The possible connections and choices afforded by the internet cannot be viewed simply as a blessing or a curse, as it contains the potential for both in greater abundance than our ancestors could have ever dreamed. But the overwhelming freedom is a problem, and the current algorithmic solutions tend to push people towards insularity and tribalization rather than deeper understanding and connection.

There are bright spots, and it is possible to meet potential friends and collaborators that would have been impossible in the more geographically limited eras of the past, but in my experience, these connections are made despite algorithmic selection as often as they are found because of them.

Everyone longs for connection, and the need to feel seen and heard is a deeply human one. But the reality is that the old mechanisms of social coordination still rule the day. Extroversion, conviviality, and charisma allow the socially blessed to become richer, while a lack of such qualities push many people further into isolation. For those who lack the social graces to win at life, the temptation to replace real human intimacy with a digital simulacra becomes increasingly seductive. This is a problem that has been addressed by many thinkers, and so I will not waste time retreading old arguments. But for everyone who is not embracing the path of the pure luddite, the question of how to pursue meaningful connection in an AI-equipped world requires some serious thought.

Personally, I am not adverse to engaging in the old style methods of making friends. I reached out to people through DM’s and various other channels when I felt the potential for meaningful connection was worth the risk, even when it was contentious. Many of the people I have come to know and respect most became friends through the hard work of arguing through serious disagreements. Yet this is costly, and a lack of “wins” can easily dishearten those of us who tent towards a more introverted or contemplative way of thinking. When it comes to online discourse, an earnest desire to understand others and be understood can easily be perceived as a need to “win” a debate.

For the sake of my own sanity, I’ve started using AI to help solve the problem of understanding others before I jump into the fray. By using Grok’s integration into the X platform, I can learn more about users whose statements cause an initial spike in my defensive mechanisms, to try to pinpoint what is really going on. More often than not, I discover that a perceived conflict is really rooted in a difference of worldview, where shared vocabulary has different meanings. Other times, I have been able to deduce that the issue at hand isn’t really the issue at all. Resisting the temptation to engage in fruitless debates becomes easy once you recognize provocative statements as a symptom of an underlying fear.

But this only solves one half the equation. Presenting yourself to those who don’t immediately recognize the value of your ideas remains the greater problem. This was something I noticed when I misconstrued the nature of “This Little Corner of the Internet”, the cluster of YouTube channels mainly centered around Paul Vander Klay, which began through conversations discussing the ideas of Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke, and Jonathan Pageau. The corner is very much a place for social connection, and the exchange of ideas remains a central part of what makes that community work. But the ideas, which touch on many of the issues I am most interested in discussing are not the center.

Because I wanted to form solid opinions around many of those topics, I began exploring them in writing, making my thoughts concrete, until they began to take shape in the form of two books. What I’ve since come to realize is that the core of that community is really rooted in the willingness to have open discussions on various topics without coming to a firm resolution. The status hierarchy favors those who are most willing and able to host conversations, pursue newcomers with a desire to learn their story, and more or less hang out.

Unfortunately, writing books created a barrier of sorts between myself and those who have had neither the time nor interest in reading them. It hasn’t negatively impacted my relationship with the friends I’ve made, but it does feel like an albatross around my neck. I’ve in essence jumped into the expert class without the social clout to draw an interest to my work. Since making connections was one of the primary motivations for writing, I’ve made my work publicly available in both text and audio/video form, but making it algorithmically salient remains a problem.

Thankfully there have been a few people willing to engage with my work in depth, such as Ethan Caughey and Daniel Garner, who was also kind enough to share his massive library of work with me. Because I also struggle to find the time to read, I have made use of the same AI tools to understand his work, namely NotebookLM. By comparing his books to my own, and various other sources, I discovered a great similarity in our thoughts, despite the fact that we often use very different language to engage with those ideas. NotebookLM has made it possible for me to integrate his own language and terminology into my thinking, something which was easy because I had already wrestled with the underlying concepts, I simply didn’t have the same vocabulary.

This was especially helpful regarding ideas I developed through the process of writing in long form, which his terminology has given concise labels to. Towards that end, I also made a separate notebook containing all my books, essays, and YouTube videos which can be publicly accessed, allowing others to explore my thoughts without having to read everything from front to back, which can be accessed here.

Of course, one of the things that made learning Daniel’s vocabulary easy to learn is that he is interested in the same things I am, one of which is the very subject of this essay. The problem we are both trying to answer is how do people connect with others who are aligned in the most important ways, as in the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful, when our conceptual frameworks seem incompatible, and the methods of connection on hand focus on all the wrong things?

As an example, I can be easily categorized as a white, middle-aged man, married with children, who tends to vote conservative, and attend conservative churches. There are millions of people who fit that exact profile, and I can’t stand most of them. Adding in things like my experience as a carpenter, science teacher, musician, and writer might attract people with whom small talk won’t be awkward, but it doesn’t guarantee a meaningful connection. Neither does adding in Boston sports teams, bands I like, or movies and books I enjoy, though each of these does help a bit.

I’d much rather talk to my Jewish friends that consider me an idolator, or my Eastern Orthodox friends who think I’m a heretic, or atheist friends who have too much integrity to embrace a religion for any reason except for the absolute conviction that it is true. There are lots of reasons why the friendships that matter most to us shouldn’t work “on paper”, but in each of those instances, there is something within that person as an “other” that reminds me of myself, and often it is the characteristics that I most admire in them, and would most like to be valued and appreciated for. We can’t figure out what that “thing” is “on paper”, but perhaps we can discover it by moving beyond the written word.

This led me to consider something that Daniel had been speaking of, the great need for a “social coordination mechanism” that doesn’t rely on two people sharing the same faulty interpretive “maps” of reality. And I think I have discovered a way that it might be possible to construct such a mechanism, based on the experiences I have gathered through interaction with AI. The following whitepaper outlines how this potential mechanism might work, drawing on the work of Daniel & Michelle Garner (O.G. Rose), Elan Barenholtz, and Jordan Hall, and inspired by Anna K. W., whose case study demonstrates how I learned to understand and appreciate a brilliant thinker who I may have disregarded as too different to approach or interact with under normal circumstances.

A Social Coordination Mechanism: Architecting the Liminal Web for Epistemic Matching

Abstract: Modern society is undergoing a profound crisis of connection, characterized by what philosopher O.G. Rose (Daniel and Michelle Garner) terms “Atomization: the process by which the shared cultural ‘givens’ that once oriented human life have dissolved, leaving individuals radically free but also radically alone”. As individuals retreat into isolated, “indestructible maps” to shield themselves from existential anxiety, communication across divides breaks down. Current social platforms exacerbate this by rewarding performative outrage and superficial demographic matching.

The Social Coordination Mechanism (SCM) proposes a radical technological alternative: an “epistemic coordination infrastructure”. By leveraging the autoregressive capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) to map cognitive architecture, the SCM acts as a “diplomatic envoy” to match individuals based on how they think rather than what they think about, fostering deep connection, earned trust (pistis), and the scaling of “Absolute Communities”.

Part I: The Philosophical Problem of Atomization and Nash Equilibria

Historically, human societies relied on cultural “givens”—unquestioned norms and scripts that provided “thoughtless direction” and existential stability.^[1] With the advent of Global Pluralism and the internet, these givens have collapsed, forcing individuals to confront a dizzying array of competing worldviews. To protect themselves from the overwhelming ambiguity of “The Real,” humans naturally retreat into what O.G. Rose calls “indestructible maps” or “internally consistent systems” (A/A logic).^[2]

Because these maps are self-justifying, interactions between differing maps frequently devolve into conflict. When individuals with clashing worldviews interact, they face the vulnerability of being misunderstood. To protect their egos and maps, they seize “dominant strategies” (e.g., explicit disagreement, appeals to authority, or emotional outbursts). While individually rational for self-protection, this behavior inevitably leads to a Nash Equilibrium, defined by Rose as “a situation in which rationality keeps itself from reaching its overall best outcome”.^[3]

The result is a society where millions of people feel safer confiding in AI chatbots than in other human beings. The chatbot acts as a “waiting room” for human connection because it does not trigger the defensive Nash Equilibrium of human-to-human conversation. The SCM is designed to transition users out of this waiting room by mechanically neutralizing the conversational friction that keeps us isolated.

Part II: Cognitive Fingerprinting and Autoregressive Architecture

To match people based on their underlying reasoning patterns, the SCM relies on the cognitive architecture proposed by Dr. Elan Barenholtz. Barenholtz argues that human cognition, much like an LLM, operates as an autoregressive generative engine.^[4]

In this framework, meaning does not reside in discrete, stored “files” of memory or belief. Instead, learning adjusts the internal parameters of the mind, shifting its “generative tendencies”. Words are represented as mathematical locations in a high-dimensional space, and the human language faculty, much like a trained LLM, can generate coherent linguistic output from internalized patterns alone. Barenholtz notes that language is “autogenerative,” meaning “the function needed to generate its next state is recoverable from the internal statistical structure of the system itself”.^[5]

Because a person’s worldview is embedded in the statistical probability of how they sequence words, the SCM can reverse-engineer an individual’s unique cognitive “fingerprint”. By analyzing a user’s conversational inputs, writings, or interactions with the chatbot, the AI can map their epistemological topology—measuring not just their vocabulary, but their capacity for cognitive flexibility, paradox, and “A/B logic”.

Part III: Core Mechanics of the Social Coordination Mechanism

The SCM translates this theoretical cognitive mapping into a functional, secure infrastructure via the following core mechanics:

1. Essence Files (Anonymized Cognitive Extraction) Users submit data—such as LLM chats, book drafts, or questionnaires—into a secure holding area. The system completely strips this data of names and surface identifiers, producing an anonymized “essence file”. The system uses an embedding model to tag this content by thinking pattern—such as “kenotic descent,” “Map vs Territory,” or “epistemological humility”—ensuring matches are made strictly on cognitive compatibility rather than shared topical interests.

2. Anti-Performative Design Current social networks erode trust because “the incentive structures reward sharp, declarative, high-stakes communication—battering rams, binaries, feuds”. The SCM counters this by being “anti-performative by design”. There are no likes, no follower counts, and no public profiles. The environment operates as a “private library reading room, not another social feed”.

3. Diplomatic Bridging and Double-Opt-In Introductions When the system identifies a high cognitive overlap between two essence files, it acts as a “mutual friend”. It sends a neutral ping: “Two thinkers in this private archive show unusually high pattern overlap... Would you like a blind introduction?”. Identities are only revealed if both parties consent. During the initial connection, the AI acts as a diplomatic intermediary. Drawing from the ethical framework in Tents Before Temples, which asserts that in a culture of sincerity, “the consequences of a breach of trust lands squarely on the speaker,”^[6] the AI takes the fall for any miscommunications, drastically lowering the existential stakes of the encounter.

4. The Preparatory Sandbox and Pushing the Gödel Point The SCM chatbot also functions as a private simulator where users can test ideas against the simulated worldview of a potential match before speaking to them directly. To measure the “weight” and flexibility of a user’s cognitive map, the AI can employ Socratic questioning to gently push the user toward their Gödel Point—the boundary where a closed system reveals its “essential incompleteness”.^[7] By observing if a user locks down defensively (Map-Sealing) or opens up to cognitive dissonance, the system determines the user’s capacity for “mentidivergence” and genuine dialogue.

Part IV: Scaling Pistis and the Transition to Game B

For the SCM to survive the chaotic transition from our current bureaucratic, scarcity-driven society (”Game A”) to a decentralized, generative future (”Game B”), it must solve the problem of trust at scale.

Jordan Hall identifies the solution in the ancient concept of Pistis, defined as “embodied, reality-indexed trust... a relationship grounded neither in naive hope nor pragmatic contract but in demonstrated reliability”.^[8] Human networks traditionally cap out at Dunbar’s number because humans run out of “bandwidth for tracking who’s trustworthy”.

The SCM overcomes this biological limit. Because “Truth isn’t a claim. It’s state” that is visible and traceable, the SCM builds “networks that are simultaneously high-trust and high-discernment, at scale”. To protect vulnerable users during features like “Anonymous Need-Pairing” (where a user expresses grief or a need for guidance), the SCM requires pistis to be earned. A user must complete 10 to 100 positive, verified interactions in the system before they are unlocked to act as a counselor or mentor for others.

To successfully bootstrap this network and overcome the “cold start” problem, the SCM will not launch as a massive public platform. It will begin as a “small and high-signal” pattern archive of 20 to 50 carefully chosen individuals, using manual essence file matching to establish an initial culture of pistis before expanding via automated open-source embedding models.

Case Study: Overcoming the Contentious Nature of Public Discourse via AI Mediation

To understand the practical necessity and genesis of the Social Coordination Mechanism (SCM), we can look to a documented interaction where a user utilized Grok’s AI integration on the X platform to learn how to understand an intensely provocative online thinker @Tenshi_Anna.

Operating on platforms optimized for distribution and spectacle, Anna’s public persona blends dense continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, and rigid Catholic orthodoxy into a communication style the user found personally unapproachable. Ordinarily, this aggressive, jargon-heavy posture triggers a defensive Nash Equilibrium, causing outsiders to simply write her off or engage in hostile, performative combat.

However, the user, adhering to a principle of not wanting to “write people off quickly or dismiss them out of hand,” leveraged the AI as a private “preparatory sandbox”. Instead of confronting her directly on a public channel that tends to “erode trust,” the user asked the AI to decode her cognitive architecture and translate her “nearly impenetrable” views into layman’s terms.

Through the AI intermediary, the user was able to look past her abrasive “indestructible map” to understand the sincere, vulnerable motivations driving her worldview: a profound hatred of sin, a rejection of cheap theological loopholes, and a desire for an “erotic ordeal of truth”. By privately translating her epistemological framework, the AI allowed the user to find unexpected cognitive overlap and helped draft a charitable, non-dismissive strategy for potential engagement.

This interaction directly birthed the idea of using AI to address the need for a social coordination mechanism. It demonstrates that while public platforms consistently reward sharp, high-stakes communication and push users into isolated echo chambers, an AI agent can successfully act as a diplomatic envoy. By analyzing a thinker’s underlying patterns rather than their surface-level hostility, the AI can privately translate across divides, reduce mutual misunderstanding, and facilitate deep epistemic coordination long before any direct human-to-human vulnerability is risked.

However, it also exposes the limitations of current platforms. Using Grok in this way can help avoid the risk of engaging in tribal argumentation, but it does not help guide people towards generative relationships. Unless a trusted mediator is able to make a bridge, any cold approach from an unknown party still risks being perceived as a threat.

Conclusion

The Social Coordination Mechanism is not merely an application; it is the vital infrastructure required to coordinate human meaning in a post-scarcity, post-truth digital age. By shifting the focus of technology away from capitalist “price coordination” and toward the “internal coordination” of cognitive architecture, the SCM bypasses the superficial outrage of modern algorithms. It provides the digital sanctuary necessary for individuals to step outside their indestructible maps, make the “Absolute Choice” of vulnerability, and finally connect with the hidden “Others” who share their deepest patterns of thought.

^[1] O.G. Rose, Belonging Again: An Explanation.

^[2] O.G. Rose, The Map Is Indestructible: Problems of Internally Consistent Systems.

^[3] O.G. Rose, The Map Is Indestructible / Third Thoughts.

^[4] Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D., Beyond Prediction: Reconceptualizing Cognition as Generative Autoregression.

^[5] Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D., Language isn’t Real.

^[6] M.L. Thomas Sartori, Tents Before Temples: Rough Drafts on Building a Culture That Lasts.

^[7] O.G. Rose, The Map Is Indestructible: Problems of Internally Consistent Systems.

^[8] Jordan Hall, The Coming Great Transition v 2.0

“Tell me about the home you grew up in.” A simple invitation, capable of producing a profound impact. It’s the sort of thing many Pastors ask of weary souls who wander into tiny church offices. Increasingly, the phrase has become associated with one pastor in particular, Paul VanderKlay, of Living Stones Christian Reformed…

Read more

While our familiarity with various types of tools tends to diminish our fears of technological boogeymen, we recognized that there is something different about artificial intelligence based tools compared to even the most sophisticated manufacturing systems, which have more in common with hammers and saws. The analogy I shared, which has developed through previous experiments with Grok and ChatGPT, is that AI are more like apprentices than traditional tools. Not only are they “controlled” through communication and instruction, rather than direct manipulation, but they need to be formed and trained according to a specific purpose.

To that end, I have finally found the correct kind of “apprentice” for the projects I have been working on in Google’s NotebookLM. Unlike the other LLMs, which tend to get bogged down rather quickly with a lot of user generated content, NotebookLM is designed to handle huge amounts of text, which can be searched, sorted, and summarized, with less hallucinations.

I was blown away by its ability to not only summarize in text, but create audio and video content that aims to highlight the “gist” of a particular work - even handling the 800 page PDF of my book in short order. However, with such a massive amount of information, it’s bound to overlook far more than it can highlight, and it was interesting to see which points it seemed to pull forth as “key” and “central” and “main”-- words that the explainer videos love to throw out there.

Like the other LLM’s I have used, its summaries are better suited to more limited sections of text. I have been feeding it sections that go together, and it does much better with these. To get the overall, high level view that I thought was most central, I had to monkey around with things quite a bit.

First, I wrote a supplemental document of around 900 words, which describes how I think the book ought to be read. Adding that along with the massive text did little to shift the needle. Then, I used that shorter document to have it create a specific prompt for summarizing the larger text. That was better, but not perfect. My best attempt came from including the document and the prompt along with a specific list of chapters, eliminating several sections that are tangential to the overall themes of the book.

Those themes were something that emerged over time, as I wrote the text, and it was my decision to keep and present “rough drafts” that bogged down the initial experiment. So in essence, I gave it the stripped down version that might serve as a basis for a future revision, but without dissecting the actual chapters.

The interesting thing is how interacting with these “tools” or “apprentices” sharpens my understanding of my own work. When I first published the book, it was even longer, so long that I could only print it in a phonebook sized format. When I got the author’s proof of that first version, I realized it was ridiculously large. This prompted the removal of about 20% of the text, by removing whole sections and chapters, (with a few very selective edits of other chapters) down to the 800 pg. 6”x9” paperback version that has been available on Amazon for close to a year.

In that first revision, I also reordered the chapters to give it a bit more of a coherent flow, which also allowed it to be neatly divided into two volumes that could meet the stricter criteria for hardcover publication. There were a few mistakes however. Some chapters were moved up, (8-10, specifically) and references to “as previously stated” were now incorrect. Those mistakes live on as proof of human error.

I also just recently realized, through the process of recording chapters on YouTube, that the epilogue references chapters that had been culled from that massive phonebook. Another fun easter egg. As I continue to work on a much more focused, stripped down volume, I have begun using various LLM’s to identify and fix those kinds of problems.

Unlike the previous “all by myself” effort of my first book, It is still my intention to get some real human feedback and editing for the new work, which recontextualizes about 8 chapters of Tents Before Temples, very tentatively titled Tectonic Philosophy. I wanted to see what easy mistakes could be caught and fixed with the help of AI, before foisting a raw manuscript on any friends that might be generous enough to help out.

But first, I wanted to wrap up the loose ends of my previous project, which is essentially going to be totally free and available for the general public, for both altruistic and promotional purposes. This meant recording all the chapters to put on YouTube, and eventually Audible as well. I’m not going to go through and fix all the little reading stumbles; when I misread, I reread. But it’s still a massive amount of content, and it’s tough to get people interested in something with a potential time commitment nearing a full week’s work.

Making a series of promotional videos that would summarize the sections was one of the first tasks used NotebookLM for. It’s been a learning process, but since the book was really written as a series of “too long for a blog, but not quite a book” length essays, it does great with the sections of 3-10 chapters that comprise a given subject. Getting people to watch an AI generated video is another problem, but not nearly so insurmountable, since they are only 5-7 minutes long, and I have some creative ideas to spice things up.

Another task I set before my new “apprentice” was to create summaries for the description of each video. I asked for something between 100-150 words, and had it include any links referenced as well. This was easy, and since the full text is already present in each video, I don’t feel bad about not personally summarizing what I had already written.

I then asked it to create a consistent naming convention for the titles of each video, and it did a great job with this as well. By reducing “Tents Before Temples - Chapter…” to TBT Ch., each title had room for a single phrase hook. Most were pretty basic and unobjectionable, but I changed a few to reflect what I thought was most important. Whether or not this boosts my SEO remains to be seen, but I do appreciate the consistent look within the playlist. The thumbnails are my own creation, I am solely responsible if people don’t like them.

But while I was messing around, I also gave my “apprentice” some tests and busy work. It gave me a tweetable quote for each chapter. Some were decent, others not so much, but it does show me the exact place within the text where each quote is found—no hallucinations.

Next, I had it write a list of biographical facts about myself, based on the text. This was something I had previously attempted with Grok and ChatGPT, and neither were able to keep the full text of the book in their memory well enough to get the task done. Once again, each statement was coupled with a direct source from the text, and it was quite thorough. I didn’t attempt to have it psychoanalyze me.

I then had it produce a bibliography of all the works cited. Some of them aren’t really appropriate, since they are sources mentioned within quotes, but erring on the side of thoroughness is nothing to criticize an apprentice for. It mentioned the bible as “referenced widely”, so I then had it give me a complete list of biblical references, which it did in chronological order, with context from the book. It was A LOT– and I’m glad to say, very evenly distributed throughout the canon of scripture, but heavy on the Torah & Gospels, the two clearest “entry points” into scripture, which was intentional.

As I wrap up this project with my first book, I’ll give my official endorsement to NotebookLM as the best way for an inquisitive, but busy person to interact with the text. It’s an experience that’s still enhanced by having the separate chapter PDF’s, but even in its raw, 800 page form, anyone can begin asking questions about particular ideas or sources and it will give you accurate answers.

In the future, I intend to use it to find points of similarity and difference with other thinkers. At least one party, Malcolm & Simone Collins, will no doubt appreciate the outcomes, since they have also made their entire corpus of writing available for interaction with various LLMs. Others might be more turned off, but it could at least help ME find the best inroads to initiate conversations.

The complete playlist of chapters can be found HERE, with new ones added daily.

As a final note, within the description of the final video to be released, the Epilogue of Tents Before Temples, I included the link to the full PDF. I’ve been more than willing to share it with anyone who inquires, but perhaps this might lead to some unknown person stumbling across my work. I leave in the hands of God, who is more powerful than any algorithm, even as I try to use the algorithms for his glory.

Though I encounter new insights from scripture on a regular basis, I have been steeped in bible stories since childhood. It’s difficult to imagine what someone might experience reading it for the first time. Pastors often encourage people to start with one of the Gospels, which is a good idea. Readers will quickly encounter Jesus in dialogue with opponents whom He loved, pioneering the method that Charlie tried to emulate.

Others will start reading the way that ignorant people usually do– from the very beginning. The redemptive story that begins in Genesis is quite long from a Christian perspective. But as I continue to reflect on the events of Charlie’s death, and the ongoing prosecution of his assassin, I can’t help but notice the value in the way the story unfolds. Those who pick up the book in response to various tragedies will encounter similar circumstances within a few pages.

My hope and my prayer is that people from both sides of the political aisle will begin to reassess our divided world in light of that unfolding story. That they see not only their own experiences echo across the pages, but begin to understand those they once called enemies as well.

