” Americans didn’t choose the USA . . . oh! wait! can’t continue the fundy logic all the way through or he’d find himself having to go back to France.

    This guy’s an idiot. God hates “interracial” marriage??? And “there’s nowhere in the Bible where God encourages interracial marriages?” Like Joseph and Asenath, (Gen 41 arranged solely under the hand of God.)Ruth and Boaz, David and Bathsheba, Esther and Xerxes, Rahab and whoever she married, etc, etc. Nope, none of those were ever approved by God or used to bring about a Divine Redeemer from a line filled with “interracial” marriages.

    2. You’ll never get an IFB pastorship if you continue to actually read the Bible!

      1. @RobM – Well that and my love of dark beer, multiple music genres, emphasis on true Biblical worship, and a large dislike for dispensationalism. Any of those might hurt my chances as well.

  9. It’s not a good idea to be a young, single missionary? Aren’t we all missionaries in one way or another? Should we have arranged marriages for our newborns so that when they get old enough to talk about the gospel they won’t be “single”? Aren’t we the bride of Christ, and in a sense, isn’t he “married” to believers of different colors?

    1. if you look at the average “Bible pictures” set about Heaven, it seems to the artists that we’ll all be white when we get our glorified bodies….does that solve the “problem”? 😳

    2. I believe Paul said young single people are the most effective. IFB’s love to say the opposite of what scripture says and pretend they found it in the Bible…

    3. Christ-church imagery in the Bible does not extend to all believers being married to each other in some sense. It is the church (collective entity) married to Christ. If we go beyond that imagery to break it down to the individual level, we might say, “Believers are different colors and married to each other, so interracial marriage is fine.” But then, we might also say, “Male believers are married to each other, so gay marriage is fine.”

      But it raises an interesting point for the actual images – Christ, being the God-man, is unique. The church is certainly of a different “kind” than Christ. So Christ and the church is an interracial marriage. That’s a legitimate usage of the imagery to show interracial marriage is OK.

  10. For some reason this is not playing for me. I think it is the computer I’m on now. No need to investigate Darrell.
    Something tells me I’m not missing anything. This guy probably thinks Mississippi Burning is a comedy with a sad ending.

    2. You should just be thankful. The sound of his raw raspy voice is SUPER irritating and that is even without thinking about what he is actually saying.

  11. This man would have a heart attack at my church. Different races all over the place and yes, inter-racial couples. We Catholics are funny that way. 😉

    In fact I wonder if he would acknowledge my existence? I exist because of an inter-racial marriage. White and Native American. I’ve had a pretty good life so far.. 😆

  12. I wonder if Ballew has ever read Galatians:

    “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

    1. Darrell, seriously? Sorry, but has any fundamentalist of any sort EVER read Galatians? Don’t they avoid Galatians like the plague? The only ones that dare get close to Galatians are the ones that spin faster than the spiders on my porch. (Sheesh, I hate walking through those webs every morning.)

      1. Dr Johnson @ PCC used to love “Oh, Foolish Galatians”. Other than that I can’t recall anything about it from PCC or any other fundy place, but I’ve done a lot of willful forgetting…

    2. I heard once (not sure of the source, so this may or may not be true) that this passage was intended as a deliberate inversion of a prayer by some “pious” Jews, who would pray “Thank you I was not born a Gentile. Thank you I was not born a slave. Thank you I was not born a woman.”

    3. Not to dissagree (much) but I have always been bothered by missuses of this verse. This verse is reguarding salvation and the gifts of the Spirit. Seeing it perverted to say that Male and Female are the same in all aspects feeds feminisism and undermines the the distinctive purposes for which we were designed. As to no more Jew nor Greek, the same applies. God still has a distinct purpose for the Jews seperately from gentiles. Slavery? Not an issue in this day but in context the end of slave or free distinctions again applies to salvation and relationship to God.

      How does this apply to race? Not at all.

      2. #1–Feminism is not all bad.

        #2–I am not a dispensationalist (neither are the vast majority of the Christian world for the past 2000 years). Jews and Gentiles are both ONE people of God in Christ. No “distinct purpose” for one group over the other.

        #3–Slavery is still a huge issue all over the world, even in America (it’s just hidden better). Even where slavery is rare, there are other forms of class-ism that attempts to divide people into groups: elite versus average, rich versus poor, the “haves” and the “have nots”, etc.

        Christ did away with the inequality between these groups.

      3. In Christ, male and female and Jews and Greeks are counted equally. None of them are better or more worthy than the other. They are all sinners saved by grace.

