It is beyond obvious now that the contemporary visible “Conservative” church in America has been co-opted by what we are calling, “The post-war consensus.” As I argued yesterday, Christianity has been reinterpreted through the post-war consensus filter with the result that “conservative” Christianity  is no longer particularly conservative nor especially Christian.

This brings us to the realization that regardless of how exacting people in general and clergy in particular are in their formal theology proper that does not necessarily translate as those people practicing Biblical Christianity. Clearly, we are seeing that people and clergy can speak in erudite tones about soteriology, hamartiology, pneumatology, eschatology, ecclesiology, Christology and still be absolutely clueless about what Christianity looks like in concrete, rubber meets the road, kind of ways. Anybody who can praise, for example, a Winston Churchill, or a Martin Luther King, or a Abraham Lincoln at the very least has not learned a fundamental basic of Christianity which is to “hate that which is evil and to cling that which is good.” How can one be thought of as “Christian” when they call good “evil” and evil “good?” I don’t care how much exegetical work you can do on Scripture if you can’t distinguish the overtly obvious goats from the overtly obvious sheep.

We have discovered that there is huge disconnect between Christianity in the abstract and Christianity in the concrete and along the way we have discovered that there are legions of those, within Evangelicalism currently who are reputed to be pillars in the Church yet have nigh unto zero ability to think Christianly in a concrete fashion.

This in turn reveals the necessity to once again to teach Christianity as a world and life view and not merely as a set of abstract concepts that allow one to “be on their way to heaven” regardless of the horrendous views they hold on any number of other subjects. This is not adding anything to fact that Christ alone saves. It is merely an argument that when Jesus Christ saves the sanctification process includes incrementally learning to think in ways that do not praise the sons of Belial (for example Churchill) while condemning the works of the righteous (for example Godfrey of Bouillon). It’s hard to take someone’s Christianity seriously if they are praising as “great” a man who proposed dropping anthrax cakes across Germany in order to murder millions of Germans or who eventually approved of the Morgenthau plan which proposed the same kind of death and mayhem. Yet, over the last few days we’ve seen numerous of those reputed to be pillars in the Church step up to the mic and do just that.

Obviously, then, we have to say that there is such a thing as a Biblical view of history and while it certainly would be possible to be overly punctilious as to what the Christian view of history may or may not be in every instance clearly history done from a Christian world and life view does not allow us to sing the praises of the wicked. Can we not agree that anybody in the Church that praises mass murderers as great men ought to be set aside, if not formally by excommunication, then at least informally by marking out such a man as one to warn people against?

Given the trajectory we are on, I want to go on record as saying I will never praise Robespierre, or Mao, or Stalin, or Castro, Lincoln, or Genghis Khan as great men. (This is me trying to get ahead of where this curve is going.) Neither will I praise the French Revolution, nor the “Great Leap Forward,” nor “The Killing Fields” in Cambodia as Great Christian enterprises.

We should end with a plea that the church would be released from its post-war consensus captivity. We should pray that people would realize that just as one cannot say they love God while hating their brother, neither can they say they love God while praising those who hate God and His people. We should realize that Christianity is a totalistic religion that is inclusive of owning a Worldview that understands that history can be either “Christian” or “Anti-Christ,” and we can resolve that any “Christian” who is teaching history through an anti-Christ prism should be marked out and avoided.

Postscript — All of this points in the direction of needing to train those going into the ministry in history and historiography. Because that hasn’t been happening I would counsel all parishioners to completely ignore your Pastor when he starts talking about history or historical events. He has zero training on the inter-relationship between history and what effects a Christian worldview has on understanding history. If you are going to listen to him I would encourage you especially to be like the Bereans when your Pastor talks about history and go check the primary sources yourself or go to Biblical Christians who have written on whatever history you’re seeking to be informed.

We hear a good deal about “the post-war consensus,” but what is this thing?

Post-war reaches back to the end of WW II though much of the international consensus that came with the end of WW II was already in the air at the beginning of the 20th century as seen in the creation of the “League of Nations,” at the end of WW I and such silly legislation as the “Kellogg-Briand” pact which legislated the end of all war. It could be easily be argued also that the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 was one of the first key steps in creating the post-war consensus that we are now currently living under. As such, one could even note that that post-war consensus was being fought against before the start of WW II by those belonging to the “America First” movement as led by people like Charles Lindbergh, John T. Flynn, General Robert E. Wood, Elizabeth Dilling, Sen. Gerald P. Dye etc. The America First movement swelled to 800K dues paying members at one point.

