The Poison of the So-called “New Christian Right”

I have been actively involved for more than a year and a half in pastoral counseling and conversations with men (and some women) who are, at various levels, being exposed to and embracing narratives associated with what some are calling the New Christian Right (NCR). Like so many terms, the name itself is somewhat ambiguous. There are almost as many varieties of Christian nationalism, theonomy, natural law, postmillennialism, and Protestant political theory as there are people connected to those views. Any criticism I might make of poison within the NCR is not intended as an attack against everyone or everything connected to that name. There are many in the NCR camp with whom I largely agree and many tenets of the NCR with which I heartily concur. The title of this essay is meant to be deliberately ambiguous. The poison to which I refer is as much a pollution of the NCR as it is a toxin introduced by the NCR. I believe many who are embracing ideas associated with the NCR are genuinely unaware of and would be opposed to many of the conclusions that some are leading them towards. They were excited to be invited by the cool kids to take a ride in a fast car; they did not know the joy ride would end in a drive-by shooting.

There is a great deal of mockery and dismissal of those who are sounding an alarm about what they call the “Woke Right.” Critics of the Woke Right are easy to dismiss. James Lindsay is an atheist. Other critics are Zionists, neo-cons, or otherwise connected to a despised and outdated establishment. There is no need to listen to their concerns; we can simply discredit and dismiss their claims by means of effective ad hominem. We are learning, yet again, the hard way, the truth of our Savior’s words: The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light (Luke 16:8). It is shameful when an atheist and a Jungian psychologist can more accurately and faithfully analyze what is going on in many sectors of the “right wing” and “Christian” world than believers who claim to be led by the Spirit and to stand on the Bible.

The rising anger, resentment, conspiracy-orientation, ethnic bigotry, and anti-semitism being expressed by many “Reformed” Christians is unbiblical, anti-christian, and an offense against the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Yet we have been told we must deal patiently and pastorally with young men exploring these ideas. God knows how many hours I have spent doing just that with young men being influenced by various Christian podcasts and non-Christian sources. Some have been successfully pulled back from the brink, after many weeks and months of conversation; others instead chose to pull away, in self-righteous anger and pride. To say these ideas are poisonous is not to suggest that every man who entertains them should be immediately placed under church discipline and cast out. But pastors who insist such men must be treated gently and patiently, that we should not react too strongly simply to “noticing” and “asking questions,” demonstrate that they lack the discernment necessary to shepherd the people of God. They are not qualified to produce a podcast, much less to build a platform for themselves under the name pastor.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:15-20 have come to mean more to me over the last few years, during a period of time in which I was the one being maligned as a false teacher. Jesus says: You will know them by their fruits. He did not say you would identify false teachers by their doctrine—though often that will also be true—he says you will know them by their fruit, i.e. the result of their teaching and of their life. I have seen members leave our church in anger identifying themselves with a particular, popular church brand or the last name of a well-known and influential pastor. What those podcasts or personalities had to do with the conversation remains a mystery to me. We do not tell members what they are allowed to listen to or whose ministry they are allowed to like or follow. But months of feeding their souls on that content created bitterness, resentment, marital strife, and increasing separation from former friends and brethren in their own local church. Is this the fruit of the Spirit, or the result of another spirit at work in Christian disguise?

The kind of ethnic pride, bigotry, resentment, suspicion, and arrogance being cultivated and encouraged by certain voices on the “Christian Right” is not of God, no matter how many arguments may be made to justify it. I have heard pastors compare such dalliances with dark ideas to the other kinds of temptations young men face: pornography, abuse of alcohol, fornication, and the like. But these are not comparable. Men who view pornography do not talk about it at church functions. They generally do not share it through text messages with their brothers in Christ. They do not make jokes about it in public. They keep it a secret, because they know it is not acceptable. Deep down, they know they are wrong, and they have some level of shame about it. But this rising spirit of resentment, ethnic pride and bigotry, and conspiracy thinking (often targeting the Joos) is toxic, contagious, and proselytizing. How many of the pastors recommending patience and gentleness with Holocaust memes would say the same thing if instead of a Hitler joke at the church potluck the young men were sharing links to their favorite Only Fans account?

Many of the conversations I have heard among pastors about how to respond to these issues seem to assume a dichotomous choice between handling these conversations personally and pastorally vs. making public statements and exercising immediate church discipline. The vast majority of our elders’ work with young men on this topic has been face-to-face, one on one, with repeated pastoral conversations and counsel. But we eventually planned public sermons, because part of our pastoral work is in the pulpit, helping God’s people learn how to think biblically, and none of us has any idea how many have heard or been introduced to things that may lead them down a dark path of anti-christian ideology. Pastors do not have to always call out individuals or address online debates from the pulpit—that is not the purpose of the pulpit, and ordinarily we should not—but any pastor who fails to address the underlying biblical and theological issues head-on, from the pulpit and person-to-person, publicly and house to house, working from the text of Scripture, in ways that both edify and inoculate the congregation as a whole, is failing to be a faithful shepherd. He is leaving the church unguarded against the Serpent, whose voice is heard not only outside the Church but also within it.

A major part of the difficulty in dealing with this crisis is that the “expert class” has been discredited, and ignorant, unqualified “pastors” and content creators who know how to produce slick digital content have more credibility in the minds of many 18-40 year olds than the grey-haired pastor who loves, prays, and pours into them week after week for years. The way to overcome this is by building the kind of personal pastoral care and relationships with gravitas that will eventually outweigh the online noise that seeks to capture and subvert their attention and heart. Pastors and older Christian men must do the hard work of building relationships of integrity and trust, spending and being spent for the sake of the souls of the men in their care and circle of influence. Pastors need to read widely and deeply, think carefully and critically, and be prepared to speak intelligently and persuasively. We need fewer pastors seeking to build influence through a brand and more men of God willing to work off-line to build real relationships, trust, and influence in the lives of young men who are being tutored and led by algorithms and podcasts rather than by Scripture and by time tested, godly men who are faithful husbands and fathers.

“Ideas have consequences.” That is more than the title of a book; it is a powerful truth about how God made the world. It matters what you think and how you think. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed (Prov. 13:20). The resentment, conspiracy thinking, and bigotry growing on the New Christian Right will eventually collapse. Its philosophy is bankrupt. It is built on sand, no matter the futile justifications offered from biblical or natural law. No amount of slick digital media can redeem or support it. But how many men will be damaged or destroyed before or when it crashes? How many marriages will have been poisoned? How many children will have been catechized in anti-christian thinking that will end in apostasy? How divisive will it prove to the legitimacy and legacy of the current administration? How much of the good that has been accomplished in the last seven months will be discredited and swept away in reaction to the truly diabolical perversion that proudly wears the name Christian? By their fruits you will know them. Do not be misled by articulate and persuasive voices that allow you to justify the attitudes and resentment you know in your heart is wrong. Do not be deceived by the historical revisionism promoted by apostates or by the uncertain sounds made by “pastors” who simply “notice” and “question” while boasting about their crotch size. From such people turn away.