Note #1: I was on with Mike Farris to talk about stuff. You can find the resulting product on Rumble and iTunes.
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Over the last decade the usual suspects have directed a great deal of resources into anathematizing the term “Christian Nationalism.” One reason is the long war against Christianity in general that dates to the start of the last century. Since these people assume nationalism is a bad word, whatever they can attach it to becomes bad as a result of the linkage. This sort of linguistic guilt by association has been a popular tactic with the usual suspects for a long time.
Another attack is from the establishment churches and affiliated political operations, who worry that their people are getting wise to the grift. Like conservatism in general, social conservatism has been a massive failure. Since so-called Christian organizations have been at the forefront of the culture war, the rank and file are now looking around for an alternative way forward. The people who got rich off losing the culture war see Christian nationalism as a threat to their grift.
The idea behind Christian Nationalism is to provide an alternative moral authority that is in direct contradiction of the one used by the ruling class. No one talks about the moral authority of the ruling elite, especially the ruling elite, but it is assumed that they have some reason for promoting things like diversity and the sexual fads. Maybe it all boils down to bourgeois spite or maybe they think the cause of justice requires them to annihilate society, but whatever the authority, Christian Nationalists reject it.
That is where things get complicated. Within the Christian Nationalist subculture, you see Catholics and Protestants, which raises an obvious issue. You also see many within this space migrating to Eastern Orthodoxy. The reason for the latter is the people in the former are disgusted by the direction of their churches. Of course, you also have the churchless who rely only on their reading of Scripture. They tend to be the most vocal in the public square about their political intensions.
Putting aside the theological differences that exist within this subculture, the bigger question is how to square the Christian with the nationalism. The one thing all of these people would agree upon is Christ died for all mankind, so all men, regardless of race or ethnicity, can accept Jesus Christ and thus become a Christian. If your church is open to everyone, then it stands to reasons that your community is open to everyone, which contradicts the logic of nationalism.
This is where we bump into the elephant in the room. The big exception to the open-door policy is non-Christians. This is where the usual suspects come back into the story, as they claim Christianity is just a fig leaf for the nationalism. When they hiss the word “nationalism” they mean “fascism”, of course. In fairness to the usual suspects, the Christian Identity Movement was exactly this approach. Many of the most vocal Christian Nationalists today are hostile to Jews.
This is especially dangerous from the point of view of the usual suspects because this line of reasoning applies to the very idea of nations. If you want a nation, one with a single language, culture, and people, then you are seeking an exclusive society, rather than an open one. Just as a Christian society must be intolerant of non-Christians, a nationalist society must be intolerant of minorities. Otherwise, you open the foundations of society up to challenges from those minorities.
This brings us back to the eternal question. For Jews to maximize their opportunities in a society, it must not be exclusive of them or their activity. This is the Karl Popper – George Soros argument for the open society. The moral foundation must not be exclusive in any way, which eliminates both nationalism and Christianity from the moral foundation of the open society. Obviously, this logic benefits all minorities, not just Jews, but it also comes at the expense of the majority.
The logic of Christian nationalism puts them at odds with the bulk of modern Christians who are no longer Christian in the theological sense. Most are Judeo-Christian, a weird modern phenomenon that defines Christianity in terms of Israel. It is not unusual for ads like this one to appear on platforms that cater to modern Christians. Much of what modern Christians do is undisguisable from Zionism. That presents and an obvious problem for the people promoting Christian Nationalism.
That brings us back to the theological issue. The Christian Nationalists have a problem in that they think they must operate within the tradition of Christianity. That does not leave them a lot of room to operate. Even those who think Scripture is the only source of truth are faced with the fact that Scripture is a man-made thing. There are lots of lost and excluded books of the Bible. Someone decided to exclude things from Scripture, maybe even things lost to us entirely.
By accepting the framing of the past, they are limiting what they can do as both Christian and nationalists. There is no getting around the fact that the arc of Christianity has led to this point. The universalism is one problem, but the inherent individualism is another big challenge. if all men have an individual relationship with God and are judges as individuals, there is not much room for collective virtue. The virtue of the community will always came second to individual virtue.
What the Christian Nationalists face is a bigger task than reasserting or defending the idea of a Christian nation. They first need to revolutionize both terms. Their Christianity needs to break free of the traditional framing in order to avoid being trapped in a mode of thought that precludes nationalism. At the same time, they have to rethink the idea of nationalism so that it comports with and promotes the compassion that must lie at the heart of their new Christianity.
That sounds like an impossible task, especially given the makeup of the Christian nationalist subculture. These are people with homes and families, hardly the sort to overthrow the current order. On the other hand, Christianity was a revolutionary movement from the start. Nationalism, despite what the usual suspects claim, has also been a revolutionary cause. In other words, the Christian Nationalists are working with material that has always been dangerous to the status quo.
What makes it possible for them to think in these terms is the fact that the old forms are no longer working. The old regime is in crisis because the old systems and old moral claims are no longer working. The last time a world bestriding empire fell into crisis it gave birth to a new religious movement that eventually swept the world. Whether or not there is a theologian or even a charismatic leader ready to accept the challenge is unknown, but the ground is fertile for such a thing.
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If you act you don’t have to think your way out of anything.
Thinking is masturbation.
The idea that the compelling words or logic can be found to make men of cowards so contemptible they don’t defend their children is absurd.
To my best recollection the first encounter I had with the concept of Christian nationalism was some book written in opposition to it. I wonder about the origins of the idea, and whether or not it’s just some ploy to tie two irreconcilable ideas together to discredit both by the usual suspects. There’s nothing I can find in the Bible that having many separate nations is somehow bad or contradictory to what God wants. After all why would we all be so different if He wanted us otherwise? I guess my main question is whether one can be a Christian… Read more »
The NWO is not new and it’s not very orderly. It will reach its zenith sometime in the next few years and then collapse inward when the architects who engineered it start to go the way of all the earth. Their delusions of immortality through science are just that: delusional. What will replace it? The pattern of tribal governments, small nations, and in some cases city-states that has been common throughout history. That’s the default position after a collapse. The best thing we can do right now is to begin to gather with people whom we love enough to fight… Read more »
Basing morality on something as obviously and palpably false as Christianity doesn’t strike me as a good idea. The many unreconcilable contradictions in the Gospel documented in Bart Ehrman’s “Jesus Interrupted” is a good place to start if you wonder why I say that. Wouldn’t it be better to base morality on the truth about what it is and why it exists instead? As Darwin noted long ago, and as elaborated by philosophers such as Edvard Westermarck since then, all moralities exist by virtue of innate behavioral traits that themselves exist by virtue of evolution by natural selection. In other… Read more »
Your post is the spiritual equivalent of saying that no one needs to eat flavorful foods because a nutritious gray sludge can meet everyone’s dietary requirements in a healthier fashion. Even if you’re right (and I’m not saying that you are), no one is going to buy that.
“I suggest that these ultimate goals might include, for example, personal survival and reproduction, survival of our species, and the survival of biological life in general.”
To have as your supreme goal, to survive & reproduce, is fine for my dog, but is grossly inadequate in satisfying human needs.
To say this is a complex topic with lots of nuance and examples and quotes etc. is putting it mildly. I don’t want or need to write a screed. I am largely in agreement with most of the posts from the archived blog, Faith and Heritage. I strongly recommend their three part series on ethno-Christology:
https://faithandheritage.com/2015/10/ethno-christology-part-1-the-caucasian-christ-law-order-and-valor/
https://faithandheritage.com/2015/10/ethno-christology-part-2-african-jesus-brother-mother-and-father/
https://faithandheritage.com/2015/10/ethno-christology-part-3-jesus-christ-of-the-orient/
I’ll take it on faith that given your posting content in the past that the links are good, just want to note that, generally speaking, religious debates are one thing to avoid on the Internet as there is never a winner.
