Some might be excused for thinking I do nothing more than read bad articles and listen to egregious podcasts and radio shows. What's the point, someone might ask me?
It gives me no joy I can assure you but I am consistently astonished by what is taking place in the Church today - the bad teaching, the twisted ethics, the flawed reasoning, and the corrupt leadership. I encounter people that just drink this stuff in without stopping and thinking - and realizing that what they're being told doesn't add up, isn't Scriptural (despite the claims), and is ultimately misleading. At that point we have to ask 'why'? What is happening?
The answer of course depends on the situation and the people involved. Sometimes it literally is a case of corruption. Sometimes its error and heresy. At other times it's a case of ignorance or deliberate obfuscation.
I think this episode reveals a bit of both of these latter elements. Conservative American churches are being infected with extreme Right-wing ideology - which often includes a racial element - even if it's not always acknowledged. A lot of young men are getting caught up in this. There's a reason why and a way to deal with it. This episode utterly fails to address the real issues and consequently has nothing to offer. And that is tragic - a lost opportunity.
The episode ostensibly deals with Kinism - a tribalist Right-wing ideology that is hostile to race mixing. It's about racial pride and exclusivity and is wed to narratives about civilization and culture. It almost always appears and operates within the sphere of Dominionism and specifically Theonomy - though this was never addressed or acknowledged in the episode.
I felt like both Arnzen and Ivey (the guest) were trying to steer any kind of assessment into discussions of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Darwinism - trying to locate the wrong turn (as it were) in these fields of thought. Whether modern CRT advocates are racists of a kind is something that can be debated, but the show is supposed to be about Kinism and no one going down that road is being shaped by CRT or Evolutionary theory.
Where does it come from then? It comes from nationalism and in particular a tribalist view of nationalism. For some Americans and Europeans, Right-wing ideology is rooted in 'Westernism' by which they mean the Enlightenment heritage of modernity. They're talking about reason, democracy, individual rights, social contract, and the like and this is consequently contrasted with Islam and the cultures of Africa. As such, they tend to express significant animosity toward immigrants. One thinks of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands as representative of this kind of Right-wing thinking.
Other more traditionalist-oriented thinkers arrive on the Right by means of a 'Westernism' that is equated with Christendom and visions of a sacral society. This proves to be a bit shaky as they are trying to wed Throne and Altar ideology with the Enlightenment thought that displaced it. Nationalism is actually incompatible with Throne and Altar idealism but that doesn't seem to stop contemporary advocates. As such, it's common to find a great deal of dissonance in this position. This is a popular position that attracts many High Church thinkers and Roman Catholics - Taylor Marshall comes to mind.
But there's another Right-wing road that embraces nationalism not on the basis of ideology per se but on tribalism. It's much easier to evoke in a place like Hungary, because the Hungarian identity is tied to a race and language. For most people the United States of America bases its identity on common beliefs and shared ideology. Therefore it's open to anyone that will embrace the values, regardless of ethnicity. Likewise the French believe they are the curators of the Enlightenment-revolution heritage and French culture is its best medium. Anyone can become French if they embrace the culture - regardless of skin colour or origin.
But for Tribal forms of nationalism, the racial element is prominent if not pre-eminent, and it has long existed in the United States - existing in tension with the idealist definition of identity. The old Nativist movement that emerged before the Civil War was an expression of this - the only true Americans are White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and as such the Irish and other Catholics were suspect and something less than legitimate. While the Nativist political movement waned, the spirit lived on and received a boost when ex-slaves were granted citizenship in 1868. This of course is when the Ku Klux Klan emerged, with the end of the Civil War.
The additional waves of immigration at the turn of the 20th century led to a revival of the KKK and the continued fight for Segregation into the Civil Rights era.
Kinism is in many respects a modern expression of this same racist ethos.
Arnzen and Ivey ignored the long history of racial politics within the United States and how all the old Southern Segregationists migrated into the Republican Party after Johnson's Civil Rights legislation. Over the course of the 1960's-1990's, all these figures, men like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Trent Lott would become leaders in the GOP and the South would turn away from its old populist Democratic affiliations to the Republican Party. Further, need it be pointed out that Southern Segregationists were (to a man) hostile to Darwinian theory? That was not the origin of their racism. The advocates of Eugenics and Social Darwinism tended to be more Academics, Philanthropists, and sometimes Progressive-types who in many cases don't really match up with any political affiliation today. Further, these are not the figures any modern Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, or Kinists look to for inspiration. Their political heroes, ideologues, and ideology are grounded in Right-wing nationalism, Neo-Confederate ideology, and fascism.