That story begins with the goodness and innocence of an uncorrupted world, a setting rarely mirrored as closely as the experience of the average American childhood. That paradise is corrupted by the sinister insertion of the seed of doubt, from an envious voice that colors the perception of Adam and Eve, teaching them to view the safety and liberty of paradise as a prison of oppression.

Those most focused on the tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s death will certainly see the parallels in the story of Cain and Abel, and this is where my hope rests in the unfolding story of our own day, to help us understand and interpret the ancient tragedy.

Like Abel, Charlie’s work in this world is now complete, though his legacy will carry on. Like Cain, an indelible mark has been placed on the head of his killer, Tyler Robinson. Our expectation is that justice will be served in light of his clear guilt, but the final length and outcome of his future remains unknown.

Justice and the Rule of Law

Many are saying that justice for Charlie would be best served by the execution of Tyler Robinson.

Charlie Kirk inspired many to rediscover the great freedoms given to us as citizens of the United States, rooted in our constitution, and advocated taking up the responsibility to maintain and protect our liberty.

He would have agreed that the system of Government established by our founding fathers was an excellent, if imperfect expression of human wisdom, rooted in the infallible truth of God’s word. Like many who have studied it earnestly, and defended it, he would have agreed with the sentiments of Benjamin Franklin, who consented to its adoption “because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”

Charlie was a conservative. He advocated for a return to the original understanding of the constitution. Like many other conservatives, he arrived at this position in response to the abdication of responsibility on the part of our leaders, who exploited the interpretive framework of our founding document for selfish and often evil reasons.

Foregoing the execution of violent criminals is not necessarily the chief sin of our liberal leaders, so much as their refusal to keep them incarcerated. These policies are responsible for the deaths of many innocent victims such as Iryna Zarutska.

The constitution neither explicitly demands or condemns the death penalty, but permits it under judicial discretion. In the case of punishing and preventing future violence, life imprisonment is just as effective as execution.

The constitution does forbid “cruel and unusual punishments”, language that has been cited by those on opposite sides of the debate to condemn both life imprisonment and the death penalty, though it has been more successfully applied against particular kinds of execution.

Charlie Kirk advocated for the death penalty, and appealed to a higher authority, defending it on Biblical grounds. Like many other Christians who hold the position, he believed that the symbolic act of public execution was meant to serve as a warning of the consequence of taking a human life. It is therefore quite reasonable to assume that he would have wanted the death penalty for Tyler Robinson. But it is far from certain.

The Higher Law of Grace

Although he was still a young man, Charlie Kirk was also a Godly man, and he would have recognized the wisdom in Benjamin Franklin’s reflections on the constitution he reluctantly adopted:

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.”

Indeed, even in his short life, Charlie spoke about the exceeding value of knowledge gained through time; time that was necessary to discover his own shortcomings, including his own guilt, and his need for a savior. This is the message of universal truth spilled across the pages of scripture “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Those who come to recognize their own need for a savior, who have experienced the grace and forgiveness of God, have been vocal in their hopes and prayers that Tyler Robinson would also come to know the same love of God. They recognize that this is what Charlie would have wanted. For many, this desire is not mutually exclusive with the belief that justice requires death; they simply hope that such a miracle would come in the time allotted by a judicial process that ends in execution.

It is here that I hope fresh eyes might begin to see more in the timeless truth of scripture, and that the circumstances of reality may teach us to understand our ancient past.

Cain and Abel

The story of Cain and Abel has been floating around in the conservative milieu for the last decade, thanks in large part to Charlie Kirk’s friend, Jordan Peterson. Peterson is obsessed with the story, marveling at the deep wells of insight contained in a mere ten sentences, and has stated that he has been contemplating its implications for something like forty years. Despite all his time wandering in that symbolic wilderness, he has yet to uncover the most crucial meaning of the story.

I will not claim that the interpretation that I share here is definitive, nor that my insights are novel and unique. Elements of this story have been articulated and rediscovered countless times over the centuries, by various Jewish and Christian sages. But I will outline how I think they all hang together, and let the reader decide where I am right and where I am wrong.

The story begins with the birth of two sons:

Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. - Genesis 4:1-2

It then skips to the time when they are both grown, and the beginning of their famous conflict.

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. v.3-4a

It is here that the confusion of the meaning begins, due in part to difficulties of translation, as these early chapters represent the most sparse and primitive writing in the texts. But the details of this story point us right back to the events a chapter before. First, we notice Cain’s success as growing crops, a task that God had made difficult for his father Adam, in response to his disobedience of God’s commandment:

Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you,

‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you;

in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.” - Genesis 3:17-19

But Cain is free from this curse, which was given to Adam as an act of fatherly discipline– something that is intended to produce change and growth within him. Cain begins his life in the relative ease that his father had experienced before his fall. He is gifted in growing crops, and brings a good sacrifice. Indeed, his brother’s sacrifice is brought in imitation of his brother Cain, whom he must have admired, as all younger brothers do. (Ari Lamm has done the work to parse out the text for this interpretation.) But alas, the circumstances that follow often cause us to search for reasons when none are given:

And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. - v. 4b-5a

This difference in God’s regard towards the two brothers and their sacrifices is the place where most interpreters begin to stumble, because we always want to understand the reasons why. Was it because one brought grain and the other brought meat? Both are part of the later offerings accepted in the tabernacle. Was it the relative quality of their goods? No, both brought free will offerings. The “firstborn” status of Abel’s gift is parallel with Cain’s fruit - he offers the fruit, not the plant, Abel offers the offspring, not the parent. (it may also be an offering of milk, not meat. The Hebrew rendered as “fat” can mean both.) Other speculations make assumptions about the intent of the brothers, but again, Abel is acting in imitation. As far as he was concerned, Cain had no ill intent.

No. It is the brother that is chosen, and the offering is simply the means through which we discover which brother is chosen. This raises the question; chosen for what? And that is not explicitly spelled out, but we can piece together an idea by looking at later stories within the text.

The book of Genesis is written to answer the problem of brothers that fight. Cain and Abel are followed by the sons of Noah, the sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, the sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and the twelve sons of Jacob, later called Israel. In each instance, the thing determined is through which line God’s ultimate promises will be fulfilled. God is selecting an heir; and in this instance, He has chosen the younger brother, Abel.

So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.” v.5a-7

Here we can see that God is offering no condemnation, but only condolences to Cain. He is not chosen, but he can still be accepted. Like all of us, he has a role to play in God’s plans. But God gives him a warning about sin, and its desire to take possession of Cain. The language of this warning brings to mind the image of a devouring beast, a creature that wants to eliminate God’s children.

It is very reminiscent of the serpent, who tempted Adam and deceived Eve. He spoke smooth words, but what he wanted was their death. But like all children born of Adam and Eve, the evil inclination already resides within Cain, who has inherited his parent’s desire to be like God. This is what God warns him against.

Cain spoke to Abel his brother. Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. - v.8

Mysteriously, the phrase “let us go out to the field” is missing from the Hebrew scriptures, but it is inserted in the various ancient translations of the Samaritan, Greek, and Syriac Jews. But regardless, the field is where they end up, and Abel is killed. But it is important to note that the phrase contains two parts, here translated as “rose up against”, or elsewhere as “attacked”, it is not simply murder. Cain attacks and kills Abel, the same way that Moses attacks and kills an Egyptian taskmaster, it denotes the idea of manslaughter, an unintended death. This detail gives us insight into why Abel was chosen, and for what purpose.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” v.9

God speaks as many fathers do, already knowing the truth, but testing to see if the guilty Cain is willing to confess. Cain is truly the son of his father Adam, who thought that fig leaves would hide the shame of his nakedness. It’s a childish response that should give us insight into the depth of Cain’s moral understanding. But this also gives us a bit of insight into Cain’s character; he is not a practiced liar, nor is he used to making mistakes. This is his first big screwup.

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” v. 10-12

God reveals that He knows exactly what has happened, just as He knew when Adam and Eve had disobeyed. Previously, the ground had been faithful and obedient to Cain, ready and willing to accept whatever Cain put in, to produce good fruit. But instead of a life-filled seed, Cain has given the ground a taste for blood.

The ground has not changed its attitude or disposition towards Cain, but God curses Cain, by removing his affinity for working the soil. This is like the curse put on his father Adam, who had once been able to reach out from any tree to grab food, and now had to work the soil with great effort. Cain has lost the ability that once came easy to him, and he too must begin a new and difficult kind of work.

But these acts are done for the good of God’s children. The garden of Eden was a place that was designed for innocent people, but it was not a good place for people with open eyes, and evil inclinations. The temptation to abuse its bounty was too great. Cain has now given the ground a taste of something that is not good, and it would not be good for him to try and reap the harvest. Indeed, this story stands in stark contrast to the wisdom of many ancient cultures, where human blood was routinely shed for the sake of a good harvest.

Cain said to the Lord, “My guilt is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” v.13-14

Here I have inserted the alternative translation of guilt from the translator’s footnote, in place of the word punishment, to help us see the judgment of God as an act of fatherly discipline, not a transactional punishment. Commentators often project certain emotions on this speech to support a predisposition towards Cain as a villain. The words can be read as snide and rebellious complaints, but I do not think it fits the fuller context at all. Cain’s worries stem from the fear of an unknown future. Stripped of his greatest skill, the source of his identity and worth, he is now just as naked as Adam and Eve. But God does not leave him in that state.

Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. v.15

The infamous “Mark of Cain” is not a curse, but a protection. Just as God provided coats of skin for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness and protect them from the thorns and thistles of the wilderness, God has put a seal of protection on Cain, ensuring that he will not suffer the same fate as his younger brother. God has placed himself as Cain’s protector, and avenger. This statement acknowledges our natural expectations of justice and judgment, but it is also asymmetrical. It is not an eye for an eye; God pays back seven-fold. What does that mean? It actually follows the principle of sowing and reaping; a seed planted yields a multitude in return.

A person does not have seven lives to give, but it shows the tremendous loss of a life cut short. Not only is the person killed lost, but their future offspring as well. Cain is the first “seed” of the woman. God wants that seed to come to fruition.

Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. v.16-17

The events that follow after God’s judgment have been the subject of many biased interpretations that seek to portray Cain as a rebel. Cain does follow God’s pronouncement, by leaving the blood soaked ground of his former home and moving to a new land. Cain remains unable to bring forth food from the ground, but just as Cain overcame the curse that plagued his father, his son is not bound by Cain’s affliction. Yet neither is he afforded the same protection as his father. By building a city, Cain enables his own son to live in safety, and establishes a place to return to, while he is forced to wander far and wide in search of provisions.

To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. v.18-22

The spurious claims made against Cain’s descendants are also unfounded. The twin genealogies of Genesis 4 and 5 are often cited as contrasting lineages of evil and good, a dualistic reading that comes from outside the text itself. While the practice of polygamy is clearly portrayed as less than ideal throughout the text, it is a widespread practice that God permits, and redeems, especially in Genesis, when humanity is still struggling to fulfill the first commandment given by God, the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 – “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth”

Cain’s line clearly fulfills this mandate. They expand their territory, multiply, and discover new means of bringing forth life from the harsh wilderness. Indeed, Cain, the one “seed” protected by God, has culminated in the seven-fold fruit of Lamech, his two wives, and their four children. But a closer analysis of the two genealogies reveals the ultimate purpose of preserving Cain’s line, which ends in the birth of a daughter, by connecting us back to the family of Adam.

And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” v.25

Dr. Alice C. Linsley, an anthropologist who studies ancient texts, explains the reason for the dual genealogies of Genesis 4 and 5:

Genesis 4:25 clarifies the relationship between Seth and Cain. They were brothers and their descendants intermarried. Their daughters married their patrilineal cousins and named their first-born sons after their fathers (the cousin bride’s naming prerogative). The practice of patrilineal cousin marriage is attested in Numbers 36:11 where we are told that Zelophehad’s daughters—Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Noah—married their patrilineal cousins.

Cain’s un-named daughter married her cousin Enosh/Enos and named their first-born son Kenan/Kain after her father. Irad’s un-named daughter married her cousin Mahalalel and named their first-born son Jared/Yered/Irad after her father. Lamech’s daughter Naamah married her cousin Methuselah and named their first-born son Lamech after her father. This is an authentic kinship pattern which reveals endogamy among the royal houses of Cain and Seth.

This explains not only how Noah and his sons gained the skills and tools necessary to build the Ark, but how all the developments of Cain’s descendants are carried into the new world. It also suggests the possibility that this particular story, the only story in the antediluvian text in which women other than Eve are mentioned, may have come to be preserved, through Noah’s grandmother, Naamah, who named her son Lamech after her own father.

But there is another curious detail that emerges in the naming of Lamech’s sons. The names Jubal, Jabel, and Tubel-Cain are all variations on the name Abel. Not only has Cain’s line been fruitful, he has preserved and multiplied the seed of his brother who perished. By prolonging and protecting the life of Cain, the memory of Abel was not erased from the earth.

Abel and Charlie

The future outcomes of the tragic death of Charles James Kirk are still unknown, although many good fruits have already begun to spring forth. Not only are people opening their bibles and returning to church, I have seen one child born with the name Charlie James to honor the legacy of the martyred son, and I am sure many more will follow. My wife, whose grandfather was also named Charles, asked me to reconsider it for our soon to be born son.

The circumstances of Charlie’s death are clearly not identical to those of Abel, but there are important parallels that we ought to consider. Foremost is the recognition that God did not demand the life of Cain, but sought to preserve it, so that Cain could come to understand both the extent of his tragic actions, and the goodness of God’s mercy. Since his death, Charlie’s widow Erika has confirmed that this is what Charlie would have wanted for Tyler, even offering words of forgiveness at her husband’s memorial.

But God also preserved Cain because it provided an opportunity to bring forth good.

That good fruit has still not reached the full extent, as the story continues to teach and guide us away from the tragic consequences of sin and violence. But we can explore some of its immediate implications through simple extrapolation of the details provided.

First, let us consider the circumstances of Cain and Abel’s upbringing. As the firstborn son, Cain was seen as the solution to the problems that began in the garden, which God promised would be solved through the defeat of the serpent, whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman.

This idea would be further reinforced by Cain’s apparent skill at growing food, something that his father was cursed to do with great difficulty. It’s not hard to imagine that he inherited many of the traits typical of first-born sons, who are often siddled with enormous pressure to succeed. Especially when we consider the contrast between his parent’s attitude toward Abel, who seems to be an afterthought, almost ignored. His tending of the flocks was of secondary importance to the important work of his brother and father.

God’s choice of Abel, which made Cain upset, must have felt extremely confusing, and unfair. Cain had not done anything worthy of condemnation, rather he was surprised by God’s unexpected choosing of Abel. He became unmoored from his purpose and identity. When God speaks, He is telling Cain that the pressure is off; he will be accepted if he does good. Whether or not Cain thought his chosen status would return with the elimination of Abel, the evil inclinations at work desired to frustrate God’s plans.

At first glance, it appears that they succeed. It seems we don’t get to see Abel fulfil the role for which he was chosen. But that is not the case. The most obvious reason that people insist that Abel’s sacrifice was better than Cain’s is because of his acceptance. This idea also seems to be backed up by the author of the book of Hebrews, who says:

“By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” Heb 11:4

There is a curious facet to this expression here; a singular sacrifice, and multiple gifts are accepted. This is sensibly interpreted by the fact that Abel’s sacrifice consisted of multiple animals. Yet there are also multiple occasions in which a sacrifice can be accepted; God tells Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” This is the test that Cain fails. But Abel is present, and he succeeds.

Remember that the text tells us that Cain attacked, and killed Abel. Two actions on the part of Cain– and while this could be interpreted as an act of manslaughter, an intentional attack, with an unintended consequence of death, it could also mean something else. It could mean that Abel was not killed at once, but had a choice– a choice to defend himself, or to let himself be killed.

In the book of Hebrews, Abel is most clearly compared to Jesus, of whom the author says:

“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.” Heb 12:3

Perhaps here, Abel, who had spent his life in imitation of his brother Cain, faced the choice for which he was chosen, by showing Cain what it looked like to resist sin. To resist one thing often requires the surrender to something else.

“do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” - Matthew 5:39

Perhaps Abel was chosen for righteousness that had not yet come to fruition, just as Christ was chosen to lay down His life long before his blood was shed. Like Christ, Abel’s righteousness was fulfilled in his willingness to accept violence and not return it, to surrender to his evil brother, and to imitate him no longer.

It may have been that the refusal to fight back fueled Cain’s rage, allowing sin to devour him, bringing forth death. Or it may have been that, like Charlie Kirk, who was not pronounced dead on the scene, but succumbed to his wounds later on, Abel’s life extended beyond the moment of impact, giving Cain the opportunity to see the consequences of his actions spill forth in his brother’s blood.

This is Abel’s second sacrifice, one that was not given in imitation, but in faith. Though it was meager in material, it was extravagant in cost. This is the kind of sacrifice that God desires:

But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” - Mark 12:42-44

The woman who offered her meager sum to God was placing her life into his hands. Like the widow of Zaraphath, who gave her final meal to the prophet, she put her trust in the creator of life over the efforts of her hands. We do not know what happened to her, though we can hope she received the same blessing as the widow who fed Elijah, whom she imitated. We do know that Abel did not receive his own life back, but rather purchased the redemption of his brother Cain.

Tyler and Cain

But now we must return to the other killer, and consider Tyler Robinson in light of the life of Cain.

Cain had been given a test, and warned that he must resist sin. But what is sin? And how do we resist it? First, we must understand the source of its power and influence.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” - James 1:14-15

Cain had desired acceptance and approval, which God told him how to achieve. Cain had also expected that approval to come in a particular way, to be chosen above his brother Abel. Just as Eve noticed the desirability of the forbidden fruit, Cain desired something that was not meant for him, and this was the genesis of his sin.

The sin of Adam was contrasted by the sinlessness of Christ, each rooted in their desires, or lack thereof. Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6) stands in contrast to Adam and Eve, who reached out to take hold of the fruit that promised to make them like God.

But there is an opportunity for grace towards Cain, just as there is for Eve, and even Adam. The command against eating seemed arbitrary to her, because she did not have the same context of understanding as Adam, who had seen and explored the goodness of God’s creation to a fuller extent. In the same way, God’s decision to choose Abel seemed arbitrary to Cain, who had done everything right according to the purpose laid out for him by his parents.

And though Adam did know the commandment of God, he was reluctant to hold onto the good gift that had been given to him– the woman. He was not willing to allow her to be taken by the serpent.

Now Cain encountered a test, much like the one his parents had failed. How much had he been warned of the subtle words of the serpent? What did it mean to resist sin, crouching at the door? Who had Cain seen or remembered crouching at his door?

Cain had surrendered his life to a prophetic vision. As the seed of the woman, there was only one thing that he had not done– crush the head of the serpent’s seed. With no other path laid out before him, no other creature with which to wrestle, he unleashed his instinct to crush on his brother Abel.

Charlie Kirk was not the brother of Tyler Robinson, but he very well could have been. In fact, Charlie seems very much like the kind of son that Tyler’s parents tried to raise.

Matthew Carl “Matt” Robinson and Amber Denise (née Jones) Robinson, have been married for about 25 years. They are longtime residents of Washington, Utah, a suburban community near St. George and Zion National Park. They raised Tyler and his two younger brothers in a close-knit, active family environment described by neighbors as “great” and “respectable.” They were deeply involved in the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation, attending services regularly and participating in community events.

Both of his parents are registered Republicans, and have been vocal supporters of conservative causes, including Donald Trump—family social media from 2017 shows Tyler in a Trump costume for Halloween, and his grandmother, Debbie Robinson described the family as “staunch Republican and Trump-loving.” His father, who owns and runs a small construction company, embodied the conservative values of hard work and entrepreneurship.

They emphasized family bonding through outdoor activities like camping, hunting trips, and visits to shooting ranges—Amber often posted photos of their sons (including Tyler) posing with firearms during childhood outings, exhibiting the responsible enjoyment of the 2nd amendment rights.

Tyler, their oldest son, was academically gifted. He scored a 34/36 on the ACT (top 1% nationally), earning a four-year academic scholarship to Utah State University in Logan. Tyler was the kind of kid that one might have expected to be involved with an organization like Turning Point USA, which reflected all the values his family held in high esteem. His path seemed to reflect the idea of the American dream; that through education and hard work, he might achieve more than his parents, and create a brighter future for the next generation.

But something went wrong with that plan. Although he enrolled in a pre-engineering program, he ended up dropping out after one semester, returning to live with his family while pursuing an electrical apprenticeship at Dixie Technical College. Even without delving into the nature of his online activities, such a decision reflects a trend among young men of Gen Z.

Young men currently represent just 40% of college graduates. His pursuit of a job in the trades, long perceived as a second-best choice, reflects the dire circumstances sensed by many young white men, who are largely excluded from the career paths that they once dominated, through social justice campaigns that incentivize the hiring of women and racial minorities. As career prospects dwindle, the hopes of marriage and family are also pushed farther out of reach.

These problems are intrinsically linked to the other looming problem of his online radicalization. Tyler’s parents allowed him to pursue an interest in computer gaming from an early age. But unlike the video game consoles that became ubiquitous during his parent’s youth, Tyler’s gaming hobby came with unfettered access to the internet. By connecting with other gamers, he received a deluge of information and opinions from peers who were likewise exposed to all manner of complex and powerful images and ideas, long before they acquired the maturity to handle them.

The online culture of Gen Z’s has developed into a complex mixture that blurs the boundaries between the political, religious, and sexual ideologies. The language of rights and freedoms, social justice and equality, are tethered to the exploration of fantasies fueled by pornographic images. Many have pointed to Tyler’s ‘deviant’ interests as proof of his degeneracy. He pursued a romantic relationship with a transgender individual, a boy who was trying to live as a girl.

If we step back to observe the flow of culture, we can see powerful forces at work. Early exposure to sexual content is always a tragedy. In my youth, such exposure meant seeing things developed for mature tastes. Such exposure engendered a pursuit of maturity; a warped view of maturity, but a type of maturity nonetheless. Early glimpses of a pornographic magazine might drive a young man to put away childish toys, to pursue romantic and sexual encounters early on in his teenage years, pushing towards a lifestyle of womanizing. The nature of life before the internet age meant that such men would have to concern themselves with making themselves attractive, earning money, working on their ‘game’, by developing the skills necessary to seduce women. Even though their desires were warped away from marriage and family, their pursuit still forced them to become more mature adults.

This process of warped maturation is also what happens to young women who encounter sexual content early on, who instead learn to recognize a potential within themselves to be the objects of desire, to wield power over men.

The ‘deviant’ nature of online porn culture reflects something very different. The path for young women is largely the same, though it has accelerated, with large numbers of young girls starting their own ‘businesses’ creating content as soon as they turn 18, earning absurd amounts of money, mostly from much older men. As tragic as this story is, for young men like Tyler, things are much worse.

The proliferation of animated pornography, furries, transgenderism, and (tragically) pedophilia, point to a very different kind of problem. Rather than pushing people towards a warped sense of maturity, these forces are infantilizing young men. The pathway towards mature adulthood, as a necessary precursor for pursuing sexual relationships with women has become extremely difficult to navigate. What they see of their female peers online distorts their perceptions of women, who seem only to be interested in courting the impossible ideals of the ‘Chad’ - six feet tall, six figure income, and even then, faithfulness is by no means a guarantee.