One other note (and this may be elsewhere in the comments) is that a community and church should be one in the same. The doctrine, except at the margins of course, is less important as that can be fixed, but a fractured-up community…not so much.
Semi-OT:
Spurred on by some of the comments below, I thought I’d share this:
https://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/the-kids-arent-alright-2/
We’re not going to have a crisis of competence…we’re going to have a full-on collapse that will cause wide-scale infrastructure failure.
Christ’s great commission to the apostles was to go and teach “all the nations.” Historically, the Church had no problem with separate nations and ministered to them all. What it did have a problem with was separate national churches or any teachings that some nations or peoples should not have the gospel preached to them (it’s called the Catholic Church for a reason). The Church recognized the deep hostility of the Jews to the Church and Christian teachings and therefore required their separation from the Christian community (they were basically resident aliens who could not hold any position of political… Read more »
[…] ZMan turns over a rock. […]
I can only speak for myself, I am a recent Christian convert and there are far better men than I that could speak knowledgeably about this… but all I want is a Godly nation. Serious leaders that actually give a shit about us and our future. An end to the clowns, the lunatics, the grifters – punishment for those guys would be nice too..
Our future is not cast in stone. We can avoid what’s coming if we act now and it wouldn’t take much. Basic common sense would turn things on a dime.
The end of an era is here, with it most traditional christian beliefs. There is no going back and if cristianity was the end all be all of things why does it fail all the time? Where do you think all this woke nonsence came from? The majority accepted that somehow these beliefs would overcome nature, yet inviting all non whites to share these values has caused the system to break. You can personally uphold many of the bibles great teachings but reality is what it is…
Few early Christians had any experience with sub-Saharan Africans. In the Antebellum South many slaveowners became concerned over their souls and ministered to them. Others treated them like livestock. It’s almost unthinkable today even among many readers of this blog to consider the possibility that the SSAs are in fact a different species of human. If true, does this mean they have no souls? According to scripture, they do as they are the children of Ham. We can argue today whether SSAs are included in what the book of Genesis calls the children of Ham, but the slaveowners in the… Read more »
Nationalism to me is different than nativism. We tend to confuse the two. When I hear the world “nationalism” as a U.S. citizen, I recoil. Why? Because for most of American history, “nationalism” has in some way, shape or form, led to or has been a part of obliterating nativism. I suppose nationalism and nativism go hand-in-glove in other parts of the world, but not here. In the U.S. “nationalism” is a hand puppet of the magic dirt philosophy. No true nativist should even look at an American flag without feeling empty inside. We need to break up this big… Read more »
Sorry, was meant for the post below.
I look at terms like “Christian” this and “Whyte” that in a similar, jaundiced vein. With all the, let’s say rather non-Biblical flags proudly flying from “christian” houses of worship these days, they have already given up any claim to represent the former faith their founders espoused. Same for the “whyte” people. Seriously, half or more of them are a cancer, or a 5th Column, or worse. No way I want to be lumped in with “nationalists” of either of these so-called “christian” or “whyte” groups. They do have a lot of overlap in the Venn Diagram of humans. Let… Read more »
That video link to “Help Jews in Ukraine” is exactly why I can’t take Christianity seriously.
I see it time and time again, big fat southern guy with floppy jowls. Male jewelry. Then they do the preacher cadence voice: “Folks, I would like to talk, to yooou today, about Jeyeeeesus. Well Sir I’ll say Sir, our Laaaawd wants you to donate to our fundraiser for Israel.”
To paraphrase Captain Kirk: “Why does GOD, need old ladies’ money?”
I’m reminded of the quote “the constitution is not a suicide pact.” Christianity is not a suicide pact. Even as these churches drop like flies, they spend their last dime on the mission to Honduras or some camp for Ukrainians in Eastern Europe that’s already being funded by Unicef.
Today’s Christianity has an IQ level slightly higher than a golden retriever.
Well, they set aside a portion of that charity money for the pastor’s sartorial needs at least. Just like how Jesus took donations to buy suits and gold watches for himself.
Jesus’ diamond-encrusted Audemars Piguet is in a reliquary at Milan Cathedral. You can get a gander at it for 30 Euros.
Jay-Z owns an identical copy, BTW…
Jay-Z…J.C., tomato…tomahto.
A common phenomenon among Evangelical Christians is to conflate the biblical Judaism and Israel they see in the Old Testament with today’s Talmudic Judaism and the modern Jewish ethnostate.
Catholics are less likely to have rhe same view.
I used to be friends with an otherwise based semi-retired priest. He didn’t do the service anymore to look after his parents. But still spent most of his time attending or doing other religious stuff. Ah yes so the point of the story: he used to be friends with a rabbi and some other jews from interfaith stuff, and was very pro israel. He also took me to the ‘messianic jews’ a few times, and talked them up a lot. Despite this it didn’t stop the rabbi from conning him into a few pyramid schemes selling dead sea cosmetics or… Read more »
John Hagge has never heard of the Nicene Creed but you insist on calling him a Christian and using him as the reason you don’t take Christianity seriously.
Christianity is literally the defining culture of Western man for the last 2,000 years, but you can’t take it seriously.
It astounds me that readers of this blog can see the effects of managerialism in the Catholic and cetain other large international churches and conclude that the underlying ideas are incorrect. Do we also embrace complete every man for himself anarchy because managerialism corrupts government too? Are we to reject all modern medicine because the regional corporate hospital chain is under the thrall of woke managerialists?
If “haha grifters attacked your institution, therefore the ideas of your institution are wrong” was a legitimate argument, then you have nothing but solipsistic nihilism.
PIPE DREAMS. All of it. Christianity was totally rebooted by 1980. It’s completely undetachable from universalism at this point. It must now be extinguished the way the Bolsheviks did to the Russian Orthodox in 1920 so that one, day, a hundred years from now, it can be re-birthed again in another, more durable form. A bulb in the ground waiting for better times. Where would Christianity be without Justinian looking at all the options and laying down a decree? Or Vladimir the Great choosing Christianity over Islam because you could still drink? The state chooses its religion, not vice versa.… Read more »
There was a comment I was going to make on the weekend thread but I forgot about it and I just remembered it.
Does anyone think the movie Mulholland drive has a similar theme to z’s Friday show? It’s sort of like you look back when things were better and you realize the rot was always there.
Lynch has always been tight lipped about what his movies are about. But the vibe I got from Mulholland drive is that Hollywood was always degenerate, you’re just noticing it now.
That’s a common theme in most of David Lynch’s work. What the surrealism has to do with it, I’m not sure, but it’s entertaining!
Lynch is strongly pro- and anti-Hollywood. He worships its products and despises the process/system that makes them, especially the “IQ shredder”-analogous aspect of Hollywood that, e.g., lures the prettiest and most ambitious girls away from small towns everywhere to become, often literally, prostitutes. Mulholland Dr is “about” how leaving your home and family seeking a more glamorous/public/”real” life will foul your soul to such a degree that acknowledging it will kill you. Relevantly, Jesus was more like a movie producer: “If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and… Read more »
I see your point, and I would agree that at least the pursuit of fame is. Inland Empire, itself a reference to the Hollywood world, is unwatchable (I made about seven minutes in), but I completely agree that he has his gaze pointed at Hollywood. As the subject relates to the podcast, I can certainly see the parallels. I adore Lynch. I think the reboot of Twin Peaks features some of the greatest hours of television, ever. Though hours of it were painful and cringeworthy, the first, second, eighth, and last hour and a half are the greatest television ever… Read more »
Thank you for the thought provoking post. I would disagree on the point that traditional Christianity is individualistic. The Eastern Orthodox Churches are all state churches, we pray for the President at the one I go to, twice. Many Orthodox argue one of the big problems with Catholicism is the universalism, which the institution of the papacy introduces by necessity.
