Corey Mahler's Self-Destruction

My $0.02 on Why Racialism has no Biblical basis

It would be a massive understatement to say that Corey Mahler may be the premier racist shock jock on TwiX. Between his podcast and his other social media personas, the attorney and LCMS excommunicant has spent no small amount of time promoting Nazism and racist ideology, insisting that they are Biblical.

Recently, he has had two substantial debates of note:

• Pro-life advocate Samuel Sey (@slowtowrite)

• Apologia Church director James White (@HwsEleutheroi)

In his debate with Sey, Mahler spent a lot of time haggling over his premise that the Curse of Canaan is a permanent curse on Blacks. In making his case, he insisted that Blacks have lower IQs, have been conquered repeatedly White folks; and that the prosperity and theological heritage of the West is proof that God has blessed White folks more so than Africans.

Sey did a good job trying to keep up with Mahler’s lunacy—and trust me: that’s a tall order, because Mahler steps in it so many times that it’s hard to keep track. As a result of the latter, Sey missed opportunities to dunk on Mahler.

Against James White, Mahler was totally outclassed, as they debated the issue of whether the Holy Spirit can sanctify a Black Christian as much as a White Christian.

Yes, folks, you read that last sentence correctly: they debated a question to which the answer is a no-brainer, as

• God is no respecter of persons;

• the Holy Spirit can—and does—sanctify a believer however the He wishes to sanctify; and

• (c) there is no Biblical premise to suggest that God favors any race or ethnicity in His economy.

Toward that end, White absolutely destroyed Mahler. It wasn’t even close.

Mahler’s handling of Scripture is nothing short of lunacy, and what is frustrating is that he refuses to accept wise counsel from the preponderance of learned clergy in his own former denomination, or any other reputable denomination.

Mahler, at one point, was a communicant member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), which is a reputable conservative Protestant denomination, a conservative wing of Lutheranism. As he sought to promote his Nazi/racist sentiments, the LCMS gave him ample warning that he needed to repent. Eventually, however, the LCMS excommunicated him.

It's painful to watch Corey Mahler's self-destruction.

I wish he had taken his excommunication from the LCMS as a time to reflect and repent, but instead he has doubled down on his racism and promotion of Neo-Nazi ideology.

In his treatment of the Biblical text, Mahler is heavily-invested in a racialist paradigm that is nowhere to be found in Scripture.

He insists that the curse of Canaan is a blanket curse on Ham. But Ham had four sons; of them, Noah only cursed Canaan, and he didn’t curse Ham. (It is possible that Canaan was the perpetrator of whatever the offense in question was. But exegesis of the passage has carried a wide latitude over the centuries, and a complete treatment of that passage is beyond the scope of this post.)

At the same time, examining the Scriptures in totality, the curse of Canaan merely sets the stage for the conflict between the Israelites and the other inhabitants of the Promised Land, as "Canaanites" can refer to both the descendants of Canaan, and can be a general reference to non-Israelites in the land. (The Scriptures take both approaches.) But at any rate, the Canaanite curse is not about Black vs. White, but about God’s people versus the people inhabiting the Promised Land. (And besides: they weren’t Africans.)

A few chapters later, God divides people by confounding their language at Babel. It is from that morass that God calls Abram and sets the trajectory for our Redemption.

God’s promise to Abram includes a blessing to all nations. If you're a Christian, Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise that God made to Abram in Gen. 12.

Here's the thing: did Jesus engage in racialist separatism during His 33-years among us? Nope. And in fact, Jesus commissioned the Disciples to spread the Gospel worldwide. God told Peter, “Arise, kill, and eat”, in his allegorical charge—using the eating of pork—to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. There is no proclamation of any type about "racial superiority". And in fact, Paul levels the playing field in Galatians 3:28-29:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Another thing that Mahler forgets is that, in God's economy, "many who are last shall be first, and many who are first shall be last."

I say that because he has tried to make the argument about how God has “blessed” European/Western nations compared to African nations.

Sadly, in taking that approach, he is appealing to the Prosperity Theology heresy. He also ignores that Africa was a cradle of Early Church scholarship. A good amount of our modern theology was forged in the crucible of Africa.

And today? Christianity is growing like gangbusters in Africa, the Middle East, and even the Far East whereas it is in decline in the West.

Here in the United States, we are on the front-end of a post-Christian generation, as religious affiliation is falling like an unlucky paratrooper. And Europe has gone quite secular.

I would suggest that theological metrics—not economic and technological—are better indicators of God’s blessing. And those trends don’t look good for the West. So I wouldn't be so quick to gloat over God's blessing of the West.

If anything, the West is more like Babylon. And that is very enigmatic--the Scriptures tell us as much.

On one hand, Babylon represents the best of human potential: art, literature, technology, economics. On the other hand, Babylon represents a kingdom fundamentally at war with God's Kingdom.

In God's economy, which kingdom wins?

Hint: it ain't Babylon.