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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Totally agree on the European churches/cathedrals – they must not be missed. My experience is mostly in Spain. The massiveness let alone the beauty are unbelievable. The architecture throughout the world, inspired by various religions is, to say the least, impressive.
LOL
Apparently, Milley is going to retire and the top two contenders are a white Marine Corps commander and a black Air Force commander (the first luggage tester to ever command a military branch. Isn’t that great!).
I wonder which one will be selected.
Magic 8 ball says the military continues its degradation.
The Air Force commander as Chairman of the JCOS will mimic Lloyd Austin as Secretary of the Department of Defense, putting on spectacularly profitable minstrel shows for ol’ massa Ray-Fe-On, winning on the bottom line even while losing on the battlefield. Dat ol’ man river, he keep rollin’ on to da bank!
Isn’t it a weakness /problem than the right is not really Christian?
McDonald and Z seems devoted to darwinism. Greg worship his gay paganism. Anglin pretend to be Christian but he’s crazy.
There must be, I guess, a bunch of stupid litteralists which pretend God create plants in 24 hours exactly.
And of course, there’s the legion of cuckstians with the Anglican church, the pope and so on..
Oh, and I forgot the jewish-worshippers of a certain branch of Christianity (I bet you Americans know the name of this branch. Protestant sects are too complex for a simple catholic like me^^.
What I simply wanted to say is that I don’t see right-wings leaders who are christians, believe in the Flood, the Bible in a clever way (like Dr Ross and the site reasons.org) but are not crazy like those described above.
(there is literally no one openly Christian in the European DR, at least in the French)
What the thinkers believe is less important than the Christianity you get from the proles. Right now the proles are following Cuckianity churches that push lefty crap and the remaining right-wing churches are obsessed with abortion, not realizing that “abortion restrictions” are just the new scam the GOP uses to ensure they lose elections when they need to. This latest judge banning day-after pills is just for the purpose of mobilizing democrat voters since it’s easy to control women by telling them that the bad guys are trying to control their vaginas.
The killer here for the middle of the roaders on the issue, is that the extreme anti-abortionists use the late term abortion abomination justification and then run to the other extreme with the “morning after” abortion. In doing so, they equate a living, breathing, infant with a blastocyst (at best during that period) and marginalize themselves.
Christ is not just the King of individuals, like protestants made Him out to be. He is king of every society. Every business, association, nation, state is obliged by God to be Catholic, have Christ as its principle and head. Christian (read, Catholic) nationalism is soundly theological. Read City of God or Pius XI’s Quas Primas
Now, wHen you drive past a parish with the words “Catholic Church” on it, it is a counterfeit. THAT church. does not say that Chirst needs to be king of nations. No. It, blasphemously, says that the nation and society must be athiest. Compare pope pius ix quanta cura with the non-Catholic Vat2 document dignitatus humanae. They both solemnly say the exact opposite things. Which the Cathlic Church cannot do.
The structures of the Catholic Church were taken over by protestants, jews and freemasons in the 1960s. So its not fair to say that the Catholic church is going along with any of this. She is in the tomb like Christ was hidden on this Holy Saturday. She is still visible in the her faithful. But they are NOT in the Franken Church that has taken over her buildings.
well said . the trads, not their leaders speak the truth. guys like ralph martin and company over at renewal ministries are a good example .
Kenneth Clark’s 1968 TV series, “Civilisation” is a wonderful way to acquaint yourself with the impact of Christianity on European man. There are 13 episodes of one hour each, and they are all beautifully done. I suggest getting a DVD of the series while you still can. Also, at least for the time being, you can find it on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9UdIdSadJU
Remember it well! Excellent series, impossible to make now.
By the way, I don’t anybody who ever heard the Gospel read in English at least ever said “ the Garden of GETHESAME”. 😳
While not impossible, it is difficult, without an understanding of Christ and Christianity, to understand in ether form or function our Neo – Gnostic antagonist (sic.), “Wokeisim”.
Happy Easter.
Oh, you might find this interesting as well.
https://ionainstitute.ie/christianity-the-reason-for-wests-success-say-the-chinese/
Happy Easter.
Excellent post.
The destruction of Christianity IS the fundamental reason for the Western Collapse.
The issue is why did Christianity collapse. That’s where the money is at.
You say collapse; I say controlled demolition.
Heresy and Schism due to itching ears.
I’ve been surprised at the persistence of a tiny redoubt against this trend: classical music radio. Each Holy Week and sometimes at other times they play the civilization-level masterpieces of Christian music: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the Seven Last Words of Christ, etc. Sometimes the host even *dares* to explain the words. I’ve lived in a couple different ultra-liberal east coast cities and this has been the case in each one. Does one dare hope that in coming decades we might still, perhaps as a tiny mercy from above, be able to access our cultural treasures on the (free, publicly funded) radio? Pessimist in me sees the political correctness seeping in. A handful of black and female composers are praised far, far in excess of their contribution. Jewish fiddle music, catchy though it is, is far overplayed relative to gentile folk melodies, let alone Christian music. But our rulers will have a hard time secularizing, sexualizing and multiculturalising a genre that is 1,000 years old and almost purely religious, moral and European. So far they have not been able to but I know they are trying.
I’m afraid the attack on classic music is far more severe than you realize. There is a full-court press to make classical music “inclusive,” even to the point of dispensing with blind auditions for playing positions with major orchestras. In other words, there has been a successful push to elminate hiring musicians based upon merit and to hire them based upon being negro.
I’m afraid most orchestras will be unlistenable in less than 50 years because their musicians will be incompetent. And nobody will listen. And classical music performance will die. That, I suspect, is the objective. No component of Western civilization is a more flagrant rebuke to egalitarian nonsense and cultural relativism than classical music. That is why it must go.
Will this be mitigated somewhat by East Asians who gravitate toward (European) classical music but have no love of baizuo notions?
Sometimes I listen in the car to the local Portland classical station 89.9 FM https://www.allclassical.org/. My wife gives them money during their pledge drives. They are of course a bunch of tiny hatted commies. Their main thing to offset the horrible, evil, racism, patriarchy, etc… of the music they play is that they are forever celebrating one of the made up “international month” so for a solid month they go out of their way to play whatever tiny number of composers in the classical style are from that victim group. If you click the link you’ll see the picture on the front page is a little black girl blowing out birthday candles (isn’t linear time racist?) to celebrate something called “the international [communist] children’s arts network [against White people and civilization]”.
You can always practically hear the strain in the announcers’ voices as they cue up something obviously Christian and religious from one of the old composers. They seem happiest when doing their weekend nonsense which is crap like show tunes and movie scores. They’re very fond of the Star Wars movies. I’m sure this is a yuuge shock to you all.
Yes, I should have mentioned the dumbing down of the content by showtunes and movie scores in the past few years. This seems to be accelerating rapidly, and is probably the weapon of choice. Stations also shave off programming hours to add jazz (never big band, always jazz…) or world music or new age ambient-type stuff. The demographic push mentioned by Kozelskii above is real and harmful but it can only go so far given a lack of available vibrants. Rather, the progressives will do to classical music what they have done to popular science and popular history: just dumb it down and dilute it until people forget what the real and serious stuff was actually like, and eventually stop missing it.
