Defensive modernity is a strategy where cultures selectively adopt useful elements of modernity (technology, infrastructure) while preserving their core identity and values, as exemplified by the Japanese who combined Western military technology with their own strategic approach, or the Dutch Offskiding movement that maintained religious liberty while adapting to modern governance. This concept applies to immigrant churches and communities that seek to maintain their cultural and religious identity while engaging with modern society, requiring a balance between openness and preservation of foundational values.
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Trad-Immigrant Envy and Report from the Austin EstuaryAdded:
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Hey [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> But it [singing] is the man who [music] does not want you to of the wicked.
For us [music] stand in the way of sinners, or to sit in the seat of [music] mockers, but his delight is in [music] the love of the Lord. [singing] [music] And on his love he made a taste.
[singing] [music] Day and night. [music] He gets like a tree [music] planted by streams of water [music] which yields its fruit in season [music] and whose leaf does not wither. [music] Every [singing] day he does [music] prosperous.
Not so the wicked. [singing] [music] They are like sh the [music and singing] wind blows away.
Everyone wicked [music and singing] will not stand in the judgement.
[singing and music] Nor [music and singing] are sinners in the assembly [music] of the righteous.
[music] of the Lord watches over [music and singing] the way of the righteous.
[music] But the way [music] of the wicked [singing] shall be [music] Heat. Heat.
[music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Oh.
>> [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Blessed is the man [music] who does not walk in the Counsel of the [music] wicked [singing] or stand in the way of sinners [music] or sits in the seat of [music] mockers.
But his delight is in the [singing] love of the Lord.
[music] And on his wall he [music and singing] met a face day and night.
[music] He is running like a tree [music] planted by streams of water [music] which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. [music] Every day he does [music and singing] prosper.
Not [music] so the wicked. [singing] [music] They are like chaff [music] that the wind blows away.
Care [music] for the wicked will not stand [singing] in the judge [music] tonight.
Not our sinners in the assembly [music] of the righteous.
[music] Oh, the Lord watches over the way [singing and music] the righteous, but [music] the way of the wicked [music] shall perish.
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[music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Hey, [music] hey, hey.
>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to Anselman way up there in Scotland. I am in Austin, Texas. We had the estuary event last night hosted by Riel and his Austin Estuary. We had oh I don't know what the total number was. It was my guess is it's between 40 and 50 finally came out and fortunately they have a wonderful space in the parish house of an Episcopalian um church. the Episcopalian priest is really excited about estuary and we did brunch with him and some of other uh other friends of Riel yesterday and then I took a nap because I was a little tired and worked on some stuff.
Um and then we had the estuary and it was awesome.
um we broke up into four groups and provoked some thoughts and so let's talk about those thoughts because at the same time I'm planning the talk I'm going to give at the Orthodox church on Saturday and you know the way these talks go often is you know I'm about a month ahead I'm thinking about it and I'm just rolling it around in my mind and thinking about it and then I write some outline lines and then I write some paragraphs and then I think about it some more and then I throw it away and then I really like the situation here where I get on the ground a few days early and get to meet people and estuary is absolutely perfect for that because I there were a bunch of TLC folks um Paul Renee was there and um you know Riel asked me what are we how am I going to split up these people I said well let's take them outside and count them off like gym class 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. So we did that and then um I'm walking in the building. I say to Paul Renee, I say um what number are you? He says I don't care. I'm following you. So um got to hang out with Paul Renee sat next to me in my estuary meeting and that was awesome.
So, I'm thinking about and when I was offered this opportunity, I initially boked because I thought, what do I have to say to an Orthodox church in Austin, Texas? And um I still I still have that uh imposttor syndrome going on inside of me. um as I continue to, you know, eventually the the the person talked me into it and um I'm super glad I accepted. I'm awfully glad to be here. Um spending extra time with Riel and some of his friends, getting to hang with Paul Renee and see many of the others of you. I I I looked around for Michael Sartorii.
No, Michael Sartorii. Another guy named Cameron came from San Antonio and I said, "Do you know Michael Stori?" He says, "No." I said, "Do you have an estuary in San Antonio?" He says, "No."
I'm like, "What? What is Michael Stori doing?" You know, besides raising children and building cabinets and making YouTube videos and talking about wrestling and writing 800page books.
Surely he has all kinds of free time and free energy that that he needs to apply to starting an estuary in San Antonio, Texas. Come on. I mean that that poor guy had to drive an hour just to get to an estuary.
So um yeah, so Michael Sartori has to uh you know pick up pick up the pace here and start a San Antonio estuary. But one of the things was that the vast majority of people here are from the Austin area and it's a sprawling area. So I you know if uh Austin reaches its estuarial capacity it could be a very very large estuary and to my knowledge none of the leaders have training. So uh John Van Dunk you got to get on that. Um but it was a it was a tremendous time.
It was a tremendous meeting. Then we went out for the afterparty and um hung out with Bryce uh who's from Austin. Uh Bryce on crutches. Poor guy just uh came on crutches this morning but still made it to the meeting. And I'm gonna and hung out with him and Ezra and Grizz and um some others. And Lord willing I'll do dinner with Bryce and Grizz and Ezra tonight um which'll which I'm certainly looking forward to. And then there'll be a party at uh Riel's house. And I don't know how many will be there. I don't know how big Riel's house is, but um he's curling his beard and forearms.
Yes, that's what Sartori's doing. Um Oh, Sartori is coming tomorrow, too. Oh, boy. This is going to be a this is going to be an interesting event. Watch out for the owls. The owls are not what they seem. The owls are not what they seem.
>> [music] [music] [music] >> people very just just king great king [music] people error people King big just [music] king happy many down many jack king from right just oh I wasn't going to play the whole thing the owls are not what they seem uh so we're going to watch out for the owls um yeah Riel's house yeah there's an owl in the chat so [sighs] thinking about somebody once said to me that the Orthodox in America what they really want to be are immigrants.
And that was a super interesting comment given the Orthodox priest that wrote the hit priest on Josiah Trenum and basically accused him of dassinating the Orthodox church and making it an American thing. Now, of course, Orthodoxy in America that that those roots go through Alaska to Russia. So, you've got that, but then you've got the Greeks who who was who was saying it the other day in terms of the Orthodox. The Greeks the Greeks are like the uh they're they're they're like the um the limousine orthodox in America. They have the money. They've been here a long time. They've got the organization.
They're they're sort of like the mainline Orthodox in America, the Greeks. And then you've got the Antiochians and you've got of course Roor the Russians and you've got the um Anglican Church in America which is sort of off the Russians and then I'm sure you've got more and then you've got other groups like the Coptics. So we've got all of this new and many of it is immigrant.
So, one of the people I was talking to last night, I don't know how detailed I want to get because I don't know how much he wants me to out him, but um he he wants to talk about his situation, but he was he's he's from a non how can I say this? He's from a nonwhite immigrant community, not African-American, not Hispanic, let's say an Asian immigrant community.
and he was reflecting on his Asian evangelical church, how it's a monoculture and it's a multi-generational monoculture and how the um the involuntary conformities are enforced with social and familial power.
And that's common for many of these Asian cultures. They're they're a bit more collective than our bathed in the enlightenment western European cultures.
And he was expressing um he was expressing both the blessings and the difficulties of of I I always hate I can't do anything about it. Um, he was expressing the the difficulties and the benefits of being part of that immigrant culture and being part of that immigrant community and, you know, hanging out with Paul last night and thinking about all of the issues that Paul Renee has spoken voluminously on this channel and I really appreciate it and I really invite it even though he has a lot of things that to say that sort of rubs people the wrong way and he feels sort of like Cassandra where he's um telling this tale of woe about how our culture and our society leads to chaos and familial dissolution and without a rigid larger broader societal container.
Necessary institutions like marriage and family roles and multi-generational culture and deep non-parasitic non-reactive faith really struggles to form.
>> [snorts] >> Now, I did the Orthodox video on Josiah Trenum and internet orthodoxy. I did that a couple days ago, but last week I talked about [snorts] Cath, was it Katherine of the Sword? Is that what she calls herself?
On on Substack and the the guy who wrote after five years, he's burned out on orthodoxy.
And I wrote about how you can't just create a culture in a generation.
Cultures are multi-generational projects.
And and so I was have all those ideas rolling around in my head as I think about what I'm going to say to this Orthodox community, which is not an immigrant church. This this church is a church that is made up, I think, nearly exclusively of North American converts. A lot of refugees from Methodism and Texas non-denominational religion.
And you know, Paul is living here. And so, as I'm trying to get a read on the audience, and those of you who've watched for a while know that the first the first rule of public speaking is know your audience. And that makes something like this always difficult because I' i've spoken now a bit to some of the people in the church, but they um yeah, this is um I think that's exactly right, William Branch. They're attempting to escape Americanism.
