I was able to attend ARC again this year; the Alliance of Responsible Citizens; which is the brain child of the now ill, Jordan Peterson; who could do with your prayers from all accounts. This is now a gathering in its fourth year; and I have attended the last two. Last year thanks to Father Calvin; and this year thanks to three brethren whom I can not mention; who arranged for me to attend between them under a pseudonym – and covering the various logistics. My plan this year was three fold: find people to make content with, introduce people to the Christian Economy App, and engage any political figures I could as part of a plan to export Christian Nationalism as an alternative to Liberalism.
I have therefore just spent three days as a professional networker; and I have to admit – its a tough gig; I have new found respect for anyone who spends their days – connecting with complete strangers, not because its hard when you are all on the same page; but because its tough to go at it; again, and again and again. The missed appointments, the miscommunications; the realisations this is not the person to work with having spent time to arrange the meeting. I think for the three days; I hardly ever stopped. I introduced a number of business people to the ChristianEconomy app; and networked with a number of folks in the hope we will be making content in the coming year, including: Kevin Sorbo and Katherine Birbalsingh, amongst other less public figures; as well as linking up with a few organisations to see if they might want to collaborate; including one fighting against modern slavery. I began making inroads into a political party I am hoping to influence; and to help organise the Church within the party – to use the Party and not be used by the party in question. I dropped the ball a few times as well; due to the sheer tiredness of constantly trying to connect with people; so the long awaited discussion with Konstine Kissin will probably have to wait another year; as will the one with Carl Benjamin; two figures I saw; and in all honesty could not find the energy to talk to.
The ARC conference is clearly one of the most important gatherings of the Conservative movement in the Anglosphere; in attendance were both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, (who last year admitted we could see the collapse of western civilisation) as well as many other political, cultural, economic and spiritual commentators, including the likes of Oz Guiness, Konstine Kissin; and Jonathan Pageu. The talks were to a high standard; and the main auditorium, which was in Kensington Olympia; held the 4000 delegates comfortably with air conditioning (until it failed; and then we slow steamed ourselves). I was told by a few separate people the whole conference felt more Christian than last year; in fact you were hard pressed to find a non Christian. Thus one is forced to conclude that we have either converted all the non Christians in the movement or we have scared them all away; or they have all adopted a cultural Christian moniker – hiding in plain sight. Arc could now even be described as a Christian conference – by default, not by design. The themes of the speeches, tended to have a similar tone as last year; the west is dying – we must rebuild, renew and restore based upon a better story, western civilisation. The Christian faith featured large this year; indeed the social teaching of the Catholic Church, the importance of the family unit, and even the idea of living virtuously came up as well as the obligatory image of GOD motif; much beloved of classical liberals. The dangers of increasing censorship and the closing down of freedom; and even the idea of Muslims pushing sharia were touched upon. There was lots of talk of energy abundance; which I heard but missed the details of; something I will have to pick up through the videos now being uploaded onto ARC’s official channel. There was even the first stage invasion and protest – on climate change of course.
There was a massive catering faux-pah which stood in complete contrast to the themes and intentions of ARC – the catering company for the event served everyone unlabelled halal meat; quite unnecessarily. I’ve started a campaign to correct this next year by encouraging delegates to complain. Why you might ask; as meat has no power over those in Christ; and you are correct, this is not about anything directly spiritual but economic – Halal meat funds zakat payments, which in turn funds Islamisation efforts. This faux pas; was completely avoidable, as fish (which was also served en-mass) is already halal; and a vegan options (which are also halal) were available, neither of which automatically fund sources of Islamisation as the Halal meat industry does.
There was a small art exhibition in the main meeting hall; which I really enjoyed, some pieces would be worthy of being on my wall – if I had either the money or the space for them; however one piece caught my eye for all the wrong reasons; which highlights the paganism at heart of the right of politics. Displayed in the centre of the main meeting hall was a piece of art depicting scenes from American history from colonisation; through to the revolutionary war unto the civil war and so on – which had a figure moving through all the scenes leading the people like providence; the figure was the statue of liberty; representing the striving for freedom in America; the arch model, had the motif branded ‘in God we trust’ branded across its peak; but – which god I wondered; freedom is not a god. This was pagan art I thought to myself as I observed it; and it reflects a reality at ARC, of a network that hopes to strive for a classical liberal revival; and mistakes this for authentic Christianity. The Arc ambassadors and staff were exceptionally helpful – though finding a serviceable bathroom was at times a game of Russian Roulette. The whole event was facilitate by its own dedicated app; which was the main reason I missed most of the talks; as it was my chief means to try and network. I was a bit slow in choosing my evening events; so I got to go to the ‘snooze you loose’ options; not going to either my first second or third top choice; but ones I were a little indifferent to. I found out that one of the speakers at the evening event I did attend was actually someone who would share and discuss my content on Youtube with his son; so perhaps GOD knew best in allowing us to connect. The gala dinner I attended was brilliant and I had opportunity both to evangelise someone who was quite hard hearted and give comfort to another brethren about the state of the Church and how to find a good one.
I was able to introduce a number of people to the ChristianEconomy App. The purpose of which is a means of edging the progressives out of their monopoly on the economy, through which they gain social and cultural cache; and political influence. The presentation went along these lines: I pointed out that if we kept the Christian pound circulating amongst Christians for as long as possible; this would strengthen Christian families, business, charities and churches; and then through increased economic leverage, gain for Christians increased social and cultural leverage. This would also allow Christians to employ Christians; which then frees Christian companies and employees, to be more Christian in other areas of public discourse; as well as facilitating Christians trading with Christians. The App was well received and hopefully more of us will get the idea of fighting an economic crusade.
