Cross examination round of the Race Debate between Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller and Linnaeus. This page will post Rev. Wolfmueller’s answers to Linnaeus’s cross examination questions.
Debate thesis: There is only one race, the race of Adam.
Rev. Wolfmueller affirms:
Opening Statement
Rebuttal
Cross Examination Responses Below
Closing Statement
Linnaeus denies:
Opening Statement
Rebuttal
Cross Examination Responses
Closing Statement
Question #1
If the people of Japan disappeared and you filled their islands with people of Ghana, would the Japanese be gone, or just darker skinned?
Answer #1
Japanese certainly means more that “people living on the Island of Japan”. If, therefore, the people of Japan disappeared, then the Japanese would be gone.
Question #2
Would a man with Japanese parents still be Japanese if he lived in America, spoke only English, and practiced no Japanese culture? How so/not?
Answer #2
Sure, such a man would have a Japanese lineage and heritage, but he would much less “of Japan” or “Japanese” than, say, his parents, our his cousins living in Japan.
I appreciate Linneaus pushing me to definitions and distinctions, and I appreciate the readers patience as I wander towards them. I’m pushing back, as stated earlier, on the biological reductionism of “races”. Linneaus seems to be pushing back on the modern idea of the nation-state.
In a recent essay delivered at the Rocky Mountain District Convention, Warren Graff pointed to, perhaps, a third was of understanding ethnos via a quotation from Herodotus (~450BC):
“[We] Athenians will not betray the Greeks, since we are of the same blood and same language and in fellowship of the sanctuaries of the gods and the sacrifices, and we share customs.” (Herodotus, “The Histories,” 8.144.2. τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὁμόαιμον καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα, τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εἴη καλῶς.)
Graff continues, “Our generation is, of course, post-Westphalia (1648), where definition was given to modern nation-states. When we hear nation, we necessarily think in terms of this modern nation state, where citizenship is determined by defined territories and centralized governments. But we have already noted that Herodotus, 450 years before our Lord’s Incarnation, spoke of defining one’s Greekness by sharing the same language and having fellowship of the sanctuaries of the gods and the sacrifices and customs. In other words, you are the ethnicity of Greek and of Athenian because you worship and sacrifice to the gods of Greece and Athens.” (Warren Graff, unpublished essay)
To apply this definition to our English-speaking neighbor with Japanese parents, it seem like he would be much more “of America” than “of Japan”, that is, an American.
Question #3
Let’s take the same scenario as before, but change America for Ghana and English for Dangme. Would you be able to visually tell this man apart from the native Ghanaians, and on what basis?
Answer #3
Yes. See above.
Question #4
If, as you’ve acknowledged, changing continents, languages, and cultures does not alter a man’s lineage according to the flesh, does conversion to Christ alter a man’s lineage according to the flesh?
Answer #4
No.
Lineage and heritage are true things. I think we’ve agreed on this.