Daniel Perry just found guilty. For those who just yesterday badmouthed the Puritans, what I would give for a Cromwell to come to the forefront and engage in some domestic butchery lol
Maybe. Stonewall Jackson would serve just as well.
Isn’t he in to gay rights and stuff?
Stonewall Jackson could sing as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs26hcymRi0
His statue is going up in Time’s Square and on the National Mall as a giant “F**k you!” once the reckoning happens.
Recent Sailer essay (last paragraph especially) sounds remarkably like what is often a topic of discussion here.
https://www.takimag.com/article/seeds-of-discontent/
And in honor of the day, some words from John Lennon and that band he used to play with:
“Christ! You know it ain’t easy, you know how hard it can be,
The way things are going, they’re going to crucify me.”
Sailer “sucks cock by choice,” as the wise insult goes.
The z-blog perhaps is No Country for Sailer-men?
As I understand it, there were no extra-Biblical mentions of Christianity before around 120 AD. (The quote attributed to the Jewish scholar/historian Josephus about “one Chrestus” is believed by all but the most fundamentalist scholars to be a later interpolation).
> What are the chances that the events recounted in the New Testament happened, but none of the forty historians writing at the time found them worthy of mention?
Historian and Richard Carrier presents a lot of evidence for why he believes Jesus may not have existed:
On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1680900164&sr=8-1
Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Outer-Space-Earliest-Christians/dp/1634311949/ref=sr_1_3?crid=6Q0DKZVVX115&keywords=richard+carrier+on+the+historicity+of+jesus&qid=1680900293&sprefix=richard+carr%2Caps%2C141&sr=8-3
Applying the standard that ‘The more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the evidence required to substantiate it’ to the claims Christianity makes— such as Jesus being born of a virgin, walking on water, rising from the dead, and people being healed when Peter’s shadow fell on them— it seems clear to me that *no sufficiently strong evidence exists corroborating the Biblical accounts*; which are about as extraordinary as claims can be, as well as contradicting what science tells us is possible.
> So why does Christianity continue to spread?
I believe it’s because Christianity contains a lot of practical truth. If you go through life sincerely trying to selflessly love people like Jesus did, and to embody the ‘fruit of the spirit’ in in your relations with others, you’ll do well. People will like you. You succeed in life.
> And you’re likely to attribute that success to the truth of your religious beliefs.
And there’s no doubt that there are many benefits conferred by Christian belief. If you believe that there’s a loving, all-powerful God in charge of the Universe, who is personally aware of you, and looking out for your well-being, *that belief will indeed be comforting*.
If your religious beliefs inspire you to try and lead an honest and righteous life, *society will indeed benefit*.
> But as with any belief, the relevant question is not ‘Does believing it make me feel better?’
or even ‘Does believing it make me a better person?’
Because there are many religions of which a person can answer ‘yes’ to those questions.
> The only relevant question is: ‘What is the evidence that it’s true?’
And it seems to me that Christianity fails that last test: that *the evidence for it is not nearly as strong as the extraordinary nature of ithe claims it makes*.
what about the Pontius Pilate episode, that seems well documented.
“When two skeptics meet for no particular reason, there I shall not be also.”
From a purely worldly standpoint, there is no law that says a man named Jesus of Nazareth could not have existed ca. 1 AD (or “CE” if you REALLY want to be secular.) Obviously, what turns him into fiction are all the supernatural trappings.
Nietzsche has several interesting comments on Christ and his followers. As he rarely gives citations, it’s hard to know whether he’s reporting on earlier writers’ thoughts, or they are merely his own psychologist’s musings. The latter, I suspect.
In any event, argues Nietzsche, it was St. Paul who, for reasons of his own, appropriated the obscure prophet and his messianic movement and retooled it into what came to be called Christianity. (Nietzsche, “The Dawn of Day” Aphorism 68, “The First Christian”)
“For from that time forward he would be the apostle of the annihilation of the Law! To be dead to sin—that meant to be dead to the Law also; to be in the flesh—that meant to be under the Law! To be one with Christ—that meant to have become, like Him, the destroyer of the Law; to be dead with Him—that meant likewise to be dead to the Law. Even if it were still possible to sin, it would not at any rate be possible to sin against the Law: “I am above the Law,” thinks Paul; adding, “If I were now to acknowledge the Law again and to submit to it, I should make Christ an accomplice in the sin”; for the Law was there for the purpose of producing sin and setting it in the foreground, as an emetic produces sickness. God could not have decided upon the death of Christ had it been possible to fulfil the Law without it; henceforth, not only are all sins expiated, but sin itself is abolished; henceforth the Law is dead; henceforth “the flesh” in which it dwelt is dead—or at all events dying, gradually wasting away. To live for a short time longer amid this decay!—this is the Christian’s fate, until the time when, having become one with Christ, he arises with Him, sharing with Christ the divine glory, and becoming, like Christ, a “Son of God.” Then Paul’s exaltation was at its height, and with it the importunity of his soul—the thought of union with Christ made him lose all shame, all submission, all constraint, and his ungovernable ambition was shown to be revelling in the expectation of divine glories.”
For whatever reason, Nietzsche’s characterization of Paul strikes me as … homosexual?
Tl;dr “How one can tell it’s Easter.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Torah_Scroll
The most “ancient” Torah might be from the 13th century, same as the Zohar. And lots of “classical” pagan works are Renaissance era forgeries, credited to the ancients to avoid trouble. This largely explains why Rome and Greece failed, because they weren’t as intelligent as moderns think.
Christianity is extremely well documented in comparison to just about anything else, despite persecutions.
As Carrier shows, Christian texts have been meddled-with far more often— and thus are more unreliable—than any other category of ancient documents.
maybe Christianity evolved from the primordial slime.
No, that was Islam.
What proof do you have that these “historians” existed?
The phrase which you are referring to is : “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.
There is no such thing as extraordinary proof; there’s just proof.
If you believe that there’s a loving, all-powerful God in charge of the Universe, who is personally aware of you, and looking out for your well-being, *that belief will indeed be comforting*.
And if you f*ck up, you’re damned to eternal fire, is that comforting too?
It’s comforting that their enemies are damned for eternity. Honestly I wish I could believe in bad people getting infinite torture more than being able to believe in heaven. One of the most unpleasant aspects of being agnostic is realizing that guys like Joe Biden or Bush II are going to die surrounded by their family, told how wonderful they are and what amazing lives they’ve led, and gently go into oblivion. No eternal fire, no maggots in their eyes, no third date with Balthazzar the Penetrator, Demon Lord of Violent Nonconsensual Sexual Encounters, not even any of that emo “oh noes I’m away from God now” wimp version of Hell.
