McAtee On The Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate III — Fascism Is A Marxism Variant

Rosebrough and Mahler next go back and forth on whether or not German Fascism was a form of Marxism. Here I score a point for Rosebrough because German Fascism was a form of Marxism. Now, certainly it was a different form of Marxism as expressed among the Communists but they both embrace shards of Marxist thought. Even Hitler admitted this;

“National Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.”

Adolf Hitler
Interview with Hanns Johst in Frankforter Volksblatt
January 27, 1934

People need to realize that there have been countless variants of Marxism and that the various Marxists disagreed with one another hammer and tong over the decades.

In terms of Marxist variants I offer these just off the top of my head. More could be adduced;

1.) Syndicalists
2.) Mensheviks
3.) Bolsheviks
4.) Nihilists
5.) Max Stirner’s Libertarian Marxists
6.) Anarchists
7.) Cultural Marxists (Originating with Italian Antonio Gramsci)
8.) Trotskyites
9.) National Socialism
10.) Bundism
11.) Maoism
12.) Leninism
13.) Stalinism

Marxist thought has spawned countless movements much like larva spawn flies and if one has studied Marxism at all one realizes that they all hated one another like water hates oil, and yet, once one expression had reached an ascendency often people from the other elements would join that expression which had become hegemonic. This explains, why so many rank and file German communists eventually joined the National Socialist movement. It just wasn’t a stretch for them to enter into this slightly different expression of Marxism. Hitler hinted at this;

It is not Germany that will turn Bolshevist, but Bolshevism that will become a sort of National Socialism. Besides, there is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separate us from it… The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will.

Adolf Hitler

The reason that a Communist always would make a National Socialist is because Communism and National Socialism has Marxism in common.

Look at it this way. There are a myriad of expressions of Christianity and among those different expression exist real and substantive differences. However, there also exist real and substantive agreements. In the same way the Marxist religion had all kinds of variants but in the end they all claimed Marxism.

Roseborough was correct, as against Mahler, that Fascism is an expression of Marxism. Communism and Fascism are merely variants of Marxism. Marxism, had TONS of variants, of which Fascism was one.

Score 1 point for Rosebrough.

Current tally …. Rosebrough 1.5 …. Mahler 1.5

McAtee On the Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate II — On The Individual vs. The Collective

Rosebrough grilled Mahler regarding Mahler’s insistence that there is no such thing as the individual. Instinct rises here to agree with Rosebrough but when Mahler makes clear what his definition of “the individual” is one has to agree that Mahler is correct. Mahler is not saying individuals do not exist and all that exists is a hive. Mahler is saying that no individual can claim that he or she are what they are independent of any other considerations. All of us, as individuals, are what we are because of descent as well as the multitude of interrelationships that we develop over the course of our lives. Mahler is merely saying that no man can claim to be sui generis in his individuality.

Mahler, given his definition of individualism (which is admittedly incredibly atomistic) is correct that individualism doesn’t exist.

Now, there are implications though here that need to be examined. Is Mahler saying that because there is no such thing as the individual, given his definition of the individual, that therefore Government arrangement that only emphasize the collective are therefore the best. Corey Mahler did say that he believed in property rights and if that is the case it does strike me that Mahler allows for the existence of what most people would call “the individual” in this political theory. Having said that, Fascism as a political system, which Mahler seems to prefer, has had as a weakness the loss of the individual as that is commonly understood in Western political history. The loss of the individual in a political ecosystem would be a severe loss. To be honest this is one of my concerns about any collectivist political system, but this concern has to be set against the fact that our system of so called individual freedom has, for whatever reason, failed and because of the collectivist agencies in our culture (public schools, churches, media) the rugged American individual largely no longer exists. Our population is as characterized by mindless bots (cogs in a machine) as any collectivist political system you’d like to name. Because of that, Fascism becomes less scary though one could still like to daydream about a system, influenced by the Christian categories of the temporal “One and the Many,” based as it would be on the eternal one and the many could still predominate so that a genuine individualism could exist alongside a healthy collective impulse.