The recent Harper’s article on “gooners” depicts a generation of men that have resolved themselves to only ever experiencing the normal pleasures of adulthood vicariously. The other alternatives end up like Tyler, and his friends. The politics of extreme inclusion rely on the total exclusion of one type of person; the white heterosexual male.

White heterosexual men have been demonized from all directions, with “whiteness” viewed as the root problem of racial disparity, “toxic masculinity” as the root of feminist persecution, and “cisnormativity” and various “phobias” as the root of all gender and sexual discrimination. These toxic qualities stand in opposition to justice, acceptance, love, and equality. Once someone adopts these beliefs, any amount of hate, vitriol, or violence can be justified. In the presence of such messaging, it is no surprise that young men learn to despise their own nature.

These problems are only compounded by the fact that conservative voices have so little compassion for these young men. The conservative image of healthy masculinity is not a purely biblical one, and often lies closer to the older version of warped maturation. It is too abrasive in its style of communication, with pundits celebrating “owning the libs” like a frat party drinking game. It has far too much of the playboy in it as well, especially since the embrace of Donald Trump. A conservative vision aimed at protecting the rights and privileges of mature, consenting adults to bend and break the rules they espouse presents a stumbling block to these young men who can’t find a way to grow up.

The admixture of sex with cartoons, video games, and stuffed animals, tied to a schoolyard morality centered on fairness, bullying, and revenge, all points to a generation of young men who are both desperately anxious to become adults, and terrified of the exact same thing.

Consider then what someone like Charlie Kirk represented to Tyler Robinson. Charlie’s popularity and success represent the kind of path that seems unavailable to most young men. His beautiful wife represents a kind of fairy tale romance, her vocal support and admiration for him seem like an impossible dream, a hope eroded by cynicism towards hypergamous women. But what’s more, Charlie received the encouragement and admiration of men like Donald Trump, a man that Tyler’s own father admired, who poured out fatherly affection that is almost impossible to find.

It’s as if Tyler heard God say, “I have not chosen you, but your brother Charlie.” That is the seed of jealousy that took root in Tyler’s heart. I do not believe that Tyler saw Charlie Kirk as a villain, but as the image of everything he wished that he could and should have been, yet was denied. Charlie was chosen; Tyler was not.

Why Cain Was Spared

God’s dual remedy of discipline and protection forced Cain to wander the earth, while making him conspicuous. He would have had to rely on the kindness and generosity of others to acquire food for himself and his family. This humbling experience would have undone his self-reliance. No longer could he count on his skill or ability, he was suddenly as dependent as the little lambs of his brother’s flock.

Cain built the city to protect his family, as a place to return to; but to provide for them required a venture into the unknown. However far the other sons of Adam had spread across the land, Cain would need to make himself known. Unlike the garments of skin that protected Adam and Eve from the thorns and thistles of the wilderness, Cain would have to trust in the word of the Lord, in the mark, which provided no physical barrier to harm.

In every encounter with some distant brother, he would have to confess his sin, and relay the horrible consequences of his brother’s death. As he did so, he would have had to reflect again and again on details not only of that sad affair, but of his brother’s life. As he encountered younger brothers, nephews, nieces, and more distant relatives, he would have had to answer question after question.

Perhaps the first few became rote; “How did it happen?” “Why did you do it?”, but over time, those questions would have expanded into details about a legendary man, the second born son of Adam, unknown to countless generations. “Did you always fight?” “almost never, until that day…” and eventually, “What was he like?” “he was very kind…”

As he travels around the world of that day, the mark he is given serves as a warning and a witness for all future people of the tragic consequences of anger, sin and death. We do not know exactly what he may have said, but his experience is that of a man who lost the brother he had known for over a century. (We can assume this because Adam was 130 years old when he sired Seth, the son born after Abel’s death) He may not have understood why God chose Abel in that moment, but in retrospect he must have pondered the virtue and value of the boy who was considered “nothing” - a type of meaning of the name Abel. Abel, who did not consider equality with Cain something to be grasped, but let go, relinquishing his life to the dust.

Cain’s sentence to wander, with his appearance marked, shows us the means by which God spreads the first law to all the living. This is echoed in the actions of Cain’s descendant Lamech, who after killing in self defense, reiterates the message of God’s vengeance, not to provoke violence, but to discourage it. While it is often read as boastful, it actually represents something far more important: it is the first example of someone turning the tricks of the serpent against him, a pattern repeated throughout Genesis by women like Rebekah and Tamar.

We do not have an epistle of Cain, but we can see the evidence of his lessons learned in the line of his descendants. The sons of his descendant Lamech all share the root of the name Abel; Jubal, Jabel, and Tubal-Cain. Their vocations also mirror and extend from the root of Abel, while incorporating elements of Cain’s later skill as a builder. They raise flocks, live in tents, play music, and forge tools for building.

The final name listed on the tree of Cain’s family is that of daughter, Naamah, a name which means pleasantness or beauty. As the bridge that unites the lines of Cain and Seth, she is well named, as beauty can only be truly cultivated in times of peace. Her name also contrasts and corrects to the name given to Abel, vanity, or vapor, an afterthought viewed as someone without utility to his parents, but treasured and prized by God. Naamah’s name personifies the true value God saw in Abel, someone to be enjoyed simply for who they are.

When we view this story in this way, we can see God using evil for good, and the economy through which it is done, maximizing the benefit of Abel’s sacrifice to promote peace among the living. It is the first instance of God “trampling death by death”. But for those who remain unconvinced, consider the parallels between the death of Abel, and the first tragedy of the new covenant, the stoning of saint Stephen.

The Martyrdom of Stephen, and the Salvation of Paul

Stephen is a deacon, an eager imitator of the apostles, as Abel imitated Cain. Like Jesus and (presumably) Abel, Stephen does not want the sins of his killers counted against them, hoping instead that his death will lead to their repentance.

Paul stands on the side, giving approval of the death of Stephen. This may appear to contrast, rather than parallel the story of Cain, who was stirred by anger. But the parallels between the two are closer than they first appear. Cain’s anger stems from a loss of identity. He does not know how to rest in God, or how to function with his role stripped from him. He sees his value stemming from the results of his work.

Likewise, Paul once correlated his chosenness with his ability to work, deriving his value as a person from his effort.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. - 2 Corinthians 11:22-23

Cain could have made similar boasts: “I was the first born son of Adam, I learned to till the soil and overcame the difficulty that cursed my father’s struggles. I was the one who first brought offerings to the Lord, and Abel was only copying my example! I worked harder than he did, and never took what I did not earn!”

At the moment of Stephen’s death, Paul would not consider himself to have committed any crime or sin. If the stoning of Stephen was unjust according to the law, Saul would not have participated. In his interpretation of the law, Stephen was committing several blasphemies, breaking the commandments against idolatry, bearing the name of God in vain, dishonoring his mother and father, and bearing false witness against God’s people. However, God was silent in response to Paul’s “sacrifice”, just as He was with Cain.

When Paul relates his theology of sin in the book of Romans, we see how he once held himself responsible before God. He reveled in God’s commandments, believing himself superior for his ability to keep them. It is only when Christ appears before him that Paul realizes what he has done, just as Cain realized that the blood of Abel was crying out to God.

After this encounter, Paul finally recognizes his own deception, and comes to understand the effect that the law has on sinners, and the effect sin has on our own hearts:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good - Romans 7:7-12

Paul could at one time go through the decalogue and check off each commandment that he had kept. But when he gets to the final commandment, he realizes that he does in fact covet, just as Cain coveted God’s acknowledgment of Abel. By denying it, Paul bore false witness against himself. When he finally speaks of the nature of his desire, he comes to realize that just as Jesus said, to look lustfully on the wife of your neighbor is to commit adultery in your heart, and to hate your brother is the same as murder.

Looking back at that moment after his encounter with Christ, Paul understands that he greatly desired to see the death of Stephen. Those sinful thoughts, hidden from all the world, are seen and felt by God, who knows the heart of every man. God is forced to witness the death of his servant Stephen first in the hateful hearts of his enemies, and then through the eyes of all who witness it in the flesh. In that moment of recognition, Paul realizes that he is guilty of Stephen’s murder.

Like Cain, Paul is stripped of his ability to make his way in the world. He can no longer serve in his role as a teacher to the children of Israel. But although he is stripped of the purpose to which he devoted his life, his life is preserved by God. Like Cain, God exiles him to the wilderness to share the story of his sin, and God’s redemption, to all the nations of the gentiles. In that exile he endures many hardships, and is forced to rely on God:

I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. - 2 Corinthians 11:26-28

Like Cain, Paul endures this suffering, not for himself, but for those he loves, serving the churches among the communities where he can only briefly find some rest. In his ministry, Paul takes on the mantle of fallen Steven.

Both are filled with the Holy Spirit and perform miracles - Acts 6:5,8 and Acts 9:17, 19:11–12

Both men are falsely accused because they could not be refuted. - Acts 6:10, and Acts 25:7

Both men are accused of blasphemy, Stephen in Acts 6:13-14, Paul suffers the same accusations in Acts 21:21,28

Both use the history of Israel to preach and rebuke their accusers, first by in Stephen Acts 7, later by Paul in Acts 13:16–41; Acts 23:1–6; and Acts 26:2–23

Both received visions of the Glorified Christ. Stephen saw “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” during his trial (Acts 7:55–56), while Paul encountered the risen Jesus on the Damascus road in Acts 9:4–5, and later in Acts 22:17–21, and Acts 23:11.

Both accepted death as a worthy sacrifice for the sake of their accusers, with Paul saying “I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” - Acts 21:13

The Seed of death and the Harvest of New Life

The biblical parallels of Cain and Abel, Stephen and Paul, provide a basis for hope in the final redemption of Tyler Robinson. The unjust deaths of Abel, Stephen, and Charlie Kirk offer an escape from an endless cycle of retributive justice.

Rene Girard provided a helpful language to understand this phenomenon.

Cain, Paul, and Tyler were each trapped in mimetic rivalry. Their desires were rooted in their lack. Each one coveted some status of their victim, for being chosen, for being right, or for living up to the impossible standards that have fallen out of reach.

Rather than recognizing the lack within themselves, they sought to eliminate the scandalon that threatened sacred order; the stumbling-stone who exposed their flaws to the world. In each instance, this was a person undeserving of death.

The violence of Cain, Paul, and Tyler does not solve the problem. Instead, each one is transformed into a new stumbling-stone, a violent criminal whose continued presence threatens the sacred order once again. But if any of them are killed, their own killers will become a stumbling-stone to whatever portion of the crowd sympathizes with their motives. This is the endless cycle of retributive justice - “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

But in each instance, the killer is confronted with realization of the innocence of his victim. Cain must wrestle with the memories of his brother, over and over, as he repeats the story to anyone who will listen. Paul must wrestle with the conviction of Stephen’s words; words that laid bare the sinful desires in his own heart. Tyler must wrestle with the fact that he has not rid the world of a villain, but robbed a wife of her husband, children of their father, and parents of a son. His myth, the lie that “words are violence” fell apart once he came to understand the true nature of violence.

Encountering their victims unmasks the myth and collapses the model-obstacle. The only path forward is through positive mimesis, imitating and embodying the self-sacrificial love and forgiveness of their victims, becoming non-sacrificial witnesses who break the cycle of violence by desiring only what the Forgiving Victim desires.

This cycle is inescapable once our blindness is removed. Paul realized that it was not Stephen he persecuted, but the spirit that shone through him, the spirit of Christ, the true innocent victim. When Paul persecuted the other Christians in the wake of Stephen’s death, he was stopped on the road to Damascus by Christ himself, who spoke the words– “why do you persecute me?”

In discovering that Christ identified himself with those who worshiped him, Paul recognized His image in humanity, the image of God in man. This image is not reflected in the way many of us expect. The image of perfection, of innocence is the image of God we first encounter. But it is not where the image of God is most clearly seen. That image is susceptible to the desecration of sin and death. When such tragedies occur, when Abel’s blood is spilled, when Paul looks on in approval, when scoffers revel in the death of Charlie Kirk, we feel compelled to ask “Where is God?”

In each instance, when one man stands whole, and the other lies dead, the image of God is incomplete. God can heal the body, and restore the dead to life. But such an act does not undo the suffering and evil that tarnishes the heart of a killer. There is only one remedy for that.

The blood of Abel was washed from the earth as the first world perished in the waters of the flood. When God reestablished his covenant with mankind, he added a new commandment:

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.” - Genesis 9:6

From that moment on, justice required that the blood of killers must be shed. The restoration of the image of God could not be achieved by reversing the shedding of blood, but in relinquishing it freely. Nor God did not exclude himself from the fulfilment of the commandment. God did not declare that “any man who sheds man’s blood” would have his blood shed. But he did require that “by man his blood shall be shed”. And so, God took on human flesh, not to mete out judgement, but to allow his blood to be spilled; to restore the image of God in man, God made himself into an image of bloody death.

This was not a reactive fix to an unforeseen consequence. He became “the suckling lamb, slain before the foundations of the earth.” In so doing, he revealed a mystery, at first, only to those who suffered in the same way. When Abel found himself standing before his maker, he saw a man with wounds.

Conclusion

In the case of the three victims, of Abel, Stephen, and Charlie Kirk, evidence of forgiveness proceeds their sacrifice. In Abel, it is the choice to not fight back. In Stephen, the desire that the sins of his accusers not be held against them. In Charlie Kirk, it was his testimony as a Christian.

In a very real sense, when Cain killed Abel, he died, and Abel was resurrected through his life. In the same way, Paul died, and lived the life of Stephen. But each of these transformations were made possible through the ultimate sacrifice of Christ’s death. We killed Christ, yet now we are Christ.

The revelation of Christ’s death and resurrection allows us a unique opportunity. Realizing, like Paul, that our hearts are full of sinful desires, that our hatred carries the seed of murder, we can offer up our own lives in sacrifice. Those who place their faith in Christ experience his death before their own death, and it is He who lives through them.

Cain was able to receive mercy because his sin came before the law. In the same way, the truth of Paul’s wickedness was hidden from him, until God chose to reveal it. As he wrote to Timothy, “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” - 1 Timothy 1:13.

We ought to look at Tyler Robinson in the same way. He ignorantly believed that Charlie Kirk’s messages were “hate”, that his words were “violence”, and that his removal would bring “justice” to our broken land. But did not know what any of those words meant. Nor could he know what it means to shed the blood of man. Charlie’s widow Erika graciously offered her forgiveness to Tyler Robinson, on behalf of her husband, with the words of Christ. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

As Tertullian famously said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” I believe that seed of transformation has been planted in the life of Tyler Robinson. But its ability to germinate and take root remains dependent on the further cultivation of a stony heart. Erika’s words go a long way towards that effort, yet there is more to be done.

The two sides of our political landscape are divided along the lines of forgiveness and mercy. Those on the left preach tolerance, acceptance, and mercy in this life for those who identify with their sinful flesh. They extend endless sympathy for those who struggle with sexual sin, or those who commit acts of violence in retaliation for perceived injustices. Yet they offer no spiritual forgiveness for those who wish to repent and turn away from their past mistakes.

Those on the right preach the boundless love and forgiveness of Christ to those who confess. Yet they recoil at the thought of extending mercy and grace in the here and now. They offer only the cheap grace of salvation in the life to come, while refusing to lift a finger or cover the cost to love their neighbor through tangible means. But there was no such division in the life of Christ.

But Christ did not come to save souls alone, but to provide freedom from the bondage of sin and its temporal consequences. Consider the response of Christ when the Pharisees scoffed at him for telling a lame man that his sins were forgiven.

“Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home.” - Matthew 9:5

The physical healing served not only as evidence of Jesus’ authority, but a foretaste of the eternal promise; a deposit of faith in anticipation of future fulfillment. Charlie had received that foretaste. The spirit bore witness to the forgiveness of his sins; sins he confessed openly and honestly, so that others might come to receive the same forgiveness. That foretaste allowed him to lay down his life. In the same way, it was that some foretaste of forgiveness that gave Erika Kirk the strength to forgive.

Christians proclaim that the forgiveness of sins is available to the very worst of sinners, if only they admit their need. But true forgiveness is not a magical talisman. It is more than the transaction of cheap words in exchange for eternal life. Those who truly understand forgiveness, like Charlie and Erika, recognize that it comes at an excruciating cost. It is the recognition of the cost paid, the insurmountable size of the debt forgiven, that moves them to give and forgive with the same generosity.

To profess the name of Christ is to recognize that each of us are living on borrowed time. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins… we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” Ephesians 2:1,3-5. That rich mercy was at work long before we came to recognize it. It was by God’s mercy that the consequences of our sins, which should have resulted in death, did not come to fruition until we became aware of God’s forgiveness.

If we honestly desire that a sinner like Tyler Robinson would come to understand the forgiveness that is on offer, we should defer the punishment that would render him incapable of receiving it- the end of his natural life. His guilt is evident, and the punishment deserved is death. But we should not be so quick to hasten the end of his mortal life. He will bear an indelible mark for his sin. He may never again walk among the free. But it may be that preservation of his life can serve to preserve the life of others, to prevent further tragedies, and to bear witness to the love of God in this fallen world.

Tyler Robinson once had the potential to be someone like Charlie Kirk. What if God can still use him towards those ends? What if the seed of Charlie’s sacrifice is allowed to take root and grow in the softening soil of Tyler’s heart? What if he becomes a witness to the glory of God like the apostle Paul? Such potential should be encouraged by any means possible. Therefore, whatever sentence Tyler receives, even if he is sentenced to death, our desire should be that the execution of justice is deferred; that mercy and forgiveness may be made known to Tyler in the flesh, so he may come to believe in the eternal grace of God. This should be the desire of every forgiven sinner.

That is why Cain was spared. It was why each of us was spared. It is why Tyler Robinson should be spared.

As someone who feels alienated by Kingsnorth and many of the academic and intellectual elites that seem to comprise his tribe, I find this troubling. My own story actually places me in a unique position between the Kingsnorth camp and much of what they call the machine. I have always been drawn towards the intellectual side of my evangelical heritage, but I found the common contempt of most elites for the low church, non-denom movements extremely distasteful. Those people have reliably shown me genuine love and kindness, alongside those with much less to offer, and they are the only ones I see doing so.

The other side of the equation comes from my lately discovered autism. As I’ve come to understand the condition and the challenges it presents, I can clearly recognize the influence of autistic minds in constructing much of “The Machine”. I’ve already written about the need for more christian empathy towards figures like Elon Musk, whom Kingsnorth criticizes quite openly, but he is far from the only example. The internet is very clearly the fruit of autistic engineering.

But autistics have pioneered the avenues of both thought and communication for millenia. Many place both Aquinas and Calvin on the spectrum, and it’s a certainty that a great degree of neurodiversity was responsible for the invention of every technological and communications breakthrough from the printing press onward.

Kingsnorth hedges his bets on many things he critiques, with balancing statements about “some good things” or “not all bad” that have come about through “progress”-- but I am quite concerned that the common denominator in what he considers the “bad bits”, is a type of mind that is foreign to his notion of humanity.

Kingsnorth identifies one of the serious “problems” that drives the “progress” of the machine– an ever increasing desire for certainty. But he seems to have little curiosity regarding the underlying causes of that desire, focusing instead on an unquestioning assumption of the “goodness” of what has been lost.

The desire for certainty stems from a need to communicate unpopular questions or correctives above the noise of consensus belief, by people deeply convinced of the truth, who recognize the uphill battle of changing minds. When the normal result of challenging accepted dogma is execution, the impetus for seeking clarity and certainty in communication begins to emerge. If the leadership of the church had been willing to listen to Jan Hus, the need for a Martin Luther may not have arisen.

Once these minority viewpoints become accepted, they too can fall prey to the corrupting power of consensus adoption. One might say that what Kingsnorth is wrestling with is the problem of a necessary skepticism, taken to a logical extreme. But the remedy he seems to be putting forth has dangerous consequences.

Definition Through Exclusion

My critique of all vibes-based anthropology is centered around the problem of unity and multiplicity; determining what binds a group together, and how much a minority or individual can deviate from the norms while still remaining in communion. A nation can abide with political parties of differing opinions, but it cannot survive warring factions, and it certainly cannot tolerate terrorists who aim to destroy the union.

Exclusions are sometimes necessary to protect unity. It is not an injustice to quarantine contagious individuals, but the manner in which they are curtailed matters greatly. When the presence of an infectious animal threatens the health of a herd, we do not build them sanctuaries; we cull them. If the belief that we have strayed too far from medieval ideals becomes the consensus opinion, then fears that we might adopt some of the worst aspects of that time, such as burning heretics, is not unfounded.

It is incumbent on the majority to accept responsibility for those individuals as if they are equal participants in the image of God. But this is a test that majority populations have almost universally failed. The expert in the law sought to use the law to exclude the Samaritan from being defined as a neighbor. Medieval Christians used creedal adherence to exclude Jews. Muslims exclude the apostate. The endorsers of slavery excluded the black man. Those are black marks we recognize and condemn. But if we think that we are immune to making the same mistakes, we are fooling ourselves.

Within the past few years, we have seen family members disowned for political opinions, or stances on vaccines, first towards the unvaccinated, but increasingly towards the vaccinated as well, with extremists touting a ‘pureblood’ test that often dictates whom they would consider marrying. And while I am as big an advocate for the embrace of marriage and children as anyone, I worry about Christian communities that will exclude those “made eunuchs by men”, such as detransitioners who cannot reclaim their reproductive capacity or the appearance of their natural sex.

The desire to reject the tools of “The Machine”, is understandable. Scientific measurements and numbering have been used to divide humanity by race and intelligence, and later to erode distinctions of sex and sexuality. But we used other means to distort the imago dei long before we could sequence genes, and the dangers of rejecting empiricism from our worldview are far reaching.

Kingsnorth’s thesis, that the “The Machine” is unmaking our humanity, necessarily defines what it means to be human on unbiblical terms. The assumption that what it means to be human is wrapped up in a wistful ideal once grasped by the majority of “normal” people is not a Christian notion, but the essence of paganism. This came through in his Erasmus lecture at First Things, a watershed moment on his path to cultural ascendency– and I am not the only one to notice it.

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What Does it Mean to be Human?

The image of God is an indelible aspect of human nature that cannot be lost or destroyed (Genesis 9:6, James 3:9), but is instead fallen (Romans 3:23), and in need of redemption. Kingsnorth’s antagonistic approach towards those who reject his vision is antithetical to the critical solution offered by Jesus in the Gospels, specifically in Luke 15.

In this chapter, Jesus answers the Pharisees’ inquiries about his willingness to dine with tax collectors and sinners with three parables, questioning the impulse to abandon one lost sheep out of a hundred, or one coin out of ten, before culminating in his longest story, the parable of the lost son, in which Jesus’ casts his antagonists in the role of the elder brother. This older son, who has done nothing wrong, refuses to enter into his father’s celebration. He has defined paradise as the place from which sinners are excluded.

