Decadence, The Fall of Empires, and the Blind Guides Promoting Christian Mammonism

https://virgilwalker.substack.com/p/from-rome-to-rainbow-flags-when-empires

Walker is right in a sense but he largely misses the point. Perversion is a symptom of decadence which is part of a larger complex of events and cultural shifts that signals collapse.

People like the Gaines were always compromisers and in fact they are a perfect case in point. The problem is their decadence is a result of wealth, pride, and power. That's what Ezekiel 16 suggests with regard to Sodom. The other stuff (as it were) is a result - judgment on that culture. This culture is already in the late phase. It's already Sodom.

The Gaines and the little empire they've built is characteristic of decadence. The fact that Evangelicals have chased after them, lauded them, and sought to emulate them testifies to this decadence at work within the Church and specifically the Evangelical movement. The fact that the Gaines have sold out on the question of sodomy is not a surprise. My only surprise is that it took this long. They're about the money. Money corrupts and clouds judgment. It's a divided allegiance - didn't Christ say that? Their whole aesthetic and vision was always anti-Christian. Now even the most nominal Evangelicals can figure it out.

But you see Evangelicals and Confessional people don't want to hear this because they're largely given over to mammon as well. The only difference with them is they're conflicted and they're maybe twenty years behind the decadence curve. The next generation may prove to be a real wake-up call. Or, attitudes and values will change and these churches will turn away from mammonism. Or (and I'm sorry to say I think this most likely) they will out of frustration over their security and the security of their coin will turn to the sword. Violence and perversion are both results of mammonism and decadence.

Walker seems unaware that all empires are evil and that would include the so-called Christian empires. Empires by definition steal and exploit and will murder those who stand in their way. They lie about what they do - masking their deeds with noble language and fake morality. The Old and New Testaments make it clear that Rome was a Beast power. The Church largely succumbed to apostasy in the 4th century and joined with this Beast - baptizing the throne of Caesar. Over the course of the following centuries one beast died and others arose in its image - variations and permutations of the original idea. The Magisterial Reformation did nothing to correct this. In some respects by expanding the concept of so-called Just War (a false doctrine), it probably made things worse. The idea that the movement was a return to the New Testament is risible.

Walker couches the fall of Rome in contemporary cultural terms. Let's keep it simple and just say traditional values were set aside and began to be despised. When did this happen? It happened after Rome's victory in the Second Punic War (218-201BC). After this Rome went on a tear across the Hellenistic world and within a few years of Christ's birth, the Mediterranean Sea had become a Roman lake. Within a century after Christ's death, Rome had expanded to the borders of Scotland, into today's Transylvania, and Iraq. Roman history reveals it was this empire that emerged in the Late Republic that turned Roman society on its head. Wealth, trade, and slaves (which did the work in ways that technology does for us today) created a nouveau rich and the old values of hard work and austerity were set aside. The small farmer and traditional Roman family values disintegrated. Children were raised differently, lots of outside ideas flooded in and Rome changed. Within a few generations it was in a state of crisis and collapse. Only by embracing the imperial system was it able to save itself and continue for several more centuries.

Walker kind of tracks with this but couches these things in terms that are of particular interest to today's Christian Right - such as masculinity. This ignores the unacceptable nature of old Roman values (from a Christian perspective). As Christians we are not citizens of worldly kingdoms. We do not seek their aggrandizement. We do not pray that they wax powerful or become wealthy. We pray for stability and that we can be left alone to lead quiet lives working with our hands pursuing the Kingdom matters that are before us - which the world cannot see or understand.

Was Caesar perverse? It was hardly uncommon. That's not really the issue. It's much bigger than that.

And he's right Nero was a pervert and so the fact that Paul says what he says in Romans and the fact that the Church didn't seem to be overly concerned about Nero's personal immorality or say that of later emperors such as Hadrian - it's clear the culture war that so dominates the thinking of Christians today (and men like Walker) was absent.

I'm sure I'll be pointing this out again in years to come when Buttigieg is president - which in my book is completely appropriate and deserved. America's god is mammon and this is the end result. Unlike Hadrian, I doubt Buttigieg will build monuments to his Ganymede at tax-payer expense.

Walker's talk of masculine virtue is a side show - something he's trying to impose on the paradigm. Let's be clear, virtue and the Roman Empire don't belong in the same sentence and so from a Christian standpoint the analogy fails. The same is true of the American Empire.

There's no doubt that masculinity is in crisis today but the answer to effeminate men is not to embrace the opposite extreme of hyper-masculinity which is often just as confused. All I keep seeing is clueless young men with their big 'man' beards (because to be a man you must have a big beard), fixated on guns, rights, and breeding.

The reason this rubbish has made inroads into the Church is because Christian leaders have confused the culture with the Kingdom and national identity with Christian identity. It has led to confusion and has subjugated the Church to cultural tides and currents. If the Church retains a separate antithetical identity it won't fall prey to the world and its variances - which incidentally corrupt and overthrow New Testament norms, imperatives, and expectations.

As far as American society goes - again, this course was predictable. We the Church need to figure out who we are and bear witness, and that's going to mean when certain young men are converted they're going to have to learn that their brash pseudo-masculinity (which is usually insecurity) is something they need to shed. Likewise those who have been raised to be passive and effeminate need to learn how to be Christian men, husbands, and fathers.

A great deal of the present crisis with feminism (and its permutations) is something that entered the Church during the 19th century as Christian leaders at the time were wholly incapable of dealing with the rise and effects of industrialisation. This changed family dynamics and values and it led to a break-down. And unfortunately it unleashed a current of misguided (if understandable given the context) forces and movements such as Temperance and Suffragism (which was basically an early expression of feminism).

Walker is right to quote Isaiah 5 and his woes concerning those who confuse good with evil. As much as it's apparent to him with regard to secular culture, I wonder if he's able to discern the fact that Evangelicals have embraced the same ethic when it comes to politics and the devil's bargain they've cut, and the fact that they strengthen the hands of those who do evil? It's fine to point at the evils of modern sexual ethics and the collapse of the family but if you can't see the moral rot at work in right-wing political Christianity and its anti-Christian values and embrace of everything from mammonism to mendacity - then all I can say is, repent and open your eyes.

The fire has already been here for those who are faithful. They have already been paying a price - for a long time.

But these people won't see it. That's why leaders like Walker garner large followings and shallow and misguided assessments like this receive accolade and dozens upon dozens of positive comments and thousands of subscribers. His article offers nothing and in fact just adds to the confusion that's already out there. It's typical of G3 and those who have thrown their lot in with the likes of Glenn Beck and the filth and disinformation he promotes. This is not to say that everything coming out of G3 (or Walker) is bad - but there's enough that is to warrant avoiding them and rejecting their claims. It just muddies the already polluted stream.