        And it depends what exactly you mean by feminism. I’m as girly as they get, but I also try to be strong and independent. Men and women may have different roles in a home or workplace, but neither is “better” than the other.

  13. 30 years ago is when I FIRST heard this. At one time I thought it was dying out. It doesn’t look like it. 🙄

    My daughter-in-law wants to find this preacher and b**** slap him. 😈

    The IFB’s I am familiar with (Arkansas-Texas-Oklahoma area) often have roots in segregationists who didn’t want to allow blacks to become members. 😡

  15. I thought we were all one race – the human race. We may have different nationalities but we are all humans.

    My old church in central IL was a Charismatic fundy church (oxymoron?). Anyway, there was an inter-racial couple and the pastor had many sermons on how wrong that was. They eventually left.

    2. “I thought we were all one race – the human race. We may have different nationalities but we are all humans. ”

      YES!! Yes yes yes!! Exactly! My mom grew up in the 60’s, and while she isn’t racist to individuals, sometimes she can be a bit racist towards groups. The distinction is rather hilarious, because she doesn’t realize that what she’s saying is just wrong and plain illogical 😛

    2. No, darling, there are Southerners and there are bigoted rednecks.

      Real Southerners are a gracious people who extend welcome to everyone.

      These people are NOT Southern.

      (and I say this all WHILE I sit on my butt cushion and flutter my fan)

      1. I hate to disagree with you Natalie but I must. I actually know the preacher in this clip. In the jargon, I have ‘shared a platform’ with him several times.
        What disgusts me the most about this clip is that, after leaving fundystan, I still thought he was one of the good ones. He is the most gracious, kind and thoughtful man you would ever care to meet. And a bigot apparently.

      2. gonna have to agree with apathetic- i know southerners have a romantic notion of themselves, but EVERY neighbor i’ve ever had in the south has dropped the “n” bomb, talked about “those people” and thanked us for being a “nice white family” in their neighborhood. EVERY neighbor.

        2. And let me introduce myself, then, as the first Southerner you know that doesn’t use the “n” word and finds it offensive.

        3. I’m originally from Virginia. Never really encountered racism in the “big city” of Richmond. When I moved to West Virginia I remember the first time a co-worker blasted with the N-bomb. I thought WTH?????? It happens far too much here (and from ‘Christians’ too).

          This stuff is kinda like the misogynistic/abusive bent in fundyland. I NEVER heard a sermon in an IFB church blasting racist thoughts/speech as wicked. But have heard/read a lot about what ole’ Ballew is talking about.

        4. Racism is not just a Southern thing. I’ve seen a lot of it in the South, but I’ve seen it in the North, too. And I saw a lot of it on display in the supposedly liberal and enlightened democracies of Western Europe. Latin America (the other “foreign” area where I’ve spent a lot of time) has big racism issues, too.

        5. I’m a southern boy from the southern part of the southern state of Mississippi, and have spent the last 6 years as a missionary in West Africa. For each person who says that all southerners are racists: how many times have you refered to Africa as a “country”? and how long would it take you to locate Burkina Faso on a map?
          Bigotry and racism take on many different forms (like complete ignorance of anything truly African) and in regions other than just “the South”

        6. I’ve never said that all Southerners are racists, but I don’t think Africa is a country (I think it is Sarah Palin, who’s about as non-Southern as you can get, who famously thought that), and it’s long been an ambition of mine to go to Burkina Faso, mostly so that I can say I’ve been to Ouagadougou. I love the name of that place. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. (singing) I left my heart in Ouagadougou …

        9. I heard the “n bomb” often when I was in the north (grew up there). I honestly have never heard it in the south. Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong people.

        11. I’m a Southerner. I have never, nor will I ever, use that word. And, for the record, I never had a neighbor care about my race until I moved to California. When we moved into our current home, neighbors were watching out their windows to see if we were Latino, African-American, or of another race.

        12. As a Southerner myself (who also has never used the n-word), I have to say that Natalie is my new best friend. 😀

        13. I am not sure where this will post. I was just pointing out that the preacher in this clip is both nice and apparently a bigot. The two can come in the same package.

          I am a Southerner. I like iced tea, cornbread and collard greens. I do not believe that geography is even a component of racism. I do not believe that some quirk of genetics has made Southerners predisposed to hate black people.
          Racism can happen anywhere. That was not my point, I was just pointing out that you can be a nice, polite, well-spoken bigot.