It’s universal but doesn’t mean everyone is part of the club.
Every nation should have a church, just as every man should have a wife. But except for David French, no on thinks that “every man should have A wife” means “every man should have MY wife.” Each nation should have it’s own church.
Nationalism as such is now largely an anachronism for many in the West. In America, the once 90 percent European nation is barely over 50 percent, give or take a few Middle Easterners and white Latin Americans. I know that Counter-Currents gets excited about the supposed nationalism driving the Ukraine and Eastern Europe; but that conflict is motivated more by a minority ethnic desire to eliminate a nation than any sense of self-determination for Ukrainians. I mean, Zelenskyy is already talking up replacing Ukraine’s missing millions with Africans and South Asians. People in the West are looking for a community… Read more »
Nationalism in 2023 America has been reduced to a VALS Lifestyle segment. The Black Rifle Coffee drinker who goes to the gun range once a year, has the “thin blue line” flag hanging by his garage. Has the Tim Pool podcast on his phone, etc. It’s all such a fraud. The nation is stone dead, not coming back, a literal Babylon. What happened to Babylon again???
The whole thing is so cheap and fraudulent. “Rich men north-uh-Richmundd.”
Don’t forget about the Spartan or Punisher sticker on the back window of the pickup
Z is fond of “the Great Causality” Biology>culture>institutions>politics. It seems to me that once you get the biology right, then you can worry about the religious institution.
The Z-Man writes earlier in the comments: The point is that there is a lot of room for a reformer to refashion the central message of Christ, as well as the foundational texts. Refashioning the central message of Christ is called heresy. It is a most wicked spiritual sin and is absolutely deadly to the soul. It is dangerous lunacy to advocate for such things. The idea that Christianity should be changed for reasons of political expediency is one that only could have occurred to a modernist head. It is the inevitable correlate of the belief that religion is simply… Read more »
Heretical to whom? Maybe learn what words mean before using them.
To those chosen, those in his current cult.
Protestantism is literal heresy to a devout RC. Who is right here?
The point is there are very actual guide rails on Christian thought. Zman points out that accepting that JC died for humanity’s sins is the big one. The rest are window dressing. The problem here is that is literally the most inclusive thing you could state as a tenet… and then we head down the long path back to where we are now.
*few not actual, wtf ghost of Steve Jobs…
I for one would be very interested in hearing this incontrovertible proof of God’s existence.
Aristotle on the Prime Mover, Metaphysics XII
The 5 Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas
You may start here. The Prime Mover and related proofs are basis for the natural knowledge of God. A transcendent, immutable, uncaused first cause necessarily underlies contingent phenomena. If you are not familiar with these arguments, it likely means you have not spent much time engaging with the subject, as they are quite well known.
Yeah I’ve heard that one. It relies on the assumption that causality, time, and thermodynamics work the same outside of the observable universe. You could have an eternal multiverse that bubbles universes randomly, time (and therefore causality) could just start at the big bang and stop once everything reaches thermodynamic equilibrium, it could be an infinite void and I’m just a Boltzmann brain that randomly popped into existence by quantum fluctuations and decided the best use of its improbable existence was to hallucinate arguing on the comment section of a blog. Or it could be the Abrahamic God. Or the… Read more »
Yeah I’ve heard that one. It relies on the assumption that causality, time, and thermodynamics work the same outside of the observable universe. It’s actually the other way around. It’s precisely because causality and time are features of a material universe, that we know that the first cause cannot be subject to such things. Otherwise, it would itself require a cause. The first cause must be uncaused and it must be itself eternal, simple, changeless, motionless, and purely existing in act with no potential. One of the important features of these proofs is that they are still valid even if… Read more »
My point was that the uncaused cause could itself simply be an eternal natural process that generates timelines or universes or whatever. Or if time starts at the big bang there could be no cause because there’s no time preceding it.
You can call that God, but that’s not a Personal God.
Ploppy
That’s a great question, and for me, the simplest, most straightforward answer is, just look around you.
In asking the same question in the past myself, I realized that the systems and materials for life, are not reproducible by man.
How do amino acids know what combinations will create different outcomes, without some guidance or direction?
I’m just fiddling with the tip of the iceberg, but that’s where I start.
That tells us something about the (limitless) limitations of Man and his comprehension. That is all. Call our inability to Create, Comprehend, etc.. “God” if you will… it’s easy to type. But sure seems to come with a passel of baggage. That Being Said ™ obviously it is a Good Thing if (just about) everyone believes in an all-seeing deity who will punish the @#$% out of those who don’t follow a pro-civilisational pro- our group set of rules… But probably suboptimal if every last one of the Rulers (rules, Rulers, geddit?) blindly believes in this deity. What we need… Read more »
The very idea that you can pick and slot beliefs in a religion to suit your earthly ends reeks of modern and post-modern thought. If this is indeed the belief of the Dissident right, then you are correct that they are liberals who disagree with the ends of Globohomo, but not the principles nor then means. They just want a moral license to hate the Other.
” That is knowable through the use of natural reason and is not open for debate.”
Explain your natural reasoning to us, genius.
Somewhat OT, somewhat not: thinking this weekend about the English Reformation EMJ says it was a looting operation, and that rankles because there’s some truth to it. From the Catholic perspective, absolutely looting. But you put the thing in the larger context of English politics, and you could as easily say the English love sovereignty. Celtic people colonized/conquered by Romans; Angles/Saxons/Jutes; Norwegians and Danes; Normans. Finally, English come into their own, and they look around and wonder why Rome still owns so much of their country. Puritans got the name by wanting to purify the Church of England of Catholic… Read more »
Well “noticed”, sir. Makes one to reflect. Maybe the triumph of the Roundhead sensibilitiesand their Old Testament propensities lowered their vigilance against credulous acceptance of the Yids, and all whom they, in turn, found it expedient to usher into the polity to further erode nativist solidarity?
Probably just that Cromwell by breeding and prior track record with Crowned Heads (thonk!) wasn’t really in a position to pimp out his son to marry the King of France’s niece or whatever in order to score a loan. Also, a bit hard to raise one on the Amsterdam ‘change too, when you’re also fighting the Dutch Republic.
(((Who you gonna call?)))
And the English never looked back.
In fact Looking Back is practically a crime today.
The as ZMan points out, the usual suspects get Christians to view “Christianity” as a set of principles that the usual suspects approve of. Just two examples: People can be Christians in their own communities and/or their own countries. There is no Christian inclusivity requirement to allow anyone and everyone into the U.S. or even into their local communities from the same country on the basis of Christianity. Racism, in and of itself, is not a Christian sin. You can reach out to a group and teach them about Christ then withdraw to your own community or race. No Christian… Read more »
As the, not The as. Getting old.
“Christianity” was slapped together at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 (If memory serves, I was very young at the time) by the newly converted Constantine. Like all good politician he rigged those who got to attend, he chose 1,500, the other 1,000 were sundry miscellaneous religious neer-do-wells, Southern Baptists and the like. Connie’s big deal was getting Paul’s note telling the Romans that the Emperor was chosen by God and they should shut up and do as they’re told.
