The Kinism Controversy - Some Level-headed Thoughts From AD

AD Robles iconAD Robles

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00:04
Now, I do want to talk about something else, and this is just kind of a side topic. I was talking to my wife, who, my wife is still on Facebook, and she still kind of participates in some of the online reformed drama.
00:18
And I was talking to her, I was like, yeah, it's so interesting, because people often ask me about the latest drama, and I'm just really not involved in it.
00:26
I'm kind of glad I'm not involved in it, but they'll say, hey, did you see what was going on in the Fight Left Feast network and Facebook page?
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And it's like, no, I didn't. I'm just not involved in that stuff, you know? And we were just talking about it.
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And we were talking about kinism, which is like all the rage right now. And you know, it's, that whole issue, it's just, it's too, like, it's too hot to talk about.
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It's just too, it's too emotionally charged, like, we can't have rational discussions about it. Because the thing is, it's like kinism, these days, it's like, you know, anything can be called kinism in a huge range, and it's not, it doesn't lead to good conversations, because on the one hand, you know, kinism is, you know, we should have forced segregated churches, and we should, you know, interracial marriage should be outlawed.
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And then there's that, that's called kinism. And then, you know, if you even ask questions about why, sorry about that,
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I don't know why everyone's calling me all of a sudden. If you even ask questions about why it is that, you know, most people will marry within their own ethnicity, right?
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Why is that the case? Is that a problem? Is that something that needs to be debugged? Do we need to reject that?
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And it doesn't seem like it is, it seems like it's, you know, most people do it, and that's totally fine. Like, if you even ask questions about that, or even scratch the surface under that question a little bit, or if you even ask questions as to why is it that every advertisement that I see always has an inter -ethnic marriage, when that's not the norm.
01:59
That's not common. That's not what people normally do. So why are they pushing that on us? Sometimes if you even ask that question, you're called a kinist, and so there's this huge range of things that are kinism, and they're not all kinism, but they're all given the black mark of heresy, because that's the thing.
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Now you have to, every God -fearing person has to say, well, kinism is the ultimate heresy just about, and it's like they treat it like it's the worst possible thing that you could possibly believe, and so then when you do that, and then you have a fuzzy definition for what kinism even is, it creates a whole, it creates a third rail situation where no one can have a rational discussion.
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And so, I was talking to my wife about that, and she's like, yeah, it makes sense. And then I was thinking to myself, you know, here's the thing though, because we should ask that question, right?
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Why is inter -ethnic marriage pushed on us so aggressively all the time?
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And I'm in one, right? I'm in an inter -ethnic marriage, and I love my wife, and it's great, but even
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I notice this, and I'm just like, that's very weird. My brother's in an inter -ethnic marriage as well, and him and I talk about this stuff, and it's like, and the thing is like, again, most people aren't in inter -ethnic marriages, and it's treated almost like that's almost like a mark of shame for a lot of people, where it's like, oh, well, you know,
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I guess I'm just in this racist marriage. And if you don't think that people are treated that way, then honestly, you haven't really been paying attention to what's been going on.
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And my whole thing is, you know, why is it that most people decide not to do that?
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It's not because they're racist, obviously, so let's not be stupid, but why is it? And I think that a lot of times, you know, people just kind of have this innate sort of feeling that, you know, marriage is very difficult anyway.
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You know, it's always a difficult thing. It's always something that you have to work at, something that you have to, you know, decide that you are going to love your wife, you love your husband, and it's till death do you part, and you're going to work things out, and you're going to help each other, and you're going to grow a family, and it's a decision, and it takes work to do every single day.
04:04
It's hard enough. But then to add all kinds of, you know, sometimes extreme cultural differences, where there's expectations that are unspoken, because as far as you're concerned from your culture, this is just how things are done, that can be extra challenging and can introduce all kinds of difficulties.
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And so I think there's an innate feeling that sometimes, you know, there's a lot of fish in the sea, and so maybe it's probably best, a good idea, a prudent idea, for me not to introduce that complication.
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And I told my wife, I said, you know, I don't think it's an accident that me and my wife got along great and we got married, because, you know, even though we're different ethnicities, we were actually raised very similarly.
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And the reason is because we're both from New England, right? She grew up in Vermont, I grew up in Connecticut, and it's like, so we have similar contexts, we had similar ways that we were brought up.