Now, I was also reading Rod Dreer yesterday and saw that he's moving to Birmingham, Alabama.
I was just there last December doing a wedding for a couple of estuarians, fervent estuarians. And you know, part of why they wanted me to come was because they wanted to draw a little bit of attention to starting a a Birmingham estuary because they too are in some ways escape from America. Maybe. See this? I do these live streams and I talk this way because I'm trying to figure out what on earth I'm going to say to these lovely people. if I have every if I have anything to add, if I have anything to offer.
And so I was thinking about this multi-generational immigrant Asian church and the the dynamics he was describing. You know, the church is now, you know, two, three, four generations in filled with lawyers and doctors and wealthy, successful people and intermarriage.
Now, one of the and and I was thinking about that as compared to the Dutch Christian Reformed Church and and the the racial aspect of this is important because the Chinese church can be multicultural even if they worship in English. They can be monocultural.
Sorry, not multicultural, monocultural.
The Chinese church can be monoculture and they will receive no criticism past the civil rights great awakening because the civil rights movement was one of the series of great awakenings in American religious history whereas the Christian reformed church had right from the start. So I was reviewing the offskiding and if you ask a competent AI surf what the offskiding was in the Netherlands, it will lay it out for you. It was an a powerful populist movement that broke the power of the centralized entrenched Dutch state church and afforded religious liberty to um my ecclesiastical ancestors though not my biolog's side my biological ancestors not my father's side because they for Jews. So, and what the offskiding did was they basically revolted against the state church because what happened obviously during the Napoleonic wars was Napoleon sort of runs through Europe and of course the Netherlands right next door to France first easy conquer. The Netherlands always seems to be a first easy conquer.
You know, the Germans did it in the Second World War and you know, they lasted 10 days. The Nether the Dutch lasted.
So, Napoleon runs through and then Napoleon of course gets beat and leaves.
But part of when I was talking to Kevin Flatt, he talked about defensive modernity.
What is defensive modernity?
Well, Napoleon shows Europe how modernity can conquer everyone. And we see versions of this in the colonial period where the the modernist nations of Europe rule the world through their weapons and their science and their technology and their organization.
And what happens in the Islamic world in in the Maji restoration in Japan is defense of modernity that different cultures around the world adopt selective modernist principles and and some do so with amazing skill and ability like the Japanese. The Japanese try to figure out a hybrid, a modernist hybrid where they can have technology. And of course when the Americans are developing the aircraft carrier and the Americans of course because they're they're a little bit skeptical about the military power of the aircraft carrier Dittle isn't. And so as Doolittle is trying to sell the aircraft carrier to the American um military institution to their war department. The Japanese are there taking notes and while the Americans are sort of, "Yeah, will the aircraft carrier really displace the battleship, the Japanese are taking notes?" And the Japanese go back to Japan and they say, "Why not both?"
So, the Japanese both build the Yamato, the world's largest battleship, and they build a fleet of carriers, and they build the Zero, and they train their pilots.
And while the Japanese army is bogged down in China and as the world increasingly is troubled by the atrocities that it sees happening in China at the hand of the Japanese and the Americans decide we're no longer going to sell scrap metal and petroleum oil to the Japanese.
They come up with a plan.
What if we can sort of give the Americans a bloody nose? And if we give them a bloody nose, maybe they'll say, "Okay, okay, Taco America, we always chicken out.
We'll give FDR a bloody nose at Pearl Harbor." And the Americans will say, "We're fat with our our abundance of oil and our wealth." And the Japanese saw Americans as soft.
We're soft and fat.
We'll we'll continue to sell you oil and and natural resources to continue your war in China.
That whole embargo thing was a big mistake. And of course, this is slightly ironic given everything that's going around the straight of Hormuz.
Very different situation in many ways, but it's still oil and an embargo.
And [clears throat] of of course they use all that aircraft carrier knowledge and they bomb Pearl Harbor. But of course what they don't calculate on is that while um Yamamato understood America and his superiors didn't America strode across the world and beat Japan to a pulp and use Pearl Harbor as a excuse to first take out the Germans.
Defensive modernity.
And so in some ways, immigrant churches practice defensive modernity.
They selectively try to take in the obvious strengths of the powerful modern regime, the machine that continues to take over while let's preserve our thing over here. So the Maji restoration preserves the emperor.
But the thing doesn't work. Yamamato knew that if America decided it didn't like what Japan did at Pearl Harbor, given enough time, Japan could not deal with the kind of navy America could float. And it was and he was right. And of course he dies. He gets shot down.
So he never has to see the Yamato go to the bottom sunk by second generation American planes.
So to what degree is American orthodoxy defense of modernity? To what degree is it immigrant envy?
Because what happened with the Dutch is the civil rights movement goes through.
And hey, let's let's um let's uh let's let's give let's give honor to the the wokesters who say, "Yeah, you know, the Dutch can pass for white. They just got that that pesky height privilege and those strange last names like Vander Clay.
And so almost immediately when 75% of the people that left the Netherlands were children of the offskiding childrens of the children of the populist revolution that said we're for the three forms of unity. Let Dutch Calvinism live. You know that aristocracy in Amsterdam said, "Let's sing happy enlightenment songs."
And the farmers and the dairymen of Northern Netherlands said, "No, we sing psalms only.
We'll pick our own ministers. Thank you very much. We're not going to have them dictated to us from Amsterdam or the Hague. No thank you. We'll baptize who we see fit to baptize, not everyone and anyone. And um and if you surface a good enough description of the offskiting, it'll nicely draw connections to the Doliani, Abraham Kyper, pillarization, Abraham Kyper. In some ways, this is gonna really royal some CRC people. In some ways, in some ways, Abraham Kyper is a Donald Trump figure.
Abraham Kyper like Donald Trump say it isn't. So Abraham Kyper rides a populist revolt really in many ways a centurylong populist revolt and basically develops principled pluralism in the Netherlands that principal pluralism is important because if we jump all the way to Ian Hersy Ali's book infidel she meets the principal pluralism and when the refugee G's from the civil war in Somalia start and and other Islamic countries start winding up in the Netherlands because my goodness, you go into the country, they give you a place to live. They give you cash. They give you, you know, they'll take care of every you they'll take care of everything if you just walk into the country and say, "I'm a refugee. I'm being persecuted."
So Ian Hersy Elli does that. Lies on her um to get refugee status because she doesn't want to marry a man in Canada.
Yeah. Don't go to Canada if you're from Somalia.
What is it? Polar bears and igloos. Just ask Fleetus. He'll tell you Canada's just polar bears and igloos except for the banana belt of Ontario. Think about that.
So of course I inheri goes to the Netherlands with its principal pluralism and it has its pillarization and it has its reformed pillar and its Catholic pillar and its atheist pillar and I said well we'll just add an Islamic pillar and Ayan says are you really okay with the kitchen table operations that Somali immigrants are doing on their daughters?
Are you really okay if a daughter of a Somali immigrant goes and dates a Dutchman and her father or brother beat the pulp out of her or even kill her?
And the Dutchman saying those kinds of things is racist. Oh. So then Ion says, "Why don't we just track the numbers?"
And the Dutch says, "No, we don't want to do that. That would be racist." But she gets elected parked to parliament and then she basically says you know there's something like I don't know 12 police precincts and she says let's just do it in three.
So they start tracking the numbers and the Dutch gasp.
So how open is liberalism? How neutral?
How successful was Abraham Kyper's pillarization?
I had a conversation at breakfast about estuary with one of Riel's friends who's very post-liberal.
Um, Austin is a cool place. great food, um, a lot of smart people, university town, state capital. In some ways, a lot of lot like Sacramento, a lot more sprawling than Sacramento.
And, and the fact is Sacramento is sort of a purple city in the middle of a deep blue state, at least the coast, and Austin is sort of a purple blue city in the middle of a big red state, Texas.
So, it's it's been really fun being here. and just ask people about the city and just take it in and figure it out.
Yeah.
I think that the Dutch ladies that I grew up next to would say I have an American throat.
>> [snorts] >> So he asked about estuary and its openness because estuary is very open and it's one of the attractive things about it's one of the things I like about it. But he asked about that in the context of post liberal um exposure that the imagined neutrality of secularity is in fact a little facicious it's not true facious it's not true secularity isn't neutral you can listen to Tom Holland his his read on Islam with respect to secularity and Islamic immigrants into the first world.
And I had to think about that. It was a great point that he made to me. And this is why I love going on these trips. I meet people who have never watched a single video and they I have to introduce estuary to them and I have to I have to do all of these things to try to say, "Okay, what on earth? Why is this Dutchman from what's the name of your denomination?
