Category: Culture

“Rulers infallibly decide the religion of the people. The true religion is always the religion of the prince; the true God is the God, whom the prince desires his people to adore; the will of the priests, who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A wit justly observed, that “the true religion is always that, on whose side are the prince and the hangman.” Emperors and hangmen long supported the gods of Rome against the God of Christians; the latter, having gained to his interest the emperors, their soldiers, and their hangmen, succeeded in destroying the worship of the Roman gods. The God of Mahomet has dispossessed the God of Christians of a great part of the dominions, which he formerly occupied.”

Baron d’Holbach
Enlightenment Philosophe/Encyclopedist & Writer

I have repeatedly said that the State and the Church always walk together — the Sceptre and the Mitre are one. When this isn’t the case the result is rebellion and revolution as a culture ruled by a divided Sceptre and Mitre will always be in turmoil.

Because the above is true the whole idea of “freedom of religion” as commonly understood is just ridiculous. What freedom is found in a “freedom of religion” society for those who don’t believe in “freedom of religion?” If one were to believe that no society  should have “any other gods before them,” is that person free in the embrace of their religion?

Understanding the quote above is key to understanding where we are at during this current moment. For decades the “Christian” church in the West has supported the State with its Enlightenment classical liberal religion. This is so true that Christianity has been reinterpreted through that Enlightenment classical liberal grid. This is so true that even some theonomists today will insist that they are “Libertarian Theonomists,” or “Theonomic Libertarians.” Whichever way they flip it, the fact remains that their Christianity is being interpreted through their Libertarianism. This is true, for example, of Doug Wilson, Andrew Sandlin, James White, and others who think that they have a Christian Worldview.

We see this also with the prevailing theology in the Reformed Church today. R2K is nothing but a readjustment of Christianity so as to conforms to the Worldview/religion that is the foundation of the State. R2K will never challenge the State because R2K is the State’s theology.

The quote above explains why Greg Bahnsen and R. J. Rushdoony were so hated by the institutional church. The institutional Church hated these men so viscerally because Bahnsen and Rushdoony’s theology was a challenge to the post-war consensus and so to Enlightenment liberal culture. The quote above explains the travails of John Weaver, Sam Ketcham, Michael Spangler, Ryan Louis Underwood, Myself, and others. Given our return to an older understanding of Christianity we are a threat to the current putative conservative Reformed Church’s alignment with the prevailing zeitgeist. We are a threat to both Sceptre and Mitre.

However, I believe we may be in a transitional stage. More young men are stepping up and saying that they are done with the Post-Enlightenment/Post-War consensus. We live in a time where those gods must be dispossessed and the God of the Bible embraced as Lord over all.

This means we live in a time of opposition. Opposition to the demon inspired State and opposition to the sulfur smelling institutional Church. The Post-Enlightenment/Post-War consensus has to go with its solas of “Holocaust Alone,” “Civil Rights Alone,” “MLK Alone,” “Judeo-Christianity Alone,” and “Netanyahu Alone.”

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of either the Joel Webbon nor the Nick Fuentes fan club. That doesn’t mean I hate them. I don’t. It merely means that I see them as just two more voices existing in a cacophony of voices that comprise the modern world.

I know (from experience) that this will make me persona non grata with many of the  male Gen-Z types. Any criticism of Fuentes meets the response that Uzzah met when touching the Ark of the Covenant. Many of them are rightly angry about the world they have inherited and to their credit they are not swallowing much of the bilge handed down to them from the dumb Boomers who continue to blindly plod on in their acceptance and support of what is now called; “The Post-War consensus.” I hope Gen-Z continues in that course of refusing “The Post-War consensus.”

I tend to view Fuentes as a modern version of Father Coughlin. A man barely anybody remembers now but who in his time was as popular, if not more popular, than Fuentes is now. In Father Coughlin’s day, before the TV, in the 1930s Coughlin reached an estimated 30 million listeners via radio. An astounding number given the US population at the time. Such a listenership made Coughlin, as Fuentes is today, one of the most prominent media figures in these united State. Today very few remember Father Coughlin or that for which he stood.

So … Nick is hot today but the media world is “easy come, easy go” and not many are able to remain on the top of the pile for very long. Yet, that truth does not dissuade Webbon from his youthful hyperbole as Webbon insisted that Nick would one day be President, or failing that would, at the very least, become a Kingmaker without whose support no one could become President.

Now if Fuentes was Protestant I might manage to find just a wee bit more excitement but given his fairly staunch Roman Catholicism even when Nick is slicing and dicing chaps like Piers Morgan or Ben Shapiro I can only get my excitement meter ramped up so much.

Long ago, I realized that talking heads, like politicians, are to be used like a valued tool. As long as the tool is doing the work that one’s need to have done it is just fine and dandy, but once the tool is no longer being effective for my purposes I have no loyalty whatsoever to that tool and will easily cast it aside. I think this way about Fuentes. I think this way about Webbon. I think this way about Doug Wilson. I think this way about Donald Trump. My years of hero worship are behind me.

