Finally, an accurate assessment of Post-Christianity. The whole "Pagan" vs Christianity debate that routinely flares up on the RW is really a proxy for Europeans/Non-USA Anglos vs Americans.
On the right, I think Christians and post-Christians need to find common ground on two essential things. 1. Preserving the nation and its two distinct ethnicities 2. The need for stronger deterents to crime.
Point 2. includes a return of corporal punishment and the death penalty. (Personally, I believe this will be what reChristianizes our nation as the fear of the hangman is the fear of God)
There's a documentary by a philosophy professor named Nathan Jacobs called "Becoming Truly Human" which is about "nones", the religiously unaffiliated. About 15% of Americans are nones, as in they have no belief in or ties to any religious institutions. The documentary interviews a group of young people about their upbringing. This is primarily among Millennials and younger, and their lack of religiousity has had a significant impact on the culture. Jacobs himself was raised secular, and converted to Orthodoxy as an adult. I think it's interesting how Orthodoxy in particular seems to be popular among this type of post-Christian demographic. The dominant voices on the American Right are still religious, but on the New Right, most of them are also this demographic, many of them converts to Orthodoxy or Catholicism, or people who returned to their particular form of Protestantism, while the boomercon types (Joel Berry and Doug Wilson etc) are all in these legacy evangelical churches. The zealotry of many Americans who brandish their religion like a weapon belies the fact that most of them have only recently converted or returned to the faith they abandoned earlier. It's definitely interesting to see how these dynamics play out across cultures and national identities, and I expect that we'll continue to see these conflicts as people figure out what to base their identity on.
That's certainly part of it, people are losing tolerance for the politicization of the churches for Zionist ends, but I think it's also out of a desire for rootedness and intellectual depth. Many people who are going through this process started out either secular or in some kind of mushy non denominational church that taught no theology or history. So when they look around and ask themselves how they got here, they typically start by going back to the Protestant Reformation, studying Luther or Calvin. Then they realize that Luther and Calvin were in dialogue with an older tradition of Medieval Scholasticism, which then takes them to Catholicism. Finally they discover the Church Fathers who are older still than the Scholastics, and they discover Orthodoxy. Obviously not everyone who takes this path ends up Orthodox, many stop at one or the other of these intermediary points for various reasons, sometimes intellectual, other times for ethnic or historical reasons. Sometimes they abandon Christianity altogether and become some kind of pagan. But the trend is towards rootedness in response to the deracination of modernity.
If the religious right wants to have any relevance in the future direction of western civilization they have to have a reason for being that is attractive to prospective members and some kind of purpose or value beyond a nebulous belief in God.
Churches are dominated by and geared to the interests of women and many have become increasingly leftist secular as they're increasingly dominated by females. I see the interest in Orthodox and traditional Latin Mass Catholicism amongst young males as a reaction to the feminization of church and God and the greater demonization of white males in particular. Gen Z males are far more right leaning and accepting of white nationalism than previous generations and the more openly masculine and heritage messaging of those kinds of churches as well as revived interest in pagan beliefs is an indicator of just how bereft of meaning and purpose mainstream churches have become and the lack of examples of positive masculinity on the left or the right.
While some Christians may “fear” these inversions, abominations, etc. I would suggest that the majority of truly faithful Christians see these things as indicators of truth as well as prophetic information. Too Christians these modern and accelerating signs of evil are simply prophecies being fulfilled in real time. So imo it’s less a bout fear and more about reminders to prepare accordingly for oneself, family, and (as a Christian is commissioned to do), try to share tbe message to those who have not accepted the truth of Christ.
One thing I think could be agreed on; is the acknowledgement that Christian culture deeply shaped Canadian culture. Example; you don't have to be a regular church goer to agree that prayers should be read at Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Not to mention some of us can read the Bible for ourselves and see that everything Christians believe about Satan and his followers applies to OT Yahweh and his chosen.
I suspect that a subset of the Post-Christians, at least the ones seriously interested in spirituality, will at least be able to build a bridge back to Christianity through Christian Mysticism, Jesus-as-Buddha, while rejecting the institutional edifice created after his death.
