This month's audio newsletter looks at the teachings of two online men's influencers whose work reflects something of a neo-pagan sensibility, Jack Donovan and his book The Way of Men , and Ryan Landry and his book Masculinity Amidst Madness . The Way of Men: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Men-Jack-Donovan-ebook/dp/B007O0Y1ZE/?&tag=theurban-20 Masculinity Against Madness: https://www.amazon.com/Masculinity-Amidst-Madness-Ryan-Landry/dp/1951897145/?&tag=theurban-20 Text version of this newsle...
Aug 14, 2023•26 min
Denny Burk is the President of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the organization charted with advancing complementarian gender theology. Complementarianism holds that only men can be pastors, and that husbands are the head of the home. The main rival system is egalitarianism, which affirms female pastors and says husbands and wives have equal authority in the home. He joins to discuss recent renewed controversies over evangelical gender theology, particularly in the Southern Baptis...
Jul 31, 2023•35 min
As the evangelical world begins to crack up and realign, a segment of "big eva" elites is promoting the idea of redefining the boundary of their community. They want to eliminate complementarianism (a male only pastorate) and replace it with anti-fundamentalism. What was previously a solidly conservative movement would instead be more self-consciously centrist. This was explicitly laid out at a strategy by Tim Keller, and is being executed by people like Russell Moore and others.
Jul 17, 2023•19 min
The Christian Reformed Church (CRC), a quasi-mainline denomination originating in the Dutch Reformed tradition, had been trending in a more liberal direction. It approved of ordaining women and its Calvin University took a more progressive tack. But recently the denomination has pivoted to the right on sexuality issues. What dynamics have been at play in the CRC? What does the future hold for this denomination? CRC pastor and Youtuber Paul VanderKlay joins to discuss. Paul VanderKlay's Youtube C...
Jul 10, 2023•59 min
Conservatives have a strong preference to have other people make their points for them. Hence they love liberals who criticize wokeness, or Muslims who argue for religious freedom. There's nothing wrong with partnering with or promoting others who share your views, but there's something wrong with people who can't seem to advocate for themselves.
Jun 26, 2023•11 min
The left frequently argues that "structural racism" and other factors dominate our societies. While conservatives rightly recognize these as code words for left ideology, they often react in ways that fail to recognize the way structural forces really do affect individual and group outcomes.
Jun 19, 2023•26 min
The now disgraced Mark Driscoll was once one of America's hottest "bad boy" pastors. His church had 14,000 attendees, and he had a massive following on social media. Although his empire imploded in a cascade of scandals a few years back, it's still worth looking at his teachings on gender because stripped of his provocative style, the content is actually pretty similar to what other complementarians (those who assert men are the head of the home and that only men can be pastors) teach even today...
Jun 12, 2023•25 min
There's been a lot of discussion of the limits of the "winsome" model of cultural engagement in the evangelical world, and how it is no longer as effective as it once was and is even counter-productive in some ways. But the culture war model also has limits and is in many ways equally as obsolete. A new model for the negative world is needed that transcends the limits of the old.
Jun 05, 2023•28 min
Liberal pressure campaigns frequently work. Conservative ones are typically a failure. But the largely spontaneous Bud Light boycott was an exception. I look at why it was an exception - but one that most likely just proves the rule.
May 30, 2023•32 min
A mainline presbyterian Gen-Z videocaster and Episcopal priest recently discussed whether mainline denominations can ever be retaken by the theologically orthodox. I share one example that shows at least some level of institutional recapture is possible, though the risks remain very high. Interview with Jake Meador: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxP_sPcCIkY My podcast on Tim Keller: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1330924/6548746-regarding-tim-keller My podcast on mainline Protestantism: https://ww...
May 23, 2023•40 min
Peter Thiel says that "brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius." We see that on display in the way the leadership of the Gospel Coalition threw pastor and TGC Keller Center fellow Josh Butler under the bus when the hate mob came for him. This is unfortunately standard operating procedure in much of American leadership today. We all need to find ways to become incrementally more courageous in order to deal with the serious challenges facing our society and th...
May 15, 2023•17 min
Conservative insurgents have won elections in a number of places. But as we've seen in cases ranging from Ottawa County, Michigan to North Idaho College to the Hamilton East Library, they often lack detailed knowledge of the governments they are now in charge of, and are getting tripped up by process and other errors. Some to-dos for conservatives, with a focus on libraries.
May 08, 2023•26 min
American's view of what an oppressive, authoritarian society looks like is shaped by models like Naziism, Communism, George Orwell's 1984, or perhaps the persecution of the early church. These systems are both formally repressive, relying on hard government power. And also almost entirely bad. But there are other models in which bad is mixed with good, and in which the system functions differently while still being at some level repressive. China is an example of this. The United States is anoth...
May 01, 2023•39 min
Very few people have sacrificed as much personally or absorbed as much pain for the sake of defending and living their life in alignment with their gender theology as Kathy Keller has. She has demonstrated major skin in the game, which commands great respect.