So, the post-war consensus was being aimed at for decades before it finally was able to envelope the world through the victory of WW II, the establishment of the League of Nations, and the economic manipulation of global finance that was the Bretton Woods agreement.

The above explains why Charles Lindbergh could gravely warn against the policy of Interventionism in Europe before WW II broke out;

“The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.

Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.”

This idea of Interventionism then is a key component of the post-war consensus and opposition to interventionism is thus a key component of opposition to the post-war consensus. Interventionism is the belief that America particularly has the responsibility to be the New World Order Cop and that we are uniquely responsible somehow to keep the peace in the world. This explains why today we are involved in the Ukraine and why we are being sucked into the whole Middle East rot. It explains the US involvement in wars from Korea to Afghanistan since WW II. All of this interventionism is in service of the post-war consensus where America is responsible for the world. This is the “invade the world” side of the post-war consensus. Another side of the post-war consensus is to “invite the world.”

The post-war consensus requires “inviting the world” because one of the shibboleths of the post-war consensus is that National identity is wicked and what should be fostered instead is a globalist identity. In the service of that goal then it is only natural that population shifts from the third world to the Western world is pursued. In such a manner nationalist identity is reduced to propositional statements about what it means to be “an American,” or what it means to be a member of Western Civilization. So, the post-war consensus requires population malfeasance and pursues it by the elimination of borders of all formerly WASP countries. In such a way the post-war consensus eliminates all forms of ethno-nationalism as existing among White Anglo Saxon Christians. This is a key component of the post-war consensus and it is pursued ideologically by blaming the conflagration of both World Wars (but especially WW II) on the rise of nationalism. From that premise it is irrationally argued that all expression of nationalism except propositional nationalism is evil and if embraced will lead to another Fascist Germany, or to Franco’s Fascist Spain, or Mussolini’s Fascist Italy.

So, the post-war consensus is interventionist with the US playing the role of the armory for providing weaponry and mercenaries in order to prop up and sustain the post-war consensus. The post-war consensus is also committed to destroying any nationalist self-consciousness especially among Westerner WASP nations and this is all in service of putting the final touches of a New World Order that has been pursued in one form or another since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Another component of the post-war consensus that has become doctrine that is not to be questioned, along with interventionism and approval of mass migration of the third world to the first world is the fact that Jews have been the greatest victims ever to exist of Western and Christian bigotry and wickedness. Because, by and large, elite Jews — vastly disproportionate to their numbers — are the ones who have crafted and are crafting the post-war consensus this creation on their part of being the world’s chief victims makes them bullet-proof from any criticism and gives them ability to choke off any criticism that might arise from chaps like David Irving or Ernst Zundel or Charles Lindbergh long before those two chaps.

A further component of the post-war consensus is that pluralism and Democracy are God’s social order. Any disagreement with pluralism, classical liberalism, or Democracy means that one has not yet entered into the Kingdom of God. Likewise any insistence that governments ought to, as by divine command, favor a particularly Christian order as governed by explicitly Christian law (whether Natural Law as stemming from the Ten Commandments or preferably as stemming from God’s special Revelation) is seen as verboten. Any idea that governments have the responsibility of explicitly favoring Christianity in their policy is seen as heresy by the post-war consensus. Some of those who most express anguish over disagreement with pluralism and Democracy comes from those who call themselves Christian clergy.

In brief the post-war consensus was a tacit agreement among Western “leaders” to colonize the world into a globalist New World Order wherein the world would be set on a trajectory wherein it would be run by a coterie of Marxist elites, many of whom would be Bagels, to the end of milking the world of its resources for the benefit of that Marxist NWO elite.

Now from there the post-war consensus has its heroes and villains. Broadly speaking the villains for the post-war consensus are epistemologically self-conscious Christians (when any can be found), as well as those who are steeped in US Constitutional history as embraced by the anti-federalists or those with a States Rights orientation to US history. Villains also include any White Christian who doesn’t buy into the post-war consensus, as well as anybody who is strongly family-centric. In order for the post-war consensus to work all of these types of people are given the label “Populist” and are turned into devils by the Jewish owned and controlled media.

