Larry Darby: Moderation Not True to Faith

It's been observed that new converts to a cause tend to me more passionate and intense — if not downright fanatical — than members who grew up in the movement. This certainly seems to be the case with Larry Darby, a one-time atheist activist who had a falling out with fellow atheists who didn't share his White Supremacism. Darby found far more sympathy for his racist and anti-Semitic views among Christians and he has since converted to Christianity where he is promoting a fanatical religious perspective to go with his White Supremacist perspective.

I write this letter as a former atheist who three years ago reclaimed his Southern Christian roots or tradition. I've been over the mountain and returned, so to speak.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser

It's interesting that he chooses to focus on the "roots or tradition" of Southern Christianity rather than theology or faith. This often seems to be the case among racist Christians and that may be because it's easier to talk about white superiority in the context of white culture and traditions than in the context of Jesus or salvation. To be brutally honest, I'd be inclined to regard any descent into White Supremacism — Christian-flavored or otherwise — as more a case of going "over the cliff" or "round the bend" than "over the mountain and back," but to each his own I guess.

Larry Darby proceeds to critique a previous letter from Charles Suhor. I haven't read it, but apparently Suhor argued that "ideological absolutists" are part of the problem today and that moderation is the solution. Darby will have none of that:

Being moderate means that you support or at least don't denounce abortion on demand, government-coerced integration, open borders, feminism, economic equality, diversity or perversity, multiculturalism, federal control of local schools, police, sheriffs and courts, and sacrificing our men in wars of foreign occupation that only benefit a nation based on a religion not named in Suhor's letter.

Note the interesting combination of themes. Some are typical for the Religious Right: abortion, feminism, and... well, that's it. The rest are more typical of the Racist Right: integration, multiculturalism, economic equality, etc. In principle, an atheist could agree with any of these extremist positions, but in contemporary America at least I only see them all combined under the umbrella of Christian Nationalism. Some do more to emphasize the "Christian" part while others, like Darby, have less to say about Christianity than they do about "tradition" and "culture," which all invariably reduce to "being white."

Still, the Christian aspect can't be ignored. I wonder why? Larry Darby doesn't strike me as a devout believer and I'm forced to wonder to what degree he simply repeats the standard rhetoric because he needs to in order to be accepted among the only organized White Supremacists in America today. I suppose that's awfully cynical, but try as I might it's a feeling that I can't quite shake.

You might now use the term Judeo-Christian instead of Christian.

The people who make the most point of using Judeo-Christian tend to be those who are trying to put a faux ecumenical mask their efforts to promote or get others to promote Christianity, so they aren't exactly what I'd call role models of moderation. This should send us a signal about just how fanatical Larry Darby wants white Christians to be when he calls upon them to abandon "moderation."

Remember when America was identified as a land of, and for, descendents of European Christians? Remember when teachings in American Sunday Schools were consistent with that fact?

The heritage of the posterity of the Framers of the Republic largely has been obliterated because of moderation. Christianity has been replaced with Churchianity that follows not Christ, but the politically correct doctrine of moderation. ...Abandon moderation and reclaim that old-time religion of our forefathers.

It's curious that Larry Darby would complain about others replacing "Christ" with "church" when his entire letter focused entirely on the traditions of white Christians and says absolutely nothing about Jesus. Where does Larry Darby demonstrate that his position is in any way based on Jesus? Where does Larry Darby demonstrate his rejection of church-created and culture-created traditions or customs that have no origin in Jesus? To be fair, this isn't a problem that is unique to Darby — most Christians have, though history, given equal weight to community traditions alongside anything attributed to Jesus.

This is inevitable because Jesus as portrayed in the gospels is expecting an apocalypse in the near future and so had little to say about how to run a religious community. When the apocalypse didn't happen as scheduled, there were two imperatives: reinterpret all the embarrassing predictions and make up community regulations (preferably in ways that could be traced to a divine or inspired authority). This began the creation of traditions of interpretation and regulation which were just as important as any saying attributed to Jesus.

Christianity wouldn't have survived if Christians didn't develop strong traditions which blended Jewish monotheism with Greek philosophy, Christianity with Roman power, Jesus' sayings with Paul's teachings, and so forth. Christianity has, since the earliest days, been as much about church traditions and practices as it has been about Jesus, though few Christians recognize it in themselves. Instead, they just complain about others doing it. Larry Darby is just unusually obvious about it, placing so much emphasis on "roots" and "tradition," then attacking others for replacing Jesus with church practices.

I wonder, though, why Larry Darby doesn't think that the "founders" were moderate? Many wouldn't even be considered "Christian" by most Christians today, their beliefs were so far out on the liberal end. Some are better described as deistic Christians or theistic rationalists and weren't even "orthodox" by the standards of their own time, never mind the standards of conservative evangelicals today. I think that most atheists would be quite happy if most of Christianity became the sort favored by people like Jefferson and Madison. For Larry Darby to promote the "founders" as examples of not being moderate betrays, at best, gross historical ignorance.