Innocent as Snakes and Wise as Doves
A postmortem on the Reformed parachurch ecosystem.
For almost four years, I have been what one might describe as a sociologist of Reformed Christianity’s parachurch and media apparatus, and its devotees. That’s a long time, and I’ve seen, and occasionally been involved in, a ridiculous number of controversies. That’s what drives the Reformed ecosystem: controversies. Take away the controversies and ninety-nine out of a hundred Reformed commentators wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Not to absolve myself of the same, but I don’t need a new controversy every day; I spent almost all of my time chronicling and decrying only one in particular, an organized campaign of institutional capture from a group of dedicated and well-funded white nationalists.
When I started writing about this in early 2023, very few people believed me; I’ve been called a slanderer, or worse, by so many name-brand Christian personalities I’ve lost count. I was recently informed by a well-known Baptist theologian, “People tell me you’re demon possessed.” It’s a heck of a thing to have people you once got your theology and doctrine from say such things about you. While I still remain surprised at whom the messengers are, I’m not surprised at the content of their message.
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master; it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Be-el′zebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.”
— Matthew 10:24-25
After endless instances of that treatment, here we are—four years into self-described Christian Nationalism—and actual Nazis have sponsored and sold out of their books at the “Christian” conference headlined by the men most of the Reformed parachurch world were gleefully in business with, when I first called them white nationalists. For some reason, this was the final straw for the mainstream Reformed. I have no idea why, when the conference organizers have been sharing Nazi videos and promoting Nazi slogans for years now; when the keynote speaker has long pushed eugenics, blood and soil nationalism and antisemitic agitation; when another headliner defended chattel slavery as biblical, likes explicitly racist social media posts and publishes one of the most notorious kinists; when another headliner is a dedicated eugenicist who promotes great replacement theory and wants to deport one-hundred million people from the United States. Why wasn’t that enough for the Reformed?
Even after America’s most prominent Nazi publisher sponsored and tabled at the conference—even then—the Reformed parachurch world said, “Wait, let’s not be hasty. Let’s see what the organizers have to say about this. Maybe they didn’t know.” Only after the organizers said they’d still work with Nazis (which they are too), and the speakers all said they’d still work with the conference, does the Reformed parachurch world finally come around to saying, “Well, I guess we have to separate ourselves from them.”
In my entire life, I have never come across an ecosystem of people so insistent on lecturing others, yet so lacking in basic critical reasoning, as the Reformed parachurch world. I have never come across any ecosystem so corrupt in its careerism that it’s afraid to speak the most obvious truths. Everyone I know in real life not embedded in its worldview, if aware of “Reformed Christian Nationalism,” would have cut and run the second Stephen Wolfe started tweeting about the relative sinfulness of interracial marriage four years ago, before his book even came out. The Reformed parachurch has no business telling anyone about the particulars of the faith, because, over the last few decades, it has placed its personality so much more in the culture war than in Jesus that it cannot tell when the most obvious wolves are in its midst. Even when The Speeches of Adolf Hitler are sold at a “Christian” conference, it still requires the organizers, who, again, have been pushing Nazi content for years themselves, to affirm the vendor before they’ll finally publicly say the truth.
You guys suck so badly at scriptural discernment, the one task you claim to be better at that anyone else.
My battle is won. I’m finally able to walk away altogether from your ecosystem, and back into the total obscurity I had four years ago. I have learned much in that time, not the least of which that I want nothing to do with the world you’ve built and maintained; I know, even though I have been wholly vindicated and you all are fully aware that the men you broke bread with are antichrist, you will still cavort with those one degree of separation from them. You are too addicted to fighting the “liberal” enemies providing the controversies you have wrapped your identities in. You would rather work with a crypto-fascist than a female deacon. For you to ask the obvious question, What about the culture and system of religion we built over the last generation made it so the “Christian” Nazis felt more comfortable with us than anywhere else?, would lead you to a conclusion that would require upending not only your worldview, but your income streams as well. I know that will never happen, save a movement of the Spirit.
I wish you all in the Reformed parachurch not only repentance, but peace, happiness and prosperity. I also bid your whole ecosystem good riddance.
Well said. The whole system is corrupted and beyond saving.