James Davison Hunter is a renowned sociologist at the University of Virginia who introduced the term "culture war" to the US discourse. He's a leading expert on cultural change and cultural battles in America.He joins me to discuss his new book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis, which tells the deep cultural story underlying today's polarized politics. This important book describes the deep structure of American culture as resting on what he calls the "hybrid Enlightenment," joining various strands of European Enlightenment thinking with largely Calvinist Christianity. The various contradictions in this hybrid Enlightenment, such as slavery, were worked out over time. But that hybrid Enlightenment also became unraveled over time, leaving Americans without the cultural underpinnings necessary to sustain solidarity. The result is nihilism and culture war. Democracy and Solidarity is a compelling and important read to understand our present cultural moment.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Solidarity-Cultural-Americas-Political-ebook/dp/B0CW17D3N3/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Dr. Hunter is also the publisher of the Hedgehog Review magazine: https://hedgehogreview.com/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Joshua Klein, editor of Mortise and Tenon magazine, joins me to talk about his love of traditional wood construction techniques, and the value of craftsmanship and manual work. In addition to the magazine, Klein is also an Associate Fellow in Mechanical Arts at Greystone Theological Institute. Buy Mortise and Tenon Magazine: https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/Greystone Theological Institute: https://www.greystoneinstitute.org/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Jon Tyson, founding and senior pastor of Church of the City in New York, joins me to talk about the urban church in today's world. Tyson discusses:How to deal with the constant population churn in the city?The differences between pre-Covid and post-Covid New YorkHow Covid wiped out 70% of what Tim Keller and others built over the previous 35 years in terms of New York City church plantsThe flow of church planters into New York drying upWhat's unique about Generation Z? Includes that they don't want to plant churches.Why New York is not as different from the rest of the country culturally as it used to be.The impact of the migrant influx on ManhattanThe future of the cultural engagement model of churchWhat he thinks of Trumpist culture war ChristianityHow he talks about flashpoint cultural issuesAdvice for church planters thinking about New York City.Visit Church of the City: https://www.church.nyc/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Oren Cass is founder of American Compass, a reformist center-right think tank seeking to look beyond dogmatic adherence to libertarian economics. He joins me to talk about the future of the American worker.American Compass: https://americancompass.org/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Artificial intelligence is the hot topic of the tech world today. But how do we make sense of it? Dean Ball is a Research Fellow in the Artificial Intelligence & Progress Project at the Mercatus Center, who also writes a Substack on the subject. He joins me to discuss this new AI technology and how to regulate it.Subscribe to Dean Ball's Substack: https://www.hyperdimensional.co/Subscribe to my Substack: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

BYX (Beta, Upsilon, Chi in Greek, for Brothers Under Christ and pronounced "Bucks") is a Christian college fraternity. National director Jared Musgrove and Georgia chapter member Will Pesch join me to talk about this fraternity and how it shapes young men in a campus environment.BYX Website: https://byx.org/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Miami and South Florida have been booming. City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez joins me to talk about their success and the "Miami model" of urbanism. We discuss:- Miami's transition from America's most dangerous big city to one of its safest.- Why Miami is an emerging national and global business center- The inflection points that boosted Miami's trajectory- How Mayor Suarez, a Republican, and his party have found success in a big, dense, diverse, heavily Latino city.- What Miami will do next that will surprise people.Read my profile of Miami as an under-heralded urban success story: https://www.governing.com/urban/miami-the-under-appreciated-urban-success-storyRead my article on why conservatives should care about cities: https://americancompass.org/conservatives-should-care-about-cities/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

American Enterprise Institute scholar Yuval Levin joins me to discuss his new book American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. While many today argue that the US Constitution is dead or obsolete, Levin argues that the Constitution is actually the path forward for creating unity in our deeply divided republic.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/American-Covenant-Constitution-Unified-Nation_and/dp/0465040748/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Miles Smith is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College. He joins me to discuss what he learned from reading exvangelical memoirs and books about Christian nationalism.Miles Smith's "Reading the Exvangelicals": https://mereorthodoxy.com/reading-the-exvangelicalsSubscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Matthew Peterson, editor-in-chief of the Blaze and founding editor of the American Mind, joins me to talk about the media and conservative media landscape in America today.Visit the Blaze: https://www.theblaze.com/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Georgetown Professor Joshua Mitchell, author of the book American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time, joins me to talk about what factors caused the rise of identity politics in America. Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/American-Awakening-Identity-Politics-Afflictions/dp/1641771305/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon joins me to discuss her recent book Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. It's a look at the travails facing America's working class.Read my review of Second Class: https://www.city-journal.org/article/review-of-second-class-by-batya-ungar-sargonBuy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Class-Betrayed-Americas-Working/dp/1641773618/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Richard V. Reeves is the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. He's also the author of the acclaimed book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. He joins me to discuss the problems facing today's American men, and why he thinks "keep it boring" is the right strategy.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Men-modern-struggling-matters/dp/1800751036/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Visit the American Institute for Boys and Men: https://aibm.org/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Farah Stockman is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and member of the New York Times editorial board. She's also the author of the great book American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears.Her book chronicles the closure and relocation to Mexico of a Rexnord bearing plant in Indianapolis in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. It focuses particularly on the lives of three workers in the plant. American Made is a detailed a moving portrait of the reality of industrial life in the 21st century American Heartland. She joins me to discuss on the podcast this week to discuss this important book.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/American-Made-Happens-People-Disappears-ebook/dp/B08YN77FLS/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Jonathan Whitehead, a lawyer who has been active in Southern Baptist institutional life for many years, joins me to discuss the future of the SBC. We will focus on the SBC's upcoming convention in Indianapolis, where several key issues will be debated and addressed.

Dr. Anthony Bradley joins me to talk about why the evangelical church struggles to attract men. We will discuss the state of men in America, the matrilineal nature of evangelicalism, and what needs to change to make the church more relevant.  Bradley is the author of the book Heroic Fraternities: How College Men Can Save Universities and America.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Heroic-Fraternities-College-Universities-America/dp/1666715530/Evangelicalism is Matrilineal: https://mereorthodoxy.com/evangelicals-matrilinealSubscribe to my newsletter:  https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Dr. Ewan Goligher is a scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute. He's the author of the book How Should We then Die?: A Christian Response to Physician-Assisted Death. He joins me to discuss physician-assisted suicide from a Christian point of view. Buy his book: https://www.amazon.ca/How-Should-then-Die-Physician-Assisted/dp/1683597478Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Three years ago I recorded a podcast series on the American postwar conservative moment. One of the episodes focused on the way that the nascent conservatives responded to the campus unrest of the 1960s. Since campus protests are again in the news, I'm reposting my thoughts from that old episode.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School for Civic and Economic Though Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University. SCETL was established by an act of the state legislature to reinvigorate the idea of civics education as a core function of the public university. It is also a model for many other similar centers that have been established at other public universities around the country. Dr. Carrese joins me to discuss SCETL, and why it and centers like it are critical to the future of the university and society.Visit SCETL's web site: https://scetl.asu.edu/

Luke Robson is on a mission to revitalize the downtown of Hillsdale, Michigan, the small town where Hillsdale College is located. He joins us to discuss his efforts and why he believes this is important.Subscribe to Luke's Hillsdale Renaissance Newsletter: https://hillsdalerenaissance.substack.com/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Your identity is the foundation and the heart of everything. Because if you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what to do. In this month's newsletter I discuss the importance of identity, and why many people in power in our society want to sever you from yours.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Leon Podles joins me today to discuss the deep roots of why men don't go to church, focusing on the male quest for honor. He is the author of The Church Impotent and Losing the Good Portion: Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity.Read The Church Impotent for free: https://podles.org/church-impotent.htm Buy Losing the Good Portion: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Good-Portion-Aliendated-Christianity/dp/158731505X/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Peter Ostapko joins us to discuss his project Kinsmen Journal, a high quality print magazine for Christian men and broader project to curate conversations around faith, fatherhood, and work. Kinsmen Journal featured original commissioned photography and writing, and the highest quality printing and packaging available.Buy Kinsmen Journal:  https://kinsmen.org/

This is my interview from two years ago with David Murrow, author of the influential book Why Men Hate Going to Church.  Why does the American church skew female? How did he get interested in this topic? How did people receive his book and what changed as a result of it? What is the story arc of the church's attempts to reach men in recent decades?Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/078523215X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Paleoconservative military writer William Lind developed a concept he calls "4th Generation War," which is an insurgency conflict similar to Afghanistan or Iraq. 4GW is rooted in a decline of the legitimacy of the state, a fundamentally asymmetric conflict, and the criticality of winning at "the moral level of war." There are interesting parallels to cultural conflict which I explore in this newsletter.

Sociologist Brad Wilcox joins to discuss his new book "Get Married." He explains why, despite its decline in our society, marriage remains the best path to success in flourishing in life.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Married-Americans-Families-Civilization/dp/0063210851/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Georgetown University professor Joseph Hartman joins me to discuss the 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and why he still matters today.

Sociologist Brad Vermurlen will join me to discuss his new book Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism. Vermurlen's book is an excellent overview of the New Calvinist movement, the backdrop of Evangelical fracture in which it developed, and the various strategies the movement implemented.This podcast was recorded two years ago as Youtube only.Read more about the book at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/reformed-resurgence-brad-vermurlen/Buy the book at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0190073519/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Josh Abbotoy joins me to discuss his projects to built intentional communities of likeminded people in Kentucky and Tennessee.Ridgerunner USA: https://ridgerunnerusa.com/Highland Rim Project: https://www.newfounding.com/highlandSubscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

One of the key events in the Christianization of the Roman Empire was when the children of the existing Roman elites turned aside from the status system of the Roman imperium in favor of new ways of pursuing and achieving elite status within the church.Today, in the Negative World, the church operates as a shadow status system that takes its cues from secular elite culture. It will always be dominated by that culture unless and until it creates its own status system again. The Thiel Fellowship is an example of what an attempt at creating an alternative form of status would look like in our society.

Management is about the known. Exploration is about the unknown. Dwight Gibson has studied the techniques of the explorers from the great age of exploration. He will discuss how people and organizations can make use of those oft-forgotten methods to help navigate today's uncertain and unprecedented world.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

John Burtka, president of ISI, joins me to discuss his new book Gateway to Statesmanship: Selections from Xenophon to Churchill. It's a collection of some of the best writing in history about the nature of the statesman.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Statesmanship-Selections-Xenophon-Churchill/dp/1684515432/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Lexi Hudson joins me to discuss her recent book The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. Buy the book:  https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Civility-Timeless-Principles-Ourselves-ebook/dp/B0B9KTF7BP/Subscribe to my newsletter:  https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Too many people today have negative identities - they are defined by what they oppose not by what they are for or hope to create. Negative identities create asymmetries in which you are vulnerable to people with morally expansionist visions. They also make your identity dependent on the very thing you claim to oppose. While there are plenty of bad positive identities, it's much better to base your identity on a positive than negative vision of life.

Notre Dame professor Darren Dochuk joins me to discuss his book Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America. Every aspect of modern political, economic, and cultural development of the 20th century was bound up with various strains of the oil industry and Christianity. Dochuk explains this oft-overlooked history.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Oil-Christianity-Modern-America/dp/0465060862/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Pragmatism is about what we can do with our own two hands with the material we see in front of us. It's an important perspective on the world - but very limiting as well. Too much devotion to pragmatism can blind us to the possibilities in the world and life.

Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo join me to discuss their book Why Do Protestants Convert?, which examines the psychological, theological, and sociological reasons that evangelical intellectuals often convert to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Protestants-Convert-Brad-Littlejohn/dp/1949716201/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Ben Merkle, president of New St. Andrews College, joins me to discuss the broken financial model of higher education in America.Read Big Ed, Too Big to Fail: https://nsa.edu/blog/big-ed-too-big-to-failSubscribe to my newspaper: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Nancy Pearcey, a professor at Houston Christian University, joins me to discuss her book The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Pearcey was named one of the top five women apologists by Christianity Today and hailed in The Economist as America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual.Buy The Toxic War on Masculinity: https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-War-Masculinity-Christianity-Reconciles-ebook/dp/B0B6Q3BCG8/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

For this month's newsletter, John Seel shares an essay on masculinity and the quest to become a "holy man." He examines who a holy man is, the tools he uses, and the product he produces.Subscribe to my newsletter at: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

John Seel joins me to discuss his thoughts on cultural engagement in today's negative world.  Dr. Seel holds a Ph.D from the University of Maryland, and is a cultural renewal entrepreneur.Download Dr. Seel's white paper on The Challenge of Cultural Engagement: https://www.exploradelphia.com/publicationsSubscribe to my newsletter:  https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Long time missionary Andrew Brunson joins me to talk about his two year nightmare in a Turkish jail after being falsely imprisoned by the government for spying.Wavestarters, a Ministry of Andrew and Norine Brunson: https://www.wavestarters.org/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

John Lovell joins me to discuss his new book The Warrior Poet Way: A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well. Lovell is a former Army Ranger, combat veteran, and missionary. He runs the popular Youtube channel The Warrior Poet Society.Buy The Warrior Poet Way: https://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Poet-Way-Guide-Living/dp/0593541847/John Lovell's Youtube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@WarriorPoetSociety Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Why do men turn to online influencers instead of the church? One reason is that evangelicals promote a vision of masculinity that is so bleak and unappealing it turns men off. They sum this up under the heading “servant leadership”Properly defined I believe servant leadership is important and something we should all aspire to. But evangelicals use it as a term of art that ends up defining a man’s mission is life as catering to the needs and desires of his wife and kids.They use a highly curated set of Bible passages and example like Jesus washing the disciples feet, while avoiding the many other examples that show other aspects of what it means to be a man or a leader.Evangelical servant leadership is a form of radical kenosis in which a man much empty himself of all of his own desires, ambitions, mission goals, etc. in order to serve his wife. One high profile pastor all but says men are never allowed to do anything for themselves. The evangelical view of the husband echoes the view of God in "moralist therapeutic deism" in which he is a sort of "Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist."In evangelical teaching, a man has no legitimate claims of his own he can assert, no legitimate desires or aspirations he can hold, no mission in the world to undertake.Suffice it to say, the people promoting this approach to manhood don’t give off much evidence of living this way themselves.We definitely need servant leadership. But the way they define it isn’t right. Correcting these faulty teachings on gender is one of the church’s major to-do’s in the today’s negative world.Newsletter version of his podcast: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/servant-leadership

Gen Z Youtuber "Redeemed Zoomer," a member of the PCUSA, joins me to discuss his case for why Christians should not abandon mainline denominations.Visit Redeemed Zoomer's Youtube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@redeemedzoomer6053Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Eric Lefevre joins us to discuss the Concordia-Seminex Affair, in which the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod reversed a trend towards liberal theology in its flagship seminary and the denomination as a whole.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida joins me to discuss his new report, "The State of the Working (and Non-Working) Man," issued by his office as part of his Project for Strong Labor Markets and National Development. Read the report: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-releases-labor-report-the-state-of-the-working-and-non-working-man/  Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Presbyterian minister Daniel Howe joins us to discuss his new book Worship, Feasting, Rest, Mercy: The Christian Sabbath.Link to Buy: https://crownandcovenant.com/products/worship-feasting-rest-mercy-the-christian-sabbathAaron Renn's Newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

This month's newsletter looks at lessons from two contemporary novels, Guadalupe Nettel's Still Born and Vigdis Hjorth's Will and Testament.Buy Still Born: https://www.amazon.com/Still-Born-Guadalupe-Nettel-ebook/dp/B0BQ3ZRSK1Buy Will and Testament: https://www.amazon.com/Will-Testament-Vigdis-Hjorth-ebook/dp/B07LDSXBTD/Newsletter #39 on forged families: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-39-we-can-only-go-forwardMy thoughts on the film "The Worst Person in the World": https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/live-through-this

Sohrab Ahmari joins me to discuss his book Tyranny, Inc: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty - and What To Do About It. Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Inc-Private-American-Liberty/dp/0593443462/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Washington Post columnist Christine Emba joins me to discuss her viral feature essay, "Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.""Men Are Lost" Article link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/10/christine-emba-masculinity-new-model/Reader feedback on how to be a man article link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/14/readers-react-christine-emba-masculinity/Subscribe to Christine Emba's Substack: https://christineemba.substack.com/Follow Christine Emba on Twitter: https://twitter.com/christineembaSubscribe to the Aaron Renn newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

This month's audio newsletter looks at the teachings of two online men's influencers whose work reflects something of a neo-pagan sensibility, Jack Donovan and his book The Way of Men, and Ryan Landry and his book Masculinity Amidst Madness.The Way of Men: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Men-Jack-Donovan-ebook/dp/B007O0Y1ZE/?&tag=theurban-20Masculinity Against Madness: https://www.amazon.com/Masculinity-Amidst-Madness-Ryan-Landry/dp/1951897145/?&tag=theurban-20Text version of this newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/neopagan-masculinityLink to Newsletter #58 on loyalty: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-58-loyalty-is-the-coin

Denny Burk is the President of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the organization charted with advancing complementarian gender theology. Complementarianism holds that only men can be pastors, and that husbands are the head of the home. The main rival system is egalitarianism, which affirms female pastors and says husbands and wives have equal authority in the home.He joins to discuss recent renewed controversies over evangelical gender theology, particularly in the Southern Baptist Convention.Links:Newsletter #78: Big Eva Says Out with Complementarianism, In with Anti-Fundamentalism: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-78-big-eva-says-out-withMy previous interview with Denny Burk:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvG2l_4wOuM

Aaron Ginn joins me to discuss his recent viral essays on male friendship and how to recovery from the dysfunctions of "nice guy syndrome."Aaron Ginn's Substack: https://aginn.substack.com/

As the evangelical world begins to crack up and realign, a segment of "big eva" elites is promoting the idea of redefining the boundary of their community. They want to eliminate complementarianism (a male only pastorate) and replace it with anti-fundamentalism. What was previously a solidly conservative movement would instead be more self-consciously centrist. This was explicitly laid out at a strategy by Tim Keller, and is being executed by people like Russell Moore and others.

The Christian Reformed Church (CRC), a quasi-mainline denomination originating in the Dutch Reformed tradition, had been trending in a more liberal direction. It approved of ordaining women and its Calvin University took a more progressive tack. But recently the denomination has pivoted to the right on sexuality issues. What dynamics have been at play in the CRC? What does the future hold for this denomination? CRC pastor and Youtuber Paul VanderKlay joins to discuss.Paul VanderKlay's Youtube Channel:   https://www.youtube.com/@PaulVanderKlay  Sign up for my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

Conservatives have a strong preference to have other people make their points for them. Hence they love liberals who criticize wokeness, or Muslims who argue for religious freedom. There's nothing wrong with partnering with or promoting others who share your views, but there's something wrong with people who can't seem to advocate for themselves.

The left frequently argues that "structural racism" and other factors dominate our societies. While conservatives rightly recognize these as code words for left ideology, they often react in ways that fail to recognize the way structural forces really do affect individual and group outcomes.

The now disgraced Mark Driscoll was once one of America's hottest "bad boy" pastors. His church had 14,000 attendees, and he had a massive following on social media. Although his empire imploded in a cascade of scandals a few years back, it's still worth looking at his teachings on gender because stripped of his provocative style, the content is actually pretty similar to what other complementarians (those who assert men are the head of the home and that only men can be pastors) teach even today.Driscoll's complementarianism can be summed up as: The husband is the head of the home, but what that means is his primary life mission is sacrificing for and serving his wife and kids. He is probably doing a very bad job of this, deserves stern rebuke, and needs to repent. What authority he has should be used to give things to his wife. He is to defer to his wife’s wishes for anything that is not a major life issue. If there’s a conflict on a major issue, he is to try to avoid making the decision if he can, and only do so as a last resort. If his wife is unhappy about that decision, or anything else, she can appeal to the elders of the church to override her husband. She should make sure not to be too submissive to him.Driscoll sermon Men and Marriage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jacWAsOK0wDriscoll's "How Dare You!" Rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkaeAkJO0w8Newsletter #28: The Anti-Marriage Message of American Pastors: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-28-the-anti-marriage-messageNewsletter #3: The History of the Church and Men: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-3-the-history-of-the-church

There's been a lot of discussion of the limits of the "winsome" model of cultural engagement in the evangelical world, and how it is no longer as effective as it once was and is even counter-productive in some ways. But the culture war model also has limits and is in many ways equally as obsolete. A new model for the negative world is needed that transcends the limits of the old.

Liberal pressure campaigns frequently work. Conservative ones are typically a failure. But the largely spontaneous Bud Light boycott was an exception. I look at why it was an exception - but one that most likely just proves the rule.

A mainline presbyterian Gen-Z videocaster and Episcopal priest recently discussed whether mainline denominations can ever be retaken by the theologically orthodox. I share one example that shows at least some level of institutional recapture is possible, though the risks remain very high.Interview with Jake Meador: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxP_sPcCIkYMy podcast on Tim Keller: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1330924/6548746-regarding-tim-kellerMy podcast on mainline Protestantism: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1330924/8416331-the-cost-of-the-decline-of-mainline-protestantism

Peter Thiel says that "brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius."  We see that on display in the way the leadership of the Gospel Coalition threw pastor and TGC Keller Center fellow Josh Butler under the bus when the hate mob came for him. This is unfortunately standard operating procedure in much of American leadership today.  We all need to find ways to become incrementally more courageous in order to deal with the serious challenges facing our society and the church today.

Conservative insurgents have won elections in a number of places. But as we've seen in cases ranging from Ottawa County, Michigan to North Idaho College to the Hamilton East Library, they often lack detailed knowledge of the governments they are now in charge of, and are getting tripped up by process and other errors. Some to-dos for conservatives, with a focus on libraries.

American's view of what an oppressive, authoritarian society looks like is shaped by models like Naziism, Communism, George Orwell's 1984, or perhaps the persecution of the early church. These systems are both formally repressive, relying on hard government power. And also almost entirely bad. But there are other models in which bad is mixed with good, and in which the system functions differently while still being at some level repressive. China is an example of this. The United States is another. The US model is very unique, based on a hybrid public-private-philanthropic system, and must be understood on its own terms.

Very few people have sacrificed as much personally or absorbed as much pain for the sake of defending and living their life in alignment with their gender theology as Kathy Keller has. She has demonstrated major skin in the game, which commands great respect.

This month's newsletter is a look at what post-familialism hath wrought in South Korea: toxic gender relations, roiled politics, and an emerging conflict between those with kids and without.

Dr. Nicholas Ellis was raised and home schooled on the mission field in Brazil. He then went to England, where he obtained his doctorate at Oxford. Now back in the United States, he has launched Christian Halls, an effort to reimagine Christian higher education in America through creating self-governing microcampuses providing a fully accredited education in every county in America.Check out Christian Halls International at: https://christianhalls.org/Clear Speech for a Confused Age Event in Cincinnati: https://www.kings-domain.com/events

Recent events such as the school shooting in Nashville, the indictment of President Trump, and the conviction of Douglas Mackey shouldn't surprise us, or cause us to give into despair or hate. But it should cause us to change the way we view the American rulership structure that exists today. Like the Roman Empire, it has many positive attributes, but is built on and suffused with pervasive and systematic injustices.

An article in the Guardian argues that online influencers will be more important to conservative discourse in the US going forward in America. This is in part because of technological change, but also from the failure of the establishment class. At the same time, the influencer model has key weaknesses that need to be shored up to make that model healthier.The Guardian: ‘It’s all about trolling’: how far-right influencers are shaping Republican narrative - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/26/jack-posobiec-digital-influencers-far-right-republicans-trolling Washington Post: Indicted Chinese exile controls Gettr social media site - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/26/gettr-guo-wengui-social-media/

The standard self-improvement advice is to say No more often. That's frequently good advice. A lot of times we want to say No but are just too scared to do it. Sometimes other people are taking advantage of us. Or maybe we just neglect our own affairs to say No when we shouldn't.But there's a case for saying Yes too. Yes has much more optionality than No. Saying yes to opportunities, even when they don't seem like they can amount to much, often has payoffs much bigger than we can imaging. Managing for positive optionality and opportunity is a key part of becoming antifragile and positioning ourselves to capture the upside from events.Michael Foster tweet thread on saying No: https://twitter.com/thisisfoster/status/1636016109617856513

People involved in the arts, literature, or other creative fields are generally politically left wing - even far left. It’s much rarer to see someone who is explicitly and openly to the right, though it does happen occasionally.But there’s another way to look at it. Our ideas of left and right in politics descend from the French Revolution. But what if we defined them differently than we currently do?My preferred definition of the right, properly understood, is discerning and aligning oneself and the world around him with the truth. Thus, because great art often expresses Truth, that art is implicitly right wing regardless of the politics of its creator. The best art, journalism, etc. often overflows the intentions of its creator.But many of those who have the greatest insights about today’s world are not Christian at all. Sometimes this makes their work offensive to American Christian readers. But those who pay careful attention will often find incredible truth, particularly about the deformed nature of contemporary society, hiding in plain sight. Today I want to give some examples of this in the form of three contemporary European literary figures: Hanne Orstavik, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Michel Houellebecq.

We see any articles about the so-called shortage of good men. That is, we've seen many articles in the major media about how women are delaying or foregoing marriage because they can't find the right man to marry. If that's true, what are the implications for men? It means that if they do have their act together, then they are a hot commodity in the marketplace, and need to internalize that understanding.

The estate of Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), has engaged so-called "sensitivity readers" to re-write portions of the text to be compliant with today's ideologies. I discuss this trend, the idea of editing old books in general, and a practical response we can take to mitigate against this trend. 

It's a free country and people are entitled to live however they want. But it's important to put forth and advocate for general patterns of life that are mostly likely to lead to flourishing - particularly when we've been following them ourselves. In that light, this month's newsletter contains ten of these theses about marriage and family.

In the mid-century era from World War II (or even before that) to around 1990, America had a mass market common consumer culture. With the fragmentation of that culture accelerating post-1990s, the upper middle class and middle class began to develop distinct cultures and folkways. Even removing race and politics as factors of division would not address this, because even among whites, the upper middle class and middle class now have different and incompatible definitions of the good life. This creates local political dissension and perverse incentives in areas like land use. 