Because, we as a people are no longer Christian, and as such have surrendered how belief in the Trinitarian God permeates a social order, we have surrendered the Trinitarian idea of God’s plurality as expressing itself in our social order/culture in favor of a Unitarian conception of God as located in our State organs. Having given up the God of the Bible in His One and Many expression, we have embrace a Oneism in our social institutions that is no longer complimented by a genuine plurality of authority in our various other institutions. As such we are a collectivist people who believe that in the State we live and move and have our being. This is not a whit different than what one can find in collectivist social orders. The idea that Americans, speaking generally, know anything about true biblical individualism is a joke. This is because all our cultural mediating institutions that once existed in order to drive a true individualism because they were not beholden to a Statist arrangement have been co-opted by the state.

There is no use in Rosebrough arguing for a Democracy where the individual can exist because those days are long gone with the advent of the government schools as combined with the constant conditioning that comes from pulpits and media outlets. All of these work in harmony to collectivize the American mind so that no individual really does exist today. Rosebrough himself, in this debate, reveals over and over again that he is just another collectivist clergy bot reinforcing the collectivist narrative.

Give Rosebrough 1/2 a point for valuing the individual. Take 1/2 point away from Rosebrough for not realizing that the individual no longer exists. Give Mahler a point for being able to read the tea leaves on this subject. Take 1/2 point away from Mahler for not valuing the individual enough.

Final analysis … Mahler + 1/2 point.

Total so far … Rosebrough 1/2 point …. Mahler 1.5 points.

McAtee on The Rosebrough vs. Mahler Debate I — Touching Democracy

Recently there was a debate between two Lutherans here on the subject of political governance. Rosebrough was taking the “Democracy is good” side while Mahler was taking the “Democracy needs to be replaced with Fascism” side.

Overall, I think I was able to be an objective observant because I want nothing to do with either Democracy or Fascism. However, to be fair, I hate Democracy as it is and I can envision a Fascism that would be superior to the Democracy we currently have, though I can also easily envision a Fascism that would be worse than the current Democracy we have.

A few observations;

1.) I am not usually able to sit through these long podcast interviews/debates because they can get so tedious and tendentious. However this one I made through the whole 2 hours 40 minutes. I guess I was captivated by both Rosebrough’s density and Mahler’s unflappability.

2.) Since these chaps were both Lutherans there were times when I, as a Biblical Christian, did not agree with either one. At those points I was completely left agog.

3.) My comments follow the order of the debate. So, if my comments seem disconnected to you you will have to go to the point of the conversation between Rosebrough and Mahler to see what I am getting at.

Turning to my comments on the debate;

1.) Rev. Chris Roseborough faults Corey Mahler for opposing Democracy and yet our founding Fathers viciously opposed Democracy. Idiot points for Roseborough.

Here are Founding Father on Democracy;

“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy.”   -John Adams

“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.” ~ James Madison

“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” ~ Alexander Hamilton

To put pure and simply, “Democracy sucks.” Americans were never given a Democracy but rather were bequeathed a Representative Republic wherein the franchise (vote) was, generally speaking, (exceptions existed in the states) limited to free white men who owned property. Further the US, when it voted to instil the 17th amendment went even further in its embrace of wicked Democracy.

Indeed, all wise men now oppose this Democratic form of Government the US currently has because it is not anywhere near consistent with what we find in the US Constitution. Corey Mahler is correct in opposing Democracy.

Score this point for Mahler.