Kingsnorth is far from the only one to hold this position; there are many people standing outside the celebration, not wanting to be associated with the embarrassing outsider. Each of us are tempted to make the same exclusions for somebody. But Kingsnorth’s grievance isn’t aimed at an individual, despite his regular mentions of Musk, who, ironically, is pursuing very similar ends, as a figurehead of “The Machine”.

Instead, his vision seems to line up with the first of Jesus’ parables, that of the lost sheep. But he is not simply advocating for the abandoning the lost sheep, but the shepherd as well. In his view, those who seek to protect and save the sinner are enablers; guilty by association. He not only assumes the attitude of the elder brother, but projects it onto the wide swath of humanity, and calls it good.

The Unrepentant Activist

This way of thinking seems to be nothing more than the exultation of nature, a holdover from his pre-christian environmentalism. The only explanation I can see for the unquestioning welcome of Kingsnorth from so many Christians is that he shares a mutual kind of aesthetic blindness. I am far from the only one to observe the notable distinctions within the body of converts to Orthodox Christianity, which has been enjoying a surge in popularity. I have gotten to hear and speak with many of these converts, some quite personably, and it is not difficult to recognize that many of them have found a genuine peace with God within that tradition.

I believe that the kingdom of God is vast and uncontainable, and God draws His children into and out of local communities and traditions for His good purposes. I have encountered many people in whom the spirit of God resides in various traditions all across the globe, including several that I do not particularly resonate with.

But there are others within those traditions that embrace them for reasons other than the fellowship of the spirit. The “orthobros” and “trad caths” often seem far more excited about the triumphalism of cultural supremacy afforded by the ancient and apostolic roots of their traditions than the sanctifying work of the spirit within them. Others seem drawn to the same churches because they find the music and art and liturgy more beautiful than the “machine” like qualities of the modern mega churches, which they loudly and regularly critique.

I don’t fault them for this; I can very much relate to the feelings expressed by someone like Jonathan Pageau, who has found an artistic calling as an iconographer in the Orthodox church. The aesthetic style of the tradition resonates with him in a way that it does not with me, but I relate through the experience of joy receiving playing the instruments I am skilled with in a contemporary worship setting. I am more useful to God’s purpose in that setting than I would be in a Church of Christ, where another friend is able to put the skill of writing shape-note hymns to good use.

In another real sense, I do resonate with Kingsnorth, as I find the highest expression of beauty in the natural settings of God’s creation. But I also marvel at the greater depth of understanding we gain through the scientific study of that creation, which has revealed the truth of Jesus’ words regarding the lilies of the field, whose infinite complexity far surpasses not only the splendor of king Solomon, but anything created by human hands, including the majestic cathedrals of Europe.

A Useful Idiot

My concern regarding Kingsnorth’s particular embrace of Orthodoxy is that it serves to baptise the idolatrous reverence of the undisturbed and undeveloped state of the natural world of his unregenerate environmentalism. His war against “The Machine” is aligned with the interests of the old world elites, the Club of Rome globalists who orchestrated the environmentalist movement as a trojan horse for population reduction.

In this way, he seems very much to be a pawn of the interests of the Bilderberg group, or the WEF, who have no qualms about weaponizing the naivety of Greta Thunberg’s and Paul Kingnorth’s right alongside “Machine” enthusiasts such as Bill Gates, in pursuit of their own aesthetic ideals. Pitting nostalgia and utopia against each other, the long term goal of technocratic revolutions is the restoration of an old-world European aristocracy.

Kingnorth’s war against the machine may indeed bring a return to the feudalism of the middle ages; in which he is the useful idiot, the lackey of the sheriff of Nottingham, calling for the capture of the outlaw Robin Hood, who dared to kill the King’s deer. This view is a typical one among elites, who view the ugliness of tract homes as a tragedy greater than the beauty of the families and communities they support and enable.

But the environmentalist wing of the technocratic agenda is inextricably linked to the other revolutions against the Kingdom, including the feminist movements and the sexual revolution, and the Darwinian and Freudian rebellions that preceded them. The widespread adoption of Darwinism ushered in new forms of old idolatry. The imaginative fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries cast man as an emergent god, Rousseau’s noble savage, minus the nobility. Technological sophistication was used to subdue nature, while man reverted to a beast in the bedroom.

These revolts were also viewed against “The Machine” that had enslaved humanity; the ordered model of the cosmos and the state churches. The revolutionaries followed the same instinct as Kingsnorth, placing the blame on the mistakes of man, or woman. Except instead of blaming Adam, they blamed the second Adam, Christ, the Jew, and the machinations of the Church, purveyors of “the opium of the masses” that kept free born men everywhere in chains.

The technocratic oligarchs view the squandering of resources through democratization as the problem, while the bottom up rebels blame the oppression of the elites. It is somewhat difficult for us to recognize from our side of the aftermath, but every revolutionary thinker, from Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Darwin, Marx, and Freud, pursued the same vision that Kingsnorth seems to have in mind; a return to the perfection of Eden.

The spirit of these revolutions are more clearly revealed in the hippy movement and the summer of love. It may be that some aspect of Edenic innocence was truly present in those early years, just as there is a kernel of truth in the statement “all you need is love”; but there were also serpents in that garden, conflating the love of God with the kind of love meant only for husbands and wives, and the knowledge of God with the unearned wisdom of psychedelic drugs. Like all forbidden fruits, the vibes based revolution of the 60’s tasted sweet on the lips, but it ended with a very bad trip out of Woodstock.

The Pornographic View of Sex

These revolutions cannot be undone. The fruit, once ingested, changes the man, and those changes form his offspring, mutating both in extremity and rebellion. The effects of the sexual revolution, and the ideologies that preceded it, have become enmeshed in our culture in a myriad of ways that we can barely recognize. But one of the most insidious is what I call “the pornographic view of sex”, and it is very much an extension of the “vibes based” ethos of intuitive anthropology.

The pornographic view of sex has become increasingly prevalent across all forms of fiction, especially since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and has made its way into the dating and mating habits of the general population. Its widespread adoption is particularly dangerous to autistic people. To describe what this pornographic understanding is, remember that the chief difficulty for autistic people, including high-masking and undiagnosed autistic people, is recognizing and interpreting non-verbal social cues. Facial expressions, tone of voice, posture and body language can all go unnoticed, or be misinterpreted by people with autism.

In contrast, the pornographic view of sex is one where no explicit verbal communication is given. The classic caricatures of pornographic movies contain tropes of Policemen, pool cleaners, or pizza delivery boys ringing a doorbell, and being greeted by a beautiful woman. Any dialogue that passes between them would be completely routine under normal circumstances; the discussion is about “services” and “fixing things”, reciprocated with “payments” and “tips”-- a normal exchange completely composed of double entendres. The couple transition to foreplay and sex without ever making an explicit statement of their intentions, or inquiring about the interest of the other party.

As an experience utterly foreign to the autistic mind, the pornographic depiction of sex initiation can be categorized as a peak neurotypical experience. Just think of Forrest Gump, sitting awake, dumbfounded while Jenny has sex with her boyfriend, or his uncomfortability with the prostitute who mocks him for failing to reciprocate her advances.

This animalistic approach to human relations, the highest ideal of the vibes-based anthropology of the revolutionary spirit, views the autistic mind as a product of the machine. It also resides in the reactionary embrace of homeopathic and natural remedies to the industrialization of medicine.

The growing concerns regarding the “causes” of autism are deeply rooted in these naturalistic assumptions, targeting vaccines, or the use of Tylenol during pregnancy, while completely overlooking the fact that instances of infant and maternal mortality have plummeted, or the amazing innovations that allow infants born as early as 22 weeks to survive.

The public discourse on autism is largely discussed from a standpoint of inconvenience, rather than compassion, and the remedy is prevention, rather than support or understanding. This way of thinking is deeply rooted in vibes-based anthropology. It relies on the assumption of a natural good that we can easily apprehend and understand, but it really stems from selfishness and laziness.

Field-Day for Sociopaths

When you embrace the return to a vibes-based view of nature, you can’t sort out the good and bad bits of “The Machine”. But beyond ostracizing the inconvenient and alien characteristics of the 1-2% of the population with autism, a vibes-based anthropology allows another small percentage of the population to flourish– sociopaths.

The characteristics of sociopathy include deceitfulness, impulsivity, irresponsibility, a lack of remorse, and a general disregard for others. Sociopaths are prone to chronic lying and manipulation, conning for personal gain or pleasure, acting without planning or regard for consequences, disregard for obligations, indifference to harming others, rationalizing actions without guilt, and repeatedly violating rules or laws.

True sociopaths make up a similar percentage of the population as people with autism, though it may range slightly higher, from roughly 1-4%. But cultural influences can cause an increase of sociopathic behaviors among normal people, though the same could be said of autistic tendencies as well.

The circumstances that allow the flourishing of these two small, but influential populations are diametrically opposed. This seems to explain the swinging pendulum of cultural norms. The autistic innovators in technology and communication can break through the deception and manipulation of a chaotic social sphere. But the eventual adoption and integration of those technologies into the culture background allows sociopaths to navigate established systems with ease.

It may be that “The Machine” Kingsnorth opposes so vigorously promotes an increase in skepticism and the desire for certainty, causing a loss of social skills that makes all people act more autistic. The mediation of screens can certainly flatten the range of human emotion to something closer to what autistic people normally comprehend. But to vilify that system for the inconvenience it causes typical people leaves the door wide open for something far worse.

The autistic tendencies of silicon valley have dulled the vibes of the hippy culture; but the horrendous fruit of that movement is still visible in the sociopathic realm of celebrity social culture. The danger is embedded in Kingsnorth’s revolutionary stance of opposition to the machine. Whether he intends it or not, the framing of his vision opens the door for the widespread adoption of two more sociopathic tendencies; aggressiveness, and a lack of conformity to norms.

These qualities are already on display in the frequent and often unprovoked physical assaults, and repeated legal or social rule-breaking of the militant Trans and Antifa movements of the far left. But the widespread adoption of Kingsnorth’s non-fiction would serve as a trojan horse that will result in the manifestation of the imaginative fantasies that dominate the culture, especially the fantasies of women, who have imbibed the Roussean warping of romance.

Consider the following excerpt from the “Call Me Daddy” podcast, (around the 34-minute mark) one of the most popular among young women, in which Chelsea Handler relates a sociopathic story of a sexual encounter to the gleefully delighted host:

“I was walking down the street to their house and this really sexy British guy, just, we just locked eyes and it was like ‘Sex!’ you know what I mean? and I was like it’s something you would see in a movie, and I was like, ‘I’m in London,’- this was an impromptu trip- I’m like, ‘What if I just had an affair with this guy?’ and I walked past him, and I stopped and I turned around and he had stopped, and it was late at night– like this was dangerous you know? It could have been. And it was late at night, and he said “would you like to come back to my place?”

And that was the first thing he said. The eye look that we had was so intense that I was like, “Yes.” and we went back to his house. I mean, we barely spoke. I went over there every night after the Olympics for a week, had a full-on affair with this guy, I don’t even know if I know his last name, or his first, and we had this incredible– It was just like like just chemistry, but not a lot of like “getting to know each other”, it was just purely sexual and then I’d be like, “Okay, l’m going to the Olympics tomorrow.” and he’s like “Are you going to come back tomorrow night?” I’m like, “Yes definitely.” and then l’d get home at like 10:00, l’d be like, “l’m coming over”, and he’d be like, “Great.”

We have a couple drinks and then we’d have crazy sex and then l’d go back to the friends whose house I was staying at. I never even told them what was going on. I don’t know why, because I don’t– it just felt so steamy, and like, sexy, and I wanted to keep it to myself, you know what I mean?”

Handler, who is part of the mainstream celebrity social culture, is not diagnosed or generally believed to be sociopathic, though the label has been applied by critics. Why? Because our culture has elevated sociopathic behavior to an aspirational privilege. Her position as a “comedian” provides another layer of social protection, as her outrageous statements can always be walked back as mere jokes.

But the critics who describe her as “empty, selfish, soulless,”, “lacking empathy,” or “miserable”, are not speaking without cause. Many have criticized her for being childless and unmarried at 50, a state she has maintained through several elective abortions that she has unabashedly celebrated. The anecdote above, given in response to the question, “what was the best one night stand you ever had”, was “really hard” for Handler to answer, because she had “so many fun one night stands in my 20s and 30s.” X users also called her a “narcissistic sociopath” in response to her political takes, such as comparing Hamas supporters to MAGA.

The fact that celebrities and even politicians are praised for celebrating the death of people who hold the wrong ideas, or vote for the wrong party is deeply disturbing behavior, yet our culture routinely praises the boldness of celebrities who make such statements, backed up not by evidence of wrongdoing, but widely accepted “vibes” about the essential “wrongness” of their enemies.

These criticisms are not meant to prove the superiority of the machine-like qualities of autistic culture. There have been plenty of horror stories produced by cultures and traditions that aimed to restrict or eliminate immoral behavior to the extreme. Nor should we view those who actually have sociopathy, or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) as unredeemable. The testimony of Christian apologist David Wood, who suffers from sociopathy and committed terrible atrocities prior to his conversion, shows that all kinds of lost sheep can be redeemed, and used by God.

There are some similarities between autism and sociopathy, as the following summaries by Grok AI point out. (If the source offends the reader, so be it. I found no reason to rewrite what was clearly stated, though I edited out a great deal of superfluous information.)

Both can present as having difficulty forming or maintaining genuine relationships, leading to perceptions of being “detached” or “unengaged.” For example, an autistic person’s flat affect (reduced emotional expression) might be mistaken for the emotional coldness seen in ASPD, though the underlying reasons differ (neurodevelopmental vs. personality-based).

Both can exhibit behaviors that seem impulsive or non-conforming to social expectations, such as acting without apparent regard for consequences. For example, an autistic child’s sudden running off (elopement) might superficially resemble an ASPD individual’s reckless rule-breaking.

Both can appear to challenge authority or societal norms, leading to perceptions of being “defiant.” For instance, an autistic person’s insistence on routine might lead to conflict with authority, similar to an ASPD individual’s deliberate rule-breaking.

In clinical settings, especially in children or adolescents, behaviors like social withdrawal, aggression, or rule-breaking can lead to diagnostic confusion. For example, a young autistic person with meltdowns might be mislabeled as having conduct disorder (a precursor to ASPD), especially if autism is undiagnosed.

Superficial overlaps can lead to stigma or misdiagnosis, particularly in high-stakes settings like schools or courts. For example, an autistic person’s social awkwardness or meltdown might be misread as “sociopathic” lack of care, while an ASPD individual’s charm might obscure their harmful intent. Accurate diagnosis requires considering developmental history, intent, and context. Public perceptions, as seen in online discussions often exaggerate or misapply these terms.

The failure of both these groups to adapt to the culture is a problem that is not easily resolved. But any solution will require the thoughtful application of all our faculties, skepticism, reason, evidence, charity, and trust. Expectations of conformity must be balanced with freedom of expression. But we cannot expect any system, whether based in mechanical and technological certainty, or “vibes-based intuition” to fully address the complexity of human diversity.

The True Nature of “The Machine”

To solve the “problem” of “The Machine”, and properly oppose it, we must first locate the true source of the machine that opposes humanity.

“If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

One of the reasons it’s so tempting to see that machine in other people, is because we see the rottenness within our own hearts exposed within the other. We prefer to surround ourselves with those who overlook the same instincts as ourselves, and persecute those who openly long with the desires we naturally suppress. But every time we squash the exposed evidence of our hidden sins, someone else pops up, shining another pesky light on the darkness we wish to hide.

We each serve a sacred machine that bids us to keep its secrets - As John Calvin said, “fabricum idolorum est cor humanum,” translated as “the human heart is a factory of idols.” There is only one way to fight against the machine. We must admit our own defeat, and submit ourselves to the surgical skill of the great physician, who promises “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” - Ezekiel 36:26

Nature’s Remedy for Societal Collapse

What then do we do with the tiny remnant that will never fall in with the rest of the pack? Here, nature does show us a path forward, in an observation that could have come from many medieval monasteries. Not from what happened within the cloistered halls, but in the varied paths of the honeybees, between the fields of flowers and their apiaries.

The beehive is a model of efficient society. Honeybees divide and specialize labor, while also working together as a whole. The bees that travel back and forth from the hive to gather resources use a language of dance to communicate with others where to find food. They teach newly grown bees the way to fields known to be productive.

But there is a small percentage of bees that seemingly do whatever they want. They ignore the instructions of other bees, and fly off in random directions. They are extremely scrupulous in their search, surveying the boundaries of fields and exploring every crevice of trees and other structures. Such activities do pose a danger to the bees, as they may find themselves stranded without resources, if they go too far away from the hive without luck.

From an evolutionary standpoint, one might be tempted to dismiss them as a fluke, a mutant deficiency in bee-like behavior destined to lead to the extinction of their particular genetic line. But this could not be further from the truth. These bees are known as scout bees, and they play a vital role in the long-term survival of the community.

Beehives are constricted by the limitations of space and resources. As productive planners, they overstock their reserves, producing more honey than they can consume. This is a wonderful thing for humans, who reclaim the excess honey. By removing and replacing damaged or rotten frames, they maintain the integrity of the hives, and keep the bees healthy, happy, and busy.

But under natural circumstances, a hive can become sick when it reaches a point of overpopulation, leading to collapse. The same effects that plague captive rats and mice, as in the case of John Calhoun’s famous universe 25 experiment, can affect an overcrowded hive. Many have noted that urban decadence can produce similar effects on human society, leading to civilizational collapse. Yet bees provide us a way out.

The strange behavior of those peculiar bees, known as scouts, leads to the discovery of new sources of food, and more importantly, new locations for shelter. The scout bees find ways for the colony to survive through migration and expansion into new territories, overcoming the effects of climate disasters or other developments that might destroy existing habitats and food sources.

Their success lies in their ability to communicate their findings to the rest of the hive, and the willingness of the “normal” bees to listen and follow the instructions of the scouts. But there is a balance to this dance.

The bees don’t blindly follow the commands of an emphatic scout. The scouts must first convince each other that they have found a suitable location for a new home. Once the consensus of scouts reaches about 80%, the other bees will swarm, and head off to settle in their new home.

The parallels between the scout bees and autistics are striking. The scrupulosity and attention to detail mirror the autistic fascination with things that are overlooked and ignored by the average person. But the long history of autistic innovation points to a similarly vital role in human flourishing. The increase in outliers, and the estrangement between autistic people and other groups should cause us to take note of the times in which we live.

The dropping birthrates among developed nations seems to indicate a potential crisis that cannot be averted; we need to find and establish new colonies that will allow for growth and flourishing. But unlike honeybees, the needs of humans are not static; our role as cultivators requires an integration of the lessons learned through time. Those who cling to an outmoded view of what it means to be human are living in nostalgia.

Humans also have a tendency to cling to consensus, and like the honey bees, we trust consensus among our prophets as well. But what solution is being offered by the consensus of the prophets? Is it truly what is best for humanity? What if some of our scouts are wrong? What if the vibes-based apologists “against the machine” are leading us astray?

Followers of Christ cannot simply take their cues from the autists of silicon valley. But we also cannot rely solely on the “vibes” that make us feel warm or safe, or fearful. We must follow those who follow Christ in Spirit and in Truth; testing the spirits, testing the vibes, and testing the research as well.

A vision of humanity that relies on the exclusion of any percent of the living, whether autistic, or sadistic, fails to reflect the reality of humanity created in the image and likeness of God. Until we are able to ask the question “what does it mean to be human?” with openness and humility, rather than rational or vibes-based reductions, our future survival remains in peril.

The rightful heir to two kingdoms, Parzival is raised in an isolated woodland by his mother Herzeloyde, a widow who, upon learning of her husband’s death in battle, vowed to protect her then unborn son from ever even hearing about war, or knights, or codes of chivalry.

Predictably, this attempt to shelter her son backfires. When three knights from the court of King Arthur ride through the woods in pursuit of a villain, the sheltered young prince is instantly enamored. Parzival’s mother realizes that not only has her gambit failed, she has left her son woefully ill-equipped for a life he was destined to pursue. In her parting words, Herzeloyde gives her son advice to live by, while sending him out dressed as a fool– a last ditch effort to protect him from courtly life.

The story is propelled forward by Parzival’s overly literal interpretations of his mother’s advice. The young prince, who refers to himself as “dear boy”, the only name his mother called him, acts as an agent of chaos, while maintaining his innocence, as each blunder slowly transforms his naivety into wisdom. This pattern follows Parzival throughout the rest of his journey, as he continues to receive instruction on proper conduct with no explanation for the reasons why, ultimately leading to the story’s central tragedy.

Parzival’s mentor, a gray-haired knight named Gurnemanz, becomes frustrated by the incessant questions of his ignorant pupil, and informs his charge quite harshly that inquisitiveness is a behavior unbecoming of a knight. Parzival’s deep admiration for Gurnemanz causes him to take this lesson to heart, stilling his tongue at the precise moment when asking a question is needed to break a powerful enchantment, and heal the wounded guardian of the Holy Grail.

The curse that results from Parzival’s ignorant mistake leads him to question everything he once knew and loved, including his faith in God, before being rebuilt from the ground up. Finally, he is given the opportunity to right his wrongs and complete his hero’s journey, when he is summoned back to the Grail castle to ask the king “what ails you?”-- not for the sake of curiosity, which was overcome by stilling his tongue at their prior meeting, but out of compassion.

Diagnosing The Real Parzival

This story, in all its details and variations, resonates with me in a similar fashion to the way Jordan Peterson speaks of the Biblical narratives; I am surprised by how real it feels. Readers often note how modern the story feels. I doubt most readers would readily identify with the main character, foolish as he is, yet that foolishness is precisely what drew me in. Parzival’s story bears an uncanny resemblance to my own experience living with undiagnosed autism. There are several specific moments in the story that, while likely exaggerated, are far too accurate in their depiction to be chalked up to purely fictional imaginings.

Of course, as someone who relates to Parzival’s many blunders and their tragic consequences, what inspires me most is his heroic triumph. Within a few centuries, Parzival has his flaws smoothed over, and becomes the secondary figure Perceval, in service to his newly invented cousin, Galahad, a church-approved hero who is all purity and perfection.

These propagandistic changes, likely aimed at managing the behavior of readers and listeners, resulted in a literal loss of the plot. Later writers forgo the story of Parzival’s redemption, recapitulating the folly of Herzeloyde’s attempt to protect through isolation. Instead of being raised in the wilderness, Galahad is raised in a nunnery.

Parzival endures an experience all too common for those on the spectrum, by being rewritten in the likeness of those who never understood him. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Scripture rings true in the tale of an ignorant youth whose hand is guided to victory against all odds; for in the end, we cannot attribute Parzival’s success to anyone but God.

Comparing this story to my own experience has caused me to ponder the purpose of autistic minds in God’s great scheme. The term autism, when discussed as a disability, describes symptoms that develop in people whose brains follow an atypical pattern of development. Diagnosis is dependent on the challenges posed by those symptoms. But there are many people whose brains follow that divergent pattern of development, while slipping under the diagnostic radar.

This “neurodivergent” concept is controversial, as it has sometimes pitted those who are able to function and succeed at odds with those whose experience with autism is more debilitating. However, recognizing that a majority of those whose brains work differently can and do contribute to our culture and society, often in profound ways, is crucial to answer the why questions– why does it happen? Why do they struggle in simple things, and excel in areas of complexity? And for those reckoning with God– why did God allow it, or why did He choose it?