Eric Brende spent a year living with the Amish, and also time trying to live a similar homesteader life in a small town environment. He decided that that there is no place quite like the city to build a productive household environment that is less dependent on the industrialized, technological economy for day to day life. He joined me to talk about his journey and how to get started with the productive urban household life.Eric Brende's web site: https://thehappyhouseholder.com/Eric Brende/WSJ: How to Beat the High Cost of Working: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-beat-the-high-cost-of-working-1535747253Eric Brende: Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology-ebook/dp/B000FC1VAG/

President Nate Fischer and Executive Director Josh Abbotoy join me to talk about American Reformer, a non-profit focused on reinvigorating Protestant Christianity in American life. 

In pro wrestling, the "face" is the hero and the "heel" is the villain. The incentive structures of our society are willing to personally reward people, especially conservatives, who engage in heel behavior in real life. This is because by acting the heel, people serve as a foil to the hero the media wishes to build up. Even Peter Thiel fell prey to this, helping to propel Rigoberta Menchu to the Nobel Peace Prize. While heel behavior can be effective at times, and is a tool everyone should have in their tool chest, we should think long and hard before engaging in these tactics.Heel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heel_(professional_wrestling) Peter Thiel speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibR_ULHYirs

With remote work giving people flexibility on where to live, and people moving because of politics and other social factors, where should we live personally? I will examine different types of communities, and share some thoughts on their pros and cons.

I will look forward at potential trends for 2023, including the theme of the return to normal.

Returning to the theme of deficits in the American leadership and elite classes, I will examine some of the reasons why evangelicals in particular seem not be high impact leaders in our institutions and in society. In particular, I will discuss evangelicalism's weak sense of "calling" and it's low view of the created order.

Doxxing is the internet practice of revealing the identity of an anonymous social media account and/or digging up controversial or offensive social media content in order to get someone fired or worse. It's nearly universally viewed as a shady practice, but is a common technique for cancellation today. In this month's newsletter I provide a primer on doxxing: what it is, who does it, what the consequences are, and how it is perceived. I also provide some practical insights about how to respond to a world where doxxing is common.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Change, whether in personal self-improvement or social evolution, is not linear. There are quantum leaps and discontinuities. This can be deeply unsettling and render obsolete previous ways of doing business and operating in the world.

Companies have long used aggressive sales tactics to maximize units sold and prices charged. Customers have long tried to get the best deal. With the rise of digital technology and financial disparities, these conflicts are highly asymmetric to the disadvantage of ordinary consumers. It's similar in competition for many essential goods like housing, where the equation for the average consumer has been re-written to favor those with large amounts of money.WSJ:  If the Price Ended in 99, You Probably Overpaid - https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-the-price-ended-in-99-you-probably-overpaid-11669293972WSJ: The Sinister Logic of Hidden Online Fees - https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sinister-logic-of-hidden-online-fees-11669229205NYT: It’s Public Land. But the Public Can’t Reach It - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/business/hunting-wyoming-elk-mountain-access.htmlSubscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Gambling, drugs, loan sharking, and sex used to be the province of the mob and other shady characters. Now they are big business, legally sanctioned by governments which often profit from them, and in which even major institutions and respectable figures profit. This is a perfect microcosm of the decline of American leadership.NYT: Key Findings From The Times’ Investigation of Sports Betting: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/sports-betting-investigation.htmlThe Observer: Game, set, bankrupt: how an addiction to gambling on tennis lost me £40,000: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/20/gambling-addiction-tennis-bet365-online-betting-hannah-jane-parkinsonLA Times: The reality of legal weed in California: Huge illegal grows, violence, worker exploitation and deaths: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-08/reality-of-legal-weed-in-california-illegal-grows-deathsSubscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Online or other criticism, combined with receiving support from unexpected quarters, is one of the most powerful dynamics promoting political realignment today. I discuss these, why you need to protect yourself from them, and why you should be careful about how you criticize people on your own "team" online.Twitter thread on career selection: https://twitter.com/aaron_renn/status/1590715709612433408Twitter thread on presentations: https://twitter.com/aaron_renn/status/1589635724164288512Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Thoughts on the midterm elections in 2022 and why you should get out and vote.

With the ongoing flight from the label "evangelical", I will discuss the various meanings of this term and why, rightfully understood, there is no escape from the name.

There's an increasing consensus that elements of the Covid response went way too far - especially long term school closures. It's also clear now that many things that were said turned out to be untrue. For example, vaccine efficacy was clearly overstated. That may have been an honest error, but it was still a serious one.Our society seldom holds people in leadership positions to account for their screwups or the failures that occur on their watch. I share thoughts on this, including a specific look at pastors and Covid.AP: Online school put US kids behind. Some adults have regrets: https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1aeDaily Wire: How Church Leaders Aligned With Fauci To Discredit Experts Opposed To COVID Mandates: https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-church-leaders-aligned-with-fauci-to-discredit-experts-opposed-to-covid-mandates

The question of the vocation of masculinity today is not what it is but whether it exists. I examine how traditional societies, and texts like the Bible, assumed pervasive gender polarity that's greatly attenuated today. I discuss what would have traditionally been common attributes of masculine vocation, and how they relate to contemporary society and ideology. The key point of conflict is over the traditional idea that men needed to over-produce in order to provide a surplus beyond their own needs that would benefit family and community.  But so long as we live in a wealthy, prosperous society, weak gender differentiation will likely be the norm.

Videos from the 1980s show a vanished America. You see the near total absence of the detached, ironic, cynical tone that characterizes the country today and which came to the fore in the 1990s. It's largely a pre-obesity. And it's still a mass culture America. Despite its flaws, the median American today might actually be better off in that era than today.

Conservatives bristled when President Obama said "You didn't build that." But they should understand that theologically and practically, we did not actually build all that we've accomplished by ourselves. We benefitted from good fortune, and often especially from networks and access to capital. Paying it forward in terms of helping be the network for others is one of the way we show gratitude for what we've achieved and been given.

Conservatives tend to view the media as leftist. Due to certain experiences of the Reagan and Bush II administrations, they also seem to believe the media tries to undermine a muscular foreign and defense policy. In fact, on matters of foreign policy and reporting on foreign countries, the media should largely be seen as supporting whatever the US policy towards those nations might be, policy that is typically quite bi-partisan in nature.Subscribe to my newsletter at: aaronrenn.com.

There's an element of social contagion in divorce. We are more likely to get divorced if our friends and associates are divorced. Hence, we should carefully monitor both our own and our spouse's friend networks, keeping an eye out for divorces. 

A Dutch soldier in Indianapolis for training exercises was murdered downtown, creating an international incident with global press and cabinet level officials in both the Netherlands and the US having to address it. And yet local Indianapolis leaders, in contrast to the abortion issue, can't talk about the role of crimes like this in our business climate and reputation. From crime to the water crisis in Jackson to drug abuse to our electric grid to elections to health care, Americas leaders cannot muster the will and ability to address serious problems. They are imprisoned by the ideological constraints of managerialism and hobbled by the increasing complexity of our systems. 

Andrew Tate, Kevin Samuels (RIP), the FaZe Clan and many others online figures most Americans have never heard of have no become the decisive influence on Gen Z. While all of us know this at some level, few appreciate the full reality of it in practice. This feeds off of, and accelerates, the decline of trust in institutions.NYT: Can FaZe Clan Build a Billion-Dollar Business? - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/style/faze-clan-house.html

Some observations on the way evangelicals leaders have been speaking of "violence" as distinct from injustice, and present it as if it were a natural force like thunderstorms rather than a product of human agency.

Dr. Benjamin Mabry joins me to discuss his essay on anti-managerial aesthetics. We will discuss what aesthetics are, why the approach promoted by "dissident right" figures like Curtis Yarvin won't work, and why we should reject the idea of a top 20% vs. bottom 80% of society in favor of an aesthetic scaled to speak to both the elite and the average citizen.Anti-Mangerial Aesthetics Essay:  https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/newsletter-67-anti-managerial-aestheticsPremium Mediocre: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/

In this month's newsletter, Dr. Benjamin L. Mabry discusses the importance of aesthetics, as well as sharing perspectives on what an aesthetic that would provide a genuine alternative and rival to the dominant managerial aesthetics of our culture today.  He describes the aesthetic mode of managerial society, which is based on an imperial mode in which there's a sharp boundary between ruler and subject, in this case the top 20% managerial class vs. the 80% of everybody else. He notes that a top 20% aesthetic is not that of a true elite in any case, as genuine elites are a very small share of the population, not 20%. He also argues that we should aspire to have an aesthetic that both the elites and the average citizen can relate to and admire, rooted in a genuine notion of excellence.He also talks a bit about what such an aesthetic is and and is not. It is not a "mania for newness", or is it a retro-aesthetic that treats the past as just another style element to mix and match at real. Rather, it is the aesthetic and genuine culture of a particular people or subculture, not cosmopolitanism. For the American, this in part means unpacking and expressing the full sense of the aesthetic signifier "Made in America."

I have listeners and readers who have joined at various points along the journey. In this episode I help reset and anchor everyone in the mission and guiding principles I've set out and try to live up to in my work.Mission:  I want to be a leading  public intellectual so that through my writing and speaking I can help conservative American Christians successfully adapt to today and tomorrow’s world.Values:HonestyFairnessIndependenceRigorExcellenceAuthenticityGuiding Principles:Live not by liesBuild up, don't just tear downHave skin in the sameGive compelling insight people can't get anywhere elsePay it forwardNYT: Is Scott Galloway the Howard Stern of the Business World? - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/style/scott-galloway.htmlSubscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Much of the language we use today can be divided into two categories: compliant and defiant. Compliant language - like DEI or ESG - signals agreement with the current elite consensus. Defiant signals some level of disagreement or rejection of that consensus.Defiant language today often uses terms and imagery that are alien to American to American political and cultural tradition. "Nationalism," for example, does not appear to be a way that Americans have understood their relationship to their country.  Catholic integralism and Continental philosophy and themes often seem bizarre to the average American.These phrase, such as nationalism, can be perfectly appropriate to use in some contexts, but we should be evaluating the language we use to think about whether it is consonant with the cultural mainstream of our country. As an example of an organization that did this well, consider the Claremont Institute's DC operation, which was called the "Center for the American Way of Life."  The idea of the American way of life is one that resonates with the average man on the street.

This month's newsletter explains why American Christians, in particular evangelicals, having been reduced to a disfavored minority in the negative world, need to start acting like minority. That is, they need to focus much more on their own internal community strength and health - their private good. This is how all minority groups have always behaved. This doesn't mean ignoring mission, the common good, etc. But you can't give somebody something you don't have yourself. I examine several case studies, including black Americans, Hispanics in Chicago, Catholic in the early to mid-20th century, and the Mormons. Additionally, I provide some starter ideas for what this new focus on community well-being might look like. Above all, the important thing is to make the shift to a minority mindset.

I review a few perspectives on strategic decision making, including Jim Wilson's application of the "strategic point." As a bonus, we'll talk about what you can learn from the Big 10 conference signing on USC and UCLA.

Some thoughts about the reversal of Roe. vs. Wade.  This includes observations on the unintended consequences of violating norms, why the moral vision of the pro-life movement has been more effective than the utilitarian arguments advanced by conservatism generally, the power and importance of a generational perspective, and why a total abortion ban may not be as popular with the American public as some believe.

Online men's gurus typically use a version of the "hero's journey" or the "rags to riches"  to sell you on their products. They tell you how they hit rock bottom, then transformed themselves, then created the amazing life they have today. You too can have that life - if you follow the same script. This is a powerful narrative structure and completely legitimate to use in marketing, yet it has always left me cold. My personal life does follow something of that storyline, but it was not my efforts and plan but rather random events (or, if you prefer, God's sovereign control) that seem more dominant in determining the outcome. We are not always the hero. We have to remember that "unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." While there's nothing wrong with using a hero's journey storyline, we should be humble in recognizing but that for incredible good fortune,  we would not have achieved whatever success we have.

This month's newsletter is a repost from a new Substack called Kennaquhair on the missing heroic feminine. The author explores the nature of archetypal stories and explains why the feminine heroic archetypal story has been under-developed.  He also explores the nature of the heroic feminine through the character of the Biblical Miriam, and gives other examples of this archetype.  The failure to have a well articulated heroic feminine has caused problems in our society, and rectifying this is an important to-do for addressing many of our cultural problems.Subscribe to Kennaquahair's Substack: https://kennaquhair.substack.com/

Paul Vanderklay and Bethel McGrew join me to discuss my three worlds of evangelicalism framework and their perspectives on the current state of the evangelical church in the US. This interview will be streamed live in front of an audience at an event in Wheaton, Illinois.Paul Vanderklay's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGsD...Bethel McGrew's Substack: https://bethelmcgrew.substack.com/Note: This episode may have audio problems in some spots.