Well, being a good Roman, he had a utilitarian view of State Religion. If it did not conduce to Imperial rule, it was to be extirpated. And heterodoxy was to be abominated within the body of the State. In Roman society, salvific pretensions were left to mystery cults, and they were viewed as private matters; so long as they did not present challenges to Inperial rule, they could be tolerated. In the troublous times political unity was the highest value to be instigated and sustained in the eyes of the Emperor, whether as a pagan or a Christian (but a… Read more »
I always love how any realistic appreciation of how Christianity came to be gets downvotes. If the down-voters were ever exposed to all the very oldies but goodies in Cuneiform literature not to mention the myriad mystery cults of the East, plus a broad cultural understanding of how it all came together in a hellenised bubbling witches brew in the centuries just both sides of the Year Zero, they’d probably have apoplexies and start carrying on like Elagabalus. Or Origen 😛 Not that Christianity (in the right form) is a Bad Thing. But if it’s your soul (sic) comfort, then… Read more »
God is both 3 and 1, without contradiction. And the church has always been both national and universal without contradiction. The question of the one and the many seems difficult, but we all live it out constantly without contradiction.
Ah… And yet the Filioque ripped apart East and West and wasted enough human mental processor cycles to have put us back several hundred years in inventing Fusion. Or something. Funnily enough the people who rule over us manage without a Trinity and Muslims actually believe intensely in their one god to a degree that Christian LARPers can only dimly comprehend unless they have traveled widely in Islamic lands. Waste of mental ATP, so I’d go with the Greeks over the Latins because less big brain gymnastics required… but still… all rather silly. Just stick Jupiter in that corner, Athena… Read more »
Well, that was a big ball of crazy. The Filioque was just the issue that brought the jurisdiction problem to a head. The civil war also wasn’t fought over fort Sumpter. And let’s be honest, you also have not been to a Muslim country. I have, and I find the energy I get from the locals to be similar to Mormons. No more or less fervent or crazy. The vast majority of them don’t actually go to a mosque to pray 5 times a day. And you can talk about larping, but I’m willing to bet you’ve never been covered… Read more »
The Z man makes a point I have also thought which is that Christianity is individualistic to a fault. The quest for individual salvation trumps all other earthy concerns. If that means sending food to niggers in Africa that will later invade your country so be it. Your soul is more important that such a trivial earthly concern as your nation, or beauty, or culture, or truth. All must be sacrificed so that your personal soul gets brownie points in heaven.
Jews I believe have more concern with “brownie points” (good deeds). The fundamentalist Christians today seem to promote that the only way to salvation is through *belief* in Jesus. That you lead a good life is a reflection of the sincerity of that belief, but good deeds will not get you into the Kingdom per se. Seems this wasn’t always so and not the doctrine before the Reformation. The Everyman morality play of the early Middle Ages emphasizes “Good Deeds” as accompanying Everyman to his judgement in the afterlife. As a failed Christian in all manner of points, I prefer… Read more »
Without the regulatory influence of the Confessional, self-critique was the sole means of determination of rectitude, and goodness knows, rationalization was there to do the Devil’s work for him.
What many Christian Nationalists really want is a community of people who look like them, think like them and share their values. “Nationalism” restricts itself to malleable geographic borders, and “Christian” is a make it up as you go gloss. “Just as a Christian society must be intolerant of non-Christians, a nationalist society must be intolerant of minorities. Otherwise, you open the foundations of society up to challenges from those minorities.” Not at all. The Muslim world has its “dhimmis,” mostly “People of the Book” who enjoy formal if not actual tolerance, the secular equivalent of second class “citizenship.” Only… Read more »
I was going to make essentially the same point. For millennia, civilizations understood the difference between civil rights and political rights. People outside the dominant group, minorities if you want to call them by that term, typically were granted civil rights but not political rights, so they could not vote, run for office, or hold significant positions of authority within government. One of the reasons the Eastern Roman Empire outlasted the Western Roman Empire by 1000 years is that the Eastern Roman Empire denied political rights to minorities, including the Usual Suspects. Even our political elites seem to have lost… Read more »
Well said.
The questions remains whether or not such a Christian Nationalism would be tolerant/intolerant in a manner similar to the way the Greek City States treated Citizens/Metics (Desirable) cf. the way Puritan Massachusetts treated Roman Catholics (Bad).
I fear the latter largely because the kind of raw material and movers and shakers of Christian Nationalism are (to put it very politely) not quite the calibre of 4th Century BC Athenians.
5 Century BC, even. The Collector of Prepuces is a jealous deity and must be messing with my head today.
Thank you. I no longer care whether it would be tolerant or intolerant. At this point I am just trying to find a way out of a disastrous civil war. I think I will fail
Connecting dots. Prolonged affluence leads to extinction of hardship, which eliminates the gauntlets that formerly culled the weak and enhanced the strong, which results in anti-evolution and DNA contamination, which makes a people soft and lacking in robustness. Which is where we find ourselves today. So how does this relate to Christian Nationalism? When a people get soft, but nonetheless foresee a return of hardship on the horizon, they tend to respond in one of two ways. First is to ignore the problem with ferocious determination and hope it never happens. Second is to join a cult to distract yourself… Read more »
Christian Nationalism may well be an early part of the Barbarisation process necessary for us to hit rock bottom and bounce back up again. It can be a symptom / ongoing cause of the collapse and not the Solution. Attempts to halt/reverse the decline are good. Nobody should just be supine. But it’s going to be centuries before Western Man truly rises again. If at all. In the meantime, The Chinese will Chinese. And others will do their thing. The fundamental thing is to preserve the White gene pool and winnow out mal-adaptations. Nothing like tough times and a religion… Read more »
Insensitive goyim cattle! How dare you mention that desert rebi’s liable against the Jewish people you call religion. Today is Yom Kippur, our holiest day when we cleanse ourselves spiritually for slights we have committed against our own. Tomorrow and the other 364 days you pay for incensing human beings!
The very first thing the Christian “nationalists” would have to do is point to all the Central and South Americans strolling across the border and explain why they aren’t really Christian or why they don’t belong here despite being Christian. Even if they didn’t have that problem, the vast majority of their churches abhor their views. Plus, every single major denomination are run by progressive loons or grifters at the national and international level. Even the Mormons are cucked. The Evangelicals are even worse. The Catholic Church is run by a South American communist SJW. Frankly, I think the Christian… Read more »
All the more reason for people of European descent to explore Christian Identity movement.
https://christogenea.org
Mexican Catholicism is quite weird, with the Virgin of Guadalupe being the center of it, and feared Brujos (evil magicians) still being a feature in rural areas…It’s a unique religion and culture…The Church has been quite tolerant of such deviations, but really, the growing Orthodox church is closer to Catholicism…
Yes, but if the Catholic Church tolerates them, then they are Catholics. That makes them Christians. Even if they weren’t weird, they ain’t us and we should not have to tolerate them living among us. We should not have to tolerate any foreign group among us. It has proven impossible to keep them away from political power. Even the White Christian groups who were not real Americans did this. They created their little fiefdoms. Italians and Jews ran crime syndicates, for example. But they were far from the only ones.
“If the catholic church tolerates them, that makes them Christian.” That is a logically incorrect category error. Being Christian makes them Christian, not what some pervert in a robe in Italy says.
It’s just that you are more centuries removed from the obvious syncretisms in what you *think* is ‘pure’ Christianity.
There ain’t no such thing. It’s a bit from here and bit from there all the way down to Noah’s Flood and Genesis. Virgin Births? Dime a dozen in pantheon of the Ancient Orient.
You’ll have to excuse me, incoming call from a Mister Enkidu. Seems he’s trying to get a copyright takedown on this whole thread. Will try and head him off with some hieroglyphic legal boilerplate… or some Linear A… Let him parse *that*!
