Technically this event was not in Ogden! They were overselling. It was in Layton, a faceless suburb in the netherland along I-15 between Ogden and Salt Lake, which probably only matters to those of us from Ogden.
“Wilson wrote, that he suspected Antelope Hill was being secretly funded by the federal government” - um, who does he think is in charge of the federal government right now? Does he think Kash or Blanche cooked this up as a gotcha?
It's like Antelope Hill totally knows its audience!
Los, if these choads were truly so macho, why are they pseudonymous? Get out there and be proud! (Kind of surprised they weren't wearing their white robes, actually.)
Doug Wilson, of all people, asked the one question that matters: why did a Nazi publisher think it would find a healthy market at a Christian conference? He's right to ask, and the answer is the part I can speak to from the inside.
I grew up under apartheid in South Africa, beaten sometimes for being Jewish, beaten more often for standing up to protest the regime. But the Broederbond, the Brotherhood who designed and built apartheid, believed the Covenant gave them the God-given right to subjugate and suppress black people. Everything they did, the forced relocations, the pass laws, the brutality, was righteous, ordained, and for the good of all, provided you were white. That is the thing to understand about what you're looking at in Ogden. To the people inside it, this does not feel like hatred. It feels like faith. That is exactly what makes it so hard to dislodge, and so easy to launder into “varying historical works.”
And here is the harder truth, the one I had to learn the slow way. These movements are not built out of monsters. They are built out of frightened, insecure ordinary people who have been handed a story that explains their fear: someone is taking what's yours, every problem traces back to them, the Jews, the immigrants, the others. The men selling Third Reich bundles are not the market. The market is the scared and the lost, and the merchants know it. Wilson sensed it without quite saying it.
So yes, please name the Nazis for what they are. But understand that contempt alone won't empty that booth, because contempt doesn't reach the frightened person being recruited at it. Hatred answered with hatred only confirms the recruiter's story. The only thing I ever saw work, the thing we are uniquely able to do and so rarely bother to, is discourse: reaching the recruitable before the merchants do, with something truer than fear. It is far harder than a raised fist. It is also the only thing that has ever actually worked.
South Africa didn't cure racism—no one has—but it chose reckoning and conversation over a bloodbath, and that choice saved the country. If they could do that, so can anyone willing to sit down and talk.
You say it so well: these Broederbonds follow a "Truth" far more powerful than mere "facts": it unites, reinforces, provides community AND justification (what's not to love??) for their shared insecurity and inferiority. Confrontation only forces retreat further into the nest.
These folks are damaged, hurting, and scared. Thus all the compensatory posturing and feats of strength.
What's so sad is they think we hate them--when in fact we pity them. And want to help them.
Thanks, Mark. I try hard not to hate. So destructive for both sides. You'd think it would be so easy—to listen, all you have to do is open your ears. But that's not actually true, is it? That's hearing. To listen, you have to open your mind, too. And that is never easy when you think someone is pointing a gun at you and saying 'now hear this."
Notice the overlap between the various faith based ideologies, and of course it's not absolute (few things are) but it is present. Currently dealing with something vaguely similar Maga/Chopra/Cosmic Consciouness enthusiast. Gosh, he's hard to talk to.
BTW there are some faith based belief systems that escape absolutism, among them Unitarianism(mostly), Organized religion where meaningful ritual is practiced and acknowledged, political centrism. . . .The Christian impulse where no evangelism/mega church/clerical foo foo rah, joinerism is sought. A small cohort.
It's like the frog and the scorpion.... except it's all scorpions. A big ol', messy pile of scorpions on top of one another crossing the river, with the ones on the bottom drowning and the others scrambling to be on top to sting whoever happens to be just below the top of the pile.
A rich brew this morning! It sent me out on the interwebs for such delights as Brian Sauve's Westminster Catechism Songs, a setting of "all 107 questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism to music that might be enjoyable to both adults and children," featuring the enduring hits "What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him," and "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery." What 21st century child could resist the charm of 16th century Calvinism? I'm looking forward to his setting of the Horst Wessel Lied.
Will, you just get to go to the best shindigs! "There was a single’s mixer for “based” attendees, with chaperones provided. Men could compete “in feats of strength and agility." I hope, hope HOPE women could compete in "Biggest Boob" contests, toilet cleaning and pie baking. This quote: “You don’t host a conference promising to fight for normal, and then bring in Nazis,” by Doug Wilson is priceless. Almost as good as this one by Ted Cruz about Trump's Formal Capitulation to the Iranians: “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea." A whole countryful of people with no sense of irony at all. That's where we're headed. Thanks.
