

THE
ANTIOCH
DECLARATION
A Statement On Racial
Ideologies Threatening The
Church

SIGN NOW

READ THE DECLARATION

Introduction

“The disciples were called Christians first

at Antioch” (Acts 11:26)

Just as the apostle Paul at Antioch

“opposed him [Peter] to his face because
he stood condemned” (Gal. 2:11, CSB) for
compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ by
subjecting it to racial barriers, so this brief
statement opposes the ideas of some
contemporary leaders and influencers
seeking to introduce anti-gospel racial
categories into the church. This Antioch
Declaration was not conceived or
developed in haste but after much prayer,
thought, counsel, and soul-searching. Our
task is an unpleasant one, but like the
apostle Paul’s, it is necessary, even when
other Christians are involved. When the
gospel once for all delivered to the saints is
itself at stake, we dare not remain silent.

Thus, as confessionally Reformed,

Lutheran and Evangelical believers from a
broad range of churches, we have come
together to identify and resist a rising tide
of reactionary thinking emerging on the
fringes of our own circles. Those especially
at risk of being led astray by wolves
clothed as shepherds are among the
younger generations of Christian men
whom we love and care about deeply. As
believers, we must always build and act
upon the foundation of Scripture. This must
include all our engagement in socio-
cultural and political life. To react to
cultural developments in a manner that
denies the functional and final authority of
the Word of God over us is to move against
the rule of Christ and His Kingdom. Since
God does not show favoritism (Rom. 2:11),
the Word of God must be faithfully applied
everywhere and to all.

This clearly implies that while we must

never criticize the political right simply
because the progressive left demand it, to
declare that we will never have “enemies
on the right,” simply indicates to Satan and
his hordes what form his next attack on the
people of God should take, and from which
direction it should come.

In order to avoid a diabolic ditch on both

sides of the socio-political road, and to
advance God’s Kingdom purposes, we
therefore offer the following declarations
and invite signatories.

“By the evidence of their own

scriptures they bear witness for us
that we have not fabricated the
prophecies about Christ . . . It follows
that when the Jews do not believe in
our scriptures, their scriptures are
fulfilled in them, while they read them
with blind eyes . . . It is in order to give
this testimony which, in spite of
themselves, they supply for our
benefit by their possession and
preservation of those books [of the
Old Testament] that they are
themselves dispersed among all
nations, whether the Christian church
spreads . . . Hence the prophecy in
the Book of Psalms: Slay them not,
lest they forget your law; scatter
them by your might” (Augustine, City
of God 18.46).

Declaration

WE DENY that the Kingdom purposes of

Christ and requirements of His Word can
be equated with the seating positions of
political actors during the French
Revolution, or that the modern antithesis
between right and left is equivalent to the
antithesis that God established in the
Garden of Eden between the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent, the
kingdom of darkness and kingdom of light.

WE AFFIRM that the modern neo-pagan

secular project is bankrupt and desperately
trying to hold the social order together by
means of a fraudulent narrative and anti-
Christian worldview. As a result, the lies of
secular elites in all spheres have necessarily
grown increasingly evident and
outrageous.

WE AFFIRM that, as a consequence, some

young men in the West have become jaded
and cynical, with an element among them
now rejecting or doubting the received
account of virtually anything. The great
danger is that now, instead of acting on
the basis of revealed truth in Christ, they
are in the unhappy position of reacting by
choosing between opposing sets of lies.

WE DENY that disillusionment and

resentment over the lies one has been told
is adequate preparation for standing in the
truth and resisting a new set of lies.

WE AFFIRM that disillusionment and

resentment make a person vulnerable to
deception and frequently prepare the
ground for accepting new falsehoods,
setting the stage for further
disillusionment.

WE DENY that neo-pagan secularism with

its utopian religious motive arose as a
consensus after World War II. Rather, it
manifests itself as the political outworking
of the so-called Enlightenment during the
French Revolution and gradually won the
hearts and minds of Western nations,
being well expressed in the political
philosophies dominating Europe prior to
the outbreak of the two great global
conflagrations.