        15. @Apathetic – It’s like I always say, “Sh*t rolled in sugar is still sh*t.”

        16. Sorry you’ve had such a bad experience in the South. But seriously, not all of us are like that. I was raised to abhor the “n” word. I can’t stand it and won’t stand for anyone saying it.

        17. I *sigh* know a woman who uses the n-word with reckless abandon. Just ALLUDE to the f-bomb, and she gets the vapors like Aunt Pittypat announcing that Yankees are in Atlanta!

        18. John, I’d be inclined to drop the “f” bomb every single time she dropped the “n” bomb. Just work it into the conversation. 😉

        19. Racism is alive and well in the North, trust me. It’s just more well-hidden.

    3. The ignorance and feigned shock in this thread is astounding. Racism is everywhere but I suppose it makes some people feel better about their own sins by casting aspersions on other regions or cultures.. and I don’t just mean racism- I mean regionalism. “Oh Lord thank you that I’m not like those ignorant Southern people as I love my Black neighbors more than they.” Large cities in the North have entire villages and neighborhoods divided on ethnic lines.

      And to act shocked if someone uses the “n” word means you never listen to the radio or watch movies or television. It doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to use it given historical associations with slavery and institutional racism and whatnot, but it’s so common to hear it in pop culture that to pretend you are shocked by hearing doesn’t seem very genuine or perhaps you live under a rock. I’m rather frustrated to have to hear it all the time because I think it sends mixed signals when young people pick up the term from music and then their elders chide them for using it. I think it should’ve been eliminated altogether just like all other racial epitaphs.

      1. What feigned shock?
        A bunch of people here are expressing revulsion at racist comments, but nobody said they were surprised by them.

      2. What frustrates me the most about the n-bomb, as people here call it, is that blacks can use it and it’s OK. Whites use it and people are calling the NAACP. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and all that.

        1. That doesn’t make me feel deprived.
          I don’t want to say that word, anyway.

        2. you might feel differently abou that word if your grandparents or great grandparents had been called “N—–” while being hung from a tree. If somehow, a group of oppressed people has found a way to empower a word among themselves that used to stand for an abhorent hatered and violence, more power to them. That word does not mean to you what it means to the people who were abused by it.

      3. “And to act shocked if someone uses the “n” word means you never listen to the radio or watch movies or television…”

        It wasn’t just the N-Word. It was the N-word followed by a minute of hate-filled invective toward another co-worker just because he was black. And yes, I was shocked because having lived 30 years in Virginia and about 6 in Manhattan, it wasn’t till I moved to West Virginia that I actually experienced that kind of hate first hand. I do watch TV sometimes, but when I do I guess I’m going at it like it’s not real..so..My bad, Sorry everyone. 😯

        1. Well that’s altogether shocking so I’m right there with you. Thing is racism isn’t confined to a region, culture, or country.

      4. “It is so common to hear it in pop culture that to pretend you are shocked by hearing doesn’t seem very genuine or perhaps you live under a rock.”

        OK. I wasn’t going to say anything but….

        1. I’m not pretending
        2. Genuineness is not something that is normally deduced from reading 1 or 2 comments in the meta.
        3. I don’t live under a rock, but I don’t spend a lot of time soaking up “pop culture” either.
        4. I heard hateful speech. I didn’t like it. What is your beef again, exactly?

  17. BTW, Kudos (again) for the courage to confront racism in IFB land specifically. As you’ve seen in the past, there are sadly many many many racist defenders even on SFL.

      1. Previous posts on the Confederacy, slavery & racism have caused quite a stir of defenders. Was fairly shocking.

        2. *throws a butt cushion over Rob’s face*

          No, I’m not smothering him, folks, I’m trying to keep him from opening this can of worms…. in Christian love. 😉

  18. I’m sorry. I can’t even make myself click on the play button. Just another tool of the devil to divide people, and focus on something stupid instead of being salt and light.

    1. (The man’s theology is the devil’s tool; not Darrell’s posting of the clip.)

    2. I cannot bring myself to listen to this either. I am not far enough out of fundydom yet, and listening to this kind of crap makes my stomach turn.

      1. Isn’t it funny how many of us have actual physical reactions to the stuff from fundystan? I get physically sick as well. I actually had a panic attack when my husband started mocking the song “Thanks to Calvary” because of the bad memories!!

  19. I wonder why the most northern church on his schedule is in the North Carolina? 😕

    1. If you look at the schedules of many southern preachers, they rarely, if ever, venture into “the Nawth land”. A lot of them are associated with the Sword of the Lord.