I find it useful to put forth the idea that the Bible is literally drenched in nationalism. www dot openbible dot info/topics/nations It’s so much accepted as an obvious fact by the many inspired authors that it is taken as a given. “For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.” — Psalm 22:28 Nothing in the Bible, Old or New Testament, indicates anything about abolishing nations until the literal end of the world. On the contrary, the nations are specifically given legitimacy: “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” — 1 Peter 2:17… Read more »
“For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.” — Psalm 22:28
This would indicate that we and the entire world are to be ruled over by god/king created by jewish scribes. Conveniently, it chose the jews to be its priest class to rule over us. This is the problem.
If you want to live under the thumb of these monsters, why not move over to Palestine?
I’m going to stop you right there, because God was not created by humans, Jews or otherwise, which invalidates the rest of your post.
You quote words written and edited by jewish scribes to make your points. You use them in a manner which indicates that you think these are the words of God.
God is one thing, and words written by jewish scribes is another.
Your God is defined by words written by jewish scribes. Majorly, these scribes took stories from surround nations and tweaked them to make the jews the heroes and to polemicize and slander the surrounding nations.
The jewish scribes have projected their evilish nature on to God.
That’s a pretty crappy God who allows Himself to be misrepresented to the whole world by a tiny Middle Eastern tribe. Where did you learn about God? I am interested in these revelations of yours.
BTW, if you read the Old Testament and think Jews come across as heroes, you’re really not reading very closely.
The vast majority of Jews come across as cautionary examples of what not to do, punctuated by the appearance of isolated faithful individuals who are rarely heeded for very long.
Perhaps. But then why was/is the Old Testament part and parcel of the Christian Bible? You don’t see Jews adopting any part of the New Testament in the Torah? Is there a sect of Christianity that I am unaware of that rejects the Old Testament.
The Old Testament was written by 3 dozen or so scribes. The thrust of the Deuteronomistic corpus of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, is to centralize worship in Jerusalem under the control of royals and an elite priest cast, aka the Cohen family. Mostly the actual people were just doing their thing. So the story is unless you bring your goat to the temple then the priest’s god will send another nation as a boogieman to kick us off the land. It wasn’t until the second century BC that Judaism was widespread. The Jew scribes created their tribal nationalistic… Read more »
Indeed….The Tower of Babel was destroyed because it threatened the world of separate nations ordained by the Creator…
Our was the story, the *beginning* of separate nations?
The one thing all of these people would agree upon is Christ died for all mankind, so all men, regardless of race or ethnicity, can accept Jesus Christ and thus become a Christian. If your church is open to everyone, then it stands to reasons that your community is open to everyone, which contradicts the logic of nationalism. “Stands to reason.” I don’t think so, though I know a lot of people that do. In the conservative Christian churches I have attended, non-believers are welcome into the Church services with an eye toward bring them to accept Christ. In other… Read more »
“If you are in our community trying to tear it down or redesign it, we cannot and should not welcome you.”
But by then, it may be too late. The key is to not admit any groups of people who seem likely to attempt a tear-down job. How that comports–or not–with Christianity, I do not know.
I think it comports well. We simply have to reject the idea that we can’t learn from experience (“prejudice”) or inductive reasoning.
If a society is likely to be corrosive toward yours, you don’t invite them in, you send individuals among them. God doesn’t say “And invite, therefore, all nations into yours….” He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”
The wedding feast parable speaks exactly to this. Many were invited, but the guest that showed up inappropriately attired (i.e., not in line with the intentions and customs of the host) was cast out.
But wouldn’t that mean that you would accept all people who accept your church’s beliefs, including Central and South Americans, blacks, whoever. Now, that might work for a single church which can enforce behavior, but a society/country would quickly fall apart. You can kick out of your church non-whites or whites who don’t behave or who stop believing, but a country can’t do that once these people have citizenship. What happens to the society/country when those Central Americans or Africans or their descendants start acting like, well, Central Americans and Africans. Christian Nationalism would still be a proposition nation, and… Read more »
There were ethnic communities with their own Churches for most of U.S. history. Never an issue. While technically they could no kick out anyone based on race, in practice people would self-segregate.
Yes, but a country based on Christian Nationalism would have no moral basis to keep out non-whites. What works for an individual church wouldn’t work for a country.
Christian Nationalism is proposition nation, no different from colorblind civic nationalism in terms of how it would work for a society, i.e., it would eventually fail.
Proposition nations just don’t work on the ground.
Yes, it could keep out non-Whites, because nationalism and nations are recognized and honored by God. See my postw elsewhere on this thread.
Citizen, that is incorrect. Christian nationalism starts with nationalism: each nation in its place. We are to fill the earth, not all congregate in Babel. The nations are to remain separate until Judgment Day, otherwise the literal Word of God is nonsensical. If that isnt clear to a reader of the Bible, then said reader is illiterate.
But then, what kind of morality should our nation have? The answer is a Christian morality. Thus, Christian Nationalism.
I kind of address this in another post on this thread — search for it. The Bible is drenched in nationalism. There’s nothing un-Biblical about keeping the nations separate. You can have African Christians and European Christians without abandoning the idea that people do best among their own nations.
But a country based on Christian Nationalism would need to make the race or ethnicity component explicit.
“We are a Christian and European society. We believe in God and that God wants this land to be for the European (or whatever white tribe you want) nation and no other.”
And that’s fine.
Yep. To each his own: each nation is to be separate, self ruled, with its own Church and Prince/government. To invade and take over another nation is Conquest, one of the personnae of Satan. You cannot be Christian and also serve Satan by conducting conquest of another nation.
but a country can’t do that once these people have citizenship
Says who?
If you follow such multinational inclusions—in Israel, under their “right of return law”—you see it doesn’t work there as well. The Somalis (Ethiopians?) have “returned” and they are controversial and discriminated against socially. There are still many Rabbis that decry the Russian invasion of a few decades ago and claim that most of the Russians admitted were *not* Jewish! There are lessons here for us as well.
> We don’t welcome people who are hostile to our beliefs. You can be a homosexual and come and listen, receive instruction and absorb that, but if you come in demanding that we perform your marriage ceremony or allow homosexuals to be pastors in our church, then that’s right out.
The inclusiveness mind virus needs to be eliminated. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “we need to meet them where they are” when dealing with total subversives. The minute they act in bad faith, they’re out for good.
The point of meeting them where they are is to move them on from where they’re stuck.
That second part seems to be lost on many.
Totally…The separate nations and races have a purpose, so the anti-Christians want to destroy them…
I watched LA Confidential last night. Central to the corrupt LAPD captain’s plot to muscle out the Jewish crime boss, was his framing of innocent black men for a murder he committed of the white cops who stole his heroin.
Well, at least two white cops had the integrity and balls to be heroic and foil the capo’s plot and bring him down.
Now, sadly, I am sure that when I watched it back in the day, I probably eagerly accepted the corrupt white cop frames innocent black guy plot point.
Author James Ellroy is, of course, a Christian conservative.
Without getting bogged down in matters theological, the church has served as one of the ways in which ethnically related white people (e.g., Germans, Scandinavians, English people, etc.) have been able to bond together and form communities. The message of Christianity may be universal (particularly after the efforts of St. Paul) but in practice it has served as a means of forming and maintaining communities of ethnically-related white people. For precisely this reason Woke, and the sinister forces behind it, have Christianity in their cross-hairs. One can’t even say “Merry Christmas” anymore — it’s become “Happy Holidays.”
