Dear Friends,
Three and half years ago now—November, 2022—I wrote a critical review of Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case For Christian Nationalism. If I am not mistaken, to this day it is the only one of the dozens and dozens of reviews that Wolfe himself attempted to answer. That didn’t go very well.
Why did he single me out? Only he really knows, of course, but I think it is because more than others I hit where it hurt. At root he was trying to build a case for an ethnocentric totalitarian state, conceptually and rhetorically, on a particularly Reformed construal of the theological doctrine that “grace restores and perfects nature.” Most, if not all, of Wolfe’s other reviewers were not quite up to speed on what he was trying to do with that concept, if they were familiar with it at all. But it was when Wolfe attempted to enlist the support of Herman Bavinck—or, as he put it in his first reference, “Hermon” (super high-level scholarship here, folks)—that I had had enough. This was grotesquery.
You can read the review yourself. The reason I bring it up is that I used a particular historical example in that review to show how Wolfe’s “phenomenological” method works out in real life. That example was a passage from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Why did I do that? Because I like taking cheap shots at people? Lazily comparing people to Hitler? It’s a fair surmise. But the true reason, aside from it just being a perfect example, is that as I read Wolfe’s book I couldn’t stop thinking about Mein Kampf. It was Hitler who argued many of the points that Wolfe argues. Among other things, a “People” (the Volk) has a right to be “for itself.” This is good and “natural.” Over and over I heard the echoes; cleanse the land of “Trashworld,” the dirty filth of foreigners and heretics who pollute the culture (and … bloodstream?) and sap the vitality and energy of pure society. Nations need a “Great Man” to shepherd, guide, and direct the people toward a single earthly goal: the perpetuation of racial and cultural identity. This is Third Reich stuff draped in Christian lingo—Reformed Christian lingo, if you can believe it.
But Wolfe is pretty street savvy. He never wrote that he favors white supremacy and a white ethno-state. He left little crumb trails from time to time on his social media platforms: suggesting that interracial marriage is a “relative sin,” saying that Michael Spangler (an unrepentant white supremacist defrocked by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church) is “good man.” But for the most part Wolfe was content to just leave the impressions (subtle or not-so-subtle) and trust that his potential followers would hear the dogwhistle.
Oh my, did they ever hear it. Like moths to a flame they have … gathered. In fact, they gathered just this last weekend in Ogden, Utah, at Refuge Church, the nondenominational entity “pastored” by Brian Sauve and Eric Conn. It was a conference put on by Joel Webbon’s outfit, New Christendom. It was called, “The War for Normal,” which is legitimately hilarious. “Normal.” Wolfe was there. Andrew Isker (the lame “Christiany” off-brand version of Bronze Age Pervert) was there. I understand that Michael Spangler was there. This was a Who’s Who of the whole Christian Nationalist Online “Theobro” world, or what I once termed a “growing menace.” Oh, and Joe Rigney of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, was speaking there. * I guess we have to assume that he wasn’t empathetic to the content; must we conclude he loved it?
* [UPDATE] I am informed by a presumably reliable source that Rigney did not speak at this event, but that he attended the conference in 2025.
You know who else was there, officially sponsoring the event and manning a book table? Antelope Hill Press. You don’t know who they are. But I believe all of the people I just mentioned know exactly who they are—they all read this thread. The folks at Antelope Hill are Nazis. Literally. They publish books of Hitler’s speeches and other trash about how the nefarious Jews run the world. They were handing out flyers with a bunch of links to white supremacist vendors that ended with the salutation: “Thank You For Shopping White!” You know, the typical, nice, family-friendly Christian conference.
Friends, I am so glad this conference happened. No, I am not glad that, if reports are to be believed, there were a thousand people there—the whole Children’s Crusade, apparently. That’s a lot of lost and/or deeply confused people. It’s not big enough to be a fire-alarm fire kind of problem, but it is a problem nonetheless, particularly for Christian churches of a certain brand and sociology. What I am glad for is clarity.
It has been apparent to me for some time that many, if not most, of these people are not Christians at all. They do not know the Lord Jesus Christ (or, rather, are not known by him), even though his name is blasphemously on their lips constantly. They are draping a pagan ideology with Christian colors. They are precisely the kinds of people who will tell the Lord about all the Libs they owned in his name, only to be told to “Depart.”
And this week there are a lot of people invested in the fallout from this conference and the scandal of the presence of Antelope Hill Press. Brian Sauve and Eric Conn put out a long podcast (I am really trying not to feel like all guys who have a “podcast” are just lazy layabouts who need to get real jobs—I’ve landed on most) making excuses and trying to explain away the obvious. Lying, actually, that they really didn’t know who these people were, yada yada yada. We are to believe that they really didn’t vet one of the paid sponsors of the event. Uh-huh. The folks in Moscow are probably pretty uncomfortable, too. I mean, Doug Wilson despises racism and white supremacy—I truly and deeply believe that. But his outfit foolishly published Wolfe’s book (still does) and his college’s faculty member just spoke at this conference with these people. When it comes this crowd, Doug is like Jake Spoon in Lonesome Dove, “taking his leaving a little slow.”
I do not believe this is complicated. This is a cult. Apparently Ogden, Utah has more than one of those, and they both dress up pretty convincingly in the language and trappings of Christianity. At least the Mormons have disavowed their historic racism.
This is a heretical group of people who teach a gospel that obliterates the catholicity of the church, revels in racial vainglory, and anyone can see its rotten fruits of the flesh by simply logging on to the website formerly known as Twitter-dot-com. We are way, way, way beyond the time for charitable judgments and benefits of the doubt. They are wolves and their clothes are pretty fly. Reformed slogans? Quoting Puritans and Protestant scholastics? Smoking pipes and cigars? Weightlifting? Manicured, oiled beards? Man, they’re cool.
And they are damned, sans repentance.
Thanks for reading The Quarter Inch. Stay away from Nazis and have a great rest of your week.
Brian
I never thought to be living in such times, but evil must be exposed. Thank you for your work. It is of great encouragement.
In Christ
Brian,
Rigney did not speak at this conference. He spoke there the previous year, though.