Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly flapping his wing. They've down in a force. Man, it gonna cause a tree fall, letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody see it, nobody else, And I see that. You don't need to know. Man, we don't they like you fall this point and you got back and like that. That's the way man got back to dag on the pana.
Man.
Now you don't don't better.
Manka Cornelius Kodrianu once said, the first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the trader, second on the enemy. If I had but one bullet, and we're faced by both an enemy and a trader, I would let the trader have it the risk of fed posting. This is a situation I think we find ourselves in. Often we have clear enemies, people who dislike us, who wish for our way of life to be impossible, and they're not
particularly subtle about it. But what's particularly galling is being stabbed in the back over and over and over again. This is why I spend so much time attacking American conservatives, because we've seen this exact dynamic play out where people who we have graded on a curve quite a lot in common with are most interested in seeking us out, punishing us, fighting us first and foremost, instead of the enemy,
their nominal opposition. This is something that has happened in politics, obviously we're kind of in the middle of a great snakening, as someone once said, but also in the field of culture, in the field of religion. This episode starts off in one place and goes to another, but the second really
two thirds of this episode are about exactly that. The betrayal of cowardly conservatives, people who say many of the right things, who oppose the woke mind virus quote unquote, but are unwilling to actually do anything about it, are unwilling to bear any social cost, are unwilling to do anything that might be mean, and instead they will pull out all the stops. They will stoop to an incredibly
low level. They will hit below the belt, not against their nominal enemies, but against you and I. Functionally, we are more their enemies than the quote unquote woke left. Something to bear in mind, and look, at least publicly on the Internet. I'm not going to espouse what KODRIANU has said, at least to the degree that he did,
but it's a common feeling. Nonetheless that really the reason we can't get anything done has a lot to do with traitors, has a lot to do with people stabbing us in the back over and over and over again. The first third, as I said, is different. I'm talking with my guest about being an alpaca farmer, and the second half is about exactly this pattern in American religious life. You don't necessarily have to be a Christian to get
anything out of it. We don't really get into theology, but at least in America, right wing politics and Christianity are nearly synonymous. Especially in the practical real world they are, and so really it's one in the same conversation, conversation about religion the conversation about politics. So I think you'll get a lot out of it. I guess is a little bit. I want to say, I'm more obscure. Not a huge account, but his writing is good. It's fun guy to talk to, so be sure to check it
out before we get into it. I should say this episode is sponsored by Axios Remote Fitness and Coaching. I heard a lot of good things from the new guys who've listened to my ads and who've come in to the Axios group chat. Also, if you want the episodes early in ed free send me a few bucks on Patreon, Substack or gum Road. Without further ado, here's the episode. All right, dude, welcome to the Jay Birds Show.
How you doing, man, I'm doing great, Jay, Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Yeah, man, you are a highly requested guest and I'm glad to finally get on get you on. But uh, before we get into it, man, who are you and what do you do?
Yeah? I'm pop alt Paka. I am Twitter's only right wing cameloid, and I pride myself on you know the power of that. I wheeled in Jay's replies on Twitter when he solicits for potential talk and guests. I think discussions about alpacas and other ruminids and camelids and animal husbandry is desperately underserved on the right wing. And so I know, I know there's probably some listeners thinking right
now this is just the throwaway episode. Whatever I'm telling you, this is information everybody needs.
Oh yeah, I mean, look like I'll be honest, I saw a camel like a week ago, I'd drive into the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, and I was immediately and totally enraptured by it. But not an animal I see often in the South, and my experiences with with lamas in particular have not been as positive, at least in my limited experience. They're kind of jerks. But you're right, it is an underserved market, especially on the dissonance side of twitter.
Yeah, you know, they the you know, the camels all got off the arc at the same time. Some went to the Andes and became lamas and alpacas. Some stayed in Egypt and Africa. You know, we became dromedaries and camels. They all have different personalities, and it's the you know, lamas are the ornery, kind of semi special cousins of of the out packets. But for the most part, we're you know, we're gentle uh. We we we like attention
and and hugs. Uh. And the truth is is, you know, the I never had any intention of ever owning out pockets, uh, But but here we are, and I'm I'm forced by circumstance and fate to uh to love these creatures.
How do you back into that? Did someone just like give you one? Did were you did. Do you go to the store and buy one? Like, how do you get into that? I guess that hobby.
