#pastors — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Jamin Bradley @[email protected] · 2026-07-21 · 13:22 UTC

The Church’s Political Captivity

The COVID-19 pandemic was ruthless on pastors. Every single decision felt like a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. You got in trouble if you kept your church open, and you got in trouble if you closed it. You got in trouble if you required people to wear masks, and you got in trouble if you didn’t. Every word of our communications had to be carefully crafted to avoid offending others. We worked our butts off creating online services that nobody really cared about or watched.

But even more difficult than this was the social and political tensions we had to address during that chaotic season. Christians became anti-science and conspiratorial. Instead of advocating for justice and caring for minorities, many in the church fought against such efforts. Instead of calling out political nonsense, the church seemed to defend it or support it.

At the start of the pandemic, many pastors were taking a stand on these issues, but in the end, there seemed to be only a few. Too many of them had been crucified by their congregants early on for speaking out. They were walking on eggshells.

I started hearing a very similar testimony among pastors during that time. They each shared that they once made an online post, and their social networks blew up. At first, they were stunned by the comments, but after enough arguments, they decided that talking was pointless. “People never change their minds online,” they’d say. Or “ I don’t want to sow disunity in the church.” Or “Frank and Mary came after me, and they’re the greatest Christians I know! So maybe I shouldn’t speak.” Pastors used these kinds of logic to shut themselves up.

Many Christians have sacred idols they have not yet deconstructed, and it’s because pastors aren’t addressing the golden calf in the room. We all know the unspoken rule: American political issues are so deeply spiritual and important that pastors are not allowed to address them—unless the pastor shares the opinion of the majority of congregants. That is to say, pastors can generally say whatever they want politically, so long as it leans Republican or Conservative.

The room is rigged, and it’s because pastors have spent the last several decades only making certain kinds of political statements, using certain kinds of political buzzwords, and addressing certain kinds of political issues. No one has to ask how the church leans, because these “certain kinds” of things have already made it clear. Pastors and congregants who stray from these views often stay quiet for their own protection, lest they be told that they’re not a Christian.

The church needs help. It is not meant to be defined by what a political party thinks, but by what Jesus thinks. And there is no way that any political party anywhere in the world has captured that.

#AmericanChristianity #ChristianNationalism #churchAndPolitics #churchCulture #churchLeadership #churchUnity #congregationalConflict #ConservativeChristianity #covid19 #evangelicalChurch #faithAndPolitics #followingJesus #pandemicMinistry #partisanChristianity #pastoralCourage #pastors #PoliticalIdolatry #PoliticalPolarization #propheticPreaching #spiritualDeconstruction

#americanchristianity #christiannationalism #churchandpolitics #churchculture #churchleadership #churchunity

River City Random ☑️ @[email protected] · 2026-05-14 · 16:52 UTC

I mean, #adultery is just as punishable by death according to the #OldTestament as #homosexuality is but you don't see #Christian #pastors today inciting #hate #mobs about #divorced people infiltrating our schools and promoting the #secondmarriage agenda to your children. I mean, the #Catholics still care if you've divorced and remarried but we've largely lost this #culturewar. Why can't we stop the hate rhetoric and talk about #God 's #love instead?

#love #god #culturewar #catholics #secondmarriage #divorced

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-26 · 00:14 UTC

Stephen Wolfe grew up in Napa, California,
and his father was an admirer of the right-wing pundit and erstwhile GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.

After attending West Point and serving in the Army, Wolfe earned advanced degrees before leaving academia to
“do the Wendell Berry thing”
in North Carolina with his wife and four kids.

Over the summer, Wolfe, 41, agreed to speak with me on the condition that I refer to him as “Dr. Wolfe”
and call him an “expert on Christian nationalism.”

The Dr. Wolfe I spoke with was a more muted version of the firebrand I’d watched online.

He said his ideal version of America would be led by a Caesar figure.

Gay marriage would be strictly prohibited.

Women would not be allowed to vote
—instead, men would vote for their households.

When I brought up the bit from his book about heretics being killed, he grew annoyed.

“I do think it’s permissible, in principle, for a state to suppress theological heresy,
but that doesn’t mean that it’s prudent or proper,
suitable in every circumstance or every tradition or way of life.”

The Founding Fathers, he added, had encouraged religious liberty,
so killing heretics would not be appropriate in the United States that we inhabit.