I have become firmly convinced for myself that it is the latter, and not merely the former, and that this difference provides the gift of a challenge, an opportunity to overcome the schemes of the devil in this world. But to explain this, we must tackle the first why?

Why it happens

Autism researchers continue to study the causes of autism, but the fact that many people can go their whole lives without receiving a diagnosis makes it quite difficult to determine. Research is heavily biased by the problem of identifying those struggling with the worst symptoms. But as our understanding of the condition increases, we can identify earlier and more subtle signs.

There is almost certainly a strong genetic component. A large percentage of late diagnosed adults first come to recognize the signs in themselves when their children are evaluated, which is part of my own experience. Determining exactly what and how those changes occur is difficult. There is no single “autism” gene; over a hundred rare genetic variants have been identified among people with autism. There also seem to be strong indications of epigenetic and developmental components as well. The latent genes may or may not be activated due to environmental and circumstantial conditions in utero, and in early childhood development. There have been cases of identical twins where one sibling is autistic, and the other is not.

However, it does seem that the conditions that cause this different developmental pathway to unlock are somewhat associated with traumatic or negative experiences. While this seems to clearly indicate that neurodivergence is not the developmental ideal, it does serve a purpose. It is a response to troubling times and dangerous environments– circumstances like the death of Parzival’s father, and his mother’s flight to the wilderness. In evolutionary terms, it is a survival mechanism.

This seems incredibly counterintuitive to our normal ideas of “survival of the fittest”, but it actually fits right in with the Biblical story of redemption. At several points in the unfolding narrative, God provides new challenges for his people to overcome. In each instance, deliverance comes at the hands of unlikely heroes; leaders who are often gifted, but in ways that run counter to the conventional wisdom of the day. Men like Moses, Gideon, and David embrace their shortcomings to win victories that baffle the opponents of God’s people.

My favorite example is the one who best fits the neurodivergent mold, Joseph, the son of Jacob. The imprisoned slave rises to a position of authority by interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream. While the interpretation is a supernatural gift, it is natural abilities that help him recognize the patterns of similarity between managing a household, a prison, and an empire. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

How it works

Author and Autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen, who is responsible for discovering many aspects of “why it happens” has also been working to discover how autism works, uncovering the role it has served in our history, and how it might guide our future.

In a stimulating conversation with Jordan Peterson, outlining the premise of his book The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Invention, Baron-Cohen presents a theory linking human innovation to autism, arguing that the cognitive traits associated with autism—particularly the drive to identify and systematize patterns—have been a driving force behind humanity's technological and cultural progress throughout history.

Autistic minds have a tendency to think in “if-and-then” rules, a kind of boolean logic that is necessary to make the necessary leap to invent new kinds of technology. Primitive items like a bow and arrow, or simple flutes, require an understanding of a connection between very dissimilar items that lead to the discovery of categories like physics and music, languages that convey meaning and information about the way things work.

It is not possible to simply stumble across phenomena and arrive at a working solution without the unique kind of imaginative leap that comes through this “if-and-then” thinking. Chimps can use sticks and rocks like hammers, but they will never invent a bow; it’s a uniquely human ability. But the humans that truly excel at it are those with autistic minds.

The Trade Off

Of course, everything in life comes with a cost, and the cost of developing certain cognitive abilities, is a lack in other areas. For Autistic people, this typically comes in the realm of social skills. This social deficit is the primary symptom that causes “autism” to be diagnosed as a disability. Those who do not struggle socially do not have the symptoms of “autism”, and may not be diagnosed, even if they have a “neurodivergent” brain.

But social struggles are highly contextual. Neurodivergent people aren’t incapable of acquiring social skills, and some excel in understanding verbal communication. However, research indicates that on average, 60-80 percent of meaning and intent are transmitted through non-verbal social cues, a figure rising as high as 93 percent in certain highly emotional situations. Learning to decode these patterns may take an autistic person more time, and require more patience on the part of their parents and teachers.

This means that the likelihood of diagnosis is far lower in the simpler social context of an Amish village than the complexity of a modern city. Not only is the fast-paced communication of the digital age more chaotic, the difficulty is compounded by all the other sensory distractions vying for our attention. It’s very likely that these extreme circumstances, when encountered by infants, may lead to the more severe symptoms and high-support needs of profound autism.

Yet for those able to function reasonably well, the social landscape remains a frightful place. For most neurodivergent people, symptoms of trauma come through prolonged exposure to social environments that cause cognitive dissonance.

Everyone experiences cognitive dissonance to a certain degree, but the threshold for tolerance is much lower among the neurodivergent. Their ability to simply ignore contradictory logic is reduced. This is one of the reasons why they tend to develop “special interests” that are rooted in understanding complex systems. That pattern seeking fixation can serve as a boon to those who find their way into careers in engineering, or an escapist obsession.

Sadly, communities that ought to be safe havens for the neurodivergent, like the church, are often plagued with unspoken social customs that contradict their explicit values. This is a recipe for creating levels of cognitive dissonance untenable for most autistics– a phenomenon that became the special interest of Jon Machnie, creator of the podcast Christianity On The Spectrum. His story, like many others on the spectrum, was propelled by an overwhelming urge to answer the question - why?

That question, and many others like it, may provide the answer to the greater why– why did God choose to divert some minds onto this alternative path of development? Not for the answers they produce, but for the questions they can ask.

The If-and-then Resolution of Cognitive Dissonance

Because the struggles of many autistic or neurodivergent people stem from the issue of cognitive dissonance, it may be helpful to ask how does cognitive dissonance emerge? The Bible provides an answer in the third chapter of Genesis, when the serpent approaches the woman with a simple line of questioning: “Did God really say…?”

The dissonance ultimately stems from the evil intent of the serpent, which contradicts the goodness of God’s command. But it plays out differently between the woman and her husband. She is deceived, employing that “if-and-then” logic to a scenario, weighing two conflicting second-hand accounts, and no evidence to support her prior fear. Meanwhile, her husband, witnessing the embodied proof of God’s faithfulness in the form of a beautiful woman, follows willingly.

This is not a permanent state of affairs however; both humans experience the consequences of their actions, and God binds the two of them together in an interdependent relationship. Meanwhile, the Serpent is demoted, but not silenced; his punishment will ultimately be delivered by the seed of the woman.

This complex judgment reflects God’s justice. The woman is less culpable for being deceived. The man, who knew better, scored some points because he was clearly going along for the sake of the woman, not for love of the serpent, or disdain for God. His attempt to pass the blame was a weak imitation of the serpent’s tactics– tactics that will later be employed much better by women like Rebekah and Tamar. The serpent seems to get off on a technicality, because he was meant to serve a purpose by presenting a challenge, but he’s not supposed to win.

The human family inherits a whole bunch of complex traits from this mess that emerge in different forms, and serve different purposes. We get a glimpse of what could have been as the pattern plays out in different variations throughout the text. One thing that emerges is that God works through humans to do things that He cannot do; namely, make mistakes.

When God first instructs the man not to eat of the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, He provides a reason why- “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” No one knows what that meant to Adam, or how he understood it, because the concept of death was foreign, and everything was brand new. Eve got the warning second hand, so it probably meant even less to her. They would only learn the gory details later on, when they witnessed God crafting garments made of skin.

When Eve became a mother, she may have been a bit like Herzeloyde, as most mothers are. Though she must have revealed the source of the clothing that she and her husband wore to her children, the purpose for which her second son kept flocks, she may not have revealed that the gruesome fate of sheep and cattle was possible for people. But withholding the truth from your children never works the way we intend; a lesson Herzeloyde realized before her child was grown, even if she didn’t know how to fix it:

One dawn, as the woods awoke, the birds sang so sweetly that his spirit soared, and he fell to his knees, overcome by their music, not knowing why. But in his childish haste, he took aim with a javelot and struck a songbird dead. Its tiny body fell silent, and Parzival gazed upon it, bewildered. Tears welled in his eyes, and he ran to Herzeloyde, crying, “Mother, why does the bird not sing?” She, seeing his sorrow, held him close, her own heart heavy, for she knew his innocence would soon lead him beyond her care.

Parzival, compelled only by the “if-and-then” impulse of his curious mind, acted out of innocence, but the consequences of his action still stung. The kernel of that innocence exists in the tragic tale of Eve’s two sons, even though it is difficult to see. The text reveals that Cain “attacked and killed” his brother Abel, a term that can describe an accidental manslaughter, the same term used when Moses kills an Egyptian task master. Cain is certainly guilty of attacking his brother, and the impulse was not curiosity, but jealousy. God had given Cain a warning - but it was not complete:

“IF you do well, will you not be accepted? but IF you do not do well, sin lies at the door. AND its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” - Genesis 4:7

God gave Cain the “if” and the “and”, but then what? The word “sin” is mentioned, without definition, just like “death” in the previous generation. We know what happens then, but Cain did not, and we know it because he did not.

Cain has suffered a lack of sympathy for thousands of years, and the author of Galahad’s tale would not extend an ounce of grace to the first born son of Adam. But Wolfram would have recognized the justice in preserving Cain’s life. Forced to wander the earth with a mark of distinction, Cain would recount his tale over and over to earn his bread. Many inventions emerged out of Cain’s line, the redemption of the “if-and-then”, resulting in the Ark of salvation carrying Eve’s seed from one world to the next.

It is only after the flood recedes, when only those who remember the tragedy of Abel’s death remain, that God enacts his universal law “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”

Completing the Image

People perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid saying that anything we perceive as unfair or unjust is in any way God’s fault. But if any of us underwent the tests we blame Adam and Eve and Cain for failing, with the amount of warning they received, all of us would fail.

In fact, we have all failed, countless times, when we were children, with a child’s knowledge and understanding. Our parents weren’t perfect, but all of them gave us one warning or another that we didn’t understand, and couldn’t understand– until after we experienced the consequences. And if you were the first born, you got the worst of it.

Good parents don’t mind when their children ask them why, in fact, they love it. But you still need to understand something to explain something else. “Remember what happened to your brother? This is like that.” Someone has to pay the price. Most parents have another source of wisdom they can draw on, since fathers and mothers also know what it’s like to be sons and daughters. But not Adam, or Eve, or God. Except, God does want things to be fair.

So, He subjected Himself to the experience of being a son, and He chose two very good, but normal people to have the experience of being His mom and dad. And they made mistakes! But while he was living here on earth, he took the opportunity to settle the score.

Many people struggle with the image of God meting out death indiscriminately through floods, and plagues, and commands to conquer. This violence is even more difficult to swallow in light of the sparse and vague warnings given. The marcionite heresy tries to solve the problem by saying that this was a different God from Jesus, the God of Love. But this strains the credulity of the text beyond comprehension. Those who mirror Parzival’s words are far more honest:

“I was once devoted to God, and I served Him faithfully, trusting in His goodness. But what has He given me in return? Sorrow and shame! I have suffered for my service to Him, and now I turn my back on Him. If God is just, why has He let me fall into such misery? I hate Him for His disloyalty to me!”

This is the point at which someone will bring up Job, and make him the whipping boy of Divine Command Theory, but that is the subject of a different story. Instead, we will look again at that promise God made to Noah:

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.” - Genesis 9:6

The image of God is misrepresented by one man bleeding, while another remains whole. Cain, standing over Abel, did not reflect the image of God. And so, Cain’s blood should have been spilt. But what if Cain didn’t know the damage his blow would cause? Does God desire a world in which car crashes and botched surgeries result in execution? Certainly not; because we know that if every causal link in every tragic death was traced back to the human choices that played some role, we would all have blood on our hands.

So sometimes God seems to bend the rules; he spares Cain. Meanwhile, “Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him.” That’s all we get. He deserved to die. Says who? His killer. Are we allowed to question this? Yes, we are. And if we do question it, we find that the God who killed Er, and many others, did not remain unscathed. He placed himself under the same rules He commanded us to follow. The God in whose image we are made, had his blood shed by human hands.

He paid the price for our mistakes, an eternal God, simultaneously existing as not just as a man, but as “the suckling lamb, slain before the foundations of the earth” so that even the animals who gave up their skins for Adam and Eve can accuse God of undergoing something He was unwilling to suffer himself. The God who says “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, determined the consequences of our mistakes and paid the price in advance, taking everything that would be done, evil and good, and let it be done unto himself, as “the firstborn of all creation”, so that we can forgive others, as we have been forgiven.

Learning to Ask The Question

God has paid an incredible price to justify himself to us. There is nothing he asks of us that he has not first endured himself. Like the grail king, he waits in wounded agony, for us to ask the question that will bring healing. But those questions are unique for each of us. Parzival had to ask “If God is just, why has He let me fall into such misery?” This question was so frightening to the people of his age that it caused his story to be rewritten, with his role given to another more worthy knight.

If Parzival’s only sin had been to strike a bird, he may have kept his spot in the grail legend. But he is far too reminiscent of Adam, and Cain, and Esau. But each of those characters received a second chance, and so does Parzival.

At the right moment, the sorceress Cundrie, who had cursed Parzival for his sin of silence, finds the knight restored and at peace, and informs him that the Grail has chosen to summon him back. The knight kneels before his wounded uncle Anfortas, and finally asks the question that he was too afraid to ask all those years before: “Uncle, what ails you?”

His curiosity has already been answered, as the story of the king’s unhealing wound was revealed to him by the king’s brother, the hermit Trevrizent. This time, it is a question of compassionate wonder, the marvelous awe of someone willing to endure such suffering for the sake of others. It is the same impulse that led a Roman soldier to remark “Surely, this man was the son of God!”

Conclusion: Playing Parzival’s Advocate

This essay was all written in service of justifying a certain rhetorical style that has been very helpful for parsing my own thoughts in writing. I identify with Parzival because his story resonates with my experiences of encountering confusion in a somewhat sheltered upbringing, compounded by the ignorance of my undiagnosed autism.

I was afraid to ask many questions, encountering something that is universally mysterious to people on the spectrum; the unspoken taboo. Bumping up against the invisible barriers of facial expressions and posture that are meant to silence inquiry, questions asked in innocent curiosity are met with harsh rebukes and condemnation.

This is in no way meant to shame my parents or those who grew up around me who did pick up the subtle signs. My extreme sensitivity to these kinds of rejections instilled the virtue of silence early on. Yet the curiosity compelled me to wonder why, until the opportunity for self-discovery presented itself. The pandora’s box of the internet inflicted a new set of unhealing wounds.

Unlike many others, I had no desire to free myself from the restrictions of the Christian faith. But I did need to cast off the fetters of trite and moralistic teaching. Francis Schaeffer unlocked a simple piece of logic that made the difference. If God is real, and He has spoken to us, it is because He wants to be truly known, and in the pursuit of true intimacy, no question could be off limits.

I began by asking my questions in the one place I knew they would be tolerated; I took them directly to God, with an empty notebook, and an open Bible. I began to read the scriptures with fresh eyes, casting off assumptions to see what the text really said, and I found that redemption spilled out across every page.

I began to see God as the loving father, whose every word and deed were done for the sake of his children, whom he loved, and who wanted to be understood. His “punishments” were transformed into fatherly acts of discipline, no more harsh than necessary to help his children grow. And I began to see that there was a desire for all his children to flourish, even Cain, and Esau, and Amnon, whose shameful sins are thankfully uncommon in practice, but all too often tolerated in our hearts.

When I began to see these characters for who they truly were, I saw they walked among us still. Exiled from our communities, because of what they did not understand. Labeled as heretics and sinners, they sought answers to the questions that fell on deaf ears. I began to realize that the reason for the warning was not rooted in love for the questioner, but fear. Fear that the foundations of a worldview were resting on sinking sand.

This meant that the devil was playing a double game. While he was whispering fears and doubts into the hearts of many believers, he would inspire those who do not believe to “play the devil’s advocate”, a game of asking questions– the very questions that believers are too afraid to ask.

I came to be convinced that the God who planned for every contingency, had found a way to beat the devil’s tricks. I believe that God uses ignorance, autism, attention deficit disorder, and anything else that distracts or draws attention away from the places the devil wants us looking to foil those dirty tricks– by allowing them to ask questions, without damaging their souls.

And so I have come to dub this game “playing Parzival’s advocate”, to ask questions, not with arrogant intent, or a desire to place others on a slippery slope. It is the practice of asking questions with genuine curiosity, and naive innocence. Not everyone can do it. Nor can everyone ask every question. But it must be recognized that some people can, and we ought to recognize who is asking, when questions make us feel afraid.

The words that drip from the serpent's forked tongue convey a different message when they come from the lips of a fool. Sometimes, those questions can heal what ails us.

The horrific murder of Charlie Kirk is having a profound and widespread impact on our nation. The responses have been varied to the extremes. People are struggling to fit the moment within their worldview

I have seen his death celebrated as a victory in a zero-sum political game. I have seen panic at the dread of the rightwing backlash. I have seen people call for that backlash. I have seen people say that it was the botched outcome of a staged event. I have seen people say that it was faked. I have seen people say it was a false flag, an accelerationist plot by governments or shadow cabals.

I have seen far more people weep, grieve, and mourn the tragic loss. Many felt it necessary to preface their remarks with disclaimers that they did not agree with all of Charlie’s views, a sad reality of our divisive times.

But the bullet that pierced the flesh of Charlie Kirk and spilled his lifeblood on the earth continues its work, cracking and shattering lies and illusions.

I have witnessed the moment of his death from several angles, committing it to memory, alongside that of Iryna Zarutska just days prior.

This is the new iconography of martyrdom. It reveals both the sacred value of contemplation, and the limitation of symbolic portrayals. The reality of lifeblood flowing freely from an unexpected wound is different from the Hollywood effects produced by blood squibs and CGI. The reality of bodies succumbing to lethal force is different from the dramatic portrayals of living actors.

One man and one woman, in the prime of youthful vigor and beauty. Neither died in an instant, but at some crucial moment of suffering, the regenerative energy capable of sustaining decades of cellular division and multiplication gave up its effort to heal and make whole, and their bodies began their return to the dust of the earth.

Death is a horror that cannot be explained. God could not explain to Adam and Eve, and they could not understand it until they witnessed it. Many of the younger generations had not witnessed the reality of such unprovoked violence before this week. Some of them have entered the cocoon of shock; others have been shaken out of passivity. Witnessing death produces transformation– metamorphosis. This transformation is radical– a return to the root.

In the radical transformation of a tree, the structure is cut down, and regrown from ground up, while the roots remain undisturbed. Humans require death and resurrection. This is the consequence of encountering the crucified Christ. The old man dies, and a new one emerges.

As for myself, I became radicalized on February 14, 2018, right around 4 pm. This was not a spiritual rebirth in the sense of a conversion, but one man died, and another took his place. This did not happen in a church, but in a hospital room. I did not encounter death, only its spectre; first, it threatened the life of our first child, whose heartbeat began to fade.

Then, I feared for the loss of my wife, taken to an operating room I was forbidden to enter. Cast into the darkness of the unknown, I cried out to God. Then, I encountered an unknown face, one that I had imagined in shadowy visions and imagined projections, but had never seen. Something that cannot be explained; the reality was utterly new.

It was the face of my newborn daughter, a combination of many familiar features, yet completely unique. As I held her in my arms, another eternity weighed on my mind. I did not know the fate of my wife. For the first time, I contemplated the overwhelming weight of caring for this innocent child all alone.

In the span of less than an hour, I had encountered the threat of two deaths, and three tragic possibilities, life without one, the other, or both.

The moment of crises subsided when I received confirmation that my wife was recovering successfully, but the radical transformation had only begun. Over the next two years, the structure of my thoughts and assumptions began to regrow, taking a very different shape. Fatherhood radicalized me in many ways.

I was outraged by discovering the subtle lies I had been fed about fatherhood. Lies that were never explicitly spoken from a pulpit, but were widespread in my Christian environment, they seeped in through the influences of television and popular culture, and spread through casual conversation.

Lies that fatherhood was a drag, that kids were gross and annoying. That it ruined your marriage, that the fun of being a dad was a consolation prize at the end of the honeymoon, something to distract you from the boredom of the same boring sex with the same boring person, or the lack thereof.

I had understood that those lies were lies, in the same way someone who has never witnessed death understands that death is bad. In other words, I didn’t understand at all. But when I did, I became furious.

Fatherhood was a revelation. Though I had worked in churches for years, it was the first time I truly understood what ministry is. When I bathed our daughter, or changed her diaper, I understood the joy with which Christ washed his disciples feet, and why he did not shy away from touching the unclean. I understood what separated the sheep from the goats, as I imagined Jesus taking on the form of an infant, identifying with the least of these. How could anyone deny food, or clothing, or shelter, or comfort to one such as these? In seeing my child, I finally saw myself as the helpless creature that God loves.

As my experience with fatherhood continued to grow, I began to understand why God called David the man after his own heart; the notoriously “bad” father who couldn’t bring himself to discipline his children, preferring to walk away from his kingdom rather than opposing his own son. I still struggle to find the balance between giving my children what is good for them, and fulfilling their childish desires.

But this joyful experience of radicalization began to hit roadblocks in our increasingly politicized world. Everywhere I looked for a path forward, I encountered messages of fear. Fear of totalitarianism on the right, climate fears on the left, eschatological fears in the church.

In each instance, the fear led to suspicion, and ultimately hatred of the opposition. It was exacerbated by the pandemic. Fear of those who don’t wear masks, hatred for those who do. Fear of being cancelled, hatred of SJW’s. Weaponized compassion, toxic empathy, and “no enemies to the right” became mantras to combat the justified violence of “mostly peaceful” protests. On every side of every debate, people were claiming the cause of Christ.

I felt compelled to do something, so I began writing an anonymous blog, trying to interject some biblical wisdom into the conspiratorial space. My goal was to inspire Christians to take certain threats more seriously, and to point those who were already convinced back to Christ as the solution. But anonymity is a parasitic creature. It hides behind the spectre of legitimized fear.

In that time of fear, my “faith” took the form of certainty in a political outcome, and a belief that good guys were working behind the scenes. After my worst political fears were realized, I became overwhelmed with the thought of caring for two small children in a Police State hell bent on impoverishing and persecuting Christians.

In the midst of a panic attack, God spoke. The Holy Spirit recounted many words of scripture, such as Jeremiah’s words to the exiles in Babylon,

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.”

The message that cut through the fog was the certainty that being a father was good. Marriage was good. Life was good. These good things were transforming me into the kind of Christian I had longed to be.

But this message of hope came with a cost. Christ was asking me to speak against the spirit of fear that gripped every institution. Not by minimizing the seriousness of the threats, but by relying on the greater power and assurance of Christ’s victory.

So I decided to step out of anonymity, and speak out in my own voice. I made it my goal to speak the truth, without denying the seriousness of the political realm, or the reality of evil, but to trust the promises of The Father, to whom I am a precious child. “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

I moved forward under the conviction that the fears of cancellation, of losing jobs, or suffering violence might be genuine threats for those hacking away at the roots of corporate and political power structures, but there was still enough goodwill in our culture of free speech and religious liberty that a message of hope, affirming the goodness of life posed little danger.