It's a very black market operation, and it starts the way all life changing decisions start. Jay. You uh, you gaslight your wife into eventually agreeing with you about moving out of you know, a nice hov neighborhood, buying some piece of land out in the country and then filling it with pointless exotic animals. But the outpaca thing was was her idea. She found a Facebook marketplace ad, which was immediately taken down because apparently livestock ads are against
tos on Facebook. But we ended up, you know, it went down to this farm. They were like, yeah, we need to get rid of their entire herd. We'll throw in all of our farm equipment for you, like all of our feeders and our troughs, and we have a year's worth of hay that you can take. It was kind of an out pack of fire sale. And it was it was right during COVID, like the early stages of COVID, and we were like, you know what, it's
grew it. We got nothing better to do. We want, you know, we want our kids to have an agrarian style life and grow up taking care of animals and stuff. You know, this is we were maybe just going to get a couple of sheep and call it a day, But why not adopt an entire herd of alpacas and put them on a small farmt.
So two questions, and forgive me if this is too direct. How much does an outpaka run you? And how many do you have?
So we started with a dozen, like fourteen or fifteen. And normally, you know, if you're going through the appropriate channels of a livestock auction auction and you're you're buying certified bloodlines and all that kind of stuff, trying to maximize fiber production or whatever, you're going to go for anywhere between like five and fifteen thousand dollars per animal.
Obviously like studs or are a little more expensive. In our case, we got an incredible deal, one that turned out to be too good to be true.
So two things. One you said you started out with you know, fourteen or fifteen. That implies that number has changed. Have you lost some alpacas or is the herd growing?
We have intentionally ceased any growth. Turns out the Instagram real culture of the twenty fifteen to twenty twenties promoting the homestead lifestyle neglected to inform you of all of all the work and the negative ramifications of engaging in that lifestyle, and the price tag on our particular outpack of farm is too good to be true. Turns out, the owners, you know, retired old couple, they work their entire lives, saving up and scrimping to be able to
retire onto a farm and raise our pacas. And then he gets hit by an illegal alien drunk driving while he was riding his motorcycle and loses several appendages, has multiple open art surgeries, can no longer take care of these animals, and the buddy that was living on a trailer in their property was an alcoholic and was neglecting all of them. So we ended up, you know, what
we bought was actually a herd full of problems. And it turns out like when when you can't just take an out paca to a normal vet for dogs and cats, you know, if you show up at like the emergency vet clinic, they don't take livestock, So you end up having to find a facility that has the capacity to take big live stock. But also does exotic animals, because it turns out outpacas are considered exotic animals. So the first week we got the animals, we started noticing like
their significant you know, health issues. We had a couple of real little ones are called kreas when they're babies. We had some creas that were showing like signs of health issues, and like we end up panicking trying to find a stinking vet. And that looks like loading up your out packs into the back of a suburban and driving them up to the local state coll agricultural extension to try to get these outpack is treated.
So can you fit an now paka in the back of a suburban?
Yeah, they do this funny thing it's called cushing. Where they they it's like a cat loaf, you know what I mean, Where they they pull their legs up underneath of them and they get real, real condensed. The only the trouble is the neck. So as long as you're able to like manipulate the neck and keep it, you know, out of your way while you're driving, it's pretty fine.
So you've mentioned cats, and obviously that you know, the stereotype is that dogs are great and the car cats aren't. How does it outpacka deal with transport because I imagine if an animal that big throws up, it's kind of a nightmare.
Yeah, Uh, it's you know, you you put a sock over their mouth and uh, you know, try do your best to try to like squeeze them in and keep them from having enough room to run around in panic because you don't want them to hurt yourself or hurt your car. But it does. It's a head turner. You know, you're driving through town with an outpaca head out the window. It's it's definitely something that people pay attention to when you're road raging with an outpaca.
One other thing you mentioned earlier, the fiber production. I imagine one that's why they're worth money, and two that's a decent amount of work. So were you sharing out packas?
Is that what you do?
I don't really know much about them, as you can probably tell.
Yeah, neither did we, uh until we had to start living it. It turns out there's a whole cottage industry of of literal gypsies that do nothing but shear sheep and alpaca all up and down the coasts for you know, their their entire spring into summer, and that's that's what they do for for work. So we ended up, you know,
we hired gypsies. And you know, another way instagram reels lined to you is they don't you just have out and then magically there's socks that appear, and you can sell these socks at the nice, boutique, cushy farmer's market in the upscale neighborhoods. And that it turned out not to be the case. Even before we could ship the fiber off to a mill. There's a lot of work that goes into like sorting the fibers and cleaning the
fibers and all that. And as much as enthusiastic as my wife was about the alpacas initially, it turns out having multiple small children running around steals a lot of your time away from pulling alpaca manure out of their fiber before sending it to shipping. So we have yet to see socks manifest in our barn at all.