McAtee Contra Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s Assertions On Worldview Thinking

“He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny, FOUND ONLY IN CHRISTIANITY. This forms a ‘Weltanschauung’ or ‘Christian View of the World,’ which stands in marked contrast with theories wrought out from a purely philosophical or scientific standpoint…. The thing in itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

James Orr
The Christian View of God and the World — p. 4

 Dr. Stephen Wolfe does us the favor of disagreeing with Dr. James Orr in the quote above. Here Wolfe, once again, aligns himself with the same position as the R2K “theologians” even though Wolfe decidedly is not R2K. However, Wolfe does share a great deal with R2K … it sometimes seems as if he shares with them everything but their conclusions.

Anyway, I am going to fisk a Wolfe quote I came across recently on X.

Wolfe writes,


“Worldview” is a reactionary word. Evangelicals found themselves embattled with innumerable, well-accepted ideas in complex fields requiring specialization that seem to oppose conservative Christianity. The average person lacks the expertise in these fields to challenge them on their own terms and by their own methodology. Yet they need to be challenged, because modern life strongly imposes them on everyone. “Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

BLMc replies,

Of course Wolfe is wrong here as Orr notes above;

“The thing in itself(Worldview)  is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

Worldview did not jump out of Zeus’ head in the 20th century as Wolfe errantly writes. As such, it is clearly not a “reactionary word” or concept. Here Wolfe just makes assertions without any proof.

In point of fact, an argument can be made that it was not the Christians who first developed an epistemologically self-conscious muscular worldview but rather that it was the Darwinians. If one considers the writings of Herbert Spencer in “Worldviewizing” the Darwinian conclusions in biology one can easily see that it was the pagans who were going all reactionary against the already established Christian Worldview.

For the evidence that a pagan worldview had long been established we read;

 (This essay) shows that his (Spencer’s) evolutionism was originally stimulated by his association with the Derby philosophical community, for it was through this group—of which his father, who also appears to have espoused a deistic evolutionary theory, was a member—that he was first exposed to progressive Enlightenment social and educational philosophies and to the evolutionary worldview of Erasmus Darwin, the first president of the Derby Philosophical Society. Darwin’s scheme was the first to incorporate biological evolution, associationist psychology, evolutionary geology, and cosmological developmentalism. Spencer’s own implicit denials of the link with Darwin are shown to be implausible in the face of Darwin’s continuing influence on the Derby savants…

Paul Elliott
Erasmus Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the Origins of the Evolutionary Worldview in British Provincial Scientific Culture, 1770–1850

What the above quote demonstrates is that

1.) Worldview thinking was already in high gear as practiced by the heathens long before the timeframe that Wolfe errantly proclaims in his observation above.

2.) Worldview thinking was decidedly not introduced by Christians for the reasons that Dr. Wolfe asserts.

3.) Worldview as a philosophical concept long predated the 20th century as Wolfe errantly asserts.

4.) As such worldview as a philosophical concept was never a “reactionary word” as Dr. Wolfe errantly insists.

5.) Dr. Wolfe doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes,

“Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

Worldview decidedly was NOT introduced for the reason that Wolfe elucidates. As the opening Orr quote indicates Worldview was not introduced in the 20th century by Christians quaking in their boots at the onslaught of modernity but rather is a truth that, as Orr wrote,

“itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

All of the above demonstrates that Dr. Wolfe just doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes about the history of Worldview thinking. In brief what Wolfe says above is embarrassingly stupid and could only be written by someone whose worldview had an a-priori interest in claiming that worldview thinking is not true.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe continued his diatribe;

And “worldview” explained social phenomena with exclusively Christian explanations.

BLMc continues,

Here Wolfe contradicts the Reformed theology of the antithesis which claims the antithesis is a theological principle that is meant to describe the difference between believers and unbelievers and the way they think. There are many ways that we could describe that difference, but we must at the very least describe that difference as limning out the fact that because believers and heathens have different ultimate faith commitments those different ultimate faith commitments color the way each view the totality of life.

As such it is inevitable that Christians, because of the Reformed doctrine of the antithesis would explain matters with exclusively Christian explanations.