The desire for a transcendent connection to the past and future is a primal human desire. We want to know where we came from. We want to know that we will be remembered in the future, that the experience and possessions we've accumulated will live on in and with others. Our world, which is explicitly liberationist, attempts to destroy these longings and organic connection to a lineage beyond ourselves. But it hasn't succeeded, as the rise of people doing 23 & Me or researching their family tree shows. Thus our world will continue to create dissatisfactions and anxieties in the people.

Michael Anton has a new essay talking about conservative funding of art and journalism. I discuss this, as well as reiterate my points about conservative organizations not being especially interested in primary or ethographic research either. But even with funding or institutional support, there also has to be the talent to take these projects on, and the desire to seek truth, not just confirm pre-existing biases or dogmas.Michael Anton: The Tom Wolfe Model - https://im1776.com/2022/05/13/the-tom-wolfe-model/My Review of "American Made" - https://americancompass.org/the-commons/coming-apart-hoosier-state/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

The idea of American exceptionalism has long blinded us to our country's legitimate faults. Having said that, activists attempt to use America's faults to morally debilitate its people in order to accomplish their own agenda.  As Americans, this is our country. We can love it for that alone, without any further justification. We don't have to apologize for America and how we feel about it anymore than a Han Chinese immigrant has to feel shame over what his people are doing to the Uighurs back in China.  No ethnic group or nationality should be subjected to this type of moral debilitation. We just rejected attempts to morally debilitate us. Yet we must also be willing to acknowledge America's faults where they exist, and work to correct them in the ways that we are positioned and feel called to do so. To riff off of Chesterton, we don't love America because she is great, but her greatness comes from our love of her. 

Reflections on the differing perspectives of people at the cultural center and the cultural periphery. Very successful people and those in the cultural center tend to have a more positive view of society and are less likely to support fundamental or outside the Overton Window change.The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/02/the-three-worlds-of-evangelicalism

Evangelicals often take a dismissive or even smug attitude towards the decline of the mainline denominations. They'd be will served instead to ask themselves some tough questions like, "Why isn't the same thing going to happen to us?"

If, as I laid out in newsletter #63, we live in a managerial society in which power resides in large institutions, how should we think about localism and localist movements?  I examine this question in the latest podcast.Newsletter #63: Understanding the Managerial Revolution - https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/newsletter-63-understanding-the-managerialCounty Before Country Conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/county-before-country-22-tickets-317725755287

Andrew Crapuchettes founded the job board Red Balloon to connect employees with jobs at companies that did not have a Covid vaccine mandates. It's grown rapidly and become a place for both companies and employees looking to focus on business and avoid politics in the workplace. He joins to discuss today's job market and how workers can navigate it.Visit Red Balloon: https://www.redballoon.work/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Many people subscribe to James Davison Hunter's view that cultural change is driven by elites and institutions in the cultural center. That's a generally true statement, but can easily mislead us into thinking that all change must originate with elites.  While elite buy-in may be necessary to institutionalize change, the ideas themselves can originate on the margins. I explore this by looking at the views of Eric Hoffer, who puts forth a view almost completely opposite of Hunter, arguing that the new almost always originates with outcasts, misfits, and failures rather than highly successful elites.Eric Hoffer's The Ordeal of Change:  https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-Change-Eric-Hoffer/dp/1933435100/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

An introduction to James Burnham's concept of the managerial revolution, or how managers and bureaucrats came to dominate society (vs. old school business owners or political leaders). We discuss industrialization's revolution in scale that created the managerial class and the transformations wrought by managerialism. We also cover managerialism's limits and weaknesses, and key lessons that an understanding of the managerial nature of our regime can teach us.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Many things in life are a product of dualisms like chaos and order, yin and yang, hot and cold, change and preservation. Unlike with good vs. evil, these are not simple opposites, but principles that need to be integrated. The right balance is not a static one for all time, but depends upon the needs of the time. I discuss this principle using immigration as a case study.  Immigration is not a matter of simply good or bad, but finding the right balance of dynamism and rootedness for the times.

Stephen B. Clark, author of the landmark book Man and Woman in Christ, joins me to talk about that work and its creation. We will also discuss the Catholic charismatic renewal movement and the Sword of the Spirit intentional communities that Clark helped create and which have informed his work.Buy Man and Woman in Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Woman-Christ-Examination-Scripture-ebook/dp/B098XQQDFW/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Sword of the Spirit Community: https://swordofthespirit.net/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

New Census Bureau population estimates for 2021 show the lowest year of population growth on record, with 3/4ths of counties having more deaths than birth, and around a third of metro areas losing population. In this podcast I discuss how the US has entered what appears to be a "demographic winter," what the drivers are, and what it means for the country.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

A reader who lives in cities and likes living in the city wrote to ask whether it is possible to be a conservative in the city given all the rhetoric about conservatives moving away from the city, homesteading, etc.  I explain why the answer is Yes, and why a rural life is not suitable for most conservatives. 

This podcast is the audio edition of the March 2022 newsletter. It is about the oft-overlooked virtue of self-mastery. We cannot allow ourselves to be enslaved to appetites, tossed here and there by the waves, or manipulated into pursuing other men's missions rather than our own.

This week's short podcast looks at one of the biggest "gotchas" people try to use in response to criticism, namely that it's impossible to know the motives of the person being criticized. I discussed why it's valid (if imperfect) to infer motives from actions, but also suggest some alternatives to avoid this common comeback.

People frequently say, obviously with hyperbole, that America is becoming a Third World country. Yet if we look at one of the stereotypes of the Third World - as places with unreliable electricity - are are indeed becoming more Third World like. Our electric grid is increasingly unreliable, and larger numbers of Americans are installing backup generators to deal with it. This episode explores the matter of the third worldization through the lens of our decaying electricity system.WSJ: America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable - https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-power-grid-is-increasingly-unreliable-11645196772WSJ: Wary of Being Left in the Dark, Americans Produce Their Own Power - https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-power-outages-americans-buying-generators-solar-plus-battery-microgrids-11645207261Texas Monthly: The Texas Electric Grid Failure Was a Warm-up - https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-electric-grid-failure-warm-up/

David and Jason Benham, entrepreneurs and investors, join to discuss their book Expert Ownership - and their own journey to business success after being cancelled by HGTV.Buy Expert Ownership: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1736807005/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Creating community and social capital is a frequent topic of conversation in our world, one in which we sense the decline of our existing community building structures. This podcast provides practical examples that you as an individual can use to start building community where you live. It's focused around various forms of institutionalized hospitality, ranging from Sunday night dinners to porch parties to in home concerts. My writeup on the Sunday night dinner concept: https://www.aaronrenn.com/2014/03/09/sunday-night-dinner-in-indianapolis/This episode sponsored by Gold River Trading Co. teas: https://goldriverco.com/ (Use discount code RENN10 for 10% off your oder).Subscribe to my newsletter at: https://aaronrenn.substack.com

Generation X has been something of a lost generation. Sandwiched between the much larger Baby Boomer and Millennial generations, Generation X has often been overlooked. It has also preferred standing aloof, ironically critiquing society rather than seeking to take the reins and reshape it. Today, as American struggles under aging Boomer leadership, and Millennials and Gen Z get absorbed into technology, what role should America's last analog generation play? The Wall Street Journal's Matt Hennessey, author of the book Zero Hour for Gen X, joins me live to discuss these and other questions related to the enigma that is Generation X.Buy Matt Hennessey's book Zero Hour for Gen X: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1641770643/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Subscribe to my newsletter for interview and podcast transcripts, and more exclusive content: https://aaronrenn.substack.com

Julius Krein is the editor of American Affairs magazine, a reformist conservative policy journal, joins me to discuss why the Republican Party as currently constituted can't succeed, what's untrue in conservative dogma, and what conservatives should do next to be more successful and to genuinely help the country.American Affairs Journal: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/Julius Krein's essay Can Conservatism Be More Than a Grudge? https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2021/05/18/can-conservatism-be-more-than-a-grudge/Subscribe to my newsletter for interview and podcast transcripts, and more exclusive content: https://aaronrenn.substack.com

This month's newsletter is about how America has witnessed a profound decline of the exercise of authority by those who legitimately possess it in order to promote the public welfare. The evangelical church in particular seems to have defective process of elite formation, and is implicitly hostile to Christians exercising authority, especially doing so as Christians. This needs to change both for the sake of the church and America.

Demographer and Lutheran Lyman Stone joins us to discuss Lutheranism in America. What are the distinctives of Lutheranism? How did Lutheranism get established in the United States? What are the unique features of how it is organized? Why is the profile of American Lutheranism lower than some smaller denominations like Presbyterianism? Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Since listeners expressed an interest in hearing about this, I revisit the sexual harassment and abuse accusations made against against former Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels. In contrast to those many against many others, which were heavily substantiated, very little evidence was publicly presented demonstrating that the accusations were true. This is not to say that Hybels is innocent, merely that that the case against him that's been presented is not especially strong. I also examine the case of Canadian radio personality Jian Ghomeshi, who was also credibly accused of sexual misconduct by multiple credible accusers and was event put on trial for it. Ghomeshi was exonerated when he produced evidence showing that this accusers lied. Willow Creek Investigative Report on Bill Hybels: https://globalleadership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IAGReport_022819.pdfNew York Times article on Bill Hybels: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/us/bill-hybels-willow-creek-pat-baranowski.html Subscribe to my newsletter at: https://aaronrenn.substack.com

Leading cultural analyst and policy maven Joel Kotkin will join me to discuss his book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, as well as the state of California vs. Texas and more. Kotkin will help provide a map to understand the today's geopolitical and economic realities in America.Buy Joel Kotkin's The Coming of Neofeudalism: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1641770945/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Visit my Substack at: https://aaronrenn.substack.comOur Sponsor: Gold River Trading Co. speciality teas: https://goldriverco.com/ (Use discount code RENN10 for 10% off your order).

Many Republicans love to criticize the "Chamber of Commerce." But what is the chamber of commerce? In this podcast I answer that question, as well as describing the different types of chambers of commerce (there are many of them).  I examine what they do, their basic political orientations, and why they will always oppose social conservative ideas.Article Referenced: Indiana under Republican Rule - https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/indiana-under-republican-rule-pro-business-policy-disappoints-outside-the-sunbelt/This episode sponsored by Gold River Trading Co. teas: https://goldriverco.com/ (Use discount code RENN10 for 10% off your oder).Subscribe to my newsletter at: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Conservatives haven't tended to oppose things.  As William F. Buckley famously put it, to "stand athwart history yelling Stop!" But purely oppositional or defensive approached tend to get steamrolled in the long term.  You can't be something with nothing. You can't be someone else's proposal, even a bad proposal, to fix a real problem with no proposal. This is seen most notably in the Republican Party's approach to health care. What is the Republican health care plan? There isn't one and never has been. If you are someone who does not like ideas that other people are pushing, an important question to ask yourself is: what's my alternative?Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/Become a Member today for access to exclusive Member Zoom events and Member Slack channel:Via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistVia Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

A new video from a pro-life group about "pro-choice men" exposes once again the conservative Christian world's penchant for blaming men even for the things women do.  We see this clearly on display in the pro-life movement in how, while they say abortion is murder and the worst social evil in the country, they describe women who abort their babies as victims, even casting blame at men as in this video. Men are also blamed for women in combat in the military, any martial or family problems, etc. This is a form of moral doublespeak, and was identified in part as far by as 1987 by no less than famed sociologist James Davison Hunter. It's a big reason why men should exercise extreme caution in believing and acting on anything these conservative ministers tell them on gender.Video: Abortion Rights Are Pro-Choice Men's Rights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o950k2HffWwBecome a Subscriber on Substack: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/Become a Member today:Via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistVia Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

So many arguments today de facto reduce the definition of societal flourishing to some economic definition such as GDP growth, per capita GDP, or per capita income. While economic growth is important, there are other dimensions of life that matter to most people. For example: how socially intact a community is (drugs, crime, out of wedlock birth rates, etc), the political functioning of the country, and whether a particular place is expressing people's cultural preferences. We can't allow the economy to become the sole measure of a nation's success or prosperity.

A listener asked how people who don't live on homestead farms can start creating a productive household. I share some thoughts about how people who live in urban environments can do that, primarily through in-sourcing things we presently pay people to do. And also through hospitality.

Returning to the theme of passing on our patrimony, I discuss the great patriotic and folks song of America, using Columbia the Gem of the Ocean as an example. Contrary to popular belief, the celebration of Christopher Columbus in America did not originate with Italian-Americans in the early 20th century. Instead, Columbus has a very long history of association with the United States. In fact, Columbia is simply an alternative name for the United States, as in the District of Columbia. Columbia is also the name of the female symbol of the United States. I learned patriotic songs like Columbia the Gem of the Ocean in music class in elementary school. But today you can't rely on school or organizations like the Boy Scouts to teach this part of our American patrimony to your children. Instead, you need to make sure they learn these great patriotic and folks songs that are part of our cultural treasury.A list of American patriotic songs from Scout Songs: https://www.scoutsongs.com/categories/patriotic-songs.htmlBecome a Subscriber or Member today.Via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistVia Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

Catholic integralism is a political philosophy that advocates for America to become a Catholic state, with no separation of church and state, and policy and law informed by Catholic teaching.Despite having a minuscule number of supporters, Catholic integralism has received a lot of press, and gets prime booking as part of the post-liberal movement. Also, despite being an extremist ideology, Catholic integralism and its advocates are treated as totally legitimate in a way that even much more moderate advocates of political change in the US. The best way to view Catholic integralism is as a movement that's useful to established power and sucking the oxygen out of the room for dissident. Its functional purpose is to collect and harmlessly discharge dissatisfaction with the political status quo.  It is very useful to established power in the way it functions to limit the reach of other approaches that are more practical in America and more realistic to bring into being.Become a Subscriber or Member on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistGumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

What happens when you are a grandparent but never get to really be the grandparent at Christmas because your own parents are still alive? What happens to people like poor Prince Charles who sit in the waiting room for decades because generational turnover never happened? This newsletter contains reflections on how generational turnover got stuck as a result of lengthening life spans and what we can start doing about it. Also: Related observations on how people are even starting to politicize their own deaths.

