An X thread from October ’24:
It is crucial to understand the times and to understand the Scriptures.
Many Christian movements have fizzled out quickly because their leaders misunderstood the cultural situation. Or, the movement got traction, grew, and became influential, but did damage because it was more culture-shaped than Scripture-shaped.
An example of the former might be the Reconstructionist movement of the 1970s-1990s. It did a lot of incredible work, but largely fizzled out because its proponents fought over hypothetical minutiae that were far removed from the practical political realities of the day.
An example of the latter might be the seeker-sensitive movement which ended up diluting biblical teaching in the church by pursuing continual relevance and accessibility in a way that locked the church into immaturity and made the church vulnerable to the culture’s continued shift leftward. Not surprisingly, many seeker-sensitive churches are barely orthodox, if at all, today.
1/4
I see conservative Christians going wrong in the public square in two main ways today: we either adopt a loser’s theology or losing political positions.
On the one hand, some Christians are the proverbial “beautiful losers.” They are afraid of political power so they never assert political will. Power corrupts so it’s spiritually safer to be powerless, to be a victim, to be a doormat for Jesus. Power can easily become an idol, after all. These people continually lose because they surrender before the battle begins.
Thank God many of our spiritual ancestors did not think this way; if they had, the West would have been overrun by Islam 1300 years ago and Christendom would have been aborted. Thank God many of our Christian forebears were willing to pursue power, and use it for good, to transform legal and cultural institutions. There is no virtue in weakness; again and again Scripture commands us to be strong, so we have a duty to make ourselves strong. Avoid selfish ambition, but cultivate godly ambition.
2/4
But on the other hand, some Christians unnecessarily adopt political positions which are bound to lose. These Christians would love to win but they sabotage themselves right out of the gate with positions that will never get traction outside of a small bubble. They may be popular amongst a social media subculture but they have no chance of success in the broader culture.
When I say they hold these positions “unnecessarily,” I mean that these positions are not necessitated by the Bible. There are certainly some stands Christians must take in an immovable way that will be unpopular (anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, etc.). But many Christians, especially young men who want to be as “based” as possible, are in danger of advocating for positions that simply cannot win. They are a political dead end.
For example, they see the left doing identity politics, so they decide to try an identity politics from the right – especially a racial identity politics. But a white identity politics is not only unbiblical (the Bible trains us in covenant consciousness rather than race consciousness), it is certain to be politically unsuccessful (even Trump knows he must court non-white voters to win at electoral politics; his rejection of racial identity politics shows he is prudent about electoral politics).
Another example: some insist on archane and unnecessarily unfamiliar and unAmerican terminology to describe their political goals and aspirations, like calling for a “Christian prince.” I do not believe Stephen Wolfe, who popularized this terminology, insists on it, but many others seem to. The title is confusing and there is simply no mechanism or pathway for bringing the “Christian prince” to power.
Another example: Renarrating WW2 so that Hitler was “not so bad after all.” This is simply not true to the historical record. There is no moral equivalence between the western allies and the Nazis. Yes, Churchill and the American military and political leaders of the era had their flaws, but they do compare of the sheer wickedness of Hitler and his neo-pagan movement. There is no point in trying to rehabilitate Hitler’s image. Hitler and Stalin were responsible for millions and millions of civilian deaths and nothing can undo that horrific tragedy of history. Both needed to defeated – and we did so, beating the Nazis in the 1940s in WW2, and defeating the Soviets in the Cold War over the next several decades. Christians who try to paint a rosier picture of Nazism are simply asking to lose, no matter how badly they want to win. Nazi sympathizers are doomed to fail, and should fail.
3/4
Christians should want to win “down here” because we serve a Messiah who has won the great victory. We should desire to gain power so we can use it to promote the good, the true, the beautiful. But we should seek power in ways that are wise, that give ourselves the best possible chance of actually winning. Adopting edgy but stupid positions will result in wasted energy.
4/4
Addendum:
A political movement that does not police itself will never have much success – or if does have success, it won’t last because it will end up undermining itself by allowing the most radical, unhinged element within the movement take control.
Frankly, this is what happened to the left. Progressivism was rolling in the 2010s, and looked like an unstoppable cultural force. But the progressive movement allowed the most crazy leftists have the reins and they ended up running the movement into a ditch (thankfully). It’d be a shame to see the same kind of thing happen on the right at the very moment when conservatives are scoring significant cultural victories for the first time in a long while.
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