  20. When a person can take the verse that says God has created us of “one blood” and say that means that we’re all of “different blood”…I’m not sure that there’s any way to reason with such an individual.

      1. In blood transfusion terms, people have different blood types (A, B, O, Rh+ or Rh-), but that doesn’t divide by sociological “races” (black, white, east Asian, etc.). People in the same “race,” and even in the same family, have different “blood.”

      2. People in different “races” can also have matching blood types.
        So, different blood? Nope.

  21. Sad and sickening. At FBC Hammond while I was there, they had a quota for how many “blacks” you could have on any given bus… BTW, Hyles was a bigot through and through!

    1. Can you give us some details on this? Who said this and where did they say it?

      1. When we were at HAC they had the black bus routes and the Puerto Rican ones. They couldn’t be mixed because all hell would break loose (supposedly) but the black bus route kids couldn’t be anywhere near the “A” sunday school kids lest they somehow corrupt them. That was 35 years ago. We had a “black” route though. I can’t even begin to tell you all the horrible racist things they would say to those kids.

        1. They always said we couldn’t bring blacks because of the bad mix of gangs with Hispanic. However, Ray Young/bus director referred to them as Number Two’s which I have always found offensive. If you had blacks on your Hispanic bus route you would be turned in to Ray Young. The bus captain would be called out to the Division Leader (their bus hierarchy) who was to go back to said bus captain and tell him to knock it off and not bring them. Again they always covered their back by saying the reason was due to gang violence.

        2. That sounds like something that happened at a big IFB church I attended while at BJU. One year, one of the pastors wanted to integrate the bus kids into the Wednesday night Awana and Sunday schools with the church kids. I have never seen so many parents so angry! They claimed the (black) bus kids would disrupt the program for the (white)church kids. Many of these parents were BJU faculty and staff.

        3. Yes, about the time we graduated they were eliminating the black routes because they said that when they mixed with the other ones there was too much fighting. When we were there though they used to advertise free watermelon and then say things about the kids who came to get it. I was always so shocked at the attitudes and am ashamed that I never had the courage to speak up at the time.

        4. Still had that as of two years ago, except that they started bringing the black bus routes back and having their own church.
          All hell did break loose a few times, usually during really big days.

      2. Jim Vinyard, Denny Kenniston… Any bus captains who went to the required weekly bus meetings. (answering the question, Who said it and where did they say it)

      3. That percentage rule was well known rule. While in Bible Clubs we had the 80/20 rule. Jeff Owens didn’t come out and say it in public, he would do it a little more quietly.
        A routes (local) routes where the harshest about keeping the quotas down. My husband was a Bible Club Leader in Gary, IN so he got by..otherwise he would have NO kids on his bus.

  22. It’s disgusting to have to listen to an older man rant like this, but I am especially disheartened when I see young men like Josh Owens continuing this sort of racism. Oh, that God’s spirit would open their eyes, because His Word cannot get any clearer than it already is: we are all one in Christ.

  23. My brain hurts. Badly. I actually took the time to look up the verses he referenced.
    An example:
    Deut 7:3 “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.”

    Wow! What a clearcut condemnation of “international marriages”, whatever that is. What’s that? I should read the next verse? Okay.

    “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”

    Oh! It is a warning against marrying people of other religions! Also, the book of Lev and Deut have numerous passages dealing with how to accept people from other countries, how to treat them and how to marry them.

    He says the different groups did not choose to be where they are. For some reason, this is an argument against interracial marriage. I can think of one group that definitely did not choose to be where they are today and that is African Americans. I am not prepared to concede that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was of God.

    This guy is a classic “Racist butt”. “I am not a racist, but….”

    He obviously decided in advance what he wanted the Bible to say or he would have noticed that the Bible contradicts what he says.
    A simple glance at Jesus’ ancestry would suffice to disprove this screed.

  24. Oh yeah, this is a classic fundie belief system. Thankfully, it seems to have mellowed out some in my circles, but its sort of an unspoken thing. No one that I know would criticize a missionary marrying someone of a different color, but there still is this unspoken rule about it all.

    I remember at one time bringing it up to some people when I was younger and learned very quickly that it was a heated subject and not to bother bringing up again.

    1. A veritable Who’s Who of Local Fundiedom. The SOTL mother church is in there was well.

  26. I agree with Ballew on one thing: believing the Bible doesn’t make you a racist. However, reading bilge into the Bible that isn’t there just to justify your prejudices does make you a racist.