Sean Clifford is the CEO of Canopy, a company that produces software for blocking pornography on phones and other devices. We'll discuss the problem of porn today, how today's porn differs from yesterday's, how Canopy works to block porn, and how we can create a broader cultural pushback against pornography.Visit Canopy's Web Site at: https://canopy.us/TGC: The Most Effective Technology on the Planet to Block Pornography:  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-most-effective-technology-on-the-planet-to-block-pornography/EPPC: How Social Media Harms Children and Families: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0C_wHt7LK4

Arthur Kwon Lee is the rare combo of a conservative Christian who also received acclaim and solo gallery exhibitions in the New York City art world. He joins us to discuss how, despite being the son of a Presbyterian minister, he was once an atheist; why he is a conservative for aesthetic reasons; what's wrong with art and aesthetics in modern day America (and in the church), what needs to be changed; and his own efforts in the Genesis Council to move in a better direction.Watch this interview on Youtube to see the art at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VifM8XB09AWeb Site: https://www.arthurkwonlee.com/Become a Subscriber (limited time only $5/month through Dec 2021) or Member (limited time only $35/month through Dec 2021) via:Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/masculinistGumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

Everybody today likes to complain about the failures of elites. There's a lot to complain about. But are we willing to be elites ourselves? Are we willing to step into elite roles and change things for the better? We have to be the elite we want to see in the world if we want better leadership in today's world.Become a Subscriber (limited time only $5/month through Dec 2021) or Member (limited time only $35/month through Dec 2021) via:Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/masculinistGumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

Occupations are regularly created and destroyed in modern industrial America. But Rory Groves went back to the jobs that existed at the founding of the country to see which ones have stood the test of time for over 200 years, compiling them into his book Durable Trades: Family-Centered Economies That Have Stood the Test of Time. From farmer to midwife to coachman to brewer, Rory and I talk about trades that have proven themselves durable and how they are still alive in the world today. And how many of them still support creating functional, productive households in the 21st century.Buy Durable Trades on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1725274140/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Become a Subscriber or Member:- On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinist- On Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membership

Following on the heels of a hit job in Vice, the Guardian has published three articles in the past month attacking Christ Church and the Moscow, Idaho community around Doug Wilson.  I examine the latest hit piece, using it to show how the media operates in these situations and the likely objectives of the Guardian's crusade, namely to sever the relationship between the Moscow people and their media partners. I also show why high quality work of the type Moscow produces freaks the left out. And give a few reasons why the latest hit piece is a very low quality trash journalism.The Guardian: US Christian right group wages culture war with books, cartoon and nature doc - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/28/christ-church-us-christian-right-group-books-cartoon-nature-doc

Tell people you are starting  a church to reach the homeless, a new immigrant ethnic group in town, a neighborhood, etc. and you'll be praised. But people would look at you sideways if you said you wanted to start a church to reach the elite.This episode discusses the need for more Protestant elite formation, why existing elites who are still theologically orthodox continue to stay with mainline denominations like Episcopalianism, the functions of elite institutions, what conservative Protestants needs to change in their elite formation approaches, and why they should study Catholic approaches.Become a Member or Subscriber on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistOr on Gumroad at: https://gumroad.com/masculinist

As we approach the US Thanksgiving holiday, I again remind people not to give into despair, to apocalyptic thinking, etc.  Things are in some ways far worse than people think in the US, but there's more room for hope than people believe.  Deliberately going through all that we have to be thankful for is a good way to avoid giving into apocalyptic thinking and stay hopeful.Also: Indiana under Republican rule and the controversies at World magazine.My article on Indiana under Republican rule: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/indiana-under-republican-rule-pro-business-policy-disappoints-outside-the-sunbelt/

Michael Foster and Dominic "Bnonn" Tennant join me to discuss their web project and forthcoming book It's Good to Be a Man. We discuss:How they got interested in men's issuesHow they met and launched It's Good to Be a ManThe "war of the patriarchies"The relationship of Fatherhood to manhoodGravitasFraternityMissionThe manosphere  and pagan masculinity movement.Buy the book:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1954887051/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Religion is in decline in America, but there's an exception: the Mormon church. Mormonism is growing, has strong family formation dynamics, healthy communities, good aesthetics, and strong finances. One factor in Mormon outperformance is the way Mormons choose elites. Rather than relying on a self-selected professional leadership pool, Mormons screen for, identify, develop, and promote people who have demonstrated leadership competence and skin in the game. They also rely largely on unpaid lay leader instead of a paid, professional clergy.A result of this has been a church whose leaderships ranks are staffed with highly talented and accomplished people. Mitt Romney, for example, served as the equivalent of a parish priest for several years while also running Bain Capital, something unthinkable in the Christian church.While Christianity has its own theological and ecclesiastical reasons for the way it chooses elites, there are some lessons that could be learned by analysis of the Mormon case study.

In the November newsletter I discuss the loyalty and its discontents. Historically, disloyalty or treachery was considered the vilest of crimes. Fidelity in relationships at one point even constituted the organizing structure of Western society. But as we've shifted to a consent based culture, loyalty is now too frequently non-existent. Christians will even explicitly disparage loyalty  as a form of ungodliness.  This bizarre state of affairs must be rectified at some level as part of any restoration of healthy functioning to society or the church. For the individual Christian man, finding a band of brothers, perhaps a very small one to start, in which one is joined in common purpose and common loyalty is critical.

John Moody is Kentucky a homesteader with an M.Div. who founded an organic food buying club in Louisville. He joins the show to talk about equipping your family for the 21st century world through creating a fertile and productive household by acquiring skills, growing food, etc.

Using the recent celebrations of Reformation Day and All Saints Day, I discuss why the church (especially the Protestant evangelical church) needs to be more attuned to its history and cultural patrimony.  This includes things like the great English language hymns, but also simply a greater awareness of the incredible legacy of faithfulness and sacrifice that previous generations made to bring us into being and enable us to be Christians today.Links:American Reformer: Evangelicalism's Second-Class Status in Conservatism - https://americanreformer.org/evangelicalisms-second-class-status-in-conservatism/A Mighty Fortress Is Our God: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9uGNb8ZficFor All the Saints: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPjCQ_SRGqMThe Lion King: "You Don't Even Know Who You Are" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmWKvvXzlyg

There's been a recent flurry of articles and podcasts discussing the failure of evangelical elites, whether they have in fact failed, wondering who these so-called elites are, disclaiming that people are elites, etc. This week I look at the question of who the evangelical elite are, and whether or not they are doing a good job. I start by reprising the elite theory of E. Digby Baltzell, and also the views of others elite theorists like James Burnham, Robert Michels, C. Wright Mills, and Robert Dahl.  From this I create a definition of what an elite is and how elite power functions and apply it to America as a whole. Then I apply it to evangelicalism to show how the elites of various evangelical subdomains can be identified.Looking specifically at the group often labeled Big Eva, I name names in terms of who is doing poorly, who is doing well, and who is struggling to adapt to the times. I also examine and apply a different definition of the elite adapted from Kevin DeYoung, and discuss institutional constraints elites operate under, as well as virtues and perils of being inside vs. outside of institutions.American Reformer: The Evangelical Embarrassment Reflex - https://americanreformer.org/the-embarrassment-reflex-evangelicals-and-culture/The American Conservative: Church, State, and the Future of American Evangelicalism - https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/church-state-and-the-future-of-evangelicalism/Mark Galli on Evangelical Elites:  https://markgalli.substack.com/p/the-galli-report-100821Carl Trueman: The Failure of Evangelical Elites - https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/11/the-failure-of-evangelical-elitesLife Books and Everything Podcast on Evangelical Elites (segments starts at 29:00) - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/life-and-books-and-everything-evangelical-elites/Mere Fidelity on Evangelical Elites - https://soundcloud.com/mere-fidelity/evangelical-elitesAmerican Affairs: E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites - https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

There's a low grade moral panic about the state of Generation Z, fueled by bizarre Tik Tok videos, stories of teen girls suffering depression from not getting enough likes on Instagram, etc. But moral panics over the degeneracy of the youth are recurring features of our society. The hippies, the goths, etc. surely inspired similar reactions. This is not to say that all is well with Generation Z. They have had too much unfiltered, unrestricted access to social media technology, but if the past is a guide, there will be something of a correction going forward as parents and societies try to foster a healthier relationship between kids and technology. Just as many of the hippies ended as yuppies, many of these Generation Z kids will surely end up much different in mature adulthood than they are today.

Women initiate the vast majority of divorces. It used to be that women felt the need to give a justification for divorcing their husbands. For example, they might say that he was emotionally abusive or neglectful. But today they increasingly no longer feel compelled to do that. Recent articles in the New York Times from Lara Bazelon and Vogue about the British singer Adele feature women proudly stating that they divorced husbands who did nothing wrong for purely selfish reasons. These powerful culture shaping organs are broadcasting to women that openly divorcing for selfish reasons is acceptable. They no longer need have a reason to dump their husbands.Lara Bazelon: Divorce Can Be an Act of Radical Self-Love: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/opinion/divorce-children.htmlVogue: Adele on the Other Side: https://www.vogue.com/article/adele-cover-november-2021Amazon Alexa Superbowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxNxqveseyI

There are many aspects of life that are unfair. Often these take the form of hidden rules about how the world really works that can be in conflict with the nominal rules about how it is supposed to work. As men, we need to be aware of these rules and they ways that some of them can put us as a disadvantage.  This is not so that we can cower in fear, but rather so that we can be smartly and strategically courageous.

In my previous podcast series on American conservatism, I observed that they have a pattern of jumping into the breach to try to defend their opponents from the consequences of those opponents' own ideology. For example, they defended the school administrators against the student radicals of the 60s when the administrators themselves were liberals implacable hostile to conservatism. In fact, some of those university leaders had previously trashed William F. Buckley over God and Man at Yale.We see this pattern persist into the present, most recently on display last week when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would eliminate gifted and talented programs in the city's public schools. Conservatives were outraged. I discuss this reaction and what it reveals about conservative patterns of behavior.Once More Into the Breach Podcast: https://themasculinist.buzzsprout.com/1330924/8060365-once-more-into-the-breach

The upper class and the intellectuals have always particularly loathed the middle class. The novels of Sinclair Lewis or the essays of H. L. Mencken exhibit this mindset. Conservatives, whose social base and principal character is middle class, have pushed back against this, celebrating middle class values.  It's worth considering, however, whether there is something to the critique of the middle class. Middle class values too often revolve around small pleasures and respectability that fatally compromise their ability to politically or culturally engage with the world.My article on Grand Rapids: https://www.city-journal.org/html/manufacturing-comeback-15833.html

American conservatives rarely read or engage with leftist thought outside of the mass media. This is a weakness because if they did do so, they'd find that serious thinkers on the left are often very smart and have important insights about our world. This includes people often stigmatized as bogeymen (by people who have never read them) like the postmodernists or the Frankfurt School.This podcast talks briefly about a couple of insights from Herbert Marcuse's book One Dimensional Man.  Although an extremely difficult read, this 1950s work makes many observations about Western society that remain as relevant as ever and must be confronted by anyone seeking to change the system.

This week's podcast is the audio of a presentation I gave at a conference on Christian localism called County Before Country. It discusses my positive/neutral/negative world framework for understanding the church's current situation. It then covers a strategy for achieving owned spaces as a possible response to this. The material is largely derived from Masc #13 and Masc #43, but in an accessible, presentation style format.A video of this presentation can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0knvBZ5FlgIMasc #13: The Lost World of American Evangelicalism: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-13-the-lost-world-of-american-evangelicalism/ Masc #43: The Importance of Owned Space: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-43-the-importance-of-owned-space/

Social capital is the relationships, identities, etc. we can draw on in building a life. This issue discusses social capital and provided a diagnostic you can use to assess the amounts of social capital you can draw on across the dimensions of family, friendships, location, and church.

If you made a list of what a right wing fantasy utopia would look like for someone with localist leanings, you'll discover that the only people who have successfully produced those environments are on the left.  In this podcast I examine the cultural contradictions of conservative values, showing how in practice the values of conservatives themselves have produced some - not all, but some - of the dysfunction in which they live. 

