In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Dr. Joe Boot and Pastor Nate Wright talk about the turbulence of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Baby Jesus, the meek and mild babe in a manager, shook the entire fabric of the world, troubling many, filling others with wrath and fear, but causing many to come from afar to prostrate themselves before him in worshipful service. What’s your response to the lowborn King of Kings? May it be the way of wisdom: worship and adoration.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Mission of God AD
00:25 Opening
00:36 Intro
01:05 Welcome
02:29 Christmas Gift – Mission of God: 10th Anniversary Edition
03:23 Conference ADs
05:18 Scripture Reading | Matthew 2:1-16
07:23 Sanitizing the Christmas Story
08:51 Trouble in Jerusalem: The Menacing Arrival of the Magi
12:23 Herod, the Great: The Tyrannical Imposter King of the Jews
19:05 Signs in the Skies
26:46 The Magi & the Messiah
32:35 The True King of the Jews, the Ruler of the Kings of the Earth
35:45 Herod’s Relevant Response to Jesus and Ours
43:20 Christmas: A Disturbance in the Force
44:26 Conclusion
45:50 Outro

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
Christ is King World Missions Conference – “Gospel Culture” | January 19-22, 2025 |  San Antonio, TX: https://christisking.church/lyw;
The Mission of God Conferences:
U.S. – Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/;
Faith & Medicine Conference | January 19-22, 2025 |  Atlanta, GA: https://faithandmedicine.org/;

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

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Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post CHRISTMAS: A Time of Turbulence appeared first on Ezra Institute.

Scripture has much to say about the way in which our speech reveals the heart and character of a person, ‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Lk. 6:45). The writer of Proverbs understood the very human tendency for loose and agitated mouths to run away with themselves, impatient to speak and stir up anxiety and conflict everywhere when he said, ‘Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding (Prov. 17:27)’  Finding such self-control was evidently rare, even when this jewel of a saying was first written – an era in which there was no such thing as modern communications, media companies, or social media platforms, just small groups of people talking together. Now, communication is digital, instant, and en masse. Millions of people can eavesdrop and be part of a given conversation. 

The temptation in such spaces to constantly assert oneself, taking every passing dog by the ears, is too great for many people to subdue – in part because this abstract world is increasingly equalitarian, in so far as every Tom, Dick and Harry can not only join in but feel entitled to speak and comment on almost everyone and everything, as though on an equal footing with all and sundry, the great and the good. And so, the indolent and ignorant, the fornicator or the drug addicted, the prideful and conceited, the thief and pervert, all claim the same absolute right to trumpet their opinion in almost any conversation (being part of the digital social public), as the most qualified, experienced, and righteous of men and women.  The older social settings of necessarily incarnated communication exercised a certain restraint on the speaker; social standing, personal and familial reputation, knowledge and experience, not to mention one’s living testimony truly mattered. The proven were generally respected, the wise listened to attentively, and elders honoured. But the new digital public space is the place where the truly virtuous and accomplished can expect a tongue-lashing and good kicking from the mob, where pearls do fall before swine, and rebuking a mocker can lead to being the recipient of overt hatred (Prov. 9:8). Things that people would never say to a person’s face in civilized company, they feel free to scream on social media, often behind a veil of digital anonymity.

Yet access to the new public discourse is not enough if you want to shape the conversation. Our intoxicating age demands something more. To be heard and ‘liked’ requires attracting attention to oneself amidst a vast gallery public that understands a lot less than it pretends to. Unless the crowd is gossiping about you or commenting on you, you may not be heard, and so you must entertain at all costs.  And this is the key: the more controversial, aggressive, provocative and sensational, the better for being noticed and to becoming the ‘clickbait’ of the moment whilst building your following –   typically requiring fervent self-promotion. There need not be truth here, only noise, entertainment and conviction in equal measure. As Soren Kierkegaard once put it:

Our age…demands that the mouth drop open, for how else is one to visualise a true and genuine patriot except he be making speeches, how else should one visualize the dogmatic face of a ‘profound thinker’ except with a mouth able to swallow the whole world.1

Increasingly, few people are content to be getting on with doing something useful in the world or for the Kingdom of God, but must always be exercising their tongues, vaunting their opinions, creative ideas, image, brand and ‘brilliance’ before that colossal void ‘the public,’ which appears one day to be everything, but the next may be nothing, having moved on to the newer more sensational or controversial moment.  A fear of being abandoned by the digital crowd creates a new form of anxiety because the person desperate to create their own movement of followers craves engagements, ‘likes,’ and a majority to ‘certify’ if their ideas or activities are any good.  If you want to move anything, you must, of course, be rooted and stand firm, but if this firmness is not specifically in Christ and his Word-revelation, but in some other or even adjacent agenda, the would-be movement leader or influencer will not be able to stand alone as an individual – they will need the crowd. Whilst on the surface, the desire is to move others with endless engagement and commentary, it becomes very apparent that what the active influencer needs is for others to hold onto them so that they might be able to hold fast and later brag that it was they who stood upon the brink and at the head of a new direction or social phenomenon. 

The temptations and sins on social media are not just apparent among non-believers. In parts of the professing Christian world inhabiting social media platforms, a digital vaingloriousness is frequently manifest in tribalism, sensationalism, contentiousness (controversy for its own sake), boastfulness, and creating a sense of perpetual disgust at the world and others. Yet the abstract digital forum means an almost total lack of accountability in supposedly social spaces for whatever is said, and rarely does it provide a context for meaningful discussion and debate between mutually respectful persons. Instead, folly is on daily display. Little has changed then since Solomon warned his son, ‘A fool’s mouth is his devastation, and his lips are a trap for his life’ (Prov. 18:7). The tongue is indeed a fire, set ablaze by hell itself, and a tour through social media makes Dante’s Inferno look quite peaceable and pleasant by comparison.

Biblically speaking, we live in a fallen cosmos struggling under sin and rebellion, and yet also being recreated and reconciled to God, in and through Jesus Christ and his Kingdom people. Sadly, some of what we see in Protestantism’s online presence today regards that broken world with a visceral revulsion that can come dangerously close to treating God’s image-bearers themselves as human refuse. One great exponent of God’s law, the Reformed social critic R. J. Rushdoony, called this living by disgust:

More than a few prominent religious figures who present themselves as bold warriors for the Lord have really only one essential purpose: to keep disgust fresh. They publish…a stream of exposures about the menaces to church and state. Their purpose is to freshen disgust. Beyond that, they have little in the way of a gospel to present, and their morality is often suspect…Take away fresh disgust, and you rob a vast number of people of the most important part of their intellectual, religious and moral diet. With many, it becomes their whole life…Similarly, many who have left the modernist churches make it their life to review the horrors of the old church: their gospel is fresh disgust…The Pharisee needs a continual tale of evil, a steady recital of the depravity of men and movements around him in order to feel a moral glow. His self-justification is the sight of fresh evil in others…much historical ‘debunking’ has rested on such shaky moral foundations.2

Part of the appeal of living by disgust in the abstract and unreal world of social media is found not just in constantly pointing to the failures or faults of other Christians and churches but in the moral glow felt in publicly defining oneself down to the last doctrinal and socio-political point of contention – to show how different you are from the sinful and deceived people around you – and by engaging in constant historical debunking that refuses to accept the received account of anything, imagining everything is based on lies except one’s own thinking.  It is here that alarm bells should ring, for it was the spirit of the Pharisee that prayed: 

‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people, greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Lk. 18:11). 

