LPRs Sacralist Allegiance to a Confused and Counterfeit Right-wing Kingdom

https://issuesetc.org/2022/06/21/1721-the-restoration-of-citizenship-dr-victor-davis-hanson-6-21-22/

Listening to this exchange with the Hoover Institute's Victor Davis Hanson it was hard not to be struck by the fundamentally non-Christian approach of the interview, which is a strange thing because supposedly I was listening to a Confessional Lutheran radio programme.

LPR's Todd Wilken allows the Right-wing advocate to drone on and never challenges his misreading of history and current events or his ridiculous hypocritical statements regarding the motivations of the Left – many of which could in another context be equally applied to the Right. It was hard not to think of Hanson's support for Bush and his wars and the deceitful and anti-constitutional nature of his administration's conduct and in more recent times – Hanson's support for the lecherous, criminal and would-be fascist dictator, Donald Trump.

Hanson came across as ridiculous, an evident pseudo-intellectual whose scholarship is little more than to repeat and dress up talking points found on FOX. But Wilken was just plain disappointing. He often gives a platform to these Right-wing figures and then pretends (at times) to be more than a few degrees removed from it all. It also exposes the real nature of Lutheran Two Kingdom Theology (and its Reformed counterpart at Westminster California). It's a fake Two Kingdoms scheme at best, a sleight-of-hand trick, a back door means of embracing Right-wing thinking with all its ugly nationalism and the like even while pretending to maintain a buffer and eschew the most egregious forms of sacralism and transformationalism.

As far as citizenship goes, which was the heart and purpose of the discussion (and what caught my eye and drove me to listen to it) – apparently Wilken had nothing to add. Hanson expresses the wisdom of the lost world and apparently fails to detect (let alone discern) the tribalist nature of contemporary Right-wing political expression. His arguments are simply assumed though every one of his assumptions can be challenged and thus his discourse, reasoning, and conclusions fall painfully flat.

In terms of the New Testament, the faithful student of Scripture should have met, challenged, and repudiated his positions point by point but Wilken had no interest in this at all. He wasn't even trying to mediate Hanson's assertions and rhetoric let alone challenge them. The New Testament position on all of these points is fundamentally different and while we know Bestially inclined states (like that which Hanson advocates for) will construct these various ideas and theories regarding citizenship, duty, and social ethics – especially in the context of Enlightenment Classical Liberalism, the New Testament view is quite different and posits a view of citizenship fundamentally at odds with the assumptions of one such as Hanson and the obligations he would place upon us. As a Christian I reject his statements, values, and ethics in their entirety and I certainly reject his notions of citizenship.

What is Hanson but an ivory tower fool? I mean that in the sense Paul does – not as name calling but moral judgment. Wilken on the other hand is a leader within Confessional Lutheran circles and touches a broader audience within the Reformed and Evangelical world. The words pilgrim and stranger never came up, let alone anything else the New Testament had to say about the courts, vengeance, mammon, or anything else along those lines. New Testament ethics are diametrically opposed to the view of citizenship presented by both conservatives and Right-wing thinkers like Hanson. This is why if the Right and Christian Right ever acquire unrestrained power they will persecute the faithful who refuse to participate in their idolatries. In the past they have certainly engaged in censorship, blacklisting, and the like. It's in their DNA, their libertarian claims notwithstanding.

The fact that the Left's views are just as flawed is irrelevant in this case as the Christian community doesn't side with them – or let's say the 'viable' Christian community does not.

And there is a particularly deceptive nature to their arguments about the 'liberal elites' who supposedly rule the country. FOX is the dominant media channel within the United States, and the Right possesses considerable clout in terms of the political sphere. But more than anything else the 'elite' of the country is connected to money, to big business, and to Wall Street. With the exception of some of the tech billionaires this sphere is largely dominated by the Right. And even with the tech sector, one might find some cultural liberals and sodomites who favour a leftist gloss on their notions of civil rights but to a man they're pro-Wall Street, anti-union, and generally speaking support the international agenda of the United States when it comes to trade, finance, power, and the like. These people can be described as Centrists, embracing a spectrum of ideas that straddle the Left-Right divide. The Right-wing narrative about Leftist Elites is pure myth. Their movement has drifted so far to the Right that mere conservatives let alone centrists are now decried as being 'far left' and 'communists'.

Even in academia, where it is admitted that the bulk of the professors tilt Left, the majority of the power rests with boards, trustees, and in other cases must answer to state political interests – sectors often leaning conservative. Once again, while there are some Left-leaning aspects to some colleges and the diversity agendas they would promote (which many on the Right have exaggerated), in others these forces are tempered or curtailed by the Right-wing elements connected to big money and in other cases state political machines. It's just not that simple and the 'liberal elite' narrative is deceptive and needs to be challenged.

Likewise in addition to the dominance of FOX and the larger spectrum of Right-wing Talk Radio and the like, the media more than anything else is profit based and corporate dominated. Ratings are the driving factor not truth or even ideology and thus all the major channels are essentially venues for entertainment or as some put it – infotainment. Thus we see the 'news' is dominated by human interest stories, promotionals about consumer products, celebrity interviews, cooking, fashion, and so forth.

The local Evangelical station (which is little more than a Right-wing propaganda mill) reported on a recent story that said objectivity in the media is at a historical low. Even this claim can be questioned in terms of history. There was little in the way of objectivity in 1950's American media. But as expected, the story was cast in terms of villainizing the 'Left-wing Media' which is equated with the 'Mainstream' media. They were able to pull out some fairly awful quotes from some of these figures which indeed possess an elitist attitude. They are corrupted more than anything else by money. Most of these people are multi-millionaires and express the viewpoints and interests of that class. And while they may be Left-leaning in terms of ethics, like the Democratic Party they also embrace many ideas that fall within the spectrum of Right-wing thinking – pro-Wall Street, support for 'the troops', and the larger apparatus of the American Empire.

But again, given that FOX is the dominant media channel, just what constitutes the mainstream? Hanson and those like him at times try to present the Right as some kind of beleaguered minority. In terms of the larger culture this is true at points and yet their movement has more or less dominated the presidency since 1968, they now dominate the Supreme Court, and control a majority (28) of the governorships across the United States. At other times (when it's convenient) the Right presents themselves as the majority (silent, moral, or otherwise), the voice of the people that are trying to wrest back control of the country from this surreptitious Liberal movement. Like their narratives regarding Covid, they are self-serving – sometimes its fake, other times it's real and if so is the result of some kind of Chinese Plot, or a deliberate plan meant to set the stage for 'The Great Reset' or something along those lines.

Not only was the interview a failure and rather ridiculous, in Christian terms it was fundamentally unfaithful and reveals that Wilken needs to re-think just what Kingdom he would serve. Hanson promotes a Babylonian idol – the American Beast which he presents in romanticised form. I expect the lost to chase after it and he has his reward – a position of status in academia. The problem is his un-Christian ideas have no place on a Christian programme but sadly this sort of thing is pretty typical when it comes to LPR and in keeping with the confused Sacralist Christianity it promotes – a Christianity largely at odds with what is revealed in the New Testament.