So you say that you this isn't something that you grew up with, right you kind of decided to make a run of it. Did you have any experience in farming or with large animals or did you really just see a Facebook ad and decide to roll the dice?
Yeah, I mean growing up, I'm I'm the weird millennial like Sliver. That's that was like outside of the wholesome chungus nonsense, but also kind of the last chopper out of non with real estate and uh we my entire life, my my family, my parents did that thing where they
would go check out real estate listings. Uh and as a kid, you're like, wow, we're gonna we're gonna upgrade this this like one hundred acre farm with a pool, and uh now it turns out they were just kind of window shopping and curious about what was available in the market. So it got into my head this meme that you know, real American gentry it requires land and
animals and stuff. And uh as we we did the neighborhood and the Hoa and uh am I you know, we we found a little bit of success in finance industry. So we we did like the McMansion in the Marina neighborhood and all that stuff, and uh the whole time we were just we just wanted to be on the country and so that it kind of just Instagram but I think reinforced all that you know, the homestead meme uh built into us, this this propagandistic desire to uh to you know, really make a go at it. And
I think we just undercounted the amount of work. But yeah, going into it, we knew nothing about taking care of animals, parasite loads, what hay costs, whether or not I need to attract there. And there was a lot of a lot of mistakes and along the way, but it definitely was an interesting learning experience.
To be blunt, would you recommend it right for the kind of suburbanite to strike out and quite literally buy fifteen ol packas on a whim?
No?
Uh, we you know, we are presently de transitioning away from the homestead meme and have been since you know, the kid number two and three.
Uh.
But the you know, no one tells you what you know, how how your kids are going to feel when your outpacka breaks its leg and you have to you have a choice between spending ten thousand dollars on getting rods installed that probably aren't going to work to get this outpack of walking again, uh, versus taking Grandpa's forty four and you know, manually digging a hole big enough for
an outpacka grave. Uh. So there's there's a lot of like you know, I think I think we from from my perspective, we idealize the lifestyle and uh and didn't consider the ramifications of it, especially not going into it full time. You know, if you're if you're a guy that's uh that wants to add a little agrarianism into your lifestyle, but you you're a career guy, Uh, there's
ways to do that. I would not recommend buying an entire herd of outpaka when you already have like fifty chickens and four goats and all sorts of like other projects.
So just just for for kind of mental calculation here, how much does a full grown outpack away.
We have one who uh he's kind of the alpha, and he's probably two hundred with a full coat, but like you know, a buck seventy five buck eighty.
All right, in the interest of fairness, will just say one hundred and fifty pounds. I don't know that seems right. So you know, basically you bought around twenty three hundred pounds of animal, you know, all together. I mean, I'll be honest, I like your I like the attitude, right, jumping into the deep end there.
Uh.
But in addition, right, I know, we spent fifteen minutes talking about alpacas, but you're also a writer, a kind of commentator. And look, if you were getting to the point of deciding to move onto a homestead, you're pretty far down the rabbit hole. So you mentioned, you know, kind of that weird generational window. But how do you get on this side of the internet.
Well, yeah, my my, I was an early adopter to a lot of the things that we discussed, you know, the deficiencies of the American Church and a lot of the liberalization and feminization that was happening, especially in like reformed Protestant circles where where I cut my teeth. I somehow missed the essay era of the twenty tens and
twenty twenties. But you know, I went from the plucky, you know, kind of kind of you know, never relaxing type of Ron Paul libertarian in college, and then I started reading like primary source materials and did a little bit of constitutional law and reading Scotis decisions and all that, and was like, wow, this system kind of sucks. Like
everything was changed something happened in the twentieth century. There was these some people revised the entire American ethos and uh and a significant chunk of our of our historical cannon and uh and now we're we're you know, not allowed to have a country for some reason.
Uh.
You know, they the local areas kept getting more and more priced out to to my you know, generational cohorts. Like I noticed I was the only person in the neighborhood that was that wasn't a boomer or gen x. Uh. My kids didn't have anyone to play with in the neighborhood because other parents were priced out. And so it's just it started. Yeah, I had I had been kicked off Twitter, like way back in the early ages before, uh, before Elon, So I never really came back until Elon
bought it. And you know, Twitter became a place where I could, uh, I could vent, I guess and do some stream of conscious like performative outrage at at a lot of nonsense that was happening. Uh. But more importantly, I think it was a place where I able to organize and kind of find some guys and turn online friends into real life friends and build up that network.
Yeah, there's a couple of things you mentioned there. You know, I don't talk about it as explicitly as I guess I could on air, but I very much kind of I am still a part of the reform tradition, and it's been interesting watching that whole segment of the world sort of undergo an ordeal of civility, if you will.
