An indication that Christianity has declined over the last decades is the fact that Easter has slowly faded from the public space. It used to be that stores would have sales for the things that go along with holiday. The grocery stores would have an aisle dedicated to candy and treats popular with Easter. You would see ads for children’s clothes, as Easter was typically a time to get the little ones new gear.
The main reason for the decline in Easter, of course, is the decline in the number of people attending Christian churches. In some parts of the country, like New England, church attendance has collapsed. In those states, about half the people never attend services, while only about a quarter attend regularly. Only a few states have a majority of people attending church regularly.
Of course, the churches have succumbed to the rot. The Episcopal church is mostly about sodomy now. Drive around the east coast and it seems like every rainbow ends at an Episcopal church. The Catholic church is in steep decline due to the homosexual priest scandals. Even the Baptists have decided that it is better to please the lunatics than tend to the faithful. The result is a lot of empty pews.
There is also the fact that Christianity is strongly associated with the Western tradition and that means it is viewed as white by the antiwhites. Since all things white are now on the proscribed list, the people making beer ads featuring crossdressers are not going to be making ads for Christian holidays. Just as white men have been scrubbed from your television, positive views of Christianity have been scrubbed.
On the other hand, there is a revival in what can best be called Christianism or maybe ad hoc Christianity. These are the people saying, “Christ is king!” in the political context and the people rallying to what they call Christian Nationalism. Calling this Christianity feels like a stretch as it has little in the way of theological underpinnings, but it suggests a strong desire to adopt or create such an underpinning.
Like so much in the West, Christianity is due for both a revolution and revival in the face of the assault on Western culture. The churches are probably too far gone to participate in such a revival, but new churches have grown up in the past. Protestantism exists for this exact reason. In fact, America exists largely due to the renewal process within Western Christianity that kicked off in the Reformation.
That is the show this week. This is fertile ground for dissidents as there are a lot of dissident Christians going through the same awakening as secular dissidents, so there is a lot of overlap. That and being a dissident is as much about reclaiming the past from the cultural vandals and that means reclaiming Christianity. There simply cannot be a West without the Christian churches and Christianity.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- The Importance of Christianity
- The Crucifixion
- Who Was Jesus?
- The Idea Of The Messiah
- Universalism
- Individualism
- Why Easter?
- Resources
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Full Show On Spreaker
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Full Show On Rumble
Many young men, especially those of European descent, realize that modern society has absolutely nothing to offer them – definitely not the things their grandfather had (a wife, a family, a home, a decent job that can provide for all), but not even basic respect and dignity. Many of them are turning to religion, because that is the place so many turn when things seem so desperate. It starts with “Christ is King!” and “Jesus Chad” memes but memes are memes for a reason – they work. Obviously, they’re not going to find God at the sodomite churches which are just extensions of the state leviathan (and mostly empty anyway – why bother when you can just get the same message everywhere you turn?). They find him in traditional churches, Orthodox, Latin Mass, etc. They’re reading Christian authors who discuss the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the faith. They’re actively spurning the atheist fedora lords that have dominated online discussion since the early days of the internet. Obviously things are bad, but things are bad all over, and it takes, well, faith. Even Catholics who despair at the current state of the church leadership know that this, too, shall pass.
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I get your resistance to “teleologies” and “just so” stories, and the idea that what’s being done to us is deliberate, but it’s not a sentiment I share. Even if the process is not conscious, I really think they do get up every day thinking of how to make us miserable, and more importantly—inculcating despair in us, feeding on our misery and rage as if it were their daily bread.
That’s the real power of Christianity, a resistance to despair that—if grounded in genuine faith—actually grows whether it encounters despair or good news. It’s what separates us from pagans, who make sacrifices to see transactional returns from their gods. The Book of Job is THE book for these times. It will let you yawn and roll your eyes through the shrill screaming of those TV pundits and campus freaks and politicians speaking about their victory and your destruction, as if it’s part of the arc of history rather than temporary. It’s pretty clear their temple is crumbling already; it just sucks that we live within its walls.
Hard times are coming, maybe literal hunger, as is more violence, as the antiwhite behavior has grown from the cold war stage to the thermonuclear stage. Maybe more and stronger viruses will even be inflicted on the public (much more effective strains have already shown plaguelike efficacy in knocking off mice in trials.) But:
“Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue; neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh; neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth. For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field…and thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace.”
-Job 5: 21-24
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Joey wrote, ‘I get your resistance to “teleologies” and “just so” stories, and the idea that what’s being done to us is deliberate, but it’s not a sentiment I share.’
To get to my current worldview, I had to stop deferring to the saying, “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.” That saying, while containing a lot of truth, functioned as an inhibitor to pattern recognition.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean that they are not after you.