We turned to remarks he had made at a recent conference convened by Brian Sauvé:
“I think we need to reflect on this idea of Judeo-Christianity,
or Judeo-Christian worldview,
or Judeo-Christian whatever,
and really eradicate that from our thinking.

Because if we say that America is a
Judeo-Christian country,
then it can’t be a Christian country, okay?”

What role, I asked him, would Jews play?

After a deep sigh, he told me that they would be allowed to “exercise their religion freely.”

We spoke a week before Vance’s RNC speech,
and Wolfe’s remarks helped me understand what the TheoBros heard in Vance’s phrase about
"America as a people".

The founders, Wolfe noted, intended for their country to be “Anglo-Protestant with an American inflection.”

America, he continued, is “a place of settlement and rootedness,
but it’s an open ethnicity in which people can become one of us.”

Which is to say that, like some others, Wolfe is not necessarily opposed to the idea of nonwhite people in America
—as long as they agree to assimilate to the Anglo-Protestant dominant culture.

In this telling, America is not a pluralistic society at all,
but rather one in which there exists an uneasy truce between Christians and those they reluctantly tolerate.

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Wolfe what motivated him.

“I want Christians to be more assertive and to recognize the Christian heritage of the American way of life,
and to seek to restore that,” he said.

“This is a Christian country, and we’ve got to work to restore it to what it once was"

In his keynote address at Sauvé’s conference, titled “Why Multicultural Pluralism Fails and What to Build Instead,”
Wolfe called the concept of America as a melting pot
“an early 20th-century idea cooked up by a Jew in New York who despised the confident Anglo-Protestant establishment.”

WASPs were the “distinct ethnicity” of America, he insisted,

and America should only welcome those who aspired to assimilate.

As he put it, “This is our homeland, and we welcome you on the condition of conformity.”

Or, in the words of JD Vance, America “is a group of people.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/09/theobros-jd-vance-christian-nationalism/

#Heritage #Action #Andrew #Isker #Andrew #Torba #Gab #refugees #Paul #Gottfried #Richard #Spencer #William #Wolfe #Big #Eva #Josh #Abbotoy #Claremont #Institute #Project2025 #Heritage #Foundation #Chris #Buskirk #Rockbridge #Network #Leonard #Leo #Peter #Thiel #Vance #Josh #Clemans #Charles #Haywood #warlord #Nate #Fischer #Brian #Sauvé #Mefferd #Joel #Webbon #dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#heritage #action #andrew #isker #torba #gab

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-26 · 00:06 UTC

William Wolfe served in the Trump administration
both as the deputy assistant secretary of defense
and as director of House affairs at the Department of State.

He is also an alumnus of #Heritage #Action,
a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation,
the arch-conservative think tank behind Project 2025,
whose chief architect, Russell Vought, posted on X that he was “proud to work with @William_E_Wolfe on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism.”

A few months later, the Bucks County Beacon uncovered a lengthy online manifesto on the goals of Christian nationalists.

The document, which listed Wolfe and Joel Webbon as contributing editors
and Oklahoma Sen. #Dusty #Deevers as a co-author,
called for “civil magistrates” to usher in 💥“the establishment of the Ten Commandments as the foundational law of the nation.”

The manifesto doesn’t specify exactly how Christian nationalists should achieve these goals.

As Tabachnick, the extremism researcher, interprets it, the TheoBros are imagining a utopia where “they are going to be free to be entrepreneurs in all different senses,
including the tech world that they’re mixing with so freely.”

The key, she said, is that authoritarianism “is required to have the utopian vision.”

Last year, the extremism watchdog group Right Wing Watch posted a video of Wolfe quoting a scripture passage.
There are times when “even the God of peace proclaims by his providence, ‘to arms!’” he says.

“If we have ever lived in a point of time in American history since then that we could argue that now is a time ‘to arms’ again, I think we are getting close.”

William Wolfe’s Christian nationalism manifesto made the rounds on social media,
but in mainstream conservative outlets,
it was #Stephen #Wolfe
(no relation to William)
who brought TheoBro ideas to the wider world.

In his book, which was praised by editors at the Federalist and the American Conservative,
Wolfe paints America as a “#gynocracy” whose government and culture have been feminized by unhappy women leaders.
(Sound familiar?)