Like there's a you know, a large conference actually, I think today or tomorrow in Denver, where a big group of reformed guys are you know, being forced to battle it out right over an issue that is seemingly inconsequential. But you know, if you've been around long enough, you understand this stuff is the narrow end of the wedge. You know. The idea is, oh, well, you know we we of course here are opposed to gay marriage. But if you were your same sex attracted but non practicing,
well that's totally fine. We can ordain you. And of course we understand how that goes, right. One that is a slippery slope. And two if you call yourself gay basically if you are gay, but you really pinky promise not to actually do it. Come on, guys, we understand how this works. And so look like you're you know,
about a half generation older than I am. But what were the things that you started to notice first where it seemed as if the kind of I won't even say progressive, but the kind of you know, American cultural values, you know, and the kind of modern sense started to creep into you know, your religious community.
Yeah, for me, it was hands on experience because I wasn't significantly online like I was not. You know, any old hats in the reform circles will remember the like the the Geneva common days on Facebook and uh, you know, any number of Twitter UH spats that have happened at the risk of sounding way too ghetto wised within you
know that that weird reform sphere. My personal experience was just that these pastors that I was, you know, I helped plant churches, I helped fund churches, I was, I was, you know, doing all of the things that were expected of a layman to participate in the life, in the
mission of the church. And then slowly we you know, the this desire was revealed where where pastors were more interested in accumulating new members through UH diversity and through refugee missions UH and doing it in a way that kind of took took priority over serving the needs of
the actual members of the church. And in my denomination, you know, there was a big push they realized this denomination is ninety five to ninety eight percent white, you know, middle class people, and they decided that was a problem. And so these these big guys like you know, Tim Keller and these pop pastors had a real intellectual pool within the reformed seminary academic structure, and it filtered down into these into pastors. You know, and I have controversial
opinions on seminaries these days. But it ended up with me confronting these pastors about, hey, like you are divesting the actual community that you're pledged to serve as our shepherd from the resources of the church, specifically like your time the treasurer of the church, the time of the deacons, and all these people that are supposed to be ministering into the lives of real people in our community to do these projects and to do these you know, diversity missions.
But the it ended up being a position where in those conversations they became increasingly incensed at my incivility on it. They didn't like the specific words I was using, the rhetoric I was using, and the rhetoric, you know, turned into well, you're you know, you're trying to deport my adoptive daughter, or you're you want me to tell these refugees that were ministering too that they need to go
back to their country where they came from. And you know, there was never there was never any middle ground between hey, we should we should serve the purpose of the churches for the members, and yeah, there's an evangelical call, there's a great commission. You know, I have probably disagreements with you on what that looks like, but the purpose of the churches is for the members of the church and
their spiritual health and you know, well being. And I think anybody who reads the epistles can agree with that. So then I turned to Twitter and on Facebook and realize like, oh, it's not just my personal experience. There's there's an entire system dedicated to promoting this through the Gospel Coalition and through all these other avenues of attack. And you know, became very disenchanted very quickly with the modern role of pastor.
Oh yeah, I mean, to that point, the Gospel Coalition is a great example. My wife and I read these articles, and I just I chimp out right. They drive me nuts because it's very frustrating. They adopt this morally high handed language right to condemn all the people that they hate, and they have no problem using the harshest possible language. I think of Carl Truman, right pastor he's at Grove City. I think as a dean as well, kind of modern
conservative intellectual who's actually written some halfway de books. The rise in triumph of the Modern Self is one I've cited often on this channel in my writing. But he goes on this rant, this really insane rant about the quote unquote alt right, and the alt right, of course, is a term that's ten years out of date at a minimum. And in his version, the alt right is
Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly and Candae Owens. And Okay, Carl, I don't really think you know what you're talking about, but these are the figures, right, the sort of a manual Goldstein hate figures of the so called alt right. And you know what, I guess you know what. You're allowed to disagree with those figures. I certainly do, you know in very specific examples. But the real meat of it is an absolutely savage attack on the disgusting, basement dwelling,
jobless idiots that listen to these people. One, I think we all are aware that the demos that listen to those channels are not the neats they think they are, you know, like the average Megan Kelly Dweller is not a man living in his mom's basement. I'm sorry. But also right, that same ordeal of civility, the idea that, oh, if you express your opinion, that's that's that's unacceptable. We
can't you can't talk like that. Well, when it's someone they dislike personally, not just on a political level, they have this vitriol. Well, that's completely in totally okay, that's doing you know, the Lord's work, right, there's no consistency to that, you know, that stance, that civility, it's entirely contextual. And what you basically see is you're not allowed to be in any way rude or inconvenience or inconveniencing clients of the regime pick your poison, but anyone else is
fair game. It's sort of an approved hate target, if you see what I'm saying.