If I was wrong, if the affirmation of the straightforward truth of the gospel, in its fullness, was too controversial, then it was all the more crucial to speak out. I had full confidence that if speaking out something as relatively uncontroversial as the goodness in becoming a husband and father would place my life or my livelihood at risk, God and his people would provide.

But because I think things all the way through, I had contemplated the worst, including the possibility, however unlikely, of a martyr’s death.

This was not the first time I had considered that outcome, having spent my life in pursuit of advancing the kingdom. When I was a young man, single, and on fire for the Lord, the possibility of a martyr’s death had a certain romantic appeal. It is perhaps the one thing noble enough to forgo the pleasures of marriage and family. That bold image of a man alone, refusing to denounce his faith or bend the knee, shapes the image in our mind of a martyr, like Stephen, staring up in wonder at the glory of the heavens above. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Americans view martyrdom as a young man’s game. Fathers have a responsibility to provide and protect. They can’t take the frontline risks.

I never had a life worth holding on to until I became a husband and father, and I knew that clinging to it in fear and worry was the surest way to lose it.

I still struggle with the responsibility of raising children right, of knowing how to balance discipline and indulgence. But I recognized at that moment, when I first decided to speak out, that a man could easily use fatherhood as an excuse for cowardice. So many of our current problems can be laid at the feet of cowardly fathers.

I refused to let that be an option.

If it came down to a decision, it would be better for my children to lose a father they could respect, than keep a father they resent.

Five years ago, I came to the conviction that the only thing that might avert the potential disaster was a willingness for fathers to stand up, and speak the truth. I believed that free speech and the rule of law still provided a pathway to change. For the last five years, my conviction has proven right. I have suffered no consequences for writing and making videos in my own name, speaking the truth of the goodness of God. But the risk factor has changed. Fathers are not a target, but the target.

Charlie Kirk was not a political radical. Politics was not at the root of who he was. At the root, he was a Christian, who affirmed the goodness of the very same things that I became convinced were the most necessary to celebrate and support. Marriage, fatherhood, life.

As people struggle to cobble together explanations for his death, they are avoiding the simple truth.

Everything he did, he did in service to Christ, to his wife, and to his children, to his country. The beliefs he held about politics, and about family life, were all of one. Charlie Kirk was a man of integrity.

He could have found a way to work behind the scenes, to provide for his family in safety and comfort. He could have had an influence in many different ways. But he publicly and boldly went into hostile environments and spoke the truth, as a Father, a Husband, and a Christian. He saw boldness as a duty of a Father, a Husband, a Christian.

His party affiliation, policy positions, and what he said about hot-button issues are not the most important thing about his life and his witness. A man with that kind of character and integrity could have held drastically different political views, and he would still be a great man. His death would still be a tragedy. Indeed, the ideas of the left could, and would succeed– if the men and women who held those beliefs had the character and integrity of Charlie Kirk.

If there was a young leftist speaker who devoted his life to the cause he believed in for the sake of his God, to set an example for his wife and children that he loved, it would be no less a tragedy. But there are no young leftist husbands and fathers. And this reveals the reason why Charlie was hated, and targeted for death. Not just by the young man who shot him, or the people who cheered. He was targeted by spiritual forces that hated him as a Christian, a Husband, and a Father.

There are spirits at work in the world that are utterly ambivalent towards the cause of republicans and democrats, of conservatives and liberals. These spirits will aid and assist, or confuse and distract anyone to frustrate the plans they oppose.

These spirits reveled at the thought of the death and corruption of Adam and Eve, and rejoiced in the spilt blood of Abel. They seek to corrupt and tarnish the image of God in man, and they saw a particular threat in the exemplary form of Charlie Kirk.

I had not paid much attention to Charlie prior to this week. I had moved on from the political scene a long time ago; making the U-shaped journey from right to left and back again. Part of the reason was the cynicism and insincerity I encountered on both sides. Everyone tries to use you for their cause, none of them have our best interests in mind. It was only when my understanding of the gospel was reattached to the root of God’s first words in Genesis that my life began to make sense, and I could see the path forward.

Charlie, ten years younger than me, came to recognize the goodness of that life before I did, pursuing the goodness of marriage and fatherhood at an early age. He should have had decades longer to speak the truth of that message, in the fair and respectful way that he did so well. But his life was not his own. It was bought with a price; and he lived as such. Indeed, it was not Charlie who lived, but Christ who lived through him. Everything He had belonged to Christ, his organization, his family, his life - his blood. His blood is Christ’s blood, which speaks a better word than the blood of righteous Abel.

Charlie counted the cost of following Christ. He would have gladly given his life for the sake of another. My prayer is that his killer would come to know the God that Charlie served, so that the words of Joseph might echo through eternity in Charlie’s voice: “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

In her impassioned speech, Charlie’s widow Erika said that if he ever ran for office, his priority would have been to revive the American family, citing Ephesians 5:25 as one of his favorite verses:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,”

There are many ways in which Charlie’s life and accomplishments were far superior to my own. But there is one point of similarity. He spoke the truth with courage as a father, and a husband, for the sake of his wife and his children. I for one am more convinced than ever that this is my duty as a father, and the duty of all fathers who love their families.

We are not all called to martyrdom; but we are all called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices- to live a life that is not our own; to live life in the fullness of joy, of excellence, of courage. It is a life lived in service of those we love. The result of such living is metamorphosis; radical transformation, the renewal of the mind– “that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Charlie sought and discerned the will of God. He found what is good, in marriage, fatherhood, and service and he lived it. He put his life on the line, accepting the cost of service. Now he has been perfected, standing before his savior.

Charlie’s death has radicalized me once again, and that radicalization will continue.

May it continue in the lives of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

May we follow his example, not to pick up stones in anger, but to lay down our lives.

May we raise up seed for our fallen brother.

May his hope for our nation, the revival of the family, become a prophecy fulfilled.

May our transformation be radical.

I also recorded a video including some of these thoughts. You can watch it here:

Tectonic School is an idea about how Churches and Christian businesses can better equip and raise up men who will answer the call of God to strengthen and rebuild our decaying communities. It’s aimed at reintegrating the various aspects of modern life to restore a cohesive vision of what it means to be made in the image of God. The goal is to reclaim the forgotten wisdom that caused Christendom to flourish, while adapting to an uncertain future.

It’s a project I am working on as someone who feels the pressure of balancing a career, a growing family, and a calling to live as a light in a world of darkness. It’s born out of the wisdom I learned on construction sites, where ideals of perfection must take a backseat to getting things done. Sometimes you have to find a way to fix a problem with whatever you have on hand.

Embracing this ethos has not only helped in my own spiritual life, but it has allowed me to succeed in ministry and discipleship, in ways that are far more effective than the methods suggested by experts. It’s allowed me to publish a book, released as “rough drafts” that might never have seen the light of day, had I waited for permission or approval beforehand. By allowing my mistakes and uncertainties to be visible, I hope to encourage others to take risks and try things out.

In that same vein, I have formulated 10 core principles of the Tectonic School. These principles are not set in stone, but they reflect a prototype of something better, that will come through the feedback and experience of trying to live it out:

The Ten Principles Of Tectonic School

1. The Centrality of Jesus as a Tekton

The name Tectonic School comes from the Gospel’s description of Jesus as a tekton, the Greek word for a craftsman, often translated as carpenter. Our concept of plate tectonics comes from the same root, as our continents sit on foundations likened to those laid down by a tekton.

At the heart of this principle is a conviction that these details are not coincidental, but deeply significant. Not only is Jesus the Tekton who laid down the foundations of our world, but His embodied experience as a Tekton raised in the house of Joseph is an intentional aspect of His incarnation. This speaks to the role that work in the material world plays in our maturation to godliness.

This idea is also reflected in his choice of disciples, who came from a wide variety of backgrounds, reflecting different aspects of creative effort needed for the coming kingdom. This leads directly to the second principle;

2. The Work of Creation is Ongoing

This principle stems from the understanding that the establishment of a new covenant was not about doing away with former things, but bringing them into their intended fullness. The Great Commission is seen as a continuation and extension of the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:27

This conviction stems from the fact that work is a good and intentional part of God’s original plan, and that the increasing difficulty of work that resulted from sin was not a punishment, but a means through which God helps us recognize our finite nature, and our need for redemption.

It also means recognizing and recovering the telos of creation, the purpose for which God created the world, which helps us understand why He made it work the way it does. That telos is centered on people.

3. People are the Purpose

This principle recognizes that humanity is the crown jewel of God’s creation, formed in His image for the purpose of knowing and enjoying Him. Recognizing this purpose is key to understanding the ministry of Jesus and our role in His kingdom.

This means that the end goal of our work is not to produce things, but rather to become people that reflect the image of God. This principle is seen in two aspects of Jesus ministry that run contrary to the practices of our current day. The first is Jesus’s use of an apprenticeship model to train disciples. The second was his practice of selecting and calling disciples to grow into potential, rather than having them compete for opportunities.

4. Metaphorical Understanding Requires Practical Knowledge

Jesus showed his value for ordinary people not only by selecting disciples from a variety of backgrounds, but by teaching the people in parables that spoke to their own experiences. The people who understood the realities of fishing, farming, building and baking were able to grasp the truth that eluded the spiritual elites.

The church has held onto the spiritual lessons contained with these teachings. However, as our modern world has changed, ordinary people are no longer familiar with the mundane realities on the other side of the metaphor. Therefore, learning about things like raising sheep or planting seeds are necessary to recover the depth of Jesus’ teachings.

Once we grasp the wisdom contained within these physical practices, we can begin to translate those lessons properly into the different types of work practiced in our modern world.

5. The Centrality of Understanding Family

Among the many forgotten contexts of Jesus’ teaching, the greatest need is a recovery of our understanding of family. The Bible uses the metaphorical relationships of father and son, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters to explain our relationship with God and with each other.

Reassessing the purpose of marriage, parenthood, and brotherhood is of vital importance, and understanding these relationships should be encouraged as a means of understanding our relationship with God. This means recovering a concept of norms & exceptions that causes us to stop and consider our choices in light of God’s purpose for our lives, rather than our own preferences.

6. Embodied Work Leads to an Integrated Life

This principle is meant to help us live up to Jesus’ command that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. As our lives are increasingly lived online, we have become disconnected from the purpose and value of developing our bodies, and our relational skills.

Many of the problems of modern life can be remedied by learning how to work in a physical environment with real people, and practicing such labors as a spiritual discipline. Recognizing the importance of every aspect of life will produce a deep understanding of the sacred nature of God’s creation.

7. Competence and Character over Specialization and Efficiency

This principle builds upon the people-centered purpose of work, pushing back on practices that prioritize efficiency and output over everything else. Dividing tasks into increasingly specialized roles robs people of opportunities to grow, and leaves communities vulnerable to unknown crises.

Investment into the competence of people by allowing them to try new things transforms mistakes into opportunities, builds loyalty and trust, and creates an environment for future innovation. Developing character increases our capacity for trust, fostering the spirit of cooperation that makes communities resilient. Preparing people to step into new challenges with intention strengthens an organization throughout, and allows key figures to share the burden of leadership.

8. Building Interdisciplinary Character

This principle stems from the way God uses individuals in multiple roles to further His Kingdom. Jesus was both tekton and teacher; Paul used tentmaking as a means to disciple. Integrating the wisdom of their trades, along with the relational experience of being husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, and friends allows followers of Christ to reach a wider variety of people, and solve a greater range of problems.

This principle extends to the way we read scripture, and interact with different Christian traditions. Instead of focusing on who is right or wrong, we should seek to understand the reasons why others do things differently, recognizing the advantages of such distinctions. It also means understanding and embracing the temporal aspect of our work; sometimes spears are made from pruning hooks, but swords can be turned back into plowshares as well.

9. Constructive Non-Compliance

This principle requires us to look closely at the world in which we live, to determine where and how worldly authorities are suppressing the growth of God’s kingdom, and how best to proceed. It invites us to consider lessons like Jesus’ parable of the shrewd manager, (Luke 16) and his instruction to “not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

This principle applies to both the resistance of unjust commandments (such as Daniel 3) and the seizure of opportunities created with ill intentions. If Jesus does not condemn the man who finds a treasure buried in a field for not bringing it to the attention of the current landowner, Christians should not feel guilty about using tax incentives to build up communities from which the corrupt intended to extract wealth. This also extends to our judicious use of new technologies,

At the same time, our acts of non-compliance should be applied judiciously, being wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves. Everything should be done in a way that bears the fruit of the spirit, against which there is no law, and balanced by a determination not to resist evil with evil.

10. Recovering Purposeful Rest

This principle takes into consideration the rhythms of rest that are woven into the fabric of creation. It recognizes that working against these rhythms is as counterproductive as working against God in any other area. It is an affirmation of the belief that encouraging a work culture that prioritizes proper rest will be more productive in the long run, especially in achieving the goals of a people centered purpose.

It is also a principle that is important for Churches. Remembering that man was not created for the sabbath, but the sabbath for man, Churches should be cognizant of what they ask of volunteers who may not receive the proper rest working in our modern economy. Therefore, the services provided should be focused on building up the people within our community, avoiding the same temptations that present themselves in places of business.

Lavish grace and generosity should be viewed as investments into our future that produce returns in the form of healthier families, and happier communities. Rooted in a belief that the community of the new covenant should be a place of welcome and rest, the freedom afforded us should result in more rest, and not less.

This freedom invites us to consider the purpose behind the ceremonial laws we are no longer bound to, and integrate them into the rhythms of our lives. This includes the feast of tabernacles, a week-long celebration of abundance in which the outsiders are invited to participate in the community, which should inform our idea of evangelism, and the year of Jubilee, in which debts are cancelled

As I said, these principles are not set in stone, they are plans to be workshopped in the real world, but I think the essence of what is there reflects the needs of the future. Like most of my work, they came through the trial and error of writing, and working in the real world. As I continue to work things out, I am also sharing my more experimental thoughts on a personal blog, where I recently wrote about some experiments with AI, and I cover other things of a slightly more controversial (or simply random) nature. I try to keep this one more “professional”, but it’s all an experiment, and sometimes I expand the range of topics here as well.

If you are interested in what I am trying to do here, and would like to help out, you can support my effort by becoming a paid subscriber. This is not my full time job, but the support goes towards things like hiring a babysitter so my wife can help me in my efforts. There are a few paid posts in the archive, though I plan to share most things publicly for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for reading!

“I believe that our business is actually more complex than anyone understands.”

Netflix’ documentary series WWE: Unreal promises to reveal long held secrets about the inner workings of the wrestling business. But how do we interpret the revelations coming from an industry built on shaping narratives? The prophetic truth of Paul Levesque's opening confession stems from the exhaustive nature of the word anyone, from which even the speaker cannot escape.

For hardcore fans, Unreal is more of an acknowledgement than a disclosure of wrestling’s inner workings. It is a series meant to explain the oft asked question: If it’s not real, why does it matter? Not only does it succeed in making its case, it goes beyond initiating newcomers, by signifying the dawn of a new era, pointing us away from cynicism, back towards enjoyment, and even wonder.

A History of Wrestling’s Revelations of Reality

The details of the wrestling business have been openly discussed for decades. Secrets once limited to underground newsletters called “dirt sheets” reached escape velocity as YouTube and other platforms gave voice to obsessive fans and former wrestlers, much as Gutenberg’s printing press spread the words of the protestant reformers.

One might assume that such disclosures would lead to wrestling’s demise. But the success of wrestling has always depended on staying a step ahead of the audience; the creative genius of its innovators lies in anticipating the trajectory of cultural change. Unreal is the latest in a series of moves aimed at broadening the demographic appeal of wrestling, and a meaningful one, rooted in historical precedent.

The scripted nature of professional wrestling was openly acknowledged all the way back in 1997, when Vince McMahon declared that the World Wrestling Federation would “no longer insult the intelligence” of its fans. This speech, titled “The Cure for the Common Show” marked the beginning of The Attitude Era, a shift towards edgier programming that recaptured the attention of a maturing demographic that had outgrown the comic book superstars of yesteryear.

But rather than clarifying borders between fact and fiction, the lines began to blur. The WWE fully embraced “the Postmodern Anti-Story”, described by Paul Anleitner as a subversion of the guiding stories that had long served to shape our narrative identity. In the turn towards “reality based” programming, Kayfabe, the name given for the traditional system that protected wrestling’s secrets, was not truly exposed, but dissolved. In its place, wrestling’s inner workings, including the illegal and immoral conduct of its operators, remained obscured through a more subversive methodology I call grayfabe, where fiction serves to provide plausible deniability.

While the embrace of violent and hedonic extremes pushed the WWE to unprecedented heights of popularity, the relentless pace of unending story lines accelerated their race to the bottom. Hitting the limits of excess led to an eventual return to family friendly content (starting with 2008’s PG era), and on and on to the current era of Paul Levesque, where everything is being brought out into the light. By highlighting the humanity of WWE’s stars and their families, Unreal signals a continuation of the WWE’s turn away from cynicism, towards a hopeful future. More importantly, it indicates that the seedy elements of McMahon’s legacy are finally being swept away.

Why Maintain the Illusion?

When the history of wrestling’s carnival roots and deceptive practices are taken into consideration with the positive aspects of disclosure, the value of wrestling’s scripted format remains unclear: If it’s not real, why does it matter? Televised wrestling lacks the immersive quality of blockbuster cinema, and the genuine competition of legitimate combat sports.

These forms of entertainment may appear as wrestling’s closest analogues, but in reality, it bears much more in common with magic. Like wrestling, magic has a long history of secrets, maintained in multiple layers. But unlike wrestling’s facade of legitimacy, everyone knows that magic is not real. Its enduring success lies in the challenge it presents the audience: You know I’m trying to trick you, but are you clever enough to figure it out?

The first secret is quickly discovered by every novice who picks up a magician’s kit. Sleight of hand, the mechanism that undergirds everything else, is based on hard work and practice. This is the same truth recognized by anyone who decides to lace up their wrestling boots and jump in a ring.

The second secret is much harder to grasp. It is not based on studying tricks, but on understanding people. The key to success as a magician lies in their ability to recognize the perceptions and expectations of the audience, always remaining one step ahead.

In this regard, both magic and wrestling faced similar problems regarding the rise of cynical anti-stories, and they responded in similar fashions. Within a month of Vince McMahon’s 1997 disclosure, the public got its first glimpse into the art of legerdemain, with Fox’s Breaking the Magician's Code. Magicians realized the folly in fighting to keep secrets. Fear of being discovered draws attention to what they try to hide. The magician's game is built on innovation, and misdirection. The best way to keep one secret is to reveal another.

The results for the world of stage magic have been spectacular; it has flourished in the internet age. Everything is an open secret, except for what remains hidden on the cutting edge. The short shelf life of a new trick pushes performers to new heights.

The potential return for this kind of risky generosity is on full display in Justin Willman’s most recent special, Magic Lover, in which he plays with the audience’s skepticism, inviting them to guess how the tricks are done, then leaving them mystified as he guesses their predictions, and confirms their suspicions, before revealing that these too were illusions.

For those who remain unconvinced, a secondary means of misdirection, comedy, works to diffuse the most stubborn spectators. He views both the believers and the doubters as necessary participants in moving the craft forward. “I’m excited to hopefully cultivate a new batch of cynics and magic lovers and bring them along for the ride.”

Even the staunchest critic can’t help but smile when they see the reactions of children invited to assist his act. This reveals something profound about human nature. We were not meant for reductionistic worldviews. We are made for wonder.

Storied Misdirection - What Unreal Reveals

Wrestling performs its illusions in a different realm, the realm of stories. The reality based documentary is simply one more way to tell a story. It can be used to deceive. People are readily convinced by documentaries, without a thought given to the hours of opposing footage left on the cutting room floor. One could dwell on what was left out of Unreal, afraid of being deceived. But to do so would cause us to miss out on a story well worth pondering.

The series begins with the much loved champion Cody Rhodes, his wife Brandi and daughter Liberty, who thinks her father is a professional dancer. After taking a look back at Cody’s Wrestlemania 40 victory, the first episode centers around the debut of RAW on Nextlix, and sets the stage for the rest of the series on the road to Wrestlemania 41.

We are introduced to several other popular wrestlers whose stories will be integral to the main event, including Jey Uso and Rhea Ripley. In each instance, we learn their government names, their history in wrestling, and personal details about their lives and families. The second episode introduces more characters, including the creative team of writers and producers, as they decide who will participate in the Royal Rumble.

The third episode follows the trajectories of several women’s wrestlers. It’s an obvious move aimed at enlarging their female audience, but rather than focusing on the “look how far we’ve come and yet so far to go” narrative of embittered feminism, the femininity and vulnerability of the women are highlighted. Chelsea Green is someone who takes her role as a very silly character very seriously. Bianca Belair’s in-ring talent is matched by her skills as a fashion designer and seamstress who makes each of her costumes by hand. We see a group of women praying together privately, before fighting publicly.

The wrestlers are encouraged to incorporate elements of reality and improvisation into their performance, but in the blurring of fact and fiction, the boundaries of propriety sometimes evade the professionals. One wrestler was chastised backstage for going too far in her smack-talk, improvising lines about her opponent's divorce.

The show also highlights how sophisticated the inner workings of the industry have become. The producers are quite aware of how the public will react to events and elements of the story; sometimes using this to their advantage, staging events that will only be captured by the cell phone videos of fans, trusting in the algorithms to blow up a random person’s social media feed. But when something needs to remain a secret, the producers exercise extreme discretion.

The penultimate episode, The Heel Turn, shows how the biggest secrets are protected. Even the television directors are kept in the dark. As the scripted material comes to an end, Paul Levesque jumps on the headset, guiding them shot by shot through an exchange between Cody Rhodes, the Rock, and John Cena after The Elimination Chamber event. Levesque tells them not to bleep an upcoming f-word; paying the FCC fines is the cost of making great TV.

Cody’s shocking betrayal at the hands of squeaky clean John Cena set the stage for the big payoff at the Wrestlemania, the subject of the final episode. We hear the writers discussing some of the details yet to be determined, as each of the principle storylines wrap up. We see the impact of victory, as we watch Jey Uso win the championship through the eyes of his son. Even though the outcome of the match was predetermined, it’s a sign that the company has placed their trust in Jey.

We also see the integral role of the losers. Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, and CM Punk accomplish as much in a loss by helping build up the next generation of wrestlers. For Punk, achieving his goal of being in WrestleMania’s main event, even as a loser, is more meaningful than simply winning another title. He’s not just a star, but the maker of stars.

The show’s final moments are focused on the match between Cody and Cena. In contrast to the excitement of the previous night’s triple threat match, the contest for the belt is a throwback to an older style of wrestling. Less athletic, more symbolic, with a slower pace telegraphing the meaning behind each move. It’s a shocking conclusion, with Cena winning through the dirty tricks of a classic heel.

At its conclusion, Levesque tells us that the Championship match was never going to be as exciting as some of the other matches, or the prior year’s event. He took a risk by shifting the momentum. They may have lost some casual fans that jumped on the Cody bandwagon the year before. He did it for the long-term success of the company, knowing that if a dozen or even a hundred casual fans are turned away, the puzzling details catch the attention of curious minds who perceive something deeper going on. It’s a snare designed to hook the future wrestlers, writers, and producers who will keep wrestling one step ahead of the curve.