I don't think there's any of those in Austin. Um and I have to explain myself over and over and over again and you know work my elevator pitches. And he says, you know, if um the imagined neutrality of secularism is facious, not facitious, is facious, is disingenuous, is a lie.
What about your little neutral estuary protocol?
It's so open. The group can discuss anything they want to discuss.
And we say, "What could go wrong?" And others might say, "What could go right?"
And it and it forced me to reckon with the fact that Estuary is the daughter of a current and former Christian reform minister.
How neutral can it be?
This is the product of Christendom as is liberalism as is secularity.
And it made me think about the fact that in all likelihood what we've been enjoying in estuary is because there's a lot of foundation smuggling happening that the people we gather are self- selected and maybe half of them are TLC connected or maybe connected. So, I I was I I was sitting last night in the afterparty and this young man comes and he's been watching my videos from the beginning and he's sitting next to Grin Grizz and I always do this question because I always wonder how much downflow can um Oh, that looks actually really good.
Thanks, Corey. I'm gonna have to try and remember that. America against America.
Um, [snorts] how much downflow is there into the rest of the TLC? And I know that if in fact I am a funnel into the TLC, the nozzle's really small because here's this guy sitting next to Grim Grizz. And I say, "Do you know this guy?" Here it's Grim Grizz. I've heard his name.
I felt so bad for Grizz. I felt so bad.
The man's trying to make a living [laughter] and here a guy's been watching me from the start and I haven't been able to successfully send him to Grisswald Grizz channel for the savings throws and all the dice he shakes.
Yeah, it was sunk late in the war because they didn't have oil to to send it out. And they also very quickly realized that very quickly in the war aircraft carriers would sink battleships long before the battleships would get into range of the aircraft carriers. And now we have drones anyway.
So just thinking about secularity, estuary, immigrant envy, church immigrant envy and and in many ways this this address directly addresses Rodri's Benedict option because cultures there's a cominatorial explosiveness to cultures.
Cultures have to deal with the economics, the social, the historical, the religious, the familial, the biological, uh the geographical, the weather.
Cultures have to deal with human life on absolutely every level.
And so if you actually want to create a culture, well, it's going to have to be sufficiently broad, sufficiently deep, and to some degree sufficiently isolated.
This is of course where globalization comes in, modernization comes in, defensive modernity.
part of what Abram Kyper's principled pluralism attempted to deliver to the Netherlands was a way for the Catholics and the Protestants and the increasing tide of secularists that basically say we're going to take assumptions of the enlighten ment birthed out of Christendom and we're going to try to hold it and this goes to what's her name she was on Justin Briarley's show with um Bel Tindle [sighs and gasps] but but she basically said you know humanism is a 16th century noncon liberal leftist non-conform formist heresy that is basically one.
She has a point. It was a great interview. I know a lot of people a lot of you people hated her because she's everything about the Church of England that some of you can't stand and she has no patience for the evangelical side of the Church of England.
But it's interesting how we keep running these plays always with different groups.
So Asian immigrants run it.
People run it in their own countries. is the Maji restoration, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the um the various Islamisms in the Arab world because of course the Iranian Shia Islamic revolution is different from the Sunni Arab world and it scales all the way down to the little offskiting in the Netherlands and Hendrickk Duck basically saying you can imprison me.
You know, he was the Jordan Peterson of ecclesiastical early 19th century Netherlands and his revolution won and it birthed Abram Kyper.
It birthed principal pluralism.
It birthed pillarization.
But pillarization had to fall when Islam came because the Dutch basically had to say these are our values.
Um the daughters of Islamic immigrants may date whomever they wish and you cannot beat them for dating someone you don't like.
And you can't do surgery on a kitchen table to the private parts of little girls born in the Netherlands, whether or not they're born to African Muslim immigrants.
If you do this, you will go to jail.
Is that neutral?
Is that secularity?
[sighs] Now, our friend Paul WA would say that's the slippery slope.
slippery slope to the kind of chaotic world that is subject to as let's say Paul Kingsorth says the machine.
Yeah, fair enough.
Part of why America is such an important piece of this whole story is because Yeah. Here we go again.
Paul, I I'm continuing to make you TLC famous and deservedly so. I I um I am so glad you're around. You are so helpful and I want you to keep doing what you're doing, man. And um I love you a ton.
[snorts] Part of what makes America so important in this is that While the European countries tended to afford a degree of individual autonomy, they're really struggling with the question of Islam. And oh, you you're the you're the best kind of irritant, Paul Renee. You know, without without the piece of sand, the pearl would not grow. You are you are the pearl of the TLC, my friend.
Or maybe the sand. I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. Helping us make the pearl.
I mean these are the experiments that we're running. America made up of dissenting, ambitious, entrepreneurial English refugees and then drawing to itself German refugees in massive numbers Irish refugees continuing to infold people from all over the world yearning to breathe free has long attempted to afford Benedict optioning.
and and and for the Asian church, the civil rights, excuse me, great awakening didn't change it.
It didn't have to change it because they could be a monoculture.
the Christian Reform Church, you know, looks in the mirror of the American Civil Rights Great Awakening and says, "Are we the baddies? Are we racist?"
It wasn't the only motivation for the Christian Reformed Church.
See, unlike some of these other Asian cultures and their monocultural churches in America, the Christian Reformed Church had been leaking right away from immigration all along the way. And unlike some of these Asian monocultural churches or African monocultural churches that are being fed by immigration today, the Dutch church didn't have any more immigrants.
We had immigrants coming up to the first world war and then we had some after the second world war. But it was in Sacramento when um a Dutch immigrant moved into the house next door to me and I met him. Was he an offskiting three forms of unity hidleberg catechism memorizing Dutch reformed man? He was a newager and he and his wife had this little new age project and program and he asked if you know they could rent space from the church to run their program and I thought elders aren't going to say yes to this one and they didn't became good friends with them but the Dutch immigrants that came in after the year 2000 probably after the year 1990 were [snorts] very liberal liberal very open. They were different Dutchmen than the offskiding Hendrickk Deac rebels or even than the principled pluralist Abraham Kyper Kyperians that settled Canada.
So, the Dutch the Dutch wanted to join the American evangelical scene.
Well, I'd say this. 70% of the CRC wanted to join the American evangelical scene and 30% wanted to join the mainline. And basically what happened with the war in the CRC from 2022 to 2025 is that the mainline faction got pushed out.
So it's a strange thing that estuary is born from the Christian Reformed Church.
But perhaps it's not a strange thing.
Perhaps as I reflect on my conversation over breakfast yesterday, estuary requires something with a foundation that it borrows structure from. Because here's the truth about a vacuum. You need a rigid container to maintain it.
Um, I remember getting uh someone taking blood for a routine um medical test and um it was the first time I saw one of these little vacuum tubes. They put the needle in and they stick it in my arm and it just sucks the it just sucks the um blood right out of my vein. I'm like, "Wow." You know, no syringe, just I said, "Wow, that's pretty neat." And she says, 'Yeah, they put vacuum in it.
[laughter] I laughed. They put vacuum in it.
Try putting vacuum in a plastic bag.
It just collapses.
If you want to have a space of freedom, you need a structure around the container.
And I would say that liberalism when done well borrows the structure of Christendom.
An estuary when done well will borrow the structure of probably whatever's in the leader or the organization that is founding the estuary.
And that openness and that discovery is just, you know, ask Jonathan Pjo about estuary. He'll give you the same answer every single time. He'll say, "Look at the name estuary."
Well, that name doesn't say anything.
No, the name says everything.
It's where the water from the mountain meets the waters from the sea in a middle productive space.
But there's no neutrality with respect to those waters. The seawater is salty.
The mountain water is fresh.
When it gets down to the chemistry, the specific chemistry of the water and the minerals that that are in it, all depends what mountain it's flowing through. I was listening to a thing on drinking water and they were talking about how if you just have pure pure pure pure pure water, H2O doesn't taste good to us. We like some minerals in it.
And so I think about the project of American Orthodoxy as a as another as another in a long line of populist protests against the vacuity of modernity. or perhaps some of the implicit assumptions that are coming in and I think what it takes to found a culture.
These are ambitious projects and it's it's perhaps the case that every such project has to to one degree or another have an element of defensive modernity.
And that's what we see. The Orthodox Church wouldn't be having this moment of growth without priests like Josiah Trenum or Steven D.
or lay persons like Jay Dyer because if you're going to run up the score on YouTube, we know how that works.
We're naturally drawn to conflict. We pay attention to it. The evolutionary biologist would say, "Of course we pay attention to it." Or the evolutionary psychologist because it's [snorts] just it's just obvious to see if you're walking through a train station and there's a fight over there, you look why? because the fight might come here.