He has stated on X that women should not have the right to vote, and that “interethnic” marriage can be “sinful.”

#Andrew #Isker #Andrew #Torba #Gab #refugees #Paul #Gottfried #Richard #Spencer #William #Wolfe #Big #Eva #Josh #Abbotoy #Claremont #Institute #Project2025 #Heritage #Foundation #Chris #Buskirk #Rockbridge #Network #Leonard #Leo #Peter #Thiel #Vance #Josh #Clemans #Charles #Haywood #warlord #Nate #Fischer #Brian #Sauvé #Mefferd #Joel #Webbon #dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#heritage #action #andrew #isker #torba #gab

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-26 · 00:01 UTC

One eager customer is 38-year-old TheoBro #Andrew #Isker
—the pastor who interned at Wilson’s church,
studied divinity at New Saint Andrews,
and co-wrote a book on Christian nationalism with #Andrew #Torba,
the openly antisemitic CEO of the social media platform #Gab.

In July, Isker announced on X that he planned to move his family of seven to lead a church in a New Founding community in Tennessee.

Life in his native Minnesota, he said, had become untenable because of permissive laws around trans rights and abortion,
not to mention how hospitable the state has been to #refugees.

“Minnesota is one of the top destinations for resettling foreign people hostile to our way of life,” he said.

That month, Isker spoke at a Texas conference about the
“war on white America”
alongside #Paul #Gottfried,
the mentor of prominent white nationalist #Richard #Spencer.

The conference was hosted by the "True Texas Project",
a far-right group with ties to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Like many TheoBros,
Isker sees much to like in Vance.

In early July, before Trump announced his running mate, Isker referred to him as
“Senator JD Vance (R-Heritage America).”

In late July, he posted a video of Vance and told his 29,000 followers,
“You need to double down on childless cat lady discourse.
Kamala sees happy, large families and hates them.
She wants them destroyed.
She wants you to never be able to have this.
She is a nasty, bitter harridan who hates all that is true, good, and beautiful.”

One problem is that there simply are not enough TheoBros to populate Christian communities like the one Isker plans to move to.

Enter #William #Wolfe,
the founder of the
"Center for Baptist Leadership", which aims to persuade members of the Southern Baptist Convention that it,
the largest of all Protestant denominations in the United States,
has fallen prey to the corrupting forces of liberalism.

Baptists are only the beginning.

Wolfe wants to win over the entire evangelical mainstream,
which he and other TheoBros refer to as “#Big #Eva.”

In August, he posted on X,
“Once you realize that Big Eva thinks it’s a bigger sin to desire to preserve the customs, heritage, values, and cultural homogeneity of your own nation
than to kill the unborn in the womb, you can better understand their moral framework.”

#Josh #Abbotoy #Claremont #Institute #Project2025 #Heritage #Foundation #Chris #Buskirk #Rockbridge #Network #Leonard #Leo #Peter #Thiel #Vance #Josh #Clemans #Charles #Haywood #warlord #Nate #Fischer #Brian #Sauvé #Mefferd #Joel #Webbon #dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#tucker #carlson #flamethrower #douglas #wilson #calvinism

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:53 UTC

An even more well-connected Wilson emulator is
#Josh #Abbotoy,
executive director of "American Reformer"
and managing partner of a venture capital fund and real estate firm called "New Founding".

A former fellow of the right-wing think tank the #Claremont #Institute, Abbotoy reported that he recently participated in a #Project2025 presidential transition “strategic planning session”
hosted by the right-wing think tank the #Heritage #Foundation.

Bucks County Beacon reporter Jennifer Cohn revealed venture capitalist #Chris #Buskirk was listed as the editor and publisher.

In 2022, Buskirk co-founded the #Rockbridge #Network,
a collection of powerful Trump donors including Catholic judicial kingmaker #Leonard #Leo and Silicon Valley billionaire #Peter #Thiel.

Another co-founder of the Rockbridge Network?
None other than
JD #Vance.

Thiel, Vance’s mentor and former employer, is also a major funder of the National Conservatism movement.

Obsessed with global birthrates, Thiel spent $10 million on his protégé’s successful 2022 Senate campaign.

In July, shortly after Trump had announced Vance as his running mate,
Cohn surfaced a tweet by New Founding’s network director,
#Josh #Clemans:
a photo of Vance with several New Founding staffers.

