A Protestant Deformation: Is Partiality Ever Allowed?
The deformation of the online Reformed world has reached new lows. I’ve run in these circles for years, writing for CrossPolitic and others, particularly to help defeat the lies of social justice and wokeness. I’ve been fighting that war since 2006, before I knew what critical race theory (CRT) was while I was attending a supposedly conservative Christian college. I’m still fighting this battle in my denomination. In short, I’ve been engaged in this conflict, not just online, but in real life for nearly two decades. I’ve been slandered, lost friends, threatened with removal from school, and encouraged by leadership to leave my denomination standing against wokeness in the church.
What is happening today in some (and I stress some) quarters of the Reformed world is something that I did not see coming. I want to be slow to call anyone a “racist” as I believe that epithet is overused to the point it has lost almost all meaning. Moreover, as much as possible, I prefer to use biblical language. The sins behind actual “racism” are pride, hatred, injustice, and partiality. What surprises me is that some who helped fight against the sinful partiality known as CRT, are all of a sudden suggesting that partiality can be righteous. Some have become a mirror image of Ibram Kendi and his call to fight discrimination with discrimination. Partiality against certain ethnicities is now being defended by some within the supposed Reformed camp and I find myself making the same arguments to those on the “right” that I made against the regressive left.
Today, I write to address those who are straying from biblical ethics and truth. Most of these men I believe are responding to real issues within the culture and the church that need to be confronted. Regrettably, they are not responding to these cultural lies with a consistently biblical ethic. I do not believe that most of them are genuine “racists,” though a minority of them certainly are.
My concern comes from the trajectory of some of their arguments. Ideas have consequences. I fear the consequences of these ideas will lead some away from Christ. This is the first of two posts in which I will argue against this current deformation within the Reformed camp.
The deformation I’m targeting is the argument that sometimes “racial partiality” is righteous. There is a lot to unpack here, but my basic point is this—biblically partiality, as a category, is always sinful. Biblically, there is no righteous form of partiality. Because of the dearth of biblical support for racial partiality, many appeal to a very distorted view of “nature.” Before exploring the biblical evidence, I would like to offer some needed qualifications.
Qualifications
I believe that modern globalism is evil and has directly led to many of our problems. Modern globalism was an overcorrection to the horrors of a form of nationalism inspired by Darwin, Nietzsche, and Marx, which has no place in the church. Perverted forms of both nationalism and globalism should be rejected. Christians must know that these two are not the only options before us.
I believe that cultures are worth preserving. Christians should reject the lies of multiculturalism that says all cultural beliefs, customs, and practices are equal. God’s law provides us with a standard to judge everything, including cultures. Note, that the judging of a culture is not rooted in biological realities, but in beliefs, customs, and practices. I believe the West, though not perfect, is the greatest culture the world has ever seen and is worth preserving. Such preservation requires much repentance and a spiritual revival as what made the West great was Christianity (hence the term Christendom).
I reject all forms of racial essentialism. This is the belief that the modern definition of race (skin color, face shape, etc.) is essential and central to a person’s identity. Biblically, there is the race of Adam and the race of Christ. That’s it. There are different ethnicities and nations in the world, but such categories are far more complicated than current reductionistic racial thinking. Christians must assert the fundamental unity of the human race in Adam, and the new human race being made in Christ.
I believe the political left is attempting to destroy the West through unchecked immigration. Christians should oppose this without falling into sinful partiality. Again, cultures, insofar as they are righteous, are worth preserving. There are parts of modern American culture that need to be rejected, some parts that need reformation, and other parts that should be preserved and built upon.
I reject the flattening out of all relationships (familial, national, church, etc.) as this ignores God’s creational design and sovereign ordering of the world. Yet, the standards of right and wrong transcend our relationships.
I reject the neglect of the biblical concept of covenant. Blood is not thicker than covenantal realities. For example, when a man and woman, not related by blood, enter the covenant of marriage, they form a new family and become one flesh (Gen. 2:23–25). Spouses leave their old families and enter into the closest human relationship possible through the covenant of marriage. A new family is formed, not by blood, but by a covenant. Biblically, covenant trumps biology.
Now to the problem at hand.
Problem 1: Endorsing “Racial Partiality”
Some have suggested that there can be forms of righteous “racial partiality.” To be fair, they also say there are forms of unrighteous racial partiality. Though they are short on explaining the boundaries of the two. Others assert that it is “natural” to practice partiality in favor of your family and/or nation. Is there any biblical warrant for such claims about partiality? No.
Of course, we have a fundamentally different relationship with and responsibilities toward our families and nations. Yet, our love and obligations for them must not lead to partiality. Samuel practiced partiality with his family and it led to great suffering in Israel. One reason God warns us against partiality is because it is so appealing to our sinful natures to treat people close to us by a different standard.