Yeah, and that was that was the realization when it finally hit it's you know, all kind of painted the picture of you know, we in my denomination. We had this big controversy over something called revoice, which was like, how do we rejigger our our approach to homosexuality in the in a way that like where we still condemn
it technically, which will appease the conservatives. Uh, but we're open to discussions about sexuality being a spectrum and where people that have uh you know, they're born this way, so like we have to make room for them in in our ecclesial structure. And it was all it was all just to to cater to uh, the you know whatever the entropic liberalism, liberalizing force of the day was. And they did it with with the race stuff as well. You know, I remember the pastor was talking. You know,
we had uh what was then Michael around. You know, we had to do some sort of performative uh you know, lessons on racial reconciliation and we're going to do a specific prayer group and about unifying the community. And the pastor is going to go march at a BLM protest.
And meanwhile, like the during all of this, uh, there was a family that was that was taken out by a black activist within like driving distance of the church, and there was never any not even like a Facebook post, you know, like oh, we're we're real sorry for the community and praying for for the peace of the community.
No.
I was just you know, completely ignored that in favor of what was happening in you know, the broader zeitgeist within that liberal frame. And so yeah, it's the entropic forces of liberalism have have infected the church root in stem and it's it's you know, pan denominational. It's not specific to any one group anymore.
Oh yeah, and look, some of my best friends or Orthodox so I can say this, but you guys love to play this game where you're like, well, it doesn't ever happen to us, We're so perfect and insulated from this. And then you get a little deeper and you're like, what about the Greeks And they're like, well, they don't count, they don't count. And look, I get it. I understand that where you're like, they're not the same as me. But regardless of your faith tradition, you see this same thing,
this desire to compromise. And I speak the most about the Protestant version of it, because that's what I'm the most familiar with. But what drives me up the wall the moral framing that like genuinely triggers me PACA is the the idea that by you know, adopting this stance on racial or sexual issues, we're really fighting. We're taking it up for the underdog. We are doing the brave things by defying society. We're being existing contra the world capital T capital W And it's like, no, you're not.
You agree with Chase Bank, you agree with the United Nations. You have sacrificed what you were supposed to think for power, and because of that you get to get this. You sort of get to keep this mental image of yourself as you're speaking truth to power. And it drives me up the walls crazy. The people get to play pretend as brave, they get to play pretend as selfish, you know, revolutionaries, when in actuality they are slaves to power and nothing more.
Yeah, for sure, they you know, the it ends up being this uh, this self reinforcing uh phenomenon where these these seminaries, you know, they they have to cater their careerulum to the academic elites within these circles, the academic elites, uh agree with statements like David French is a true
conservative Christian and uh. And it's it just cycles all the way down into the pews where you end up with a with guys like me, who are you know, uh dispositionally a little little anti establishment, a little contrarian uh. And you know, we start asking uncomfortable questions uh, and we have to be absolutely uh trounced uh, you know, from from by church discipline or whatever social uh social functions are available to them, the tools of making sure
that we're uncomfortable in their churches. Because the truth is, people just need permission to believe, you know what what the Bible says in a lot of cases, and all of that's getting filtered through. You know, the people aren't going to become subject matter experts uh naturally unless they have a particularized interest in that, unfortunately. And so the pastor's role now is giving people permission to believe in whatever the current liberal thing is, the current progressive issue.
And that's what what drove me out of that. You know, I have a copy of Sacred Rhetoric by R. L. Dabney on my desk right now. I have a copy of the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity, and I started reading and realizing that something happened in nineteen sixties in the church that changed so much of like what was the acceptable dogma in doctrines of the church,
you know, much like Rome during Martin Luther's times. I started seeing like these guys added so much to this, so much syncretism between whatever the evangelicalism and regime, you know, liberalism that was twenty years you know, past, twenty years in the past. Uh, and it was just being reinforced by these pastors. And so once you once you that's why I guess projects like you know, there's there's resourcement
projects happening all over the internet right now. But it's so important because you you start to realize, no, there is a discontinuity between the historic views of my direct ancestors that have been part of this religious tradition for hundreds of years. Uh. And what this pastor has been telling me from the pulpit because he learned it at you know, reform theological seminary or something.
Well, and that's the that's really the source of a lot of this, is it tends to be top down.
You know.