05:01
There are definitely differences, though, especially in the parenting, right? And there are, we know in our marriage that there are things that we grew up kind of experiencing and knowing was the right thing to do, that are very different.
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And so we need to understand that when we're, you know, raising our children and things like that. And it does create a certain amount of friction.
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But you know, we need to keep our eyes open and knowing that. But at the end of the day, we're very similar, though. We had similar upbringings.
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We had similar experiences. And so that I don't think that's a mistake. But I said to my wife, imagine if I was
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Puerto Rican, which I am, but I was I was actually from the island. I was from Puerto Rico.
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And we met and I was from Puerto Rico and she was from Vermont. Those differences in culture and just the way we were raised and stuff like that, it would be way more challenging than what it is.
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It's very simple. This is this is obvious to me, but it's almost like people are afraid to admit this.
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It's like, no, there are expectations that a husband in Puerto Rico has and is raised to have of his wife that are very different than in Connecticut, that are that are in Vermont.
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And some of these aren't really moral issues necessarily. It's not we're not talking about like whether the husband is the head of the household or something, something that God has has has spoken on.
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We're talking about lots of stuff that maybe God hasn't given us a direct command about.
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And it's like, so we need to consider that it'd be very I'm Puerto Rican either way. So I'm Puerto Rican.
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But in one in one story, in God's story, I'm a Puerto Rican that grew up in Connecticut, essentially grew up as an
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American. But there were even still differences then because I was in a Puerto Rican American. So there are some things that I grew up just experiencing and knowing and formed me as a child that my wife knows nothing about because she's a white person growing up in Vermont.
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You know what I mean? So it's not to say there's no differences, but it would have been way more difficult, way, way more stark of a contrast if I was a
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Puerto Rican that grew up in Puerto Rico. Again, it seems obvious to me. And so when people say, you know, because this is the thing, it's like it's almost like it's almost like if you self let me let me see how
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I can put this. You're almost treated as like the scum of the earth if you are self -consciously looking for a wife or a husband that has a similar context to you, of your own ethnicity, of your own group.
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You know, I'm looking for someone from New England like you can get away with it if you're like Puerto Rican, you're looking for another
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Puerto Rican or if you're black and looking for another black. But if you're white and you and you are openly about that, like I'm not really interested in dating a
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Puerto Rican or a black person like you're the scum of the earth in our context. And my question is, why is that?
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Is that even is that even a sin? Is that even something that you need to repent of if that's what your target, if that's what you're looking for?
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I would argue that the answer is no. If you're looking for a mate and you're white and you happen to be white and you're looking for a white woman and, you know, that grew up in the
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Midwest or something like that. Like, honestly, there's nothing wrong with you. That's that's what
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I think. And so and so people like, well, AD sounds like a kinist. That's not kinism. But I think you need to really ask yourself, because this is what most people do and most
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Christians do this. And it's and they have no racial animus towards people. They have no racial prejudice towards people in the sense of partiality is what
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I mean. Of course, they're not they don't treat anyone with partiality and stuff like that. But but they're you know, what they're attracted to in a wife is someone that is like what they remembered a wife being from when they were a child.
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And I'm not I'm here to tell you that that's like that's common and I'm pretty sure it's not a sin.
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And if it is a sin, you'll have to show me how you'll have to show me how I've told this story many times.
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I'll tell it again, probably. But when I was in in in New York, there was a girl that I liked.
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I thought she was attractive and things like that. She was a black girl. And I remember
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I remember asking her out. She said no. She was very nice about it. And, you know, it turned out that she only dated black guys.
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That's what she that's what she liked. And and I remember I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel like, oh, that's terrible.
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Oh, what a racist. It's like I didn't like it. Just that's just her preference. That's what she likes. You know, and in fact, it was even more than that.
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It was like Caribbean black guys. Like I think it was Jamaican, if I'm not mistaken, Jamaican. If I'm not, that was funny
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Jamaican, if I'm not mistaken. But in any case, so I think, you know, and I was and I was thinking this through and it's like, you know, and then my wife said, yeah, you know, and and she's like saying, yeah,
10:00
I guess I could see that because she's not totally with me on all these ideas. Just just for the record.
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But but she's like, I guess I can see that, you know, there could be bigger differences than than just, you know, something trivial like food.
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Right. Like you grew up with a certain food. And I thought about that for a second. I was talking this out with my wife and I was like, you know, the food thing.