The caption read “Our guy.”

New Founding lists as a partner the "Society for American Civic Renewal",
a secretive fraternal order founded by Indiana shampoo baron #Charles #Haywood,

who describes himself as an aspiring Christian “#warlord.”

According to founder #Nate #Fischer, New Founding wants to “form the backbone of a renewed American regime”
and that its members
“understand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise.”

But its main public-facing project appears to be turning tracts of land in Appalachia into Christian communities.

Promotional materials describe a community of
“unmatched seclusion”
where
“simple country faith”
protects local culture from rainbow flags and crime.

Potential buyers, he advises, should not delay.

“Who’s going to grab the land?
Is it going to be good, based people who want to build something inspiring,
something authentic to the region’s history,
or is it going to be Bill Gates and BlackRock and hippies from California?”

#Brian #Sauvé #Mefferd #Joel #Webbon #dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#josh #abbotoy #claremont #institute #project2025 #heritage

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:44 UTC

In August, Joel Webon remarked on his show that “a lot of people are gonna be surprised” when
“you’re spending eternity worshipping Christ next to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and Jonathan Edwards,
and, you know, George Whitefield and Martin Luther King Jr.’s in hell.”

Webbon is so impressed by his own audacity that he maintains an online list of all the controversies in which he’s become embroiled.

There, he explains why he called Christian men living in California “stupid”

(they could just move to a red state);

why he once ordered his wife to stop reading a book on theology

(he didn’t want her exposed to beliefs that were different from his own);

and why he believes in a patriarchal household structure

(the Bible says so).

Webbon, who is planning to host a conference in Texas next spring called
“Christ Is King: How to Defeat Trashworld!”
maintains that a
“return to the Constitution is impossible”
and that the only viable alternative is the Ten Commandments.

Some of Wilson’s other acolytes are attempting to create their own versions of Moscow, Idaho.

Take #Brian #Sauvé, a 33-year-old Christian recording artist, podcaster, and pastor of "Refuge Church" in Ogden, Utah.

Like Webbon, Sauvé wasn’t always reformed
—Refuge began as a charismatic Christian church.

After the lead pastor resigned in a scandal, the then-24-year-old Sauvé ascended to take his place,
immersed himself in reformed theology,
and moved the church in a new direction.

Today, he presides over a Moscow-esque ecosystem:
a publishing house called "New Christendom Press",
as well as "St. Brendan’s Classical Christian Academy",
modeled after those in Wilson’s network.

“Can you feel it in the sails?” reads St. Brendan’s website.

“The stiff breeze out of Moscow, Idaho? -- We can.”

On his three podcasts and to his more than 53,000 followers on X, Sauvé regularly states that women’s primary function is to bear children.

In July, after Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies who are miserable” began widely circulating,
he posted:
“It is desperately sad to think of all the intentionally barren women who will find themselves totally alone in their 50s,
realizing their irreversible mistake.

They will wish they could trade it all
—money, vacations, independence, all of it
—for children they can now never have.”

But unlike more mainstream conservatives,
Sauvé does not even pretend to champion the idea of a
Judeo-Christian nation.

He posted in July, “[O]ur political system is heavily influenced by Jews who reject Christ and embrace all manner of evils.”

#Mefferd #Joel #Webbon #dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#brian #sauve #mefferd #joel #webbon #dominant

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:36 UTC

In subsequent videos, Douglas Wilson tackled women’s culpability in rape,
the dark side of empathy,
and the virtues of “something called the patriarchy
—that which, according to our
soi-disant and lisping political theorists, must be smashed...
Only they say something like ‘thmasth.’”

Wilson has used his platforms to anoint the next generation of ultraconservative reformed Christian pastors,
all of whom happened to be men.

#Mefferd, the conservative Christian journalist, told me that Wolfe’s "The Case for Christian Nationalism"
got traction in mainstream Christian circles in part
“because Doug Wilson endorsed.”

Another Wilson protégé is #Joel #Webbon, a 38-year-old pastor who hosts a podcast and YouTube show,
which he films from a wingback leather chair in a book-lined room.

Webbon wasn’t always reformed
— he is an alumnus of a Bible school run by a New Apostolic Reformation affiliated outfit,
— which he now considers “straight-up heretical.”