I can think of a number of examples where relatively orthodox, small orthodox, as in identifiably traditional congregations were turned into these sort of you know, aging liberal social clubs by leadership. Right, you had maybe not a super active, maybe not a
super politically aware, but constitutionally conservative group of people. And you know, new leadership comes in, they change the priorities, and let's be honest, a lot of people leave, but those who stay just get let along by the nose, you know, that position, That sort of shepherding role is
a huge vector of this. And what you also see is that and I don't normally speak in these terms, but it's it's quite accurate, is that so many clergy are incredibly feminized that they view their main role as peacekeepers and consensus builders. Right, don't rock the boat, go along to get along, make sure that everyone is feeling welcome and happy. And look, you know, I think that there is an equal trap in you know, kind of looking for controversy, right, seeking out you know, media attention
in the like. But it's so frustrating when you basically see that you're not actually these so many of these guys aren't actually leading anything. You know, they are merely you know, viewing their entire role as sort of managing good feelings, you know, maintaining a hug box instead of actually standing for anything at all.
Yeah, in a lot of ways, you could just hire Jams or some other you know, mediation company to send out a representative and run your Bible study, because what they end up doing is is uh, just being the formal arbitrage between disparate I feel statements from women in and you know kind of soft men in the pews during Sunday school, and you know, expositional preaching where where we're dedicated to h or sorry, expository preaching where we're
gonna make sure that we're sticking with scripture and not get caught up in any sort of topical debate, which is probably you know, good in most cases, but it all so freeze you from any duty to have to speak truth into your church on a topical basis relative to what's happening out in the outside world. You can just rely on, well, we're not going to get into politics.
I my brother in law had this problem with his pastor where you know, he was like, hey, man, this Charlie Kirk thing is like a real big deal and a lot of people in our community are are you know, going through some you know, crises with with their political positions and where things are heading in the country, and you know, maybe it's time for us to have, you know, a discussion about that as a church. And it was like, well,
you know, we're not we do expository preaching. We're not gonna we're not going to touch on the topics of the day. So maybe if it comes up organically. But you know, I part of the issue, I think is that there's a universalizing tendency and you know, we can apply it to like Anglo Western civilization as a whole, with with our general kind of openness. But the epistles are pretty clear, like what the purpose of the church is and tell you know, all of all of the
directives to the church. You know, it's to the church. It's not to the church and everybody else. And I think there's been a conflation of you know, perhaps some financial and career incentives towards like maximalizing your your marketability in your local community versus actually serving the members of the church. And you know, whether you're baptized and born
into the Covenant or whatever. You know, you have you have church people that are there, and so how much effort is put into acquiring new members through what either the showmanship of it all or just the the you know, the reputation is the pastor it's not going to rock the boat, but he's always going to give a fiery sermon.
You know. It seems like a contrary incentive to like, how do we how do we learn who these people that are interpews now actually are, where they where they live spiritually, and what we need to do to address their actual problems.
Yeah, and I mean that's the that's the thing about it is that the deep irony of this is that, particularly among young men, there is a desire for something transcendent and traditional. Obviously, in grand terms, this isn't a large number of people, but we're seeing, you know, particularly in Generation Ze, more of that generation and by large margins,
more men they're staying in or returning to church. And you know, I've done a number of episodes on this, one provocatively with Cryptos called the Hitler Youth comes back to Church. And look that article I mentioned earlier after it was a podcast with h oh, shoot Truman, excuse me, look, is it about Tucker Carlson kind of, But what it is really about is these gross, yucky young men that
we don't want. And it's funny because again, you know, after having been forced to sit through twenty years of talks about tolerance, about you know, welcoming others who are not like yourself, all couched in terms of creating something universal, creating something that someone from anywhere can appreciate and approach. Well, again we see that same thing that, oh, well that was only for clients of power, and well it turns out that you know, if you're outside of that, you
can come. But if you're if you speak up too much, if you have strong opinions, well then you're a problem. Then you need to you know, sit down, shut up, and stop being a gross in cell. And again, it's so frustrating as someone who grew up in this world, because I've heard dozens, dozens and dozens of people you know, sort of bemoan like, oh, if we could just get the young people back, if we could just get you know, young men here. Why is everything at this church run
by you know, old guys and women? And then the moment you have guys show up, it's like, oh no, no, no.
Not like that.
That's not what we want. They need to stop being like X, Y and Z. It's sort of this monkey's paw thing if you see what I'm getting at Paka for sure.
It's you know, I think part of the problem is from my perspective. And I've told I've had this conversation with pastors before, but it's like your vision of reality, like we can we agree on ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of close handed doctrines. You know what is required for salvation and living a good Christian life. Great, but your vision of reality does not comport. It doesn't map onto anything that I've actually experienced, right you have.