Definitions and categories matter. What is partiality? The Greek word translated as partiality (Col. 3:25) literally means to “receive the face.” David Poa notes it is a combination of two words that form among “the earliest definitely Christian words” (Colossians and Philemon, 277). Rejecting partiality was so important to Christianity that we made up a word for it. This word was also used to translate its Hebrew counterpoint. Partiality carries with it the idea of slanting judgment toward or away from someone based on their face. In short, partiality is altering universal standards because of who someone is. It is basing our judgment on the identity (face) of a person. Biblically, such partiality is always sinful.
With this definition in mind, let’s look at the biblical prohibitions against partiality. They are overwhelming. These passages, as they address us, can be grouped into five broad categories where God forbids partiality. Some of these passages could fall into several of these categories. It can feel “natural” to show partiality to your people, but that doesn’t make it righteous.
Legal Partiality
In the OT, the most common forbidding of partiality is in legal settings. The law is to be blind, or impartial, to the individuals involved. Rich, poor, male, female, slave, free, foreigner, or citizen. Below are the verses which forbid partiality in a legal setting.
Exodus 23:3—Don’t be “partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.”
Leviticus 19:15—“You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” (Note that being partial is contrasted with righteousness.)
Deuteronomy 1:17—“You shall not be partial in judgment.”
Deuteronomy 16:19—No perverting of justice or showing “partiality.”
Psalm 82:2—“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?”
Without a doubt, God forbids partiality in judging legal cases and the establishment of laws. Partiality goes against God’s character (Lev. 19:15–16). This is why affirmative action laws are inherently unjust because they make legal judgments based on who someone is. To legally judge someone based on who they are is wicked and contrary to the word of God.
Personal Partiality
The Bible also forbids partiality in personal conduct and relations. This category is broad, but it reminds us that a righteous man is impartial in his personal conduct.
Job 13:8–10—Job’s friends show “partiality” to God in their wicked judgments of Job. Job tells his friends that God will judge them for showing partiality to God (!). If it is unacceptable to show partiality to God, how can we justify giving it to anyone?
Job 34:19—A righteous man is described as one who “shows no partiality to princes.”
Proverbs 18:5—“It is not good to be partial to the wicked.”
Proverbs 24:23—“Partiality in judging is not good.”
Proverbs 28:21—“To show partiality is not good, but for a piece of bread a man will do wrong.”
Malachi 2:9—The priests are showing “partiality” in their “instruction” and doing so is against the “ways” of God.
Luke 20:21—The Jewish leaders try to butter up Jesus by saying he doesn’t show “partiality.”
In these passages, we see that our personal conduct is to be impartial. It is wrong, according to Job, even to show partiality toward God. This is because partiality is against God’s character, thus it is an affront to him.
Partiality in Church
In the NT, partiality is specifically forbidden behavior for the church, as the inclusion of the Gentiles demonstrates God’s impartiality.
1 Timothy 5:21—Before God, Jesus, and the angels we are to do “nothing from partiality.”
James 2:1–9—Here God forbids partiality within the church. Partiality is found to be a violation of the law of God as it commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is not an alibi for partiality.
In church life, there should be no hint of partiality as it violates the commandment of love. Any argument that love for certain groups justifies partiality defies the plain testimony of Scripture. Love for family or nation is not a justification for partiality.
Partiality in Salvation
Next, there are a series of passages that describe God’s impartiality in salvation. God does not show partiality in how he saves. Contrary to woke people, the diversity of the kingdom is not motivated by God meeting some DEI quota, for that would make him partial and our salvation somewhat based on our identity. If who we are obliges God to save us in some way, then salvation ceases to be based on grace.
Acts 10:34—Upon seeing God save and pour out his spirit on Gentiles, Peter says, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality.”
Romans 2:11—Paul summarizing the equality of Jews and Gentiles says in salvation, “For God shows no partiality.”
God’s grace upon us is not rooted in partiality but in his impartial character. He judges everyone equally. If grace is proof of partiality, it ceases to be grace because it becomes something we earn based on our identity.
Partiality in the Household
In Ephesians and Colossians, Paul addresses partiality in his household codes. Paul forbids partiality in the sphere of the household. In the ancient world, slaves were a part of the household, and here Paul addresses how they must be treated equally.
Colossians 3:25—Paul says that wrongdoers within a household will be judged because there is “no partiality.” The implication is that slave masters must be impartial in how they treat those in their household. This impartially does not negate the different relationships in the household, but it means the standards of equality and justice remain unchanged.
Ephesians 6:9—Paul instructs masters to treat their slaves fairly because they also have a master and in him “there is no partiality.”