Rushdoony notes that the Pharisee’s claim was essentially to being, ‘the only true believer, the only activist, and the only person “alive to the issues.”’3 But, the self-aggrandizement and self-righteousness of the Pharisee did not validate his convictions. As Kierkegaard once noted, ‘Not everyone who offers himself as surety for the whole contemporary age proves by such action that he is reliable and can vouch for himself!’ (Humour, 255)4. 

Does any of this mean that lies and evil should not be refuted and exposed? Not at all. Truly Christian people seeking to live by the revealed Word of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit will address evil in the ways that truly count, not by mere recital or negation but by quiet, faithful and positive action in every area of life. To endlessly post comments about social, ecclesiastical or cultural evils and lies for the masses to revel in effects no change, even if millions follow and ‘like’ a supercilious tutting that makes them feel better about themselves. The world will not be renewed by social media likes and follows, nor by mere podcasts that express disgust with God’s people and God’s world while decrying the failures and evils of all others with an arrogant and unruly tongue.  

You will know if a Christian is truly living by the renewing and creative Word of God if, instead of constantly looking for fresh disgust and running their mouth about it all, they are quietly chaste before marriage, busy being faithful to their spouse when married, conscientious in their vocation, diligently teaching their children, witnessing to the lost, serving the local church, and establishing or supporting godly institutions without making a ‘hue and cry’ about it all on social media.  And this patient model of transformation was the example of the early church. It was by their family life and sexual purity, their obedience to the law of God, their financial integrity and quiet stand against social evils, their self-sacrifice and perseverance in the gospel, their mutual care for God’s people and sense of personal responsibility for others, that they created a new social order in the midst of a decaying one.

We would do well as Christians in our digital age of mass media, where everyone wants the mic, to remember the teaching of the apostle James, who warned that not many should presume to be teachers, for those who teach expose themselves to stricter judgment (James 3:1). Instead, we should be ‘quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger’ (James 1:19), just as our God is slow to anger, abounding in tender mercy, not treating us as our sins deserve (Ps. 103:10; 145:8).  Don’t be impressed by your social media following, or those of anyone else – as though they represent real impact for the kingdom of God – nor be concerned to engage everyone in the digital ether spoiling for a fight. In fact, ‘Don’t speak to a fool, for he will despise the insight of your words’ (Prov. 23:9). Have no part in the tactics of mockery and online abuse of other people, most especially of fellow Christians, for the mockers end is clear, ‘the ruthless one will vanish, the scorner will disappear’ (Is. 29:20). 

Nothing in our time is more conducive to giving free rein to an unruly tongue than social media platforms. All of us who use them for the limited value they do have should be ever mindful that ‘The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness…it is a restless evil full of deadly poison’ (James 3:6, 8).  Tame it, or set on fire the entire course of your life.

Footnotes

1. Thomas C. Oden (ed.), The Humor of Kierkegaard: An Anthology (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004), 246

2. R. J. Rushdoony, Faith and Action, Vol 3, Church, Family and Christian Living (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2019), 1327-1328

3. Rushdoony, Faith and Action, 1329

4. Oden, The Humor of Kierkegaard, 255

The post Taming the Tongue in an Age of Mockery and Social Media appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Doctors Joe Boot and Michael Thiessen debunk popular myths concerning Christmas.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Mission of God AD
00:25 Opening
00:45 Intro
01:05 Welcome
01:25 Conference ADs
02:01 Mission of God: 10th Anniversary Edition
02:20 The Significance of the Christian Calendar & its Feasts
09:05 Myth #1 – Mary’s Song: The Magnificat and Its Meaning
19:45 Myth #2 – Origins of Christmas: Christian or Pagan?
29:22 Myth #3 – The Dating of Christmas
34:13 Myth #4 – The Magi: Who, What, When, How Many, and Why?
46:17 Myth #5 – The Christmas Tree: Its Symbolism and Significance
00:49:47 Conclusion
00:50:31 Outro

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
Christ is King World Missions Conference – “Gospel Culture” | January 19-22, 2025 |  San Antonio, TX: https://christisking.church/lyw;
The Mission of God Conferences:
U.S. – Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/;
Faith & Medicine Conference | January 19-22, 2025 |  Atlanta, GA: https://faithandmedicine.org/;

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;
Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;
Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post Christmas Myths BUSTED! appeared first on Ezra Institute.

A participant in a BBC Radio Four religious programme some years ago stated that the doctrine of total depravity no longer has any credence in the Church and that only a few religious sects now adhere to it. Her point is well taken. Indeed, we could go further than this. Few of those who do give assent to the doctrine understand it or recognise its implications either for soteriology or social theory. Yet the Christian doctrines of total depravity and salvation and the Christian doctrine of social order are closely linked. 

The doctrine of total depravity does not claim that non-believers are incapable of doing good or virtuous acts. While God is the source of all goodness and, without His grace, humans cannot achieve any true good (cf. Mt. 19:16–17), common grace allows virtuous thoughts and actions among non-believers. The doctrine teaches that the Fall affected every aspect of human nature, including intellect and reason. This contrasts with the Roman Catholic view, which holds that man’s reason remains essentially uncorrupted by the Fall. The Reformers rejected the nature/grace dualism underlying the Roman Catholic doctrine, which limited the Fall’s effects to man’s “spiritual” condition while leaving reason intact. Following Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, they taught that the Fall impacted the whole nature of man, including his reason. Therefore, in all thoughts and actions—virtuous or immoral—the non-believer thinks and acts in rebellion against God. As the Apostle Paul stated, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Those who do not live by faith are in denial of God and in rebellion against Him. Their acts of charity and virtue, though good in themselves, serve the idols they choose instead of the God of the Bible. In every aspect of their lives, they deny the God who demands that their lives be lived in His service and for His glory. Non-believers’ virtuous thoughts and works are used to deny God and glorify idols. Their hearts are totally turned away from God, who is the author of all good (and the only one who is good, according to Jesus—Mt. 19:17). They are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) and cannot, without God’s grace, exercise faith (Eph. 2:8) or please God (Heb. 11:6).

The desire to be like God (Gen. 3:5, 22), defining good and evil without reference to Him, colors the entire outlook of fallen man. In all his thoughts and actions, he seeks to think and act independently of God, denying Him in every aspect of life. This orientation of denial determines how he lives in all spheres, interpreting the world without God. The corruption of sin manifests not only in morals and spirituality but also in his will, which is bound by sin, leading him to use reason to deny God. His defection from God is total; in this sense, man is totally depraved.

The doctrine of total depravity has profound implications for a Christian worldview. It affects not only our view of humanity’s slavery to sin and inability to serve God but also influences how we raise and educate children, provide welfare, organize society politically, and deal with criminals. In essence, it shapes how we apply faith to every aspect of life. As a foundational doctrine, total depravity aids in developing a consistently Christian perspective on the origin, nature, meaning, value, and purpose of life, based on the biblical doctrines of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. The biblical doctrine of the Fall presupposes Creation and rejects views like theistic evolution. Understanding the Fall—its extent and implications—is crucial in shaping our comprehension of salvation.

The Roman Catholic Doctrine

Medieval Roman Catholic theologians distinguished between the image of God in man—his natural ability to reason and exercise free will—and the likeness of God, which was his original righteousness in God’s sight. The likeness was considered a supernatural gift (donum superadditum) bestowed upon Adam in addition to his human nature. According to this doctrine, it was this supernatural gift that was lost in the Fall, breaking man’s communion with God. However, the image of God—man’s reason and free will—remained essentially uncorrupted by sin, though weakened. This led to a division between two realms: nature and grace. Redemption occurs in the realm of grace, not nature, which is largely unaffected by the Fall or Redemption.

