The Guild
Or, a parting message
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
— Matthew 6:19-21
I would never begrudge God His providence, but, if I had known how the ecosystem of American “conservative” Christian media functioned four years ago—if I had been prophetically allowed to peek behind the curtain and had seen the ubiquitous corruption—I would have never written a single word about the Christian Nationalist movement making headway within its ecosystem. I would have avoided the entire space and, in some way, would be grateful such an on-its-face antichrist movement, chock full of antisemites, “race realists” and slavery apologists, making such headway into so-called “Christian” discourse would expose the hypocrisy and rot. I would have never created a Substack account, let alone a Twitter account. I wouldn’t have wasted six months of my life writing a book personalities in that industry called slanderous, only to now be championing its core propositions, because the men they claimed I slandered have descended to the point of extolling the good of National Socialism in answering the Jewish question. God allowed me (perhaps required is the correct word) to, piece by piece, personal acquaintance by personal acquaintance, witness how modern Christian media, to put it mildly, is far more media than Christian.
I won’t name names, not because I’ve ever been afraid to, but because I don’t want to give the guilty the benefit of full public acknowledgement of what really is an ideological victory, though one that will ultimately be cast into the fire. Besides, those who most need to hear this message will know exactly whom I’m writing about. So, forgive my vagaries in what follows, and please trust that the greatest lesson is in the ethics, not the particulars.
There is a consortium of conservative Christian academics who form what one could rightly call an unofficial guild; they work to provide each other various gigs, be it podcast appearances, journal articles or conference slots. One cannot interact with online conservative Christian commentary, especially that which shapes most of the worldview of Reformed denominations, without quickly coming to the conclusion it’s dominated by a rotation of several dozen personalities. It’s not organic, by any means. These personalities have a network of parachurch organizations of varying size, all producing a steady stream of content, supported by subscriptions and donations. I have been in regular contact, and some confidence, with multiple personalities at the highest levels of this “guild” from the beginning of my public writing on Christian Nationalism. Several of the first who reached out to me told me a similar story: They knew my claim the Christian Nationalist movement was laundering white nationalism was true, because there were people in the guild brazenly promoting such beliefs behind closed doors. The trouble was the guild had one, unbreakable rule: What happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors, no matter what. Of course, they were breaking this rule by telling me this, and some broke it in excruciating detail. I won’t share too many of those details here, because I will not betray their confidence, and, besides, hearsay is gossip. I will, though, tell one story that, should anyone take umbrage with my sharing it, is well supported by much public evidence, including registered legal documentation.
One of the employees of a parachurch organization those in the guild knew was harboring the white-nationalist element, and doing so in an increasingly brazen manner, was also an employee of another parachurch organization much more highly regarded. Surely, if the latter was a well-functioning organization they would not have allowed such dual loyalties in the first place, but what one learns about the guild when let behind the curtain is that nearly everyone in the guild has beliefs normal Christians in the pews would be disgusted by. I’m reminded of a highly-regarded author, seen as one of the most politically-liberal members of the guild, privately telling me he agreed with the portion of Stephen Wolfe’s book justifying the execution of heretics in a modern “Christian” society. Due to this inherent extremism, there is no serious policing of political thought in the guild, even though their primary obsession is political theology. Once it was discovered this employee was acting more as a mole and lobbyist for the other organization, and held other dubious business relationships, he was allowed to leave with dignity. Official business relations with the invasive organization were severed.
Not everyone in the “respectable” organization wanted him gone, and, even though he immediately came out as a full-fledged member of the secret society—yes, a real secret society, as white nationalists are prone to form—behind the antichrist element, taking a position with one of its sister companies, he was allowed to continue working with the “respectable” organization, in a limited capacity. Unsurprisingly, other employees of the organization became increasingly brazen in their support of him and his compatriots. Multiple members who had been vocally against the Christian Nationalist element from the start quit the organization in protest (but only internal protest). Others, with little fanfare, simply gave up on the project. All continued to work with the organization’s high-ranking members, within the capacity of the broader guild. It took just shy of two years for the invasive element to infiltrate the organization at its highest levels; it’s latest executive was hired directly from the secret-society-aligned company, and the organization is now, very publicly, little more than a compatriot of the one that infiltrated it. Most shockingly, there remain several high-ranking members who, three years ago, were extremely vocal about their opposition to the white-nationalist element, now going along with the new leadership and its vision. I guess the earthly treasure was more valuable to them than their previous gospel convictions.
What’s most striking to me about this progressive revelation, and what now drives my next spiritual steps, is that not even the members who resigned in disgust will publicly acknowledge what happened, let alone rebuke fellow members of the guild for going along with it. As the kids say, though, they’re all up in my DMs with this scandal. They’re not the only guild going through this exact same issue, either; the same process is playing out among the Southern Baptist theologians I privately converse with, as the same infiltrating organization has made headway, and the SBC’s most powerful internal politician is aligning himself with another, demonstrably-antichrist element. I cannot square the clear instructions of Scripture and the admonitions of the early church fathers with these theologians’ behavior. Anyone who is not willing to die for the gospel is not fit to be Christ’s disciple (Luke 9:23-24). What’s a recurring gig as a supposed Christian thought leader compared to that? Not only is the well of modern “conservative Christian thought” poisoned beyond repair, to make matters worse, we are (in my estimation as a software architect and engineer) no more than two years out from not being able to tell if anything we see online was created by a human or computer. On top of it, the antichrist side of “Christian” media is the most bullish on producing AI content and passing it off as their own, and will probably squeeze out the humanists running most of the journals, because the algorithm will favor them. The humanists are guild members who know they could cut their competition off at the pass by breaking the one, dumb rule, but they won’t.
I’m not a Luddite. Most of my daily job, within just one year, has become conversing with a computer to create very powerful software solutions, ones I hope will bring real good into the world. I’ll continue to do so indefinitely, but I will not be getting any more of my worldview online. I will not be consuming online media that doesn’t have to do with my profession at all, especially online “Christian” media. If I continued to produce such, I would be a hypocrite, so I’m taking my writing offline too. I bought the last standalone, fully-offline word processor ever produced, and will write a new book on it—about what, I don’t fully know yet, but the working title Analog Anchorite seems fitting for my current studies and mood.
I’m not the kind of legalist who would tell you my way is the only way to be authentically Christian, but I believe, through my dual capacities as an expert in computers and the Christian media ecosystem, I’m merely ahead of the curve. I’m going underground for an indefinite period of time, and I pray, if and when I reemerge, this impending project will speak to you. May God bless you and keep you. Goodnight and good luck.