I think the Christian *worldview* is probably most in sync with what modern science and evolutionary psychology tells us about humans. Original sin is as good an explanation as most people need for why grandiose utopian schemes fail for one thing.
The failure of modern Western society after abandoning the Christian worldview looks pretty much exactly the same whether you see it as the result of “God’s disfavor” or just the result of abandoning a model of human psychology and behavior that worked pretty well for centuries.
I have my doubts about our ability to create a secular scheme that keeps people and society from falling apart but I also have severe doubts about the ability of ANY of the various Christian denominations to restore the faith of enough people for it to matter in the secular sphere of how society is organized. The various Russian Orthodox (and other Eastern faiths) probably have the most going for them but are perhaps too strongly tied to their nationalities. Of course, this is a great deal of their appeal too! What may be needed is an American Orthodox church, British Orthodox, etc… Traditional American Evangelicalism just has too much “used-car-salesmanism” in it and is too tied to the most toxic strains of American Imperial militarism to offer hope even for the US.
“As I understand it, there were no extra-Biblical mentions of Christianity before around 120 AD. (The quote attributed to the Jewish scholar/historian Josephus about “one Chrestus” is believed by all but the most fundamentalist scholars to be a later interpolation).”
You are not even wrong.
First, this is not true. Tallus, Tacitus and Mara Bar Sepion are previous to this date. No, Josephus quote may have been distorted by later Christian authors but it is original. In addition, Josephus has another quote about the judgement of the brother of Jesus.
The Didache is an ancient extra-Biblical Christian document that is also previous to this date.
Second, if it was true, it wouldn’t be important, because many facts in Ancient History are only documented in one document and this document is always partial and often contains miraculous accounts. See Suetonius, for example. So the New Testament sources are ancient historical sources and you don’t need any extra-Biblical sources. This does not mean that they have to be accepted completely by historians but denying that there was a movement around Jesus is a stretch, to say it politely.
Third, even if there was no document at all about Christianity before 120 d.C , it would not be that strange because Ancient History is fragmentary. The first biography of Alexander the Great we have is 400 years after his death. This does not mean that it is not treated as a historical source. It is.
The theories of Carrier are rejected by the majority of atheist scholars. About Jesus being from outer space, please let’s be serious. There is no evidence for that. What’s next? Jesus was Batman?
Seriously, read more history and spend less time in fringe Internet groups that act as an echo chamber.
See also things like the Letter of Clement, which is extra-Biblical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Clement
imnobody00: The historicity of the earliest documentary mention of Jesus and his followers is well summarized in Josh McDowell’s “More Than a Carpenter.” It was this exact comparison of the historicity of early Christian sources in comparison with non-Christian ancient documents which helped me accept that Christianity is at least as well and often better documented than many historical accounts from classical antiquity. It appears to me that it’s purely the subject matter which has caused such intense scrutiny and questioning of the sources.
My own faith was the eventual result of being able to drop the anti-Christian bias that ‘modern’ public schooling and media had inculcated, mocking a belief which supposedly lacked any historical basis or mention. When I was then able to read, learn, and question without that pre-existing bias and instead ask “What if it’s all true?” I was finally able to knock and God in his grace opened the door.
A blessed Easter to all believers here. Looking out at the beauty of God’s creation from my new front porch swing (instead of seeing suburban mcmansions filled with diversity) is evidence enough for me that miracles do still occur.
It’s real tough subject. I came to the Dissident side of things via a pozzed, cucked, shitlib hive mentality family. I was conditioned since birth not to see God or His works. I was programmed to see Christians as hypocritical, manipulative, shysters…not realizing that was the old lefty trick of accusing the other guy of doing what you yourself are doing. When that family and part of my life imploded…I was free to see and notice things that were and are apostasy and heresy in Clown World. God doesn’t talk to me or listen to me…but I am sure I have seen His work and felt His presence. It’s enough. I spent most of my life an atheist, so I get it with those people who can’t or won’t see their Maker. But…here’s a hint: He’s right under your nose in plain sight!😉👍
I wandered for awhile like a jew in the desert seeking people that could see AND think. Faith can blind the same way ideology does. The old Alt Right showed promise until fags like Milo, Vox Day and other clowns and grifters discredited it. It’s sad because they had merit and credibility until the grifters moved in. I met bible thumping Christians that didn’t see colour, or the fall of their women or the attacks on them and their children. They thought it made them noble and virtuous. Then I stumbled on your blog, and the creepy dissidents… and I thanked God and knew I was finally home. I see intelligent people, that can think and change their minds or yours. I saw people willing to fact check, and speak honestly and courteously. Anything can be said here and as long as it isn’t a troll or obvious mental retardation…it can be discussed rationally. Many dissidents take this for granted…I’d like them to know that they should be intensely grateful for spaces like this.
May God bless you all – and have a great Good Friday.
How many Christians do you suppose are aware of the omnipotent power of j00ish Psychological Warfare Campaigns, such as the following, courtesy of kind old gentlemanly Irving Berlin himself [any s0d0mites in the Z readership will be tickled to learn that it features Queen Judy herself]:
https://tinyurl.com/34sn2swu
Berlin was a busy little Sanhedrin, over the course of more than a century; for instance, he also wrote this Psychological Warfare Campaign:
https://tinyurl.com/3y4xp76r
For those who don’t understand what Bourbon is getting at, it was mainly Jewish song writers who secularized Christmas and Easter music. Naturally, we fell for it.
Haha! Thanks! Isn’t he the “White Christmas” guy?
White Christmas would be considered racist now. Ironic.
Don’t forget. When Z uses the term Christianity, it must be remembered that that includes people that believe that the Bible is the only source of belief, that infant baptism is good or not, and that J*ws must rebuild the temple or not.
So, our, ahem, Elder Brothers in teh Faith (the Vatican2 term for J*ws) had no time picking apart a religion that had no coherence.
The real problem is protestantism.
Here is a great description of this most evil of heresies:
Protestantism differs essentially from all the heresies that have previously rent the Church. It is not a particular heresy, nor a union of heresies; it is simply a frame for the reception of errors… It is a circle capable of indefinite extension, of being enlarged as occasion requires, so as to include any and every error within its circumference. A new error arises on the horizon, the circle extends further and takes it in. Its power of extension is limited only by its last denial, and is therefore practically unlimited. What it asserted in the beginning it was able to deny a century later; what it maintained a century ago it can reject now; and what it holds today it may discard tomorrow. It may deny indefinitely, and still be Protestantism. It can modify, metamorphose, turn and return itself without losing any thing of its identity. Grub, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, it is transformed, but does not die.
Abbe Martin, Paris, 1869
DO you notice that this is what the Left does,? Enlarges and closes the circle.?
Where did feminism go? Now its trannys a-plenty. Well, the circle enlarged, and we aren’t so interested in women and their problmes any more.
Protestantism is the problem.And people like Mr Man and Sam Dixon can never understand thsi. He thinks Catholics and Protestants can just set aside their petty difference (those differences are called Truth), nang on to Whiteness, and defeat the progs.