In his 20s, he broke from the group, moved to Texas, and started his own church.

In a video from a few years ago, Webbon credited Wilson with emboldening him to say whatever he wanted
—like telling a guest that the Founding Fathers weren’t responsible for the slave trade because Africans had done the actual kidnapping and enslaving.

For Webbon, it was intensely liberating to watch Wilson speak in public without worrying about being canceled.

“You stay in your little corner, you stay on your little leash, because you’re like, I don’t know what will happen,” Webbon said.

“But when you see some other guy do it, and you’re like
—that’s the worst thing that can happen?

Vice writes an article about you? [Christianity Today editor-in-chief] Russell Moore won’t invite you to his birthday party anymore?
Like, that’s it.”

At a recent conference, he registered dismay over immigrants in his community.

“It’s like full, straight-up Hindu garb at our neighborhood swimming pool,
that my daughter is asking [about and] I’m trying to explain.”
#dominant #man #submissive #woman #Hawley #Johnson #Lee #Vance #Trump #Turning #Point #USA #Tucker #Carlson #flamethrower #Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#mefferd #joel #webbon #dominant #man #submissive

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:23 UTC

Douglas Wilson's influence over Moscow Idaho has not been without controversy.

In a 2021 Vice exposé, former members of "Christ Church" alleged that ministers had encouraged them to stay in abusive relationships.

That tracks with Wilson’s 1999 book, "Fidelity: How to Be a One-Woman Man",
in which he wrote,

“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.
A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants.
A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

For that reason, Wilson wrote, the dynamic of a #dominant #man and a #submissive #woman is
“an erotic necessity.”

(Wilson called allegations of the church urging women to stay in abusive relationships “categorically false.”)

Wilson has also promoted another form of dominance.

In the 1996 book "Southern Slavery: As It Was",
Wilson and his co-author argued that the master-slave dynamic was “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence,”
-- and “there has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world” as that of the antebellum South.

(In a 2020 blog post, Wilson said he now allows that while “the benevolent master is not a myth, the idea of the horrific taskmaster is no abolitionist myth either.”)

When I asked Wilson about his controversial statements, he likened himself to a chef who strategically deploys jalapeno peppers:

“Then some of my enemies online have combed through my writings, have gathered up all the jalapenos and put them on one Ritz cracker.”

In July, at the "National Conservatism Conference"
in Washington, DC, Wilson shared the stage with Sens. Josh #Hawley (R-Mo.),
Ron #Johnson (R-Wis.),
and Mike #Lee (R-Utah),
as well as #Vance,
who auditioned his “America is a people” bit a week before his star turn at the GOP convention.

Wilson agrees with Vance’s suggestion that children should be allotted votes
-- managed by their parents.

“I would like to see elections where households vote,” he told me.

Men, as the heads of households, would actually cast the votes.

Though he believes that women’s suffrage was “a mistake,”
he would allow a special exception for single mothers.

Wilson offered the crowd a few one-liners
(“I’m a Presbyterian, not a Lesbyterian”),

but mostly, he talked about the persecution of Christians:

“It used to be that the sexually troubled had to keep their kinks hidden away in the closet,” he mused.

“Now it is the conservative Christian who needs to keep his virtues hidden in the recesses of the closet.”

After the "National Conservatism Conference", Wilson appeared at the "Believers’ Summit",
which was headlined by #Trump and hosted by the conservative political group #Turning #Point #USA.

But it’s not just conferences and interviews with the likes of #Tucker #Carlson where Wilson promotes his ideas.

He has a blog, a podcast, and a YouTube channel, thanks mostly to the urging of his children and younger colleagues.

One example is that every year since 2018, Wilson has been celebrating what he calls
No Quarter November:

“The month where we say out loud what everyone is thinking.”

In a 2023 video, which was the brainchild of one of his sons, Wilson sits at a sumptuously appointed Thanksgiving table,
surrounded by his children and grandchildren,
and addresses the camera.

“If you think of my blog as a shotgun,” he says,
“this is the month when I saw off all my typical, careful qualifications and blast away with a double-barreled shorty.”

His wife, clad in an apron, brings out a turkey and places it in front of him,
and then the tranquil scene is interrupted by a blaring alarm and a glowing red “perimeter breach” sign.

Wilson excuses himself, heads to his garage, and straps on a #flamethrower.