Apr 24, 2023•27 min
This month's newsletter is a look at what post-familialism hath wrought in South Korea: toxic gender relations, roiled politics, and an emerging conflict between those with kids and without.
Apr 17, 2023•19 min
Dr. Nicholas Ellis was raised and home schooled on the mission field in Brazil. He then went to England, where he obtained his doctorate at Oxford. Now back in the United States, he has launched Christian Halls, an effort to reimagine Christian higher education in America through creating self-governing microcampuses providing a fully accredited education in every county in America. Check out Christian Halls International at: https://christianhalls.org/ Clear Speech for a Confused Age Event in C...
Apr 10, 2023•47 min
Recent events such as the school shooting in Nashville, the indictment of President Trump, and the conviction of Douglas Mackey shouldn't surprise us, or cause us to give into despair or hate. But it should cause us to change the way we view the American rulership structure that exists today. Like the Roman Empire, it has many positive attributes, but is built on and suffused with pervasive and systematic injustices.
Apr 03, 2023•26 min
An article in the Guardian argues that online influencers will be more important to conservative discourse in the US going forward in America. This is in part because of technological change, but also from the failure of the establishment class. At the same time, the influencer model has key weaknesses that need to be shored up to make that model healthier. The Guardian: ‘It’s all about trolling’: how far-right influencers are shaping Republican narrative - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20...
Mar 27, 2023•27 min
The standard self-improvement advice is to say No more often. That's frequently good advice. A lot of times we want to say No but are just too scared to do it. Sometimes other people are taking advantage of us. Or maybe we just neglect our own affairs to say No when we shouldn't. But there's a case for saying Yes too. Yes has much more optionality than No. Saying yes to opportunities, even when they don't seem like they can amount to much, often has payoffs much bigger than we can imaging. Manag...
Mar 20, 2023•20 min
People involved in the arts, literature, or other creative fields are generally politically left wing - even far left. It’s much rarer to see someone who is explicitly and openly to the right, though it does happen occasionally. But there’s another way to look at it. Our ideas of left and right in politics descend from the French Revolution. But what if we defined them differently than we currently do? My preferred definition of the right, properly understood, is discerning and aligning oneself ...
Mar 13, 2023•38 min
We see any articles about the so-called shortage of good men. That is, we've seen many articles in the major media about how women are delaying or foregoing marriage because they can't find the right man to marry. If that's true, what are the implications for men? It means that if they do have their act together, then they are a hot commodity in the marketplace, and need to internalize that understanding.
Feb 27, 2023•18 min
The estate of Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), has engaged so-called "sensitivity readers" to re-write portions of the text to be compliant with today's ideologies. I discuss this trend, the idea of editing old books in general, and a practical response we can take to mitigate against this trend.
Feb 20, 2023•16 min
It's a free country and people are entitled to live however they want. But it's important to put forth and advocate for general patterns of life that are mostly likely to lead to flourishing - particularly when we've been following them ourselves. In that light, this month's newsletter contains ten of these theses about marriage and family.
Feb 13, 2023•15 min
In the mid-century era from World War II (or even before that) to around 1990, America had a mass market common consumer culture. With the fragmentation of that culture accelerating post-1990s, the upper middle class and middle class began to develop distinct cultures and folkways. Even removing race and politics as factors of division would not address this, because even among whites, the upper middle class and middle class now have different and incompatible definitions of the good life. This ...
Feb 06, 2023•27 min
Eric Brende spent a year living with the Amish, and also time trying to live a similar homesteader life in a small town environment. He decided that that there is no place quite like the city to build a productive household environment that is less dependent on the industrialized, technological economy for day to day life. He joined me to talk about his journey and how to get started with the productive urban household life. Eric Brende's web site: https://thehappyhouseholder.com/ Eric Brende/WS...
Jan 30, 2023•34 min
President Nate Fischer and Executive Director Josh Abbotoy join me to talk about American Reformer, a non-profit focused on reinvigorating Protestant Christianity in American life.
Jan 23, 2023•52 min
In pro wrestling, the "face" is the hero and the "heel" is the villain. The incentive structures of our society are willing to personally reward people, especially conservatives, who engage in heel behavior in real life. This is because by acting the heel, people serve as a foil to the hero the media wishes to build up. Even Peter Thiel fell prey to this, helping to propel Rigoberta Menchu to the Nobel Peace Prize. While heel behavior can be effective at times, and is a tool everyone should have...
Jan 16, 2023•19 min
With remote work giving people flexibility on where to live, and people moving because of politics and other social factors, where should we live personally? I will examine different types of communities, and share some thoughts on their pros and cons.
Jan 09, 2023•35 min
I will look forward at potential trends for 2023, including the theme of the return to normal.
Jan 02, 2023•34 min
Returning to the theme of deficits in the American leadership and elite classes, I will examine some of the reasons why evangelicals in particular seem not be high impact leaders in our institutions and in society. In particular, I will discuss evangelicalism's weak sense of "calling" and it's low view of the created order.
Dec 19, 2022•43 min