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Flag of Finland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Finland
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According to Vox Day in a relatively recent post, you are no longer worth reading because you are not a Christian. Did that encourage you to start writing about your Christian faith or is it just a coincidence?
Either way, you are far more based in reality than Vox. He sees accurately what is going on then gets lost in fantasy
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VD has some good ideas and perspectives but he gets a little carried away with the Dark Lord thing.
His trilogy of books about fighting back against the Woke are still well worth reading, especially for those new to this side of the divide.
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Vox Day is worth checking out every few days. Short posts that cover various topics, with links that are often interesting.
He sure thinks a lot of himself though, and is a weird guy but deserves credit for aggressively pushing back on the woke agenda with mockery and ridicule and providing a blueprint (never apologize) on dealing with the crazy libtards.
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After posting about Vox Day I realized you can’t ignore that after being shunned by the science fiction community, he started his own book publishing company, Castalia House and his own comic book line, Arkhaven. We talk all the time about parallel institutions, and he went out and did it.
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Vox is the most stereotypical midwit on this side of the Great Divide.
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As I recall, ostentatiously praying on the street corner came in for some criticism in scripture. Better for one to pray in the closet was the recommendation. Live it in truth, and don’t flaunt piety around, throwing up virtue signaling like chaff.
I grew up as a WASP Episcopalian, then my family transitioned to a Latin Mass Anglican Church as ours became pozzed in the 1980s. Now I don’t attend at all b/c the local parish is completely Fake and Gay to the point I can’t even deal with the fellow parishioners. It’s really sad because I valued it for all the reasons that any sane person of modest faith did, a structured place to celebrate the faith, community, and history (it happened to be a very old and historic parish).
We don’t and cannot realize how severe the social breakdown was during the wars of religion in Europe in the Middle Ages and I suspect that there will be something similar when people get pushed into a corner. We might be a post-modern society but we are certainly not post-conflict.
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Today is the holiest of days. My faith is still strong but my Catholicism not as much. I still attend irregularly but still have the need. Stations of the cross feels like a good choice for me today
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“Christianity is strongly associated with the Western tradition and that means it is viewed as white by the antiwhites.”
I have to disagree, and disagree very strongly. The great majority of Christians today are in the Third World, specifically Latin America and Africa, with smaller groups in Asia. And Third World Christians are at odds with their white coreligionists. African Anglican bishops have all but excommunicated American and British Anglicans/Episcopalians. Many Second and Third World Christians may be antiwhite, but that is because of colonialism, not Christianity.
The antiwhites you write of are Europeans and Jews living in the West, who have little or no contact or awareness of the Second and Third Worlds.
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The first part of his sentence is correct:
“Christianity is strongly associated with the Western tradition”
Take out the input of Greek philosophy and there is no Christianity. How much these Christians in the third world are aware of this I do not know but I suspect it’s more about worshiping Jesus.
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Note I was not talking about what Bob Sykes thinks. I was referring to what the people in charge think.
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I haven’t listened to the show yet, but the show notes are already pretty alarming. Anyone who thinks that the Protestant Reformation was “a process of renewal” simply does not understand Western history or Christian theology at all.
The Protestant Revolt, as it ought to be called, was to Christendom precisely what the French Revolution was to the Western culture. It was not a renewal of things, it was the end of things. I an example of people exalting themselves above legitimate authority and eventually abolishing the very idea of authority. The whole form in microcosm can be summed up in Cromwellianism: parliament without the king, the court eunuchs usurping the throne and murdering the king from whom alone the throne receives its majesty and significance.
To understand this dynamic in the political-cultural sphere, read Oswald Spengler. To understand it in the religious sphere, read Hilaire Belloc.
The historical progression from Protestantism to wokery, from “every man his own priest” to “every priest, his own boy,” from the 95 theses to the 57 genders, is quite clear and distinct in the historical record. Protestantism leads to puritanism, which leads to “Enlightenment,” which leads to rationalism, which leads to practical atheism and economic theories in the place of philosophy, decadence in art, and finally exhaustion, cynicism, and postmodernism. The path is inevitable.
One of Zman’s drawbacks is that his beloved “evolution,” which he takes to be an all-powerful solution calculator, is in reality an artefactual thought that lies quite late in this progression, coming in around the rationalist period, and which is really a shallow take on an existence no longer understood, an unmetaphysical metaphysics, a scheme rather than an explanation. Were it not for this, I believe he could be a great warrior on the side of truth. He has a quick and fertile mind, and he communicates well.
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Intelligent Dasein, did Luther and the nascent Protestants have any valid complaints? If so, how should they have handled them?