As I read this I’m watching the Obama Center opening ceremony. Quite the dichotomy. On one side a message of hope based on pluralism. On the other a message of exclusionary hate. How I miss the Obama era. Was it perfect. No. But the competence, integrity, ethics and sense of duty of that era stand out against the current backdrop of grift, corruption, self aggrandizement and blistering incompetence of today…
To think MSM missed this as they focused on Platner’s tattoo he got as a 20 year old Marine. The MSM will “her emails “ us into the concentration camps.
Nazis were Christian Nationalists. The differences between the American version and the German one were minor; the major difference is that the Germans got rid of their's, while American Christian Nationalists are increasing in power.
Goebbels and Himmler, among others, saw the Christian worldview as antithetical to Nazism. Germanic paganism had a part in Nazi ideology.
Hitler may have made tactical appeals to Christianity and exploited a Christian fear of communist atheism, but he thought Christianity cultivated a slave mentality. He and other high-ranking Nazis praised Islam as being more muscular, aggressive and heroic than Christianity. The Nazis tried to form an alliance with the Arab-Muslim world, though their Aryan supremacism was a bit of an obstacle.
The Nazis aimed to destroy any religious institution or source of moral authority they could not control. Some of the most resolute resistance to the Nazis came from certain churches or individuals motivated by Christian belief. On the other hand, some churches marched willingly with the Nazis.
It is fair for Christians today to emphasize the un-Christian and even anti-Christian dimensions of Nazism, and to note that Nazi racial supremacism owed much more to Darwin than to Christianity. But it's also fair to say that many centuries of religious hostility to Jews conditioned much of the German population to accept genocidal antisemitism as something righteous. Martin Luther's vicious antipathy toward Jews is well known.
I also think the Christian nationalism we're seeing today is deeply connected with ethnic identitarianism. How else could Christian nationalists make a hero out of someone so obviously irreligious as Donald Trump if they don't sympathize with his racism?
"All in all, the appearance of such overtly pro-Hitler work provoked criticism among more moderate Christian nationalists."
Sure. Just like when Susan Collins has "concerns." Is anyone surprised this was organized by a couple of white Christian pastors?
Technically this event was not in Ogden! They were overselling. It was in Layton, a faceless suburb in the netherland along I-15 between Ogden and Salt Lake, which probably only matters to those of us from Ogden.
“Wilson wrote, that he suspected Antelope Hill was being secretly funded by the federal government” - um, who does he think is in charge of the federal government right now? Does he think Kash or Blanche cooked this up as a gotcha?
I'm sure Vance will tell us not to fuss about such trivial matters
Are you really a MAGA pastor if you don’t have a beard?
I have a feeling that’s how they convince themselves they’re ’normal’. 🤔
Is that a "Trad" beard? The jokes write themselves.
Cosmotheism isn't for me. If someone comes up with Martinitheism, then we can talk.
Oy...
It's like Antelope Hill totally knows its audience!
Los, if these choads were truly so macho, why are they pseudonymous? Get out there and be proud! (Kind of surprised they weren't wearing their white robes, actually.)
Doug Wilson, of all people, asked the one question that matters: why did a Nazi publisher think it would find a healthy market at a Christian conference? He's right to ask, and the answer is the part I can speak to from the inside.
I grew up under apartheid in South Africa, beaten sometimes for being Jewish, beaten more often for standing up to protest the regime. But the Broederbond, the Brotherhood who designed and built apartheid, believed the Covenant gave them the God-given right to subjugate and suppress black people. Everything they did, the forced relocations, the pass laws, the brutality, was righteous, ordained, and for the good of all, provided you were white. That is the thing to understand about what you're looking at in Ogden. To the people inside it, this does not feel like hatred. It feels like faith. That is exactly what makes it so hard to dislodge, and so easy to launder into “varying historical works.”
And here is the harder truth, the one I had to learn the slow way. These movements are not built out of monsters. They are built out of frightened, insecure ordinary people who have been handed a story that explains their fear: someone is taking what's yours, every problem traces back to them, the Jews, the immigrants, the others. The men selling Third Reich bundles are not the market. The market is the scared and the lost, and the merchants know it. Wilson sensed it without quite saying it.
So yes, please name the Nazis for what they are. But understand that contempt alone won't empty that booth, because contempt doesn't reach the frightened person being recruited at it. Hatred answered with hatred only confirms the recruiter's story. The only thing I ever saw work, the thing we are uniquely able to do and so rarely bother to, is discourse: reaching the recruitable before the merchants do, with something truer than fear. It is far harder than a raised fist. It is also the only thing that has ever actually worked.