Americans are relocating, for economic, political, religious, or lifestyle reasons. But what should we think about when we think about moving? This podcast examines a number of factors to consider: whether you having a historic connection to or family in a place, economic prospects, costs and whether you can really afford to live there, whether you actually like it (not just think you'll like it), and whether you can find a church you like there.

Mars Hill Church collapsed suddenly. The American backed Afghan regime collapsed almost instantly as America withdrew. The Berlin Wall fell unexpectedly in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed at a time when few expected it.Sudden collapse of organizations and countries does happen. Could it happen to the United States? In this episode I examine both sides of the question and how to think about the dynamics of collapse.Dietrich Dörner: The Logic of Failure - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201479486/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Lionel Shriver: The Mandibles - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006232828X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 

This week I weigh in with some initial thoughts on the Christianity Today podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. Although there are some legitimate critiques of the way CT has positioned the materials, complementarians need to accept that Mark Driscoll legitimately does reflect poorly on the movement as a whole.Freddie deBoer: Who Tells Them Things They Don't Want to Hear? - https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/who-tells-them-what-they-dont-wantMasc #7: Accountability for Failure - https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-7-accountability-for-failure/

This month concluded a three part series on the Dissident Right, the mostly online world of right wing politics that has attracted millions of followers. It describes the Dissident Right's views on race. At least some people in the Dissident Right argue for a genetic basis of race differences. In addition to discussing their views, it covers the state of science on genetics (with a skeptical take on genetic explanations for human outcomes), four societal forces pushing people in a Dissident Right direction, and how the church should respond to the challenges of race relations.

What are people saying about you when you aren't in the room? Everybody has a rap sheet. The only question is whether we know what's on ours. Unless we know what people really think of us, we have no opportunity to improve on our weaknesses. In this podcast I share some of the personal, painful feedback I received.  I also discuss ways you can look for good feedback for yourself. And philosophies about how to deal with our weaknesses.

In 2013 Bill Hybels foretold a looming succession crisis for churches. He ended up being more right than he knew. He observed that there had been an explosion of mega-churches, many still led by a founding pastor approaching retirement age.His prophecy has very much come true. Not only did his own succession not go well, we've seen several succession plans unravel recently. John Piper's successor at Bethlehem Baptist recently resigned. There are pastoral searches underway for two of the three major locations at the spin off churches of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. And the challenges facing David Platt and McLean Bible Church likely also have some roots in succession.There are three major models of succession: the internal successor, the external peer successor, and the unofficial interim. In this podcast I discuss these models, as well as other considerations of succession.  Given high profile succession challenges we've seen at churches run by world class leaders, this is an area requiring significant attention. 

A recent controversy over the election of elders at McLean Bible Church shows that power politics rule in the religious world as much as the secular one.  It's an illustration of what people in power are willing to do to win.Christianity Today: Platt’s McLean Bible Church Hit With Attempted Takeover, Lawsuit from Opposition: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/july/david-platt-mclean-bible-church-elder-race-politics-critics.html

The media glamorizes people making the choice to defer marriage and children in order to focus on other priorities like career. While this is a free country and people absolutely have the right to live their lives how they want, the longer term consequences of this for many is not as well advertised. The proliferation of older singles in the pews is in part a downstream consequence of these decisions. The church should not simply become an underwriter of other people's choices to live life on their own terms. While the church absolutely be adjusting to the new realities of more singles in congregations, it should also make sure the role of individual choice in how people ended up where they are is fully acknowledged. And people should be challenged to make different choices going forward.I also look back at a famous sermon on abuse by Jason Meyer, the successor to superstar evangelical John Piper as senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Blog post on Jason Meyer's sermon: https://themasculinist.com/bethlehem-baptist-churchs-jason-meyer-thinks-kathy-keller-is-a-severe-physical-abuser/Text and video f Jason Meyer's sermon: https://bethlehem.church/sermon/fooled-by-false-leadership/NYT article on deferring marriage:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/declining-birthrate-motherhood.html

Are the top people in the evangelical world really elite? Are they elite evangelicals or evangelical elites?  In reality, they are a sort of sub-elite, more adjacent to than part of the genuine American elite. This episode looks at how to think about and talk about the top people within evangelicalism. It also examines the roots of progressive energy in red states in the "progressive yokel." 

This is the second installment in a series looking at the Dissident Right. This series is covering five major commonalities of Dissident Right groups, with this issue covering red pill sexuality and transgressive affect.Red pill sexuality is a model of intersexual dynamics based on evolutionary psychology, and a library of techniques for picking up or interacting with women known as "Game." Transgressive affect refers to the use of provocative or offensive images or rhetoric as a shock tactic. The email version of this issue, which has the images of sample memes and links to further resources, is available at: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-54-taking-the-red-pill/

It's been 70 years since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of spying for the Soviets and sentenced to death.  The left continues to discuss this case and argue that the Rosenbergs (or at least Ethel) were victims of injustice. We can learn patterns of left-wing behavior from observing this case, including that they are relentless and never give up, that they are loyal, and that they use ever shifting rhetoric that often "disguises their power levels."  I discuss these patterns and then apply them to show how we might expect the sexuality debates in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) to play out over time (in part).Links to articles about the Rosenberg case.London Review of Books: How Utterly Depraved - https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n13/deborah-friedell/how-utterly-depraved NYT: The Rosenbergs, 50 Years Later; Yes, They Were Guilty. But of What Exactly?  - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/weekinreview/nation-rosenbergs-50-years-later-yes-they-were-guilty-but-what-exactly.html The Guardian: The Rosenbergs were executed for spying in 1953. Can their sons reveal the truth?  - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/19/rosenbergs-executed-for-spying-1953-can-sons-reveal-truth NPR Boston: Why Ethel Rosenberg Should Not Be Exonerated - https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/01/05/julius-rosenberg-soviet-spying-mark-kramerWikipedia: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

Conservatives and Christians are very enamored of classical education. Studying the classics, the American founding, etc. are important things to do.  But there are other important areas that people living in today's world. These items, including intersexual dynamics, the impact of industrialization, the revolution in scale, and the implications of mass media are often understudied. This leaves conservatives with key blind spots.This episode also includes further thoughts on playing for keeps and whether or not pastors should use packaged sermons, research assistants, or other help. 

Darren Beattie once noted that "there is a profound psychological gulf between playing for scraps and playing for keeps."  This podcast is a short discussion of how people on the left play for keeps while too often conservatives seem to be playing for scraps. 

People on the internet throw the term "red pilled" around a lot. It obviously derives from the film the Matrix. But how should we think about the term and what it means? I discuss in using the examples of the statistics I've highlighted about how women initiate around 70% of divorces, doomsday cults, the Matrix, and Plato's Republic. To be red pilled involves some sort of painful disconnecting from beliefs that have shaped our reality or identity. This is difficult to do, which is why we need to think as much about how we deliver information as what information we are delivering.

Why do young men today turn to online men's gurus instead of to the church for identity, meaning, belonging, and guidance in the current age?  This issue looks at the "Dissident Right," a large grouping of people and movements that accounts for a good chunk of these online gurus.I discuss what the Dissident Right is, how it differs from a different group the New Right, what groups of people constitute it, and what some of its major characteristics are. This issue in particular discussed the atheist metaphysics and Nietzschean ethics shared by many of these figures.Books and other items referenced in this issue.George Hawley: Making Sense of the Alt-Right - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231185138/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Jordan Peterson: 12 Rules for Life  - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141988517/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20  Mike Cernovich: Gorilla Mindset - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1514672111/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Mike Cernovich: Hoaxed Documentary - https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/hoaxed/id1498889845 Paul Gottfried: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826215203/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Vox Day: SJWs Always Lie - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9527065682/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

In this final podcast installment looking at the fall of the old WASP establishment, we'll compare sociologist E. Digby Baltzell's conservative defense of organic social hierarchy with today's movement conservative that rejects social distinctions.

This episode looks at the implications of the fall of the WASP establishment by looking at the life and career of J. Irwin Miller, a WASP industrialist whose commitment to and investment in his town of Columbus, Indiana helped make it the Rust Belt city that never rusted. The town never went into decline and remains a top architectural destination in the United States due to Miller's leadership.Miller was also an important national figure. The first lay leader of the National Council of Churches, an advocate for the Civil Rights Act, a leader in divestment from South Africa over Apartheid, and board member of AT&T, Yale, the Ford Foundation, and the Museum of Modern Art.Recognizing his caliber of leadership, Esquire magazine featured Miller on its cover with the caption, "This man ought to be the next president of the United States."Miller's life illustrates a tradition of leadership and community service that's largely disappeared in the wake of the collapse of the establishment.The Atlantic (written by me): The Rust Belt Didn't Have to Happen - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/the-rust-belt-didnt-have-to-happen/603523/Esquire: Is it too late for a man of honesty, high purpose, and intelligence to be elected President of the United States in 1968? - https://classic.esquire.com/article/1967/10/1/is-it-too-late-for-a-man-of-honesty-high-purpose-and-intelligence-to-be-elected-president-of-the-uniNancy Kriplen: J. Irwin Miller: The Shaping of an American Town - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253043816/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Conservatives today bemoan the fact that men no longer behave as gentlemen. Yet their exhortations on the topic are without effect. E. Digby Baltzell's writings on the American upper class shed light on this decline of the gentleman. He notes that an upper class establishment, as American had until the 1960s, made the social, moral, and behavioral codes of the upper class normative, or at least aspirational for society at large. The end of the establishment meant that those standards also went out the window.It's also the case that the gentleman's code as we understand it was a product of the Anglo-American upper class and especially the Victorian era. It was not universal. This period had organic social hierarchy, patriarchal families, and significant restrictions on female behavior, all of which those who argue men should behave like the gentlemen of that era reject.The largely Boomer social conservatives bleating about being a gentleman should be ignored. Instead, we as men should start thinking about the social norms that we want to have in our groups in the 21st century.Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/Trad Cons Are the Enemy of the American Man:  https://themasculinist.com/tradcons-are-the-enemy-of-the-american-man/The End of the Gentleman: https://themasculinist.com/the-end-of-the-gentleman/

This episode in my series on the historic Protestant Establishment in the United States looks at the role the collapse of that establishment played in many of the dysfunctions of our age. These include the erosion of political norms, the decline of the gentleman, the fading away of the ethos of "fair play," the rise of charismatic politicians like Trump, and the decline of trust in institutions.Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

This episode discusses the evolution of the American upper class from a local and familial to a national and associational community. It describes the nationalization and industrialization of the US in the post-Civil War era.  And it explains the challenges faced by the old WASP establishment leading up to its demise in the 1960s: managerialism, ethno-religious exclusion, and the failure to take up leadership positions in society.Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

Henry Kissinger quipped, "No one will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."  This encapsulates the broader truth about the relationship between the sexes. We are in this boat together. When men struggle, it affects men's relational prospects. But that's also true the other way around. We should want to see women flourish. So in working to build up men, we should not look to tear down women.Also, in this issue I provide an extended excerpt from my major retrospective on the old White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment, and the implications of its collapse. As a product of Catholic peasant stock on both sides of my family, this was an interesting one to research. It is also a critical topic to understand the dynamics of our contemporary world.

Social class has fallen off the radar in America, but remains key to understanding many of the problems we face today in society. This includes everything from the erosion of political norms to men no longer behaving as gentlemen.These problems are traceable in part to the fall of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment. Sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, who popularized the term WASP, predicted many of these problems years ago. In a new podcast series starting today, we will examine his work and what it tells us about America.In this episode we will define and distinguish between the elite, the wealthy and the upper class. We well also talk about what it means to be a well-functioning (aristocratic) vs. poorly-functioning (caste) upper class. And we'll define authority and establishment, looking at what makes for a well-structured (establishment) and poorly-structured (caste) elite. Finally, we'll talk about the very specific meaning that the term WASP itself has.These categories are fundamental to understanding what has happened to America since the decline of the establishment. In future episodes we'll trace some of the consequences of this.Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/The Rise of the “Establishment,” and Its Impact Today: https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-rise-of-the-establishment-and-its-impact-today-with-aaron-m-renn/

The decline of Mainline Protestantism, that is the historically prominent American Protestant denominations, had profound consequences for America and American Christianity.  Mainline Protestantism was how Christianity was integrated with and represented in society as a whole. With the decline of the mainline denominations, America ceased to be a Protestant, and ultimately Christian nation.This podcasts describes what Mainline Protestantism is, the origins of the term "mainline", the nature of their decline, their role in the sacred order of society, what may have led to their decline, and the consequences for the church and society.David A. Hollinger, "After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Protestantism and the Modern American Encounter with Diversity": https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/98/1/21/873365

Everybody likes to beat up on fundamentalists. I grew up in a rural, fundamentalist, pentecostal church. And while I am not a fundamentalist today and think they get a lot of things wrong, they also have some virtues we should appreciate. In this episode is discuss the power of a simple, naive faith, and the willingness to embrace and teach unpopular doctrines.

