The Revolt of the Normals, Part 1

Introduction

I have been asked quite a few times how long I think that our current cultural woke spasm can continue. The answer lies somewhere in between “longer than you might think” and “not indefinitely.” It cannot go on and on and on because Stein’s Law informs us that anything that cannot continue on indefinitely won’t. Whatever else it is, stupidity is not a sustainable strategy.

The Left’s Great Naming Mistake

But one of the reasons why I think we are nearing the break point is that I believe that the commies have made the fatal mistake of allowing themselves to be identified and named. That naming has now happened, it is in common currency, and that means the battle lines are drawn. I don’t believe it will be too long before battle is joined.

So by “commies,” I mean anyone appealing in any progressive way to the tenets of BLM, woke, Critical Race Theory, Critical Theory, political correctness, the Frankfurt School, social justice, cultural Marxism, intersectionality, feminism, and other assorted collectivist ends and commie odds. Some of these commies are commies simpliciter, meaning the ones running the show, and some of these commies are commie dupes, meaning the foot soldier chumps, and frequently recruited from the ranks of soft evangelicalism.

Why does this naming matter? Back in the old days, when some lunatic economic proposal was presented to a bewildered public by some liberal official, the person making the proposal observed all the decencies, and the people surrounding him would observe most of the decencies. And that is what normals would look at and be reassured.

So in political debate, just a few years ago, whenever a conservative referred to Gramsci, or to Critical Theory, or to cultural Marxism, the leftist in the debate could just backhand him, and tell him to “educate himself,” or to “do his homework,” or “read a book, bozo.” And just a few years ago, that tactic would frequently work. The conservative was attempting to name what was going on around him, but the times were such that the name wouldn’t stick.

But we are now at the point where the name has stuck, and this means that there is a large population of disgruntled normals who have a name for what they are up against. The war has not yet happened, but the uniforms have been handed out. And that name is going to be glued to anyone who has self-identified that way—as back in the halcyon days when someone like Lig Duncan could write the foreword to Eric Mason’s Woke Church and not have the roof fall in on him right that minute. What I am saying is that the roof is very shortly going to fall in, and a bunch of evangelical thought leaders (who trusted their publicists a tad too much) are going to have to walk their semi-wokery back, however gingerly, or will have to go full commie. For some background on these fault lines, read Voddie’s magnificent new book.

If you don’t think that the name tags have been handed out, then you don’t believe that normals have eyes in their heads. The American Cultural Revolution is well under way, and it has gotten to the point where pretty much everyone can see it. If you can’t see it, turn your binoculars around.

Think about it. Last year we had weeks of full-tilt rioting, with multiple cites being burned, along with multiple deaths, and government buildings under siege, on the one hand, and then we had the January 6 event, on the other, where some cosplay conservatives stood outside some velvet ropes at the Capitol. And which kind of event has been labeled the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War? To see this, you don’t have to approve of the dunder-headed move which allowed the left to make Buffalo Man into our spokesman, and I emphatically don’t approve of it. But at the same time, I do have eyes in my head, and I can see that the two genuine sides are forming up, and each is aware of the existence and location of the other. The sides are glaringly obvious to us now because the lies are glaringly obvious.

In many respects, the situation before the Civil War was less inflamed that it is now, but conflict came earlier because the differentiation was geographical, and thus the naming of the enemy could happen a lot sooner. There was some of our current kind of muddle and confusion in the border states, but the naming part was generally easy.

We have have had two different Americas, all mixed up together, jostling one another, for some time now. But apart from yard signs during elections, and occasional bumper stickers, it was not easy to tell who was who. This was masked even further by our Electoral College system, which allowed denizens of red states and blue states to assume (since the election map for their state was solid blue or solid red) that everyone in their state was simpatico, to engage in a little cultural appropriation. But there are counties in eastern Oregon that want to be part of Idaho, and there are residents of Boise who want to make it more like Sacramento, believe it or not.

Until recently, it was possible for many such people to just live their lives, bumping alongside one other. But because the Left has now made their move, and it is a “Let’s Make Everything We Like Mandatory” move, functional and practical neutrality is now an impossibility. If you doubt what I say, try working for a major corporation, and try to navigate June while displaying an insufficient enthusiasm for anal sex and see if you get a little visit from HR.