After using it to light a cigar, he aims the fire at cardboard cutouts of Disney princesses Elsa and Ariel, and the logos of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Netflix.

Wilson’s willingness to make campy content sets him apart, says Rachel Tabachnick,
an extremism researcher who has been studying Christian nationalism for decades.

“Instead of a crotchety old guy talking about stoning people, he’s like, super cool,” she says. “He’s witty.”

#Douglas #Wilson #Calvinism #Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#dominant #man #submissive #woman #douglas #wilson

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:16 UTC

Like all self-respecting millennials, the TheoBros have little tolerance for boomers,
with the exception of their patriarch, #Douglas #Wilson,
a 71-year-old pastor in Moscow, Idaho.

When he was younger, Wilson imagined himself going into the family business
—Christian bookstores
—but after a stint in the military, he moved to Moscow in 1975 to study philosophy at the University of Idaho,
where he became involved with the "Jesus People",
a kind of mashup of evangelical and hippie culture.

He helped found "Christ Church",
the congregation over which he still presides and that regularly draws crowds of 1,300.

Wilson has since turned the college town into his own Christian kingdom.

He helped found "New Saint Andrews College",
the "Canon Press" publishing house,
and "Logos School",
one of the nation’s first classical Christian schools,

where students exclusively study the Western canon.

Wilson embraced #Calvinism in 1988 and remade his church from the freewheeling "Jesus People" hub into something far more sober and buttoned-up,
where women couldn’t be church leaders and the only music allowed was hymns and psalms.

In the early 1990s, Wilson helped launch the "Association of Classical Christian Schools", which had 502 member institutions across the United States as of March 2023.

#Vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #TheoBros #Calvin #Rushdoony #homeschooling #charismatic #New #Apostolic #Reformation #reformed #TheoBros #apostles #prophets #Bible #postmillennialism #Aaron #Renn #Andrew #Isker #Douglas #Wilson #shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#douglas #wilson #calvinism #vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-09-25 · 23:02 UTC

The TheoBros’ strategy is bottom-up:

They aim to convert small American towns into Christian enclaves.

But it is also top-down:

Some are working to position themselves close to the locus of federal power.

#Vance, a Catholic convert married to a Hindu, would seem an unlikely hero for a movement of devout Protestants who believe in a homogeneous America.

But over the last few years, his political orbit has increasingly overlapped with that of the TheoBros
—so much so that to careful observers, his public echoes of their ideas are beginning to sound less like coincidence and more like dog whistles

And those dog whistles signal the major themes of this election:
#hypermasculinity, declining #birthrates, #ethnonationalism
—and no small measure of carefully curated #misogyny.

If you want to know some of the actors who red-pilled Vance, or at least those who flock to him, you need to meet the #TheoBros.

With no meetings, website, or an explicit statement of faith that unifies their beliefs,
the TheoBros are not an official organization.

They identify with 16th-century French theologian John #Calvin, who spawned a rigid and deterministic form of Protestantism.

Julie Ingersoll, a University of North Florida religion scholar, traces the current movement back to
R.J. #Rushdoony, an Armenian American philosopher who popularized the idea of Christian nationalism
(and #homeschooling) in the early 1970s.

Out of Rushdoony’s movement emerged two camps:

♦️the #charismatic Christians, now known as the #New #Apostolic #Reformation,

♦️and the #reformed Protestants, which include the #TheoBros.

They share the goal of creating a Christian nation, says Ingersoll,
but differ on a key point of theology:

Adherents of the New Apostolic Reformation believe that God is still speaking directly to people through pastors who have declared themselves #apostles and #prophets.

The TheoBros, meanwhile, believe that God said all he needed to say in the #Bible.

Many TheoBros are also proponents of #postmillennialism, the idea that believers can ➡️ hasten Jesus’ return by fighting against the satanic forces of liberal excess.

TheoBro #Aaron #Renn, an Accenture consultant turned Christian pundit, has described our current era as a
“negative world,”
where Christians are persecuted for their beliefs.

#Andrew #Isker, another Bro, calls it “trashworld.”

