When it comes to Christian Nationalism, there is much to admire. There are aspects of the movement that are controversial. Still others are ideas the Church should repudiate. This series on Christian Nationalism has been examining these “water hazards” articulated by some within the movement, beginning with Kinism. In this installment, the next error under consideration is race realism.
Race realism is a reaction to the idea of “color blindness” when it comes to the relationship between races. Color blindness is the notion that all people should be viewed without consideration of attributes such as race that are not part of their essence. Coleman Hughes argues for such a view of race in his book The End of Race Politics. He articulates the “colorblind principle as follows: ‘We should treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives.’”[1] As will be seen later, Hughes is not arguing for an artificial denial of the existence of race. Simply put, race should not be a determining factor in how one relates to any one individual. The proponents of race realism react to the idea of complete racial color blindness as naïve and not based in reality. Michael Spangler, a self-professed race-realist, opens his six-part series on Christian race realism with these words: “Race is real. In the recent past most everyone agreed with this. Even children knew that ‘red and yellow, black and white’ described real differences among mankind. And yet today, especially among white Christians, it seems quite common to deny it.”[2] However, Mr. Hughes, as a proponent of the colorblind principle, does not argue that way. He asserts that “we all see race. We can’t help it.”[3]
It is not difficult to recognize that racial differences exist. However, the question is whether a person should be evaluated primarily on the basis of unalterable racial characteristics rather than understanding them in the context of merit, culture and gifts. Race realism promotes identifying racial differences as a defining mark. Spangler’s definition is as follows: “Race realism is the recognition that mankind is divided into distinct races, that the differences between the races are large and relatively permanent, and that this racial diversity ought to be acknowledged, celebrated, and defended.”[4] It is this view that is troublesome.
Although Spangler includes a disclaimer that race realism should not cause division or schism, that qualification is largely left behind as he outlines his argument about racial differences found in nature. Spangler’s race realism embraces racial differences in body, language, culture, morality, religion, and intelligence.[5] Some of this list is not controversial. People are, by and large, not denying physical, linguistic, and cultural differences in various races. However, questions of morality, religion, and intelligence are of a more dubious sort.
When it comes to morality, Spangler argues that though sin is spiritual and race is physical, it is not so easy to separate these two essential parts of man. He says, “Like language, morality is distinct from race in the abstract, but in many respects still inseparable from it in the concrete. Blacks, whites, and Asians act in black, white, and Asian ways, for good or ill.”[6] The unique challenges of the black community in the United States are cited as a case in point. Spangler cites a statistic in which blacks, who make up 12% of the population, account for 64% of the murders. I have not verified that statistic and am willing to assume it as accurately reported for the sake of this discussion.
When it comes to religion, Spangler gives a uniquely American example: the difference between churches made up predominantly of black people vs. white. “If in one Sunday an impartial observer should attend two Protestant churches in one American city, one church white, the other black, the difference he would observe would likely be greater than if he compared two services held on distinct continents, yet in churches made up of the same race.”[7] While admitting that the ancestors of white protestants were initially pagan, the main point he makes remains that such racial change in religion is rare.
When it comes to intelligence, Spangler cites a study, “The Bell Curve” that shows black people in America have, on average, a 15 points lower IQ score than whites. This in turn is used to argue against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a basis for hiring. Spangler uses physicians as an example. Their average IQ score is 120 and he argues that “very few blacks have the requisite intelligence for it.”[8] However, as always, statistics can often be used according to the objective of the one who wields them.
Spangler’s assertions regarding the presented differences between races should not be taken at face value. Despite what Spangler asserts about the data of the Bell Curve study, the conclusions of that study are still actively being disputed. A recent follow-up study published in 2025 by the American Psychological Association describes the complexity of the matter.
