Welcome to the State of Nature
Yesterday’s conviction of President Trump at the hands of a New York judge and jury underscores a trend that has long been clear: American politics is moving toward a state of nature.
Our written constitution will not save us. The very pre-conditions that make possible republican self-governance are disintegrating. If we cannot trust the courts and juries at the foundation of the American legal system, how can we count on more intricate constitutional procedures—or even the processes by which elections are conducted—to protect us?
So while we hope for a future where constitutional principles once again govern our body politik, in the interim we must see the playing field with clear eyes. Legal appeals are necessary, but not sufficient. Electoral wins will be necessary, but not sufficient. In-kind reprisals will be necessary, but not sufficient.
In a state of nature, differences are resolved by power. We do not shirk from this reality. Our obligations as Christian men—as husbands, fathers, neighbors, and Americans—require us to accrue and wield power. If this frightens you, consider a world where only our enemies have this mindset.
We thus continue our work with renewed urgency.
New Founding exists to create the businesses, networks, and institutions that allow our people to flourish. We will invest in ventures that help realize this world, and especially that create pillars of financial and digital sovereignty for our movement. We will develop real local communities where right-wing and Christian Americans can build social capital, civic society and cultural production together. We will place workers in businesses that value their competence and align with, rather than punish, their political and cultural engagement. We will expand our national network of leaders who are drawn to these goals. In sum, we are working to build economic power that we need in a time of chaos—and to rebuild the America we want to live in.
American Reformer seeks to reinvigorate the American Protestant church. Civic stability allowed Christians to focus on narrow policy goals or retreat from politics entirely. In a state of nature, it is imperative that we again pursue politics. We must reform evangelical institutions infiltrated by regime-aligned operatives and populated by risk-averse careerists. And we must elevate a generation of true Christian statesmen, able to read circumstances and act with prudence, and anchored in scripture and the Protestant tradition. This vision must guide our political behavior in a chaotic world where legacy models are becoming obsolete.
Across our endeavors, we are organizing alliances with others who share our concerns and our interests—from Christians who represent a vast share of the conservative movement and a key pillar of America’s tradition, to new right figures at the forefront of the political fight, to technology figures who are rapidly breaking to Trump and hold enormous power in the digital age.
America’s civic institutions are losing legitimacy. The conviction of Trump brings this collapse into sharp relief. In such an environment, we must come together with political allies to build networks and institutions that accrue real power and use it to help our people, protect our way of life, and advance our interests.
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Good day all! Perhaps we are in our last days in earth and our priorities as believers are simply wrong. Perhaps many of us might have been excommunicated in the early Church for following and promoting worldly fables as if they were true.In the Garden our first parents fell into unbelief by listening to another created being’s wisdom which was not from above instead of their Father in Heaven that would communicate with them freely in the cool of the day. Today we are listening to the drumbeat of the world and favor that wisdom over our Lord whom is wisdom to us. Personal turning away from this vain world’s politics in repentance will make for a lively Hope eternally in Christ Jesus and his Heaven.
What in the what now?
I can agree with neither Carlton Johnston’s comment nor the above article.
We are called to stewardship and evangelism. Certainly participation in politics can be part of our stewardship. But seeking power so we can lord it over others with the intent of making this earth, or portions thereof, a home for us now runs counter to what the Scriptures teach.
Regarding America, the negative view of the Church can in no way compare with the negative view of the Church during the time of the Apostles. And yet, how did the Apostles respond to their circumstances? Yes, there are contextual differences between then and now. But our faith is expressed in service to others, not in the gaining and wielding of power so as Christians we can stand over and dominate unbelievers.
In I Cor 5, Paul tells us that we are not withdraw from unbelieving sinners in the world. But isn’t seeking power in order to rule over them a kind of withdrawing from them, or a cause for them to withdraw from us. In either case, we cannot fully carry out the Great Commission.
Finally, how much evidence are we to ignore before facing the fact that a group of trump republicans have been gaslighting us on a number of issues from the fairness of the 2020 election to the past seriousness of the Covid pandemic to the real threats of Climate Change which are emerging from our horizons to the continued reality of systemic racism to the assumed innocence of Donald Trump? All of the refusal to face reality is the result of nothing more than political and other tribalisms. That is because tribalism occurs when loyalty goes wild, we find that tribalism attacks people’s ability to be objective. Instead, it promotes a black-white worldview of us vs them.
IMO, the push for American Christians to seek and obtain power over others is a cover in that the Christian ethnocracy indicated by the effort of Christians seeking and obtaining power over others is camouflage for oligarchy. After all, that is what has occurred in Russia and we already have some praising Putin, including Trump, and/or seeking at least a similar kind of relationship between Church and state that Russia has.