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As a Catholic, I am positive that the nascent Protestants had valid complaints. Luther is a complicated character: he hit the nail in the head in some topics (corruption) while being completely absurd in other topics.
But they should have been fighting inside the Church instead of creating another Church. You could say that this could have been unsuccessful. Fair enough. But dividing the Church didn’t solve the problem either. Protestant churches have the same problems as the Catholic Church, but they cover them better. They divided Christendom for nothing.
Speaking in a secular way, the most harmful thing was Sola Scriptura. Imagine that Luther had founded its own church and that’s it. There would have been two Western Churches: Catholic and Lutheran. Bad but not disastrous.
Sola Scriptura is like having an only Constitution but each American person is each own Supreme Court to interpret it. A recipe for chaos that created 30 thousand Protestant denominations and relativism, which produced today’s world (for example, wokeness).
Something so absurd that no culture has it. Islam, Judaism and even tribal religions have religious authorities that interpret the holy texts. Luther didn’t think it through and opened the Pandora’s box and later regretted it.
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In 1538, Luther wrote:
“I . . . have been now in the ministry of Christ about twenty years, can truly witness that I have been assailed with more than twenty sects, . . . Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, . . . Such is the blindness and presumption of these frantic heads, which even by their own judgment do condemn themselves. . . ”
(Commentary on Galatians (Lafayette, Indiana, Sovereign Grace Publishers, Inc., 2002, pp. xxi-xxii)
So yes, you cannot say “everybody is entitled to interpret the Bible his own way” and then get mad when people do exactly what you have said. This shows that Luther didn’t think Sola Scriptura through.
In 1538, Luther wrote: “Who would have begun to preach, if we had known beforehand that so much unhappiness, tumult, scandal, blasphemy, ingratitude, and wickedness would have been the result?” [Walch. VIII. 564]
More juicy Luther quotes of regret:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/12/luther-regret-anything-reformation.html
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Well that was clear as mud.
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That’s one argument. Another is Christianity would have died already without the Reformation as Catholicism tended to be less central in the more dynamic and secure areas of Europe and thriving in those parts of the continent more vulnerable to Islam. I don’t have enough familiarity to offer an opinion, but encountered that theory frequently before it became taboo to discuss Islam negatively.
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That is a totally messed up and misleading description of that theory, disregard it. I may dig around and find what it actually says, but the Islam prong is wrong although the centrality part is not, only inaccurately described.
While at it, certainly Protestant America has done more to destroy the faith in recent years yet Orthodox Russia endured communism and has become a bulwark of Christianity. Only one of those suffered Muslim invasion.
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I don’t have time to address every wrong notion you’ve written, but I will address a couple.
“Protestantism leads to puritanism…”
This is false. Puritanism is the heresy of Catharism (from cathari, meaning pure). This heresy predates protestantism, and has come up cyclically in the Church’s history. There is no link between the two except that which exists in your mind. Hilaire Belloc’s book on heresy goes into this in some detail if you’re interested in learning more.
“I [sic] an example of people exalting themselves above legitimate authority and eventually abolishing the very idea of authority.”
This is mostly false, in that the people claiming to be legitimate authorities were delegitimizing themselves, and had been since the early 14th century. In brief, the basic social contracts were that peasants worked to provide for society, and in exchange their lords would provide protection and justice, and the church would offer reconciliation and charity. The black plague and the hundred years war led both clerics and the aristocracy to exploit the peasantry and abuse it, while failing in their duties. The peasant class kept it’s ever of the bargain by providing for society, but the other estates did not keep theirs, thus delegitimizing themselves and justifying reprisal on the basis of breach of contract. Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror provides a fairly good picture of what the 14th century was like, which helps contextualize the Reformation, if you’re interested in learning more.
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Puritanism comes from Calvinism. And Calvin only tried to systematize what Luther had taught in his contradictory and polemic way.
Puritanism is the logical consequence of Luther’s thought. The Lutheran Church does not follow Luther completely: it retains some things from the Catholic Church and contradicts Luther in several key things. The real children of Luther’s thought are the Puritans.
Reporting in from Louisiana and Texas. Still aisles devoted to Easter stuff in the HEB (Texas) and various Cajun groceries (Louisiana).
But your point is accurate. “American” “Christianity” has completely collapsed; it’s been ad adjunct of woke causes since the days of abolitionism and has completely compromised/caved to the evil degenerate tendencies of Americanism, the destroyer of all that is good, true, noble and beautiful in the European tradition.
(full disclosure, I am Russian Orthodox)
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can the argument be made, that taking up abolition contaminated (fatally) American Christianity? this would presuppose that the latter was “healthy” beforehand.
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can the case be made that taking up abolition fatally tainted American Christianity?