Rational, logical argument is often  a recipe for losing debates today.  Rather, winning battled depends heavily on emotional appeals and above all seizing the cultural high ground. James Davison Hunter showed the importance of networks and institutions at the cultural center in determining society outcomes. The New Calvinism movement is an example of an instantiation of Hunter's idea, with celebrity preachers and other key figures creating networks and institutions to achieve power over their subdomain of Evangelicalism. The debates over the Statement on Social Justice show the futility of logical argumentation in the face of superior cultural power.Those engaged in debates and disputes within the church and society must understand the full spectrum of considerations around power and persuasion, not just make logical arguments.

The Gospel Coalition is the flagship organization of the New Calvinism movement. They hold their major conference every two years in Indianapolis. Since I'm now back in Indy and they were meeting in person here despite Covid-19, I decided to attend and check it out.This podcast was recorded in the middle of the conference to share a few observations about it, and the New Calvinism movement generally. The conference showcases two of the great strengths of the movement: its intellectual orientation (serious people talking seriously about serious things) and their excellence in public speaking.  For further reference:Noah Smith on experts who lie: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/yes-experts-will-lie-to-you-sometimesMy interview with sociologist Brad Vermurlen on New Calvinism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNA0ic1asbw

In their book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson noted how our language, and very way of perceiving the world, is saturated with metaphor. We use the metaphor "Love is war," for example, when describing someone as a relational "conquest."Metaphors, analogies, etc. are a helpful and essential way of making sense of the world.  But the metaphors we live by can, as with "love is war," import ways of thinking about issues that may not be entirely healthy.In this podcast we examine metaphors used for understanding race relations in America, and how we might be able to positively reframe our challenges using a different metaphor for thinking about them.Buy Metaphors We Live By: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

In our 24x7 media and social media saturated world, it's very easy for us to spend too much time engaging in the controversies of the day and not focusing on what's important to our own long term agenda. It's said that the media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about. Merely focusing on something elevates its importance in our mind. We need to be careful where we are putting our focus so that we don't end up letting the media subtly rewire our agenda without us even noticing it.

Our relationships in life can often be characterized as organic or inorganic, as naturally occurring or as artificial, consciously chosen or constructed. Organic relationship tends to represent strong ties, inorganic relationship weak ties. Inorganic relationships are very powerful, but often can't be relied on when we need them. Organic relationships are the foundational base of social capital.More on community: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Book%3A_Sociology_(Boundless)/17%3A_Population_and_Urbanization/17.04%3A_Urban_Life/17.4G%3A_CommunityStudies from the JEC Social Capital Project: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/socialcapitalprojectAlan Ehrenhalt's The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465041930/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

People tend to look at the compositions of bodies like legislatures or boards of directors based on attributes like party affiliation or race and gender.  But there are other characteristics like professional background, geographic origin, and educational experience that are often even more revealing of how people think about the world. This can give important insights into organizational dynamics.

This is the audio edition of Masculinist newsletter #50, all about online dating. It reviews the facts revealed through various studies of online dating markets. (This issue is very chart intensive, so it is worth looking at online even though I describe the contents of the charts in this audiocast. I also discuss how online dating represents the "globalization" of the dating market, with similar impacts to economic globalization in producing high levels of inequality. And I note how the way these sites are skewed towards looks, and the dynamics of responses to women can make online dating an unfavorable environment to men who are not in the top 10-20% of men in terms of looks. Online dating is a tool and there's no shame in using it. The point is that to make intelligent choices around online dating, we need to be aware of the dynamics of how it actually functions.Read the newsletter online at: https://themasculinist.com/the-truth-about-online-dating/

Our perception of time and relation to it radically shifts over the course of our lives. Our perception of the flow of time accelerates as we age, for example. It's not until around age 35 that we get the ability to intellectually and emotionally relate to the future story arc of our lives.  That's when we start being able to realize that not only have we changed in the past, we will continue to change in the future. This has profound consequences for our lives, including helping to drive the onset of the midlife crisis. Also, our perception of events is heavily dependent on whether or not they are within our living memory. Any event within our living memory seems like it happened just yesterday, while any that happened before that seems like the distant past.

Conservatives have long rushed to the defense of institutions and people who are threatened, even when those people and institutions were hostile to Christianity. This was true even when conservatives were a minority movement despised by all the major organs of society. They defended the university administrators during the campus unrest of the 1960s, for example, at a time when the universities were very hostile to conservatism. Christians also behave this way. It's rooted in an identification with the mainstream of society and its institutions. But Christianity today is socially marginalized and seen as a threat to the social order and the new public morality.  In that environment, American Christians need to reconcile themselves to being a minority, and start acting like it.  That means letting nature take it course with many of the problems of our society. Christians need to be willing to suffer for their beliefs. Now they have to be willing to let other people suffer for theirs.Geoffrey Kabaservice, The Guardians - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LRXCF66/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

In this episode I wrap up my series on conservatism, summarizing the previous installments and encouraging conservative Evangelicals to rethink their deal with the Republican Party. Evangelicals have been the largest and most loyal voting block of the Republican Party, but have not received a return commensurate with what they've brought to the table. While the Democratic Party may not be a viable alternative, conservative Evangelicals need to force the Republican Party to reformulate itself to better align with Evangelical priorities. And to insist on having a genuine seat at the table in defining the conservative agenda.NBER Paper" Does Private Equity Investment in Healthcare Benefit Patients? - https://www.nber.org/papers/w28474Brian Alexander, Glass House - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250165776/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Continuing with my series on conservatism, I note again that far from standing firm on timeless principles, conservatives have in fact changed their mind on many of the most basic elements of society. This includes civil rights and the nature of gender and the family.If they themselves say that they were wrong about such fundamental things, why would anyone believe they are right about anything else? Certainly, we should be open to rethinking many other conservative dogmas, including free trade.Economists have long argued that free trade is close to a free lunch, an unambiguous win-win in which any negative disruptions it causes will be modest and short lived.  In this podcast I look at those arguments, going back in time to the era in which NAFTA and the Uruguay Round of global trade talks were taking place, and China was preparing for entry into the global trading framework. The economic predictions of the free traders were wrong and the critics completely vindicated. The future course of events was accurately predicted by critics of dogmatic free trade, something it look nearly two decades for the economists to admit was true.Global Squeeze: The Coming Crisis for First World Nations (1998): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809229749/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 The China Shock: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21906Vox interview with an author of the China Shock study: https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/3/29/15035498/autor-trump-china-trade-election

This is the premier installment of the audio edition of the Masculinist newsletter. Each month, a special episode with an audio version of the newsletter will be included along with regular podcast originals.The Masculinist #49, Defending Institutional Integrity, is about managing for institutional credibility in an age of declining trust in institutions. This includes managing for trustworthiness, competence, and missional integrity. And doing so for the long haul.Also included in information on homeschooling for college credit, and how to use the FIRE model (financial independence, retire early) to facilitate mission. And a quote from Karl Ove Knausgaard.If you are not a newsletter subscriber, sign up today at themasculinist.comYou can financially support the newsletter and this podcast on a monthly basis on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistGumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membershipSend one time gifts via:PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/masculinistCashApp: https://cash.app/$themasculinistUS Mail: PO Box 33171, Indianapolis, IN 46203

Are conservative pundits just shills for donors? We'll look a bit at the role of money in the conservative intellectual world. While money plays an important role in boundary setting, the cynical view that conservative intellectuals are just shills for donors is not true. This podcast will give multiple examples of where money did matter, where there are potential conflicts of interests, and questions to ask about organizational structures to help understand where people who work there are coming from. NYT: Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html 

For some critics of conservatism, the neoconservatives are a sort of bogeyman to which they often attribute conservatisms' flaws and failings. This portrait is often unfair, despite neoconservatism emerging as the dominant strain with conservatism.  This episode provides a basic overview of neoconservatism's origin and debunks certain myths about them. It explains that domestic policy, not foreign policy was its original main concern, for example.  And how neoconservative foreign policy today is largely a bipartisan, mainstream consensus view in many cases.The neoconservatives had a number of consequential wins, such as their intellectual underpinning of Mayor Giuliani's turnaround of New York City.  However, there are fair critiques that can be leveled at them, including their disproportionate secularism and a weak sense of America as a historic nation that underpinned failures in Iraq and elsewhere.The Masculinist Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheMasculinist/Arguing the World documentary: https://www.kanopy.com/product/arguing-worldThe Neoconservative Persuasion by Irving Kristol: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465022235/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Who financed the rise of conservatism? A large amount of funding came from independent oil producers who were keen to avoid government regulation of their industry. They were at war with the major oil companies that descended from the Rockefeller Standard Oil monopoly, and were rightly concerned that the government might de facto cartelize oil again at their expense.Christianity, both liberal and fundamentalist, was also heavily funded by oil money. The overlaps between the economic interest of the different camps of the oil industry with theology and politics raises profound, and frankly troubling questions that we should ponder more deeply today.Bryan Burrough, The Big Rich: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143116827/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?tag=theurban-20Darren Dochuk, Anointed With Oil: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465060862/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?tag=theurban-20On HL Hunt supporting Barry Goldwater in 1964: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/01/archives/goldwater-gets-h-l-huntbacking-but-texas-rightist-wont-criticize.htmlThe Kennedys and Sen. Joseph McCarthy: https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk2.htm

The American conservative movement was founded by people who were largely socially outside the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment of America at the time. William F. Buckely's book God and Man and Yale and the reaction to it cannot be understood without looking at this social dimension. He was an Irish Catholic criticizing the citadel of the Protestant Establishment that had graciously allowed him in the door.  At the same time, the conservative movement was also unrepresentative of its current voting base of Evangelicals.The Christian side of conservative intellectualism has always been heavily Catholic dominated, from William F. Buckley at its founding to people like Ross Douthat today. The large number of people within conservative intellectual circles that are Catholic converts (both historically and today) attests to the normative status of Catholicism within the conservative movement. Evangelicals, while constituting perhaps the largest and most loyal voting block within conservatism, have never played a material role in its leadership, particularly at the intellectual level. When Evangelical leaders or voters have asserted themselves (as in the person of Pat Robertson in the 1980s or by supporting Trump today), the incumbent conservative establishment has frequently been appalled. Conservatism's social origins and continued existence on the social margins helps explain its lack of cultural success in the country. And the social difference between the Catholic dominated intellectual leadership class and the Protestant dominated voting base with different preferences is a key fault line that enabled Trump's victory. The fact that the conservative elite are a leadership group without a natural constituency in the country is a big challenge for them in a post-Trump world.  For Evangelicals, their lack of input at the leadership level of conservative intellectualism is a key reason they need to rewrite their relationship with the conservative movement and Republican Party.Links:First Things on  Samuel Francis: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/10/the-outsider Michael Lind's "resignation letter" from conservatism: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/pdfs/lind.pdfHow the WASPs betrayed the country to communism: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/weekinreview/witching-hour-rethinking-mccarthyism-if-not-mccarthy.html

Many if not most conservatives in the United States have very little idea where the conservative movement originated and how it developed. This episode provides an extremely condensed summary of the founding of conservatism in the wake of World War II, as well as a bit about its history since then. Key points include:·      American conservatism is a modern political movement with postwar origins. It does not extend back to the founding, Edmund Burke, etc.·      Contrary to its stated commitment to timeless principles, the beliefs of conservatism have continuously and even radically changed over time. ·      Conservatism was originally a tiny movement of people on the margins who achieved successes that were probably inconceivable to their founders. ·      Conservatism was originally separate from the Republican Party, then one faction within, and now today has become indistinguishable from it. The Republican Party is monolithically conservative today.·      Social conservatives, as we understand the term today, were not originally part of the conservative movement and joined it much later in the 1970s and 80s. Further reading for those interested in the history of conservatism:George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (considered the canonical history of the movement up through the mid-1970s)George Hawley, Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism  (written by a University of Alabama professor)Paul Gottfried, Conservatism in America (the "loser's history" from a paleoconservative, written on an academic press).