NO. Protestants have to go go.
Well said Glen, tis a home for the sane and rational thinkers few and far between though they may be.
Fantastic show. I grew up christian and even though I don’t practice it, I still feel a connection through the history of our people. Happy Easter!
Christianity as that term is most succinctly defined viz., belief in and dependence on Jesus, the incarnated Second Person of the Trinity, has never been a mass phenomenon. Jesus Himself only called twelve to belong to Him during His lifetime. Although He did admonish them to go out and makes disciples of all Nations, He also said that many are called but few are chosen. “Christianity” as it developed after being adopted as the Roman state religion was a peculiar admixture of religion and politics, something the God has ALWAYS condemned even when it occurred among His chosen tribe. Recall that He eventually rejected Saul after Saul conflated the kingly and priestly functions when Samuel was late to perform the sacrifice before the battle with the Philistines. The Puritans and Pilgrims were likewise a very small and select group of “Christians” and they rejected both the established church and the royal government when they decamped for The New World. Today is no different. Many people call themselves “Christian” who have no idea what it means to be one, other than the vague notions they picked up from their parents. It is clear that God does not have grandchildren, so such inherited nominal “Christianity” is worthless to effect salvation, although it may provide a certain amount of societal stability. Every individual must make a personal decision whether to believe what Jesus said as recorded in Scripture, or reject it. Unless it is accepted unequivocally and without reservation, it is meaningless. Of course, the fact that the descendants of those New England Pilgrims and Puritans abandoned Christianity does not mean they shed their predilection to be “religious;” they merely transferred their fanaticism to secular “religions,” like the cult of feminism, homosexuality and the myriad perversions that accompany them that seems to have captured their imaginations at this moment in time. They will discover the truth eventually, as will we all, but depending on their timing, it may be too late to do anything about it.
Christianity ultimately belongs to people of color. They invented it and they have practiced it more purely than the inherently perverse White man ever did. Whites need a religion which genuinely reflects their hollow values, but unfortunately we lack the creativity and soul that is necessary to give birth to a new religion.
We Wuz the Kang of Kangs an Sheeit
Jesus was not African. However, Black Christians outside of America are often Christ-like, impressive people.
Idi Amin was quite the impressive, Christ-like figure, wasn’t he? Robert Mugabe was another one. No doubt there was a halo around him that awed the white Rhodesians.
The cross-pollination, if you will, of Christianity and Western European man is a fascinating subject. There is even allusion to it in Scripture itself (the parable of the sower). My own humble view is that the DNA of Christianity was set by the NT and Apostolic age, was nurtured by the first century Greco-Roman culture, and then the “Germanization” gave it different nutrients later in life. To say Christianity “changes” or “evolves” – I would probably not use those words but rather “develops”. The DNA doesn’t change, but how those genes may be expressed can depending upon how it is nourished (the Catholic v. Orthodox traditions are another example). And as seen today, it can even wither to nothing if it is deprived of all nutrients or fed poison. The Unitarian Church, for example (if you can even consider it Christian in any sense).
For not being a particularly religious guy, you did a fantastic job touching on the importance of Christianity and its role wrt Western Civ (of course, all you can really do is “touch” on its importance in a one hour podcast).
On the “rabbit died” expression, it comes from early pregnancy tests – the rabbit would be injected with a sample (I think blood but don’t remember) drawn form the woman and if it died (the rabbit, not the woman), I think that meant the pregnancy hormone was present (could have it backwards). It’s alluded to in the old Aerosmith song.
An early pregnancy test. A rabbit was injected with urine from a female (those were the days…). If the urine contained high amounts of the hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), its ovaries enlarged and show follicular maturation. Regardless of the result, the rabbit was always dissected for this purpose.
Until we are able to wrap our heads around the concept that a perfect entity – God – could have not created imperfect artifacts – e.g., humans – we won’t be able to understand how stuck we are within the loop of our own contradictions.
And with all due respect, dear Christian readers, don’t you ever forget that, according to your mythology, God created Lucifer; have you ever wondered why? (Do you subject your loved ones to perils just to gauge their fealty?)
God – aka The Everlasting Dissatisfaction – does not work in mysterious ways: it is us, in order to serve God’s will, who are unable to understand them.
We need a new religion.
We cannot design a new religion, especially not by some sort of consensus. Religion without belief is just larping.
All religions were made by design.
We do not lack belief – what we lack is Faith: that God is real and that man was created to serve, not to be served.
We need a new religion, not to please/appease The Everlasting Dissatisfaction, but to foster the formation of long-term better behaved elites.
No they weren’t. All of them evolved. Even Joseph Smith probably wouldn’t recognize Mormonism as it is today. To the extent that they are initially created, it’s by a handful of people or even one.
We cannot create a new religion by committee of large numbers of people.
Faith is closely tied to belief. You MUST believe a religion in order to take it seriously. None of these people larping as Oden followers would take a bullet or a decapitation or be fed to the lions for Oden. It’s fake and everyone knows it’s fake. This is the problem Christianity has. So many people now don’t believe it. You think all these clowns running the Episcopal church believe in Christianity?
Nietzsche was right. No one has ever been able to surpass or transcend his thinking
Maybe there is a perfection in the imperfection that we are not privy to.
Religions are not made, but rather evolve and the successful ones persist.
A short version is as follows. Several tens of thousands of years ago, our species developed complex language skill which enabled our ancestors to “program” their youth via verbal communication with ancient wisdom that enhanced their ability to survive and thrive in the local environment of their birth. Religion then evolved as a highly effective means of reinforcing this wisdom training via repetition, consistency of message, and reward/punishment feedback mechanisms. Deities exist as a primary means of dealing with the unknowns (which was a dominant feature of life in the pre-civilization era). Christianity was (and still is) largely successful and persistent because it “worked” for most Europeans in their environment. Ditto for Islam in the Middle East and Buddhism in Asia.
At the present time in America, we cast aside religion (ancient wisdom) at our own peril.
Religion is also selected for or against based on the technological environment present. For example Islam has adapted more successfully to the modern age by telling Science!TM to f*** off, while Christianity in the West has been worn down by endless needling from the fedoras and noses.
Christianity was doing quite well with “God reveals himself in the workings of nature” when it gave Europe a huge technological advantage over the beast races, but once science got twisted into Science! by the noses’ rhetoric every new subatomic particle discovered is claimed be proof that God isn’t real and anal sex is the most moral form of intercourse.
“If God isn’t what I want him to be then there is no God”
but I won’t fault anyone for taking issue with various scriptures, they were all written by men after all
Really.
You’re a moron, of course.
Physicists have determined that at least 10 dimensions are required to keep our universe in a state of stable existence. You can barely perceive 3 of them. The hubris of people like you is truly the stuff of high comedy. But I shouldn’t heckle. Once upon a time I knew it all too. Or so I thought.
But…no, you don’t need a new religion – you are too dumb to appreciate the one you have. There’s a blurb in the Bible about not casting pearls before swine. Enjoy your trolling.
