We all, to our shame, are prone to embracing ideas and behaviors on the basis of what we’ve been through. Trouble is, we usually don’t know we’re doing it. Our experience neither proves nor disproves, makes wise or foolish whatever idea/behavior we’ve come to embrace. It can, however, in the absence of a carefully reasoned argument, suggest a reason why. The stern mistress who heads the Womyn’s Studies department at the local university didn’t start worshipping Osiris because she’d done the apologetic spadework and was compelled to believe.
I have, for the past year or so, tried to understand the rise of Christian fascism. I’ve seen more and more ninja groypers on the interwebs. These angry young men insist, usually anonymously, that my failure too long for a new Franco is gay, ghey and not at all based. I cannot believe these gents opened their Bibles, applied their Logos tools and came away thinking God wants fascism.
So where does this silliness come from? Bots designed to discredit actual Christians and conservatives? Trolls and engagement farmers laughing their way to the bank? Could it be the loons have always been there but are now equipped with anonymity? The truth is I don’t pretend to know. It baffles me.
My best guess, and such is all it is, a guess, is that it’s all reactionary. After living in a nutty world where meritocracy has been washed away in a tsunami of identity politics, after decades of being painted as the Great Satan on account of being white males, they just couldn’t stand it. They’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more.
It was not, however, a world governed by post-war consensus, or natural law theory that once gave us an ideology of freedom, and then found its center could not hold. No, the notions that economic transactions should be engaged in freely, that all men are equal in dignity and value, these are biblical notions. It is not believing these notions that has led us to the collapse of western civilization, but the failure to hold on to these notions that have brought us here.
As is usually the case, the problem with reactionaries isn’t that they react, but that they react against the wrong thing. They react in a wrong way. And more often than not, their reactions grow out of the very seed of what they are reacting against. Thus we have the Woke Right insisting they are the King of the Valley, the bottom rung of victim status, who will rise from the ashes like the Third Reich.
These young men insist that aging boomers like me need to learn what time it is. I concur. We all need to learn what time it is. The answer, however, is found in the mirror, not the headlines. Now is the time to submit ourselves to the Lordship of Christ. It’s always time to manifest His reign, to love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with our God. Our calling now is to love our neighbor as ourselves. He commands we live in peace and quietness with all men, as much as it depends on us.