Still, as I said I can salute all these chaps when they are serving my purposes and cast them aside when they are not.

As it pertains to the first installment of the Webbon interview with Fuentes one thing that become quickly clear is that Webbon and Fuentes are engaged in a project to orchestrate a religious fusion between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism that will serve political ends. The interview is an attempt to expand the Christian Nationalism movement so as to include, in co-belligerence, “Conservative” Protestantism and “Conservative” Roman Catholicism.

Now, I have often said I have no problem with co-belligerents from other faith expressions being part of a Christian Nationalism movement with the condition that it is thoughtful Protestants who are driving the bus. Everyone else is welcome to come along for the ride as long as they can live with Protestants driving the bus.

My reluctance to get on a Christian Nationalist bus driven by Nick Fuentes was seen in the interview. Near the beginning of the interview Fuentes makes it clear that he is against the death penalty except for murder of the most extreme type. Many Protestants believe the same. Even Webbon, who fancies himself some kind of theonomist, said he was willing for the death penalty to be used as only a maximum penalty for crimes that God’s Word says requires the death penalty. In other words, Webbon, like Fuentes, is weak on following on what God’s Word requires. Webbon would, like Fuentes, trim God’s requirement to meet his humanist parameters. At this point it was one humanist (Protestant) interviewing another humanist (Roman Catholic) on what their humanist standards would require for penalties associated with capital crimes. Fuentes said in essence, “no capital punishment except for really bad murderers as well as one other class of criminals,” and Webbon offered in essence, “Capital punishment for those who commit capital crimes except for those times when we decide that capital punishment shouldn’t be employed.” Webbon provided no textual argument where Scripture teaches that the death penalty can sometimes be optional. We were to take it on his say so.

Now, here is where an interesting turn entered. Not five minutes after Nick said “no capital punishment except for really bad murderers” he said that those who desecrate the Roman Catholic Host used in their blasphemous Masses, should  receive the death penalty. Now, he was quick to use Satanists as whom he was referring to as an example of those whom he would give the death penalty. Apparently, Nick knows of cases where Satanists are stealing the Hosts used for the Mass and are using that Host for Black Masses.

Don’t miss the significance of this addendum offered by Nick. Presumably, it would not need to be Satanists alone who were guilty of desecrating the Host who should receive the death penalty in Nick’s Roman Catholic world. Presumably, all non Satanists would also receive the death penalty if they were to desecrate the Roman Catholic Host. Now as a Protestant I think it is a sacred act to desecrate the Roman Catholic Host, and that because the Roman Catholic Mass is a desecration of the Eucharist. Indeed, my confession requires me to confess that “The Roman Catholic Mass is nothing but abominable Idolatry.” I view desecrating a Roman Catholic Host the same way I feel about burning a Koran or  using the Talmud as toilet paper.

Don’t get me wrong … I have no problem meting out some kind of justice to Satanists for worshiping like Satanists. However, making desecration of the Roman Catholic Host a capital crime commits us to being a Roman Catholic nation. To have prohibitions against desecrating the Roman Catholic Host would be to affirm that the Roman Catholic Host is what Roman Catholics say it is, and to affirm that the Roman Catholic Host is what Roman Catholics say it is, is, in turn, to affirm that Roman Catholicism is true. Honestly, from where I sit as a Protestant (Reformed) I see the Roman Catholic Host itself as a desecration of the sacrifice of Christ.

Now, at this point Webbon admits he has disagreements with Fuentes on the subject of the sacraments but immediately pivots to observe what a wonderful thing it was for Fuentes to see the necessity for capital punishment for a crime that would be violation of the first table of the ten commandments. At this point Webbon is desperately seeking to find common ground with Fuentes. A common ground that Protestants and Roman Catholics could agree on in this attempt by Webbon to create this Christian Nationalism fusion movement.

Now, I quite agree that the violations of the first table that require capital punishment should be punished by a Christian magistrate with capital punishment. I have no problem, for example, with Geneva’s Little Council doing what it did to Servetus. I have no problem with a Christian Magistrate visiting the punishment upon a false witness that was going to be visited up the one they were falsely witnessing concerning if they had been convicted. The problem I have is making that which is a desecration of Christ (the Roman Catholic Host) to be something that is not to be desecrated by pain of any penalty, let alone the death penalty.

I don’t know if Webbon and Fuentes will be successful in their attempt at a fusionism that finds Fuente fanboys and Webbon fanboys united in their political Christian Nationalism. I do know that I will be, once again, sitting on the sidelines looking in because I want nothing to do with a movement that has this feel of Roman Catholicism about it, as coming right out of the gate. As Joe Sobran said long ago; “I don’t have a dog in this fight. My dog died a long time ago.”

For those who are Biblical Christians I would advise that you sup with both Fuentes and Webbon with a very long spoon. There are things that these chaps will say and advocate that we will rightly cheer. However, there are also matters they will advocate that are going to poison the stew as a whole. We must continue to fervently pray that we might be like the Sons of Issachar, “who knew the times and what must be done.”