#shared #history #patriarchal #Christian #nationalism #young #pastors #Christian #prince #women #flogging #Franco #multiculturalism #Taylor #Swift

#vance #hypermasculinity #birthrates #ethnonationalism #misogyny #theobros

Susan Larson ♀️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🌈 @[email protected] · 2024-05-02 · 20:03 UTC

#UnitedMethodistChurch lifts 40-year #ban on #LGBTQ+ #clergy, #samesexmarriage. ‘We no longer say #being #gay is a #sin’

The #UMC #GeneralConference in #NorthCarolina with a #historic 692-51 #vote #repealed their #ban on #LGBTQ #clergy and on #UMC #pastors #officiating at #samesexweddings.

Most opposition to #LGBTQ+ #rights in the #UnitedStates still emanates from #Christian #pulpits.

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Spirituality #Religion #Progress

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/02/united-methodist-church-lifts-40-year-ban-on-lgbtq-clergy-we-no-longer-say-being-gay-is-a-sin/

#unitedmethodistchurch #ban #lgbtq #clergy #samesexmarriage #being

Belgian Ecclesia Brussel - Leuven @[email protected] · 2016-02-09 · 13:44 UTC

When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith

When we have found the Word of God and started reading the Bible with an open mind, letting the words come to us like they are written, it shall transform our inner self, if we allow it to do that.

When we do come into the faith, believing in One God and believing in His only begotten son, to be the sent one from God and the Messiah, our saviour, we shall have to take actions. We shall not be able to continue to live like we did before.

Faith demands action. Faith demands works.

We do know that there are lots of pastors who say contrary, but be aware that rabbi Jeshua taught his followers to be prudent and to be alert, doing the right things are otherwise they could miss the opportunity to enter God’s Kingdom.

It is true that we have received the free Gift of the Grace of God by the Blood of Christ. But it is not because we are giving a whitewashing of sins by the ransom offer of Christ Jesus, that we can do whatever we want. No. Once we come into the faith we shall have to do the works of faith. In case we do not do those works of the Law our faith shall be like a dead faith, not bringing us far.

When from our bible reading we got to see that Jesus is the Way and that we have to become one like he is one with God we shall have to work on ourselves to become like Jesus. It shall take many works to come in Christ and becoming “a new creation“. Than the old person has to be set aside and a new person has to take you over, like you are reborn in this system of things, you not any more being of the world but being of God.

Thanks to the sent one from God and God accepting Jesus his offering as a payment for sins, salvation has come over us. But when becoming a Christian we are at a new starting point, saved from the curse of death. This we have to keep so, which shall demand lots of works, keeping ourselves under control.

God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Given a free way now we have to keep our good relationship with This Divine Creator and with His son. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them does not give us now a free way to continue sinning. God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we have to be Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. Jesus asked his disciples to go out into the world and to proclaim the Gospel message of the coming Kingdom of God. This is a very important work we do have to do. This we only can do properly when we live according to what we preach.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God and start doing the works of faith.

Let us have a look at what the Bible itself says about Faith and Works.

“17 Wherefore if any man is in Christ, {1} [he is] a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. {1) Or, there is [a new creation]} 18 But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having {1} committed unto us the word of reconciliation. {1) Or [placed in us]}

20 We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech [you] on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20 ASV)

“3 For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; 4 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8 Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.

9 But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another; 10 for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more; 11 and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; 12 that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-12 ASV)

“2 Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; 3 Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. 4 And let patience have [its] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.

5 But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; 8 a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate: 10 and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.” (James 1:2-10 ASV)

“12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] promised to them that love him.

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man: 14 but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:12-15 ASV)

“19 Ye know [this], my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21 Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. 23 For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: 24 for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But he that looketh into the perfect law, the [law] of liberty, and [so] continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing. 26 If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:19-27 ASV)

“1 My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, [the Lord] of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also a poor man in vile clothing; 3 and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say, Sit thou here in a good place; and ye say to the poor man, Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool; 4 do ye not make distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2:1-4 ASV)

“8 Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: 9 but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one [point], he is become guilty of all.

11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

12 So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty. 13 For judgment [is] without mercy to him that hath showed no mercy: mercy glorieth against judgment.

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, 16 and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?

17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.

18 Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from [thy] works, and I by my works will show thee [my] faith.

19 Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect; 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.

24 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.

25 And in like manner was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.” (James 2:8-26 ASV)

“13 Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. 14 But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.” (James 3:13-18 ASV)

“1 Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members?

2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend [it] in your pleasures.

4 Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.