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Imo yes, but only because of a lack of limits. Same for Christian Zionism. You could just as easily go the other way and say the true Christian is a slave-owning antisemite.
Clarity at the margins, reality somewhere in between.
Then you are celebrating Pascha at the correct time, brother (next weekend).
I love Russian Orthodoxy. I wish there were a church near me. As it is, I have to settle for a Greek Orthodox church, which is fine. But the Russian church is awesome.
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My wife works in the University City area of Philadelphia. She stopped into a local CVS looking to pick up some little Easter candy favors for our dinner with my stepson and his wife. Zero, zip, nada. At other CVS locations this is not the case. Hmm.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
— Matthew 18:20
You don’t need the pozzed church. You only need fellowship.
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Can one be “good without God?”. What about the millions who lived and died before Christ, were they good people even though they may have prayed to a carved wooden stick? I am spiritual but not “religious”. The difference is you can be spiritual in your heart with no outward underpinnings, but “religious” person always has to exhibit how holier than thou they are, that’s why “church” has no attraction for me at all.
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“What about the millions who lived and died before Christ, were they good people even though they may have prayed to a carved wooden stick?”
The official Catholic explanation is that they are saved (go to Heaven) as long as they fulfill three conditions:
1) They are ignorant of Christianity but not because their fault (invincible ignorance). This rules out the vast majority of Western people but applies to people before Christ and most people in Islam and other cultures.
2) They conduct themselves following natural law. That is, they are “good people” as you say.
3) They try to please God (or the gods), however they imagine Him to be. Even if they think it is a carved wooden stick.
I guess other Christian denominations have similar doctrines.
““religious” person always has to exhibit how holier than thou they are,”
Broad generalization. It is not always this way. And “holier than thou” behavior does not depend on religion. Secular people exhibit it more frequently than religious people. You only have to see the news and the woke movement, the politicians, etc.
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FWIW:
As far as people who never heard the gospel being damned, idk. I chalk it up to the Lord working in mysterious ways. He has a plan for Creation, and I totally reject the notion that we can know that plan, who’s damned or saved, when the End Times will be, etc. It’s called faith, but people keep wanting knowledge— like Adam and Eve, I’d say.
I’m ambivalent about church. Obviously it’s hugely important, and I think its sorry state is as much about corruption at the top as it is about normal people dropping out. If I’m normal, I’m one of the dropouts lol. I’m certain my Protestant tradition informs my relationship with the church. Politics corrupts faith imo, but every organization is going have politics. Still figuring that one out. Maybe in the world but not of it applies, idk. In the church but not of it, something like that.
I mean, most of the religion seems in service to the church (which IS very important), but I wonder at what point it’s church and not faith.
Sorry for being long-winded.
“I totally reject the notion that we can know that plan”
To be more specific, that we can discover the plan. Revelation, I get, but then you have to ask yourself the difference between revelation and discovery, and that gets complicated lol. For instance, was the Trinity revealed, or did the Cappadocians discover it as a solution to theological questions? So I keep coming back to faith.
“On the other hand, there is a revival in what can best be called Christianism or maybe ad hoc Christianity. These are the people saying, “Christ is king!” in the political context and the people rallying to what they call Christian Nationalism. Calling this Christianity feels like a stretch as it has little in the way of theological underpinnings, but it suggests a strong desire to adopt or create such an underpinning.”
The revival is there, in parts. But I don’t see the hankering for theological underpinnings. Mostly I see a cult of Jesus. Early Christianity grew out of its Jewish roots in a Hellenistic world and as such reflects a fusion of Jewish religious thought and Greek philosophical thought. But I see little reflection of this in the revival. Perhaps I’m not seeing something or am otherwise at fault.
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It’s tough. The Church started bending over to Moslems with the rest of the West starting around 9/11. The pope is a communist. They fell over themselves over the jab. Rainbows can’t be further behind. There are feds casing the Latin Mass.
Get me someone who will restart the Reconquista and name the youknowwho and I’ll reconsider. Vigano would be a good start.
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good show first time comment
the expression the rabbit died
for a women being pregnant actually comes from 30s and 40s when they would use rabbits as pregnancy test by injecting womens pee into them.
evidently a pregnant womens pee would contian a hormone that would react in the female rabbit deforming its ovaries
medical history is quite distburbing like that
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Good podcast Z Man.
I will take this Easter to be thankful as a Christian for the dissident movement and all my fellow dissidents, Christian’s or not.
What we have is a place for sane people to take refuge and try to salvage something from what has happened to us and eventually like springtime, build something new for the European peoples.