The question that still remains is whether the cause of group differences in average IQ is purely social, economic, and cultural or whether genetic factors are also involved. Following publication of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Association (APA) established an 11-person Task Force (Neisser et al., 1996) to evaluate the book’s conclusions. Based on their review of twin and other kinship studies, the Task Force for the most part agreed with Jensen’s (1969) Harvard Educational Review article and The Bell Curve, that within the White population the heritability of IQ is “around .75” (p. 85). As to the cause of the mean Black–White group difference, however, the Task Force concluded: “There is certainly no support for a genetic interpretation” (p. 97).[9]
I am not here to argue that I understand the complexity of IQ testing or to present myself as an expert in this matter. However, the aim is to dispute Spangler’s conclusions as the necessary ones to draw from that study. To do so is to ignore the vast complexity of human interaction. The many variables that go into social, economic, and cultural formation go far beyond race. For example, when it comes to morality, it is trite and simplistic to cite a discrepancy in the black community in the United States. That is hardly a charitable sample size. It is to single out one race in one specific time and use them as the example for all people who share their racial makeup. This resembles the reasoning employed by proponents of racial reconciliation, anti-racism, and reparations movements who likewise draw sweeping conclusions from group identity. To look at the question of violence and sin against the sixth commandment, a much broader net must be cast which would look more broadly at the sins of humanity.
Simply broadening the scope would easily bring to mind things like the human sacrifice of the pagan white Vikings in Scandinavia, the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in Africa, the warlike spread of Islam in the Middle East, and the oppression of the Koreans at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War in Asia. Before white men begin assigning other races as innately more sinful, some probing questions have to be asked of the Caucasian race as well. What should be done with the atrocious paganism of the druids of today’s British Isles, the executions of reformed pastors under Mary Tudor, the reign of terror in the French Revolution, and the horrifying genocides of white cultures in the 20th century under Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union? Nations of all ethnicities have acted in great wickedness and it is foolish and dishonest to minimize that fact.
Religiously, God has worked differently at different times and in different cultures. Revival has come, apostasy has arisen, and again, no race can claim victory or defeat in those areas. Think of the places of origin for the Protestant Reformation. Certainly, today’s Germany, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland were places where the highest expressions of Reformed theology were articulated in the creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms they produced. If religion were inherently connected to race you would expect that high view of religion to continue. And yet western European nations have largely abandoned their Reformed heritage. Perhaps the most telling example of the abandonment of religious fervor in such places is the memorial of the ministry of the great Scottish Reformer, John Knox, at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh being reduced to a mere plaque in the ground in its parking lot.
Leaving aside whether the position is argued cogently, the darker implication of Spangler’s race realism are further revealed in some of the conclusions he draws. After agreeing that all men are part of the human race, he says, “Moreover, as with physical bodies, disease can affect some parts more than others: some ethnic members of the human race are marked more than the rest by the disease of sin and its attendant misery, some to the point that they are nearly rotting away.”[10] And herein is the great danger of this view.
To argue for sin as more present in some than in others is a denial of the doctrine of total depravity. In Romans 3:10-18, no qualification is made to the “all” who have gone astray and perpetrated the variety of actual sins listed there which proceed from the sinful nature. To say anything else is a statement of pride that concludes some need Christ more than others. It asserts that some races are more resistant to the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit than others. By implication, some races may be more easily sanctified than others. And yet the bold statements the Bible makes about sin do not contain this kind of qualification. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[11]
The problem of man before God is not found in his physical race. Sin is spiritual, not biological. The guilt and dominion of sin was inherited by all men through Adam’s sin. He bore in his body all the races of man which exist today. All racial combinations proceed from him, and therefore all have the same sin nature, the same propensity to sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, the same need for Christ, and it goes against the record of Scripture to argue otherwise.
There is still another view that has come from Christian Nationalist proponents that deserves the attention of the Church. That is the latent or blatant anti-semitism that is connected with some of its proponents. This water hazard will be the subject of the next article.
Pastor Geoff Gleason
Cliffwood Presbyterian Church
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[1] Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics, (Penguin Random House, LLC: 2024), 19.
[2] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 1: Introduction,” Pactum Institute (blog), July 1, 2024, https://www.pactuminstitute.com/the-pactum-blog/christian-race-realism-part-1-introduction.
[3] Hughes, The End of Race Politics, 18.
[4] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 1”.
[5] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 3: Nature,” Pactum Institute (blog), July 9, 2024, https://www.pactuminstitute.com/the-pactum-blog/christian-race-realism-part-3-nature.
[6] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 3”.
[7] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 3”.
[8] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 3”.
[9] J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen, “Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability,” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 11, no. 2 (June 2005), 236.
[10] Michael Spangler, “Christian Race Realism, Part 3”.
[11] Romans 3:23.