Or if you hear gunshots, you look because they might be shooting at me.
So on YouTube, if we have a conflict, we look and we're attracted and it has our attention.
Come for the culture war. Stay for the religion.
Defense of modernity while using the tools of modernity. like the Japanese watching Dittle try to sell his aircraft carrier to the to the war department and the Japanese are just taking notes and saying we're going to go back to Japan and we're going to build aircraft carriers and we're going to build an airplane like the zero that the Americans aren't going to be able to handle at first.
So, that's what I'm thinking about. All right. Um, I'm gonna play a little bit of branding and then I'm going to drop the link. What branding should I play?
Um, I might not play at all.
>> This song is called Asynchronous Ontology for Dummies Circles. But I'm trying.
>> Round it up.
>> Two.
>> Go.
>> Learn the song.
>> There is no try. There's only do.
>> Well, I don't know about the meaning crisis. Left, right, black, white, or other vices when Jesus Christ is right or if we're all saved.
[music] From my perspective, a proposition participate procedurally [music] run in circles remembering body. But in the age of decay, [singing] [music] symbolically speaking, the reapers are reaping them damn aggreg. Oh boy. Holy canoli. All right, we're getting there.
You wrote the song, sir. Please, sir.
>> I wonder if from my perspective, the proposition participate procedurally [music] running seriously [singing and music] [music] speaking. The reapers are reaping. Oh sh.
[music] [music] [music] Here we go.
>> [music] >> I don't know about the million [music] crisis black or other vis [music] from my perspective proposition proced [music] remember everybody We're in the age [singing] of decor [music] [music] and number two. We're [music] all the same thing.
So clean your room [music] on Z.
[music] >> Yeah.
>> All right. I think I should be done with that cuz my fingers are >> Oh, my fingers are [ __ ] Straighten up. [music] All right. Only one intrepid person clicked the link. Alex Luna, how are you today? What say you?
>> I'm doing well. It sounds like um it should be quite a gathering from the people you mentioned. So that's It is. It's a We had a We had a big group last night. Most of them are from um the Austin area. Some came in from other cities. A few came in from further. So um yeah. So it's uh >> we had a great time. Oh, now we got Brett from Florida.
>> Hey, Alex. Hello.
>> So what's on your mind, Alex? Did you listen to my monologue? Do you have thoughts about it or have something else you want to throw on the table? Yes, I did. And I think uh um there's a lot you mentioned, but these are very interesting times and the reason why they're very interesting and unique is because of our tools and mainly our technology and it has kept changing. I know earlier you mentioned the um uh the flotillas of the old old world and how that changed perception and what's real and the gold was real potatoes are real and it's only until we know its worth its value its usage do we like oh this is it's it's no longer out there it's in here and very interesting times and when when it comes to the the out there and in here it's not different with people groups and because you mentioned the immigrants and the Orthodox and and and it's new but not new and and the inroup and the out groupoup and this is something that's never uh ever evolving always the same um same problems that when you reflect on it they're same old same old problems and there's a whole concept of the inroup out group you don't understand me I don't understand you. You don't value what I value. Um, you know, and on and on and um and and um so I'm I'll make it quick. And also since we since we're bringing up the old world in the old world it was very normal former Catholic remember it was very normal for people in those days to know of the seven seven or maybe it is a new uh uh intuition the seven deadly sins.
>> Yep.
>> And that was the standard at least when I was a kid. I I didn't know about the Bible but at least I knew about the seven deadly sins.
>> Yeah. And to be honest, in modern times, I don't think I've heard that mentioned in the ether in the secular world, but I did see the movie Seven. So maybe maybe I'm off.
>> No, you know, you're right. And you know, talk to Kale Zelden about now.
Were did did your [clears throat] were your parents cradle Catholics? Both of them.
>> Um they were both Catholic. Um my grandma was. My grandma was hardcore.
She was faithful and loyal and devout and true and true. She lived and breathed Catholicism.
And uh and to be honest um I was shocked um when I found out there was that there was actually other religions besides Catholicism.
I was shocked. I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that." [laughter] >> Yeah. And and so you know many of us are living these um these cycles and um No, that's that's right. That's right.
So boy, now we now suddenly we have a flood and you know everybody's in the car. Well, as long as someone's driving, Grim Grizz won't come on. So um Brett, what um what are your thoughts?
Yeah, it's funny because uh my my grandparents on my mother's side were that whole side of the family was Catholic. My dad's side was Lutheran and uh you know the older I got the more I interest got interested into you know where the family was, what they believed.
I had [clears throat] I found out that my grandfather didn't exactly have a good he didn't feel good about uh his well about Catholic church the Catholic church. He so he had a very set thing.
I'm not letting I'm not letting this church get in between me and Jesus. That was his that was his thing which was so crazy. And but my grandmother on the other hand, she was all about the saints and all about Mary and you know, but he they just they just dealt with each other, you know.
>> Yeah.
>> And uh and then my my mom when she came out of that um because my dad was Lutheran, she just married into you know, which wasn't a huge jump. Yeah.
>> But I do think it's interesting um the way that and I guess they had their own deconstruction in in ways and she used to use that term all the time, you know, like I'm a recovering Catholic thing, you know, whatever.
>> Yeah.
>> How about you, Ian?
Um, well, I I just caught the tail end of your monologue and you mentioned how orthodoxy seems to you like just another not just but yet another um populist movement and I thought that that was so intriguing to me because I think you're right and I think it's so funny how the pendulums just always swing, you know, like uh so anyway, that that insight kind of collided with what I've been thinking about today. Um hopefully I'm going to be able to talk to Ross Bird today about his 21 digital proverbs post. If anybody has the chance to look at that, it's really really good. Um 12 and 13 I put in the chat. I'm on my phone so I can't really do like multiple screen things, but uh they're they're basically about like connecting with people. Hold on. Let me see if I can read it really quick.
>> Are you driving?
>> Oh, not. You're right. You're right.
Somebody else read it. Read 13.
>> Let's Let's Let's not >> live stream and drive and read from the phone while we're I mean, let's not do that. So, if you know Yeah. So, you pointed to him. That's good. That's good.
>> Wait, let Jesus take the wheel. Hold on.
[laughter] >> Yes. It's Am I driving? I'm embodying.
>> Am I driving? [snorts] All right. All right. Garrett White, what say you?
Welcome back.
>> Hi. It's uh good to chat with you again.
Um I was thinking a lot about I I picked up uh a copy of Foolishness of the Greeks at a used bookstore. Um I wouldn't have recognized it if you hadn't been talking about it, Paul, but um stumbled upon it. um three three or four chapters in and uh that's all I was thinking about um about what uh defensive modernization and um yeah the I don't know how how much of all of this is just the work of of translation. I' I've got a lot of thoughts that are still kind of nebulous on it, but they're they're coming together.
>> All right. All right. Oh. Oh, we have the man, the myth, the legend, the um the the everpresent example of of of what we're dealing with. Paul Renee, Central Texas irritant.
>> Esquire.
>> Esquire. [laughter] >> Well, Paul Paul was there as the um as I was gathering the elements to make the sausage. So, uh, what say you, Paul?
Uh, [laughter] uh, I mean, I'd like to say I'm just having a bit of fun. Um, but maybe there's a little bit more to it than that.
Well, I I think so. I started um relisting to our last long conversation, two and a half hours. I started relisting to that this morning to, you know, refresh myself on the details of your story. Are you going to be are you going to be at the event on Saturday or not?
>> Uh, no. I'm hanging out with a girl.
Uh, but >> you could bring her.
>> Uh, maybe, but the uh I'm coming to the party tonight.
>> Okay. And and to speak of that that video and I I I don't want to glaze myself too much. Um but I've re re-watched most of it recently and uh I'm surprisingly entertaining. Uh >> you are I [laughter] love that video.
>> But in fact in fact you'll you'll So there's this little shorts maker that I have. I took your video and I put it in the shorts maker. So there'll be some shorts coming out of it because it is but but it but Paul you in so many ways articulate and embody your story embodies so many of these issues and you're while your story is unique what you have gone through you're not alone and you're seeking good things and most of the time >> Yeah. Most of the time, [laughter] generally speaking, you want, you know, what what you're asking for, even though, you know, yeah, not everybody is receptive to some of your appeals, but you're you're looking for calm from the storm >> and you're recognizing that >> untrabled liberty and opportunity, people don't always do well with it.
They don't make such good choices.