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Western civilization is based in race, not religion. African Christians wouldn’t be able to replicate Western civilization if you gave them 10,000 years. The same with mestizo Christians in South and Central America. The West would have existed apart from Christianity and with Whites the West would never have happened, no matter what allegedly occurred in the Gospels. Religion is an aspect of culture and culture is downstream from race.
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African Christians might not be able to replicate Western Civilization, but at least they’re not obsessed with buggery and transgenderism.
At least it can be said of Africans that they still regard homosexuality as deviant and perverse:
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165317598/uganda-lgbtq-law
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No one says you make a cake with one ingredient and no one said Western civilization is just one thing. It is many things, but without any one of those things, it would not be Western civilization. One of those ingredients is Christianity.
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Correct. Without Christianity, the history and culture of the countries in Europe in America would have been radically different. There would not have been Western civilization but something else. This is not to say that race is not important. It is. A culture is a combination of things.
Let me put an example. Why doesn’t Europe have tribes, like African people or most of the world until recently? Because the Catholic church forbade the marriage between cousins in the Middle Ages. If you get married with a person from another tribe, tribes get diluted until disappearing.
Of course, you could argue that many African countries have tribes and are Christian, but this is because Christianity in Africa is a recent phenomenon “a mile wide and an inch deep”. With some centuries more, African tribes will also disappear, at least in Christian countries.
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Glad to see the Christcucks came out in force to downvote you. That is why we fail. We are all “equal brothers in Christ, right? Wrong!
Race and all that it contains are the primary ingredient in the “cake”, the foundational structure upon with all else stands. Until the Christcucks, CivNats, Grillers, Time-Trapped Boomers, and any other misled people can’t understand that at its most fundamental level we are doomed to this long slow slide and decay.
Old Christianity, the strong muscular version that swept across South America as Conquistadors and across Europe prior to that returns, it is just all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Simple As.
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My last serious ex-girlfriend went full-spectrum Woke and attends a United Church of Christ in her hometown. I’ve perused the congregation’s Facebook site. It’s basically a far leftist Woke kaffeeklatsch with a very thin veneer of watered-down Christianity overlaying the ubiquitous cultural Marxist dogma.
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Well, there’s one of the biggest problems with contemporary Christianity right there. Like the university, the media, and politics, it’s become completely feminized. Consequently it is unserious, childish and self-centered.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/04/micah-louwagie-compares-plight-of-trans-community-to-jesus/
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Speaking of unserious and childish, my sister’s rural Oklahoma GOP county meeting last night was highlighted by those attending (most of whom are evangelicals) being expected to play a game on their phones called “Cahoots”, or perhaps “Kahoot”. No one under 35 or 40 in sight, and still yet eyes were glued to screens and, as announced at the meeting, people were having “fun”. This was all instigated by a woman, of course.
My sister and several older men refused to engage. My questions is, why didn’t one of these older men stand up and hurl a thunderbolt, pointing out that our country is crumbling and you immature dolts are spending our precious time on a phone game. Not one minute was devoted to election integrity or any other worthy issue.
These evangelicals have been co-opted by the entertainment/military complex. Sounds like they could use a little hellfire and brimstone, which thanks to their frivolity they may get in the form of a Russian nuke.
I grew up in a bible-based Congregational Church founded in 1724 with a graveyard full of Revolutionary War veterans next to it.
They eventually joined the UCC – it’s now a tiny shell of what it used to be and slowly dying, A crazy social justice pastor with a rainbow scarf gives “sermons” to tiny audience each Sunday. When everyone in parents’ generation has passed away, the church will simply end.
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Unfortunately, that’s to be expected in places like New England. There’s a church in the center of Concord, MA with a Black Lives Matter sign on their property. It’d be a shame if one of those fake candles they keep in their windows would catch fire.
A good time to revisit Devon Stack’s look at anti-Christian messaging in The Simpsons. The greater point being that such propaganda was certainly not limited to one particular show. Once the scales fall from your eyes, it’s astounding how pervasive this stuff is and has been for a long, long time.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/xc19mi68WgjV/
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I think one of the biggest differences between leftist propaganda in media – television, movies, etc. — in previous decades compared to today is you had to actively seek out the agitprop. It wasn’t all pervasive until relatively recently.
For instance, in the 1970s everyone knew “All in the Family” was a “message” show, you might be entertained, but you knew upfront as a viewer you were going to get a lecture if you watched it. Conversely, you probably weren’t going to get a heavy-handed lecture on some trendy issue if you tuned into an episode of for example, “The Rockford Files.” Now it seems nearly every TV show or movie has to have some element of Woke propaganda. It’s baked into the cake. Now you have to actively avoid being lectured.
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Good points about the past media.
