Today I commence my real holidays for summer. I’m going to drive to an even more remote part of New Zealand than the Maniototo, where this church photo was taken. I think the church is not used that much. It lives in one of the few parts of New Zealand with a continental climate (and is therefore fairly empty, in a hamlet that is empty.
There are no signs outside.
And this analogy relates to what has been the theme for most of this week: we need to restore what we have lost. There is going to be a split within the West, and within those who are reactionary.
The first part of the lectionary teaching from this week has been that we must not be like the pagans. The pagans exist. The pagans do not like us, will never like us, and will indulge in debauchery. We need to analyze our lives and change what we do so we do not end up indulging that weakness that leads to us being called hypocrites. We must live as Christ wishes us to, for what he has done for us overwhelms whatever the world says we have.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
12As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
You see, the current system is breaking down. I have linked this week to SSM, and her most recent post includes the idea (which Dalrock popularized) that there is a cycle within the dating market. This cycle is currently skewed so it is most “profitable” for a woman to be promiscuous, and for a man to exploit that. But this is changing: the child support laws, the move to defining a relationship as state sanctioned if it lasts beyond a certain time, and the university sex kangaroo courts are designed to make men faithful, while allowing woman to be “sex positive”. A better term would be feral. But this is not working, for when the game is fixed, the best response is not to play.
I have been advising men to reduce their lifestyles and their income to a minimum amount, at least on the books. In this modern age you cannot trust your wife or the system. By reducing your income to a minimum reported level it helps to mitigate the imputed income if a man was to find himself in divorce court. Another added benefit is the system will be slowly defunded by reduced taxes reduced child support and reduced skilled labor. The best strike is one like John Galt.
Most men wont do this of course because most men pretty much give lip service to these problems and in the end they are afraid of their wives using the nuclear option. I admit i was too.
This is a point where, within the church, we must return to the older ways of doing things. We must rediscover Biblical marriage, and this will mean that we have to ignore, subvert, defund and if needed, rebel against the authorities that will not let us live in a way where we can love each other within the church, and honor both marriage and holy singleness. The reforms will include again guarding daughters, again teaching men how to be men (which is what a father does: he leads, so the sons learn how to lead), and bringing back early marriage (with shorter courtships — Calvin married his wife two months after they started going out). It will require marital contracts that undercut the family courts. And it will require the older women to step up and remind women that they are physically and sexually vulnerable within a relationship: that multiple partners make you unmarriageable, and that the way to keep your husband from straying is to never treat him with contempt, as a chump.
This is a hard ministry. Women are, in general, fairly clever, quite stubborn, and moderately intelligent. Young women can be as silly as young men. THere is a reason Timothy and Titus are ordered to teach older women not to be idle and gossips but to teach the younger women how to care for their husbands and children.
[This means, on the internet, there is a place for the ladysphere. Where women teach women. The domestic arts have become the stuff of TV shows — Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart have made a career out of teaching what used to be taught to all daughters by their mothers.]
For this society is going to fall, and getting it up is nigh impossible, but for Christ.
The horse has run so far away from the barn that I fear there is no turning back. There just isn’t. I know that sounds pessimistic, but that’s my take.
Even if there were some sort of societal calamity that created the appearance of a turnaround in the short term, it would be purely utilitarian in nature and things will revert back to normal as soon as the coast seems clear.
The only solution is for like minded people to build community (including being willing to pull up stakes and move the way some other cloistered communities have historically done. Be willing to make very hard choices and big sacrifices for the sake of our children.
Alas, the theological, geographical, ethnic and political minutiae that you see creating divisions among like minded people online threaten the possibility of even something like this.
Like Hipster said, birth control was the game changer. So long as it is easily accessible and affordable, promiscuity will reign.
I will leave the Ladies to fight this: I’m not one of them.
So, what should we do as men?
Firstly, we need to teach our sons. They need to know how to lead. The techniques we call “Game” are part of dealing with many issues in life, not just those that occur in a bar.