😂
Overlooked in all of this is WHY Christianity won out over Paganism, specifically against the Roman Pagan Gods; and then again against the Germanic Pagan Gods.
The answers are organization, and literacy. Against the Roman gods, Christians were more organized (the Pagans were literate) and fostered greater unity by offering fellowship to the masses while the Pagan priests focused on the elites. This has a lesson — the elites as long as they were in control, remained Pagan. But as Emperors more and more relied upon military power, the balance shifted to the Christians who had the masses. There was little in Paganism that appealed to the masses in the end as the connection to the historic people was severed long ago; it was the form but not function of connection to a long-vanished patrimony. While Christianity offered fellowship and comfort directly to the masses.
There is a lesson there.
There is also the triumph over Odin and the like. That was straightforward. When there was a near total absence of literate people, a religion that offered literate scribes, none able to aspire to Kingship, well that was a no brainer.
I don’t know if Christianity is so corrupted by Woke and Rainbows as to be beyond saving. But something can and should and will replace the current form at least. And to be successful it will have to both rally/comfort most or all White guys, and secondarily organize them into a unified force that has advantages to new elites looking for followers. The new Constantine will look for that which binds followers to him in religion, in other words. Whatever that might be.
The political aspects of historic Christianity probably help explain how it avoided succumbing to “the cuck verses” for so long. There really is a lot in the New Testament that lends itself, more or less directly, to a weak, pozzed, effeminate religion unable to withstand even moderate tendencies towards degeneracy. If your religion is ultimately the backbone of an empire and thus needs to allow for no small amount of ass-kicking and outright murderous vengeance a lot of these passages can be overlooked or at least integrated into a definitively masculine and patriarchal whole. Once that rationale is gone you still have verses like Galatians 3:28-29
28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29: And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
OMPG! (oh my pozzed Gawd): Jew nor Greek soooo easily morphs into “straight nor gay”. Then verse 29 is actually proto-magic-dirtism! The sermon about welcoming the 91 billion third worlders writes itself. You don’t even need ChatGPT to help with this one. If ye merely say the Pledge and swear on the Declaration ye are Abraham (Lincoln’s) seed!
Without some political real-world ugliness to encompass (and justify) Christianity floats off into ethereal theology and offers plenty of this-worldly justification for Rainbow World.
It’s a parallel to what happened to the US actually. American culture was always a materialistic soulless cesspool. Without the USSR it quickly wandered away from its old concerns for individual freedom and the rule of law and is now in the process of surrendering what’s left of its soul to corporate tyranny.
One thing I have been thinking about is how the elites see themselves and the issues to be solved. Over and over again, they seem to want command from position, ticket stamping (Harvard, etc.) and are enraged when the Dirt People do not grovel. Much/most of what they do is rub the dirt people’s noses in it; and that aspect comes from the beliefs intertwined that:
A The era of mass industrialization and production is over, a just-in-time globalism will allow them to crush any local uprising conveniently, and thus there is no need to allow the Dirt People their ways and bitter clinging to quote one of them.
B in light of A above, they need only keep unity among the Elite hive, moving ever more distinct in luxury beliefs and actions particularly with the Alphabet + people and that the Alphabet + own Dirt People’s kids and can do what they want with them. Even or especially among the Dirt People, the dynastic impulse is strong so that’s likely to founder, sooner or later.
C They believe they can and will command the masses of the Third World as the Great White Savior per Avatar, Dances with Wolves, etc. as the believe they will always command critical institutions and said institutions will always have power.
I do not know if Christianity or some form of it can form the basis of organizing around some new Constantine. I do know I saw an awful lot of Christian / Jesus graffiti along the train tracks in places like the City of Commerce, Downey, Santa Fe Springs, down through Fullerton (you can see that on Google Earth/Maps and see for yourself what sort of people live there — working class Latinos mostly) when I rode the train into work (2018-2019). So among certain people the appeal is there. FWIW. Graffiti and the messages they contain are of course interesting. Their existence is a document of at least partial control of the area.
Yes. The notoriously illiterate pagan Romans and Greeks. Completely unorganized, also.
I think your early history of the Church is accurate. Nietzsche gives a pretty good argument as to why Christianity vanquished Rome. (Scroll to “Aphorism” 70 and read through 72).
“It is not to what is Christian in her usages, but to what is universally pagan in them, that we have to attribute the development of this universal religion.” (Aph. 70)
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39955/pg39955-images.html#Sect_68
Christianity didn’t vanquish Rome. Rome co-opted Christianity by creating the Roman Catholic Church and suppressing all rival sects that didn’t get with the program.
This weekend, make sure you greet paper-Americans with “Happy Easter”. You see that towel head or smelly South Asian behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts or 7-Eleven, say “Happy Easter”.
Reminds these people that no matter what the (((media))) tells them, they are outsiders, guests, and not our people.
As a bonus, you might get them to react embarrassingly. If so, just smile and maybe say “Happy Easter” again or “Jesus loves you” or something of the sort.
Good Friday provides a great lesson on pure democracy.
On Good Friday, recall how “democracy” was used by shifty jewish elites to incite and persuade a crowd such that the majority would enthusiastically demand the murder of the Son of God.
For normies, when they prattle on about “democracy” and “freedom”, remind them that true democracy is the majority chanting “crucify Him”.
One of the many achievements of modern mass propaganda is that Normie believes more in democracy than his own personal rights and freedoms. The neocons used this in the early 2000s to crusade for the imposition of mass liberal democracy in crazy places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder if Normie will ever connect the obvious failures of those efforts with the fact that the basic idea (unrestrained majoritarian tyranny) is just as bad an idea here as there.
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.
Kind like our DoJ?
Now you’re catching on.
Christianity suffered from terrible persecutions under certain Emperors. And the Pagans had a couple of last-ditch efforts to crush out Christianity before Constantine. The failure of the old Pagan Regime was mostly demographic — the people who were devoted to “the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods” had mostly died out, and Rome and many other places were filled with either landless peoples or all sorts of imperial flotsam and jetsam.
Christianity in the West was weak, basically ceased to exist after the fall of Rome. For example in Britain, outside a few places in Wales and isolated island monasteries, there was no Christian worship at all until the mid 800s with Alfred the Great. And he had contend with constant pagan Viking raids and invasions. Germany was no better, Charlemagne killed nearly a million Saxons to fight Paganism, and Paganism lingered in the North well into the 1400s when Crusaders would fight pagan Finns and Estonians.
Conversion in the West was done from the Elite down, but done because it gave the King real solid advantages over Pagans who could only offer him the traditions. Pagan priests were not literate, could not do tax counting and the like, and were not subject to Celibacy and inheritance bans on trying to be King, unlike monks and priests. While during the late Roman period conversion was bottom up; the elites hung on to the old ways until the need for motivating soldiers became so great they had to abandon it.