In light of all this it needs be said that this  post-war consensus  has been become a Worldview that animates people belonging to different religions. For example, Christianity is now being reinterpreted through the lens of this post-war consensus world and life view. This post-war consensus world and life view (Weltanschauung) has been incarnated into all of our Western Institutions and especially since the end of World War II all of the West has been reconstructed along the post-war consensus pagan Weltanschauung. Children attending school are taught this version of reality. The Universities teach this version of reality. Worst of all the Churches have reinterpreted Christianity through this matrix of the post-War consensus. Indeed, it could be argued that the post-war consensus has become its own religion and like all religions the post-war consensus religion hyper-ventilates when anybody puts their hands on their idols.

And that is what is happening more and more recently. The post-war consensus is perceived as being threatened by the rise of the populist movement in the US in the last three Presidential election cycles (2016, 2020, 2024). The threat to the post-war consensus was also seen in the Brexit election of 2019. The threat to the post-war consensus is also being seen in the rise of “right-wing” parties in Europe and by the organization of the BRICS countries.

The disappointment in this resistance to the post-war consensus is that it is not being led, by and large, by Biblical and epistemologically self-conscious Christians. In point of fact, it is the platformed “conservative” Christians who are the ones who are doing much of the shrieking about challenges by a handful of Biblical Christians who are exposing that the post-war consensus is thoroughly anti-Christ. We have seen this in spades the past couple of weeks. First, we saw the irrational outburst of Dr. James White concerning the overturning of the post-war consensus interpretation of the Crusades. The post-war consensus, like all worldviews, reinterprets not only all of reality but all of history in light of its religious tenets and on the issue of the Crusades the ham-fisted post-war consensus interpretation is that the Crusades were wicked because they were an example of White Christians pursuing a colonialism against the poor peaceful Muslims who were just minding their own business before the Crusaders showed up. In the post-war consensus reading of history the Crusaders were a blemish on Christianity that now has to be atoned for by Christian demonstrating their non-discriminating love for non-Christian strangers and aliens from third world countries arriving here by illegal means. Because the Crusaders were such wicked white Christians, white Christians must now apologize for their fore-fathers by groveling for forgiveness for ever thinking that the Crusades were in fact a noble attempt, that sometimes went wrong, to honor Christ and rescue his people from the murderous, raping hands of the Muslims.

However, there has now recently arisen a even more controversial matter than the Crusades that has found the defenders of the post-war consensus religion arising as one to slap down those who dare to question their cherished post-war religious dogma.  Recently, Tucker Carlson did a interview with Darry Cooper. Cooper is a historian and he had some rather unflattering things to say about one Sir Winston Churchill and quite without even trying Tucker and Cooper broke the internet as seen in all the outrage that boiled up from the dark corners of the post-war consensus religion.

Brad Littlejohn (President Emeritus Davenant Institute), James White (Apologia), Al Mohler (President Southern Seminary), Russell Moore (Editor Christianity Today) to name just a few collectively crapped their pants. Al Mohler rushed to put out a 1o minute video defending the great Winnie. The others damned all who might agree with Carlson and Cooper to the nether regions of the post-war consensus hell. How dare anybody question Winnie as one of the greatest men (if not THE greatest) man of the 20th century.

Now, I suppose I should spend another post detailing the wickedness of Winston Churchill. The man was right once in his life and that was when he wrote an article warning about the Jews in a 1920 London Newspaper article. Besides that one instance Churchill was, as Cooper suggested in his interview with Carlson, one of the greatest villains of the 2oth century. Doubtless the man broke hell in half when he ended up there in 1965. However, Churchill was one of the key proponents of the post-war consensus and as such his sycophants in the Church have gone out like bees from a hive under attack to protect old Winnie. The man they are defending explicitly ordered the cooking of 100s of thousands of German civilians and refugees by ordering the firebombing of Dresden — a city that had absolutely zero military significance. Churchill is the genius who gave us the killing fields known as Gallipoli in World War I. The man was responsible for the starving of millions of Bengal people in India during WW II. The man was con artist who would make money by painting fakes and then signing them as if the original artist had painted them. What about Churchill being funded so as to live like a King as supported by the Jewish “Focus” group as led by Henry Strakosch. Do you suppose all that Jewish money influenced Churchill’s policy on Germany?

Some of his more famous sentiments included;

“I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas.”