This perspective denies man’s total depravity since the Fall, implying that sin is not pervasive and does not affect all of man’s thoughts, words, and actions outside of Christ. Salvation through Christ does not bring about a total transformation of man’s natural life by God’s grace but restores the donum superadditum, serving as a supplement to complete man. In this view, man can, by his own will and abilities, accomplish much of what God requires intellectually, morally, politically, and culturally. However, he cannot achieve supernatural righteousness in God’s sight without God’s grace. This grace is necessary to restore communion with God and to understand the supernatural revelations in Scripture. Meanwhile, the “book of nature” is accessible to all, and through natural abilities, people can attain a proper understanding of it.

In this perspective, which is associated with Roman Catholicism and particularly Thomas Aquinas, man is not totally depraved but only partially fallen. He retains natural abilities like reason and free will, which are not entirely corrupted by sin. According to Aquinas: “The constitution of human nature is neither destroyed nor diminished by sin. The gift of original righteousness was totally lost through the sin of our first parent. The natural inclination to virtue is diminished by sin.” For him, original sin is desire not subject to reason, and sin is “to fall short of the good which befits one according to one’s nature.” Man’s nature is impaired more in the desire for good than in the knowledge of truth, but “human nature is not so entirely corrupted by sin as to be deprived of natural good altogether.” Consequently, “grace does not abolish nature but perfects it.”

Therefore, salvation does not totally transform man’s life and culture but merely perfects them, as they are not perceived as completely fallen. The curse of sin has not entirely corrupted man’s natural life and culture. Man needs saving from sin, rebellion against God, and unbelief, but this is seen narrowly, relating to faith and morals. The Fall is viewed in “religious” terms, and areas considered part of nature are deemed religiously neutral. In this perspective, the Christian faith is a synthesis of nature and grace, with grace completing nature.

Except in areas perceived as “religious,” salvation in such a worldview will not affect the social order. Since man retains his natural abilities intact (e.g., intellect, reason, and free will), his culture and social order are not completely transformed by God’s grace in Christ; only his “spiritual” condition needs correction.

This illustrates that our understanding of the nature and extent of the Fall shapes our understanding of Redemption. If the Fall is total and affects every aspect of man’s life, then Redemption must be total, redeeming and transforming the whole of man’s life. There can be no area of human life or thought that is not to be redeemed by Christ. If the Fall is partial, affecting moral inclinations and faith but not intellect, then natural life is not wholly corrupted, and Redemption is partial, merely perfecting nature rather than transforming it entirely.

The Modern Protestant Doctrine

The Roman Catholic doctrine views Adam’s original righteousness as a donum superadditum, a supernatural gift added to human nature, which was lost in the Fall. This means man’s natural abilities—reason and free will—remain uncorrupted by sin. The Reformers rejected this view and taught the doctrine of total depravity, asserting that sin affects every aspect of human nature, including the intellect. Abraham Kuyper emphasized that sin darkened the intellect and that regeneration transforms both will and consciousness.

Despite this, many Protestants today hold a perspective similar to the Roman Catholic understanding. They are dualists, splitting life into spiritual (grace) and secular (nature) realms. They believe nature doesn’t need redeeming because it isn’t fallen, so conversion affects only the spiritual realm. The Church focuses on the supernatural, often advising congregations not to engage with cultural or worldly concerns. This dualistic worldview has led to pietism, now dominant among Protestants.

Even among those who consider themselves Reformed, the implications of total depravity for areas outside theology and church life are often neglected. In education, politics, economics, art, and culture, faith is seen as largely irrelevant and not requiring transformation. Practically, Reformed believers today have adopted a worldview similar to Roman Catholicism, viewing grace as relevant only to spiritual aspects of life. Consequently, the doctrine of total depravity, while still verbally acknowledged in Reformed churches, is no longer fully understood or its implications appreciated. It is confined to the spiritual realm and is seen as having no relation to secular life.

The Arminian Doctrine

Arminianism, now dominant among Protestants, often denies man’s total depravity since the Fall, sometimes implicitly. While some Arminians acknowledge total depravity, their doctrines of prevenient grace and free will effectively negate it. For instance, Arminians at the Synod of Dordt taught that Adam did not lose the ability to believe in Christ after the Fall.

Reformed Churches have embraced pietism partly because they’ve unwittingly accepted a key premise of both Roman Catholicism and Arminianism: that man is not completely fallen away from God and isn’t totally depraved outside of saving grace. This narrows the Christian faith to a “spiritual” realm, reducing it to a syncretistic mystery cult that combines elements of Christian soteriology, a form of Gnostic dualism, and a secular humanist worldview.

Despite professing adherence to doctrines like TULIP, many Reformed Churches deny the connection between faith and culture. They advocate withdrawing from the world rather than engaging with and transforming it, contrary to the historical linkage of the Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate. By separating religion from culture, they’ve opened the door to the Arminian worldview, rendering the doctrine of total depravity ineffective in practice. They don’t see man’s fallen nature manifesting in all aspects of life and culture; thus, areas like education, medicine, science, art, and politics are viewed as neutral and not in need of redemption.

In practice, many modern Reformed believers are effectively Arminians. Their approach contradicts the teachings of the Reformers they claim to follow, as they believe grace merely perfects nature rather than completely transforming man and his culture.

When Christians disengage from culture and allow society to develop according to its own principles—rooted in original sin where individuals define good and evil without reference to God’s word—they are often shocked by the ensuing moral decline. Culture is essentially the external manifestation of religion; therefore, accepting education and societal development without God leads to His elimination from culture. The rise of secular explanations like evolution and increasing immorality are symptoms of humanity’s desire to live apart from God. Excluding God from areas like welfare and medicine results in issues like widespread welfare abuse and abortion on demand.

By denying the necessity of a Christian culture, Christians have inadvertently opened the door to multiculturalism and the repaganization of society. Instead of retreating, they should preach the full gospel to all creation, bringing God’s redeeming grace into the nation’s cultural life. Those who claim to be Reformed but separate faith from culture have adopted a pietistic perspective, becoming implicit Arminians. This view relegates God to a narrow sphere of church meetings and personal piety, neglecting His influence on broader aspects of life such as education, art, economics, welfare, medicine, law, and vocational life.

As a result of this worldview, society has declined from one that acknowledged and honored God, albeit imperfectly, to one that extensively blasphemes and dishonors Him. This decline has accelerated dramatically, placing the nation on the brink of severe consequences.

The Biblical Doctrine

Our understanding of the Fall directly affects our understanding of redemption. If man is totally depraved by the Fall, his sin and denial of God manifest in every aspect of his life and culture. Therefore, his redemption must be equally total, embracing not just his spiritual life but his culture as well. If the Fall is only partial, sin doesn’t permeate all of life, and the natural life of man doesn’t need total transformation—only perfection. In that case, the gospel becomes merely a “spiritual” addition to man’s life, a donum superadditum, concerned primarily with the world to come.

However, the Bible teaches that man’s fall into sin is total; without God’s grace, every thought is continually evil (Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Rom. 1:18–32). Redemption isn’t just a spiritual addition but a complete transformation of man’s natural life by God’s grace. It’s a re-creation of man in the image of Christ: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation must manifest in every aspect of life and culture—the external expression of his religion.