As I settled into married life, concentrated on our first child, and did a radical about-face insofar as the dating world is concerned, I realized that all this accumulated skill at what I came to learn to call Game was going to waste.
Which doesn’t seem reasonable or rational. The skills are too valuable to be forgotten once you marry, or restricted just to seducing women if you’re still playing. It’s like learning to play guitar like Eddie Van Halen, then packing in the Frankenstrat on your wedding day, or playing no other style except pop-metal. Foolish.
Game in business is where I think the conversation ought to be heading. It’s just my 2¢, but it’s what I’m planning on writing about.
Again, without realizing it, I have already applied Game to business. On a few occasions, I’ve worked with investment banks to sell a business to prospective buyers. The businesses, truth be told, were not so unique that I was the only one on earth who could do them. I negated this weakness with alpha’tude: I ignored it. And so my potential buyers ignored it as well, for the most part. When a buyer did point out that I wasn’t really necessary for the business I was selling, I did the alpha hyper-confidence move: I leaned back, gave an amused smirk, and said, “If you’re so clever, go ahead and do it without me—just hope that you have people who can do this, this, that there and the other as well as—as brilliantly as—I can.”
Pure bluff on my part—but it worked. Every time. No different from judo-flipping a shit-test from a cutie at the bar.
Young man, the chief aim of this existence was defined well in the Reformed Shorter Catechism. It is to know God and enjoy him forever. In marriage, you have a responsibility and are accountable for your wife and children. This is more than prayer: this is leadership (though prayer is necessary, for all people have moral agency after infancy). To elaborate:
- Chasing after sex will not allow you to lead. To sex her up guilt-free, you have to either be married to her, or damn yourself by searing your conscience. So don’t push to jump into bed.
- Besides, there is plenty of fun that occurs outside of bed. Consider Mish’s post about his wedding. He’s got a lot of photos of his new Bride, who is quite pretty, doing fun things with their clothes on.
- Seek God and your mission.
- Pray for your sisters in Christ. Particularity pray for the Ladyspherians, both locally and on the Internet, for feminism despises men, but reserves it’s full, psychotic hatred for women who mock the narrative.
- Keep yourself interesting. This means keep your fitness up, hobbies going, church attendance going (and find a church which is not run by a chick or a wimp). Because you may be single for a while, and if you are single, or married, you must hold firm to the word and do good.
- If courting, seek discernment of her character. Dalrock has good advice on this.
- If betrothed, set up a legal contract that keeps the family court away. This may require that you move: in some parts of Canada, for instance, social services have destroyed Mennonite communities.
- And if married, keep frame. Do not let her use sex as a bargaining tool. Continue to seek God, keep improving, and keep leading.
- There is no retirement in the Christian life. You can rest long enough when you are dead. Use this time wisely
For until the laws of our nations are reformed to encourage righteousness and punish evil, instead of the converse (rewarding evil and punishing righteousness) it is our duty to subvert them. Pray for our leaders, yes, but those prayers should include their repentance.
And there is a point where we should, Like Washington and Jefferson, or Cromwell and the Covenanters, rebel. Pray that we never get there. Pray that God revives his church.
Washington, Jefferson, Cromwell, and the Covenanters were all wrong to rebel. But I do agree there does come a time and I think we are far more likely to encounter it in our godless, pro-homosexual time than they ever did, bad as things may have been in centuries past as regards shacking up, etc.
The Covenators and Puritans were coming at this from a reformed position: the issue of when it is right to rebel is incredibly difficult: I am not sure if what they did was right.
Having said that, the Stuart Kings were fairly awful.
On the American Revolution, I think the new United States was more tyrannical than the colonial system that preceded it. And, although I snark about the human rights commissions in Canada, I’m not scared of the government of Canada.
The USA Federal system at present terrifies me. More than the Russians and Chinese: I’m not sure if this is because I have always assumed that the Chinese and Russians are functional tyrannies or that the NSA has over reached their ability to control by the use of technology.