Why the Future of the Dissident Right Is Christian

Old political orthodoxies are crumbling. A new vision has yet to form. Many criticize and critique the regime, but in the end, only Christianity can oppose the essence of the regime at its core.

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

45. Why the Future of the Dissident Right Is Christian

For quite some time now, the Christian faith has been shunted to the side in the realms of Western culture. The European wars of religion fought in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation left a deep scar. They also created room for a rising commercial class to throw off the shackles of religion and to embrace the emerging rationalization of everything. It brought about revolutions. There was the introduction of new legal frameworks with a new moral framework based on natural rights. Democratic forms of government. The market was coming to influence more and more of society. No longer would the authority of “the Church” determine truth and falsehood. Competition, open discourse and the marketplace of ideas would determine truth. People would use evidence and observation, the powers of reason and not old superstitions nor the institution of the Church to advocate for truth. The best ideas would win ascent through competition and truth would emerge as a result. We did not need religion in the public spaces. Its passions were destructive. We could split society into the public spaces of the reason, science and the market, and the private spaces of faith and religion. In this way, we could break free from the dark old ways and reach for a new, better, emergent future. It was an optimistic time.

This idea, that we can have a “value free” and completely neutral public space is one which sounds good in practice, but comes laden with numerous problems. To begin with, it’s really a fiction that we tell ourselves. There is no such thing. It is not possible for such a space to exist because the idea of a “value free space” is itself a value laden proposition chosen at the outset and never subjected to the same criticisms as the various “value laden” propositions which are supposedly going to be arbitrated in this “value free” space. We can debate every idea except the possibility of rejecting the “value free” space. Likewise, the only idea which cannot be debated in the so-called “marketplace of ideas” is the rejection of such a mechanism in the pursuit of the truth. Both are merely accepted a priori as the frame within which we operate. We have a public space which is constructed around a set of values which says we should not discuss values in the public realm. This is a fiction.

In practice, what is meant is that we can discuss values, as long as they are not rooted in religious argumentation, especially if they originate from the Christian faith. You can make moral arguments, but you cannot do so saying things like “the Bible says” or “God says” or even things like “Calvin wrote” or “The Westminster Creed clearly indicates” or some such. Every once and a while you can get away with citing an argument from Aquinas or Augustine. But much more profitable are arguments which originate in Plato, Aristotle or some political or economic theorist. Better if these arguments sound scientific and come with data and charts.

We have come to think of arenas like public education as something “value neutral.” Same too the scientific disciplines. The thing is, if you are teaching, you are always teaching something, some form of content. It is not a matter whether or not to indoctrinate children, it is a matter of what indoctrination will you give them. If you want to form American patriots, you have to actively teach them what that means. You have to shape them into it. It is the reason my children attend a private Christian school. It is the reason that the left is very intentional about using the education system for the purpose of indoctrinating your children. It was easy, in the days when the culture was more unified, to believe the myth of a neutral public educational system that didn’t indoctrinate children but merely taught them “basic skills,” but those days are long past. This idea that all we need is “basic skills” is itself a system of values, this idea that we can separate moral values from the skills and information needed to succeed in the public arena. We are inculcating the children into this idea that religious values are separate from the educational tools you need for success. This idea is itself an ideology. Again, there is no escaping the reality that if you are teaching, you are always teaching something, some set of values, some set of beliefs, some set of morals. Indoctrination cannot be avoided. The only question is which belief system will you use to indoctrinate children.