Additionally there's a long history of the Republican Party collaborating with Right-wing and fascist parties from Europe. In the decades after 1945, many figures associated with European fascism found a home not just in the United States but in the GOP - who financed their efforts to influence politics within American immigrant communities and behind the Iron Curtain.
Others would point to GOP policies and dog whistle politics regarding race - something prominent under figures like Reagan, both Bushes, and certainly under Donald Trump. In the case of Trump, it's not even dog whistle - it's pretty much overt. And there's little doubt the veritable explosion of racist far-right ideology can be connected to ascension of Barack Obama and what we might call the Trumpian reaction.
As such, the open embrace of racism and its theological gloss with Kinism is not exactly something that should surprise us. As many know it was already present and expressed behind closed doors. The new Kinists have simply chosen to speak publicly and have turned things up a notch or two.
Nationalism is idolatry and so Kinism simply adds a layer to it that is even more theologically and ethically problematic. Ivey repeatedly is sidetracked, appealing to things like Ordo Amoris, the Roman Catholic concept of the ordering of loves - that made the news in connection to JD Vance in 2025. These sorts of arguments (in relation to Kinism) are smoke-screens and I was left scratching my head in trying to understand where exactly this man is at.
The embrace of extreme Right-wing ideology is not the result of some academic exercise, or philosophical musing. No, it's nationalism and tribalism pure and simple.
But you see, this is a problem for conservative Evangelicals and Confessionalists as most of them have embraced the idolatry of nationalism and if they enter into that discussion - it's not hard for a Kinist to run circles around them. Many White, Right-wing Christians already halfway there themselves. If nationalism (in all forms) is dismantled and its foundations broken - then Kinism has nothing to build on. The blindness and inability to assess this problem and deal with it was on glaring display in this episode.
The Christendom-Nationalism hybrid doesn't work and many conservatives have realized the Enlightenment ideology framework is also highly problematic. As such, many are being pushed in the Tribal direction. Until Christian leaders are willing to challenge and dismantle the entire nationalist spectrum - we're only going to see more and more of this.
The most poignant example of Tribalism wed to theology is found in the example of Apartheid South Africa. Their racial ideology was directly influenced by a Kuyperian construct of culture. Under this way of thinking, culture has to be transformed and made Christian, and when assessing the elements of the culture, they believed that integrating Blacks would undermine and subvert its foundations. A forced reading of Providence led them to believe that a cultural or civilization hierarchy had emerged in history with White European Christian nations at the apex. Blacks could be Christians, but they were not qualified to live with Whites. Ivey almost hints at this kind of narrative at one point but never develops it and Arnzen doesn't seem to even think in these terms at all. It's a tangent of Dutch Reformed Theology that most Calvinists in the United States don't like to explore.
In the end, I think the episode was a real disservice to the Church and I found myself additionally frustrated by talk of Tucker Carlson (who is a racist that Christians need to turn off) and appeals to the pseudo-intellectual Thomas Sowell - a sure guide to stupidity.
Also, I noted yet again the accounts of Presbyterian cover-up - for that's what happened with the likes of Spangler. I've seen it dozens of times. They repeatedly ignore Paul's injunction in 1 Timothy 5.20 that sinning elders need to be rebuked before the Church. Instead they hide their scandals by means of bureaucratic sleight-of-hand and sweep them under the rug. It's outrageous - Spangler's name should be a byword in OPC and PCA circles but these scandals are largely unknown. I have likewise commented on the LCMS cover-up regarding Corey Mahler. For a show like LPR's Issues Etc. to simply ignore the fact that an LCMS minister was a Neo-Nazi and Hitler apologist is deceitful and again a disservice to the Church.
Kinism is a heresy and yet this show offered absolutely nothing in terms of understanding its roots and how it is taking root in conservative churches. This problem is going to get a lot worse and all the more when leaders won't address the issues or are incapable of doing so - and are keen to hide some of the ugliness that is percolating in their midst.
I asked earlier - why is this happening? The fact that the core problems are not being addressed compels me to write and hope that others will be able to connect the dots - and help others to do the same. I see people I know (or have known) getting caught up in these things. I literally know of a family whose children used to play with my children - and yet today some of these same kids (now young adults) are caught up in extreme Right-wing and even Neo-Nazi ideology. It's tragic and it breaks my heart.
See also:
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2025/07/more-ecclesiastical-cover-ups.html
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