5 Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore [the scripture] saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.

7 Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.

11 Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12 One [only] is the lawgiver and judge, [even] he who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?” (James 4:1-12 ASV)

“7 Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. 8 Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold, the judge standeth before the doors. 10 Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:7-10 ASV)

“12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; that ye fall not under judgment.

13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise.

14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. 16 Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” (James 5:12-16 ASV)

“19 My brethren, if any among you err from the truth, and one convert him; 20 let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20 ASV)

*

Prestbury war memorial – northern face “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. On 864428. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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#Abraham #ActionsToBeTaken #Adultery #AmbassadorsOfChrist #AskingGod #AskingInFaith #BeAfflicted #BecomeLikeChrist #BecomingAChristian #BecomingInChrist #BeingInChrist #BeingOfGod #BeingOfTheWorld #BeingOfUnderstanding #BeingSick #BeingUnstable #BeingWise #BeliefInChrist #BelieveInChrist #BelieveInGod #BelieveInMessiah #BelievingInGod #BelievingInSonOfGod #BibleReading #BloodOfChrist #BodyApartFromTheSpirit #BrotherlyLove #CallingForElders #ChristianFaith #Clothing #ClothingOthers #ConfessOneToAnother #Confession #Confusion #Control #Covet #CurseOfDeath #DeadFaith #Discrimination #DivineCreator #DoersOfTheWord #DoingTheWillOfGod #DoublemindedPerson #Doubt #DoubtingMan #DrawNighToGod #EnmityWithGod #EnteringInGodSKingdom #EnteringIntoGodSRest #EntranceToGodSKingdom #Faction #FactionInYourHeart #Faith #FaithAndWorks #FaithApartFromWorks #FaithOfAbraham #FeedingOthers #Fighting #Filthiness #FindingGod #FindingWordOfGod #ForgivenessOfSins #Fornication #FriendshipOfTheWorld #FruitOfRighteousness #FulfillingTheRoyalLaw #Gift #GiftOfGrace #GoodFruits #GraceOfGod #HearersOfTheWord #Humble #HumblePeople #Humbleness #Hypocrisy #Jealousy #Judge #Judgement #JudgingOthers #JustificationByWorks #KeepingTheWholeLaw #Killing #LawOfLiberty #Lawgiver #LifeInChrist #LifeOfFaith #LivingInFaith #LookingIntoThePerfectLaw #LoveForOneAnother #LoveGod #LoveOfTheBrethren #LoveOneAnother #Lust #Meekness #MeeknessOfWisdom #MessageOfReconciliation #Messiah #MinistryOfReconciliation #Mourn #Mourning #NewCreation #NewPersonality #notKilling #Oath #OldPersonality #OneWithGod #Partiality #PassionOfLust #Pastors #Patience #Peacemaker #Pray #PreachingWork #ProofOfFaith #Proud #ProudPeople #ProvingOfOurFaith #PuttingAwayAllFilthiness #PuttingAwayAllWickedness #Rahab #Ransom #RansomOffer #Rebirth #Reborn #Reconciliation #RejectingGod #RejectingMan #RelationshipWithGod #RelationshipWithJesusChrist #Religion #ResistEvil #Respect #RespectForEachother #RighteousnessOfGod #RoyalLaw #SalvationThroughJesusChrist #Sanctification #SaviourChrist #ScriptureFulfilled #SelfControl #SentOneFromGod #ShowingMercy #SingPraise #Sinning #SlowToSpeak #SlowToWrath #SpeakingAgainstTheLaw #SpeakingOneAgainstAnother #SubjectUntoGod #Suffering #Supplication #Swearing #SwiftToHear #Temptation #toBePatient #toBeReligious #toComeIntoTheFaith #toCovet #toDoYourOwnBusiness #toEndureTemptation #toErr #toLackWisdom #toMakePeace #toMurmur #toPreach #toSwear #toTakeAction #toWorkWithYourHands #Transgression #Transgressor #Uncleanness #VileDeed #Visiting #WaitingUntoGod #War #WayOfLiving #Weep #Wickedness #WillOfGod #Wisdom #WordOfGod #WorkOfFaith #WorksOfFaith #WorksOfTheLaw #Wrath #WrathOfMan

#abraham #actionstobetaken #adultery #ambassadorsofchrist #askinggod #askinginfaith