Going off on a tangent (mea culpa) but it seems to me all the television series in those days had some message. Thus “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons” were stating that the American suburban way of life existed in the time of dinosaurs and would persist indefinitely into the future; “The Munsters” showed that while Hermann Munster and his vampire father-in-law might have been ostracized and persecuted in Europe, here in American they could be regular Americans (well, almost); and series like “The Man from Uncle” and “Mission Impossible” were to show that US spy and intelligence agencies were making the world a better place. On a more light-hearted note you had “Get Smart.”
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When every show has “woke” baked into it, it is not obvious. That is the problem. It has become mainstream and simply accepted by those of a new generation as “normal”. That such “wokeness” is absurd or fails to meet everyday observable reality seems lost on the newer generation. Certainly there results in greater pushback when you try to remind these “minds of mush” that things are not as they seem. Sigh….
Do you remember when the Simpsons made fun of Bush the Elder, he replied that he wanted an America more like the Waltons than the Simpsons, and everyone mocked him?
I gleefully mocked him at the time. Now I agree with him.
I remember the Simpsons being striking at the time due to its cynicism and nihilism. Now, every small child watches it in reruns, like I watched “Leave it to Beaver” in reruns as a child.
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“Simpsons” had nothing on “Married with Children” when it came to cynicism. It painted an empty and unhappy family where the father is a failure, the mother a lazy ball buster, the son an incel, the daughter a slut. Really, really dark.
Ironically, Al Bundy can sort of be seen as a pathetic conservative figure. He longed for his boyhood of watching John Wayne and (futiley) battled the forces of feminism and liberalism.
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Norman Lear did “All in the Family” (stupid white irish conservative) and “Maude” (pro-feminism) and “The Jeffersons” (blacks folks moving on up. . .) and was involved in creating “Diff’rent Strokes” (whites adopt blacks and fight bigotry at every turn).
These “message” shows have been around a long time and the message was clear. White “bigots” must go. The mass propaganda has been going on for a long time. Longer still if you research Edward Bernays and understand the origin of advertising and public relations. Watch the documentary of “Century of the Self.”
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The Simpsons was Tribed up, for sure. I have watched that Stack piece, and he makes good points, but I disagree with him. I think The Simpsons showed some reverence for Christian piety.* Flanders and Fr. Lovejoy were made fun of, for sure, but they weren’t ridiculed or mocked. By my definition anyway. There were a few episodes that were pro-Christian, albeit in a very modern, jaded way.
It may have been the last popular TV show that depicted Christianity in a good or normal light. Fast-forward to Seinfeld…now that’s mockery.
*I only watched the first eight or none seasons, then I stopped. So I’m basing this on my watching in the early 1990s.
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The Simpsons is oddly enough a “wholesome” show—as set in the late 20th century modernity. A hard row to hoe, but note that the bumbling, selfish, oafish clown Homer *always* in the end does the right thing for his family. His wife, always meets his antics with love and forgiveness. Family integrity is not a Left-wing value. It is a Right-wing value.
1
The first 9 seasons of the Simpsons are GOLD, maybe the best TV of all time. I agree with your appraisal of it being jaded to Christianity, but still somewhat respecting it and the idea of the family. I’m sure for the past 20 years it’s devolved into utter crap.
Seinfeld never mocked Chritianity. It barely brought up religion at all except to make fun of Jewish Rabbi and Puddy for being a Christian. But Seinfeld was a show about “nothing”; a secular godless world of frivolity. I wouldn’t say it was a HOSTILE show, though, like “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
1
The only way for the Catholic Church (or any other Church) to survive and be relevant again is to become radically intolerant. It has to offer a clear and obvious alternative to whatever ideology/pseudoreligion rules the world right now. No compromises, no tolerance and no apologies.
17
How does the Catholic Church do that when it insists that the teachings and morality never change?
(chuckles)
I know many religious types don’t really care about the logical consequences of what they are saying.
However some of us former members really did get bothered enough by these contradictions.
The credibility is gone, the spell is broken. We will never be back regardless of what “changes”
5
You could give a try to the traditional Latin Mass. Clear doctrine that does not change.
1
Great show, Thanks Zman.
5
The Latin Mass, traditional Catholic parish I attend is growing, and has a lot of families with many children. That’s the future. Although Pope Francis is working to suppress it. But he won’t last forever. Vatican II was a mistake, as now is obvious, and will be discarded. Then the West will revive. As Belloc said, “Europe is the Faith. The Faith is Europe.” See his short book: “Europe and the Faith.” Free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8442/pg8442-images.html
6
One can hope….however, remember the not so distant past of the Catholic Church and the hierarchy. Start with the long tenure of the most conservative Pope in ages, John-Paul II. He appointed just about all the Cardinals. He was from a background of harsh Soviet repression in Poland. He was followed by another conservative, a German, Benedict. 30+ years of reform and pushback. Then what happened? Francis. In the blink of an eye, the Church was stood on its head and a Leftist—some say “anti-Pope” was given the reins and here we are today.