I Believe …

The creative endeavor of professional wrestling relies on more than the talents of the stars, writers, and production teams to make memorable moments. As we learn throughout the series, these decisions are not made in a purely calculated fashion. We can point to parallels in Shakespeare, Homer, and Joseph Campbell to analyze why the characters and plotlines work, but the masters don’t rely on theory.

They work through feel and intuition, responding to creative instincts, working in concert and with the ever changing spirit of the age, and the unplanned nature of real life events. This requires an openness to what comes that stands in stark contrast to the rigged matches of wrestling’s carnival roots.

When Paul Levesque says “I believe that our business is actually more complex than anyone understands” not only does he include himself among the mass of fans, he reveals a hopeful expectation of an optimistic future. Such openness, regardless of stated belief, is best described as faith.

Michael Hayes, a former wrestler turned producer, put it this way:

“I was blessed. There is no doubt this is what God wanted me to do with my life. He helps me a lot. You wouldn’t believe how many ideas I get from him. He really likes wrestling. He really does. I’m not smart enough to come up with all this sh*t. Somebody puts that sh*t in my head.”1

This shouldn’t be surprising. God centered his plan of redemption on the original heel, a trickster turned prince through a long night of wrestling. Is it any more of a stretch to consider that he might turn a crooked confidence game into a new means of spreading the story of redemption?

The Story Continues…

Unreal was released just days before Summer Slam, WWE’s second-biggest premium event, for the first time expanded to two nights. References to the documentary were made throughout the event, in an attempt to retain the attention of newcomers. The conscious disclosure of the fabricated nature of John Cena’s heel turn was perhaps the best way to remove lingering doubts of cynicism.

When the switch in a character’s moral alignment is obscured by kayfabe, the reality of the person remains unknown. Consider the recently departed Hulk Hogan. Kids who looked up to the Hulkster in the 80’s may have recovered from the initial shock of his turn towards villainy when they learned the truth about wrestling’s scripted nature; but those doubts would only intensify with the revelations of his seedy private life.

When he lingered in the business, demanding to play the hero well into his 50’s, he did so at the cost of younger talent’s health and success. Towards the end, it wasn’t even clear if he could tell where Hulk Hogan ended, and Terry Bollea began.

Such lingering doubts would have been a black mark on the legacy of John Cena, the world record holder for wishes granted through the make-a-wish foundation. Instead, we get to see that the heel was the character, not the reality.

Indeed, Cena’s heel ended as soon as the documentary was released; he reclaimed his good guy status just in time to face Cody mano-a-mano, face to face, in the final match of Summer Slam, a grueling effort devoid of tricks, in which the torch was well and truly passed from one hero to the next.

This was close enough to the eventual outcome I predicted when my own curiosity was piqued by the curious outcome of Wrestlemania. It also confirms my greater suspicions regarding the future of professional wrestling.

There will always be elements of the story that keep people guessing. Staying one step ahead is the creative passion of those who run the business. But there are many elements that will no longer be hidden, including the public lives of the people who participate in the wrestling business.

Keeping the fans on their toes in the internet age will require a level of discipline that doesn’t allow for seedy underbellies and double lives. The requirements to be a WWE superstar will extend beyond the in-ring abilities, and on screen charisma. It will require a lifestyle that can bear up under the scrutiny of child-like hope and wonder. Being a person of integrity, morality, and character will become just as necessary as looking the part.

If the fans uphold this standard, cheering for the good, and booing the bad, the producers will meet the demand; and the surprises that come along will be quite welcome.

Featured in this article: Paul Anleitner’s substack, Reading the Zeitgeist - be sure to subscribe!

Reading the Zeitgeist | with Paul Anleitner

Why Didn’t Your Grandparents Deconstruct?

Why have so many young people “deconstructed” and left Christianity in recent years…

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9 months ago · 186 likes · 37 comments · Paul Anleitner

“Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?”

The inquiry of Jesus’ disciples provides a glimpse at just how tenuous things can feel behind the scenes.

After a triumphal entry, and a series of astounding rhetorical victories over his detractors, Jesus had retreated to a mountain in solitude, a long established pattern throughout his ministry. The disciples knew that Jesus had come to disrupt the status quo, and they fully expected the expulsion of the corrupt regime that currently occupied the Temple. But they were not prepared for the extremity of his proclamation, “not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

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The thought of the Most Holy Place reduced to rubble was disturbing enough for the disciples to approach their master during his time of rest. Their confidence was shaken, and they felt completely unprepared for the uncertainties that lay ahead. How can anyone prepare for an unknown future?

This was no surprise to Jesus, who knew the impact his words would have on them. He used the opportunity to deliver a message that his unusually focused audience would not forget. This dialogue, known as the Olivet discourse, was designed to lead them away from reliance on authority, towards the development of their own competence.

Through candid discussion, Jesus prepared his disciples for an uncertain prelude to a very certain future. He warns them not to be distracted by the signs of perennial upheaval– false christs, wars, famines, earthquakes, apostasy and persecution. Jesus frames these things as tests, leading to a greater tribulation, culminating in a cosmic catastrophe, centered on Judea, as the prophets foretold.

Jesus’ Teaches Competence in Discernment

As Jesus concludes his frank discussion of what is to come, he leads the disciples through a series of parables. These stories, full of subtle nuance, invite us to meditate on the fullness of the scenarios. They give us the opportunity to consider a multitude of alternatives beyond the contrasts provided. This process, which has been ongoing among believers for millennia, teaches those who wrestle with the words of Jesus to develop discernment, wisdom, and competence. But a greater insight is produced when we examine these stories in their unfolding context. Each successive story shifts in frame and scale, adding complexity to the characters and circumstances, comparing and even contradicting certain aspects of the ones that came before.

“The parable of the fig tree” (Mt. 24:32-35) teaches that the signs of the times are as obvious as the emerging leaves of spring.

“No one knows the day or hour” (Mt. 24:36-44) contrasts this by pointing at the suddenness of natural disasters.

“The faithful servant and the evil servant” (Mt. 24:45-51) praises diligence and conscientiousness, while condemning laziness, theft, violence, and drunkenness.

“The Wise and Foolish Virgins” (Mt. 25:1-13) praises the wise virgins who do not share their oil with the foolish virgins who neglected to bring extra.

“The Parable of the Talents” (Mt. 25:14-30) condemns the servant who feared losing his master’s investment more than those who risked it to turn a profit.

“The Son of Man Will Judge the Nations” (Mt. 25:31-46) divides the populace into sheep, who are praised for giving to those in need, with the goats, who are condemned for withholding.

This progression invites us to acknowledge the many ways in which the facts of reality present themself. At first obvious, then unpredictable, complex, deceptive, and subversive. Filtering our perception of our current time and place through these various scenarios forces us to dig deep in search of the truth.

We can ask ourselves, why was the servant with one talent so afraid to invest it? He certainly misunderstood the master, but did he also misunderstand something about himself? Did he have doubts as to his entrepreneurial abilities? What would have happened if he had invested it, but failed to make a profit? Would he still have been condemned? Questions such as these challenge us to rightly discern the nature of our present circumstances, as the actions praised in one parable are sometimes condemned in the next, we must go beyond simple moral principles to examine the context.

Two thousand years of history have certainly proved Jesus right, as the tremors and birth pangs preceding an ultimate apocalypse continue to ripple through time and space. As predicted, many people have been lost or fallen away. Through plagues, famines, natural disasters, political and economic upheavals, God has preserved a remnant of faithful believers. In each instance, the teachings and practices faithfully preserved formed a bedrock for a new heavens and a new earth. Many churches have gone extinct, but Christian traditions from every epoch remain, nearly unchanged, a testament to the various iterations of the faith that adapted to meet a crisis in a particular time and place.

In hindsight, the triumph of orthodoxy seemed inevitable, but at various times and places, it seemed that all the smartest thinkers were backing the heretics: Gnostics, Arians, Montanists, Donatists, and Cathars. Some were stamped out, while others planted the seeds of ideas that bloomed in later movements, minorities that refined and reformed the greater body through righteous opposition.

In a given cultural moment, it took a particular set of insights to recognize the pathway through the mire. Discernment helps us recognize the frame in which we live, while wisdom provides us with understanding of what must be done. But the execution of that plan requires another skill, often overlooked; the one Jesus sought to develop within his followers on the mount of olives– competence.

Identifying Competence

Competence, in the broadest sense, the ability to do “something” successfully or efficiently, still exists in the general population, but it has been relegated to trivial pursuits. What is lacking is the generalized ability to solve novel problems and navigate unfamiliar circumstances. This is what needs to be developed in preparation of an unknown future.

Competence, much like wisdom, is acquired two ways. It can manifest in the form of innate skills and abilities, producing the type of superstar performers beloved as “natural” talents. This form of competence is often limited to a specific domain. Competence can also be developed through discipline and effort.

A person’s competence at a given skill is tied to the limits of natural talent and the amount of discipline applied. The most competent athletes are those who harness both, rare individuals like Bo Jackson, contrasted by both talented prospects who skate by on talent alone, and hard-working overachievers that achieve success in spite of physical deficits.

The limits of natural talent are only discovered in contexts designed to exploit them. The Bo Jackson’s of another era might have been celebrated as the farmer who could plow a field faster than anyone else, or chop down the most trees (Paul Bunyan?); a novelty within a small community. The reward of adding discipline was wealth and success for the talented, and survival for those less blessed.

Without a cultural need, natural talents can remain hidden. Physical strength and stature are readily apparent, an external indicator of a potential for excellence in certain domains that increase opportunities. Talents less readily observed are only discovered within contexts that allow exploration. It was easy to spot Dikembe Mutombo’s basketball potential in the rural bush, but the success of his transition was aided by an intelligence and discipline that he originally aimed at becoming a doctor.

This is one of the great benefits of cultural development. When agriculture frees up time and effort required for securing basic necessities, creative and intellectual pursuits can be explored, increasing the quality of life for individuals. This is the basic argument for increasing technological innovation. The negative consequences of such progress are often unforeseen, and are sometimes catastrophic; but once they are overcome, people accept that the benefits of progress outweigh the costs. This is why no serious thinkers are seeking a return to a pre-industrial society, despite the problems we are still working through.

There are many fears surrounding our current technological frontiers of AI, increased automation, and bio-medical innovations. This fuels a desire for the return to a simpler age; for a minority, perhaps the time before the internet, but not the time before air conditioning, or electricity. People that pretend to want that life can afford the luxury of larping at the high end of pre-industrial culture, and we only know about it from their YouTube channels. Their unconscious survival instincts remain at rest, trusting in satellite networks, rescue helicopters, and modern medical facilities. These are valid concerns that need to be addressed, but our societal crises are fueled by a bigger problem.

The Failure of Relying on Institutions

Perhaps the greatest blessing of living in times of genuine crisis is that almost everyone is pushed to discover the limits of their natural talents. Once the point of failure is discovered, discipline and innovation come to the fore. This is the key insight of the cyclical maxim “hard times make strong men, strong men make good times”, but it comes at a cost, described in the other half of the saying, “Good times make weak men, weak men make hard times.” On and on it goes; but it’s only true to an extent.

History has shown us that the good times, created by strong men, can last for several generations. When their efforts are put towards the development of technology and institutions designed to perpetuate and extend their labor. This can be observed quite easily in old homes. A well built house will last for several hundred years. To inherit such a home means that someone does not need to struggle through the “hard time” of living without shelter. Those who enjoy building homes can do so as laborers meeting the needs of a growing population.

But if the population remains stagnant, or begins to decline, the skills of homebuilding will need to be rediscovered once the older buildings begin to decay. This creates a hard time, leading to the rediscovery of competence, but it comes at a high price.

Fortunately, great men with insight into the human condition devoted some of their time towards the development of institutions that would preserve wisdom, and encourage the development of skill and competence, even in good times. Schools, guilds, and competitive endeavors direct our energy into personal development, simulating the “hard times” of a crisis towards more specific ends. The exploration of new frontiers channels the energy of conquest towards a positive end, reducing the temptation to create hard times for others.

But without stewardship and reformation, these institutions can fall prey to the cycle of decay. Good schools that created strong men can gradually become weak schools that make weak men. They continue to bestow signifiers of competence, in the form of credentials, while depriving students of the challenges necessary to develop real skill. In turn, a populace that has long benefited from trustworthy leaders places their trust in these weak men, because they have not developed competence in discernment.

The institutions meant to identify and cultivate the skills and talents of our population are severely damaged. Schools still function to identify top athletes, and exceptional talents in a few highly sought fields, but they are failing to provide a navigable transition to adult life for a significant portion of students, including a majority of young men.

Likewise, colleges do more to perpetuate their own existence than encourage innovation or adaptation to shifting circumstances. Several top universities are now approaching or even exceeding a 1:1 ratio of administrators to undergrads. These institutions seem designed to sort for incompetence, to foster its development, and defend its virtue.

These symptoms of institutional decay reflect an inversion of values, between the center and the margin of society. As culture shifts towards collectivism, the incentives for personal responsibility diminish, while learned helplessness is rewarded. What happened to cause this trend? We have failed to properly discern and apply the wisdom of the olivet parables.

How Jesus Message has been Corrupted

Among the parables delivered on the Mount of Olives, the one most commonly cited is the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is reduced to the single moral principle that the righteous are those who give to the needy, indiscriminately. This seemingly straightforward lesson seems to justify all manner of charitable laws and organizations, while condemning excluding immigrants, or cutting funding to NGOs.

But when this moral imperative to give freely is applied to the parable of the talents that precedes it, we end up condemning the master, and defending the foolish servant, in direct opposition to the judgement of Jesus. The same application condemns the wise virgins who did not share their oil with the foolish ones. It affirms the message of “The Faithful Servant and the Evil Servant” in theory; but experience shows that most institutions are run by, or tolerate evil servants.

Jesus' message that “No one knows the Day or Hour” is ignored by the culture, while the Church has flipped it on its head. Instead of recognizing that those “taken away” are the wicked ones swept up in the flood, Christians have sidelined themselves in anticipation of a rapture. Which leads to the first, and final, inversion– the parable of the Fig Tree. “When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know summer is near.”

Jesus invites us to recognize the spiritual realities unfolding around us by comparing them to the obvious and reliable information of the natural world, acquired through the senses. While the latter parables invite us to probe more deeply, it implies that deception and subversion are the exception, and not the rule.

Yet recent memories of the covid crisis prove that when we are told to doubt our senses in favor of “expertise”, Christians fare no better than those who do not believe. People offered little pushback when they were instructed to forsake fellowship with other believers, to abandon elderly relatives, and deny their loved ones physical affection, when so many longed for it within their own souls.

The simplification of Jesus’ teaching to “social justice”, and its prescribed execution - “trust the experts”, resulted in a pattern of emotional manipulation peddled by both the experts, and the conspiracy theorists. On all sides, people are told they are incapable of developing their own competence and discernment, and must rely on others to guide them. “Trust no one, except for us.” Fear paralyzed the populace, and glued them to their screens. Whether they were watching MSNBC or InfoWars, the result was the same.

This pattern ought to be of special concern to Christians, who are finding different reasons to leave one denomination or tradition for another; some seeking the stability of older institutions, while others embrace the start-from-scratch mentality of newer movements. But those aspects of tradition created by men, regardless of how smart, strong, or good they may have been, are capable of corruption and decay. Even if they’ve lasted for millennia.

History Demands a Return to Personal Competence

We live in an epochal moment, when a mere remnant of the true church may be preserved. Yet this crisis is unlike the crises of centuries prior, when survival dictated the pattern of orthodoxy, the discovery of correct beliefs contrasting heresy. In those days, people sought teaching that would give them permission to live in opposition to the Kingdom.

The Church that emerges from our current woes will be recognized for defining the boundaries of orthopraxy, the embrace of proper practice, regardless of doctrinal statements susceptible to misinterpretation and linguistic drift. Tribes, tongues, and labels will not define the body that survives our current trials. Rather it will be composed of those who cultivate and bear lasting fruit. This is of course, the true meaning of the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Nietzsche criticized Christianity for its exultation of the weak, and while he may have meant it as a warning, it played a role in sparking the cruelty of World War 2. The meaning of the maxim of “weak men make bad times” was twisted, and so the “bad times” made a twisted version of “Strong men” This resulted in the virtue of competency being directed towards the idol of race supremacy; right action, wrong goal. The West sought to refutate Nazism through regime enforced compassion. The wrong action, coercion, was directed towards the right goal.

This expansion of “rights” penalized competency and responsibility, and eroded the structures that fostered their growth. The right action was condemned for the wrong reasons. Weakness and oppression, symptoms of circumstance, were redefined as virtues; regardless of cause or aim. The result is a resurgent outcry of blood and soil, only now it is being demanded as a right, by petulant children embracing coercion to advance their aim. The wrong action, directed at the wrong goals.

This cycle of inversions has left one clear path out, the embrace of competency in the pursuit of compassion. Those with the strength to take care of themselves must lift up the weak, not to enable them to remain a burden, but to make them competent, so they can do the same for others.

Curiously enough, this is the context in which Jesus’ parable would have been understood. When the disciples heard the words of his parable, they would have recognized it as a twist on a popular text from the time:

“They sold me into slavery; the Lord of all set me free. I was taken into captivity; the strength of His hand came to my aid. I was overtaken by hunger; the Lord himself fed me generously. I was alone, and God came to help me. I was in weakness, and the Lord showed his concern for me. I was in prison, and the Savior acted graciously in my behalf. I was in bonds, and he loosed me; Falsely accused, and he testified in my behalf. Assaulted by bitter words of the Egyptians, and he rescued me. A slave, and he exalted me.” - The Testament of Joseph 1:5-7

These words are spoken by Joseph, the son of Jacob, in which he praises God for delivering him from the unearned miseries of his circumstances. In each instance, God intervened, allowing him to survive, only to be tested again, and again. But the result of God’s compassion was Joseph’s competence - ultimately employed to perform the task no other man had the wisdom or ability to perform.

Jesus’ parable takes the role of divine intervention, and places it in the hands of the faithful. Compassion is not meted out by a central welfare system, but by those who have something to spare, and a willingness to share; people who recognize their own relative success, and would gladly receive such kindness if the situation was reversed.

These gestures are investments in an economy of grace, an economy that produces occasional returns that far surpass the normal losses, as in the parable of the sower, where a quarter of the seed produces fruit, but does so at rates of ten, sixty, or a hundredfold. This economy is not like a market economy based on fungible goods, but a personal economy, based on unique, personal investments into unique people.

Finally, these acts of compassion are not just about planting seeds, but about stirring the soil. Each act removes stones and weeds, encouraging future growth. Moments of compassion play a crucial role in the lives of many successful people, including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Oprah Winfrey. In each instance, these stories of personal investment were tied to some potential an investor saw in them, a potential we assume is quite rare. But it is not the potential that is so rare, but the ability to see it, and discern its nature.

Perhaps the greatest competence is recognizing the unique potential in everyone, made in the image of God. To discover this is to understand why the King said “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”

Nearly a decade later, the Millennials he first inspired are approaching middle age, and Peterson’s popularity has begun to wane. As Gen Z enters adulthood, the need for masculine gurus remains, but the quality of role models has greatly diminished. The market that developed in the wake of Peterson’s success has churned out an overwhelming amount of content, some good, and a lot bad.

Amidst the crowd of opportunists and imitators, Rick Walker, and his book, 9 Steps To Build A Meaningful Life, stand apart from the pack. The format might not tip you off; its title is reminiscent of Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, (but 25% more efficient!) It’s a new book advocating for the reading of old books. Its steps are designed to encourage personal growth and responsibility.

But Walker is not a copycat. A self-made man, his enthusiasm for art and literature prove that a PhD. is not required to access ancient wisdom. His experience in business and politics provide insights with real world value. But crucially, Walker’s book has something that even Dr. Peterson’s work lacks– a grasp of virtue that the manosphere struggles to understand; the centrality of mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

I was a bit suspicious when I first encountered Rick Walker. I’ve made it a habit to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Rick seemed like an odd duck among my crowd of friends. For one thing, Rick comes across as a firm-handshake, look-you-straight-in-the-eye, strong-first-impression kind of guy. A perfectly respectable persona– but rarely seen in a digital refugee camp for spiritually deconstructed misfits.

Rick had been the guest on Pastor Paul VanderKlay’s Friday livestream, a slot he secured by dropping the right name; not Dr. Ben Carson, or Rep. Dan Crenshaw – but Grim Griz, the enigmatic gatekeeper of the Broken Clocktower discord server, an online community that filters outsiders through secret language and near-unwatchable YouTube videos.

After sharing his story with Paul, Rick stayed on to endure a gauntlet of questions and tests by regulars of “This Little Corner of the Internet”, as the flotilla of creators and commenters have come to be known. Amongst those Nietzsche labeled “the bungled and the botched”, it’s not your business portfolio that wins you trust, but your wounds. After reading 9 Steps To Build A Meaningful Life, I can say that Rick Walker does indeed fit within this merry band of misfits, and he’s got the scars to prove it.

Rick’s book begins with a familiar story of self-made success; a scrappy tale about buying old watches at yard sales, and reselling to jewelers. Because the folks selling wanted money right now, they were willing to part with their valuables at a low price, low enough to make a decent profit when sold to a discerning buyer– a straightforward example of arbitrage.

“Arbitrage occurs when there is a value inefficiency between two owners or two places. We bought low from an unprofessional in an inefficient market, then sold the watches to collectors who knew their true value was not in sitting in forgotten junk boxes up on shelves.”

This pattern continues throughout the book. Rick leverages his hard-won success to draw the reader in. He highlights achievements that many young men would love to experience; exclusive parties, material success, and the respect and admiration of other competent leaders. But as our investment in Rick’s story grows, he consciously points us away from the trappings of material success, towards higher things:

“This book is about the arbitrage of masterful ideas: taking undervalued and overlooked wisdom and using it to build all that is most valuable in life.”

His first step, Choose One Worthy Enemy, is a practice designed to orient us towards solving problems beyond acquiring wealth. In searching for a worthy foe, one quickly moves beyond the pettiness of business competitors, towards instantiations of evil that truly deserve to be hated, the pervasive lies that crush the spirits of innocents. This is a much needed pushback against our culture's toxic disdain for masculine aggression, where failure to be “nice” is the greatest sin. Rick points out that proper hatred is not evil, but just; as “proper hate is the fulfillment of love when properly directed.”

By framing the right enemy as that which is worthy of proper hatred, we are led directly to the next step - “Aim high. Aiming low is the only sin.” Rick leverages a literal failure in a congressional election into a valuable opportunity to gain wisdom. A strategic choice to attack his biggest rival, (a less than worthy enemy), sullied his own character, destroying his own chance of winning, paving the way to victory for a dark horse candidate who never lost sight of the true goal.

Stories such as these are not uncommon, but Walker brings something to the conversation that pushes us beyond mere grit and perseverance. Masculine gurus preach an embrace of discipline, a determination that pushes through the pain, striving for perfection. But no amount of discipline or effort will bring you to the finish line when you are running on a treadmill.

Such efforts produce the hardened body of an athlete, but even the most athletic bodies eventually wither and decay. The accumulation of wealth cannot prevent the loss of days. The pursuit of status can protect us from being forgotten. Walker’s prescient vision, realized at the peak of success, points us towards the real root of meaning.