It's like but the Truman thing, it's like, you know, I do you really think Candae is gonna be carry antiki torches and and you know in the Seaville thing like no, uh, she's not going to be probably feel all that welcome there. So your vision and also man like I I if you describe these people as you know outright, uh you know, white nationalists.
Uh, you know, I don't mean to be too rude to Candice, but she does like he. She is black, I could hazard to guess that she is not a white supremacist. I mean, you know, I don't pretend to know her. But of course, right it's in kohy But sorry I interrupted you.
No, So it's you know, it's there's ample examples, whether it's on on the gay question or race questions, like so many things that they they truly believe.
Uh.
You know this this universal tabula rasa uh imposed on us by Christian doctrine, it just doesn't map. And if you if you have any pattern recognition at all as a young man, and then and start saying asking questions that are inconvenient for their and I hate this word, but you know, their their worldview that they're existing under.
You are viewed, and you know, you're otherised, You're you're castigated, and ultimately you're probably cast out either by formal mechanisms of discipline because you know, you asking these questions or having these opinions on politics is impugning the peace and purity of the church. Or they you know, they they work behind the scenes, you know, like with with the women and the other schemers in the church to make sure that you are socially ostracized to the point where
you know, you have to leave. At least that's that's my experience. And so there isn't you know, to your point, there's a there's a broad ecumenical consensus that that we need to really be unified in the core doctrines, but still remain open to to people, especially from the left, who might have a different, different point of view. But if God forbid, you say, like you know me, maybe there's is it a little bit of blood and soil, like just a little bit. No, you're you're out. You
can't can't be in a leadership position anymore. And so, you know, I think they're solutions, but it's it's it's intense.
Well, and there are two things there, which is, you know, I don't pretend to be a biblical scholar, but I am pretty sure the scriptures have more to say about women and homos than they do about young men being a little bit edgy on the internet. You know, I get it. You know, there's a lot about you know, temperate speech and the like. But it's pretty clear right that this is not coming from a real doctrinal concern. It's the kind of social dynamics we spoke about earlier.
That is the source of this, and so much of the reasoning is post talk. Well's I feel this, so I will come up with reason right to justify it. And like everything else, man, I think that it's a very short sighted reaction because you can't just get rid of everyone. You know, they don't just go away the
moment you've said you were not welcome here. You know, we have multiple examples of that, and seemingly, I think the desire, and I understand this from especially older folks, is to go back to normal, right, Why can't things be like how they were before? And look, I understand it was probably much more pleasant, but the material conditions have changed. Culture has changed on both the broad right and the broad left. It's not just simply going to turn back to how it was in a previous era.
I haven't read a ton of Aaron Wren, but you know his idea that we are going through a cultural change from a time where you know, being broadly Christian was sort of required to be a member of polite society through sort of a neutral culture where it wasn't really a detriment to one where there's a more hostile footing towards faith. I think that that analysis is spot on.
And I mean, look like we're in kind of a reprieve now, but you certainly saw you know, the Biden FBI going after you know, TLM guys in Richmond not too far away from me. That was not an isolated incident. I mean, just look at the way that even moderate figures like Amy Cony Barrett right when she was when she was being confirmed or treated. It's like that level of cultural apathy or cultural support, depending on how old the person in question is that they were able to
count on earlier in their life is gone. Those same forces are directly were indirectly creating all of these angry young men that you hate. And yeah, well if those trends don't change, then this problem isn't going to change, not simply something you can hope out of existence.
Yeah, and there's so I have two kind of like channels of empathy, right, Like I feel for the guys who are encountering this for the first time. They want to return the church, they want to take their faith seriously. They but they you know, they they're they're kind of hitting this wall of of you know, this evangelical culture that's been developed since the sixties. And so like my heart is fully with those guys and you know whatever.
But I also have like a little bit of empathy for the pastors too, in a perverse kind of like you know, self defeating way, because I I was the guy that was the tree shaker, right, Like, I'm going to come in and I'm going to say something that is intentionally offensive to you just to kind of shake your brain loose because I don't think you're capable of
kind of understanding my perspective on this. And then I'll back it down through subsequent conversations and and you know, kind of provide the reasonable justifications for for why I believe something. But you need to be shaken out of this, uh, this kind of cultural frame that you're in, and that that approach. I could see on these guys faces like they were physically uh hurt. This was this was like detrimental to their health, you know, getting cortisol spiked and
mogged by the by the racistyal paca. But like they so you know, they have this this context frame that exists. It doesn't map onto the changing realities. Uh. And and they're they refuse to update their software. You know, they they've been trained by the TV and and by you know, the the nice kind soft men at seminary and by the applause of women and to update their their frame. Uh would is you know, causes physical psychic damage, I think, but it needs to happen, because you know, I don't
I think you're right. I think we are heading into from you know new we positive world is way past. This neutral world has been in effect for a long time. And I think especially you know, given current trends, uh, you know, with with the general uh vacating of the you know, Protestant Church in America, well, I mean all churches in America. Uh, you know, the the demographic realities on the ground, like they're going to need to get comfortable with the idea that we were firmly in are
heading towards the negative world. Uh, and their their practice is just not going to work anymore.