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I don't think that's as trivial, trivial as as a lot of people want to say. Well, different cultures have different foods and things like that.
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And, you know, I don't know if that's really trivial because think about this. Right. Like like you think about like American cuisine, right?
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Like American food. What are we known for? Right. We're known for like burgers, hot dogs, stuff like that. You know, wings.
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And that might be fair or unfair, but I think that's what we're known for. Right. And if you think about all those kinds of foods, what's what's what's in common with them?
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Right. You go on the grill, you grill them. It's like really fast and it's delicious. I'm not saying it's not delicious, but it's very fast to cook, very fast to prepare.
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In fact, you don't really even have to prepare anything. You just mold the burger, you throw it on the grill and it's ready to go.
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Maybe a little salt and pepper. It's ready to go. You cut the fries, you throw them in the fryer. They're ready to go.
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You cut the wings, you put them in the fryer. They're ready to go. It's all very, very quick. I don't think that that comes out of nothing.
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That that the idea that all of our cuisine is just like so quick to make. Right. It's very quick. I think that that came about probably because of a of a deep seated sort of like we're constantly on the go.
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You know, we need to be efficient. We need to be quick. You know, dinner is really fast. You just wolf it down. It's very different than other cultures that have like two hour dinners.
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And they're very elaborate. And a lot of time and preparation goes into the food. And you got to like, you got to make the sauce and it takes time for the sauce to develop and things like that.
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And cultures that have cuisine like that, they think of time very differently than we do as Americans, even down South.
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Right. What do you, what's the impression of people when you go down? Now, I'm not saying that Southerners don't eat burgers and dogs too.
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But what I'm saying is like, like, what is the South known for? South is known for like barbecue and things like that.
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And when you think about the people in the South, it's a lot more easygoing than people up North and Yankees and stuff like that.
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You know, people are more chill. They're more relaxed. You know, you know, take a load off, stay a while. That kind of attitude lends itself to barbecue and slow cooking.
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And it is not going to be hot and fast. It's going to be slow, low and slow. And it kind of develops the flavor over time, over a period of 12 hours.
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And I don't think that that's that trivial, right? Because at the end of the day, all you need is food, right? To survive. Whether it's fast cooked food or slow cooked food, whatever it is, you know, you just need the calories and you'll survive.
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But the way that food expresses sort of the priorities and the view of the world that the people who prepare the food has,
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I think makes a difference. You know what I mean? I think it'd be hard for a
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Southerner and a Yankee to come together and be married without reckoning with the difference of how they view life and how they view time and how they view things.
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These are important differences that you need to consider when you get married to someone, whether it's of your ethnicity or not, like someone from a different culture.
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They just have a different normal. They have a different view of what's standard.
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And you need to consider those kinds of things before you get married. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think that race and ethnicity, you know, that can be like a shorthand for some of these cultural differences, but not always.
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It's not always as neat and clean as you want it to be. And so that's why people get hung up on race and ethnicity.
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But these are things that shouldn't be, especially for a lot of my theological heroes, so to speak, we shouldn't be shutting down conversations like this and just calling everyone a heretic who says something that's...
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And that's the thing. It's like, well, what you just said, A .D., a Kinnist would say, too. And I'm like, yeah, okay,
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I get that, right? And probably Hitler had a puppy dog and liked puppies. I mean, I don't know.
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But sure, I guess so. But the thing is, Kinnists say a lot more than what I'm saying as well. And so let's not play that game where it's like, if that sounds even the slightest bit
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Kinnist, you're a heretic. Let's shut it down. That's just no way to have this conversation.
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And that's kind of what my problem is with those statements from the CREC. It's just like,
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I don't know. It just seems like, given how weak and vague and malleable these definitions are right now in this particular context, it just seems like a bad move to be doing that.
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Because now everyone who's labeled a Kinnist is now like, well, I guess I'm a heretic. That's the thing.
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And the thing is, not everyone who's labeled a Kinnist actually is a Kinnist. And that's just the bottom line.
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In any case, I'll talk more about this. We're going to talk more about this. Because I don't care.
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I don't care if I'm labeled whatever. I'll have the conversation. Not a problem at all.
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I'm researching more into official Kinnists and what they believe. That's something that I'm starting to read into a little bit.
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And yeah, so we're going to talk more about this. We definitely are. I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.