How could this happen? I don’t know, but it does not bode well for the future if the Church can so turn on a dime wrt past precedent.
3
I moved to the Bible Belt a year ago and have already (again) become used to most people going to church on Sunday. Churches everywhere around here of every denomination as well as unaffiliated churches. Even a conservative Anglican Church nearby, a Coptic Church, lots of PSA (conservative) Presbyterians, and Missouri Synod Lutherans.
5
Beware the elusive Missouri Synod Lutherans. Why, they will read the Bible and talk about it! One wonders what other crazy things they will do….
2
Back up north we had the other Lutherans with the rainbow flags.
Rainbow flags and Lutheran gay pastors are ubiquitous now.
I would highly recommend The Chosen . The first season is free on Tubi, and all seasons are free on Angel.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a very good show (three seasons made, out of a planned 7) that follows the lives of Jesus and especially Jesus’s apostles during His ministry. Much of the ridicule about Christianity comes from its history of corny or badly-produced media. The Chosen is neither of those things. It’s well-acted, and well-written, with good characters. It’s also extremely popular; it’s one of those Christian phenomena that most people don’t know about, but would be massively popular were it not for being, er, Christian.
I think Z should review the show. It does have characters and dialogue that get uncomfortably close to woke Evangelicalism. (Like the black lady who joins the apostles.) But it’s the best new TV series I’ve seen in a long time.
4
Christianity is the reason that Europe is still White in my opinion. Without Christ it seems unlikely they would have repelled the Mohammedan invaders over and over.
Until quite recently there were even significant numbers of Christians still in the Middle East (who are also much whiter than the Islamic Arabs).
We have seen what happened to the Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and Hindus over time. Maybe Europe would be Persian coloured today if not for Christianity.
6
1
“We cannot have a future if we do not have a past.”
One of your pithier epigrams, Z-Man.
7
Whose past? As Orwell said, “…he who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future…”
Our past is being erased. Our children are being taught another’s concept (made out of whole cloth) of the past in order to have our children accept the new future that is being constructed.
3
As long as the primary sources continue to exist, the truths of history cannot be suppressed forever. Like all good things now being disfigured and demolished, historical truth will also rise from the ashes. Alas, we may not live to see it happen.
1
This week, the entrance to schools in commie Winnipeg Manitoba, feature signs promoting Ramadan and pride c/w rainbows, no Christian mention whatsoever.
12
It’s always like that. I watched an old 90s kids show that did a holiday episode. In the background decorations was a GIANT Jewish star and next to it a banner that had “happy holidays.” No Merry Christmas, and certainly not a giant cross. Christmas is only to be presented as secular/universalists Santa handing out gifts. A consumer thing, a kids thing. No other religion is treated like that.
2
Exactly. The secular researcher by Eric Kaufmann published “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?” where he proved that religious people have higher birthrates so they are going to displace secular people everywhere. For example, in Israel.
An example are the Amish people. They are experiencing a population explosion. What it is more important: their rate of retention increases and increases.
The future is religious. The only problem is “what religion would this be in each part of the world?”. In Europe, Islam is being a formidable challenge but, if traditional Christianity survives, can be the winner. Yesterday I was in my third traditional Mass here in Central America and the numbers are growing. Secular people are committing suicide because of their anti-natalist values.
It would take a long time, though. Things have to get worse before getting better.
3
This was an answer to Jack Boniface
Refreshingly pious. A blessed Good Friday to all, and a happy Easter.
4
The models suggest that religious revival when begin in rural areas following the collapse. A new breed of pastor/priest will arise there that, once again, promotes essential community values and traditions. Hardship will spawn humility and piety; leading, once again, to routine church attendance and post-service socialization events. The productive (and family oriented) will flee cities for these rural havens in order to find order and normalcy; leading to a growth surge. Small town America will return with Main Street shops and community spirit. I know this sounds impossible, but that’s what the models say is most probable.
7
I don’t what models you’re referring to but the scenario you describe does sound plausible.
3
If the future of Christianity is going be meaningful it is going to have to worry less about its legacy institutions and more about assembling groups of true believers and worshippers who actually hold to the tenants of the faith. Too many churches are simply social clubs with their worship services resembling religiously themed self-help seminars or concerts and theater. Christianity needs to remember its roots and how it shaped Western Civilization so it can do it again.
11
Well-said. The church isn’t a building so much as it is a true gathering.