Clearly this response by platformed Christian clergy indicates that these “Christian” ministers who have become all outraged because someone dare touch the hem of Winnie’s garments have reinterpreted Christianity through the religious and non-Christian  prism of the post-war consensus.  Internationalism good… Nationalism bad. Pluralism good …. explicitly Christian government bad. Interventionism good …. minding our own business bad. Winnie a Saint…. Franco a wicked Fascist. Keep in mind though that it is not just the issue of Winnie or the Crusades. When Doug Wilson — he of Moscow Idaho fame — insists that their isn’t Jewish complicity in where we are now he is promoting the post-war consensus that is anti-Christ.

Let these blowhards huff and puff. Increasingly, I am feeling a wind blowing that doesn’t emanate from Mordor. There is a whiff of cleanness in the air that is explained by a breeze that is willing to question and overturn this wicked post-war consensus religion under which we are currently living.

“The thrust of the preceding chapters can be summarized very briefly. The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s battalions.”

Rodney Stark
God’s Battalions — pg. 248

(The crusades were,) “armed pilgrimages driven by a holy zeal to recover conquered Christian lands.”
Steven Weidenkopf

Author — The Glory of the Crusades

“Crusading was extremely expensive and more than a few noble families risked bankruptcy in order to take part. They did so for medieval, not modern, reasons. Crusading for them was an act of love and charity by which, like the Good Samaritan, they were aiding their neighbors in distress. Muslim warriors had conquered eastern Christians, taken their lands, and in some cases killed or enslaved them. The Crusader believed it was his duty to right that wrong.”

Thomas Madden
Author — Concise History of the Crusades

“But folks, listen, please. Have you seen the images these (mainly) young men are posting? What do you see in them all? Yes, the cross, prominently displayed on the armor of men slashing and hacking the infidel to pieces. The Crusades were definitionally religious in nature. I know, I know, Rome was quite involved in politics and the like by that time, and very corrupt. No question about it. But, here’s the point: they joined religion to their avarice and thirst for power. They promised eternal life to those who died fighting the infidel! The entire foundation was a fundamental and outright denial of the nature, efficacy, and truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

James White
Baptist Minister

Recently, Dr. James White walked out on a limb regarding the subject of the Crusades only to find that it was being sawed off behind him. White’s “knowledge” of the Crusades was obviously not informed by some of the best most recent scholarship and instead relied on the “I hate the West” chronicles of the Crusades.Briefly, as it pertains to the Crusades, the fact is that Islam was crowding in on Christendom. Islam had been conquering former Christians lands for centuries. Further, the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being slaughtered by the Muslims and the Christian faith was under attack. Christian inhabitants of these formerly Christian lands were being forced to pay the Muslim Jizya. The Christian leaders, in both Church and State, realized that something had to be done. Those noble Crusaders who are our Christian Fathers in the Faith assessed the situation and did what they thought best at that moment in history. Unlike White, I will not fault my Fathers intent all because they didn’t do it just right. (And yes, terrible mistakes were made but you know what … that’s the nature of war.)

During his rant against the Crusaders and the Crusades Dr. White offered up this gem;

“But the fact is these folks are saying the Crusades did not go “far enough.” Far enough in what? Blaspheming Christ? Disparaging the gospel? Promoting hatred? What would you like to see more of, exactly? What would be “far enough”?”

James White

This quote about the Crusades from White is revealed to be as vacuous as it is when one considers, for example, a quote from one of the better known Crusaders, Godfrey of Boullion. When Godfrey of Bouillon captured Jerusalem in the First Crusade they offered to make him king. He refused and said;

“I will not wear a crown of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of thorns.”

Does James White consider this mindset blasphemous?

Allow me to suggest several truths, contra Dr. White;

1.)One can only hold that the Crusades blasphemed Christ if one does not believe in Just War Theory, or in defensive war. The Crusades were clearly Just since they were seeking to protect and defend a helpless Christian people who have been aggressively attacked by the adherents of a religion that hated Christianity.

2.) Contra White’s quote above there is not a thing unbiblical about hatred that is Biblical. Scriptures teaches us to “hate that which is evil and to cling to that which is good.” In point of fact, it would have been hatred against their suffering Christian brothers to not seek to bring them relief by going on Crusade.

3.) Dr. White asked above, “What would supporters of the Crusade liked to have seen more of” and I would answer that I would have liked to have seen even more Islamic lands (formerly Christian lands) conquered by the sword for Christ.

4.) Dr. White also asks “what would be far enough for Crusade action.” I would answer by saying, “far enough would be seeing the nations covered with the Kingdom of Christ as the waters cover the sea.”