But >> I would say the evidence is in favor of most the time most people make very bad decisions with their freedom that not only harm themselves but harm people around them.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's true. But but I I I'll add just um the the the video has been I mean I'm I've been accused of let's say monetizing or using my life history for fame which I will not entirely evade but I think is inaccurate. So that's been the negative reception I've gotten from it. On the positive side, JP Maro early in our conversation outside of the summit noted that he'd watched it. Um, and I've gotten a lot of feedback from it. So, it's connecting me to people.
Um, so I' I'm glad about that. Um, and I it it's a it's a good cliff's notes on me both in terms of temperament and uh biography. So, I've I mean, it's been a a year uh since the now ex-wife left.
Um, and I have not exactly gotten over it. And one of the things I've found um after finally getting a job two months and change ago is that as much as I hoped uh the money problem solving that would take care of most of what was going on with me, it didn't. Um so, uh I sought out a therapist. Funnily enough, it's a guy I met on Twitter. [laughter] Um, but he he's pretty solid so far. I think we've done three sessions. And as as as part of pre-work before we started doing the real sessions, I sent him that video. So, it's helpful. Um, it was helpful there, you know, not having to uh repeat things that are on record.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think um the amount of fame that you are You know, Noah rightly warned us about the LOL cow thing, which I didn't know about, and then he shared with me this story of some guy. Um, with less than 2,000 views, I'm I'm I'm not too concerned about your level of fame at this point. But, um, you know, hey, fair fair enough. Um, but I do appreciate the fact that when you do share your story in a public way like this, I mean, you offer yourself up for criticism and all those kind of things. that's what comes with it. But you also offer up your story as something that we can all learn from one way or another and that can help. And so I mean this whole channel runs those risks and um so that's you know for that reason I'm glad it's often no bigger than the size that it is and the following is as small as it is. So >> I I want to note something else related to the local Orthodox community. Um my church has a bit of a I'm not sure how best to put it, but maybe this will put it in the ballpark rivalry with the church you're speaking at tomorrow.
And there are quite a few um J dire loving orthob bros in the group chat for uh my church.
And uh there were negative reactions to the idea that they were bringing you a Protestant pastor to speak at an Orthodox church.
Um, and I I gave them a bit of push back on that and uh they weren't too happy about it, but one of our priests in the chat shut it down pretty quickly.
[laughter] So, uh, I don't I'm I'm I'm in a weird spot because, you know, to to a lot of uh people on your side, Paul, I'm I'm this dieh hard orthob bro and on my side I'm a dirty, filthy accuminist scum.
[laughter] Wow. Well, thank you for defending me.
Um I I I I I consider it an immense privilege to be um afforded the opportunity to engage this lovely con congregation in a conversation. And you know, I think lately we've seen that um the Orthodox Church, like every other church I've ever known, has its own rivalries and dramas. Um I've never known a church without them. So that they would have them is pretty normal.
But thank you, Michael Stori.
Where were you, man?
>> It's a busy weekend. Uh I mean, yeah, it's it's not exactly convenient to go up there, you know, but anyway. Um yeah.
Yeah. My uh my kids had d uh dress rehearsal for their dance recital, which is tomorrow morning, so we'll head up after that. But >> Oh, so we will see you. Yes, I will be there at the the tomorrow thing which if Paul if you want to come Paul Renee if if this might help if you bring your date I will let you hold a baby if that you know to see if if she sees you holding a baby if you think that might help your uh chances I I will I will bring one. So >> just as just as long as he's equally yolked, right?
Well, you know that you can use the baby as a test because if she loves a baby, that's points. If she's like, I don't like babies, then you have important information, Paul.
>> That that that that is all all reasonable. However, without going into details, we have conflicting plans. And those plans aside, I'm not yet sure that this is a woman I want to bring into a church. Um, so I want I want to say this without going too far and um outing my degeneracy and womanizing, but there you have it.
Wow. This this has been a live stream full of revelations. So, um All right.
Um, anybody have have something they want to pitch to the group? We're not necessarily going to do full estuary here, but um, you came on to talk about something. What was it?
>> Well, I'll go. Um, the the whole concept of this flotillaa and differences of backgrounds, cultures, you name it, and difference of opinion, I might add. And how do we do this dance without stepping too much on each other's toes? Well, we learn to dance, but we learn dumb melody. Um, how much is h um how often do we get to say uh I'll give you a pass, but maybe keep that in mind. But anyways, um, as far as the difference of opinions in the inroup, outgroup and that there's always so you're always going to have someone with a different perspective and different preference and different point of view and different experience and that's just a given. The that's so the question is not whether you're going to encounter that. The ultimate question is how do we deal with that notion without it having the whole connection go sideways.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think in some ways, you know, what we do in the TLC is a big experiment on that. And you know, the what I was talking about in the monologue version, you know, part of this video, you can't put vacuum in a plastic bag. it just collapses. There has to be a container. And I think part of what we see right now is the struggle for containers.
And um you know and you know the reason I love hearing your story, Brett's story, Paul's story, Garrett's story, the reason that I love getting stories out of all of you is that this is sort of how we figure out how the containers work because there's there's a reason that the um there there's a reason that your grandma's Catholicism was was abandoned.
Now, was that a good thing or a bad thing? Um, there was a reason that the pope lost uh terrestrial authority over the papal states in the 19th century. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? There's a reason we're in a post-liberal moment where people are looking at um multicultural liberalism and saying, "Does this really work?" And by work they mean does this afford what human beings need and what human beings need is very basic stability community they need containers and you know that's the heart of Paul's Paul's point that he makes and um and you know he when you know I know I I like I like platforming people that irritate And I'm going to continue to do it. And I'm going to platform people that irritate Paul. Um, but I'm going to continue to platform Paul because Paul brings his receipts and his receipts are his life.
And you do the same thing, Alex. You do the same thing, Brett. In many ways, that's sort of what we're doing in this space.
And I think, you know, Noah's um caution is correct. And an element of that, you know, part of how the lull cows, which, you know, I had to learn, um, part of that dynamic is, of course, a financial dependence.
And I'm not at this point, and hopefully never will be, financially dependent on my YouTube presence, and nobody else in the TLC really is.
And so, there's an element to that as well. So, >> um I mean I want to say some things. Um I don't I don't think that much of orthodoxy will ever be super receptive to TLC estuary. Um part part of why people are becoming orthodox or staying orthodox is um despite how how rampant the secularization of the parishioners are is we have a certain sense of of of purity.
Um, and we don't we don't necessarily want to mix and be open to outside ideas. And I I think that was very um that agreor was expressing itself well in my brothers in the group chat this morning.
Um, and I mean I'm definitely a weirdo um on all sides because I'm I'm a cosmopolitan. I'm an intellectual. I'm high in openness. Um I've I've lived a very long life in a short period of time. Uh and and yet I'm trying to use these um these modern magics uh against themselves in an effort to undo uh the spell of the enlightenment.
And um yeah, I I I'm I'm not trying to hide the ball there. um let's say uh and you know g given the given that the estuary came out of um both Protestant small groups and Jordan Peterson, one could say that they're basically like Jordan Peterson small groups. Um and I think that that's fine.
um you know if it if what it does is it helps kick people up and out of um modernity and give them a new perspective. That's fine. The I would say my main issue with the project is just this circularity of constantly discussing the same things over and over again.
um and you know the the the filtering for people who are are open you know which creates that sort of flywheel and I I think that's fine up to a point um but I mean at some at some point people will have to like I was saying last night someone has to say someone has to build the community someone has to make sacrifices uh we can't we can't live on discussing ideas all day. Um, we have to re-mbod the obligations that um allow people to flourish and I worry that people high in openness who are always looking for something new may not be the ones to kickstart that project. [laughter] >> Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Brad, you were gonna say muted.
>> Oh, >> go ahead, Luna.
>> There there's something that I want to say on that. Um there's um so and I'm going to try to be short. Uh, one thing that I came to realize that, uh, one, I'm getting older and, um, the the people that I consider young now are an adult and they're having an opinion and they're hitting life running and they're sometimes they're botching it, sometimes they're succeeding. And my point is, um, before you know it, we will be gone and the next generation will be here. And there's still, um, I mean, just look around in our society, there's still a lot to figure out. And I don't see anything I don't see a problem with people trying to be lamps to kind of help see a little bit better, see a little bit clearer. And one thing as far as being um in post post modernity, I came to the fact that we can't take the math back and put it away. We can't take engineering away. We we we're stuck with these technologies. They're very useful.
You know, chemistry is useful.
Engineering is useful. Um you you name it. these these new sciences are useful.
Yes, sometimes they're being deceptive to to to manipulate the masses by pitching certain narratives to get something done due to fill in the blank for incentives. Yes, all that is true.
Yes, but sometimes it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. So, I I don't think it I think it might be a worthwhile effort to at least give it a try.