It feels like the right is always fighting battles it has already lost. Nationalism as imagined 200 years ago is dead in the United States and Europe, as immigration has already reached a critical mass that nothing outside of mass expulsions will create an ethnically cohesive country again. Christian Nationalism suffers the same problem as creedal citizenship, as it is a country based on nebulous ideas instead of people. With the dawn of technology and ease of travel though, it’s easier than ever to migrate and create communities of like-minded people. There’s little logistical reason now why a mass of… Read more »
Nozick’s minimal security state returns as a “creedal community”.
Meanwhile, the Ukes and the Russians are busy demonstrating how hard it could be in the future for central governments to enforce their writ in distant/remote areas.
“The good part about collapse is eventually the State loses its ability to enforce its own laws, which is how South Africans are getting away with creating their own mini-societies that actually work, along with their own law enforcement. Expect to see much more of that. ” Indeed. The fragmentation that is following on from dissolution is the biggest story of modern history. Like all utopian impulses, the WEF master plan will prove and in fact is proving a massive, destructive failure. We already can adjudge it to have been too insane to ever have a chance. Take not of… Read more »
Jack Dodson: “the recent backpedaling from Fink and Gates”
URLs?
Thanks.
For whatever reason I can’t post links, but for recent examples Google “Gates does sudden u-turn on climate doom” and “Fink abandons weaponized ESG.”
My guess is the luxury beliefs are getting into their pockets.
Great post overall, but you had me here:
“Instead of a Hail Mary pass to save a country that’s already gone, organizing and building local alliances outside the purview of our rapidly deteriorating country is far more likely to end in a decent life for those you care about.”
This, so much this. There is no saving the country.
And that is where I’ve notice such forming in small, pastor lead, congregations assembling in members’ houses for common prayer and unity. I assume most of us are familiar with large churches and congregations, but this is radically different.
I once had the pleasure of talking at length with such a pastor. Never once did I think he was some kind of oddball or kook. Once the common morality is decided, everything seems to fall into place.
“…Christian Nationalism suffers the same problem as creedal citizenship..” ——————————– Hrrrmmmmm… I dunno Chet. If you crack the history books, that ol’ rugged Cross has been on the ropes countless times before. The “Usual Suspects”? Pbbfbfbffffft! The faggots and freaks are nothing compared to the organized powers that have tried to destroy the faith in times past. The Phillistines, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Soviets, and now… the Rainbow Folk? Likewise the traitors and betrayers in the highest seats of power within the Christian fellowship – Popes have been toppled by the same people they tried to betray. Inevitably, the… Read more »
and now… the Rainbow Folk?
The Rainbow Folk are nothing but shock troop cannon fodder. The real force behind them has been at it since the Bronze Age.
When our heavily resource-based technology and culture decline enough, religion will become more local again…along with everything else…
Also, frankly, you’re way overblowing the importance of Christian Zionism, which (like New Atheism, perhaps not coincidentally) was big during the Bush years, but now is a shadow of what it used to be. That John Hagee video has 65,000 views – in 2005 something like it would have had a couple million; that charity to help Ukrainian Jews raised $2.5 million dollars today, but in 2005 they would have been able to raise 25 million in a week. In 2023, nobody but the Boomerest of Boomers thinks we have to help Israel destroy Iran so that Jesus will come… Read more »
Your instinct for the ad hominem is not very Christian.
What’s the ad hominem? He didn’t attack you
He wrote: “Also, frankly, you’re way overblowing the importance of Christian Zionism, which (like New Atheism, perhaps not coincidentally)”
I am not easily fooled.
“I am not easily fooled.”
Perhaps over sensitive here. I too missed the Ad Hominem. (For what that’s worth.)
Spot on. The simultaneous collapse of Christian Zionism and social conservatism are of a piece. The recent rise of Orthodoxy likely is the direct result of this social change. American Judeophilia probably peaked around 2004 and has entered a period of rapid decline. Given who runs the media, this also likely explains the heavily promoted panic over “hate,” which in turn ironically will accelerate the hostility and pace of change. The rejection of the Scofield Bible and to a somewhat lesser extent Vatican II is something that in time will be seen as a watershed.
How much of that $2.5 million was seed money? Groups like that usually have one big donor to kick off the campaign, and present the look that it is something to join. I agree that it is a small amount.
Yes, I think the Judeo-Christian routine is fading. Anyone with a brain has noticed what a one-way street it is.
Christian Nationalism is an oxymoron. Christianity from the very inception was a universalist creed. One that not only accepted any and all acolytes, but also claimed dominion over all mankind. It is a very black pill to realize that Christendom took a fatal wrong turn with the reformation. The worst predictions at the time, that protestants would ultimately reject law itself and that every man would be his own church (god) have proven true. Nationalism was a novel idea in the 16th century that attempted to bring peace to end the religious wars that followed the reformation. And it worked… Read more »
This was excellent. But it’s not impossible that some form of Christian nationalism will be an important faction in the formation of “whatever comes next”. I’m guessing the next phase is some “league” or “confederation” of tribes/groups that share some common goals and common enemies. But who knows?
Christendom did not take a “wrong turn” with the Reformation, it was obliterated by the Reformation.
The solution to the problem of how crappy everything is ever since we abandoned Christendom is… Christendom.
There is an argument that the modern Bible believing Judeo-Christians are the final expression of the teachings of Christ. The early church made enormous compromises in order to convert Western man. Much of what we think of as Christian was re-packaged customs and ideas from the pagans. This was done to bring these people into the fold on the assumption that once they abandoned their folk religions, they would make the final journey to the new religion of man. That final journey has happened and with it the old churches will fall away. I am not saying I think this… Read more »
Videos created by popular rabbis match what you are saying: Christianity served the purpose of bringing the goyim to their god. The next phase is Noahide laws, and this is moving forward quickly. The idea is to have the world whoreship the jews’ god and them as a priest class. But the Jesus part of Christianity is blasphemy, with the penalty of head chopped off. The goyim just have to follow simple noahide premises and they will be righteous gentiles, and go to heaven, no need for Jesus. Bush One was the first president to sign the declaration that Noahide… Read more »
This is actually a great comment. The Noahide laws are those God gave for *all* men, then there are another 613 or so for his “chosen” people (sucks to be you. 😉 )
Anyway, the aspect of deifying Jesus and worshiping him seems to be problematic for Jews, Muslims, and any number of other belief systems. A unitary God, not so much.
I don’t dwell so much on these questions of doctrine as I do on the underlying morality of such belief. But what do I know…
Te Bible also talks about nations and identifiable people tho. It’s a misreading (mostly deliberate by the usual suspects) of Paul’s epistles that leads to the belief that Christianity is somehow incompatible with a genuine nation. Major Christian thinkers such as Aquinas warned against allowing the stranger/foreigner participate in your people’s political issues, as well. For most of its existence, Christianity has been fine about nations. In that respect, Christian nationalists have far less theological problems to reconcile than their opponents. “The last time a world bestriding empire fell into political crisis…”? Are you seriously referring to Rome? You’re exaggerating… Read more »
The GAR is much more powerful in relative and absolute terms than the British or Spanish empires ever were. Not least because both of those empire had peer competitors at the height of their power that limited their actions. America does not have any. Another difference is that most of the territory of the British and Spanish empires was unproductive wastelands in the tropics that were net drains on their wealth and power. The GAE has wisely cut those places loose, and created structures that enable the extraction of what feeble resources they have that are wanted. That operationally is… Read more »
Laughable to claim that the US has no limiting factors.
The US does not even “span” the land over which it claims to have jurisdiction over.
The US has lost control of most of its inner cities and the native stock are a despised minority in its wealthiest state.