If there’s anything good about the turmoil on the horizon, it’s that it’ll make people turn to God for help when they realize our inane governments won’t be able to do it.
1
“…assembling groups of true believers and worshippers who actually hold to the tenants of the faith.”
Agreed, but what are the “tenants”? In there lies the rub. I’ve yet to attend a church or meet a pastor who does not in essence believe in the equality of *all* races! This of course must lead to race mixing and continue to expose Whites to the problems inherent in such.
Now I have no doubt that these pastors do indeed have a flock of good and decent mixed race congregants. Hell, such folk can be my neighbors for all I care. However, this simple (false) tenant of equality must inevitably lead us full circle back to the major problem we have today in this country rather than outline a path out of our current predicament.
Color me skeptical.
3
The proper term is ‘tenets’, not ‘tenants’. But yes, otherwise.
Thanks so much for this nice presentation of Christian ideas and history! you are absolutely correct about the key role Christianity has played in western civ, and the terrible decline Christian faith has undergone in recent years, not only because of scandals but also because of relentless mockery and marginalization of. Christianity by our very “special” friends who have seized control over every institution. As a comparatively recent convert to the faith, I have greatly enjoyed unearthing and reviving the many forgotten customs that were once common in Christendom. Does anybody remember Twelfth Night? it’s the last of the twelve days of Christmas, and is traditionally a time to take down your Christmas decorations. How about Advent? Nowadays it’s mostly about calendars full off candy, but traditionally it was a mildly penitential season preparing the faithful for the miraculous birth of the savior. Epiphany, when the magi honored baby Jesus, traditionally involved a King Cake (for Christ the King) with a tiny token of baby Jesus hidden inside. And so on. there are lots of charming practices like these that have been abandoned, buried, that deserve revival.
I used to dabble in Wicca. The pagans I knew all said that Christianity lacked an appeal to the senses, to the deep “child self” where religious impulses originate. they wanted incense, scented oils, storytelling, ritual, and a sense of magic. How ironic! All of these elements can be found par excellence in the Catholic mass. The main thing that sets Christianity apart, IMHO, is its insistence on humility as the essential virtue, with pride being the worst sin. Looking around at society today, it seems clear that pride has taken over. We still need God, and nobody gets to Him except through Jesus Christ.
4
Hello Violet. I was wondering what caused your rebirth of faith.
While I am not a believer, I respect and like lots of Christians and hope that we can work together in our shared resistance and peacefully coexist separately after we win.
Most of the Christians that I know who became serious about their faith later in life tell me that the undeniable reality of evil made them search for some good and that search led to Christ. Although I don’t know Ramzpaul, he seems to fit this pattern.
While I don’t expect Jesus to ever speak to me directly, I can imagine myself going down the path that I described above.
4
Orthodox Christianity is the most sensual–and mystical–Christian denomination. I dare say it gives the various pagan beliefs a run for the money in that regard. It has also proved to be the Christian system most resistant to the ravages of Leftism.
2
Are the amren speeches online anywhere? I’d love to listen to it.
Christianity is being sifted and that will continue. As Christ noted often, Christianity is an elitist religion. It’s hard and it alienates both worldly principalities, and common folks. This world HATES it. Father and Son are for the few, the remnant. Christianity ain’t a tv preacher thing.
It’s been two heavenly days since the King ascended, and in that time — due to human nature and demonic interference — both Catholicism and Protestantism have institutionalized into largely secular and materialistic entities. Often, into outright neo-pagan entities, shilling for the masonic New Order, the Great Reset.
The Tribulation the world is entering is not just a time of generalized disaster and trouble, but specifically the ‘time of the tsah-rah’ or ‘time of the female rival’. This means the ancient goddess-worshipping cults have taken power again, as the world ‘fell away’ from authentic Christianity.
The globo-homo, occult, woke-fem beast systems are, in Christ’s eyes, last ditch attempts to shake the people awake and turn them to Father.
For members of the remnant, scattered and typically alone, these past two decades, and the period upcoming, are times of unprecedented opportunity. Ground-floor opportunity in God’s Spiritual Temple. The hour is so dark, it only takes a little light to make a difference. Put another way, you can fire in any direction and hit the target.
A very good book on the subject of Jesus as a mythological figure is, Caesar’s Messiah – The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus, by Joseph Atwill.
On another note, I think the reason that virtually everyone in Europe was Christian in the past after dropping various pagan beliefs is quite simply that if you didn’t profess Christianity, you would be, as Saint Thomas Aquinas so eloquently put it, “turned over to the civil authorities to be removed from the world by death.”
When the Teutonic Knights showed up in your village to have a little chat, you quickly got the message that it was best to agree with everything they said.