I like uh I like this space because it helps me uh it it gives me a place to practice my um my love, right? It gives me a a place to find a way to communicate with people whether I think they're right or wrong and how to maybe hold back and uh and and and work on my toggle. Um I'm I'm learning obviously the longer I've been here that um I don't want to say I've given up um that it's like it's like okay you believe that whatever you know like which sucks because I know I had such deal about uh trying to talk about specifics but it's clear that when people land they land really hard it seems. Um, so like the only like like what uh Paul was saying about uh the you know the what what what creates the flywheel is the people that are in that in between space and they're trying to find their place to land and I just sometimes it just that part I still haven't worked out.
you know, like I want to talk with those type of people, but there's so many polarizing opinions that are, you know, jumping in with their opinion as if, hey, this is the this is it. This is the one true church or this is the, you know, and it's like, okay, you know, you know, so I'm just trying to learn how to be a better uh listener um and and be flexible to where where people are in their journey with Christ.
So I mean that's the greatest part about this is that there is that overarching you know connection >> man I always do that I say something and then nobody says anything I feel >> it's good it was good and I was just I just wanted to leave space for people to talk >> so I I'll have a quick remark and Maybe somebody can uh jump or bounce off that.
Um, so I I um I'm an immigrant or a a product of immigration. So I know what it is to um have the notion of home and uh have an eraser and erase that and then write it again home and then erase that and then home again. It's like my home has changed many of times. My culture has changed many of times. My traditions have changed. Now that's more of selective but the concept is um you know [clears throat] such is such is the world and such is life that there's always ups and downs and it's a roller coaster. So um be patient and um soon enough um people people do come around eventually hopefully.
I [sighs] I mean the one way of framing my constellation of concerns is uh perhaps in uh PJO type language is I mean this is more than just making the margin the center. We've we've grown the margin.
There's very few there's very little center left.
Um there are very few things that people agree on a and hold alignment on anymore.
Um and to be to be mutually intelligible to somebody.
Um I mean the shorthand we have for that is to have shared values. But I think it's it's something deeper than that. Like I the the this the central problem of marriage in our culture is is more than just um personal per personal hydonic pursuit.
That's an issue. Um the the the the bigger thing is that um we have no anchor for what it means to be a wife or be a husband. And so there's there's no there's no shared cultural knowledge of what those roles are that we can refer to and say, "I love you, honey, but you're falling short on these areas."
Um and so so to to have that stability necessitates that we do have a notion of what it means to be a good son, a good daughter, a good man, a good woman, a good wife, a good husband, and that we can hold each other accountable when we fall uh short of that. And the the entire point of of growing the margin and pushing out the center has been about breaking down those identities.
Um, and so like there's no there's no saving modernity or liberalism.
Um, and I think I think we've already reached the point of cultural collapse.
What we're living on right now is just sheer momentum.
And if you look at things like the straight of Hermuz Iran war nonsense, um all it took [laughter] was us launching another war in the Middle East to shut down shipments of fertilizer right before spring planting season, which will inevitably result in a uh food shortage across the world.
And so, um, the the way forward necessarily is going to have to require us, um, looking inward and reducing our dependence on these global just in time supply chains. But to make that work, we have to uh, we have to make a move. And I probably said this before in spaces like this, I'll say it again. Like uh Christianity broadly, but to me specifically the Orthodox, we are Israel and Egypt right now. We're we're not actually an individual people with united purpose. We are slaves to a system. And the next phase of this is going to be going out into the desert and um suffering and congealing into an actual ethnos that can hold together in a center.
The irony of all of this is um if the predictions of collapse are true then collapse will come.
And the irony of warning about collapse is that if collapse is necessary why warn and inevitable.
Uh the well call me Cassandra. Um [laughter] for one uh for two is um for those who have ears to hear and can actually hear what I have to say in their spirit.
um they have the room to position themselves to do something um to make themselves the seed of what is going to grow um in the future. And for those that are blind and deaf, well, uh there's not much I can do.
So Paul um Renee I did get a chance to read u Sarin Rose book on nihilism and then he's got another one um what's the title something about a religion um maybe true religion but anyways I did enjoy very much what he had to say as far as the the whole concept of modernity versus tradition and uh where we're at and how how much the paradigm of what is considered normal paraphrasing here and where we're at in regards to nihilism versus um true hope in Christ obviously um but anyways and I also do know that the orthodox tradition does believe that what is talked about in second Thessalonians is still future and I'm talking about more specifically as far as the antichrist and that whole shebang. Um so um again I know that the Cavalinist traditions say no no no no just like St. Augustine says this is more like a a pattern pattern that repeats um St. Jerome also did believe that that would be future. So, um, while different camps believe different things, uh, all I can say is maybe maybe we we'll find out sooner or later, one way or the other, but maybe.
>> Well, the the there's the capital Escaton.
Um, and there's the antichrist, but um, they are also patterns.
And um Rome and Italy fell and uh Rome in the east Constantinople also fell. Um so um and the the thing that the thing that we people talk about high trust society and how we are a high trust society or we were a high trust society whatever but that that trust comes from a tight-knit group of people who have obligations to each other. And when you burn up those obligations as fuel for GDP, as we have done, um not to mention other things that we have done, um you you burn up that trust.
And so we we converted our our relationships and our our private lives and our hearths. We converted that into GDP and we're running on fumes now. And um like with Rome and Constantinople, this won't be, you know, like a full collapse. There will be like dots of semifunctioning functional still somewhat technological spots. But the ability to ship groceries, you know, food across the country in a semitr may not be there. The ability to get your cheap plastic crap from China may not be there. And along with that, a whole host of other things. Um, >> all right. I think Garrett I think Garrett wants to get in. I think we've got the doomer narrative. Um, Garrett, what's you?
Uh I guess in order to understand sort of where you're coming from, Paul Renee, uh what comes after the Doomer narrative in your Egypt and Israel metaphor?
What what's the what's the promised land or do we know the promised land or is it more like Abraham where we're being led to a land that we do not know? What what would you think?
Uh well um the the the general pattern is um you've got you've got a bunch of local communities with some amount of hierarchy to larger entities.
Um and there's a there's a movement towards uh increasing unification. You can see this in Chinese history. Say you can see this in the Roman Empire. You can see this in the American Empire.
Um but um at some point you go from consolidation, flattening of hierarchies um to trying to keep the whole thing together because necessarily forces come in that are are trying to push it apart.
Um and at some point that center can't hold anymore.
And um because what what gives what gives an entity authority is uh Lord, can you clothe me? Can you feed me? Can you house me? Can you defend me?
And there will come a point where that's no longer possible for the American Empire for at least part of its territory.
And when that happens, uh, when people can't watch their Netflix and get their Door Dash delivery anymore, um, then that will leave space for local lordship to take over, warlords, and that will accelerate um the cracking into provinces.
Um, and then you get a sort of reset and then people start consolidating again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
>> All right.
>> Yeah. I think what's really interesting about that is I guess this is sort of what people mean uh when they talk about techno feudalism being what's next is that uh Netflix and Door Dash aren't provided by the state. The state just sort of provides the condition in which these massive non-governmental entities can provide for people and and increasingly you know those entities seem to work towards centralizing everything. You know Meta wants to be able to give you everything you could ever want. I I guess that's what I would see on on that model. If if what you presented holds, it would be the the big tech firms are sort of the it in first place right now in the running for >> who gets who gets to inherit that that kind of lordship.
>> Tech technofudalism is a fever dream uh because it depends on a number of things. It depends on having enough peace that you can maintain the communication networks which include satellites and fiber optics and cable cables under the sea between continents.
It depends on being able to power all the devices that make that happen. Um, so I I I think I I don't think all of our technological computer infrastructure will be able to last that long once the uh power structure that undergurs it collapses. So the nerds in San Francisco are delusional.
All right, I want to bring in Anselman's post because this touches on so not not the Austin drama as to whether um a Protestant should [laughter] talk in an Orthodox church, but the the broader I mean we've you know over the last couple of weeks we've had a lot of internet drama among orthodoxy. We had uh Katherine's post about women. We've had um one Orthodox priest write a really sharp piece against Josiah Trenum. Um, we had Josiah Trenum on, you know, >> Girls Gone Bible, >> Girls Gone Bible, which just the optics alone was just, you know, eyeopening.
