The Ditch on the Other Side

When I became a pastor 25 years ago, I never imagined I would be having weekly conversations with men who are rethinking their views on the Jewish people, qua Jews, and soft-pedaling the historical narrative around Hitler and the Holocaust. The events of the last ten years—including the rise of Donald Trump and the corresponding development of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the COVID scam-demic, the “fiery but mostly peaceful” BLM riots, and the unmasking of a Deep State more sinister than most rational people had ever imagined—is driving some Christians mad. We always knew the media and Left were lying to us, but now we have seen the coordinated propaganda of the Marxist Left, and rather than taking the red pill, some of us have downed the whole bottle.

We are justified in being suspicious of anything the mainstream media says. You know they are lying when you see their mouth moving. The realization that an expert class has manipulated us for decades makes frustrated conservatives rightly suspicious of any narrative that everyone seems to agree upon. What if many of the things we were taught about history were really products of the Ministry of Truth? What if Oceania hasn’t always been at war with Eurasia?

Many of these same red-pilled, frustrated conservatives attended public schools in their youth—a moment of silent sympathy for those who grew up in government indoctrination camps—where they received classes in math, grammar, and science but missed any lessons in critical thinking. Others of us were homeschooled back in the day when Mom and Dad told you not to be seen outside the house during school hours. When my parents pulled me out of elementary school to educate me at home, we were told if someone knocked at the door we should go to our bedroom, shut the door, and play quietly until they were gone. We heard stories of homeschooling families confronted by state officials for alleged truancy. We were the underground resistance. It was exciting. We were taught to read literature and history, think critically, and be suspicious of officials who might show up and say those nine terrifying words President Reagan warned us about: “I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.”

Like many of my friends and brothers, I swallowed a red pill some time ago—and chased it down with a pint of oatmeal stout, my preferred theological brew. I sympathize, and largely agree with, those who are convinced of Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics: “The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” Some things are now impossible to deny. The media is corrupt, Marxist, and largely a platform for promoting radical, Marxist propaganda. Government agencies are full of people who actually hate America and desire to transform it. They read 1984 as if it were a manifesto and manual rather than a warning against the very kind of world they seek to create. Evangelical and Reformed churches are full of feminists and social justice sympathizers whose celebrity status has been cultivated by bad actors who use them to advance Marxist ideology in the Name of Jesus. However it happened, no thinking person can really believe Epstein killed himself, but we can be sure that actors in our major political parties (and intelligence establishment) have assisted multiple people in involuntary suicide.

Unfortunately, some of those who have woken up have not just begun to question narratives, they have decided the exact opposite of every narrative they have ever been told must be true. Saying one questions the “post WWII consensus” sounds so much more enlightened and intelligent than denying the Holocaust. They wouldn’t say Churchill is the chief villain of WWII—at least, not yet, give them another six months to tell us how they really feel—but he definitely was one of the bad guys. The Left thinks all white people are racists? Hold my beer. Zionism has been promoted by dispensationalists and neo-cons? Maybe the Muslims aren’t so bad after all. At least they acknowledge Jesus was a prophet. Feminism has crippled the modern, western world, and the Bible teaches a type of patriarchy, so maybe Andrew Tate is on to something. After all, his machismo is a lot more appealing than boomer pastors who wear sweater vests.

Two things can be true at once. Historical consensus sometimes affirms facts that are leveraged by bad actors to advance unholy agendas, but exaggeration, misrepresentation, and misuse of history do not de-legitimize the actual history that occurred. Anyone who views the Crusades as an example of wholly wicked aggression by Christians really should do some reading. It is quite another thing to endorse the Crusades as a moral good or model for advancing Christian society. Hearing men who oppose a foreign policy of nation-building advocate for something like a new round of Crusades is ironic… or moronic. If only we had contemporary accounts of the Holocaust from Reformed Christians and did not have to rely on biased propaganda from the Jooos and nasty socialists who hate Hitler, probably because he was a Christian. Don’t bother me with books. You cannot rely on things printed on paper. We have unmasked the experts as enemies, and we have embraced YouTube and Twitter as the only credible source of news. Crowd-sourcing is the only way to get reliable information, which is why nothing beats Wikipedia for objectivity and accuracy.

Everyone who has taught a teenager to drive knows the danger of overcorrection. No sooner have they discovered the car is drifting in one direction than they whip the wheel the other way and land in the ditch on the other side of the road. But that ditch will wreck the car just as surely as the one on the other side. We are not well-served by reaction. Reaction is always a step behind. It is under the influence, and thus the indirect control, of external forces and actors. Some of those most committed to no longer being led by false actors are now being led by… false actors. They think they are thinking for themselves, but they thought that before, when Democrats were still insisting they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.”

For some it may be too late to take a deep breath and a step back, but that is sorely needed. God has shown mercy to these United States, and Christians need to work together, pray together, and pull together in the same direction. That won’t happen so long as kinism, antisemitism, and various kinds of carnality and bigotry continue to be flirted with, entertained, and platformed by professing Christians. These things must die, along with all the other sins we once cherished. They are unworthy of Christ, contrary to Scripture, and destructive to the piety and fellowship that God alone will bless.

There are ditches on both sides of the road, brothers. We would be wise to drive a straight course between them, neither turning to the right hand nor to the left. The Enemy does not care that you call yourself a Bible-believing Christian. He is happy for you to carry your Bible to church while cherishing ethnic bigotry, pride, and foolishness within your heart. Disappoint him. Stay on the path.