It is difficult for Protestants to call for something to be heresy across denominational lines without an agreed upon basis or set of pronouncements. This is especially when “heretic” now has secular usage. In this situation, it is not merely several distinct Presbyterian and Reformed denominations which may have similar standards regarding race, but who amount to twigs on the branch of Protestantism, calling for a label of heresy.

Various voices of late have been debating Kinism. This is the belief that the divinely designed social order is tribal rather than governmental. According to the Kinist, any ordering of the world’s various spheres which tries to organize around democracy, government planning, or other which puts races on par with each other is doomed to fail. Some have escalated disagreement with Kinism to the point of calling it heresy, a word which gives many pause.

Every time the murmurs of Protestant debate explode into a cry of “heresy,” someone always asks, “says who!?” Dr Roger Olson of Baylor’s Truett Divinity School, addresses the issue of Protestants’ use of heresy in his post, “Thoughts about the Terms “Heresy” and “Heretic”:

What makes a belief “heresy?” Well, there’s no easy answer to that unless it is within a church or denomination that has a formal magisterium. Such as the Roman Catholic Church. Some beliefs have been formally “anathematized” by a council or a pope. Then they are heresies…Now, there’s one other use of “heresy.” Historical theologians of any or no denomination sometimes say “Such-and-such is a heresy” and mean that it has generally been excluded by most Christian groups. This is a purely descriptive use; it has no prescriptive power. It may not even be meant prescriptively at all. It is simply a statement of historical fact. In that sense, universalism is clearly a heresy. But, so what? It’s just an observation…Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is not always possible to discern what a statement actually says without much dialogue and discernment.

So for Protestants, it is difficult to declare heresy for three reasons. Protestants lack a magisterium (body of authoritative interpretations and doctrine), or magisterium-like set of pronouncements that go across denominations. The second is that labeling is more a statement of fact. The third is the requirement of proving unorthodox intent.

Not to mention that a popular podcast called “Heretics” has appropriated this word, not over how we know things (epistemology), or predestination, or some issue all Reformed can agree on, but on racism (a bias in favor of one set of physical biological characteristics because they are causative of behavior) in the form of Kinism.  In other words, it is not cries of heresy over a theological issue, but on a hot button one framed by a secular use of the imprecation “heresy.”

Various Reformed and Presbyterian voices have joined in asserting that racism is a heresy. In the RPCNA, for example, Edgar Ibarra, Las Vegas; Drew Poplin, at First RPC Durham, NC, and in the PCA, Aldo Leon, PCA Teaching Elder in Miami, have called racism a heresy. In a recently published book from the RPCNA publishing house Crown and Covenant, The Canvas of Creation: A Biblical Response to the Heresy of Racial Superiority, Pastor Drew Poplin argues that racism/kinism is a heresy. On Presbycast, PCA Ruling Elder Brad Isbell, interviewed some OPC Elders on this topic. He also interviewed Pastor Poplin on his book. This is all in keeping with the CRC’s pronouncements from the 1990s, which are received by the URCNA. Thus, the RPCNA, OPC, URCNA, ARP, and the PCA all have advocates stating Kinism, along with any form of racism, is heresy.

A few Calvinists say Kinism is heresy, so what? Well, it is not only Presbyterian and Reformed voices in 2025 debating in English, but we can look back to 1872 in Katharavustra Greek.

The Orthodox Synod of Constantinople met in 1872. One of the issues debated and concluded therein is called Phyletism, or Ethnophyletism. These are defined as the allowing racial or ethnic feuds in the church. At this Synod, there was a response to the request of the Bulgarians for an autocephalus, that is, to be allowed as a church to be separated along ethnic lines. The Synod resolved:

We renounce, censure and condemn phyletism, that is racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds and dissensions within the Church of Christ, as contrary to the teaching of the Gospel and the holy canons of our blessed fathers which ‘support the holy Church and the entire Christian world, embellish it and lead it to Divine piety.

The description of the sin is included: racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatred, and dissentions. This is very similar to the supporting doctrine of Ethnic Complementarianism: different ethnicities, or families, which Pastor Poplin argues is rooted in ideas of race, were meant to operate separately but as neighbors. They will claim this goes across all five spheres, even the church.

Further than similarities in language, the newfangled doctrine of Ethnic Complementarianism seems to be a similar episode to the 19th century desire for Bulgarian Autocephalism in goal. Some in Bulgaria wanted to remain in the Orthodox communion while having a specifically nationalist church. This desire to be next to but distinct from others, especially in the church, sounds like Kinism’s Ethnic Complimentarianism. As Kinist research organization The Pactum Institute says in the final two points of their mission statement:

5. Christian Familialism and Ethnic Complementarianism as representing the organic and divinely ordained social order for mankind.
6. Providing sustainable, practical solutions for small community and clan living within the context of contemporary society based on the principle of Subsidiarity.

There is, then, an imperative in both Kinism and Ethnophyletism to make things, even in the church, more perfect by organizing humanity along ethnic lines with impervious boundaries and claiming divine sanction for this.

Now Phyletism and Ethnophyletism are not a 120-year-old declaration of the Ottoman-era Orthodox debate. This same issue was revived and debated by them in the 2010s. The occasion was the Russia-Ukraine tensions spilling into the church. Thus, the condemnation of Phyletism and Ethnophyletism is a declaration, which is the still the church’s position in the present day.

So Dr. Olson makes a point worth considering.  It is difficult for Protestants to call for something to be heresy across denominational lines without an agreed upon basis or set of pronouncements. This is especially when “heretic” now has secular usage. In this situation, it is not merely several distinct Presbyterian and Reformed denominations which may have similar standards regarding race, but who amount to twigs on the branch of Protestantism, calling for a label of heresy. It includes a whole other branch on the tree of the visible church, the Orthodox Communion, saying something very similar. Thus, this is a worthy consideration on race, even if only from the theological testimony from another silo of Christianity.

Juan-Jose Cavallo is a member of Northside Baptist Church in North Fort Meyers, Fla.