In previous explanations Dr. Wolfe has demonstrated that he does not understand the idea of total depravity. Here we see that Dr. Wolfe does not understand the Reformed theological idea of “the antithesis.” Dr. Wolfe has previously admitted that he is not a theologian. We wish he would remember that when he gets into these theological forrays. 

Dr. Stephen Wolfe wrote,

These explanations are typically simplistic and don’t explain much. Further, in effect no evangelical sees the need to know anything about these fields. They only need to know a universal method of “worldview analysis.” It’s a general skill for everything.

BLMc responds,

Let me get this straight … owning a uniquely Christian epistemology (we know what we know by way of revelation vs. naked reasoning or some kind of mystic experience or by human tradition) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian ontology (things did not happen by chance or circumstance but by the supernatural intent of a divine creator) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian axiology (the highest value is the Glory of God, the Kingdom of God and the work of Christ as opposed to a axiology that claims that the highest value is the glory of man, the kingdom of man, and the Utopian work of man) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian teleology (the ultimate end/ destination of man is to be homo adorans — man the worshiper who worships the God of the Bible, not owning a teleology wherein man worships himself in either his individualistic or corporate capacity) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

No specialization required.

BLMc  responds,

This is what is called the red herring fallacy. No Christian who embraces worldview thinking in an epistemologically self conscious way suggest that “no specialization is required” is a host of different fields. Wolfe is just poisoning the well here in order to advance his idiotic Thomistic thinking. It’s all very insulting.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

This is why, I think, some evangelicals convert out of Protestantism. They find that their conservative professors, who actually know the field of study well, are often Roman Catholics (or maybe Anglicans), and they find among them an intellectual ecosystem that favors inquiry and critical thought without importing these “worldview” lenses to explains things away. (I’d also add that evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center-left, at least in disposition). There is nothing about Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in themselves that explains this. Protestant intellectuals dominated intellectual thought in Europe for centuries. It’s entirely to due to historical dynamics, reaction, and the democratization of apologetics. We would become much smarter if we dropped “worldview” entirely.

BLMc responds,

1.) Nobody denies that a Roman Catholic or Anglican can be inconsistent in their worldview, holding to false doctrines touching soteriology but still managing to be correct on some matters in their field of expertise. Nobody denies that Thomistic mathematicians, for example, can count. The question is always, “can they account for their ability to count given their Thomistic worldview that teaches the autonomy of fallen man’s thinking.

2.) Worldview lenses, contrary to Wolfe’s naked assertion, do not merely “explain things away.” That is another red herring and poisoning the well. Is Wolfe really suggesting that those who embrace Worldview thinking who happen to be in any number of fields have not done the heavy lifting of diving into their field of study but instead merely, (presumably with a flippant wave of the hand) “explained things away?”

What is amusing here is that Wolfe himself is merely “explaining worldview thinking away” with a mere wave of the hand as accompanied by a few mindless and untrue assertions on his part.

3.) In this take down of Wolfe I have not used “worldview lenses” to explain things away. I have taken the time to explain and demonstrate where and how Wolfe is wrong in his various assertion. In point of fact it is Wolfe who has used his worldview lens of autonomous Thomistic thinking to explain things away with a mere wave of his hand followed by insulting comments.

4.) I’ve known plenty of Thomists who have been hard left in their specific fields. When Wolfe talks about Evangelicals (presumably with their Worldview thinking in tow) being squishy leftists this is another shot at Worldview thinking that doesn’t taken into account the many “Christians” in various fields who were Thomistic in their thinking and gave up the flag of Biblical Christianity to the Left. (R2K anybody?)

5.) Of course, I’m convinced that “we would become much smarter if we just dropped Dr. Stephen Wolfe entirely. He is poisoning the whole Christian thinking movement.

Now, I’ve been pretty direct here. Part of the reason for that is the gross inaccuracy on Wolfe’s part. Part of it is because how insulting Wolfe has been. The largest part of it is because there is a great deal of stake here. If we as Christians go the direction that Wolfe and the R2K chaps want to take us on Worldview thinking it will be a matter of once again returning to the chaos and dark night of intellectual advance.

