https://agendaweekly.com/the-war-to-destroy-the-family-and-feminize-the-church-with-scott-brown/
I was disappointed but not surprised to find that Scott Brown appeared on the podcast run by Curtis Bowers, a far-right lunatic and disinformation agent that holds a seat in the Idaho House of Representatives. I thought Brown was (despite his grave errors) a little more sober and grounded - in possession of some degree of dignity. I guess I was wrong.
Bowers fancies himself a Biblically-oriented and grounded Christian but between his nationalism and Bircher-style deduction and sensationalism, it's clear that his views, reasoning, and understanding of reality and history are far removed from the Kingdom-oriented and regenerate mindset presented in the New Testament.
I'm afraid in many respects Scott Brown is not all that different but he plays his cards a little closer to his chest and is more measured and careful in how he presents his views.
I find it so ironic that in their attacks on Communism and perceived need to respond to it by advocating for a strenuous form of market Capitalism, these people cannot see that both systems are materialist in their assumptions and ethics and that the longstanding American system has done as much harm to the family and undermined Christian ethics in society as anything that has emerged from the Left. In fact it could be argued the American Left all but collapsed in the wake of the 1960's as many of these figures triangulated (typified by the later politics of Bill Clinton) and became market Capitalists and defenders of the American Empire. They tempered this reversal by trying to focus on humanitarian geopolitics and domestically they shifted from traditional Left-wing concerns regarding economics and labour to identity politics - even while holding Right-wing views of economics and foreign policy.
The present Democratic criticism of Trump regarding Iran typifies this. They're not upset with the fact that he decided to go to war with Tehran. They're upset because he didn't go through the proper channels and follow the proper procedures. At this point they're upset because he's failed to win and has made humiliating concessions.
There are no communists in the American system. None of these 'Democratic Socialists' are even socialists at all. For the most part they are basically advocating for some of the same policies we saw with FDR. I don't pay a great deal of attention to the grandstanding on either side. The truth is both mainstream parties have shifted so far to the Right, that today, FDR would seem near-communistic, and Nixon would be solidly within the Democratic Party. Even Reagan wouldn't make the cut for today's GOP.
The breakdown of the family did not begin in the 1960's or 1965-71 as is argued in the video. Brown has previously expressed his personal loathing of that period and its values. While the period was certainly less than Christian, a person deeply grounded in the New Testament will feel much the same (for different reasons) about the 1950's and even the 1940's as well. They were far from godly or Christian.
The world wars changed everything and it must be remembered that in the midst of the period of 1914-1945 you had both the Roaring 20's and the Great Depression. These events turned everything on its head. And to start with 1914 would also be a mistake. The Gilded Age and the Gay (or Naughty) Nineties (1890's) were also a watershed. But in reality the dynamics of family life and individualism as well as the nature and certainty of ethics were all fundamentally changed with the Enlightenment and especially the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th century. The seeds had all been planted by the early 1800's. Additional seeds and watering (to continue to the illustration) were accomplished throughout the 19th century. The twentieth century was the harvest and now in the 21st century, these ideas of Enlightenment Liberalism and Individuality have gone to seed and many are advocating that the whole garden needs ploughed. There's a logic to it but also some dangers and it would mean overthrowing not only the present order but the one established by the American Founders. For me this is no issue of concern or sentimentality but for men like Brown and Bowers they face a fundamental contradiction in terms of the ideology they champion and the narrative and solutions they connect to the present crisis.
There are some radicals who envision a new society that marks a break with the past. Others, want to see old forms reconstituted but they will find that it's not possible and for all the support they're able to garner through their campaigns of disinformation, lies, fear-mongering, and the promotion of rage - they will find that many of their supporters are not willing to follow through. They're not willing to break with the values and the decadent lifestyles they've come to enjoy.
The Church has become feminized - it's a point I will readily grant. But in large part this is due to Church leaders that (instead of teaching antithesis) have encouraged their congregations to get along with the world and wield influence. This can only be done through compromise, and as feminism and psychology are cultural defaults, those who would flourish in society will have imbibed these ideologies to greater and lesser degrees.
I will grant that Brown and his circles are more traditionalist in their outlook, with home-maker wives and the like, but they're also very much into wealth and a high standard of living. They don't seem to realize the faulty ethics involved in such thinking, or just how much is compromised in choosing that path.
In most cases, women who are out in the world acting in leadership roles are not going to suddenly become meek and shamefaced like Sarah on Sunday morning.
There has been a counter-cultural response to feminism and yet unfortunately it seems to equate masculinity with arrogance, violence, and a kind of juvenile ethos.
The bottom line is this - the American system itself is built on an Anti-Christian foundation. Again, this is not a problem for me as I believe all the bestial Babel-projects of this world are cut from the same cloth and will have the same end. In some respects the American system is even more subversive to the Church because it can masquerade as being something akin to Christian - apparently just enough to fool large swathes of the Church-going population. Systems that are prima facie anti-Christian are actually easier to deal with in that there's no confusion.