Neglecting this doctrine leads to severe societal consequences, as we fail in our cultural mandate to bring all things under Christ’s lordship (Gen. 1:28; 2 Cor. 10:5). Often, the full implications of this neglect become apparent in subsequent generations, explaining the dire consequences mentioned in the Second Commandment (Ex. 20:5).

Man’s sin affects every area of his life, causing him to suppress the knowledge of God in all spheres (Rom. 1:18–19). Consequently, sin permeates the entirety of culture. Similarly, the salvation accomplished by Christ must transform all aspects of life and culture. This has profound implications for social order: society will either move toward the new creation in Christ or toward a culture of death (Prov. 8:36). A society embracing Christ will align itself with God’s law, recognizing man’s total depravity and God’s grace as the sole remedy. Rejecting this leads to societal deterioration into depravity and death, which is evident in today’s Western society.

Conclusion

The decline of society into a culture of depravity will not be halted until the Church recognizes the full extent of man’s fall into sin and the complete nature of the redemption accomplished by Christ. The Church must actively transform culture by applying God’s word to every sphere of human thought and activity, preaching total salvation to a totally fallen world.

The nature/grace schema of the Roman Catholic Church, popular even among Protestants today, hinders this mission because it compromises with worldly philosophy—specifically, the synthesis of Christian doctrine with Aristotelian thought by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas attempted to reconcile Aristotelianism and Christianity, accepting key concepts like substance and accident, and viewing grace as perfecting nature rather than transforming it.

This syncretism opposes the biblical worldview grounded in the doctrines of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Abandoning these doctrines alters our understanding of redemption, resulting in a truncated gospel incapable of transforming the whole of man’s life. Christ came to save the entire world, not just to rescue individuals from damnation; His Great Commission calls us to bring all nations into obedience to His word.

Therefore, the Church must abandon the dualistic nature/grace schema and pursue a biblical understanding of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. God’s grace doesn’t merely perfect an unfallen nature but completely transforms the natural life of man, who is totally depraved and in need of grace in every sphere. The grace of God in Christ claims the whole of man’s life—including family, politics, art, and business. No area of life or culture is religiously neutral; it either serves Christ or denies Him (Matthew 12:30).

The post Total Depravity & Social Order appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Pastor Nate Write and Doctors Joe Boot and Michael Thiessen discuss the recent Mission of God Conference: Ontario and, during this advent season, delve deep into the importance of the incarnation of Christ and its political and ministerial ramifications.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Mission of God AD
00:25 Opening
00:45 Intro
01:05 Welcome
01:52 Mission of God: 10th Anniversary Edition
02:29 Conference Re-cap – Mission of God: Ontario
11:29 This is War! The Great Historical Conflagration
25:33 The Political Ramifications of the Incarnation
38:47 The Incarnation as the First-fruits of the New Creational Order
46:31 Incarnational Ministry
01:14:52 Conclusion
01:19:56 Outro

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
Christ is King World Missions Conference – “Gospel Culture” | January 19-22, 2025 |  San Antonio, TX: https://christisking.church/lyw;
The Mission of God Conferences:
U.S. – Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/;
Faith & Medicine Conference | January 19-22, 2025 |  Atlanta, GA: https://faithandmedicine.org/;

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;
Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;
Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post The Politics of Christmas & Incarnational Ministry appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Dr. Joe Boot and Dr. Michael Thiessen are joined by the pastor and author, Doug Wilson (www.dougwils.com), to discuss the recent Antioch Declaration and its various issues and controversies.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

Episode Resources: The Antioch Declaration: https://antiochdeclaration.com/; Tobias’ Controversial Appearance  on Iron Sharpens Iron: https://ironsharpensironradio.com/2024/09/16/september-13-2024-show-with-tobias-riemenschneider-on-the-rise-of-anti-semitism-admiration-of-adolf-hitler-in-the-21st-century/; Joe Boot on The Antioch Declaration on Iron Sharpens Iron: https://ironsharpensironradio.com/2024/11/25/november-25-2024-show-with-dr-joe-boot-jacob-tanner-on-the-antioch-declaration/; “When a Member of Our Church Shared a Holocaust Meme” | Right Response Ministries: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pj7L7b66xLY&t=520s.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Mission of God AD
00:25 Opening
00:44 Intro
01:04  Welcome
01:38 Mission of God: 10th Anniversary Edition
02:55  (Issue 1) Tobias Reimenschnieder vs. Joel Webbon Feud
03:47  (1.1) Who Knew What, When?
04:04 (1.1.1) Doug’s Response
05:08 (1.1.2) Joe’s Response
06:19 (1.2.1) Would You Recommend Arbitration Towards Reconciliation?
06:48 (1.2.1) Doug’s Response
08:56 (1.2.2) Joe’s Response
11:36  (1.3) Tobias: When Will He Respond & Why He was Included?
12:42 (1. 3.1) Joe’s Response
14:52 (1. 3.2) Doug’s Comment: A Necessary Distinction: 2 Issues, 1 Group
18:11 (2) The Antioch Declaration
18:16 (2.1) The Goal of the Declaration?
18:18 (2.1.1) Drawing a Line in the Sand: Doug’s Response
20:07 (2.1.1) NTTR not for the BETTER
21:12 (2.1.2) Doug’s Comment on the Unhinged Response
22:17 (2.1.3)Why the Name – Antioch?
24:08 (2.1.4 ) “An [Necessary] Instituting Consideration:” Joe’s Response
25:52 (2.1.5) Joe’s Comment on the Unhinged Response
26:26 (2.1.6) The Necessity of Contextual Ministry & Theological Application to Life
30:16 (2.2) Fighting the Temptation to Black-pill
32:31 (2.3) What’s with the Style?
33:12 (2.2.1) A Rejoinder on Black-pilling
35:48 (2.3.1) What’s with the Style?
40:50 (2.4) Aristotle & Pagan Philosophy is not Biblical
42:41 (2.4.1) A Reformed, Presuppositional Critique
46:00 (2.4.2) Rejecting the Pagan Synthesis
48:40 (2.4.3) The Insanely Unbiblical Nature of Aristotelian Natural Law
49:59 (2.4.4)The Danger of Pagan Primordial Aristotelian Nationalism
51:40 (2.4.5)The Christ NOT the Philosopher
53:22 (2.4.6)The Greek Philosophers Penchant for Statism
54:38 (2.4.7) Natural Affections & the Kingdom of God as “the Totalizing Bond”
01:02:17 (2.4.8)The Law of Love
01:05:27 Conclusion
01:08:45 Outro

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
The Mission of God Conferences:
Canada – Ontario | Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, 9:00 EST @ Harvest Bible Church Windsor: https://brushfire.com/ezrainstitute/missionofgod2024-ontario/587020/details;
Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;
Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;
Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post The Antioch Declaration – WHY!?: Joe & Doug Speak for Themselves appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Dr. Joe Boot and Dr. Michael Thiessen are joined by author Stephen C. Perks to talk about nature/grace dualism and how its unfortunate effect on Christians’s understanding of politics and Church & State relations down through the ages. How can consistent Reformational correct these errors? Tune in to find out.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

Episode Resources: Kuyper Foundation Website: https://www.kuyper.org/; Kuyper Foundation Publications: https://www.kuyper.org/books;

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Mission of God AD
00:25 Opening
01:04 Intro
01:25  Welcome
01:48 Upcoming Conference Information
02:41 Conversation Set-up
07:11 Romish Anthropology & its Dualistic Error
10:54 Nature/Grace Dualism in Theology
25:10 Nature/Grace Dualism & Politics
31:52 The Nature of the State & the State of Nature
44:40 Church Tradition, Authority & Semper Reformata
51:07 The Church of England (CoE), Reformable?
55:50 The Church & Ecclesiastical Renaissance
01:03:34 The Church & the Kingdom of God
01:16:00 A Political Gospel?
01:21:00Conclusion
01:23:00 Outro

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
Join us this October 31- November 2 @ The Presence of Christ Conference at Trinity Bible Chapel in Kitchener/Waterloo:  https://mytrinitybiblechapel.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2343549;

The Mission of God Conferences:
Canada – Ontario | Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, 9:00 EST @ Harvest Bible Church Windsor: https://brushfire.com/ezrainstitute/missionofgod2024-ontario/587020/details;
Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;
Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;
Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post Christianity & Politics: Nature, Grace & Church & State ft. Stephen C. Perks appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Dr. Joe Boot, Dr. Michael Thiessen, and Rev. Nate Wright recap the results of the recent U.S. election and help Christians think through what another Trump presidency means for the Church.

Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
Join us this October 31- November 2 @ The Presence of Christ Conference at Trinity Bible Chapel in Kitchener/Waterloo:  https://mytrinitybiblechapel.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2343549;

The Mission of God Conferences:
Canada – Ontario | Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, 9:00 EST @ Harvest Bible Church Windsor: https://brushfire.com/ezrainstitute/missionofgod2024-ontario/587020/details;
Denver | Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 @ 8:00 – 16:00 MST@ Faith Church | Arvada, Colorado: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/mission-of-god-denver/

REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/;

For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com.

Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;
Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;
Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885.

Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

The post Christianity & Politics: Trump’s HUGE Win… Now What!? appeared first on Ezra Institute.

Ideological feminists and other modern Leftists routinely accuse biblical Christians and sociopolitical conservatives of misogyny on account of their support for biblical or traditional male-female distinctions. The guiding tenet of contemporary Leftism is egalitarianism,1 particularly sexual egalitarianism, which demands across-the-board equality of men and women, not legal equality (which has been pervasive in the West for many decades and reflects the biblical view), but existential equality — there are no ontologically rooted differences between men and women that dictate some distinct callings and roles.

In the creation order man and woman are equally made in God’s image, equally valuable in his sight, and equally charged with stewarding his creation — but are not called to do all things equally. The divinely established natural order itself (in biblical terms, creation) must yield to the Leftist utopian dream that differences between men and women are merely social constructions invented by a hegemonic patriarchy remedied by monstrosities like womb-encasing males and phalloplasty-re-engineered females.

The fact that anybody with two eyes can discern there are obvious and insurmountable differences between men and women, which no surgery can mask or erase, has done nothing to impede the bizarre Leftist ideology at war with the cosmos. The cosmos will win that war.

Since this Leftist egalitarianism has gained the upper hand in Western culture, the leading political component, in fact, of the larger Sexual Revolution since the 1960s, we should not be surprised at the emergence of a conservative counter-revolution reasserting male-female differences and traditional social hierarchies. The impulses behind this reaction are warranted: sexual egalitarianism assaults God’s creational order and sows social chaos.

However, since the counter-revolutionaries are usually not guided by the word of God but by alien, worldly presuppositions, they offer no cure for the disease, and in some cases, their alternative proposal is every bit as injurious as the disease itself. An ingenious insight of Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd is that apostate thought always swings between a “dialectic” of opposing poles that absolutize some aspect of the temporal order. Since apostates deny the absoluteness of the word of God, they have only the shifting sand of the temporal world on which to stand.2 They end up with one foot planted and then quickly unsettled, only to plant a foot in the opposite direction, with equally unsettling results. The Leftist egalitarianism and the conservative counter-revolution are equally futile attempts at a foothold in quicksand.

Since, in review, Leftist egalitarianism is based in modern secularism, the conservative counter-revolutionaries look around for alternative foundations resisting it. Since they refuse to submit to the word of God, they are open to alien alternatives just as spurious as secularism. One of them is ancient paganism. Enter the Bronze Age Mindset.

The Bronze Age Mindset

Bronze Age Mindset (BAM) is both a book3 and a movement targeting young white right-wing males. The author (who also hosts a wildly popular website of the same name) designates himself the anonymous Bronze Age Pervert. He has since been widely identified as the Romanian-American far-right figure Costin Vlad Alamariu. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale, and his dissertation was titled “The Problem of Tyranny and Philosophy in the Thought of Plato and Nietzsche.”

BAM romanticizes, embellishes, and seeks to revive the spirit of the ancient pagan world in countering the evils of modern Western civilization, which it sees as terminally diseased and fit only for a quick and violent death. Christians who have correctly pinpointed the emergence of neopaganism from the Left,4 notably in its sexually egalitarian feature, might be surprised at the seemingly out-of-nowhere emergence of a competing right-wing version. But BAM is every bit as pagan as Leftist neopaganism and by far more explicit. The book is a rambling, punchy, raunchy, occasionally intellectually coherent argument against modernity, feminism, human equality of all sorts, and, notably, biblical Christianity. To BAM, the hope for humanity is a revival of a very pagan past.

The Bronze Age Males

The vanguard of that pagan revival is a cadre of robust, muscle-bound, beautiful young males animated by the “life force” of nature. BAM is animist (a supernatural principle pervades all life), pantheist (god is nature itself), and vitalist (life is dependent on a principle beyond chemical or physical forces). It holds that to deny the one God is not to deny the gods. Indeed, the beautiful young white muscular males will themselves become the new gods (“[m]any of the Greek heroes and gods had fair hair and blue or grey eyes,” Alamariu alerts the reader). They will cultivate their deity by “sun and steel”: lying in the sun every day and soaking up its health-producing power and, in fact, becoming sun-worshipers. In tandem, they must take up a regimen of weightlifting to enhance the godlike beauty of their physique. “Only physical beauty,” Alamariu opines, “is the foundation for a true higher culture of the mind and spirit as well. Only sun [worship] and steel [weightlifting] will show you the path.” Beautiful male bodies are the pinnacle of nature, “the body in its glorious and divine beauty.” In this Bronze world, females are subordinate creatures whose consummation of sexual desire drains young males of life-force. Therefore, girlfriends and marriage should, at best, be a tangent, necessary evil. Life’s real focus should be the formation of a camaraderie of young, white, muscular pirates and the domination of all inferiors, that is, all who are not other Bronze Age Males.

Pirates? Yes. They do not support themselves by work or vocation but rather by piracy — they pillage and take at will. Work, sweat, and toil are debasing; the pirate is the original form of the “free man.” They revel in a world they create, a world of absolute freedom on which they impose their will to power. Parents must, therefore, allow sons freedom from any oversight to express their life-force in our otherwise decadent world. Eventually, they will grow up to create a white ethnostate of their own, separate from the rest of human civilization, which they will visit occasionally to solve its recurrent problems and to exert their inexorable will. Let it never be supposed, therefore, that utopianism is an exclusively Leftist concept. BAM is right-wing pagan utopianism at its zenith.

The ultimate cause of all modern decadence is feminism, Alamariu contends, and we live in a “gynocracy,” the rule of women. The only way out of this “absolute hell” and “iron prison” of modernity is a reversion to ancient pagan animas and pantheism, recognizing that the basic truth of humanity is the life-force we must cultivate in impressionable but spiritually, psychologically, and sociologically hungry young men.