So it worked both ways. Tellingly the elites do not want and indeed like Muslims in the West today, actively discourage conversion to Wokeness and make their religion as exclusive and a “conquerors only” religion as possible. Presumably both groups look at the Dirt People as their upcoming serfs or worse, and do not want them to share the same religion for moral difficulties of oppressing co-religionists.
Your knowledge base on this topic is comically deficient, fren. My advice is to stop talking for a few minutes.
Christianity not practiced in Britain until Alfred, you say? Hmm, let’s see… Augustine of Canterbury was made bishop in 597, with giant numbers of conversions from the Saxons… 655 Panda is killed by Oswy, pretty much putting an end to pagan rule on the island… Alfred rules, uh, 200 years later.
Well, only off by a couple hundred years, yeah?
he uses the Whiskian calendar.
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.
Are the amren speeches online anywhere? I’d love to listen to it.
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.
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.
hi, LineintheSand! Thanks for reaching out in such a thoughtful way. What made me convert was as you describe: the sudden, crushing realization of evil, but not out there somewhere; *inside me.*. I lacked a moral compass and was governed by selfish desires. i had failed to do my duty toward people I loved, over and over again. Disgusted with myself, I prayed to God for the first time, offering my life to Him if he would take it. I was astonished to feel directly His presence and love, an experience I will never forget. it was transformative, enabling me to give up addictions and re-think my entire value system and way of behaving. Since then I have had two other immediate, palpable experiences of Jesus’s presence. You can have this, too. Anyone can. All it takes is a sincere desire to Him. I wish you the best and hope that one day you find your way to our Lord.
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.
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.
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.
“…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.
Perhaps consider the Nicene Creed as a succinct statement of the core elements of Christian faith?
The proper term is ‘tenets’, not ‘tenants’. But yes, otherwise.
Tenets, anyone?
I stand corrected. That you.
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.
I don’t what models you’re referring to but the scenario you describe does sound plausible.
I do wonder about these models of yours. Others have asked you what they are. Are they your trade secret or can you share?
“Following the wrong gods home”…..
and you will know him by the name “Gantry”
Refreshingly pious. A blessed Good Friday to all, and a happy Easter.
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.
This was an answer to Jack Boniface
This week, the entrance to schools in commie Winnipeg Manitoba, feature signs promoting Ramadan and pride c/w rainbows, no Christian mention whatsoever.
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.
I sometimes wonder if the Rainbow People realize just what the Ramadan People are going to do to them when they get control.
“We cannot have a future if we do not have a past.”
One of your pithier epigrams, Z-Man.
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.
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.
Home schooling and engaging children in home school co-ops are the best way to keep some semblance of our history and traditions alive. This is where the rubber hits the road for this country: Is Mom ready to to let the 401k lie dormant for awhile and do what is best for her children? The Uniparty is probably going to seize it and liquidate it to pay reparations anyway.
Also, is Dad ready to become the sole breadwinner without complaint? Might have to miss some NFL games working two jobs.
What makes you think the primary sources will be allowed to remain?
Destroying the primary sources isn’t that easy. The vast majority exist in multiple copies, and almost all of them are referenced in secondary sources, which means you’d have to eliminate them, too.
Odd as it may seem, the internet of things has made it somewhat more difficult to destroy. The Forbidden Philosopher’s works are non-existent in most libraries, but only a few clicks away.
Compsci: spot the passive voice: “Our children are being taught…”
Who, whom.
Most folk, not here obviously, are sent to “public” school indoctrination. Even if we spend the remainder of our time off work at home trying to undo such, we are at a disadvantage. Also, the most formative years where our youth considers adults as benign/tricked sources of “authority” is in K through 12.
I believe the call for home schooling to be the best solution, but made very difficult through the current economic societal situation. Just recently, my go to alternative—charter schools—has been under scandal here in my town. Even they have had Leftist infiltration from the homosexual lobby.
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.
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.
Did you say that this Chosen series made a black woman one of the apostles? If so, hard pass for me.
Likewise if there’s any Mary Magdalene/dusky goddess shtick . . . so as to get the light to shine on Woman. The woke and fembots are always trying to elevate MM as one of their old/new heroine christo-goddesses. Back in the 70s and 80s these Woman With the Alabaster Jar tomes were everywhere.
She’s technically a “camp follower” like MM. Oh, and Joseph is black too. But I would look beyond these two things. Most of the characters are shades of brown, which is true to what people looked like in that part of the world. I believe it was done on purpose because the producers didn’t want blue-eyed Israelites, like you see in other Biblical productions.
Based on this, I suggest that a much more constructive Series to make would be of the rise of Clovis and Charlemagne or of the Visigoths Christianizing their lands but keeping their pagan faith and their ultimate adoption of Christianity.
In other words, perhaps, given the erasure of our people and our history, we should focus not on the origin story in the origin land, but on the real origin story in our lands – how it came to be adopted and shaped by our people.
Fwiw, in college and Israeli colleague was adamant that Christ and Christianity are purely Greek and have nothing to do with Judea and Yahweh. I was not into religion at the time so kind of clocked out on her presentation, but it was an eye opener.
In any case, I agree. Pass on everything that is an energetic hand that furthers our replacment and sweeping us off the stage. Now is not the time to buy into that in any way, shape or form.
The roots of Christianity definitely are very Hellenized Judaism at least. Can’t really say it did not spring from Judaism, but it is a fair argument to say it is a different form of it than what your typical 1st century middle eastern Jew would think. So your friend was not far off.
Marko — OK thank you.
As I recall from the first season, she (the black chick) was a disciple, not an Apostle (one of the Twelve). Which is not completely off base.
Yeah disciple is ok as long as they don’t start elevating her and pandering to the female viewers. V. rare to see anything in tv or film anymore that does not genuflect to women, one way or ‘tother.
Feminism is the American religion, after all.
I seem to recall Christ one day letting His mama wait outside a house while He delivered a lecture within on what it meant to be of His family. I’d like to see that done on film lol.
Think the first season is on Netflix or Prime as well. But not any other seasons (maybe got too popular and the plug was pulled?).
First season was not bad. Gave the characters actual human dimensions unlike the somewhat overly wrought, overly pious productions I have seen in the past. Made them seem like, gasp, real people. Hope the other seasons don’t disappoint.
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.
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….
Back up north we had the other Lutherans with the rainbow flags.
Rainbow flags and Lutheran gay pastors are ubiquitous now.
When you start talking about ELCA “lutherans,” its just because they have a really bad lisp and are trying to say “luciferans.” Thus their flying the flag of their mother-father, baphomet.
Also, shoutout to Stone Choir, many of the regulars here would appreciate their podcast.
From the ELCA website:
“… Liberated by our faith, we embrace you as a whole person–questions, complexities and all. “
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
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.
Both Wojtyla and Ratzinger were 100% on board with Vatican II. Ratzinger was a key player in getting the council pushed thru. They weren’t conservatives by any stretch, until you compare them to Bergoglio.