And um, and then we had the whole we're having the whole PJO writes a thing about salvation, trying to add nuance to it, and Gavin Ortland uh, makes a video while he's watching his kids at the pool, not driving, watching his kids at the pool. And um this accentuates this tension that Christians have survived, their communities have survived a lot of globalization, a lot of multiculturalism, a lot of imperial collapse. And part of the way Christians do this is sort of modulating the two sides of salvation. Salvation is in the present frame, which is let's say an end of the book of Deuteronomy.
salvation, a covenantal salvation where your kids do well, you inherit the land, your crops grow, you know, within the secular realm, and then salvation in the age to come. Part of what Christianity has done is it sort of holds those those two things and it tends to modulate them. a big piece of the um of the Catholicism and Protestantism that let's say Alex's grandparents and my grandparents and and Brett's grandparents inherited was sort of a shift up and then you know at least in America we come into this post World War II period of affluence where I with the civil rights movement in some ways you have a shift down even though black church of course had really worked the um the shift up in terms of we're waiting for Christ to come when justice will be. So Christianity is always sort of working those two things together. And so I think that's a piece of this um that's a piece of this reality that it was interesting that the question of the definition of salvation comes up at the moment of all of this other drama because um you know in some ways Paul Anelman's response to you is well what do Christians do? Christians understand that this world is a veil of tears and that our inheritance is coming from heaven and those who die will be with the Lord. So, and orthodoxy of course has both ranges. All decent Christian communities have both ranges, but we're always sort of modulating them. And in in that way, at least the dumerism is the dumerism if not informed by esqueological hope and fulfillment isn't doesn't tend to be where Christians usually sort of reside. Well, uh, Jean Phipe Maro said to me, and and I'm I'm not I'm not at the point where I can um take this on fully, but he said to me, "If I wasn't a Christian, um, and I I didn't believe in the escaton, I'd be going insane with uh worry and despair right now."
Um so I think there is a case to be made for Christ already won. Um but the the other thing he said was um you know we we should try our best.
And um for some of us that means being a good parishioner and praying. For some of us us that means going to the monastery and and doing the spiritual work that lay people can't do and that priests in um churches can't do. Um but I think that there's a critical element that's missing from the picture that some of us are going going to have to provide and that is the church. You know to use Pauline language Christ is the head of the church and the church is the body and the church is also the bride of Christ. So heaven or yang or the masculine versus um the body, the church, the feminine yin.
Now, because we don't have an emperor, a Roman emperor, the Orthodox Church is necessarily just the feminine part. It's just the body part. And so we we are we are lacking um warriors and kings and merchants that can provide the um nourishment for the body, leadership for the body, and defense of the body.
Will there be sales?
>> Will there be what?
>> Sales like on the boats. [laughter] >> Uh >> maybe sales were a part of it.
>> Could be.
But so I so so I I I think that they're I I think that all Christian communities that wish to um that want to build an ark need to be mindful that we can no longer rely on our secular governments to be that lordship uh to be that Caesar for us. And we've got to create um we've got to create economic structures that can provide job opportunities for our people and can pay for our churches.
We need to have people who are capable of defending us. We need gargoyles at the edge. Um, and we need people who aren't pastors who can lead us and take positions in civil government um to advocate for us. And I that's a huge sacrifice, but um I I think that any serious Christian group needs to take that under advisement and think about how they do that. And I I think um one of the problems that Protestantism have is has is you've been chasing off all the men.
Um and even though we've been getting a lot of men in Catholicism and orthodoxy, our growth is pittance. And I think um if you want to include the men, those are the kind of roles at the border of the church and outside the church that if valued and encouraged will bring men in.
>> All right, Michael Sartori, you seem to want to talk.
>> I agree with everything that Paul just said. He's absolutely [laughter] right.
He's absolutely right. He's diagnosed I I mean, I came to the exact same conclusions. Um, and I think especially the problem is that it's not just Protestantism. It's all churches that um want to curb uh masculine agency rather than cultivating it. And this is really like the legacy of Rouso. and everybody is we're all living in his dream which is individual autonomous freedom mediated by the state and technology and so uh he uh had a sneaky idea and every it was personally very appealing to everybody basically and so everybody went along with it. Um, you know, I think I think that it's interesting like I do value orthodoxy and but but you know, I see it as along with many other instances the fact that God is always preserving a remnant, you know, in every circumstance and it's like he's hold on to that and and these are living um embodiment of a time when it worked. I don't if we go back to the um exact same cultural wasteland when you know that that that orthodoxy may be the proper mode. I think it's going to probably be some new thing. I think it probably will require people drawing on strengths from many traditions to really navigate you know an uncertain future.
But um you know I do think uh like I I think we haven't really taken Nii seriously. We've just said he was wrong and like haven't considered like what if he was right about a lot of stuff. And and what and what I mean by that is saying like there's a there's a problem where whenever whenever we have these, you know, old orders breaking down and people want to like take advantage of that, the people that want to, you know, exploit it for their own benefit, they always do it in this kind of weak way where they're standing in one world and they're just like grabbing the benefits out of the other. And so I think that's what we we saw with like modernity, you know, it it ha it held on to all that infrastructure that was built by Christrysendum. You know, it it it took advantage of all those scientific underpinnings to systematically uh dismantle everything else. And then you see the same thing with like the boomers and stuff with postmodernism.
They're all modern, but but as moderns, they could apply postmodernism selectively to kind of uh rearrange the things that they didn't like. And I think like what Nichi saw is like he saw it back then like postmodernism was going to be the acid that was strong enough to dissolve the the modern movement that was already dissolving the traditional movement. And at a certain point it's like you get down to like well what if we really did have to create your own values and all that stuff. And I think the the assumption is like well everybody would embrace hedenism. But you have to say like what if actually living Christlike without some external authority um is actually like the best way to >> to live for yourself which also would preserve the future. But I mean that's that's almost what I see like because you know because I can see even yeah I can do plenty of dismantling of um Protestantism. I I'll just give this example I saw yesterday some guy like a live he was you know some YouTube thing posted posted on Twitter about like is sex before is is sex outside of marriage really wrong like he was debate debating this like wow that's interesting and then I look at it like what the heck is this guy oh and then I like see what he's about and he's a biblical polygyny guy so he's trying to say like the Bible never condemns multiple wives and all this stuff and it's just like Okay, you know what? You you can this. Yes, that is exeetically defensible, but you are borrowing the presupposition that the Bible has authority to give yourself permission to do that. You and and you're and he's not, you know, it's it's it which you know means that his his beliefs aren't aren't they're they're deeper. they're rooted in a philosophical assumption more so than a a biblical argument or whatever.
And you know, I think the question is like, okay, well, if if all that stuff goes away, will people still choose to live in that self-sacrificial manner? And I think that I think that the pattern of reality is structured in such a way that Christlikeness will appear more. I think it probably is scarier than people like the real what it really looks like for people to really live that way is is the thing that church is holding back in some ways um because it will be scary and it will be messy and it won't it won't be people you know having a conformity of um the way it's expressed but I think that yeah I mean at some point it's culture and society, all that is just built on people making choices to live a certain way consistently, even without an infrastructure of a church or because the Bible said so. I mean, you should lie, but >> I this is emphasized to me frequently in the Orthodox church that uh and I think uh Father Trenum um who I've had the pleasure of meeting a couple times at this point, uh said on the Girls Gone Bible podcast, Sigh. Um he said something to the effect of um you can't you can't be a Christian by yourself.
Like the body of the church is the only place you can be a Christian.
And to generalize that further, like in any social group that has values, there's going to be uh a percentage of them that are Karens that are holding you to account for um misststepping or doing wrong things.
And uh I don't want to go too far in defending Karen behavior, but some amount of that is necessary for keeping us in a body together. And so I there there are some saintly people that can live very Christlike lives um outside of a body, but I would say that that's the exception and not the rule.
Well, I don't disagree with uh what you and Michael Stori has said. I I agree.
And there's there's obviously there's something wrong with our modern way of seeing the world and what it's uh expected as to be considered normal. So just a phrase that you know I'm a parent so just a phrase that if I was to say this to my kid in in public and it would be deemed cringe is a problem. If I was to say to my son, son, you got to be able to carry your own weight as an, you know, when you become an adult, you got to be able to carry your own weight and you got to be able to provide for your future family. So, you you got to be able to align yourself in a way that will make you a responsible and caring adult. That cringe statement, most people carry your own weight.
That's the whole concept of responsibility. It it sets certain people off. How dare you say that to another person? How dare you telling them that they got to be able to carry their own weight and they got to be able to take responsibility. So I do get that um that there's something wrong with how uh postmodern philosophy and thought has shaped our even our perception or our kids perception of what is normal and what is allowed. I just remember hearing recently um a term a phrase a question which had me do a double take and I'm like oh my goodness. And so I'll I I'll repeat it here. So brace yourself. The question is um what is the what is the costume or the uniform of a [ __ ] look like?