    If he would just read what the Bible says, instead of what he thinks it says or wants it to say, he would not have these beliefs.

    He is standing in front of the American flag. I wonder if he knows that the US military has a much higher rate of interracial marriage than the general population?

  27. I have had this discussion with more than one ignorant IFB. I was raised in a racist environment. When I started to see people as people and read the Bible I REJECTED racisim. My parents were appalled when I told them I would rather my daughter marry a “Christian” black man than a lost white guy. We are white (German) by the way.

    I never heard it preached on like this guy. It was always just understood and promoted at “fellowship” time. I’m glad he is proclaiming his belief loud and clear so everyone can see his ignorance!

    1. fred – sounds familiar. About 25 years ago, some of my dad’s co-workers were having a discussion about their daughters’ dating choices, and my dad said he didn’t care if his daughter married a black man, as long as he was a Christian. His co-workers were shocked. This was in NY, by the way.

  28. I wonder if he is related to Ed Ballew? I heard Ed preach several times growing up.

  29. All this fuss over the amount of melanin in someone’s skin. Is it worth it? 🙄

  30. BJ III ended the dating ban at BJU only because it was hurting the college, not because it was hurting people. If some of these ignorant churches/pastors had to go on nationial TV and make the case, I suspect they would end their public stance against interracial dating as well. I’d love to be able to make the point to them that they’re in agreement with the KKK, and the the Nation of Islam. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.

    1. Actually, BJU initially didn’t have a policy against interracial dating. It was only when an Asian family sued the school because their child was dating a white student that the school started to ban interracial dating.

        2. IDK what the actual story of BJU’s history of interracial dating was, but that BS screams of fake PR BJU would put out. No one can sue a school over who their son or daughter is dating at the school, or even chooses to marry. School bears no responsibility whatsoever for consensual social interactions. IF someone tried to file a suit they would be laughed out of court. I don’t know who they think is going to believe that, but that’s not credible at all.

        3. Actually, anybody can sue anybody for anything. But that lawsuit would have absolutely no chance of succeeding. The judge would throw it out before it ever came to trial.

        4. Any lawyer that said you had a chance with a lawsuit should be disbarred, and since you don’t have a standing, I don’t even think BJU would have to even show up in court. I guess should have someone there to say “WTF, your honor”, but can always have one of the student employees go do that. 🙂

        5. The story is that BJ Sr. was a segregationist from way back and would never have permitted this to happen on his campus. And that tradition was carried on from the founding.

          I featured Sr’s sermon “Is Segregation Biblical” somewhere a while back. I can look it up again and link it if you would like.

          There may have been some Asian parents at some point that objected to who their child was dating. But the policy doesn’t spring from there. That’s just a flat out falsehood.

        6. Sadly, that’s the version I heard too – about the ban coming because Asian parents didn’t want their children dating and marrying non-Asians – and I believed it, back when I was young and naive.

        7. I would guess that they are still peddling that, and it’s easy to believe when you think there’s no way they would have ulterior motives for what their doing, and wouldn’t think they are covering up. I feel a bit bad for mocking, cause I don’t wanna mock people that believe it, but the story they came up with as their cover story is absurd, and laughable. Very easy for people to fall for it that believe them to be a good organization.

        8. I’d be curious to know though. Wasn’t the policy in place before blacks were even allowed to enroll?

        9. To answer exfundy’s question. The “real” story behind BJUs no interacial dating policy dates back to 1975. Prior to 1975, BJU was a “whites only” university…no african-americans were allowed to enroll as students (they could, however, work as janitors, cooks, dishwashers, etc.). In 1975, the state of South Carolina passed a law that prohibited private education institutions from discriminating on the basis of race (yeah, it took them 11 years after the Civil Rights Act to get their act together in SC). BJU was forced to comply with the law, so they began allowing african-american students to enroll, but not before instituting a ban on interracial dating. The interesting thing about this is, that it was BJU III (yeah the one who went on Larry King to say they had lifted the ban) who issued a memo in 1975 to the schools attorneys that stated in part:

          “This institutions Bible-based convictions are against interracial dating and marriage.”

          Wait a sec…I thought in their apology, they said the rule was because they “followed the culture”. Now which was it Bobby? Bible-based convictions or southern heritage/culture???

      2. Well, of course we all tried to believe that version of the story. That’s the version BJ Jr and III tried to foist on us. Falsehood it is. Why these people aren’t called out on their lies is beyond reason.

        1. It’s pretty shameful that they try to sell false excuses. Why can’t they just say, “We realize that policy was wrong, so now we’re eliminating it”?