Vatican II was nothing comparable. Francis is attempting to change the very doctrine of the church wrt biblical scripture—to say nothing of centuries of tradition. Aside from the tired old saw of pedophile priests, the changes of Vatican II were nothing compared to what Francis attempts. One more like him and such changes will be solidified.
However, my knowledge and concern must be weighed in consideration than I no longer—and have not—practiced in the Catholic Church for perhaps 50+ years. I could care less as a former Catholic, but do appreciate the Church’s positive contribution to a sane society in the past.
I kind of look at the Church like a stock market graph. Sure, if you look at an individual day or week, there’s all kinds of craziness going up and down. But the Church has been around 2k years. It’s had a fair share of ups and downs but survived. It will still have its share of ups and downs until the end. Still sucks being in a downturn though.
Great show, Thanks Zman.
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.
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”
You could give a try to the traditional Latin Mass. Clear doctrine that does not change.
The Latin mass vs native language mass never seemed a big issue to me except that it was mandated. My understanding was before this last Pope there was a lightening up of the mandate. Certainly there were church’s locally that advertised they did the traditional mass.
Odd thing is, I never “heard” the mass in Latin. As one raised in a parochial school environment, grade school on, we were taught the Latin and then the English translation. I spoke out loud my required Latin responses, but thought always the words in English.
You don’t reform the teachings, you reform the practitioners who haven’t kept the teachings.
most “christian” churches are like coca-cola trying to just sell the bottles (with nothing inside).
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/
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.
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.”
Meh. I think you’re reading propaganda into those shows. Shows have to be about something. Doesn’t mean they’re all advocating or condemning.
Literally all narratives have a moral statement, at the very least a background or given moral framework by which everything unfolds. It is like having vision as a human: you will see patterns. With any narrative, you will have an element of morality. The Enemy has advanced so far because of White America’s inability to understand this. “Its just a snake where my children play, I dont have to check if it is poisonous.” There is no such thing as “just harmless entertainment.”
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.
“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.
During that same period, Dan Quayle was attacked by the press for opining that Murphy Brown depicting single motherhood as a glamourous lifestyle choice was detrimental to our society. Although the media clearly disliked many conservatives prior to Quayle, he was the first one who would receive an unadulterated, highly personal feeding frenzy, setting the stage for Chimpy Bushitler*, Chillbilly Sarah Palin, and Bad Orange Man.
* Sure, he was a complete disgrace as President, but not for the reasons he was attacked by the media.
The Bart Simpson character was widely considered shocking when introduced in 1989.
Now he seems almost quaint, like Madonna.
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.”
Even the big hits of the conservative 80s were very left wing shows: “Cosby Show” and “Family Ties.” Tons of liberal messaging.
Cosby show was his response to the typical Black dysfunctional family shows of the time. He was lambasted roundly for his criticism of such. But he had a point, If Blacks were to take their place as “equals” in society they had to act as equals—hence his show models a Black successful family (in his mind anyway, he over did it).
The irony of course is now apparent, Cosby was a great dysfunctional Black pervert himself in real life.
That Lear feller wouldn’t be a Finkel now, would he?
Of course. Hollywood IS jewish. I say that as a matter of fact, not antisemitism. The studios and industry was created entirely by jews from the beginning. The most powerful empire on earth.
While the messaging was liberal, the favorite characters almost always turned out to be the bigot/conservative. Ironic.
For sure, people loved Archie. But the messaging was still clear: he was an ignoramus and wrong.
“Family Ties” originally wanted the parents as stars. The point of the show was that the hippies were cooler than both their square parents AND their kids. (Talk about narcissistic)
Of course, Michael j fox was so appealing that Alex p. Keaton quickly became the star. But apk was only conservative in the sense of being a ruthless capitalist and it was always the Left wing moral values which would reveal themselves to him to be true
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.
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.
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.”
Yes, a show about nothing. A show about meaningless existence with nothing greater than self and of course, self pleasure. A nation filled with such people is surely one of decline. Zardoz here we come.
From Wikipedia: “… The Brutals live in an irradiated wasteland, growing food for the Eternals, who live apart in “the Vortex,” leading a luxurious but aimless existence on the grounds of a country estate…”
Great movie with Sean Connery wearing diapers and breaking heads. 😉
Early Simpsons I’d say they were more balanced. Ned Flanders was a religious nerd but the joke was always that not only did the Flanders have a better life owing to their religious discipline, but God actively intervened on Ned’s behalf (Simpson’s house burns down, the fire spreads to Ned’s house and then a localized cloud materializes to snuff it out).
Later seasons the writers really got a boner for the idea of having Ned suffer for his religious beliefs. The joke became Ned was religious, therefore God was going to treat him like Job because God is a dick. Also, instead of just living a wholesome family life Ned had to become an anti-vaxx homophobic bigot.
The show was always left-wing, but it followed in suit as the left became increasingly vile over the past couple decades.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I don’t necessarily disagree. However, Western civilization existed in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world. Christianity augmented Western civilization. Eleminating Christianity would reduce it.
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.
Perhaps you ought to read history instead of making it up. The conquistadors were not clerics looking to save souls, they were government contractors trying colonize natural resources. Conversion was incidental, not the point. It should probably also be noted that the current pope is the descendant of this alleged “Old Christianity.”
True, the priests were taken along to, in essence, “bribe” the Pope to allow/bless such adventures. If the natives converted they had certain priv’s of a Christian. Those recalcitrant nasty pagans…well things didn’t go as well for them.
The conquistadores were entrepreneurial bandits. They were were seen as such by the governments of the time and especially their own, the Spanish crown. Who wer appalled at their treatment of the natives and sent clerics and more respectable governors as quickly as was feasible. All of the conquistadores came to ignominious ends. So that’s not just presentism.
The military conquest of the conquistadores was also quite amazing and undervalued historically. The conventional wisdom has been that their victory was inevitable due to the tech and diseases they brought with them. That is not correct. They were very skillful in splitting the coalitions that were the Aztec and Inca. In both cases they completed the conquest commanding composite armies with larger numbers of native warriors than their opponents.
Nothing special about the Conquistadors (IMO). One can read much the same thing wrt the early American colonizers on the East coast. Lots of tribes vying with other tribes and thinking an alliance with the English colonizers would give them an edge over rivals, but it was a Faustian bargain at best.
We can’t be friends if you keep talking like that.
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.
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
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.
“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.
You are right. So much of it here in the South is the Jesus cult, which itself has been reduced in large part to Jesus-is-my-boyfriend songs. The adherents wouldn’t know Greek philosophical tradiiton if it smacked them in the face.
As for the aspect of Jewish religious thought, the closest the Southern evangelicals come to that is their mindless prostration to Israel, isolatedly at best typified by the observation, noted by Florence King, that “by dern, those Jew boys sure can fight!’
And now, wokeism is poking its nose into the Southern Baptist tent. This should be interesting.
Thank you. I thought I was in a minority of one (which I sometimes am on this blog). I’m a part of a bible study group myself (at the adamant insistence of my wife) here in the Deep South, but I can’t get any of the participants to delve into the theological underpinnings of Christianity. They just read the bible and interpret it literally. They’re not even aware of the chasm between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John.