Modifying Darwin and Aping Nietzsche

BAM argues a modified Darwinist but almost entirely Nietzschean view of history.  Alamariu agrees entirely with Darwin’s naturalism that the world is nothing but materiality. However, he accuses Darwin and Darwinists of lacking the courage of their convictions in the reluctance to support their survival of the fittest thesis as it consistently applies to humans. Of course, the original Social Darwinism, in its commitment to eugenics, was more consistent and courageous, though insufficiently so. BAM, by contrast, champions a Darwinist teleology (design toward a goal). Nature itself has its own goal, the triumph of superior humans, that is, young, beautiful, muscular white males. That is the Darwinism the Bronze Age Males must revive and commandeer.

History is not a natural progression from benightedness to enlightenment. Rather, as Nietzsche believed, it is cyclical. We will always have the enlightened and unenlightened with us, and the ancient world was populated by wiser and more enlightened individuals than exist today (“supermen”). This is why BAM espouses reincarnation. The conscious goal of the BAM is to revive their spirit. “Because of reincarnation,” he declares, “greatness can be instantaneously reborn.” Therefore, though naturalistic, BAM must advocate vitalism: the very old theory that a mysterious life principle within the natural order relentlessly impels it toward a self-sustaining and -perpetuating goal. BAM meets its paradox of holding simultaneously to both naturalism and teleology (how can a purely materialistic nature possibly have a design or goal?) by suggesting that while humans are biologically determined, we are still responsible because there is no one else to be responsible. There is nothing but nature, yet nature always favors Bronze Age Males, destined for world domination. This is the teleology and eschatology of BAM. We cannot successfully fight nature, but we can harness it.

BAM apes Nietzsche in insisting there is no transcendent morality given by God or his revelation in either creation or the Bible. The only morality is biological hierarchy. The superior humans, the supermen, impose their will on the rest of the world. In the Bible, the basic human impulse is the God-given cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28–30), exercising benevolent dominion over the non-human creation under God’s authority and for his glory. For the youthful Bronze Age Males, the cultural mandate is perverted into the quest for more “living space.” Young men need room to exercise their superiority, and they expropriate it as warriors akin to ancient pirates. (This sounds precisely like the rationale for war in most traditional societies.)

BAM epistemology (view of knowledge) reflects the deep imprint of Nietzsche. The intellect is simply an expression of will, which is a concentration of life-force. Channeling the Nazi court philosopher Martin Heidegger, Alamariu writes, “Direct perception is already intellectualized.” He means that how we perceive things is determined by the kind of being we are. The more of the life-force we concentrate and cultivate, the more we perceive the world as it really is. We do not experience the world and then interpret it; our embodied being makes our particular interpretation possible, an interpretation impossible to a different, lower kind of human being. Alamariu states, “The intellect is a purely physical quality like muscular strength.” By becoming physically superior, we become intellectually superior. (The quadriplegic Stephen Hawking must have been an outlier.)

The Western world, like the ancient world, despises Bronze Age Males, and works to deprivilege, subjugate, and crush them whenever possible. Its leaders hatch conspiracies to control and subjugate everyone else. They rewrite history such that what we today recognize as objective historical fact is actually a sophisticated modern myth. History rightly grasped is actually an account of the battles and triumphs of Bronze Age Males and their superior world.

In its place have emerged the “bugmen,” who suppress the life-force and misdirect and pervert that natural energy into attacks on human superiority. These conspirators have crafted the calm, tranquil, egalitarian society of human rights, freedom within law, and equality of all humanity, including women. This is simply hatred for nature itself. BAM believes natural law should prevail everywhere and that law, if observed, will lead to the ubiquitous superiority of beautiful young white muscular males. He writes, “Youth and beauty are universally hated in all human societies in history. These societies are run by decrepit, sclerotic old men.” What constitutes youth? Well, you are over the hill if you’re in your 30s — middle-aged bodies nauseate nature. BAM counsels its young acolytes not to reason with their opponents (he laments the Western “development of logos and reason”) but to ridicule them: “[M]ake the enemy look ridiculous … dour, old, sclerotic, ugly, and pedantic,” and never to underestimate the value of “a good prank.”

One way the Bronze Age Males disrupt the current egalitarian regime is to capture the spirit of cultural chaos — prostitutes, drug addicts, rapists, and murderers. The superior males must immerse themselves in the deepest depravity to tap into nature’s power to sow chaos, which they must unleash to gain world control: “a whore puts cocaine on your tongue, and you feel true power.” They must spend time with this despised underclass, which manifests in suppressed form the genuine spirit of the life-force that has been marginalized by the Western egalitarian regime. “In your life,” Alamariu declares, “you can break their [the bugmen’s] power and ascend to a chaos of joy and destruction.” Nihilism never sounded more delicious — the ecstasy of the destruction of everything and the return to nature and natural law spawned by the impulse within society’s most depraved.

The real world is not civilization and culture. The real world is uninhibited nature. The natural society is a “brotherhood of the free youths.” There must be a “holy war” against the enemies of the youthful gods and their uninhibited life-force. Natural law must triumph.

Bronze Age Politics

BAM envisions a rigidly hierarchical social order with a certain kind of superior human (the Bronze Age Male) at the apex. But every social order implies a secondary yet important political order, and the Bronze Age political order coheres precisely with its social vision. It cannot be democratic, and by this BAM does not mean the sort of pure democracy that the Anglo-American tradition deplored, but, rather, precisely the sort of classically liberal order espoused by England and the United States and the modern West: the rule of law; constitutions and bills of rights; religious, political and economic liberty; negotiated politics; peaceful political transitions; and so forth. This classical liberalism leads to the egalitarian decadence we see around us, including ethnic heterogeneity. There is no way to create the BAM ethnostate without eliminating this Western, Christian-shaped constitutional democracy.

In the piratical world of the BAM, “the only right government is military government… We need warlord rule,” Alamariu advises. And in actuality, the rationale for classical liberalism is just a conspiratorial veneer designed to cover up its own sordid will to power. The U.S. Founders, for example, were merely seeking “dominion and freedom of space to expand.” They couldn’t care less about a constitution, individual rights, free speech and press as they altruistically claimed. Like Nietzsche, BAM suggests that behind the curtain of every political rationale is the wizard imposing a will to power. While the most biblical political order possible in a fallen world is one of principled liberty and self-government within the bounds of law (ultimately God’s law), the BAM political order is government by the young, beautiful, body-building, sun-worshiping elite gods imposing their will on their inferiors. The only free citizens must be the governing pirate class.

The Bronze Age Mentality Versus Christianity

BAM’s conspiratorial view of history leads it to distrust Christian history. Actually, suggests Alamariu, Christianity likely began as paganism and was only later contorted into a theological system at the center of which rules a single deity imposing universal ethics. This was the nefarious work of Christian theologians and historians. Because of the instability and subjectivity of Christian history, argues Alamariu, “Christianity is a versatile faith, capable of many interpretations.” Not that Christianity lacked any exhibition of paganism at all. Most Christian historians and theologians are ashamed (for example) of the conquistadors, but they, in fact, manifested the pagan life-force under the guise of the Christian Faith. Still, Christian history, in general, is designed to crush the life-force in man. (This also was Nietzsche’s take, by the way.)

