“The truth is that, for all their talk about social “roots,” conservative intellectuals in the postwar era were often rootless men themselves, and the philosophical mystifications in which they enveloped themselves were frequently the only garments that fit them.”
Samuel Francis
I started reading Sam Francis just about when he started writing in public venues. I suspect that I have read a good percentage of what he put down on paper. I also listened to many of his lectures and interviews. Francis was a pillar in establishing what I had been building as part of my understanding of politics. There were others before Sam. Growing up in Michiana I was exposed very early to M. Stanton Evans; Editor of the Indianapolis Star. At age 18 I received a subscription to “Human Events” as I began college. Evans was also the Editor of Human Events and I was gifted with the subscription by a conservative Uncle who was concerned that I would go liberal attending college. Also on the early conservative arc, as a youngster I would devour all of Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune I could get my hands on. Royko was a hard-bitten cynical conservative and his sarcasm, as in the mouth of Slats Grobnik, gave me a good laugh before I folded up the newspapers in the preparatory process that would end with me delivering those newspapers on my bicycle all over Sturgis, Michigan.
All this to say that I was exposed to the conservative mindset from the tenderst of ages. This was then given epistemological foundations when studying under Dr. Glenn Martin — a man who somehow slipped through the cultural Marxist net that worked to exclude doctrinaire conservatives gaining status in higher education. This was already well established by 1977 when I matriculated to Marion College. Glen Martin solidified all that I already was by instinct because of my family, my Christian religion, and my reading habits. Later in my 30s I subscribed to “Conservative Chronicle” and in my 40s it was on to “Chronicles Magazine.” Serving as a foundation underneath that reading of Conservative Essayists and Journalists I was reading the books that those Journalists themselves had read. Authors like Burke, Dabney, Burnham, Lindbergh, Garet Garrett, Meyer, Whittaker Chambers, Christopher Dawson, Maistre, T. S. Eliot etc. have been eagerly consumed over the years.
Today, I have given up the “Conservative” sobriquet as conservatives are typically about as useful as tits on a bore given how they have been compromised by the liberal zeitgeist of the last 85 years. Today, I refer to myself as “Dissident” or “Paleoconservative,” or “Biblical Christian.” I have come to the conviction, as learned from Rushdoony, that it is not possible to be “Conservative” and not be Christian since any conservatism that is not built on the foundation of Biblical Christianity is just another form of humanism. Should anyone doubt that they should listen to Rushdoony slice and dice the conservative foundations of Russell Kirk from one of Rush’s lectures on Pocket College.
Much today in the “Evangelical Church” that is considered conservative is just warmed over cultural Marxism. This explains why Samuel Francis once wrote;
“The institutional Christianity that flourishes today is no longer the same religion as that practiced by Charlemagne and his successors, and it can no longer support the civilization they formed. Indeed, organized Christianity today is the enemy of the West and the race that created it.”
Samuel T. Francis
In the initial quote Francis explained how useless modern Conservatism had become. In this immediate quote above Francis underscores how useless Christianity has become as it is now a different religion than the Christianity embraced by our Fathers.
Every generation is prone to reinterpret Christianity through the lens of the prevailing zeitgeist and worldview. Our generation is no different. Today the Christianity that is found even in our putative “conservative” churches is a
Christianity that our Fathers as recent as Machen, Morton H. Smith, and John Edwards Richards would neither recognize nor would they confess.
And with the change of Christianity so Western Civilization as changed into a civilization that our Fathers would likewise not recognize. Civilizations are what they are according to two realities;
1.) The people that populate those civilizations
2.) The theology (belief system/Worldview) those same people embrace
Those two realities are not isolated from one another. When a people’s theology changes so will the people themselves and as the people change so one can look for the theology to change. We see this in the West right now. As we have abandoned the Christianity of our fathers we have simultaneously embraced the theology of alien and strangers so that we ourselves are losing our ethno-national identity. Having given up on our previous ethno-confessionalism we have embraced a differing ethno-confessionalism so that both our confession and our ethnicity are different than even what our Grandfathers confessed and were. In brief, if we could bring back our Grandfathers-Great Grandfathers they would not recognize us as their descendents — either in what they believed nor in their genetic makeup.
Francis’s last sentence in the quote above is worthy of consideration. Organized Christianity is, more often than not, the enemy of the West and the White Anglo Saxon Christian who created it. This fact is easily demonstrated by positing that even the reading of this sentence in most “conservative” churches would be met with screams, howls, and clothing rent in anguish.
The chief problem in the West is not political, sociological, nor educational. The chief problem in the West today is the “conservative” “Christian” church with its soyboy “clergy.” Just look at the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod with its “attack without due process” of the Stone Choir podcast chaps. Just look at the OPC and its embrace of the gynocracy. Just look at the PCA with its inability to discipline the proto-sodomite crowd in their midst. Just look at the CREC with its constant anti-whiteism agenda reaching its zenith in the fatuous Antioch Declaration. The current conservative denominational scene bears testimony that what Sam Francis wrote 30 years ago was prescient.
Christianity is such an enemy of the West and the race that created it today that were I myself not clergy it is doubtful that I would darken the door of a church. Today’s Christianity has been reinterpreted through the grid of Cultural Marxism and Jesus Christ has no more interest in the conservative Christianity today than He had interest in the synagogue before His resurrection and ascension.