Similar dynamics are at work with science. Objectivity is not a thing. There is no way for anyone to escape their culture, their moment in history, or even themselves when pursuing scientific inquiries. The very idea of science itself is a form of bias which says that if we confine ourselves to what can be measured, observed, and tested we can establish a firm foundation for knowing. Even in disciplines like theoretical physics, there is the possibility that the theory might be tested. And the theories are generally expressed mathematically, which gives the air of rational discipline and rigor as opposed to the fancies of philosophers and theologians. But science inherently excludes certain types of knowing. It is a frame. Even the so-called “laws of nature” only exist within this frame. As long as you make all the assumptions about knowledge and the world which are made in the scientific frame of knowing, then their conclusions can be said to be “universal.” But are so-called “universals” really universal, or merely the product of this frame and the language games necessary to make it function. Its efficacy and power have been its strongest argument. Its conclusions do grant you great power to manipulate and harness the forces of the nature and society. But this does not mean that science is either “objective” or an “neutral” arbiter of the truth. Even within the scientific frame, the decision to study this thing over that thing is a form of bias. The act of measuring a particle determines its state. Science, even in denying that it is a system of values, cannot be anything other than another set of values.

I could give example after example, but this gives you the main thrust of the argument. There is no such thing as a “neutral” “value free” space. There are always values and beliefs at work. Even the claim to be morally or religiously neutral is itself a moral and religious claim. So, while it may be possible to create an institutional separation between church organizations and the operation of the state, it is fundamentally flawed to say that you can create a public space that is free from religious values. There is no such thing as a truly “secular” state. There will always be a belief system at work. It is merely a matter of identifying the religious or quasi-religious commitments in play.

The New Secular Religion

Having squeezed Christianity out of the public sphere, relegating the faith and its institutions to the realm of “the private,” a vacuum was created. As noted above, you cannot create a neutral space. It has been said that we as humans are religious beings. It is not a matter of whether or not we worship some higher power, some god, but rather, the question is: which god? There are always belief systems at work. But are these religious in nature? Can something be religious without a god, without temples, without priests, without rituals? What is it that makes a set of beliefs, or even a philosophical commitment, religious in nature?

There are a number of things which, when clustered together, have a distinctly religious character. I don’t know whether this is a strict “history of religions” definition, but thinking about it myself, there seems to be a number of elements, which, when they come together scream: here is a religion. Is there a god that is worshiped? Is there a sacred order? Do the adherents gain power through worship? Does interaction with the god and the sacred order grant legitimacy and authority to its adherents? Does it provide meaning and satisfaction to its practitioners? In other words, it is able to provide many, if not most of the same functions of a religion?

Once you have pushed Christianity out of the public realm and it is no longer acting as the guardian of truth—it no longer gives its imprimatur—or the nature of the metaphysical order, or of morality, something must fill that void. All law is an expression of morality. All morality is an expression of religious values. Even in our post-modern world, there is a proscribed metaphysical order, no mater how fluid and plastic it might be. Who acts as the guardian of that order? Where is power drawn from, if it is not being drawn from the God of the Christian faith? Who has authority, and how is it granted?

It is a confluence of things, but all of them come together in the apparatus of “the state.” Power is drawn from the application of technique in the systems of administration, allowing government and business to harness the forces of society, organize them, rationalize them and turn them into a cohesive universal system. This power, combined with the credentialing system of the universities, and the impression of the unbiased methodologic rigor of science—whether the reality lives up to the pretense is a different question—tends to invest the state in its totality with the qualities of a god.

Once the previously dominant Christian religion had been pushed aside, the state began to fill the roles it previously occupied. The state becomes the guardian of “universal values” which then dictate the morality of society. They impose these values with the force and intensity of a religious system. They develop rituals around this new belief system. Those who work within the vast network of this system become part of a new priestly class, ministering the universal values, the morality which flows from them, and the rituals and celebrations which surround them. The term “The Cathedral” took off in part because it captured the essence of what it happening. “The State” is also a big enough entity that it defies comprehension at this point. It is not just government. It is all the organizations which run on technique, that use rationalized, systematized management techniques. Business. Government. Universities. Media. Think tanks. Non-governmental organizations. Even most charities. In many cases, if you are part of a large church that uses modern management techniques or a para-church non-profit, you are part of the vast spiderweb of the “managerial state.” It is a single operating system. The whole complex is beyond anyone’s comprehension. It has become a “god.”