This is quite good and an important contribution to understanding the problems with the religiosity gap among dissident identitarians. While many of my fellow dissident Christian bros are part of the "Christian nationalism" crowd, as a former believer it mostly just looks sad and a little embarrassing.
My motto is and remains that I don't especially care what you do or do not do on Sunday morning as long as we share the same basic goals for our people. Those that seek to divide our already small movement with demands that you accept Jesus are working at odds with the long term survival of our people.
The way I see it is it’s pretty much impossible to reconcile the two sides. I know some people try to because we both don’t like the left but we are just starting from different first principles so there will inevitably be conflict. You guys think America is a backwards country that because of an accident of history has heavy Christian influence that was cynically maintained by propaganda to fight the USSR but is stupid and relic of history that science has refuted. What makes you right wing is you don’t want your countries turning into multicultural hellholes which is what liberalism ultimately does. The Catholic right thinks you guys are blinded by modernity and don’t even know basic philosophy and that truth and following natural law and true religion is the only out of this mess and that requires showing elites, despite its current low status, that apostolic Christianity is correct and liberalism is false and thus leads to destruction. These two sides are so different that there’s really no use in talking unless it’s to show the other the error of their first principles.
You have no idea about the secular right within the US, and neither does the religious right. We appear invisible, and we are not white collective narcissism, we don’t misuse liberalism, nor are we monarchs, or collective authoritarians. You are lost about us as the religious right is about you. I found this interesting, but I also found your contempt, and negativity, telling. We to did not grow up in the church or with religious parents. You’re right, Christendom ended in 1648. We have freedom of religion, to protect the church from the state because we understand like you that Christianity is on the wane and has been since then.
You make the mistake of assuming that secularism is exclusive to liberal individualism. It is not—innumerable right-wing movements, particularly outside the U.S., such as the various historic Quebec sovereignty movements seeking independence from Canada, or nearly all European nationalist movements, are post-Christian and secular. I didn’t say all American secularists on the right were reacting to Christianity around themselves.
Secondly, what is “White collective narcissism”? White nationalism is an American phenomenon. Nationalists in Canada and Europe are ethnic nationalists—“White” is implicit, baked into the concept. There is no need to emphasize it beyond our shared Western heritage. In the U.S., there is no shared ethnicity among white Americans, so identitarians default to racial differences. People with deeply ingrained identities don’t need a justification to pursue their group interests—they do so naturally in Canada and Europe. It is you who has the liberal, individualist hang-up about this. You are the odd one, not us.
As with the point of your article, a lot of Americans don't appear to grasp just how different others' cultural, ethnic and religious contexts are, and are trying to view the world through the lens of their own that has been hopelessly muddled by their adoption of propositional citizenship.
There exists a genuine pagan right but they are making machine tools in the Far East. Once you understand this the ridiculousness of the whole Christian vs pagan (LARPer) controversy become clear. The realisations the right is barely coming to now about foreigners and their ”cultures” were fully developed 300 years ago in the East by people who called them barbarians outright and successfully excluded their pernicious influence for centuries. Even now both sides of the western controversy remain spiritually primitive, one afraid of damnation by a foreign god and the other hung up on the appearance of religion, both reliant on an archaic foreign metaphysics with arbitrariness aka uncertainty at the very heart of scientific understanding.
Mel Gibson was on the Joe Rogan podcast he told the old story of turning to God to cure his alcoholism. He emphasized how "I had to accept I was powerless and turn to something beyond myself"
But have you TRIED just turning to yourself Mel? Have you tried saying "self, please give me the power to stop drinking"? Because that can work.
I don’t think that can work. Most people aren’t particularly strong-willed and need that extra push from a higher power/outside perspective. Plus it’s also more appealing, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help.
Finally, an accurate assessment of Post-Christianity. The whole "Pagan" vs Christianity debate that routinely flares up on the RW is really a proxy for Europeans/Non-USA Anglos vs Americans.
Exactly!
On the right, I think Christians and post-Christians need to find common ground on two essential things. 1. Preserving the nation and its two distinct ethnicities 2. The need for stronger deterents to crime.