By its very nature, therefore, BAM must repudiate the heart and soul of Christianity. The Bible is a texture of myths. Christ is not a hero because true heroes never sacrifice; they take territory. Man is not created in God’s image, because there is no God to create anything. There is no creation. Matter is eternal. There is no resurrection, only reincarnation. Perhaps Alamariu’s most explicitly anti-Christian tenet, however, is found in his statement that

So much of this [monotheistic] story makes time a line and makes matter conditional on a deity or creator that lives outside it: the creation of matter out of nothing, the creation of your soul out of nothing. Matter is dead, and in some ways, homogeneous, and its meaning is “divine” only in the sense that it reveals the creation of the external deity, or even better, just the laws he made to govern. It seems and feels wrong, or runs against the immediate perception of the world, so it requires faith, a concept unknown to ancient pagans of all kinds. For this reason, the Romans considered Christians and Jews to be no different from atheists. (emphasis in original)

BAM is thoroughly existentialist. There is only this material world and what we (especially the Bronze Age Males) make of it. There can be no faith. WYSIAYG: What you see is all you get. And what you get is a divinized nature: there is no benevolent, sovereign Creator and Redeemer God behind it and working within it all.

But God’s word tells us that without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Therefore, BAM is blatantly contra-Christian. The reason the imperial Romans considered Christians atheists is not because the Christians believed in faith but because they repudiated all the false gods of the ancient world and demanded allegiance to the one true God.5 In other words, the primitive Christians were considered atheists precisely because of their explicit repudiation of the kind of religion BAM is trying to revive.

The Bronze Age Mentality Christians and Conservatives

This contra-Christianity has not prevented BAM from influencing modern sociopolitical conservatism and conservative Christianity. Just as androgynous paganism has deeply infiltrated the Left, so Bronze Age paganism has influenced significant sectors of the Right, including the Christian Right. Matthew Continetti has shown how the New Right6 has become suspiciously like the New Left in its statist lunge. The New Right is an influential, mostly younger segment of American conservatism convinced the American Founding Protestant experiment of liberty under law has been a failure (“as momentous as this founding was, it is also where our current trouble began” 7) and must be supplanted by a new conservative statism that crushes its Leftist enemies by any means possible.8 Continetti says:

The first thing to say about the New Right is that it can get weird. Its ranks are composed almost entirely of men. They inhabit a social-media cocoon where they talk a lot about manhood, and strength, and manliness, and push-ups, and masculinity, and virility, and weight-lifting, and testosterone. “Wrestling should be mandated in middle schools,” write Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor in the [New Right] collection Up from Conservatism. “Students should learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals. Every male student should learn to skin an animal and every female to milk a cow.”9

The influence of BAM is palpable, whether most in the New Right have read the book or not. The New Right is not simply opposed to sexual egalitarianism (as it should be). In addition, it advocates “muscular” politics, meaning the abandonment of the biblical idea of the rule of law applying to all equally, checks and balances on political power (since politicians, too, are depraved, even those on “our” side), and the state’s role as limited to protecting life and liberty and property. The New Right wants to out-Left the Left at its political power game. Virtue is the exercise of coercive political power. Virtuous liberty be damned.

Conservative Christianity has not been spared the poison tentacles of BAM. A leading platform is the American Reformer, a cadre of youngish Protestants who blame the Protestant political philosophy of classical liberalism (liberty under law) for the evils of modern culture. Human freedom leads to sin; therefore, freedom must be abolished. (Apparently, God himself was mistaken to give Adam and Eve free will in the garden.)

“Christian Vitalism”

Christian Winter writes in American Reformer that young men are attracted to BAM because it offers a counter to the confines of modernity in its non-hierarchical, egalitarian order. What we need is a modified vitalism, not BAM’s pagan version, of course, but a revival of nature, which leads to human flourishing. We need to set before the eyes of young men, not the heroes and gods of ancient Greece and Rome but Christian forefathers of masculine fortitude.

Winter argues that theory and theology are insufficient to persuade these young men. They need before their eyes muscular, masculine, overcoming Christian heroes they can emulate. The idea of enlisting Christian heroes is indeed a noble objective (just read Hebrews 11), but the quick, makeshift strategy of “Christian Vitalism” in the face of the popularity of BAM as the best way to appeal to young men and forestall their gravitation to pagan vitalism is what Francis Schaeffer called a “form of the world spirit.”10 It seems a “seeker-sensitive” program for the 21st century among the very people who would have derided Bill Hybels of Willow Creek and Rick Warren of Saddleback for fashioning an ideal faith to appeal to the unchurched “seekers.”

While correlation is not causation, it is highly suspicious that “Christian Vitalism” just seemed magically to appear after and as a consequence of BAM. And it would seem less selective or even disingenuous if its heroes included obese Christian intellectuals like G. K. Chesterton, emaciated Christian prisoners like famed Bulgarian pastor Haralan Popov, and urbane and modest Christian poets like Gerard Manly Hopkins. I suspect, however, that these mighty Christian men are not the sort of male Christian heroes Winter has in mind.

This Christian-modified vitalism veers toward a new syncretism, the attempted fusion of biblical faith and pagan religion. If unchecked, it will be no less poisonous than the syncretism of ancient Israel when it attempted to fuse biblical-covenantal faith to the religion of the surrounding pagan nations. God abhors syncretism, and he sent his prophets to both plead with Israel and fulminate against its apostasy. Let us pray that “Christian Vitalism” reconsiders before it walks itself into the syncretist camp.

Recently Jeffery J. Ventrella, Senior Fellow of the Ezra Institute and noted Christian leader, posted on Facebook a reminder to the young Christian masculinists talking so much about the necessity of weightlifting that physical fitness, while creditable, is not a fruit of the Spirit. I re-posted his statement. The pushback was swift and severe. One of the nation’s young Christian masculinist leaders wrote privately begging me not to support this warning since I would alienate my audience of young men influenced by Christian masculinity (which, in reality, is the syncretistic “Christian Vitalism”). I responded that truth is truth and my interest has never been in avoiding offending a sector of my audience succumbing to sinful, worldly temptations.

It is, moreover, difficult to believe Christian-modified vitalism has grappled with the issues surrounding how the Bible’s teaching on masculinity (what of it there is; 95% of the Bible’s commands are not sex-specific) applies in an informational and postindustrial world. The Bible’s exhortations to and expectations of strength with reference to men are not arguments levelled against the sort of egalitarian and androgynous society presently afflicting the West. To argue, as many conservatives today, for the proper “roles” of men and women is to surrender the battle already. In the words of David Polansky:

Once we acknowledge the need to establish masculine roles is more pressing than the need for masculinity itself, the cat’s already out of the bag. We can argue, for example, that certain gender roles are salutary or desirable, but having admitted to ourselves that these are in fact roles, they necessarily lose their seriousness. It all becomes a kind of elaborate game. This is, incidentally, why the “trad” [traditionalist] accounts one finds on social media [like BAM] have the feeling of camp. The men are caricatures of manliness, just as the women are caricatures of womanhood. They have the same uncanny feeling one gets from encountering AI.11

In God’s creational world (even a fallen one not overrun by egalitarianism), masculinity is not a “role” to be recovered but a natural existence. How that looks in an age divinely blessed with labour-saving devices like automobiles and smartphones is not identical to how it looks in a premodern age that requires most men to skin a sheep for clothing, forge a wheel for transportation, or fall a tree for shelter. If it is necessary to revive an age that requires robust physical strength for everyday tasks, the Bible’s authority and application are severely emaciated. The man’s strength as a customer-serving warrior in the economy of contemporary culture and the wealth of free markets with which God has blessed the West, for example, is just as masculine as his strength had to be in premodern cultures. Assuming the physical strength necessary for modern bricklayers is the sort young Christian men need to aspire to impoverishes the Bible’s authority and dismisses vast areas of contemporary culture that require a different kind and measure of man’s strength.