  31. My Father has never said anything to me about marrying or dating any man of a different color or culture. He did tell me that if I ever brought a Navy fellow home (officer or not), he would throw me out! (He’s an Army man. Which is what drove him and mother to be hippies when he got out. He has allowed that my brothers may be Marines when they turn 18. Or plumbers.)

  32. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I am from the south and I am proud to be a racist. I don’t want my daughters or sons marrying someone of another race.

    Those Klingons and Vulcans and Wookies just need to keep to their own kind. That’s right, my kids are only allowed to date humans. Any other races start coming around and I’m getting my shotgun.

    Well, I might get my shotgot anyway if they come around for my daughters. “You wanna see my daughter? Sure, son, don’t mind me, though, I’m just sitting here cleaning my shotgun.”

    1. Well, at least you’re discriminating against actual other races, not humans who just look a little different.

    2. I submit as proof to support your contention – Spock. A mixed race human/Vulcan hybrid, constantly giving in to his weaker, lesser human side.

      On the other hand, those blood elf males are smokin’!

      1. I’ll see your “Spock” and raise you a “B’Elanna Torres” and “Tanis Halfelven” for more examples of that problem.

        Now, how come no one talks about the smokin’ hot Dwarf women? 😉

        3. IMO, 7-of-9 doesn’t count as mixed race – she was definitely a fully human child named Annika Hanson before she was assimilated.

  33. “Stinnet Ballew”? Where, oh, where do Fundy preachers get these names?
    Were they named after B-movie parodies of Southern preachers?

  34. [Sigh.]

    This clown doesn’t even know the differences between a race, a nationality, an ethnicity, and a language community, yet he seeks to instruct the world about God’s views of them.

    He’s the second Fundy nut we’ve seen in three days who doesn’t know that “descendants” is the opposite of “ancestors” (for the first one, see the dimwitted screed that I Am His Beloved linked to on Saturday [but not because she agrees with it]:
    http://jerrykaifetz.com/?p=206 ).
    Stinnet Ballew says “my descendants were from France and the American Indians,” yet he is clearly trying to refer to his great-great grandparents, not his own children and grandchildren.

    Jesus and David were both mixed-race by his standards (just check out their geneologies in the Bible). What does he think about that?

    Apparently, the main qualification for having a network or syndicated radio show these days is towering ignorance combined with a know-it-all attitude.

    How long, O Lord, how long?

    1. In his defense, (crap did I just say that?) some languages do use that construction. The language that I speak sees you as being at the pinnacle of your family line. Therefore, all of your ancestors descend from you. In fact, the words meanings are reversed from English. That said, it makes little to no sense in English.

    2. Re Jesus’ genealogy: We spent a lot of time on this in Education for Ministry. The fact that outsiders are explicitly identified as ancestors of the Messiah has to mean something. While I could quote someone else about the meaning (“In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek”), I like how one classmate explained it: “It means that Christian Identity are a bunch of illiterate shitheads.”

  35. That was horrible. I couldn’t even listen to the whole clip. For many years, I attended a full Gospel church where the “N” bomb was dropped regularly, until recent years, and this man leads a very integrated church. He got away with this — and still gets away with a lot of other junk — because most who attend there for any length of time fall under his spell and practically worship him.

    Interracial marriages were okay in this man’s eyes, unless the couple wanted to attend seminary and go into ministry. It was said that as a mixed couple, they would have nothing but problems reaching people for Christ.

    I like to think he’s become a better man, because he doesn’t use the “N” word from the pulpit any more, but I believe many of the changes within his group have come only to save face in the light of an internet-connected world. Word is out about this group, and they have lost a lot of people because of it.

    There was never any video or audio taping allowed in any of the services in the old church I attended, and I can see their reasoning for that now. They only recently “allowed” members to have and use the internet at all.

    So glad to be free!

  36. Well, I have been reading here for the last few weeks and have read pretty far back into the “archive” if you will (and consequently have gotten little work done lately). This is my first post. I’m glad to say that I grew up in a non-racist IFB. I’m from VA and lived in a neighborhood that, at most had one other caucasian family in it at the same time as mine. All of my friends were African-american and I always considered them normal and equal and human. While my church had it’s problems, and I have mixed emotions about being out of it, racism was never an issue. We had “inter-racial” couples, and one of the men was a deacon for forever.
    Darrell, thank you for compiling these posts, videos and articles. I didn’t realize until lately why, since my late teen years, I have been so uncomfortable in most IFB churches. I still work for an FU, and may try to get out, but for now I’m going to study the Bible for myself to relearn, or learn for the first time, what God Himself requires of me, and what He allows me to do for Him and for myself.

