Introduction
Many folks have expressed sorrow or even disgust over the obvious divisions between Moscow and Ogden. There was once more commerce between our communities, although there is still some to this day – transferring members in good standing, reading books, prayers, etc, but relations have certainly cooled. What happened? We in Moscow noticed something growing on the conservative right, something we’ve called the “dank right,” a snarling attitude of resentment, bitterness, and malice. Sometimes it comes out in reviling older, mature Christian men; sometimes it comes out flirting with Jew-hate. Sometimes it comes out in the drag of “race-realism” and making foolish claims about inter-racial marriage. The common element seems to be trying to be edgy politically and culturally, not because God’s word requires it, but because it upsets your mom and the liberal ladies on The View.
It’s a lot like the nose-piercing phenom of a decade or so ago. When it first started, there was not a little bit of teen-angst married to weaponized verses from the Bible. “You can’t say it’s a sin, mom, Rebekah had a nose ring in the Bible!” And a bunch of young women dishonored their parents openly, brazenly in the name of a Bible verse. Which is what we call a sin. Yes, I know some of your mothers took you down to the store and happily got you that bling, and that really is a different scenario, but I would still like to point out that our culture was not exactly experiencing a third great awakening. The piercing culture was definitely pushing towards defacing the image of God, and many Christians went along like they often do by just putting one little toe in the water of rebellion – or in this case, one nostril.
A Sloppy Regiment
Which brings us back to Ogden. I don’t think the men there have become orcs or gone over to the dark side – otherwise I couldn’t transfer members from my church to their church in good conscience. But I can and I do. At the same time, when members of my church ask me about it, I tell them that I have significant pastoral concerns. My hope and prayer is that my concerns will turn out to be filed under a category you might call “experience,” meaning that with some additional experience, they will see and understand the dangers we’ve tried to point out and make course corrections. What do I mean? I mean being naïve about malice and bitterness. I mean not making it absolutely clear that they don’t think edge-lord angst is cool or based.
Hebrews says that bitterness is a root that springs up and defiles many (Heb. 12:15). You can’t go soft on bitterness or it will spring up and split your church, divide families, and eventually turn into a nuclear meltdown. What do I mean by bitterness? I mean the White Boy Summer videos that slip little clips of fascists and Jew-hate into them. I mean comment threads full of foul vitriol that purports to be supporting the Ogden vibe and occasional high fives from Ogden pastors in the comments mocking pastors warning about the gunk.
Now, here’s the thing. In the big picture, I still assume that Ogden is an ally, but they are a regiment on the battlefield that has gotten really sloppy. They are on our side, on the side of Christ, and the Lord Jesus is the General running the whole operation. But God does not expect us to turn off our brains. He puts us in a church that is full of different kinds of people, some wise, some foolish, some false brothers, some brothers that get turned around backwards or get a little off course. He wants battle-ready warriors, and part of that battle-readiness includes being willing to check brothers in arms. You can call it “counter-signaling,” but we simply think they’re being foolish. We’re not trying to be underhanded or passive aggressive or anything like that. We’ve just spoken up here and there when we see something that looks dumb. That doesn’t mean we hate those men. If anything, it means we actually love them. We could be silent when we see danger signs, but we refuse to go along with what seems extremely sloppy or worse. And they might have an accident. They might end up with a meltdown in their church. They might end up with a pile of members who are full-blown Kinists or Jew-haters, and then CNN will have a field day. We think that would be very unhelpful for them and for the Kingdom, even though (obviously) we don’t care what CNN thinks.
Well-Trained Warriors
All that may be as is, but the real point of this piece is to say that I don’t think the divisions are necessarily to be entirely lamented. Either Ogden will learn some lessons and scare more of their dank bros away because they are not extreme enough and make some course corrections and there may be room for more future collaboration or else they will contract ecclesial AIDS and die a sad, slow death (which I sincerely hope doesn’t happen). But in the meantime, the sparing keeps everyone on their toes. I do not mean to say that all of the jabs have been above the belt (they haven’t), nor do I say that all the participants in some of the cafeteria exchanges have been exercising the fruit of the Spirit (definitely not), but I do know that God wants His people to be well-trained warriors. This requires carrying on the war with spiritual meekness, which is not at all the same as weakness.
Of course, I’d much rather be fighting Canaanites and Philistines, and that is where I believe most of our efforts are still aimed. But we here in Moscow think that some young men in conservative circles are getting cozy with the Amorites and the Ogden brothers seem to be holding out hope that they might come along and join one of our tribes soon — what we’ve called Revoice for Nazis. We’re concerned that all the snarling in their audience betrays a mini-Amorite invasion – sort of like what Biden was trying to pull on our southern border.
When the west-side tribes got wind of the east-side altar in Joshua 22, they mustered the army and marched on what looked like a glaring act of idolatry – it looked like an Amorite shrine. When they arrived and made their declaration of war, the two-and-a-half tribes on the east-side of the Jordan assured the other tribes their altar was just a memorial and not a pagan shrine. The other tribes accepted the explanation and went home without a shot fired. On the one hand, I love how easily entreated everyone seems to have been. The accusers accepted the explanation of the accused and the accused accepted the accusers’ explanation. At the same time, one does wonder what became of that memorial altar and given the history of Israel one suspects that it might have eventually turned into an Amorite shrine.
Conclusion
And if you want to know how I think that story applies, I would say that Moscow has called out some troubling looking altar-things, and while the Ogden brothers have insisted everything’s fine, we’re pretty sure it’s not. We haven’t gone to war and we aren’t really worked up about it, even though we have publicly pointed out concerns we have. But the best sign that the east-side tribes were in a good place spiritually was how apparently unoffended they were by the west-side tribes. All the indications are that they respected the intensity and ferocity of the west-side tribes. And so even if an Ogden brother (or fan) thinks Moscow is wrong, a good indication that you’re actually in a good place spiritually would be the amount of appreciation you have for the warning. The more you appreciate it, the better your heart. But if you’re just mad about the whole thing and looking for every opportunity to dump on Moscow, you might want to look in the mirror and make sure an Amorite is not staring back at you.
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