What of the “Death of God” and the Nietzschean “Will to Power”?

It is a fair criticism, one with which Christians must reckon, in answering the assertion made in the title of this piece that the future of the resistance to the regime is Christian, that Christians had their shot and lost out to current current regime, that their God was not strong enough and deserved to “die.” Functionally, so many of us as Christians live, work, engage in public life and even run our churches as if God is not there. We are often functional materialists. We live as if there is no God even while using God language. Perhaps better, we have adopted the new faith in technique and the power of the administrative state. We instantiate this new faith everywhere in much of what we do. Having received this criticism, lets hold a response till later in piece.

But what of the Nietzschean response to the so-called death of God: the will to power? There is a strong segment of the dissident right who take their inspiration from the writings of Nietzsche. In the face of the dehumanizing nature of the regime and its general ugliness, it does seem an inspiring message. Seek to be the “superman.” Make your body strong and beautiful. Engage your mind. Embrace your own power. You can assert your own excellence against the depredations and humiliations foisted upon you daily. You will be the new warrior class, preparing themselves quietly, waiting for their to moment strike the regime down. There are many figures in the dissident right sphere whom I respect who embrace these ideas as their organizing and motivating principles. They are suspicious of Christianity as a feminine, weak faith, not up to the task of toppling the regime.

The problem that the Nietzschean Right faces in combatting the regime, is that technique harnessed for the purposes of social, political and material power as well as the making of money gives human beings a kind of power unimagined until very recently in the grand scheme of human events. I have talked about this here:

The Loss of ᾰ̓ρετή: Why Technology Makes You Dumber and Less Capable While Making You Feel More Powerful

If we understand the technical as a means for man to extend his power, then the regime represents the ultimate expression of the will to power. I suppose one could capture the regime and bend it to Right Wing ends, but it will still retain all the characteristics of the technical. In a sense, the Nietzschean right is looking to capture and enslave the god of the regime, the administrative state, and bend it to its own end. Either that, or topple the regime. But how do you do that when faced with the sheer technical power that the regime can wield? There were very good reasons why human beings slowly abandoned the Christian God for the power of technique, science and the market. There is good reason why Christians today try to harness these powers, a “business” approach to church and church growth. The powers of technique seems so much more tangible. It was the same reason that the Israelites took the treasures of the Egyptians and fashioned them into golden calves for themselves. We want an immediate god, one which we can shape and control, one which will give us power. We embraced technique in the form of “the state” because it finally gave us what all the other idols before only promised, real power to shape the world and build for ourselves heaven on earth. If people abandoned Christianity for this power, what hope does a handful of Nietzscheans have against “the state”? And if you are looking for the true “will to power” the technical administrative state is its true form. The Nietzschean Right, unfortunately are mere pretenders. They see that we are in a power struggle. But the power they need has already been grasped by another for whom it is a much better fit.

Technique, Propaganda and the Left Liberal Nature of the West

The Toppling of a God

If “the state” in its totality has taken on the characteristics of a god, then resisting and bringing down the regime means defying and ultimately toppling a god. From where does one gather the power necessary to do such a thing? I suppose that one could try to use all of the powers of the regime against itself. But that seems self-defeating. If you draw on the powers of technique, rationalized systems, organization and administration, you may be able to defeat the current iteration of the regime, but you will have retained the god itself, hoping that in your hands its powers will result in a new outcome, different from the first. Call me skeptical.

From where do you draw the power to dethrone a god? From another God. The living God. The same God we mostly abandoned to pursue the new god of technique, rationality and system. I suppose one could look to foreign gods, such as the one the Moslems worship. But at that point, why not simply embrace the god of the regime? No, our battle here in the West is an internal fight, between the God of the scriptures and the church, and the new god of the administrative state in all its manifestations. It is a power struggle. In the end, when push comes to shove, it is a battle of faith. Do Christians actually believe the things they say they believe? This is not a new struggle. It is the battle of kings: Pharaoh vs. YHWH. There are old temptations here as well. How many times throughout the long history of Israel did a king to well in the eyes of the Lord, yet fail to cut down the Asherah poles and remove the alters in the high places? Are we willing to go to the lengths Josiah did in 2 Kings 23? “The Josiah Option.”

