WINTLEY PHIPPS SERMON COMMENTARY

The following is based on a Wintley Phipps tape I found in a bag of cassettes someone gave me.

"... that carried a race of people through slavery."

Not thirty seconds later Phipps will say there's no such thing as race. Possibly he is doubleminded.

"The word race is not in the Bible."

Neither is the word cigarette but it's still wrong to smoke.

"This whole notion of race I believe is demonically inspired and man created."

Oh come on. Sure, the word race isn't in Scripture but it's obvious there are different "subdivisions of humanity" and different ethnic groups within those subdivisions.

"... but racism is the belief that within those differing subdivisions are varying intellectual capacities and abilities."

I don't know about intellectual ability so much, but it is obvious that different races and ethnic groups have different traits which are prominent and different things they excel at.

"Now,     what you will hear is "When I Didn't Have Money To Pay The Rent Jesus Came Through On Time."

While God of course supplies the needs of all His children, maybe if some of those people in that black church hadn't spent their rent money on rims, keeping up with the bills wouldn't have been such a struggle.

"And one of the things we need to learn to do is to openly, wonderfully celebrate the differences.

Well, except for those horrible white people because they've caused all the problems in the world and don't have a culture or anything worth celebrating.

This basically sounds like the same politically correct thinking that only thinks of differences between peoples as things such as dress and food.

I would agree that we need to celebrate the differences in that we should acknowledge that different people groups have differing prominent traits and abilities, then figure out how those traits can best be used to benefit the church and society as a whole. Of course, all the time we need to keep in mind that there will always be those in a group that don't fit the stereotype.

The problem with our "equality" oriented thinking is that it assumes everyone is equally good at everything. This, by the way, is one of the fundamental problems with the public school system: it presupposes each student should do well in every subject. Then when the student shows they don't have the aptitude for a particular subject, the child is labelled as stupid or "learning disabled."

We all have different abilities and other characteristics on an individual level, so why shouldn't the same be true on a grand scale?

"One of my most favourite quotes in "The Spirit of Prophecy" says ..."

So this guy is talking about celebrating differences and yet he is a Seventh-day Adventist. Seventh-day Adventists don't so much like differences. They want everybody to be the same, eating the same, reading the same books, having the same careers, and studying the same religious materials at the same time. As much as many of them are good people, I choose to have an arms-length relationship with them because it seems as if they want their people to be too much the same.

This, by the way, is the problem with all denominations. The attitude persists that if someone were a true Christian, they would be doing the same thing as the rest of us are doing. However, with true Christianity, except for baptism for the remission of sins and communion, God leads each of us down a different path.

Ellen G. White, by the way, also said (plagiarized?) that certain "races" were the product of intercourse between humans and animals.