Evangelical Protestants and socially conservative Catholics have been among the most loyal voting blocks for the Republican Party. The electoral base of the Republican Party is increasingly non-college educated, middle to working class whites.  Yet it does very little for either of these constituencies in terms of delivering on their policy preferences. Instead, the Republican Party, its donor class, and its movement conservative intellectuals largely have their own set of preferences. These are not necessarily bad or nefarious preferences, but they are out of sync with the preferences of the voting base of the Republican Party. They utilize that voting base to achieve political power but predominantly for the purpose of implementing their own agenda.  Quite frequently, they actually betray their voters. A few even seem to hate the actual people who vote for their party.This episode kicks off a series examining conservatism and the Republican Party, its history, and dynamics that  few Christians actually understand. Bill Kristol on Immigrants Being Better than Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zks6WK1HsokRoss Douthat on conservative manipulation of populism: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/opinion/campaign-stops/what-the-rights-intellectuals-did-wrong.htmlNYT on racial slurs and the University of Tennessee: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.htmlHorrific Indianapolis rental housing: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2019/06/27/ex-fox-friends-host-clayton-morris-partner-bert-whalen-got-rich-tenants-lived-horrible/1351737001/Findings from nursing home investigation: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2020/12/31/indiana-nursing-homes-takeaways-indystars-investigation/6545944002/

Too many Christians today evince an attitude of hopelessness and despair. Such attitudes can drain your morale and make it likely that you will preemptively surrender or sell out your posterity without a fight. It's very important that the Christian avoid hopelessness and not give in to the counsels of despair. While we should be realistic in our diagnostics, we should also understand that expected help or even victory can come from quarters we never expected.The Last Christian Generation: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/final-christian-generation-jeremiah/Westminster Larger Catechism Q129: https://www.opc.org/lc.htmlThe Testosterone-Cortisol Ratio (Masc #29): https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-29-the-testosterone-cortisol-ratio/Tweet regarding Nick Kristof and porn: https://twitter.com/aaron_renn/status/1337191256431144965The superiority of the tit for tat strategy: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/game-theory/axelrod.html

Liberal groups have always treated non-incumbent conservative positions as illegitimate. Thus they do not substantively engage with them, debate or engage with their practitioners, provide platforms or space in their publications, etc. Conservatives, by contrast, frequently give respectful hearings to liberal views, engage in substantive debates, etc. They fail to appreciate that even engaging with heterodox views in order to refute them bestows a kind of legitimacy on them. If those ideas ever achieve supremacy, however, conservatives will soon find that their own long held views will be deemed illegitimate. All debate and engagement will be ended.We should be very thoughtful about how we engage with opponents and situations in order to avoid accidentally legitimizing the illegitimate.John Piper, "Prayers Cause Things": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krzwmhDMvv8Rod Dreher on Dialogue: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-orthodox-left-wails-schmemann-lecture-orthodoxy-rod-dreher/On Sam Nunberg's drunk TV interviews: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/former-trump-adviser-says-screw-mueller-subpoena-in-intenseIf you are debating substance, you've already lost: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-45-flattery-will-get-you-everywhere/

The most consequential conservative Protestant victory of the last 100 years was likely the battle to expel liberal theology from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Concordia Seminary was the center of modernist theology in the LCMS, and its faculty ignored numerous denominational resolutions against their position. When a newly elected conservative leadership in the denomination suspended Concordia Seminary's president, 90% of the faculty and most of the students walked out. The LCMS let them go and rebuilt the seminary from nearly nothing. The liberals created their own institution, the Concordia Seminary in Exile, or Seminex, which failed after only about a decade. Also, 200 liberal congregations left the LCMS and created a new, liberal denomination that ultimately merged with today's Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.In this battle, the opposite of every similar episode to date, the conservatives won and the liberals departed, leaving the LCMS the conservative denomination we know today. This battle was a key inspiration for the similar conservative resurgence effort in the SBC.Rather than studying institutional losers like Gresham Machen, today's conservative Christians would be better served to study examples like Seminex where conservatives actually won.The Concordia-Seminex Affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeminexSupport the Masculinist on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/masculinistGumroad: https://gumroad.com/masculinist/membershipPaypal: https://paypal.me/masculinist

Conservatives have long tended to underestimate the value of institutions, and to get out maneuvered by liberals in institutional battles. As a result, it's usually conservatives who exit from institutions in order to form new ones. But because nothing has changed with them, their new institutions frequently undergo a reprise of the same problems that plagued the original ones they left.The proposed United Methodist Church split is a good example of conservative thinking on institutions. Although the conservatives won the previous rounds of denominational votes, it is they are who are heading for the exists and leaving all the denominational infrastructure in the hands of the liberals.Their split protocol is also a terrible deal for conservatives. It establishes the liberal position by default, and sets possible supermajority thresholds at every level to get out. This suggests many fundamentally conservative congregations will end up trapped in a now officially liberal denomination with no way out.On conservatives and institutions:  https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-42-why-you-should-be-on-the-advance-not-the-retreat/United Methodist Split Protocol: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/diverse-leaders-group-offers-separation-planIndianapolis Plan for Separation: https://indyplanumc.org/

This week's episode is a look at how major coastal elite cities have created an economic model that depends on the exploitation of a largely immigrant labor class who serve the wants and needs of the upper middle class in these cities. Urban dwellers heavily rely on minority or immigrant nannies, nail technicians, maids, Uber drivers, food delivery workers, laundry people, etc.  Rarely are these people paid a living wage. Many of them are not even employees, with zero benefits, and who are illegally paid cash under the table. And unlike with the Ellis Island generation of immigrants, many, perhaps even a majority, of their children and grandchildren will not experience upward economic mobility. The growth of this model with an upscale class at one end and an exploited labor class at the other has fueled political discontent, with rising left-wing populist politics and the election of people like NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio who explicitly campaigned on a theme of "two New Yorks," one rich, one poor.Members of upscale churches in these cities often depend on and profit from this system of labor exploitation. And their pastors talking about justice do not often speak against this system.

No one is more associated with the rise of the urban church than Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC. Increasingly, however, Keller has been a source of controversy and target of criticism online.  What accounts for this? Is Tim Keller selling out?Tim Keller's actions today need to be seen in the context of his entire ministry. Keller has proven himself over many decades by serving faithfully in a small town church for seven years early in his career, not publishing any books until his 50s, being willing to start Redeemer at a time when every rational person would have said he was crazy, and demonstrating high levels of competence in what he's doing. He's also shown generosity to those less famous than himself.The root of Keller's problems today stem from a change in the times. The link below talks about the three eras of Christianity in modern America, the positive, neutral, and negative world. His ministry was perfectly tailored to the neutral world, but after the transition to the negative world he's become increasingly ineffective as he keeps pushing his neutral world formulas into a negative world context.Keller will hopefully survive his fight with cancer. Assuming he does, he has many years of fruitful work ahead of him as a minister. But should he continue pushing neutral world themes as a public intellectual in today's world, there's a risk he could damage his reputation. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar provide cautionary examples of what could go wrong.  Hopefully Keller manages to avoid their missteps.The positive, neutral, and negative world: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-13-the-lost-world-of-american-evangelicalism/

Catholic neoreactionary writer The Social Pathologist drew on the work of G.K. Chesterton to note how and de facto form of Buddhism had grown in the Christian church, more as a result of a loss of balance or a particular temperament or feeling than outright theological error. This manifests itself concretely in many parts of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches today, including the urban church. We see it in how any desire that causes people to become upset can be defined as a form of idolatry. This is true especially for the supposed "idolatry of the family."  A large number of people, especially women, in churches who deeply desired to be married and have children did not. Their grief over this is not evidence of idolatry but of legitimate loss. Similar things are true of teachings about dealing with things such as career failures or not getting into someone's desired college.In essence, to be very hurt or upset by desires unfulfilled is treated as evidence that we've put our hope in something other than Christ. The answer is thus to purge ourselves or desire or to moderate them to low levels so that this does not happen. Thus the path of righteousness is similar to the Buddhist emptying oneself of desireThe Social Pathologist on Christian BuddhismPart One: https://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2019/06/christian-buddhism.htmlPart Two: https://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2019/07/christian-buddhism-ii.htmlPart Three: https://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2019/07/christian-buddhism-iii.htmlPart Four: https://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2019/07/christian-buddhism-iv.htmlThe Litany of Humility: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christianity-rachel-held-evans-the-power-of-being-wronged/

In this concluding episode of the series "Urban World, Urban Church" we look at several odd things about the urban church.The first is how nationalism is increasingly disparaged in Christian circles today, while urban church people want us to strongly identify with our city. How many sermons or articles have warned about making an idol out of the city vs. making one of your nation? They seem to be encouraging us to transfer our allegiance from our country to our city.The second is how the urban church world is very focused on starting new churches, while rarely trying to renew old ones. This is very odd in light of how they often explicitly transform an entire city. Can you transform a city of you can't transform a church? The Catholic Church is an exception in this regard, having successfully transformed many parishes as neighborhood demographics changed.The third is how tribal these urban church groups seem to be. At the elite levels, they seem to have virtually nothing to do with each other (e.g., Redeemer NYC and Hillsong NYC) and avoid even commenting on each other.  They argue against nationalism by saying that our identity as fellow Christians should trump other loyalties, yet they seem to not even be in active fellowship with the church down the street.

Donald Trump shined a light that exposed a fundamental rift inside Evangelical Christianity which was previously hidden to most people. This shows the value of events that divide people in unexpected ways; they allow us to gain unexpected insights.In identifying himself with the anti-Trump Evangelicals, Christianity Today CEO Tim Dalrymple acknowledges that the urban church elites, although they have achieved high socio-economic status, have failed to achieve cultural influence. Contra Dalrymple, these churches have frequently explicitly sought to obtain cultural influence, which is revealed in their transformationalist vision statements around bringing "cultural renewal," "wholeness," etc to cities.  While they've achieved a lot in other areas, they have not made much progress here. Instead, they have primarily acquired power and influence over the rest of Evangelicalism, which they are using to remake it in their own image.Tim Dalrymple: Why Evangelicals Disagree on the President: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/november-web-only/trump-election-politics-church-kingdom.html Tim Dalrymple Tweet: https://twitter.com/TimDalrymple_/status/1323025271226847234 (archived at: https://archive.is/FEBR1 )The Testosterone-Cortisol Ratio: http://www.aaronrenn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-Masculinist-29-The-Testosterone-Cortisol-Ratio.pdf

Contrary to the popular belief that elite global cities are extremely secular, they are often much more religion-friendly than commonly advertised. New York City in particular is very friendly to religion and may be what journalist Tony Carnes has labeled "the first post-secular city."  In particular, there large Christian populations in immigrant and ethnic communities that can go completely unnoticed by many. There may be as many as 1.2-1.6 million Evangelical Christians in NYC, mostly in these under the radar groups.The religious heritage and environment of each city is distinct, so blanket conclusions can't be drawn about their friendliness to Christianity.  But it's a mistake to assume that these places must be highly secularized.A Journey Through NYC Religions: http://nycreligion.info/An Evangelical Revival in the Heart of New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/nyregion/central-park-festival-to-highlight-new-yorks-vibrant-evangelical-movement.htmlChristian Cultural Center: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/style/reverend-ar-bernard-new-york-megachurch.html

One characteristic of large coastal, elite cities, and their international brethren, is high population churn in their gentrified precincts. People are constantly moving out, with new arrivals coming in behind them.This high turnover has several implications for the churches there. One is that they have to be constantly attracting new members in order to avoid shrinking. Another is that it's very difficult for them to sustain community. In general, it's more difficult for people to make an sustain long term, deep friendships and personal connections in those cities than it is in most places. They are good places to move for certain kinds of people: the young, people originally from there or from a nearby town, wealthy people, and people with personality types that allow them to live mostly autonomously.  The people in these cities are shallowly rooted, as we saw during the pandemic when large numbers of their most affluent residents abandoned them. This calls into question how real the notion of "in the city for the city" really is.Escape from New York: https://arpitrage.substack.com/p/escape-from-new-yorkJoan Didion's essay "Goodbye to All That" can be found in her book Slouching Toward Bethlehem.  

Because elite cities have such a big role in creating and shaping culture, it's easy for Christians in them to fall into a theology of pride. They can end up believing not only that they are doing more important work than Christians but that they are better in many ways too.We'll examine this by looking at how James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World flatters the urban church world, how the urban church uses "third way" rhetoric to implicitly position themselves as better people than flyover country Christians, how the church church validates rather than challenges the way people in big cities are living their lives, and how seldom the church ever speaks prophetically about the sins of elite city industries like finance or entertainment.Works referenced:Kathy Keller on lessons learned from 30 years of ministry in New York: https://medium.com/redeemer-city-to-city/lessons-learned-from-30-years-in-ministry-e580d4afb846James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: https://www.amazon.com/Change-World-Tragedy-Possibility-Christianity-ebook/dp/B003TWNDVY/Preachers 'N Sneakers: https://www.instagram.com/preachersnsneakers/

American cities looked like they were headed for the scrap heap in the 1970s and 80s, but some of them, particularly the elite cities of the American coasts (and their peers in other countries) came roaring back. Thanks to globalization, deregulation, and other factors, places like New York and San Francisco now control the commanding heights of the economy. They also control the culture because they are the places where the elite institutions and networks that create culture are concentrated.The church must be present in these cities lest it abandon the economic and cultural centers of the nation. What's more, the cultural pressures facing the church come first and most intensely in these places, so it is there that the church's response to them can be developed. The importance of these elite cities means that the church their can fall prey to pride, something that will be explored in the next episode.Books Referenced:Saskia Sassen - The Global CityJames Davison Hunter - To Change the World

This episode begins a series called "Urban World, Urban Church" looking at the trends in global urbanization and the church's response to them. This first installment looks at the great shift underway from a planet that was almost entirely rural a century ago to one that will be overwhelming urban at the end of this century. As cities and megacities growth, this will require a complete shift in the way that the church approaches evangelization and missions.

The very first episode in the Masculinst Podcast, welcoming and explaining how we will be providing deep cultural diagnostics for how to live in the "negative world." That is today's world in which Christianity is increasing seen as a social negative and which will lower your status in secular elite culture if you practice it. How can we make sense of the times? How can we create ministry strategies appropriate to the times? The Masculinist podcast is the place where we together will go on a journey to answer those questions.For more on the "positive", "neutral", and "negative" worlds, read: https://www.aaronrenn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/The-Masculinist-13-The-Lost-World-of-American-Evangelicalism.pdf