For Christians it is all there in the scriptures. The promises remain. We tend to look at “faith” today as an unwavering agreement in the idea that Jesus died for us and was raised from the dead. While embracing the truth of this is important, vital even, it is but a small portion of “faith.” If you read the gospels carefully, one of the things you will notice Jesus doing throughout the stories is teaching, that is discipling, his disciples into faith. Jesus was teaching them to believe, to have faith, teaching them how it worked and what it was about. One of Jesus’ common rebukes is “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

There is sequence in the gospels, the feeding of the 5,000, then the feeding of the 4,000 after which Jesus uses these events as an object lesson. The feeding of the 5,000 begins with Jesus’ command to his disciples: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Well, the “Committee to Feed 5,000 People” had met and determined that the five loaves of bread and two fish they had were insufficient to feed that many. Jesus, on the other hand, asked for the bread and fish, blessed them and looking to heaven, that is, to the power of God, proceeded to break the bread and feed the 5,000. After everyone had eaten, they gathered twelve basketfuls of broken pieces (Matthew 14:13-21). This scene was repeated in the next chapter with 4,000 people.

Then in Matthew 16:5-12 these two events are brought together and given their proper meaning by Jesus. Jesus warns his disciples, “Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” The disciples, confused, think Jesus is mentioning this because they forgot bread. But Jesus chastises them. “Do you still not understand?” He then questions them, don’t you remember the 5,000 and how many basketfuls you gathered or the 4,000 and how many basketfuls you gathered? Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples understand this as Jesus telling them to be on guard against the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But what were those teachings? The Pharisees practiced a very rigorous set of religious rules which governed their behavior on a very granular level. Modern Jewish practice is largely a descendent of this group’s teachings. The Sadducees, on the other hand were largely made up of the priestly class as well as many of those who were wealthy and politically connected. Basically the two groups encompass many of the common religious means of expressing devotion to God. Rigorous practice of morality and behavior. Religion as “have a code.” The others are ritual and political action.

However we detail the specifics, Jesus compares them to the wrong type of yeast. The Pharisees and the Sadducees are baking bread. Their loaves might even seem light and fluffy. There is a reason people buy their bread. Jesus argues that you have to look past the loaves, the surface perceptions. The contrast he draws is that whatever they are using to get their loaves of bread to rise, don’t use it. The yeast you want to be using is the power that fed 5,000 and 4,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

So where does this power come from? It comes from God, through faith. This is the lesson. The question Jesus asks in Luke 18:8 still hangs in the air: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Ours fight has always been a great cosmic religious battle (Acts 26:12-18; Ephesians 6:10-20) the center of which has been a faith in the power of God to bring salvation, through Jesus, but also through us as his ambassadors, his representatives. So where does this faith come from? How do we come by the power of God? The same way Jesus taught. We ask, we wait, we believe:

⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We will talk more in coming pieces about the battle to come. But at its heart we must understand that ours is the current manifestation of the grand cosmic battle that has been going on for a long time. It is a religious war. A battle between the one true and living God and a pretender god. This pretender offers wealth and power. But we must resist its allure. Our time today is one of preparation. It begins with returning to the core message, “Repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand.” It is a time to pick sides. It is a time to draw on the true power, the power that fed the 5,000 and the 4,000, the kind of power capable of bringing down a false god. It is a time to seek after the living God and to ask and to seek and to knock. It is a time to trust in the character of God, that he is faithful to his promises, that he will give us his Spirit if we ask him. And as powerful as the regime is, can it stand up to the living God? Even though at times things look bleak and the task ahead seems daunting, we know that the battle has already been won.