Revolutionaries, George Gilder, and Podcasts
If everything is revolution, then nothing is revolution.
Some years ago, I preached through the book of Jude. The book left a lasting impression on me. Jude offers a biography of first-century insurrectionists. Judaizers were going to fellowship meals and persuading new Christians to join their cause. The zealots were looking for a common agenda with the early church. If they could persuade impressionable new converts, they could achieve their goal. They were not interested in following Messiah Jesus, instead were eager to see justice done according to their standards. What was right in their own eyes was the only conceivable way to pursue justice.
These revolutionaries sought to disturb the peace. They chose one way to move forward. The rest be damned if they did not submit to the only paradigm for civilizational renewal. It is no wonder that Jude excoriates that worldview. They did not want the true polis, but the violence of the old polis.
The Principle
I suspect I will receive the oft-charged accusation that I am being unhelpful in this cause; that I do not need to punch right. But I want to argue that sometimes you need to punch right at those punching right. If the left-hand causes you to stumble, then punch right.
People will say, as people often do, that some of these causes are good causes and to waste time accusing right-wingers will only activate the left-wing animus towards us and even justify their own accusations. But I don’t buy it. Jesus knew that extreme causes, even if couched in noble purposes, needed a bit of a balancing act.
Now, if anyone went back to my last 300 posts, they would see that my favorite targets are lefties and their lunacies. I have offered some salient pushback to all-things insanity. And I’d do it again and again and again. But sometimes, if you don’t get your house in order, you will have yourself a mess. The thing about messy homes is that you can’t find your weapons when the enemy comes to attack. We need a basic clean-up composure to more accurately see the enemy.
The Concern
My concern is with a certain kind of person who may not enter into the zealot hall of fame but gives inches into revolutionary philosophy without knowing that the revolutionary recruitment campaign takes any candidate. Mind you; there are legitimate revolutions. Those led by Presbyterian ministers in the 18th century carry a legitimacy badge to it. But if everything is revolution, then nothing is revolution. If everything is reason to fight, then how do we scale our fighting?
There are a great many out there who view the field as grenade valley. Everything is a danger. They don’t allow for careful analysis nor do they consider circumstances, or what John Frame would call “the situational perspective.” They only see their microscopic universe, and anything that violates that planet becomes an enemy of the state.
If, for instance, a conservative organization like Canon Press, sees some benefit in George Gilder and begin to use Gilder as a prophetic voice to bring back some sanity to modern day discourses, some will dig into the Gilder archives and see that in 4th grade he accused his math teacher of being a Goldwater sympathizer. Then, they will say, “See, Gilder never liked conservatives.”
I am no Gilder expert, but I do know that he was calling our feminist ideologies before it became a thing. He saw things before their time, and in our world, we call those speculative analysis—prophetic. As Yenor observed in a recent piece at the American Reformer, Gilder had noted in the early 70’s that “our new feminist sexual constitution will cause civilizational collapse.”
There were, of course, narratival mistakes in Gilder’s analysis, as there always are in prophetic figures historically. But, again, as Yenor concludes:
His framework, broadly applied, shows that men and women are civilized through monogamous marriage. He speaks unfashionable truths about what our feminist constitution does to men and how it undermines the economy of love.
The Heart of the Matter
So, piano man, in a nutshell, what is the concern? The concern is pastoral. It’s all pastoral, dude! Pastors have the luxury of seeing the landscape and overlooking sins because they know that if every sin, every infraction, is called out, there is no room for maturation. Sometimes people need to fall without encouragement. They need to taste and see that this thing is yuck and then spit it out.
I am reminded of Paul’s letters which spent much time encouraging, some time exhorting, and only a few times calling men to castrate themselves. The latter is a good strategy if you have the lay of the land, but if you are always telling folks to become eunuchs, you will lose the fight.
Similarly, if solitary, unnamed twitter revolutionaries, spend their time outdoing conservative institutions, in conservatism, there is something wrong. It’s like a four-year-old criticizing grandpa because pops didn’t offer a precise critique of Vietnam.
One way to honor our father and mother is to shut up! And if that is not good enough, shut up again. This is hard to grasp, but not every deviation from your perspective is a deviation from truth. It may be, and get this, that someone else’s perspective, illuminates your own.
The age of reaction affords people the boldness to act as arbiters of righteousness. Count me doubly suspicious if these same folks want nothing of authority themselves and follow the old adage, “My life, my kingdom!” My fear is that these referees have bitten too much and now they cannot contain themselves but to opine, when really, it would be good if they helped mom with the dishes tonight.
How Then Shall We Live?
Perhaps doing the dishes is a good place to start. Look around the ordinariness. Avoid the outlandish. Keep good friends around that don’t overreach to every piece of news. Don’t be the revolutionary calling people at dinner tables to overthrow government when you can’t even finish the puzzle. Satiate your life with worship. Go for a walk. Kiss your babies. Read fiction. Laugh at your mistakes.
There is much to this, and the more we practice self-control, the more we will be able to see that to see one good does not mean that everything else is bad. These sorts of perspectives have produced its own share of rebellious children. Overreactionary parents produce anxious and revolutionary children. They may not all express their revolutions the same way, but they will venture into that exploratory world of seeing everything through their own eyes.
I am asking for caution. I am asking for care. I am asking for a concerned outlook when everything seems to be a target. If everything is a target, then discernment fails, and you may be the one St. Jude warned about.
Notations
I have returned from Moscow, ID. All combined, I did 12 talks with extensive Q&A’s after each talk and informal ones throughout. The CALLED conference was an absolute delight and I cannot begin to express my love for the staff who supported my labors and whose encouragement I will carry for a long time.
My talks for CALLED are part of a larger project. The book will be an exposition of the armor of God through the lens of the priesthood. My hope is to have this sent to the editor by the end of this month and hopefully published before the end of the year.
For those who did not follow the three interviews from my time in Moscow, here they are:
The second interview was one I hosted with Wade Stotts in his own studio. I took the opportunity to record a Perspectivalist podcast on the role of humor in Christian theology. This was one of my favorites and I commend it to you.
Wade worked for Louder with Crowder and now he does all sorts of things for Canon Press, while hosting one of the funniest five-minutes you will see at The Wade Show with Wade.
Finally, I was a part of one of my favorite podcasts. Jason Farley and David Shannon host Knox Unplugged, which is an illuminating discussion on the role of metaphysics in all things. We sat down for two hours to discuss Andrew Tate, priesthood, cigars and pipes, and other incenses.
My apologies for missing a couple of weeks’ worth of content and I do hope I will not lose your readership. I have been hiking mountains and drinking tequila with friends.
Hearty cheers,
Uriesou
I generally bump up the speed on the podcasts I listen to but I had to slow down you and Wade Stott to .85 to catch it all. Oh, but so good. Convicted me of my over soberness.