Evil behavior within a household will be judged because of God’s impartiality. The condemnation of partiality in Scripture includes the spheres of law, individuals, church, salvation, and the household. In short, all of life.
All of this flows from the reality of God’s character. There is another set of verses, some included above (Acts 10:34, Rom. 2:11, Col. 3:25, Eph. 6:9), that plainly state that partiality is contrary to the very character of God:
Deuteronomy 10:17—“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.”
2 Chronicles 19:7—“We are instructed to fear the Lord, even as his people, because “For there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes.”
What biblical warrant is there to argue for a righteous form of partiality? None. To argue for the righteousness of partiality is to attack God’s character. It is to place your understanding of “nature” over God’s word. It is to abandon the heart of the Reformation—sola scriptura.
In short, anyone arguing for a righteous form of partiality faces a mountain of evidence to the contrary. The burden of proof is on them to establish from Scripture that there are some types of righteous partiality. As you can see, the biblical witness is consistent, clear, and direct. Partiality is the altering universal standards because of who someone is. Love of family or nation does not justify partiality because partiality is an inherently unloving act.
Clarifying the Confusion
Much of the present confusion comes from a misunderstanding of love. The law is summarized in the two great commandments—love God and love others. This means we owe love to everyone, no matter who they are. We recoil from this truth because we don’t want to flatten all our relationships (and we shouldn’t). Yet, our confusion flows from two misunderstandings of love.
First, love is not primarily a feeling. Love, at its baseline, means treating others righteously (Rom. 13:8–10). Loving my neighbor does not mean I feel the same way about him as do for my wife and children. When I see my neighbor John across the street, I am not required to have my heart jump or butterflies in my stomach. Love is not primarily a feeling, but rather it is about doing the right thing.
Second, the obligations of our love are not determined by who someone is (their face), but by what our relationship is to them. We owe everyone love, but that love takes different forms based on our covenantal relationship to them. I owe my wife, children, and nation different expressions of love because of my relationship with them. But I still owe love to those who are not in my family or nation. Of course, as Christians have argued for centuries, we must have rightly ordered affections and loves, but such ordering is not partiality. It is not changing the judgment or standards based on who someone is. Rather, we must love everyone, and the obligations of that love are determined by God’s created order and our relationships with them.
I have a higher and deeper obligation of love for my family and nation, but that does not mean I have no obligation to love those far off. God’s standard of love is universal, but it is informed and shaped by creational and covenantal responsibilities.
Conclusion
Sadly, much of the deformation of the online Reformed world appears driven by factions and personalities. To be clear, most of the “big names” in this fight I don’t pay attention to. I have no interest in the squabbles between Tobias and Joel. What I do care about is what Scripture teaches. And the Bible is crystal clear on the issue of partiality.
Partiality is never righteous. Definitions and categories matter. With such an overwhelming biblical condemnation of partiality, why the persistent insistence on using it in a positive way? What about that word/category is so important for them to redefine? Mostly, I believe they are just thinking in muddied ways, and trying to explain some difficult ideas. Sadly, I believe some actually believe that partiality is good, even racial partiality. For them, the argument does not come from Scripture but from “nature.” Yet natural law/revelation is never to be free from the limits of Scripture. Natural law is always subservient to biblical law. For all the talk of being a “classical Protestant,” one would think they would know that for Protestants biblical law is higher than your interpretation of natural law. God has spoken, and no appeals to your understanding of nature trump his declarative word.
Postscript
After I finished the first draft of this article, Joseph Spurgeon released his Statement on Natural Affection. I believe Spurgeon to be a good brother in the Lord. There is much in this statement that I agree with, and I am grateful for his directness in condemning the evils of Nazism. Anyone who thinks Hitler was a Christian prince is not only historically ignorant but has no understanding of the Christian faith.
Yet, when Spurgeon released the first version of the statement on Facebook, I suggested he add two items. Without these two items, I believe the statement is incomplete as it misses the heart of our disagreements and concerns. First, I suggested he add a statement that affirmed the oneness of the human race in Adam and in the new, better Adam (Christ). Second, I asked him to include a statement condemning “racial partiality.” To be clear, Spurgeon doesn’t owe me anything, but he declined to add either. Without confronting those two behemoths, I believe the statement accomplishes nothing of importance.
Moreover, it is weighed down by the unbiblical schema of nature versus grace. I fear that some attached to this statement place way too much emphasis on their understanding of nature, especially in appealing to Greek thought. The Greeks used nature as a justification for slavery, homosexuality, and other vile things. Ideas have consequences. God spoke through his word and that is our chief authority in life. For these reasons, I cannot in good conscience sign the statement though I do agree with significant parts of it.
Pastor Levi Secord
Christ Bible Church