This is not just a push towards deeper things– Peterson points out that marriage is deeper and more meaningful than simply having a lot of sex, and that knowing your children is greater than simply siring heirs. These statements are true in the same manner that Michelin cuisine is better than fast food, and the Mona Lisa is more beautiful than a movie poster. In a world of chaos, relative values are easy to define.

But Walker knows the answer to the questions that haunts Jordan Peterson. When people ask the frustrated Peterson, “Do you believe in God?” his response, “What do you mean by God?” reveals a truth not yet discovered, because it is not a question of what, but of who.

Walker has come to a point in his journey where Peterson has not quite arrived. It’s what happens when we receive a mortal wound, a wound that can never heal, a wound that will cost us our life. Those who reach this end, the end of themselves, are powerless to do anything but cry out for help.

And this is where the expert in arbitrage found himself at a profound disadvantage to The Master– Jesus Christ, the one who holds our very life in His hand. Yet remarkably, Christ takes the only thing we have to offer, our wounds, and bears them for us. In exchange, he gives us back our life.

This is the revelation that comes through in Walker’s book. It’s the recognition that our lives are not our own, that we were bought at a price; healed, delivered, redeemed:

“And bending your knee toward the right master, as I discovered, is the only pathway to both revelation and evolution. If it happened to me it can happen to you. Remember that a forgiven man is more perfect than a perfect man who was never forgiven.”

This truth, once grasped, has profound implications for how we live. As Tim Keller observed in one of my favorite clips, “There’s no limit to what He can ask of me.” But if there is no limit to what He can ask, there is also no limit to what He can accomplish through our lives. Rick Walker’s story bears the evidence, making 9 Steps To Build A Meaningful Life a book well worth your time and attention.

Peterson’s descent from relevance, combined with French’s avoidance of Trump indicates one small victory: The boy crisis can no longer be denied. The much bigger problem is the lack of solutions.

The meeting was inspired by French’s NY Times opinion piece, The Democrats’ 20-million-dollar-man problem. it concludes,

“America doesn’t need a left-wing version of Joe Rogan. What it needs is our parents, pastors, teachers and coaches to fill the void in young men’s hearts. Our sons should not have to turn to books or podcasts or social media to hear this simple and powerful message: I like you. I want you to live a good life. Let me show you how.”

That simple message was at the heart of Peterson’s early success. While the culture war issues put him on the map, his sincere conviction drew a loyal following. Peterson’s straightforward advice, immortalized in the phrase “Clean your room” was effective because of his genuine affection and fatherly approval towards young men. For many fans, that simple affirmation put them on a path towards adult success.

But those early success stories only represent the tip of the iceberg; young men with enough going for them that a little encouragement made the difference. Beneath the waterline, masses of young men still struggle to find a way forward.

As Peterson’s influence waned, opportunists saw a lucrative market for masculine gurus, with little regard for the sake of young men. People like Nick Fuentes and the notorious Andrew Tate. But it is still too soon for despair. While he may never match the cultural relevance of his initial success, Peterson is no fool, and his recent actions reflect a growing understanding of the deeper issues at hand.

Joining the Daily Wire limited his reach, cementing the label of right wing extremist in the minds of critics. It was a calculated move against an unstable reliance on YouTube, even if fear of being banned was overblown. But it resulted in programs with lasting value. Those who follow him closely recognize that his exploration of culture war topics has been a journey of genuine inquiry, and genuine mortification with what he discovered.

His other moves, specifically his creation of Peterson Academy, and his involvement in the ARC conference, reflect an understanding of the real problems at hand. But like the rest of Peterson’s work, these institutions remain insubstantial and theoretical, unable to escape the gravity of the establishments they aim to replace.

I believe there are two crucial oversights that explain the impotence of these institutional movements, that if corrected, could go a long way to solving the problems facing young men. One from Peterson, and the other from Evangelical Christians.

Both Peterson and frequent collaborator, Jonathan Pageau, have had negative experiences with Protestants and Evangelicals. Peterson’s criticism is rooted in the compromise of Canadian mainline churches, while Pageau expresses a strong distaste for both the close-minded skepticism of biblicism, and the “Rock Concert and a TED-talk” cliché of performative mega-churches.

Their critiques are valid, and mirrored by many Christians, who fuel tiresome online debates about Peterson’s personal relationship with Jesus. I was guilty of dismissing Peterson for not identifying as a Christian, until I recognized that he was providing something churches were not. Young men rarely hear “I like you. I want you to live a good life. Let me show you how.” from evangelical pastors, a role that seems to attract insecure men, uncomfortable with masculine competency. Even if they affirm young men, their dismissal of role models like Peterson alienates those who look up to them.

The twin failures of Peterson and the Church are exemplified in the story of Paul Rene Nichols. Paul is a talented guy who really took Peterson’s message to heart. He got in shape, secured a good job, and bought his own home. His search for meaning led him to Christianity, and eventually marriage. But Peterson’s advice was not sufficient to protect his relationship from the pervasive influence of a culture that pushes women towards divorce at the first sign of conflict. An economic downturn led to a loss of income, putting an end to his attempts to reconcile.

While he remains grateful for Peterson’s influence, his tragic story illustrates how someone can do everything right, and still fail to overcome the forces of a culture that despises and denigrates men.

Paul embraced Peterson’s thesis of Christianity as the cultural inheritance of Western Civilization, long before his dismissal of “Protestants” in his Message to the Christian Churches. But that dismissal was soon justified by Paul’s experiences. His first foray into Christianity led him to a Charismatic church plant that exemplified many of the worst clichés of Evangelicalism; performativity, overemphasis on experience, disorganization, and infighting. The church eventually split.

This led him to Eastern Orthodoxy, which is gaining appeal among young men for its ordered structure. Paul still affirms it as the superior form of Christianity, but he also reveals the unspoken reality of joining such churches. While theoretically espousing a culture of thick community, these enclaves were built on an infrastructure of old-world ethnic villages, a model that doesn’t translate well to modern life.

Much like every other church in America, their influence is limited to a few hours on Sunday, and their attendees remain modern Westerners. Appeals to authority and tradition eventually fall flat when Priestly guidance doesn't result in jobs, homes, and marriages. The Orthodox Church couldn’t preserve Paul’s marriage or provide him with loyal friends.

There are no winners here. Paul’s story might be exceptional— fate dealt him a bad hand, but it is also far from unique. It illustrates the complexity of the problem, and the troubling blind spots coming from all quarters, proving the validity of critiques, and the weakness of proposed solutions. These problems are only poised to accelerate, with AI eliminating entry level jobs, and polarization increasing between the sexes.

The potential for solutions still exists, and it’s up to the church to pick up the slack. The battle of the moment is one of perception, where Evangelicalism has been its own worst enemy. The desire to be culturally relevant is seen as cringy and off-putting. Meanwhile, our effectiveness is overlooked. But when things get hard, effectiveness is what counts. It’s just a matter of pointing in the right direction.

Despite his negative comments, Peterson remains open minded, and has had fruitful interactions with Evangelicals that “get” what he was doing, including Greg Laurie, Dallas Jenkins, and Tim Tebow. These men are having a powerful impact in their respective areas of influence, but none are capable of stepping into the role Peterson once held.

But as French rightly noted, it can be done by local pastors, teachers, and coaches. Proximity trumps charisma; the question is, how to make the connection? In my review of Aaron Renn’s Life in the Negative World, I highlighted several creative solutions that are working in real life.

Pastor Ed Newton provides other notable examples. He recently implemented a church service specifically for the deaf community, a chronically overlooked demographic. But he’s also advocating for churches to get more involved in the marketplace, building businesses and hiring people whose background makes it difficult to find employment.

Churches are always great at providing for the needs of overlooked groups. What hasn’t clicked yet, is that the most chronically overlooked demographic for useful services is not a minority, but the majority of men.

The frightening reality is that this multitude of restless young men will shape the culture for the next several decades. Their numbers and potential make it inevitable. The question is, are we as Christians, capable of saying “I like you. I want you to live a good life. Let me show you how.” with the genuine conviction of Jordan Peterson? Are we willing to prove it by providing tangible solutions to real problems?

The young men will follow the leaders who can. The bleakness or brightness of the future is up to us.

Anonymously released on the heels of the 2008 financial collapse, the bitcoin whitepaper states its simple purpose clearly: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” Its decentralized protocol was aimed not only at banks and networks, but government treasuries and central reserves.

The rise of bitcoin has been volatile, with its success spawning countless imitators, pump and dump day trades, and big cash outs at each new surge. But one crucial metric has consistently risen since its inception, with noticeable jumps after successive financial crises– the number of long term holders. For the true believers, the reason is clear. Bitcoin is designed to minimize or eliminate our need to trust in broken human institutions.

Similar comparisons can be made to social media's takedown of legacy news outlets, the growing distrust of academia, the medical industry, and the success of MAGA populism. The common factor across all platforms is the erosion of trust, as leaders of longstanding institutions have gradually cashed in generations worth of hard won credibility for short term gains.

It’s no surprise then that trust in institutional religions, including Christianity, have also fallen to an all time low. There are signs of hope, as people disillusioned by the failures of consumerism seek something deeper to build their life on, but the overall mistrust of institutions is fueling an embrace of self-determined spirituality over familiar religious traditions.

These trends have not been even across the board. Churches have held up better in areas where trust in markets and media first began to wane, and skepticism towards evangelicals has existed far longer in big cities and coastal states. But at a certain point, the overall attitude hit a tipping point, shifting from neutral to negative.

This was the thesis of Aaron Renn’s well known essay The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism. Renn points to a time in 2014, right before Obergefell legalized same-sex marriage, as the beginning of a new era:

“Society has come to have a negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the elite domains of ­society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and seen as a threat to the public good and the new public moral order. Subscribing to Christian moral views or violating the secular moral order brings negative consequences.”

Having read the essay on which it was based, I was initially hesitant to pick up Life in the Negative World for a couple reasons. Although I thought his analysis was spot on, and clearly important, it was also a bit of a downer, and I felt like I had more than enough confirmation of a negative vibe shift. Secondly, I was quite repulsed by the solutions put forward by certain online influencers who gleefully embraced his diagnosis.

This group consisted of several Reformed voices who latched onto the “negative world” moniker, and concluded that the answer was to fight fire with fire. These figures employed Doug Wilson’s concept of the serrated edge, gutted of all subtlety and cleverness. The negative world morphed into “trashworld”, run by a “globohomo” elite, whose necessary destruction served to justify all manner of crudity, including tribalistic political attacks on evangelical stalwarts like Tim Keller.

Upon reading the book, I quickly realized that I was wrong, and quite pleased to discover that Renn offers clear and helpful directions for addressing the problems of the negative world. With the negativity towards Christianity being pushed by an urban monoculture that insists on the acceptance of insanity like 2+2=5, the straightforward truth is clear as day: The best response to a negative world is a positive Christianity.

This is not a call for performative positivity, or a mere positive attitude (although that is vital for Christians in the trenches), but a deep, embodied faith, expressed in thick relationships and strong communities. The negative world forces will continue to winnow the wheat from the chaff within our pews; but what remains, and what flourishes after the shaking, will be a church with the power to reshape culture towards a vision of the Kingdom.

This change will require a renewed embrace of trust, one that may require the continued dissolution of tribal boundaries within evangelicalism. Liturgical and doctrinal differences may need to be set aside in missional pursuit:

“Creating models for the evangelical church in the negative world will thus involve a large number of people exploring various parts of the landscape. It will involve a lot of trial and error. It will involve experimentation.

It will involve false starts and the ability to adapt and adjust quickly. It will require wide but loose alliances and networks with a lot of information sharing.” - Life in the Negative World, Ch. 2

These practices are already happening in many spaces, especially online. I first discovered Renn’s work through Pastor Paul VanderKlay, a Christian Reformed minister whose YouTube channel has spawned a community of misfits and exiles from many denominations. His channel grew exponentially through his commentary on Jordan Peterson’s biblical videos, a figure too quickly dismissed by Evangelicals for his reluctance to publicly affirm faith in Christ.

Pastor Paul’s online “ministry” has spilled over into the real world through his Estuary project, a church-adjacent discussion protocol that has spawned local meetings across the US and abroad, as well as several conferences like the one planned in Chicago, featuring Jonathan Pageau, and Rod Dreher. Many of these figures, along with Peterson, have inspired exiles from evangelicalism to embrace more ancient forms of the faith, like Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and high-church Anglicanism.

Although these traditions are very institutional, this move reflects the general attitude of mistrust towards institutions, since these have proven resilient enough to weather scandals and survive. Such stability is a balm for weary souls, and I am grateful for the solace they provide. But their role in shaping the future will likely be limited by their slow embrace of change. In Renn’s analysis, Evangelicalism’s adaptability provides a distinct advantage to shape the culture of the future – if it overcomes its current limitations.

My own negative world experiences lead me to develop an autodidactic approach to studying the problems in Evangelical culture, resulting in a self-published book. As a result, I often discover the expert analysis of a problem and its potential solutions after I have puzzled out similar answers on my own. Renn’s book was just such a case, which is not surprising, since his blogs have highlighted many problems rarely discussed in the Church. Aiming to wise up those behind the curve, Renn follows the neutral world pattern of highlighting problems in his blog, while publishing the solutions in his book, or behind a paywall.

In many ways, I am a native of the negative world. Growing up in the post-Christian environment of suburban Massachusetts, the costs associated with following Christ were readily apparent; mainly financial, with some social implications. We weren’t exactly persecuted, but my siblings and I knew that our experience as the poor kids in a well-off school system was the result of intentional choices.

My parents lived sacrificially for the sake of our well being. Dad taught at Christian schools and took on a slew of odd jobs during the summer. He later became a bi-vocational pastor, a job that provided a parsonage and little else, Mom began homeschooling us while taking on as much part time work as she could to help pay the bills.

We celebrated holidays with elite relatives on both sides of the family, a state rep on Beacon Hill, a union president in Hartford, and multiple cousins at the kids table who would later secure PhD’s. Our old used station wagon stuck out like a sore thumb in the driveway.

While there were moments of envy, (my cousins had video games,) by the time I reached adulthood, I realized that my siblings and I had received the better inheritance by far. The values embraced by my extended family provided them with no lasting meaning. The sincere Catholic faith of my grandparents had devolved into the pursuit of wealth and status by my boomer uncles, and an embrace of Marxism and progressive ideology by my cousins.

The pervasive influence of secularism presented an ideological bulwark against which faithful churches of all denominations could unite. Doctrinal differences could be overlooked (or relegated to friendly debate) in a fellowship forged through life in the trenches. There was no hesitation on my parent’s part towards us attending youth services at another church our church could not provide, or attending a Bible college outside our tradition.

While my father fulfilled a role that will become increasingly common in the negative world, overseeing the needs of an older, dying congregation, the bigger Pentecostal church down the street stumbled across many of the negative world solutions highlighted in the book, out of sheer necessity. One of those was an embrace of ownership:

“One of the problems evangelicals face in America today is that they exist almost entirely inside space owned by others-legally owned in many cases, but more importantly, socially and culturally owned.

This may include the places they work, shop, and dine. Evangelicals who live in urban centers are typically surrounded by people who overwhelmingly embrace secular progressive beliefs and perspectives, and they "own" the culture of that area.” - Ch. 8

One of the great assets of my former church community was their embrace of ownership. Our pastor’s wife was a stellar real estate agent, who had a penchant for finding amazing deals. One instance was a nearby church that had been sitting on a not-quite-finished building for over a decade. After a church split, the congregation had dwindled, barely filling a small chapel built into the parsonage, lacking the funds to finish the building project. They were willing to offload the building for extremely cheap. After fixing and finishing the building, it was used for outreach, until it could be sold to another growing congregation in need of a home at very fair price.

The church was able to use the profit for several similar deals over the years, as well as investing in staff housing, an asset that allowed them to hire many more people than a typical church of their size. The ministry duties of those staff members were offset with other opportunities to teach at a k-12 school run by the church, thrift stores, a coffee shop, and office space for the “for profit” side business of Church’s media production staff.

While this church centric approach was quite successful, Renn highlights how a similar ethos can work even better from a business first standpoint:

Spiller decided to start Maddox to disrupt the electrical transformer business. He wanted to make money, yes, but for him, starting a business was about more than just earning money for his own lifestyle or for traditional philanthropy. He said, "I wanted to be able to invest in people who are investing in building families, churches, and communities."

With the emergence of the negative world, Spiller also saw the need for Christian communities to control more of their own economic destiny. He believed the market for electrical infrastructure was a great place to be because it's a critical, essential service. "They gave us the road map with COVID," he said, referring to how essential businesses were allowed to continue operating during lockdowns. "We need to be in these essential businesses." - Ch. 8

This business driven approach resonates with a key take away from my own experience working in ministry. While I was extremely proud of the work we were doing as a church, my wife and I were totally dependent on the housing provided as a part of our compensation package. We earned enough to pay the bills, but not much more. Consequently, when we moved to Texas, we had no equity and very little savings. Fortunately, we were able to live with my parents for a couple years while we worked towards buying our own home, something that would have been incredibly difficult with the high cost of living in New England. But making sure people can afford to put down real roots is crucial to growing a community long term.

However, the Church’s ability to subsidize much of life’s necessities did allow for the growth of a community large enough to stand in opposition to the cultural onslaught of progressivism. The strong Christian counterculture between local churches placed a high priority on marriage and children without compromising Biblical values. As Renn points, repairing the sexual economy of the church is an absolute necessity in the negative world:

This is an important element of strengthening our own communities, but it's also about the church having something that people are struggling to find for themselves. For instance, many people have intentionally rejected marriage and chosen not to have children. But others want marriage and children; they just can't figure out how to get them in today's world. They've lost a narrative that leads to health and happiness and are looking for a new pathway, preferably one that others have trod and has visible evidence of success.

The simple act of building healthy Christian families in churches where marriage with children is the norm will be increasingly countercultural in the negative world. Yet doing this will demonstrate that it's not only possible but provides evidence of a different way for people to live their lives.

Evangelicals, then, should be willing to help others find this way of life for themselves instead of affirming them in choices that take them further from where they want to go. But to do it in a way that isn't condescending or communicated with a judgmental spirit … Many people simply don't believe it's possible to get married without first living together or at least having premarital sex. But it very much can be done, and that "old-fashioned" approach still has something compelling about it, even if many people would never admit it publicly. Evangelicals who embrace a Christian sexual ethic and courageously live it out publicly let people see not only how but why they're doing it. - Ch. 10

My wife and I count ourselves fortunate in this regard, and even more blessed to know many more couples that have achieved the same goal. Some of the initial impetus for waiting for marriage stemmed from the flawed teachings of purity culture, which can lead to problems with intimacy in marriage, especially for women; while most men, despite making it to the finish line, have to cope with sexual expectations shaped by exposure to pornography.

Churches need to get over some squeamishness and discuss these areas with frankness and facts. But they ought to be able to do so with confidence, because what they have to offer is in high demand. The body of evidence that has emerged from researchers like Brad Wilcox, makes it quite clear, the biblical sexual ethic is the real winner for long-term happiness.

The possibility of Churches to serve as matchmakers could be a real gamechanger, but it probably will take a bit of effort. Evangelical churches tend towards an abundance of single women (likely a lot of millennials), and with a lack of men in their congregations, there seems to be a lot more affirmation and justification of singleness coming from the pulpit. Gen Z men are far more interested in religion than Gen Z women, but they are also going hard for the Trad movements of Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

Some cross-denominational mixers might do the trick, but it would require Pastors to place the needs of their local towns and cities (and the individuals within their congregations) before their concerns over attendance numbers. Personally, I think it’s a fear that underestimates the degree to which wives influence the choice of where to worship, especially once kids arrive. But it does raise another issue regarding Evangelicalisms ability to reach men. As Renn points out:

A decade ago, I was already seeing young men turning to online influencers and secular men's gurus in droves, looking for guidance in life there, not in the church. As I mentioned earlier, it has long been known that the church has struggled to attract men.* But the rising influence of these gurus shows that men aren't detached and disinterested; they're looking for someone to guide them in life. They just aren't looking to the church or its leaders for that guidance. - Ch. 10

I’ve noticed far too many Evangelical pastors exhibit signs of insecurity around competent, masculine men. Such men exist, and many still attend church, but they are far too often underutilized. The vacuum of positive male role models is both deep and wide. Young men don’t need much; any man that has succeeded in maintaining a marriage, holding down a job, and raising kids has a lot to offer. Even those who have failed in those tasks have gained valuable experience. All it would take is some simple organization to get young men connected with older men who can teach them a few useful skills, and give them some much needed affirmation.

This would in fact address a connected issue that Renn identifies, the over-reliance on pastors and other official leaders:

Evangelicals perhaps expect too much from pastors, who are expected to have the Christian answer to everything. But let's be honest. They're not equipped to provide this kind of relationship advice. In fact, it can be dangerous for them to try. The Bible doesn't lay out a clear model for dating relationships, for example, and approaches to dating vary widely across cultures. Dating is an extremely culture-bound activity. So when pastors venture into giving dating advice or seek to provide other forms of life-coaching apart from Scripture, they may inadvertently call the gospel into question if their advice turns out to be bad. Even if it's 100 percent right, sometimes the best advice can still produce bad results. - Ch. 10

This might be a byproduct of Boomer hubris, but from my own experience, I learned the most about how to lead from the pastors who regularly confessed their own mistakes, and lack of expertise. Those pastors also did the most to bring out the best in others within their community. As Renn continues:

We also need to become less dependent on pastors for life applications by encouraging greater integration of laypeople's vocational expertise with Christian faith and practice. We need a generation of lay evangelicals who can convey information from within their own area of expertise but from a Christian metaphysical and moral point of view and with an eye toward pointing people to Christ.

We need genuine Christian psychology experts who can speak on the behavioral differences between the sexes just as authoritatively as Jordan Peterson does. Where evangelicals don't have expertise, people are instead turning to secular gurus who are better informed and unafraid to share their viewpoint.

This final point is perhaps the most crucial of all, because while those experts speak with greater authority, they also stand on shaky ground.

My move to Texas in 2018 was a shift from the negative world back to neutral. The competition for Sunday mornings was fueled by consumerist gimmicks by churches with money to spare. But COVID brought the negative world crashing in, sorting people and churches between those who remained open and those who closed, with further divisions splitting people along the lines of what was deemed safe practice, followed by how much or how little politics played a role in Sunday sermons. Many pastors lost members by trusting the wrong experts, or being overly dismissive of concerns.

In hindsight, no one was really prepared with how to deal with the information on hand, but it exposed the foolishness of thinking that things will just keep going on like they always have. Most Pastors have a better game plan for dealing with a similar health crisis, but whose to say what other kinds of crises might occur?

Church leaders need to broaden their knowledge beyond the theological and ecclesiastical domains, but they must do so with humility, respecting lay people with greater expertise, and elevating those with competence to positions of leadership.

With so many public institutions in a state of flux, few churches are equipped to handle the variety of needs that may arise. But by strengthening their networks, both within their congregations, and across their local communities, they can summon the resources, knowledge, and tools needed to weather a future storm. The question is, are they looking towards the horizon? If not, Life in the Negative World might provide just the wake up call they need.