If young Christian men are seeking guidance in our apostate egalitarian age, they should start with the book of the Bible, written specifically and explicitly to young men: the book of Proverbs. This book teaches that the true man is the man of God, and the man of God is the man of wisdom. Not a muscled physique but a righteous life is the mark of the true man. Care for the body is, of course, a biblical imperative since the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (we must never be body-hating Gnostics). However, physical fitness is not a fruit of the Spirit, and if young males wish to become true men, they must begin with the fear of the Lord, not with a CrossFit regimen. This syncretistic adaptation of BAM to Christianity, the book of Proverbs, would identify as folly, whose end is destruction.

Conclusion

Opposition to the pervasive egalitarian, sociocultural regime of our time is a Christian imperative. Biblical Christianity is simply not compatible with sexual egalitarianism, but in Jerry Bowyer’s metaphor, we cannot simply put the car in reverse; it is futile to traverse backwards on the road that led us to our present debacle in the first place. Rather, he suggests, we should do our best to “loop around” to get back to a biblically hierarchical time — which is by no means identical to a pagan anti-egalitarian time.

In this sense, we must be non-egalitarian and not anti-egalitarian. Anti-egalitarianism carries in its bosom not just an aversion to the sexual egalitarianism of our time but also concessions both to the kind of thinking that got us here and to the battle tactics necessary to combat the present destination. In other words, anti-egalitarianism is a unique modern position possible only in the aftermath of egalitarian apostasy. It is not an older biblical non-egalitarianism. Although we cannot pretend as though the apostasy never occurred, we should do our best to restore the sort of thinking culturally prominent before egalitarianism came along. That certainly is not modern pagan anti-egalitarianism.

Non-egalitarianism is rooted in the creational order: recognition of men and women equally bearing God‘s image but created to fulfill diverse callings as they share the cultural mandate. The woman was made for the man, and the man was not made for the woman, but the man knows he is incomplete without the woman and knows that his very life is bound up in hers, just as hers is in his (1 Cor. 11:8–12). Therefore, he leads, and he doesn’t dominate. Non-egalitarianism, therefore, is just as distant from the Christianized version of the Bronze Age Mindset (which is not the simple restoration of an ancient pagan way of thinking but rather the appropriation of that thinking to very unique, postmodern circumstances) as it is from modern apostate sexual egalitarianism.

Machismo and the misogyny it spawns are the marks of a mindset no less revolutionary than secular egalitarianism and the ideological feminism it exhibits. Both spring from rebellion against God’s word and Christ’s Lordship. The destiny of apostate thinking is to swing incessantly between two or more poles of intellectual insurrection, assuming it can avoid one by adopting its opposite. In reality, all contra-biblical thinking is of the same species — man’s rebellion against God and his revelation doomed for destruction and judgment apart from repentance.

Within the present secular egalitarian regime, the imperative of biblical Christians is to resist anti-egalitarianism (and its attendant Christianized version of the BAM) and work to restore non-egalitarianism. That restoration will equally restore truly biblical masculinity.

Footnotes

1. Kenneth Minogue, The Servile Mind (New York and London: Encounter Books), 2010, 296.
2. Herman Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture (Ancaster, Ontario, Canada: Paideia Press, 2012), 12–15.
3. Independently published, 2018. I’m working from the Kindle edition.
4. See Peter Jones, Capturing the Pagan Mind (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, 2003).
5. Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016), 37–76.
6. James M. Patterson, “Is the New Right Fascist?”, Religion & Liberty, Summer 2003, 14–25.
7. Jason Michael Morgan, “The Pernicious Myth of ‘Two Americas,’” Chronicles, October 2017, 12.
8. Derek Suszko, “The Problem of Libertarianism,” The St. Croix Review, Vol. LV, No. 4 [August/September 2022], 4–8.
9. Matthew Continetti, “The Left of the Right,” https://www.commentary.org/articles/matthew-continetti/new-right-vs-conservatism/?fbclid=IwAR1dvXqqGBECuQCKivGb3E9PfJ-C140sQMH3HTwzMD9mWjv4LYs-997IALM_aem_ASWQgQFCU42Uamu1iPt4WV2TBzP-0oHCrgfPuT9rACuFPtVzs22MJ_v3ay3Plr8qswg, accessed October 2, 2013.
10. Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway, 1984), 111–140.
11. David Polansky, “No End of Men,” Washington Examiner, October 3, 2023, 54.

The post The New Right-Wing Paganism: Bronze Age Pagan Masculinity appeared first on Ezra Institute.

In this episode of the Rebel – Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Pastor Nate Wright leads a wide-ranging panel discussion with Pastors  Tom Ascol, Tim Stephens, James Coates, and Jacob Reaume, which was held at the recent The Presence of Christ Conference @ Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo, Ontario.

Episode Resources: Trinity Bible Chapel Website: https://trinitybiblechapel.ca/;

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Opening
00:45 Intro
00:53  Welcome
01:50 Topic: Christian Nationalism & Culture
03:54 Question 1: Have You Seen a Rise of Racism/Ethnocentrism on the Right?
04:08 Answer(s) #1 – Jacob Reaume: Sadly, Yes.
04:35 Answer(s) #1 – James Coates: Online NOT in My Church
04:58 Answer(s) #1 – Tim Stephens: An Overreaction & Misunderstanding of Our Critique of Multiculturalism
06:18 Answer(s) #1 – Tom Ascol: A Few Load Voices are Overreacting to the Serious Problem of Globalism
08:12 Answer(s) #1.2 – Jacob Reaume: A Caveat
09:05 Question 2: NETTR NOT for the Better – Should Pastor Address Sins on the Right?
10:35 Answer(s) #2 –  Jacob Reaume: Good vs. Evil, NOT Left vs. Right
12:45 Question 3: How would you Define Nation?
10:35 Answer(s) #3 – Tom Ascol: Definition
14:50 Answer(s) #3 – James Coates: “I am a Christian Nationalist.”
16:52 Question 4: How Do Christians Go About Advocating for Biblical Nations & Immigration
18:17 Answer(s) #4 – James Coates: Keep Standing Faithfully & Speaking Prophetically
19:19 Answer(s) #4 – Tim Stephens: Build; Do NOT Destroy!
20:50 Answer(s) #4 – Tom Ascol: The Church MUST Return to “An Uncompromising Declaration of God’s Law & Gospel”
25:00 Answer(s) #4 – Jacob Reaume: Christ is the Answer to Chaos NOT White Identity
28:05 Question 5: Is Tyranny Inescapable?
29:00 Answer(s) #5 – Jacob Reaume: “There is No Such Thing as Christian Tyranny”
29:27 Question 6: The Presence of Christ at the Center of a Vision for Christian Cultural Transformation
29:27 Answer(s) #6 – Jacob Reaume: Christian Reformations via Legitimate Lesser Magistrates Require a Transformed Population
32:48 Answer(s) #6 – James Coates: The Misguided Hearts of Young Men & the Necessity of Sanctification
36:45 Answer(s) #6 – Tim Stephens: The Supremacy of Law & Gospel & Christian Homes as a Model for Godly Society
39:03 Answer(s) #6 – Tom Ascol: Radical Christian Ordinariness
41:13 Conclusion
41:40 Outro
Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book  “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government;

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:
The Mission of God Conferences:
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REFORMCON ’25 | “Out of the Ashes” | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/

The WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition;

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The post Christian Nationalism & Culture: Tom Ascol, Tim Stephens, James Coates, Jacob Reaume, & Nate Wright appeared first on Ezra Institute.