US did not cut Third World utopias loose; it cannot police them egs Afghanistan,Iraq,Vietnam…
US is weaker than WW1 Austro-Hungarian empire . NATO, including the US, can only produce about 8% of the artillery shells the Austrisns could in 1914 before that empire had to massively ramp up production for the war.
This is my take as well. While the GAE was mucking around in Whereverstan, it was increasingly unable to control the D.C. ghettoes. This trend is accelerating.
To be fair, Peak GAE was unprecedented in influence, but that faltered in rather short order. Comparison to the also short-lived Portuguese Empire, putting aside the financial and communication reach, seems about right.
The GAE’s greatest strength is its cultural and political influence. Its hideous pop culture and its multiculti liberal democracy infiltrate virtually every interstice on the planet, thanks in no small measure to digital technology and global capitalism. At any rate, no previous empire in history exerted the sort of cultural and political influence the GAE does.
@Ostei:
Right. Even more than the GAE proselyting via is hideous pop “art” and lunatic secular theology, its treatment of those who reject these cultural atrocities as heretics has been quite something to watch. It is battling heretics both inside and outside the tent now and I am confident it will lose.
“ The GAE’s greatest strength is its cultural and political influence. ”
Yep, I still remember “Expo 67” in Canada. The Russian pavilion had nothing but space craft in its exhibition. The German pavilion, machine tooling systems. The Canadians a lumber Jack show and pictures of the great outdoors. The American pavilion, movie stars, picture shows, stage plays and the like. Looked like an add for Las Vegas.
America does not have any.
Correction: For a brief period (fall of USSR to about 10 years ago) the GAE did not have any. And it completely squandered that period.
Not sure Britain had any peers in any meaningful sense from, say 1815-1870.
I think you exaggerate both the strength and influence of the GAR, to be honest.
“The collapse of the current order won’t be a world-changing event on the scale of Rome.”
I honestly don’t know. The Roman empire was really the “Greco-Roman world” and with the collapse of the western empire, that world was rent asunder. In other words, the Roman empire was just the final installment in a process started by the Greeks almost a thousand years prior. It was a civilization. With the demise of the GAE we may see the end of the anglophone world that began with British conquest.
I think this is correct. The seat of the Anglo Empire moved from London to Washington, but it also shifted from a Cavalier empire to a Roundhead empire. The GAE is the final chapter of this long running conflict.
The American Empire as a seamless phenomenon from the English Civil War to now?
Hmmmm.
This thesis is, in and of itself, worthy of its own post, Zman. Maybe several posts. Your post today raised a lot of discussion about what constitutes Christian Nationalism, likely because there is no precise definition. I view Christian Nationalism as a movement in which being a Christian is a necessary, but not sufficient, element to being considered part of the Nation, and thereby to hold political rights. Thus, there’s no inherent conflict in saying, for example, that from a Christian Nationalist view in order to be a member of the German nation you must be both Christian and German,… Read more »
Was Aquinas making this argument against allowing foreigners into your politics from a Scriptural perspective or an Aristotelian perspective?
That I would have to look up. As Leviticus has all sorts of prohibitions against foreigners and even the grandchildren of foreigners having any say in public affairs, he may simply have been channelling the OT.
Nonetheless, the notion that nationality/nations and Christianity are somehow incompatible would have struck most Christians throughout 90% of Christianity’s history as absurd.
The idea that Christianity is incompatible with nationhood is a Twentieth century idea. It has no long-standing theological pedigree.
Well the first thing to notice is we are surrounded by blatant and obvious evil on all sides and it’s getting worse. And when these people say that they hate all religions, they really don’t, they hate Christianity. Catholicism in particular. And now you’ve got an anti-pope on St Peter’s chair totally in league with the satanic Western elites which numerous saints have been saying would happened towards the end. I don’t know but I think discounting Jesus is probably a bad move right now. And here’s a good post on the diversity of man and the Church
https://neociceroniantimes.substack.com/p/acts-1726-and-a-biblical-approach
Even those who think Scripture is the only source of truth are faced with the fact that Scripture is a man-made thing.
Orthobros tend to point out that Protestantism believes in sola scriptura which is “scripture only”. In contrast Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism also use writings of the apostolic fathers as a basis for teaching.
But to your larger point, scripture and saints’ writings aren’t man-made…if you’re Christian, you would believe they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
That creates new problems. If they were inspired as some argue, then why the contradictions? If you answer that the men who wrote them down were inspired, not controlled, then we are back to human error. The point is that there is a lot of room for a reformer to refashion the central message of Christ, as well as the foundational texts.
Thank you for that clarity. I’ve been thinking along the same lines for decades, but this puts it into high relief. Christianity cannot have its cake and eat it, too.
What contradictions?
What contradictions?
I know you are aware that the topic of divine inspiration has a history of scholarly thought that stretches back literally thousands of years. It is just too big to get into in a comment thread, but there are answers to the objections you raise.
“But to your larger point, scripture and saints’ writings aren’t man-made.”
The gospels were written by men. On the basis of oral accounts. One can argue they were inspired by the holy spirit but that elides over the point Z man is making. Also, with the proliferation of gospels in the second century, four were chosen. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, was binned and only rediscovered in the 20th century.The early church fathers decided what was and what was not scripture.
“The early church fathers decided what was and what was not scripture.” What kind of a God would He be if he didn’t make sure the early church fathers chose scriptures that He thought would best serve His interests? And as for the differences between, say, Catholic and Protestant Bibles (e.g., the Apocrypha ), one has to assume that served His interests, too — there’s little, if anything, in the Apocrypha, as far as I know, that brings the basic structure of our beliefs or basic morals into question. There’s a very long plan being unfolded around us. It is… Read more »
Hear, hear (or amen & amen is perhaps more apropos in this case).
Thanks Mr. Z. I am reminded of Arnold Toynbee’s observation that when a society’s ruling class ceases to be a creative minority and becomes a dominant minority, the capacity for creativity passes to the non-elite, often in the form of new religion. We may be seeing the beginning of that process today. Christianity will have to change or die.
I always thought Constantine brought in the Old Testament with its nationalism because he realized Christianity wasn’t sufficient to run the empire.
The Catholic Church earlier had rejected Marcionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism
It’s obvious why Marcionism was rejected as an heresy. It’s explicitly opposed to the words of Jesus himself. Marcion of Sinope was a crank.
Jesus and the apostles repeatedly affirm the authority and truth of the Old Testament. Constantine didn’t invent that.
>” If your church is open to everyone, then it stands to reasons that your community is open to everyone, which contradicts the logic of nationalism.”
Not at all. Why would it mean that? These are entirely different spheres of endeavor. Different rules apply. For example, I might serve someone at my business who I would never invite over to my house, because their money is green and business is business. Different spheres, different rules. The fact that everyone is welcome to pray in my church doesn’t obligate me to throw open my country’s borders to infinity Somalians.
Hell, even in the 20th century it was common to have, say, a Polish Catholic parish next to an Irish parish, and the two would not interact very much. Catholics and Orthodox have lots of experience managing exactly this thing.
Unless you presuppose magical transport, for people to be welcomed into your faith, they need to be welcomed into your church, which means welcomed into your community. Given the limitation on travel when these ideas were formed, you have to assume early Christians understood the implications of what they were saying.
We must ask ourself this: if we could go back in time and ask Jesus himself whether his teachings meant that all peoples were morally obligated to welcome all other peoples to dwell permanently among them, what would he say? I’m afraid this falls outside my bailiwick, but my gut tells he Christ would answer in the negative.