It is clear when it comes to understanding the history of the Crusades Dr. James White and I really hold to two vastly different views. Both of those views cannot be Christian. Really, in the end White is giving us the cultural liberal view of Crusade history. This is the view that teaches that white Christian were evil colonizers who raped and pillaged everywhere they set foot. It is the view that the white man is evil and poor downtrodden Muslims were just minding their own business living a happy go lucky life until the Crusaders came along. A good number of cultural liberals like Dr. White are genuinely Christian but they don’t lose the worldview baggage of liberalism when it comes to their understanding of history.  People like Dr. White become so submerged in the Enlightenment world and life view that we can’t see that it is inconsistent with the Christian faith.

Honestly, though, after reading the James White thread on X about the Crusades I almost begin to conclude that either I am not a Christian or He is not a Christian or neither of us are Christian because it is difficult to see how we can both be Christian and have convictions that are this radically different when it comes to these kinds of worldview considerations. At the very least one would have to say that if we both are Christians then one of us needs to become more consistent in understanding history from a Christian perspective.

During the course of his X rant James White doubled and tripled down;

“But folks, listen, please. Have you seen the images these (mainly) young men are posting? What do you see in them all? Yes, the cross, prominently displayed on the armor of men slashing and hacking the infidel to pieces. The Crusades were definitionally religious in nature. I know, I know, Rome was quite involved in politics and the like by that time, and very corrupt. No question about it. But, here’s the point: they joined religion to their avarice and thirst for power. They promised eternal life to those who died fighting the infidel! The entire foundation was a fundamental and outright denial of the nature, efficacy, and truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

James White

In response to this outburst we can only note;

1.) Why would anyone have a problem with the soldiers and champions of Christ’s cause killing the infidel who had, as a matter of policy, been enslaving and killing Christians, raping Christian women folk, and turning Christian children into Janissaries?

2.) If ever there was a classic textbook example of Just War theory supporting war it was the Crusades.

3.) Of course the Crusades were religious in nature. All wars are religious in nature. This is a Captain Obvious assertion. Does Dr, White think that there are wars that are waged that are not religious in nature? Does James know that FDR led sailors and soldiers in singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” on a battle ship once? There has never been a war that wasn’t “religious in nature.”

There’s a good question for Pope White….. is James as outraged by Christians participating in WW II on the side of the Allies as he is by Christian participating in Crusades?

3.) James is surprised that religion often combines avarice and thirst for power with war? If Christians never fought in any righteous war where avarice and thirst for power wasn’t somewhere in the equation Christians really would be pacifists. On the issue of avarice though, keep that opening quote from Dr. Stark above in mind.

4.) All because indulgences were promised and eternal life guaranteed for those who fought does not by itself make the Crusades bad policy in and of themselves. Many times the right thing is done for the wrong reasons.

In the end Dr. White is still not dealing with the reality that the Mooselimbs were seeking to crush the Christian faith and that the Crusades were a godly response against the work of the Christ-hating Muslims waging offensive war against Christian lands.

When Dr. White says these kinds of things I really pray that he keeps popping off. He’s the best advertisement for not being Baptist that currently exists. Indeed, Dr. White seems increasingly to not want to be identified as being Reformed.

“I have less and less interest in the specific moniker ‘Reformed.'”

James White

It would be easy to believe when Dr. White says those kinds of things that  he’s just being a tease trying to get the hopes of the Reformed up.

Dr. White however continued his mindless trek into the jejune by offering this gem on the subject of the Crusades;

“The Crusades did not stop the expansion of Islam. In fact, they were not intended to. ”

James White

One would love to know White’s source that the Crusades were not intended to stop the expansion of Islam. Secondly, while they may not have stopped the expansion of Islam they certainly slowed it down for a time. Those Crusader states that were planted and existed for a time are evidence of that as is the fact that the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem. Clearly the Crusaders did more than stop the expansion of Islam but rather reversed it for a season.

Also consider that Ferdinand and Isabella’s crusade did indeed stop the expansion of Islam as the Spanish Royalty kicked the carpet-worshippers out of Spain and stopped the spread in Spain. Charles Martel stopped the spread of Islam. The Polish winged hussars under Jan Sobieski stopped the spread of Islam. Then there was Jean Parisot de Valette — a latter day Crusader — who slowed down the march of the Muslims in his manful resistance with his Hospitallers during the great siege of Malta.

“The words of a wise man’s mouth [are] gracious, But the lips of a fool shall swallow him up.”

Ecclesiastes 10:12 (NKJV)