Point 2. includes a return of corporal punishment and the death penalty. (Personally, I believe this will be what reChristianizes our nation as the fear of the hangman is the fear of God)
There's a documentary by a philosophy professor named Nathan Jacobs called "Becoming Truly Human" which is about "nones", the religiously unaffiliated. About 15% of Americans are nones, as in they have no belief in or ties to any religious institutions. The documentary interviews a group of young people about their upbringing. This is primarily among Millennials and younger, and their lack of religiousity has had a significant impact on the culture. Jacobs himself was raised secular, and converted to Orthodoxy as an adult. I think it's interesting how Orthodoxy in particular seems to be popular among this type of post-Christian demographic. The dominant voices on the American Right are still religious, but on the New Right, most of them are also this demographic, many of them converts to Orthodoxy or Catholicism, or people who returned to their particular form of Protestantism, while the boomercon types (Joel Berry and Doug Wilson etc) are all in these legacy evangelical churches. The zealotry of many Americans who brandish their religion like a weapon belies the fact that most of them have only recently converted or returned to the faith they abandoned earlier. It's definitely interesting to see how these dynamics play out across cultures and national identities, and I expect that we'll continue to see these conflicts as people figure out what to base their identity on.
It could be as simple as which religious institutions maintain a Zionist eschatology
That's certainly part of it, people are losing tolerance for the politicization of the churches for Zionist ends, but I think it's also out of a desire for rootedness and intellectual depth. Many people who are going through this process started out either secular or in some kind of mushy non denominational church that taught no theology or history. So when they look around and ask themselves how they got here, they typically start by going back to the Protestant Reformation, studying Luther or Calvin. Then they realize that Luther and Calvin were in dialogue with an older tradition of Medieval Scholasticism, which then takes them to Catholicism. Finally they discover the Church Fathers who are older still than the Scholastics, and they discover Orthodoxy. Obviously not everyone who takes this path ends up Orthodox, many stop at one or the other of these intermediary points for various reasons, sometimes intellectual, other times for ethnic or historical reasons. Sometimes they abandon Christianity altogether and become some kind of pagan. But the trend is towards rootedness in response to the deracination of modernity.
Nice outline
This describes my path for the most part
Raised in a Protestant church
A couple decades of a prodigal life
Came back but studied my way out of “mushy” and divergent non denom/baptist churches via history
Once you see the Protestant reformation for what it was and followed by the French Revolution along with reading the fathers there is no going back.
Anyways no intent to hijack this thread though the topic does stem into these discussions.
Great article.
If the religious right wants to have any relevance in the future direction of western civilization they have to have a reason for being that is attractive to prospective members and some kind of purpose or value beyond a nebulous belief in God.
Churches are dominated by and geared to the interests of women and many have become increasingly leftist secular as they're increasingly dominated by females. I see the interest in Orthodox and traditional Latin Mass Catholicism amongst young males as a reaction to the feminization of church and God and the greater demonization of white males in particular. Gen Z males are far more right leaning and accepting of white nationalism than previous generations and the more openly masculine and heritage messaging of those kinds of churches as well as revived interest in pagan beliefs is an indicator of just how bereft of meaning and purpose mainstream churches have become and the lack of examples of positive masculinity on the left or the right.
I would argue that “making the church attractive” is and has been the key to the problem
Once the Catholic Church accepted liberalism and modernity in ‘62 at the second Vatican council it was all over.
While some Christians may “fear” these inversions, abominations, etc. I would suggest that the majority of truly faithful Christians see these things as indicators of truth as well as prophetic information. Too Christians these modern and accelerating signs of evil are simply prophecies being fulfilled in real time. So imo it’s less a bout fear and more about reminders to prepare accordingly for oneself, family, and (as a Christian is commissioned to do), try to share tbe message to those who have not accepted the truth of Christ.
One thing I think could be agreed on; is the acknowledgement that Christian culture deeply shaped Canadian culture. Example; you don't have to be a regular church goer to agree that prayers should be read at Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Not to mention some of us can read the Bible for ourselves and see that everything Christians believe about Satan and his followers applies to OT Yahweh and his chosen.
