CTR Session Statement on Ethnic Balance

Adopted January 4th, 2023 A.D.

1. We believe that all men are created in the image and likeness of God and that their value and worth and dignity is rooted therein (Gen. 1:27).

2. We believe that God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined the allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, in order that they should seek God. And that in a very general way under creation, we are all collectively the offspring of God (Acts 17:26-29).

3. We believe that the natural human tendency is to congregate around and have a shared affection for common families, tribes, people, language, customs, cultures, and place; and that all people should be grateful to God for those things.

4. We believe that Jesus’ command that we love our neighbors, as we love ourselves, assumes the right to love and be grateful for one’s ethnic heritage, and to preserve their heritage in any way consistent with the law of God, and is not the same thing as the sin of partiality (Matt. 22:39; Jam. 2:8-9).

5. We also believe that because of mankind’s fall into sin, our God given natural affections have become disordered, and disordered affections can create conflict between families, tribes, races, ethnicities, cultures, nations, and churches.

6. We believe the grace of God revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ runs along both familial and covenantal lines, restoring natural affections, and therefore brings true healing and reconciliation between families, tribes, peoples, Jews and Gentiles, nations, cultures, ethnicities, races, and churches that are in conflict (Rev. 5:9-10; 14:5-7; 22:2).

7. We therefore labor and long for the day when the Great Commission will be fulfilled, and all nations will be discipled into the faith of Jesus Christ – baptized and catechized – and their kings will bring the glory and honor of their nations into the New and Heavenly Jerusalem (Matt. 28:18-20; Rev. 21:26).

8. Therefore, we oppose all racial enmity, hatred, bigotry, strife, and vainglory (Phil. 2:3). We oppose the unjust mistreatment of people based upon their ethnicity or race. Furthermore, we reject Kinism, which teaches that it is consistently unwise or a sin for people of different ethnicities or races to intermarry, and that civil societies ought to take steps to remain ethnically or racially segregated.

9. We further resolve to teach God’s people the biblical importance of loving their fathers and mothers, their families, and their people and place, as well as the stranger and the sojourner, without turning either into an idol, and without destroying the one for the sake of the other (Deut. 5:16; Lev. 19:34; Luke 10:25-37).