Brown thinks the musicians and legislators of the 1960's era were waging war against Christianity. First of all American Christianity by the 1960's was largely an empty form. Most of the Church was confused and exhibited divided loyalties - a situation that has only worsened in our time.
Second, the cultural leaders of the 1960's were simply dealing with the post-war fallout and trying to iron out some of the contradictions that had been extant for generations - conflicts and incongruities that had reached the breaking point.
The real people who waged war on Christianity were the architects of the America system, who confused Enlightenment epistemology and (in many cases) Freemasonry's imperatives and ethics with what was then an already watered-down Christianity. They waged war on the Church in subverting it - again, in many respects a threat far more dangerous than the regimes that simply oppose the Church and wage war against it. In such scenarios many believers will suffer and die. In the American scenario, they don't need to suffer and die because they've embraced a counterfeit form of Christianity in which they celebrate the nation, its violence and power, and most of all mammon. They aren't burned at the stake but slowly poisoned and ultimately converted to another religion.
Now to re-state the obvious, for a New Testament Kingdom pilgrim, the rejection of America and its values is not a problem. Would that the Church would teach this - and yet obviously the Church would be a lot smaller.
But for someone like Scott Brown, this is a problem because he's utterly (and religiously) devoted to America - a fantasy America it turns out, but he thinks America is wonderful, and consequently takes the bits he likes and puffs them up, even while ignoring or downplaying the elements he doesn't. He waves the flag, celebrates those who killed in its name, relishes in its wealth and power, and promotes the myths of the nationalist community. For Brown, to disavow America is like giving up on life. Consequently apart from the Holy Spirit changing his heart, I don't expect this to happen. And so, he must continue to promote the myth - it is after all his true religion. This is why this entire discussion is an exercise in absurdity.
There's no doubt the Sixties were a tipping point. More could be said about the Anti-Communism ethos of the 1950's and the role it played in creating a mass-conformity, which in turn led to a reaction. But the morality of the 1950's was also something new. Suburban life, the new domestic technologies, the new standard of living broke with precedent. Disposable income led to the creation of a Teen Culture and yes, the conservatives have a point when they speak about the spoiled generation of Boomer children. And yet, that's not the whole story. The entire 1950's culture was one that was marked by decadence. It may seem restrained, reasonable, and even austere when compared to the culture of the 1990's or middle class life today (which grows more extreme even as it shrinks). But for those parents who were born in the 1910's and 1920's - the ones that were having kids in the late 1940's and 50's, the new lifestyle was very different and their parents and grandparents would have viewed it as decadent. It was in the context of that decadence (during the cultural epoch celebrated by conservatives) that teen culture arose.
Now to be fair, the population had grown and the economy had changed. The US was a global empire and thus the agrarian culture of Old Americana was on its way out - and the introduction (largely in the 1950's) of industrial farming methods and equipment accelerated this and would change the dynamics of the family farm - which is now taking its last dying breaths in the 2020's.
But as I've pointed out elsewhere, Brown and those like him do not reckon the World Wars into their thinking. The US created a narrative about itself and its values as the Boomer generation grew up they discovered that it was a lie - starting right at home with the Segregationist South and even Northern urban racism. The Churches were empty forms for the most part and had little in the way of substance and while people paid lip service to the Church, its doctrines did not shape their values and thinking. In other cases, some of the Mainline Churches played a part in trying to apply these 'American Values' and came into conflict with the Establishment and its hypocrisy. They too were part of the Establishment which at that time was starting to split.
And so yes, a decadent and also adversarial youth culture arose and then took on a life of its own - challenging the givens of the previous generation, principles which it demonstrably did not live by as so much of mainstream culture wallowed in materialism, pop-entertainment culture, and moral platitudes which just came across as hypocritical. In actuality the Sixties generation was pretty tepid and confused in their moral consternation - all the more given that most of them would sell-out by Eighties and become nice middle-class Democrats, the moral outrage was (as far as I'm concerned) justified.
As an aside it should also be stated that a great deal of the actual radical political action occurred in the 1970's - a response to the failures of the Sixties.
At about 5:30 Brown suggests the 'demons' were unleashed in the Sixties. I find that an absurd and myopic statement. If he can't seen the demons at work in 1945, in 1914, in the Gilded Age or in 1776 for that matter, then all I can say is - he's not a very deep thinker and his thinking has not been shaped by Scripture.
I'm also struck by the fact that Brown and Bowers seem unaware that in some respects the kind of promiscuity that characterized the 70's-90's is no longer common. Helicopter parenting, psychology, and technology have bred a generation of young people that are barely capable of having face-to-face relationships. Fornication has become less common and many contemporary twenty-somethings are more like pre-teens in how they live and think. They don't want to grow up. They don't want to drive. They're not interested in being adults or in living adult-like lives. This too is a problem but for different reasons and some of the 'feminisation' of the Church (which is real enough) is related. Feminism turned a new page during the Sexual Revolution to be sure but it arose more than a century before.
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