Well again, and I say this with a little bit of glee, but I don't really mean it. There's a part of me that looks at you know, all of this kind of moral grandstanding, you know, the speaking up against these these grave evils in the world, casting yourself as you know, brave revolutionaries. And there's a part of me that's like the funny thing is, you're going to get it one way or another, right, You're eventually going to see that, and who knows if it'll ever actually happen,
if that realization will ever hit. But there's a part of it where it's like you're almost he were, ironically enough creating the situation that will actually lead to that eventuality of you having to face persecution, and look like, okay, I get it. You know, particularly in the evangelical world, there's been a lot of kind of cartoonish commentary about you know, persecution in the US. You know, I mean just look at you know, a lot of the kind
of extreme stuff that came out of the eighties. But uh, you know, I even think about the aftermath of the road decision where you know, even in my kind of sleepy, little conservative small town, you know, my church cars got their tires slashed. You know, there's there's vandalism, the local pregnancy center got fire bombed again, even in a small little area, and you're like, okay, I get it. That was kind of a high water mark of rage. But if you think that's going to stop, you know, you
think that's just going to end. No one was punished for it, so you think the conclusion is, Okay, I got it out of my system. I mean I try not to be, you know, too paranoid about these sort
of things. But like you look at the the attacks from you know currently, you know, obviously like the state, depending on who's in power, the minions of the state, and then even right the kind of relative frequency of these sort of like deranged church shootings, and it's like, hey, guys, you can't bank on your security literal or you know,
legal like that is going to happen. And so when you see someone sort of playing these sort of like Namby Pamby games trying to you know, hold on to fleeting respectability, I sort of want to sit down and shake these people, like, do you not understand like what the stakes are here? Like they're going to hate you no matter what. You can't compromise only a little bit.
The only way they will like you is if you've become you know, one of those sort of rage bait churches you see on X right, the lesbian, short haired preacher with you know, the rainbow stole and the acoustic guitar singing to an octogenarian congregation of four like that is the only way they will like you. That is the only way you can succeed. And if you look at that and you're like, okay, well I don't want that, Okay, fair enough, then stop compromising and realize they're going to
call you names. Anything other than that to them is racist, fascist, whatever. There's no real middle ground there.
Yeah, it's the ethos of this like apologetic attitude towards towards our history, right, you know, and with a mind towards placating I guess more feminine and kind of overall just gay desire to be everyone to everybody. And you know if we just if we say it in the right way, everyone will you know, we'll see our side and come to Christ and participate fully in the church. It's like, no, that's never It hasn't worked anywhere in history.
Like a lot of Christians were actually converted by the sword, or at least the sword carving the conditions for society that allowed Christianity to flourish, and you know, to maintain those societies costs a lot of you know, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and it's not just gonna be like, oh well, our live stream now has has has new lighting so the pastor looks better on Facebook or YouTube. Like, No, you're gonna need guys like me. You know you're gonna need guys like Jay and the
guys that we're talking to. You know, you need us eventually, and I hope you realize it sooner than later.
Well, dude, this has been a fascinating conversation, both about al pacas and not. I think I'm probably just gonna call this like nothing but al pacas, uh, just to throw them for a loop.
But dude, the worst financial decision ever made.
Well, dude, where can people find you? Obviously you have a Twitter and then a substack. Is there anything else you put out on the internet.
Yeah, so my I'm on x it's data alpaca or a substack. It's Papa apaka dot substack dot com. Uh, don't look for regular content on any place because it's it comes when it comes. Genius takes time, people. But now that's that's it for now. Sometimes I chuck up a live stream with a couple of friends and you know, we bs about the day. But I really appreciate this day. It's been been a lot of fun talking to you. Have been a big fan of yours for for a
long time, and uh, I hope the podcast keeps going strong. Buddy.
Well thanks man I, I genuinely appreciate that. Like I said, be sure to check out the substack and the Twitter. Everyone at home, keep your head up. I can't last forever. Good night.
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