The Fruit Stand Is On Break

No.211: May 17, 2024

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before hitting the paywall. Please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

I like routine. Getting up early to be in a radio studio for a morning show is not routine. But there I was, bright and early, in a small studio with my guitar this morning. I was there with Brad, the General Manager of the local pub where we’re doing a Singer/Songwriter night tomorrow. Somehow he hoodwinked me into doing some radio promo for this thing on FM 98.5 The Wolf. I ended up having a lot of fun. I played one of my songs, stone cold with zero warmup, at 8:30 in the morning to a live listening audience all over the Yellowstone Valley. Not ideal, but I’m told it sounded great. Brad and I finished out the show by playing and improvising on a song together, and we’ve never played together in our lives. No pressure or anything. But we slayed it, and everyone loved it.

I was most gratified that when the host asked me what genre of music The Bailey Band plays (and I gave a meandering answer because there is no easy answer), Brad piped in: I call it “Awesome.” I replied that when you upload your songs to Apple Music there is unfortunately not a category that says, “Awesome.” It’d be easier if there was!

But it is nice to have life getting spiced up a little with the music front moving forward. We also got an invite this week for an exciting additional show in June. Details soon.

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You are all no doubt well-aware that I have been sounding the alarm about the rising popularity of an extremely illiberal brand of Christian Nationalism over the last eighteen months or so. It has sometimes felt like tedious and lonely work—I’m sure it has been occasionally tedious to my readers. I haven’t really been alone, of course; I am a part of a healthy remnant of conservatives who object to wrapping worldly lust for power and statism in the mantle of Christian theology.

This is an actual Tweet posted this week by a member of what I’ve dubbed The Children’s Crusade:

Did you know that Paul’s descriptions of the fruit of the Spirit are qualified by “what time it is?” In my review of Aaron Renn’s book Life in the Negative World, I concluded:

Some of Renn’s benign proposals are salutary. However, the arbitrariness and vagueness of the “three worlds” model, combined with its lack of normative input, haven’t had a salutary effect. Instead, it has opened the door for malefactors to co-opt its themes and language in service to radical and often ugly agendas. I fear it’s proving an empty vessel that may be filled with whatever one desires. Unfortunately, some of Renn’s readers seem to believe the prescription for Christians living in a negative world is to commit to whatever fight the algorithm serves up next.

Now you have Exhibit A of this “empty vessel.” There is no need to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit if you live in “Negative” World. Somehow I missed it all these years! The Galatians were living in the positive world! Silly me.

I cannot believe we have reached the point where the fruits of the Spirit are time-sensitive and optional, but part of me is very glad that these folks are making their carnality and ungodliness so open and obvious. The simple fact is that the hysteria, the catastrophism, the “if-we-don’t-seize-power-we’ll-be-destroyed” vibe is—despite all their protestations—an abject denial of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the power of His Spirit. They openly wish to wage warfare using the weapons of this world, and it ought to be offensive to everyone to label this movement Christian nationalism.

I bring all this up to tell you that I am actually very encouraged this week. I believe the Christian Nationalist movement has hit its high water mark and is destined to recede, not least because its erstwhile leaders are failing to conceal who they are and what they’re really up to. It is one thing to say, “Don’t you want your country to be Christian and uphold Christian values?” to which the ordinary person might nod their head and think, Yeah, sure I want that. I must be a Christian Nationalist! It is quite another thing to start talking about how the fruits of the Spirit had an expiration date and that we need to install a dictator to somehow impose proper religiosity on the country.