And that question took me a back because I'm like huh. And they were trying to make a point, right? What is the uniform of a [ __ ] look like? And as you start to create an image and the next follow-up question should be well look around how how do have we allowed this to be the everyday normal for everyday folk right how far how have we conformed so much to the point where even that notion has you um do a double take and I was that really gave me pause huh what is the uniform that one would wear. Huh.
Now look at society. Huh.
Interesting.
>> I don't know. I don't know. I You know, when you look at a street walker, um it's not what I see the girls wear in church. So be a little fair. [laughter] >> But but you do see it more. You do see it more than you used to. But well, but that's the the thing is is that that's the thing. It's always like, "Oh, how did we blah blah?" We're always saying, "How did we blah blah blah? How did we get here?" And it's because there was lots of people who said, "I'm not going to take personal responsibility for some little minor thing and then that just happens a million times over a century and then your civilization collapses." And what Paul was saying, like I agree, I'm totally I'm not saying anything about doing anything by yourself, but the problem like and and he would agree, I'm sure, the problem is is that in many churches, the Kairens are the final word. the pastor can't stand up to the Kairens. So we need, you know, men who are willing to not just stand up to men who are willing to tolerate Karens and put them in their place. That's like the stable building block of your society and that they can actually, you know, push Yeah. push back enough that the the Karens will actually respect you. Um, I mean, because there's just there's just it's it's always this thing of we wanting to figure out the right rules that we can get everybody to play with so so that it will work, right? But like people the rebelliousness of people um I don't it's not something that actually goes away when Christ changes you. man man thought equality with God was uh worthy to be grasped and Jesus came to help us uh along that path and so you know that that changes the shape of it but it doesn't mean like not doing things in a in a radical way so I mean I think that because that's the thing yes war warlords somebody will emerge and will take control the person with the most agency and the most power and the most authority that's willing to do it. So why not people that believe that they can maybe do it in a more Christlike fashion? I mean that's it's a scary thought to say, but >> if you don't do it, somebody else will.
>> Emperor Constantine, you know, Charlemagne.
Um, I mean, I I think that there's a case to be made for the the um Christlike or Saint even Saintly Warlord.
Um, >> I think that's a tall order, though. I think it's a taller order than we appreciate because I don't think we have >> I think we're so far removed from what produces.
I I think that's why we're still so hung up on the how did we get here question is because if we're going to build the cathedrals again, if we're going to get out of what we're in, I don't know, we're we're so far off the the trail that we'd like to be on, we need to know, you know, if if collapse is coming, it's going to be the the collapse that gives us the the pieces that we have to work with to put something else together. And I don't know. I I don't know where I'm going with that except that I >> Yeah. Well, >> I don't know. It's not obvious to me where all this is going.
>> I gotta go.
>> Yeah. Just to point to put, you know, that the point is is like, okay, well, if if the ultimate thing is that a warlord's going to if everything has to collapse and then a a warlord comes and picks up all the pieces, instead of doing waiting for the collapse, just start picking up some pieces. Now, take a little bit more responsive. you know, Jordan Peterson take a little bit more responsibility. I think he kind of failed because he did keep it at the personal level. The next step is really figuring out how to have men help each other and how to work together and things like that because then that does that does scale and that can mitigate and prevent lots of disasters.
>> All right, closing comments and I'm going to do it Luke style. I'm going to take you off the board and then I'll uh land the plane.
I'll go first. Um I I think it's alignment.
Um Nietze was said and you know yes the philosophers they wanted to kill God and get God out our thoughts and minds but I would say I think they have failed and it's time to bring back the notion of get back to the scripture understand what it says get to know it inside and out and don't wait for somebody to teach it to you.
because you're going to be waiting for a long time. So, realignment. Let's realign oursel back to the truth that he gave us. So, I'll leave it at that.
>> Bye, guys.
>> Thank you, Alex. Take care.
All right. Who's next?
>> Uh, I'll go. Why not? Um, well, it's a it's a pleasure having you in town, Paul. uh always great to see you and um it's uh [snorts] you know I I I don't know what exactly we do about things but I hope that um things I say reach people and get them thinking about how we might reorient ourselves to um lower the damage age.
>> Okay. All right. Thank you, Paul. Good to see you. And uh I don't know if we'll see you again this weekend, but it was great seeing you yesterday.
>> All right. Who's next?
>> I can go. I don't know. I I mean, [laughter] I feel like I just had last words, so I don't really need to say say much. I'll see you tomorrow. So, >> all right. We'll see you tomorrow, Michael. All right, Garrett, you get the you get the final say.
>> Yeah. Well, I feel like I I don't deserve it. I'm still I'm still sort of getting my bearings in the corner. And I feel like so much of what's helpful about these conversations is just um honestly just trying to figure out what everybody else is talking about and and learning the language. You know, it it's like uh the best way to learn a language is by immersion. And so I I I feel thoroughly confused sometimes. I think in the the healthiest way in being immersed, but I don't know. I I I think all of the the speculating about the future is as helpful as far as it goes, but I don't know. I think that's the the important work right now is is translating and and learning learning what everybody else is saying, learning how to talk to each other. So >> yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. Thank you, Garrett. Weather Weather looks beautiful in New Mexico.
>> Oh, yeah. Always wonderful. Always hot and always wonderful.
>> All right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. I'll play a little little bit of branding and that'll be it.
Still, I have it.
There are moments I conveniently forget that I'm a 40-year-old man.
Last vestigages of a ghost long dead.
A ghost with a messiah complex. A messiah too lazy to rise or ascend.
[music] Happily hurt and hard.
The hangar honor haunting of a time past. A heroic dream of the harrowing of hell.
Failure to watch. [music] cling to a life vest, treading on spells that linger on last.
Mom [music] and dad, righteous and mad, daydreamers with ghosts of their own.
My memory of them stoic, [music] looking with aims to pretend, always on the brink of [music] somewhere.
Each a child dancing on the fence.
On down the river, [music] dreamt in the sunshine.
Saturday morning cartoons, the only Sabbath I knew.
A disciple of Jim Henson [music] and John Hughes.
Worship in cathedrals where the toys are us. Baptized [music] in ball pits. A clown served the sacrament. We eat more Pepsi [music] and Pizza Hut. Say please say cheese.
Between Kurt [music] Cobain, a scrambled cable screen, towers tumbling, Super Bowls, and reality TV, the ghost is constitutionally unwilling and intrinsically [music] unable to see and be seen.
searching [music] madly for [singing] attention to seek.
But you could be anything. [music] Never say never.
If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing ever. [music] Don't talk to strangers. See what I say.
Just do it. [music] You don't listen very well, do you?
You don't do very well, do you?
You're not looking too good, are you?
Keep up. Appearances aren't [music] what they seem.
Will you ever grow up?
You look like you're stuck.
[music] You think you took too much.
Echoes the ghost within the host who prays the dead bury [music] their dead and stay buried.
You're a bathing dream.
[music] Well, where are you? Here.
>> Oh, there I am. Hey, >> where are you? Where?
>> Got me.
>> Oh, boy.
[music] >> Yeah. Walk with me, Lord. Walk with me.
>> Come on. [music] Walk with me, Lord. Walk with me.
All that long is Jesus journey.
[music] Walk with me, Lord.
Walk with me.
Yeah.
>> Walk with my mama.
>> Yeah. Walk [music] with my mama.
>> Walk with me. and walk with me too.
>> You walk with my mother with me. [music] >> And walk with me, too.
>> Jesus journeyes with me. [singing and music] >> Walk with me. Hold my hand, Lord. Hold my hand. [singing] Hold [music] my hand. I hold my hand.
All along this Jesus journey.
Hold my hand, Lord, and hold my hand.
>> Walk [music] with me.
>> You walk with Moses.
>> Walk with me. [music] Walk with me.
>> You walking by [music] with me.
>> Walk with me.
>> Yeah.
>> Jesus journey.
>> I want Jesus.
>> I want Jesus to walk with [music] me.
>> [music] >> Oh, I like [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Say, "Walk [singing] with me, Lord.
How y'all doing?
>> Walk with me. [music] >> Walk with me.
>> Walk with me.
[music] [singing] >> I want Jesus.
>> I want Jesus. [music] >> With me.
>> To walk with me. Walk with David. A little shepherd boy.
>> Yeah, you made him a great king.
I know David [music] shouted for joy.
He walked with David [music] and he's a little shepherd boy.
He made him a great king and David shouting for joy.
>> That's right. [music] >> Oh yeah. So walk with me, Lord. Walk with me.
[music] Walk with me.
Walk with me all along.
Jesus journey.
Walk with me.
[music] Walk with me.
You gotta walk with me, Lord.
>> Yeah. [screaming] Was rocking great, brother.
>> Oh, yeah.
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