WE AFFIRM that the aftermath of World

War II served as a cultural tipping point for
the secular narrative and its myth of
religious neutrality which has functioned as
a centerpiece for these lies. It has
promoted this deception with triumphal
hubris throughout all Western institutions,
insisting on both an idolatrous religious
pluralism and a mandatory globalist
cosmopolitanism.

WE AFFIRM that a contradictory and

pervasive thread of self-doubt and self-
loathing has also formed an essential part
of this secular narrative following the
horrors of World War II. Thus, when the
reactionary right challenges the “post-war
narrative” they are not necessarily
breaking free of it—this is a reflex that the
post-war narrative itself has nurtured. The
narrative thrives on an unstable mix of
white imperiousness and white guilt.

WE DENY that any particular view of the

Allied leaders, their strategies, or tactics
during World War II should be a test of
Christian orthodoxy. WE FURTHER DENY
that this civic adiaphora may be expanded
to cover malice, vain glory, race-baiting,
antisemitism, treachery, bitterness, or
hatred. These issues are entirely distinct.

WE DENY that it is possible to harmonize

the racial and antisemitic theories of Adolf
Hitler and neo-pagan doctrines of the Nazi
cult with the gospel of Christ and the
teachings of scripture.

WE AFFIRM that if the superabundant,

diverse forms and veritable glut of
evidence – detailed in diaries, documented
records, firsthand testimonies of
eyewitnesses, extensive photography and
videography all provided within living
memory – for the deliberate mass
destruction of millions of Jews by the Nazis
does not amount to historical certitude for
what specialists call the Holocaust, then
the science of history itself is called into
question.

WE AFFIRM that there is a vital biblical

difference between the self-loathing of
men in the grip of disillusionment over a
failed idol, and the true repentance of the
Christian man.

WE DENY that it is possible to recover an

ethic that honors our fathers and their
momentous sacrifices while actively and
openly dishonoring them.

WE AFFIRM that as the secular liberal

edifice crumbles, many will refuse to turn
to Christ. As the “strong gods” inevitably
return, godless influential figures will arise
the same way Theudas did (Acts 5:34-39).
[i] The temptation for some Christian
leaders will be to ape such methods for the
sake of clicks, followers and the ephemeral
notion of ‘influence.’

WE DENY that it is possible to be a faithful

Christian shepherd without identifying,
naming and fighting the wolves which prey
on the flock. As such, pastors have a duty
to confront and rebuke wickedness in all its
forms within their congregations.

WE AFFIRM that in deeply unsettled times

there is a carnal desire in fallen man to
seek out a scapegoat for sin and social
corruption. This sadistic urge seeks to
expiate guilt by laying the blame and
punishment for all cultural ills on an
identifiable group(s). The victimized
group(s) is offered up to the masses as
providing ostensible ‘explanatory power’
for cultural decay, which all conspiracy
theories must provide if they are to gain
any traction. The Jews have often been the
easiest target for this kind of sinful and
decrepit thinking.

WE DENY that scapegoating is a

legitimate practice for Christians to
participate in because God has already
provided the final and perfect scapegoat
in Christ Jesus who alone is the true sin-
bearer.

WE DENY that our rejection of

antisemitism requires us to ignore or
minimize the destructive impact that
various God-hating individual Jews have
had in human history, just as our rejection
of the hatred of Europeans and Anglo-
Saxons does not require us to ignore the
cultural devastation that many God-hating
individual Gentiles have produced. Every
ethnic people have members to be
ashamed of, and every ethnic people have
members to be grateful for.

WE DENY that Jews are in any way

uniquely malevolent or sinful, that Judaism
in its multifarious expressions is objectively
more dangerous than other false religions,
or that it represents an exceptional threat
to Christianity and Christian peoples. By
nature, the Jews are objects of wrath just
like the rest of us, which is condemnation
enough (Ps. 14:2-3), and are equally
recipients of God’s grace (Rom.11:11-32).

WE DENY that world affairs are governed

by conspiring Jews or that there is a global
Jewish conspiracy to corrupt and destroy
Western society.