A Glance Ahead at Part 2

The concluding argument coming up in this post is that the people advancing the false and spurious gospel of Critical Theory need to repent of their sin. When I get to that point I do not intend to hold back. But lest I be plausibly accused of peddling a false gospel of my own (i.e. a gospel conducive to “normals,” one based on traditional American values), let me glance ahead at Wednesday’s post and say that the grievous problem with normals is that they want a stable traditional house with no foundation, which is something that Jesus said they can’t have (Matt. 7: 24-29). They are greatly distressed that the current woke storm threatens to destroy their way of life. And that is exactly what it will do unless they likewise repent and turn to Christ. Everyone must turn to Christ or die.

Unregenerate normals love the fruit and hate the tree. Unregenerate wokesters hate the fruit and hate the tree. The latter, frankly, are being more consistent.

Apostasy Proper

I use the word apostasy because all this has happened in a culture that was ostensibly Christian. There has been a falling away, even if some of the individual participants have no Christian background to speak of. The language of the movement, particularly with their twisted appeals to justice, has been an attempt lull a complacent erstwhile Christian culture to sleep.

The gospel of woke is no gospel at all, but rather law. As law, it does what law always does—which is to bring condemnation. But on top of everything else, this is twisted and demented law. There is no forgiveness here, only condemnation. There is no liberation here, only the clanking of chains. There is no peace here, only seething resentments. There is no cleansing here, just an endless supply of more filth to roll around in.

The purveyors of this gospel—the ones who believe it, heart and soul—are antichrist. They don’t believe that Christ was God come in the flesh. If they believed that, they wouldn’t be misrepresenting melanin the way they do. They wouldn’t be distorting sex the way they do. They wouldn’t have the lust for power that they display. They wouldn’t be as full of rage as they are.

And make no mistake, at root, rage is what all of this is about. And the bottom line for Christians should be this glaring fact.

Those whose policy prescriptions for our nation are prescriptions built on a foundation of their rage are people who are lost and running headlong to the Abyss. Do not follow them there. The only wrath that matters, the only wrath that has any salvific power at all, is the wrath that God the Father poured out on His beloved Son on the cross. That is the only way out. That is the only way to forgiveness. That is the only freedom from damnation.

All this other rage is not only not a Savior, but is rather a prime specimen of what we need to be saved from. The rage of these revolutionaries is not the lifeguard, but rather the dirty water that we are drowning in.

Toying With Apostasy

The New Testament is filled with warnings to genuine believers to stay far away from false teachers. Don’t be gulled by them. Don’t be misled. Keep yourselves from idols.

And so I want to say this to all the current stars in the evangelical firmament—to all the big conference speakers, to the seminary presidents, to the curators of the big blogs, to the leaders of denominations, to the publishers of books and magazines, to the names on dust jackets and to the givers of blurbs—you must repent. You were the assigned sentries on the watchtower, and you were the ones who failed to give an adequate alarm. This failure has been a disastrous one.

Some of you have even toyed with the heresy itself. Not only did you not give the necessary warning, but you even thought about joining forces with this new woke way, this path that ran alongside the true path for a while, but landed us all in the castle of Giant Despair. If you were our leaders, why are we here in this place now?

And when lesser lights in the evangelical world tried to raise the alarm, you behaved in all kinds of disreputable and yet “very respectable” ways. You pulled your skirts away from them, you would not refer to them, you believed and circulated the lies that were told about them, you dissed their degrees or lack thereof, and you did not want to risk besmirching your ministry with any kind of alliance with bumpkins. And all of that was true—you had all the advantages and they had none of them. So why were they faithful and you not?

And now comes the time when the break point is headed our way, and you are going to have to decide. I speak in a metaphor, probably, but it would work in a literal setting as well. When the earthquake finally comes, to use Voddie’s image of the fault lines, and it is time for you to run, which direction are you going to run? Are you going to make your way to Connecticut or to Texas? And when you get there, how are you going to explain yourself?

It would be far, far better to do the repenting now.