I am not a big fan of Bible studies precisely because of that reason. Like Z man says, he is no theologian, but as much as we dislike it, it does take some serious theological and philosophical study (not to mention a decent knowledge of history) to really plumb the depths. The overwhelming majority do not have the time, desire, or patience to do it so it usually devolves to read this passage – what does it mean to you, or worse, how does it make you feel?
If I knew what it meant, or cared about how it makes me “feel” I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you people.
The other side of it is that formal theological study has become so corrupted you can’t trust the “theologians.” Too many agendas. So we continue to peer through that glass darkly.
I’m no theologian either, but if you want to read absolutely first-rate Christian philosophers who have not truckled to diversity and perversion, check out William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga. Not easy reading, but intellectually rigorous.
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.
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.
“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.
Virtue signaling is “holier than thou” for the irreligious (although religious can exhibit it as well).
Dante stuck them in Limbo in The Inferno.
I remember arguing about this with my very Catholic English teacher in high school.
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.
Seems we are on a “need to know” basis. We should be able to know enough for or own salvation, but that doesn’t mean we can know the whole plan.
As far as the Trinity being revealed or discovered, I would say both. Seeds of it are in Scripture (if not outright stated – e.g., baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost), which are later discovered and expounded upon when hashing out solutions to theological questions.
I am spiritual but not “religious”.
I have muscles but no skeleton.
happy little trees: For some reason women seem to love calling themselves ‘spiritual’ and promoting books like “Eat Pray Love” whose author became a carpet muncher.
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)
can the argument be made, that taking up abolition contaminated (fatally) American Christianity? this would presuppose that the latter was “healthy” beforehand.
can the case be made that taking up abolition fatally tainted American Christianity?
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.
Marko, the Russians are certainly the arch-traditionalists of a traditionalist church. Because, I think, they know what is at stake. The persecution by the Bolsheviks was the most brutal in the history of Christendom, I think. Interestingly, during the Summer of Floyd, the metropolitan for mid-America released a pastoral letter stating that the faithful should NOT support BLM, etc. He said it was no different from Bolshevism and “we know how that turns out.”
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.
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.
Intelligent Dasein, did Luther and the nascent Protestants have any valid complaints? If so, how should they have handled them?
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.
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
“But they should have been fighting inside the Church instead of creating another Church”
So institutions never become behind reform?
So we should support the GOPe and vote harder?
Luther was the classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Take one of his more better known complaints – the selling of indulgences. Was there abuse in that practice? Sure. Does that invalidate the existence of a time of purification after death (purgation, hence “Purgatory”)? No – the abuse of a thing does not negate the existence of it. It doesn’t even negate the granting of indulgences (one of the main motivations for engaging in the Crusades). No more than an abusive king would negate monarchy, or vote fraud would invalidate representative democracy if either of those are your thing.
To answer you directly, what he should have done was petition his bishop and the Pope to redress those grievances – and suffered the consequences. Plenty of examples of saints who did the same (was it Catherine of Sienna or one of the Catherines that dressed down a Pope?) and got executed for their troubles, but eventually brought about correction. Not too different from those who want to flee the GAE rather than stay and fix it.
Z man’s whole point is that people owe the gae no loyalty and the gae is beyond reform and it could take decades, or 100 years for it to collapse. Meanwhile people want to have children without the govt trying to mutilate them.
Well that was clear as mud.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My reading of European history is that most monarchs used Protestantism or Catholicism as a fig leaf to settle their grabs for power. I do agree that monarchy is supposed to be a two way street – the subjects owe duties to the monarch, and the monarch owes duties to the subject. This probably worked well enough when the kingdom was of a certain size and the king and subjects were not too far removed from affinity and consanguinity. But it seems, like democracy, it doesn’t “scale up” very well. Perhaps you needed the intermediary aristocracy to keep the monarch in check. I guess the equivalent check in the GAE would be state and local authorities, but they have been pretty much stripped of real power by the all encompassing phed.
“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.”
ID, who are you to give advice/criticism? Your following? Your writings? Your impact in any field? You seem to have left Unz to bestow your wisdom here.
When you restrain from taking a jab, your comments have impact. But it seems you can’t help yourself and therefore simply irritate—which I assume you relish as well. Unz was a good place for you.
“It was not a renewal of things, it was the end of things.”
I hate to keep hammering this, but I think it’s an important theme:
Rome split into the Greek east and Latin west. Ancient Germanic people wanted to be part of Rome, Rome collapsed.
Great Schism, Reformation. Three churches for the same three parties. Even split in the same order, along the same lines.
Maybe I haven’t read the right books, but somebody has to have noticed this, right? It’s like three civs in one!
I’m no expert on the Reformation, so I have no strong opinion about the content of your statement. I can say without reservation, however, that it is as well written as anything I’ve ever read on this blog.
“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.
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.
Note I was not talking about what Bob Sykes thinks. I was referring to what the people in charge think.
In historical time, third world Christians are Johnny-come-latelys. For the vast majority of its history, Christianity was the white religion par excellence. Why do you think so many blacks in America have rejected Christianity and adopted Islam?
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I’m opposite. I return to VD several times/day but scan Z man once or twice/week.
I learn from both. I spend money on Ted because he is getting it done in a manner I identify with. Preserving Western Civ in hardcopy. We’re gonna need it with what I foresee.
Vox is the most stereotypical midwit on this side of the Great Divide.
Never understood why VD was a thing. Not that I have anything against him, I used to occasionally read his blog. I think I may have found Zman from there.
But who is he? I understand he’s a moderately successful scifi writer, but that hardly makes him an oracle. I note that a number of dissidents seem to regard him with deference, but based on his blog, I haven’t figured out why. Occasionally he comes up with an interesting insight, but mostly goes off on rants about topics that would seem to concern few people beyond himself.
He seems to be an OK guy, but if there’s a reason he’s regarded as any kind of authority, it’s gone entirely over my head. He’s just another guy with an opinion and a blog.
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.
That has to be taken in context – ostentatious praying as a form of virtue signaling, yes that is to be avoided. Ostentatious praying as a form of defiance/protest against our persecutors – that is a different thing.
Flag of Finland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Finland
I like how there is no official globhom RGB definition for their flag colors because the color gamut is too narrow.
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
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.
Good general counsel. Likewise Book of Job recommendation.
Scripture is a living road map that adjusts in one’s hands, but always is true. About 30% of the Bible has specific prophetic info about our moment in time.
These are powerful tools and weapons, use them.
Despite the slide into Trib there is no despair in me. As for depression I don’t believe in it, it’s a bunch of self-absorption.
No real Christian gets depressed. Sad at something, grief at something, yes. But depression = wallowing. When some of the apostles were in prison, they were SINGING. How’d that make the enemy feel?
‘In league with the stones of the field . . .’ yep that’s the spot to be, always with the com channel open.
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.