WE AFFIRM that the Jews are as all other

men—alienated from God and in need of
the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. As a
people they have nevertheless remained
an object of God’s providential care. With
the Puritans of old, WE AFFIRM that in
God’s good time, multitudes of Jews will
come to faith in Christ and be added to the
true commonwealth of Israel, inheriting the
same blessings as Gentile believers. Hence,
the cancerous and counterproductive sin of
antisemitism has no place among God’s
people.

WE DENY that there is more than one

message or way of salvation. Salvation is
through Christ alone, by faith alone, and
by grace alone for both Jew and Gentile,
out of whom God has made one new
people, removing the dividing wall of
hostility (Eph 2.11-21).

WE AFFIRM that God has ordained the

existence of peoples and nations (Acts
17:26-28) and as such our cultural heritage
is something to be grateful for so that, in
view of God’s good gifts to our people,
national pride, along with a healthy
patriotism, are appropriate for Christians.
At the same time, it is important to reject
every form of identity politics, whether of
the left or right—or whether the form it
takes is malicious or vainglorious.

WE DENY that the church of Jesus Christ

in its particular locale has any compulsory
quotas or assigned ratios for ethnic mix.
The make-up of any local church
community will be dependent on many
socio-cultural, lingual and regional factors,
and there is no requirement that any given
congregation “look like the new
Jerusalem.” But WE FURTHER DENY that
a Christian congregation has the right to
arbitrarily exclude any person based on
prejudice, malice or bigotry toward their
ethnic group.

WE AFFIRM that the ultimate bond or

good for temporal human life is not
grounded in absolute loyalty to blood and
soil, family or nation, but in the totalizing
bond of the Kingdom of God through the
Covenant of Grace (Matt. 3:9; 6:10;
8:11;12:46-50; Lk.14:26; Eph. 2:11-21;
Rev.7:9-10).

WE AFFIRM that in all things, including the

treatment of our fellow human beings, the
model man and example is not the life and
teaching of Aristotle, nor any other merely
historical personage, but the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, Son of Man and eternal Son
of God.

[i] Act 5:36: Theudas was a Jewish

magician, revolutionary and false Messiah,
who gathered followers to the river
Jordan, promising to part it. The Roman
governor Fadus sent troops who killed and
captured members of the crowd; Theudas
was himself captured and eventually
beheaded.

SIGNERS

Collaborators

Rev. Dr. Rev. Jeff

Joseph Boot Durbin
Founder/President, Pastor, Apologia
Ezra Institute Church

Rev. Dr. James White

Andrew Pastor, Apologia
Church
Sandlin
Founder/President,
Center For Cultural
Leadership

Rev. Douglas Rev. Tobias

Wilson Riemenschneider
Pastor, Christ Pastor, Evangelical
Church Reformed Baptist
Church

Signers
VIEW ALL
SIGNERS

Scott Aniol David

G3 Ministries Bahnsen
Douglasville, GA The Bahnsen Group
New York, NY

Uriesou Brito Brian Kohl

Providence Church Canon Press
Pensacola, FL Moscow, ID

Kenneth George Grant

Gentry Parish Presbyterian
Church
GoodBirth Ministries
Franklin, TN
Chesnee, SC

Peter Jones Peter Leithart

TruthXChange Theopolis Institute
Escondido, CA Birmingham, AL

Jared Brian Mattson

Longshore Center For Cultural
Leadership
Christ Church | New
Billings, MT
Saint Andrews
College
Moscow, ID

Ben Merkle Richard Pierce

New Saint Andrews Alpha And Omega
College Ministries
Moscow, ID Phoenix, AZ

Luke Pierson Gabriel Rench

Apologia Church CrossPolitic
Gilbert, AZ Studios/Pengo
Media/King’s Cross
Moscow, ID

Toby Sumpter Jeffery

King’s Cross Ventrella
Church/CrossPolitic TruthxChange
Moscow, ID Mesa, AZ

SIGN NOW

Sign the Declaration

If you are the pastor or authorized representative of your
church or organization, please sign and include the Name
of Church/Organization.

If you are an individual, leave the church/organization

field blank.

Name of Church or Organization

First Name*

Last Name*

City*

State*

Zip/Postal Code*

Email*

Phone*

SIGN NOW

© 2024 The Antioch Declaration.

All right reserved.