    1. @jMac, just a little over a year out myself. Best bit of advice I can give you is to recognize that the same God who justified you will sanctify you. It is His work and not yours. That, in and of itself, is so very freeing. One of the core issues that fundamentalism gets wrong is Sanctification. sanctification is an extention of justification, it doesnt’ stand over and against justification. Forget what you have been told and get a good orthodox Reformed or Lutheran commentary on the book of Galatians.

    2. My wife grew up in a fundie church in the Nawth, and there was never any racism. In fact there were and are “mixed race couples” (I despise that term myself). Not all fundies get all the same things wrong!

  38. I know Stinnet personally, though I haven’t seen him in 15 years. I love Stinnet like a brother. He was one of the first people I went to when I came to faith in Christ to tell. That being said, this form of racism that he is proclaiming is wrong, and he is wrong for teaching it.

  39. As a proud member of a transracial family idiotic dribble like this makes my blood boil! How can people who actually read the Word buy this garbage?

    1. Because they don’t actually read their Bibles objectively. They just dive into it trying to prove what they already believe.

  41. I’ma gonna post first and read second, because when I read first I feel like I don’t have anything to add.

    I just am always dumbfounded that there are people who think this and think it’s OK to talk like this. “sad/wicked”? what a . . . (mind explodes as I try to think of a word to fit) . . . Camille pointed out on her blog that people like me, raised in the North and attending BJ after 1983, don’t pick up on the coded racism down there. I know anyone anywere can be racist but I also just. don’t. get it. How can we love God if we hate our neighbor?

      1. Their reasoning is that the “lesser races” are not your neighbours.

        The Bible never condemns slavery, anywhere, ever, period.

        The abolitionists had to extrapolate from the 2 great commandments to make an argument against slavery.

        The Old Testament was a mother lode for the slave owners.

        1. The Gospels and Paul’s letters contain principles to which abolitionists appealed, but you’re right–it’s easier to make a case for slavery using literal Biblical interpretation than it is abolitionism.

          Then again, the type of slavery described in the OT isn’t race-based and is not always passed on in perpituity.

        2. I’ll gladly agree that it’s hard to accept that the Bible does indeed allow for true slavery, I assume at least you would admit that it makes no provisions for for what America did to acquire slaves. Most of what the scriptures “ok” as slavery would be better working conditions than illegal immigrants are treated like in America in 2011.

        3. @RobM & @Mark. Yes. and Yes. Slavery permitted in the OT is different than slavery was under the Romans as well.

          And the way Africans were acquired for slavery in the US isn’t defensible using the Bible.

          And yes, many good Christian capitalists treat their illegals much worse than they have been treated under OT slavery.

          However, here is my big problem.

          I have difficulty taking the Bible seriously as a guide for ethics because of this issue. Inspiration isn’t even on the radar.

          If humans are created in God’s image and the second commandment says to love your neighbours as yourself, then why does the Bible fail to unequivocally condemn slavery? Heck, it fails to equivocally condemn slavery.

          There isn’t even a gotcha text. The anti-gays have a few of those, at least.

  42. Here’s a Fundy rule:
    Anybody who says, “This isn’t my opinion, it’s God’s,” is not only giving his own personal opinion, but knows that he can’t back it up with any good arguments.

    2. BG – That was always followed up with a “if you have a problem with what I am saying, you have a problem with God”.
      I always considered that cowardly.

      1. Funny how that quote, more often than not, is preceded by outright heresy. I know a whole crap-load of BS is coming when I hear “if you don’t like what I say then take it up with God”

        1. Other strong indicators of heresy to follow….”wide and narrow gate” “not everyone who says ‘Lord Lord'” and so on….

  43. A mutual friend (who is not a fundy) was trying to set me up with this certain guy.

    Come to find out, this certain guy graduated from BJU this past semester after attending for his undergrad and masters. My mind immediately began racing with thoughts of returning to fundyland.

    I can’t go back. I will not go back. And it’s for reasons just like the topic of this post that I will not go back. I can *stand* the disagreement with styles of music, or even the yelling and screaming – but it’s jokers like Ballew and their philosophies that help me to know I could never have a clear conscience about going back to fundyland.