I suspect that a subset of the Post-Christians, at least the ones seriously interested in spirituality, will at least be able to build a bridge back to Christianity through Christian Mysticism, Jesus-as-Buddha, while rejecting the institutional edifice created after his death.
This is quite good and an important contribution to understanding the problems with the religiosity gap among dissident identitarians. While many of my fellow dissident Christian bros are part of the "Christian nationalism" crowd, as a former believer it mostly just looks sad and a little embarrassing.
My motto is and remains that I don't especially care what you do or do not do on Sunday morning as long as we share the same basic goals for our people. Those that seek to divide our already small movement with demands that you accept Jesus are working at odds with the long term survival of our people.
The way I see it is it’s pretty much impossible to reconcile the two sides. I know some people try to because we both don’t like the left but we are just starting from different first principles so there will inevitably be conflict. You guys think America is a backwards country that because of an accident of history has heavy Christian influence that was cynically maintained by propaganda to fight the USSR but is stupid and relic of history that science has refuted. What makes you right wing is you don’t want your countries turning into multicultural hellholes which is what liberalism ultimately does. The Catholic right thinks you guys are blinded by modernity and don’t even know basic philosophy and that truth and following natural law and true religion is the only out of this mess and that requires showing elites, despite its current low status, that apostolic Christianity is correct and liberalism is false and thus leads to destruction. These two sides are so different that there’s really no use in talking unless it’s to show the other the error of their first principles.
You have no idea about the secular right within the US, and neither does the religious right. We appear invisible, and we are not white collective narcissism, we don’t misuse liberalism, nor are we monarchs, or collective authoritarians. You are lost about us as the religious right is about you. I found this interesting, but I also found your contempt, and negativity, telling. We to did not grow up in the church or with religious parents. You’re right, Christendom ended in 1648. We have freedom of religion, to protect the church from the state because we understand like you that Christianity is on the wane and has been since then.
You make the mistake of assuming that secularism is exclusive to liberal individualism. It is not—innumerable right-wing movements, particularly outside the U.S., such as the various historic Quebec sovereignty movements seeking independence from Canada, or nearly all European nationalist movements, are post-Christian and secular. I didn’t say all American secularists on the right were reacting to Christianity around themselves.
Secondly, what is “White collective narcissism”? White nationalism is an American phenomenon. Nationalists in Canada and Europe are ethnic nationalists—“White” is implicit, baked into the concept. There is no need to emphasize it beyond our shared Western heritage. In the U.S., there is no shared ethnicity among white Americans, so identitarians default to racial differences. People with deeply ingrained identities don’t need a justification to pursue their group interests—they do so naturally in Canada and Europe. It is you who has the liberal, individualist hang-up about this. You are the odd one, not us.
As with the point of your article, a lot of Americans don't appear to grasp just how different others' cultural, ethnic and religious contexts are, and are trying to view the world through the lens of their own that has been hopelessly muddled by their adoption of propositional citizenship.
There exists a genuine pagan right but they are making machine tools in the Far East. Once you understand this the ridiculousness of the whole Christian vs pagan (LARPer) controversy become clear. The realisations the right is barely coming to now about foreigners and their ”cultures” were fully developed 300 years ago in the East by people who called them barbarians outright and successfully excluded their pernicious influence for centuries. Even now both sides of the western controversy remain spiritually primitive, one afraid of damnation by a foreign god and the other hung up on the appearance of religion, both reliant on an archaic foreign metaphysics with arbitrariness aka uncertainty at the very heart of scientific understanding.
So how do we engage the secular right then?
Re: "individualist" Satanism and Occultism
Mel Gibson was on the Joe Rogan podcast he told the old story of turning to God to cure his alcoholism. He emphasized how "I had to accept I was powerless and turn to something beyond myself"
But have you TRIED just turning to yourself Mel? Have you tried saying "self, please give me the power to stop drinking"? Because that can work.
I don’t think that can work. Most people aren’t particularly strong-willed and need that extra push from a higher power/outside perspective. Plus it’s also more appealing, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help.