This is important.

Advice On People’s Advice Concerning “Manliness”

Recently, there have been a spate of books written on what it means to be a man. Also there have been the requisite blog posts to the same end. Some of it is quite good (Rev. Zach Garris’ book Masculine Christianity for example) while others are questionable at best.

Yesterday, I came across a typical bite sized X post on the subject of manliness from someone who is getting a great deal of press these days that has stuck in my craw because I think it is nonsense and can do a great deal of damage.

Here is the advice I came across from some genius on the subject of manliness;

The best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity. This is the “it” factor. 4th and long. Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. “Manliness loves…the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

The first sentence and the last sentence do not necessarily coincide and are not really the same thing. It can be true that the best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity while not being true that “manliness loves… the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

Also, it is facile to compare being “embattled and alone against the world” with 4th and long and bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. When we think of embattled and alone against the world we think of the martyrs of the faith. That is a bit more consequential and trying then needing to make a first down or get a winning hit. Embattled and alone against the world is Polycarp being burnt at the stake. Embattled and alone against the world is fighting with the Confederacy after Richmond fell. Embattled and alone against the world is Pilgrim in Vanity Fair.

I wonder if someone who is dishing out this kind of advice has ever really themselves been “embattled and alone against the world.” I don’t think someone who has genuinely been “embattled and alone against the world” would use such trivial comparisons to the sportsball world.

It’s easy to toss around this kind of advice when not embattled and alone against the world. Much more difficult to live it out when one is in the vice grip of being embattled and alone.

Now if it had been said that love for greater realities moves one to accept their duty — no matter how difficult — I would have been satisfied with the statement. However, no man loves the position of being embattled and alone. Scripture teaches that we can learn to be content in all things but being content is different than loving being embattled and alone.

I reckon the reason I have taken such exception to this quote is because in many respects my ministry has been one of being embattled and alone. I have some experience here. Now, my being embattled and being alone is nothing to be compared with the saints who have gone before such as are listed in Hebrews 11;

 others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.

The idea that manliness “loves” this being embattled and alone turns manliness into a masochistic ideal. Now, manliness does endure such but to endure something because of one’s priorities is different than loving being embattled and alone.

Paul can write to Timothy saying;

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Timothy is counseled to endure hardness, just as Paul himself endured hardness. But love it, in the sense of being delighted in the hardness itself? Only a masochist would speak that way.

Manliness accepts the responsibility that one is called to. Manliness endures hardness out of love for Christ or for family or for the Church. But manliness does not love the being embattled and aloneness just as realities in themselves. That is not manliness and anyone telling you that it is has never been embattled and alone for sustained periods of time. They have never had to fight knowing that they wouldn’t win in the short term. They have never had to endure solitary confinement. They have never faced being the lone voice of sanity among peers that can damage them professionally for disagreeing as the lone voice. They have never had to endure being ground down year after year. They just are not being rational, choosing instead to embrace some kind of romantic nonsense about what it means to be a man.

And what of the others around this man who loves being embattled and alone? What of his wife and children? Is there no awareness that the man who is embattled and alone has no put his wife and children in the positions of being embattled and alone also? This is not to say that a man must do this if the issue warrants it but if a man chooses not only for himself but for his wife and children to be embattled and alone is it really sane to love that when he sees how much it hurts his wife and children to be embattled and alone — and that even if they agree with whatever the cause is that has them all embattled and alone?

Just to be clear, I do agree that manliness learns how to thrive when the chips are down. My beef is using silly sports analogies for something so serious and my beef is with the idea that real men love being embattled and alone. I suppose real men who are masochistic love being embattled and alone.

Anyway … be careful of the advice that is being thrown around out there in Christian corners. More than a little of this advice is not well thought out.