We need to psychologically resolve to understand that the visible church today, exceptions notwithstanding, is ICHABOD and act accordingly. There is no shame in not attending a Church that holds to a Christianity that is at war with what the Church taught when it was not yet compromised by the spirit of the age.
Great reflections, Pastor Bret.
That one line from Francis–“…the race that created it…”–has always given me pause, because I obviously believe Christianity has existed from the foundation of the world, and owes its existence to God, not to any man.
In the past, I’ve taken the liberty of assuming that Francis was referring only to the organized Christianity *of today*, which certainly is a creation of man.
But I suppose there’s also truth to the idea that the particular organization of Christianity in the West–though not the religion itself–owes it’s existence to our people (as guided by Providence).
That is a good catch on your part Evan.
As I read the quote I took the phrase; “And the race that created it” as meaning how the WASP systematically understood the Christian faith once and forever delivered unto the Saints.” The Christian religion certainly owes its existence to the triune God but one could successfully argue that Christianity in the West is unique as compared to Christianity in non-Western contexts and that is because of how God has created the White man. Still, anyone who would say that Christianity is an invention of the white man would indeed be a fool.
Keep in mind that Francis never confessed Christ until his deathbed from what I understand.
Thanks for writing about this Rev. Bret. I am grateful for men like Doug Wilson, Stephen Wolfe and others who bring these quotes back to life and then men like you that follow in their footsteps and keep the torch going. Thank you for having the courage to stand on their shoulders. So glad I found your blog this week through James Edwards. I hope a bunch of us pro-whites send you lots of donations. Not too many pro-white pastors left these days.
“Christianity is such an enemy of the West and the race that created it today that were I myself not clergy it is doubtful that I would darken the door of a church.”
Brother, be careful that the devil does not get you through the sin of pride (the “leaven of the pharisees”). That you would get so upset over the sins and failings of others that you would feel justified in lifting yourself up.
I would also say that even though “racism” is not a sin, an overt sense of particularity can easily become a seedbed of sinful thought. Like thinking ONLY about your own local church, or your own local country. You should be able to keep a properly “international” vision and think about the interests of the Body of Christ all over the world.
Viisaus,
Thanks for the warning. However, I am merely stating an objective fact and not lifting myself up in pride though I understand it might seem that way. I understand that any measure of understanding I have that is missed by others is completely a matter of grace.
You have to remember that for years I rubbed shoulders with a large number of clergy. I know what these men are like. I have felt their scorn towards me for having the worldview/beliefs I have. I have only known a few who I hadn’t been possessed by the spirit of the age.
You think I take pride in this? You think I am lifting myself up by observing what is objectively true? I could only hope that you could witness the tears I’ve spent over the condition of the Church. I take no pride in this. Everyday I live, I wish it was otherwise.
Finally, it is true that an overt sense of particularity can easily becomes a seedbed of sinful thought just as an overt sense of universality can easily become a seedbed of sinful thought. My various friends from other races suggest that I am not yet dealing with that seedbed.
Still, I know your warning to me comes from a place of concern for my soul and I thank you that you are concerned for me.
I promise you … I take no pride in this but am instead saddened that it is the way it is.
“Finally, it is true that an overt sense of particularity can easily becomes a seedbed of sinful thought just as an overt sense of universality can easily become a seedbed of sinful thought.”
This is of course true as well. Take the apostate ex-Calvinist Friedrich Engels for example, who in all likelihood became intoxicated with the vision that was offered to him (by the enemy of his soul), of becoming, together with Marx, the great prophet and commander of the quickly forming global army of industrial proletariat that would take over the world:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/12/marxs-general
His “birth identity” as a wealthy North German bourgeois factory-owner must have seemed so much smaller to him in comparison, less appealing to his sense of pride and vanity – even though he continued to enjoy his money and high lifestyle all the same.
Our flesh limits us – we cannot pretend to be so divinely omnipotent, or “universal,” when carrying it around, which is why many forms of radical spiritual pride, like Gnosticism, go together with contempt for of our carnal nature. In other words, being too proud of your flesh can be an obvious inspiration for idolatry, like in the case of pagan Nazis, but DESPISING your own flesh, or ignoring it, can be connected to “higher idolatry” and more ambitious forms of pride. As this Alt Right article puts it:
https://counter-currents.com/2021/04/barbarians/
“Having a rooted identity comes at a price. As Mishima was told by a Leftist student, to have a national identity is to be limited — and as Mishima replied, that’s okay. All of us who are here made Arminius’ choice — rather than soaring into the great imperial heavens, chasing glory and prestige, we elected to inhabit a smaller, more intimate, dare I say, cozier space. The price, of course, of imperial height are our roots, our flesh, and blood, our children, born and unborn — our lives, which are ground away into nothingness by the relentless Mammon-machine of Empire. But how is one to reach ever-higher if one is weighed down by smelly, flabby flesh?”
That is a great article you linked.
Thank you
Stone Choir podcast discusses persecution on their most recent podcast. Fits the scorn you get from other pastors.
At the 44 minute mark of the Jon Harris podcast, he replays a presentation at Wheaton College. Great example of “conservative” without Christ. It’s a pseudo-sermon from a Texas conservative Christian women. Pure propaganda but your post made me think of it as an example of conservatism being further gone than you say. Wheaton is actively training it’s students to justify the persecution of Christians, which was the theme of the Stone Choir podcast.