A candidate for the North Carolina General Assembly caused a stir this week when reporters discovered a website he reportedly owns (and which his Facebook account “likes”) that declares God a “white supremacist” and Jews “satanic.” The North Carolina Republican Party denounced him, and so did the state assembly’s Republican caucus.
“The North Carolina Republican House Caucus and our members would not support [Russel Walker]’s campaign given his comments and actions,” state Rep. John Szoka, conference chairman of the N.C. House Republican Caucus, said in a statement Wednesday. “While Mr. Walker won the Republican primary, his rhetoric and actions have no place in the Republican Party, and he should strongly consider withdrawing his candidacy.”
“Based on recent behavior and previous statements, the North Carolina Republican Party is unable and unwilling to support the Republican nominated candidate for North Carolina House District 48,” GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said in a statement Tuesday, the Charlotte Observer reported.
“What’s wrong with being a white supremacist? God is a racist and a white supremacist,” the website connected to Walker says. “Someone or some group has to be supreme and that group is the whites of the world.”
Walker has authored multiple articles on the site and has said it belongs to him. In a lengthy letter to the editor in the Highlands Newspaper of Highlands, N.C., he claimed it as his own. A Facebook page for Russell Walker is the only account following the website’s Facebook page.
Other articles on the website ChristIsDescendedFromJoseph.com argue that “BLACK IS THE COLOR OF EVIL,” “WOMEN ARE THE WEAKER SEX,” and Paul is a “FALSE APOSTLE.”
The site also claims that “God made the races and he is the greatest racist ever,” that “the Jews are not Semitic they are Satanic as they all descend from Satan,” and that Martin Luther King Jr. “wanted to destroy the Caucasian race through mixing and integration. He was an agent of Satan.”
While Walker did sue the state of South Carolina in order to keep Confederate flags and portraits of Confederate generals in a South Carolina courtroom, his connection to the website was not widely reported until this week.
The articles on Walker’s site constantly quote the Bible, and some verses have historically been twisted to teach the inferiority of black people. The general narrative of the Bible, however, is that God intends to bless “all the families of the world” through Abraham. While God chose the Jews as His people, He charged the prophet Jonah to go preach repentance to Nineveh. In the same town where Jonah initially refused to go to Nineveh (a racist and tribalist rejection of God’s will to go to the alien), God appeared in a vision to the Apostle Peter, encouraging him to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to gentiles.
Walker’s site quotes John 8, in which Jesus rebukes some Jews who had followed Him, saying, “You are of your father the devil.” That verse, however, does not imply that Jews are children of the devil, but that unrepentant sinners are spiritual children of the devil, no matter their race or ethnicity. Jesus was making a point that while Jews considered themselves sons of God, descent from God should shine through love toward God and others, not superiority over others.
Jesus’ message of humility (Philippians 2, Matthew 20:25-26) should stand as a rebuke to any form of racism or tribalism by which a person declares himself greater than another. Furthermore, Jesus only remarked on the great faith of two people, neither of them Jews, despite His repeated insistence that He came to rescue the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24-28).
The Republican Party was right to disavow Walker, and he should withdraw his candidacy. Democrats are anxious to paint the GOP as a white supremacist institution, and nothing could be further from the truth. Even so, when The New York Times publishes an op-ed defending the harassment of public officials because Trump is a “professional racist,” the GOP has to make it painfully clear that such charges are ridiculous.
As for Walker, it is in his interest to withdraw. If he is elected, he will be a lone voice in the legislature, rightly looked down upon by Democrats and Republicans alike and unable to achieve anything of value.
Wallker faces incumbent Democrat Garland Pierce, an African American minister. I am loathe to see Democrats win, but in this case it would be wonderfully ironic to see a black Christian Democrat trounce a white supremacist false Republican who twists Christianity to promote racism. God is not a racist, but He certainly has a sense of humor.
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