If you want to see what choosing talk over vengeance can do, this is the story: https://medium.com/@eric_1885/the-right-hand-signal-e4e30bdfccaf
South Africa didn't cure racism—no one has—but it chose reckoning and conversation over a bloodbath, and that choice saved the country. If they could do that, so can anyone willing to sit down and talk.
Super post, Eric.
You say it so well: these Broederbonds follow a "Truth" far more powerful than mere "facts": it unites, reinforces, provides community AND justification (what's not to love??) for their shared insecurity and inferiority. Confrontation only forces retreat further into the nest.
These folks are damaged, hurting, and scared. Thus all the compensatory posturing and feats of strength.
What's so sad is they think we hate them--when in fact we pity them. And want to help them.
Thanks, Mark. I try hard not to hate. So destructive for both sides. You'd think it would be so easy—to listen, all you have to do is open your ears. But that's not actually true, is it? That's hearing. To listen, you have to open your mind, too. And that is never easy when you think someone is pointing a gun at you and saying 'now hear this."
Notice the overlap between the various faith based ideologies, and of course it's not absolute (few things are) but it is present. Currently dealing with something vaguely similar Maga/Chopra/Cosmic Consciouness enthusiast. Gosh, he's hard to talk to.
'
BTW there are some faith based belief systems that escape absolutism, among them Unitarianism(mostly), Organized religion where meaningful ritual is practiced and acknowledged, political centrism. . . .The Christian impulse where no evangelism/mega church/clerical foo foo rah, joinerism is sought. A small cohort.
It's like the frog and the scorpion.... except it's all scorpions. A big ol', messy pile of scorpions on top of one another crossing the river, with the ones on the bottom drowning and the others scrambling to be on top to sting whoever happens to be just below the top of the pile.
A rich brew this morning! It sent me out on the interwebs for such delights as Brian Sauve's Westminster Catechism Songs, a setting of "all 107 questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism to music that might be enjoyable to both adults and children," featuring the enduring hits "What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him," and "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery." What 21st century child could resist the charm of 16th century Calvinism? I'm looking forward to his setting of the Horst Wessel Lied.
Will, you just get to go to the best shindigs! "There was a single’s mixer for “based” attendees, with chaperones provided. Men could compete “in feats of strength and agility." I hope, hope HOPE women could compete in "Biggest Boob" contests, toilet cleaning and pie baking. This quote: “You don’t host a conference promising to fight for normal, and then bring in Nazis,” by Doug Wilson is priceless. Almost as good as this one by Ted Cruz about Trump's Formal Capitulation to the Iranians: “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea." A whole countryful of people with no sense of irony at all. That's where we're headed. Thanks.
As I read this I’m watching the Obama Center opening ceremony. Quite the dichotomy. On one side a message of hope based on pluralism. On the other a message of exclusionary hate. How I miss the Obama era. Was it perfect. No. But the competence, integrity, ethics and sense of duty of that era stand out against the current backdrop of grift, corruption, self aggrandizement and blistering incompetence of today…
To think MSM missed this as they focused on Platner’s tattoo he got as a 20 year old Marine. The MSM will “her emails “ us into the concentration camps.
Nazis were Christian Nationalists. The differences between the American version and the German one were minor; the major difference is that the Germans got rid of their's, while American Christian Nationalists are increasing in power.
Goebbels and Himmler, among others, saw the Christian worldview as antithetical to Nazism. Germanic paganism had a part in Nazi ideology.
Hitler may have made tactical appeals to Christianity and exploited a Christian fear of communist atheism, but he thought Christianity cultivated a slave mentality. He and other high-ranking Nazis praised Islam as being more muscular, aggressive and heroic than Christianity. The Nazis tried to form an alliance with the Arab-Muslim world, though their Aryan supremacism was a bit of an obstacle.
The Nazis aimed to destroy any religious institution or source of moral authority they could not control. Some of the most resolute resistance to the Nazis came from certain churches or individuals motivated by Christian belief. On the other hand, some churches marched willingly with the Nazis.
It is fair for Christians today to emphasize the un-Christian and even anti-Christian dimensions of Nazism, and to note that Nazi racial supremacism owed much more to Darwin than to Christianity. But it's also fair to say that many centuries of religious hostility to Jews conditioned much of the German population to accept genocidal antisemitism as something righteous. Martin Luther's vicious antipathy toward Jews is well known.
I also think the Christian nationalism we're seeing today is deeply connected with ethnic identitarianism. How else could Christian nationalists make a hero out of someone so obviously irreligious as Donald Trump if they don't sympathize with his racism?
Excellent observation.