This may upset some people, but those of you who avoid serious discussions on social media because of the discomfort of controversy need to wake up. Controversy is here, whether it’s comfortable or not. Everything significant in the real world—politics, business, culture, religion—is being hashed out on X (formerly Twitter) a year or more before it reaches other spaces and becomes operationalized. The democratization of knowledge is upon us, and we’re living in a cultural moment as seismic as the invention of the printing press. Burying your head in the sand or clinging to your discomfort won’t change this reality.
In Reformed church circles, if you rely on certain prominent bloggers (pastors? popes?) and talking heads, you’re likely being misled about where things are headed. These figures seem primarily interested in defending their current control of movements, positioning themselves at the conservative edge of the existing liberalizing order, and upholding its taboos. However, the broader cultural winds have shifted. There is a massive, reality-based, traditionalist backlash brewing on the right—industrious, pious, and unapologetically so. This could, I pray, mark the beginnings of a revival. Like all moves of God, it is dividing people and exposing long-cherished lies and sins, especially among church leaders. Churches that stood firm against tyranny, political, social, and ecclesiastical, during COVID have now seen an influx and concentration of a different kind of Protestant man in their churches, and while the renewal and growth is welcomed, it brings new tensions with conservative-normie leaders.
If what I’m observing is accurate, those retreating into Boomer-generation platitudes like:
“Israel is our greatest ally; there’s no Jewish conspiracy to corrupt Christian societies.”
“There’s no real sin of gluttony, and we’re not being poisoned.”
“Working out is gay.”
“Christian men are the problem, women are always victims.”
“Diversity is our strength, and race isn’t real.”
“Humility means doing what your rebellious parents want.”
“If people get upset at you, you have been unwise.”
“Stop wasting time by talking about these things, they don’t matter because they don’t matter to me.”
will soon face some cold, hard truths. For example, wave after wave of scandal and downgrades proves the conservative evangelical movement, and its fractured tiny denominations, are being exposed for conserving little besides men’s egos. Why won’t your church and denomination be next? Younger men are not buying it, wanting to see reality instead of posturing/marketing, even when shamed as “rebels.” They can sniff out the hypocrisy. The cyclical circus of new controversies and new heroes and new doctrines every ten years is less than entertaining, and many Christian men are developing the discernment to recognize the nonsense. “Maybe this time it will work” is no longer convincing. The democratization of Reformed theological resources and the recovered memory of the men our fathers once were mean that ordinary men can now bypass the filters of now self-serving leaders who cherry-pick the tradition to suit their marketing emphasis or ecclesiastical politics agendas. The little popes and their arbitrary decrees seem, well, silly, hypocritical, and arbitrary.
So, friend, I know this is uncomfortable. But it’s better to open your eyes, touch grass, and learn God’s Word from the old dead guys who weren’t making it up as they went along, unlike today’s institutional leaders who largely wear our tradition like a skin suit. Put on some reading glasses, blink, and adjust your eyes to see what your fathers saw. Realize that if men hate your fathers, they hate you, and they hate your children. The traditional Protestant way of thinking and living was robust, realistic, godly, and multigenerational. Everything good we have in the West is a fruit of that Protestant catholic tradition. Yes, this perspective is deeply out of fashion with those clinging to the “conservatism” of the last decades, who barely even memorialize our fathers now, but I see a small cloud on the horizon (shaped like an X?). It may herald a big change, a new day.
I’ve warned men in ecclesiastical settings before not to resist what is good simply because it’s uncomfortable for the current order. Too often, they wake up five years later, feeling foolish for lacking courage. Few listened then, but more are listening now. We are witnessing another such moment in the Reformed world. For over a century, evangelical fathers (pastors, institutions) have generally failed their children by failing to honor our past fathers. Instead, they labeled the godly as rebellious or prideful for refusing to join in their folly, and they rewarded the sycophants and pliable. A generation raised like this is now largely in charge of conservative Reformed institutions, but the steel spined rowdies are at the gate
We MUST honor our fathers, especially those who are dead, stable, proven, and clear-headed. It is a chief expression of honoring our Father in heaven. We are their fruits, their generations, their heritage only if we imitate their doctrine and life. But when we follow the loudest mouths in the religious marketplace and embrace doctrines and emphases that would excommunicate our godly fathers, we join the rebellion of the Boomers and their prideful arrogance. Honoring our fathers does not mean honoring their rebellion and foolishness. Instead, we should enter the room with a sheet to cover their shame—and take the keys.