    Growing up, there was not one single black person to attend my fundy church consistently. Those that did begin attending eventually went elsewhere. There could be rational reasons for this … but I don’t think so. I even remember a guy in the college/career class laughing at how he was going to wear his “rebel flag” belt buckle to church because a black lady had begun attending. Those same people explained the BJU racism debacle as, “Well, that’s just how it used to be in the South. BJU was following popular culture.” Every step a fundy takes to explain away the whole racist debacle just end up putting their foot in their mouth or sounding so incredibly hypocritical.

  44. Christian theology – done right – should lead to the eradication of grouping individuals together based on their race.

    We are all descendants of Adam, in other words, at the end of the day, we are all the same race – human!

    Humanistic evolution, however, clearly teaches a distinction and superiority of some races over others (e.g., survival of the fittest). Just look at the original title of Darwin’s book: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

    1. Darwin’s title doesn’t mean “race” in the sense of white people, black people, brown people, etc.
      He used “race” in the sense of lineage– the more adaptive (“favoured”) genetic traits will tend to be passed on to more offspring. That’s within a specific biological population. It’s not “race” as a sociological category Darwin is talking about; it’s individual variation and its inheritability. Charles Darwin specifically rejected the notion that some races or classes of humans are more evolutionarily advanced than others.

      1. I know you are right BG. I just wish we could pait it otherwise to the fundies. What a great argument against this brand of racism.

        “Oh, so you are a Darwinist racist? I thought Christians eschewed Darwin. Guess you do agree with some aspects of Evolutionary Theory then.”

        That would be a great way to send them scattering. I know there are others influenced by survival of the fittest that do espouse this ideology, but I don’t think it would carry the same weight.

  45. Christian Fundamentalism is a supremacist ideology, like racism. It is that belief that one’s self worth is based on group identity and not individual merit.
    We have all encounter fundies who believe that “the sinner’s prayer” they said when they were three years old makes them smarter and morally superior to any unsaved person. Even if a fundie is a high school drop- out with a criminal record and the unsaved trash went to Harvard and works as a volunteer for the Peace Corps. The fundie is still the superior human being.
    One can understand why both Christian Fundamentalism and White supremacy appealed to many members of the Southern white underclass. Both ideologies gave marginalized poor white people a scene of self worth in a sociality where there was little hope of upward mobility.
    Both George Wallace and Storm Thurmond were sympatric to the plight of southern blacks until both decided to run for political office. Wallace later apologized.
    I believe Bob Jones created a white supremacist form of Christian Fundamentalism as a means to gain power and wealthy for himself.
    “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents… Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without a belief in a devil.”
    — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 95

  46. My sister is adopted and bi-racial and I can honestly say that those two things don’t matter to me one bit. She’s my sister! Racist people make me want to vomit all over their cheap suits and awful ties.

    I actually forget that my sister is bi-racial until I read racist comments or encounter racist people on the Internet. Some fundies are so separatist that they want to separate the U.S. into different regions for different races. It’s crazy and they are nutcase, fruitcake crazy and so are the people who listen to them or read their screeds.

  47. Racism, judging people based upon their skin color, has been around a very long time. It’s wrong. But, so is “spiritual/religious” racism, which IMO is what fundy-ism is all about. They see themselves better than everyone else and it’s strictly their way or the highway.

    This is such drivel!

  48. JAW DROP!
    I’m only 2 minutes in and I’m already furious!
    “I know somethings wrong about it but didn’t have a Biblical reason for it” (so basically, he had to go find one)
    “races = kinds” NOOOOOOOOOO! That’s contrary to ANY viewpoint! Thats even contrary to your OWN YEC creation view promoted by your OWN IFB creation instututes that claim that all the species we have today desecended by “micro-evolution” (natural selection) from the “kinds” God made. ARGHGGHG! ❗ ❗ 😡

  49. “I’m not a racist. I’m just a bible-believing Christian!” (FACEPALM) 😐

    “If I’m a racist, then God’s a racist!” (DOUBLE FACEPALM) 😡

    “‘And God made of one blood all the nations of the earth….’ Now, it’s not saying that God made all the nations of one blood….” (FACEPALM PALOOZA) 👿

  50. This is the second post from someone out of the Sammy Allen camp. That’s the brand of Fundy I grew up with. All of my hero’s as a kid were racists with Dr Philly the Kidd leading the pack. He said from the pulpit that God called him to his own people. If a black man or woman got saved under his big circus tent, he’d send them to the closest black baptist church.

    1. Phil “karate”Kidd’s brand of racism makes Stinnet’s teaching look like a Civil Rights Rally keynote address.

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