My gut tells me the same. Jesus: Mt. 7:22 & 23 – On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name. And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Paul 2 Cor. 6:14,15 Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does… Read more »
Christ regularly taught of the differences in station among individual men. Why wouldn’t those differences also apply to families, tribes, and nations? To teach universal acceptance would presuppose a nearly complete equality among those peoples, culturally, economically, and spiritually. But that’s a foundational belief of the left, so I think it’s safe to assume it’s un-Christian.
Before the Revolution, one could be literally whipped to the border if one were the wrong Christian denomination.
That’s why Thomas Jefferson wrote his famous “separation of church and state” letter; he had watched a Baptist minister being scourged at the whipping post for preaching in public.
IIRC, Matthew 28:19-20 says “…make disciples of all nations…” not peoples.
Nations are comprised of “people.” No people, no Nation.”
Indeed, a natio is, for all intents and purposes, an ethnicity or a people.
27:25
It’s a binary choice, really. Either they did or they didn’t. The circle can’t be squared.
I one spoke to one who weaseled out of the issue by claiming they were predestined to.
Z, have you ever attended church regularly?
“The one thing all of these people would agree upon is Christ died for all mankind, so all men, regardless of race or ethnicity, can accept Jesus Christ and thus become a Christian. If your church is open to everyone, then it stands to reasons that your community is open to everyone, which contradicts the logic of nationalism.”
None of this follows.
You only need look at how many churches aren’t racially diverse, ie most of them.
The guys on the Christian nationalist side are busy hashing this out. First, I do not know of any that accept the propositional nation concept. So, that rules out universalism. Second, most recognize that ethnic differences exist and people will gravitate to their own ethnic groups. Nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn’t lead to the sin of pride in one’s group (i.e. a superiority complex.) That addresses the race issue. Finally, usually, the pro-Christian nationalists use something like the Nicene creed to define Christianity. That covers Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and the vast majority of Evangelicals. That provides… Read more »
I am amused by the abuse the Judea-Christians get on gab. They show up and do their act for a minute and then everybody’s like, “Eff you! Recite the Nicene Creed!”
They literally never do. Turns out, the Creed really is a useful tool for identifying a Christian.
Some of the bigger congregations/mainstream are pretty diverse. But that is our experience in the GAE because the GAE is diverse. Anti-nationalism does not necessarily follow from salvation being open to all. In fact, churches started out as local, and in the Catholic Church you have various rites tied to specific ethnicities. Catholicism did not inhibit nationalism in the post Roman Empire, the “Dark Ages”, Medieval Europe, the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance. Seems it all went to shit with modernity.
Orthodoxy is formally divided along national lines. Hence, there is the Russian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, etc. This doesn’t automatically mean that the Orthodox oppose open borders, of course, but it certainly suggests they believe in the validity of the nation-state, which is highly significant, I think.
For a thousand years, there was only one Church, one Faith in Iesu Christos, until the pontiffs in the west decided they felt they were the supreme authority in their own lands, not the distant patriarchs.
(p.s.- there are a number of descriptions of the historical Christ; he had blonde hair and grey-blue eyes, as his mother had dark blonde hair, green eyes, and a large nose. The Usual suspects are pushing the Cheddar Man version of Jesus as of late.)
Every Protestant Church is festooned with rainbows. The Pope is an open borders fanatic. The SBC has embraced diversity as the highest goal. Maybe it is you who needs to visit a church and update your priors.
Mainline protestant churches are rapidly dying out. Most of them have already put out projects of the date they will cease to exist. I would expect the money and assets to get spun off into progressive non profits no longer tied to Christianity.
There are other solid protestant churches that are growing. Still not enough of them though.
You didn’t address my point, either out of dishonesty or simply not being able. I’ve noticed this is a habit of yours. None of those things address what I said.
Also, you argue like a bitchy woman.
I did address your point which was nonsense on stilts. As far as you noticing things about me, you may want to get that stack of lumber removed from your eye. Maybe you will see all the gay guys sitting around you at church.
Hey Z, you ever been to a Southern Baptist Church in the South? Only rainbows you will find there are on the blackboard where they are teaching kids about the flood.
The largest denominations are all rotten. The seminaries are controlled by liberals and that is who is going to produce future pastors. A church in the SBC might have a good pastor now, but it will be very difficult for them to continue to get them long term. LCMS is supposed to be the “conservative” Lutheran church. Their President is a buffoon more concerned with expelling “nazis” in the church than pushing out people bringing in woke politics.
Z- I enjoy this site on a daily basis. Have occasionally bought you a cup of Java. That said, your responses today seem pettily defensive and rhetorically pedestrian. Your blase response to Intelligent dasein germane and cogent comment was particularly disappointing.
Those two have a history. ID’s remark may indeed by germane and cogent, but given ID’s past behavior I don’t blame Z for not giving that comment its due. Disagreeing agreeably is a sure means of faciliting civil and productive conversation. While ID’s contemplating uncaused causes, he might want to hoist in that little verity as well.
No one is as accommodating to commenters as I am here. If I am short with someone from time to time, the reason you notice is that it is so rare.
The answer to your question is more than likely, “No.” *Z is not now nor has in the past been a regular churchgoer of his own volition*, despite his good private school R Catholic education. Like guys can tell if another guy was a team-sport player or not, churchgoers can sniff out their own sort PDQ and Z does not have the odor of regular attendance on him. So, “Yes” he is talking from his fourth point of contact rather than from his experience in this instance. Z is correct in that many denominations & churches have gone woke, but… Read more »
“The last time a world bestriding empire fell into crisis it gave birth to a new religious movement that eventually swept the world. Whether or not there is a theologian or even a charismatic leader ready to accept the challenge is unknown, but the ground is fertile for such a thing.”
I think you agree that Woke has all the trappings and indicia of a religion. Isn’t the fertile ground being plowed already by Wokies?
By the logic of Z’s last sentence, our future is…Mormon.
Think about it: Mormonism is not new; it’s been bouncing around for 150 years. There were campaigns against them early on. It’s got a high convert rate and a high birth rate. Many people including Christians think it’s a ridiculous or even dangerous cult. In time, we’ll get a Mormon President, a Mormon Constantine, and then say hello to the Mormon millennium….God help us!
If Mittens is any reflection of a Mormon leader, I doubt it
As more traditional Christian churches move to the fore, Mormonism will fade. The Mormon church follows societal trends. Polygamy is the rule, until it got in the way. Blacks were cursed until suddenly they were not in the 70’s. Give them ten more years and they will be all in on the alphabet bandwagon. There is a lot to admire about them. They are not Christian.
People have been betting against Mormons since long before you were born. If you think Mormons aren’t Christian, you don’t actually know them. You’re parroting accusations that were stale 100 years ago.
The answer to the dilemma described in the article is to create smaller nations within a larger agreed upon treaty whereby the fundamental freedom of people is affirmed, and nations agree not to go to war without just cause. Then let people exclude or include who they want, and may the best ideology win.
As I told my coffee group regarding Mitt, anyone gullible enough to believe Joe Smith was a prophet is too gullible to be president. Read “No Man Knows My History” by Fawn Brodie.
That assume Amit is a true believer. He may not be, but since the church is useful and he has a high status within….
Does one believe the hierarchy of the “Church” of Scientology cult are believers or grifters.
Sorry, spell checker. Should be: Amit > Mitt.
That is one possibility, but I would note that fitness applies to all things. Woke looks a lot like Shakerism with the same end.
Good point. Transgenderism certainly is a genetic dead end.
One said that of homosexuality, but they’ve existed through all of mankind’s written history. I suspect they can be limited, but the mental pathology causing such will continue down the line.
It’s too bad the Woke don’t make nice furniture.
They’re down with pegging, but the rest of fine carpentry is a mystery to them.