I am convinced that we – the Church – must build our way out of the plight we face, by building all the things the church needs to meet the challenges it faces. Thus for my part I have organised a fitness through martial arts programme by setting up The Order; to tackle a lack of fitness amongst Christian men, and equip them to be confident in ways that knowing how to defend himself and others allows a man to be. It is why I am setting up Christ’s Street Legion, a Christian street protest movement; to allow Christians to be seen on the street on political issues impacting the Church. It is why I’ve run for nearly seven years a Discipleship and Apologetics programme to equip Christians spiritually. It is why I built an apologetics app to help Christians evangelise. We must build the necessary groups, networks, tools, resources organisations and institutions needed by our brethren; to help the Church; in meeting the challenges it faces. Ideally this would be lead by competent Bishops and where necessary; specially appointed Deacons; but in reality; Christian leadership; is weaker; than leadership in the west in general; and so this great task of building up the Church is going to be left to Christians like me and you dear reader. Either build it, or support those who are; and spotlight the missing gaps for others to fill!
However, having now been actively in this struggle for over 10 years; and the last few of those professionally; I and others, are noticing that – lots of people like to talk about the problem – but never go further; we are not seeing many folks coming up with solutions; ARC for sure is not a grandiose complaint shop; but it could be if not cultivated properly. ARC attempts to position itself above stream of politics, it wants to set the story of the west; at the metanarrative level above culture even; but this means – for those aching for practical ideas; its sometimes is light on practical solutions; and feels frustrating. Even though the theme was ‘rebuilding’ I don’t remember many people giving examples of what they were building. Maybe I missed it, as I often did miss talks, trying to meet people. ARC has the right idea at heart; we need a new organising story, though I have cause for pause on what that story is; and should be, according to ARC. The reason for this – is there are two gods at ARC; one is the Lord Jesus Christ,expressed chieflly in terms of human dignity, and the other is Lady Liberty; or a liberal understanding of freedom. These two gods do not serve one another, Christ does not serve the liberal concept of self; upon which the Liberal understandings of freedom rests. Nor is he revealed through natural theology, upon which much of Liberal thought has its foundations. On the contrary the Christian world is founded squarely on the Ressurection and the idea of the libation we make of our lives for the Kingdom of GOD through Christ to the glory of GOD the Father as animated by His Holy Spirit. Christ demands that we submit ourselves, enslave ourselves to His service. This though could be where the ‘responsible’ bit of ARC’s appellation could become distinctly Christian; but is currently equivocally vague; are we responsible in service to ourselves, the society, the nation; or to Christ; all seem to have a place at ARC; given that some speak of freedom in self actualising and self serving terms. Christian freedom by contrast is connected to knowledge – not to choice – Liberal freedom is about individual choice; and not about knowledge of the truth; thus, for ARC to have a Christian concept of Freedom that is synergised with Liberal understanding of the term; it must qualify its understanding of ‘Responsible’ in distinctly Christian terms, as it is using ‘Freedom’ in Liberal terms; depending on how this is done or not, will affect whether, these responsible citizens are using their freedom for Christ and His Kingdom or not. The tension is a deeply philosophical one; and will pass by many who have not thought of how ones doctrines affects and orders one values, but that is the job ARC is trying to set for itself.
I think the meeting point of the those that wanted more pragmatic action Vs the diagnosis / better story; talks, and those amongst the ardent Christians contingent, (who if given a chance), would reduce the conference to speeches on deep theology, prayer and personal relationships with the saviour; is to shift the conversation onto the Kingdom of GOD. Sadly, lots of Christians at the conference seemed to think that what was needed was more talk of Jesus the Christ, I understand that the Church always wants to speak of her beloved – but this would be a mis-step; and those who want to talk about structural and ideological issues are not wrong to want to do so; therefore to appreciate afresh the ‘Kingdom of GOD’ as the story to civilisational renewal; seems to be the way forward for all three groups. Christians should view civilisation, as both a tool towards and an expression of the Kingdom of GOD. ARC should become a ‘Christianity applied to the real world world’ conference; a bit like the ‘Everything Conference’ attempts to be organised by Philipa Stroud who fronted the conference in Peter’s absence. The difficulty will be to do that in such a way that the wider conservative movement continues to attend; and I think the way to do that – is to wrap it all up in the language of ‘Cultural Christianity’; which I acknowlegde would then create its own problems – but there is no clean way forward; and we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
The singularly greatest Old Covenant The Baptist; proclaimed:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
- Mathew 3: 2
Christ’s central theme was to preach the Kingdom of GOD as he said: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” Men are called to repent, and believe the gospel; for the time had come; and the Kingdom of GOD was at hand; a present a living reality made manifest by the works of Christ; who had come to set the captive free and said: But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. This, His reign on earth, as in heaven; with church as the militants of the Kingdom; (which is the reign of GOD) is both achieved in and by the Church; and this needs to be the ‘better story’ of the west; of ARC; and ARC should be used by Christians as a place to discern the details of making that reign a reality in all areas of life; and networking together to usurp the ‘principalities and powers’ as we establish this reign. We are not here to save the west; but to make the west the kingdom of GOD and to serve the Kingdom of GOD in the world. We could and should call this the new Christendom project. The civilisational project of ARC is to renew, rebuild, restore the west, but the church should frame this as a new Christendom inspired by the Kingdom of GOD; as civilisation can be both tool and expression of the Kingdom of GOD on earth. Many in ARC want to ‘renew’ or ‘restore’ the west; but to what; if not a new Christendom? The early enlightenment; that re-invigorated slavery in the west; and killed thousands of Christians in France; that sought to make a religion of the state; of humanity, rationalism and latterly a self is not a project we Christian should support! No, this is the very path that has killed the west; we can not rewind the clock; we must strive to something new, and whilst the Kingdom of GOD will always sit partially in the world of the metaphysical; until the parousia; we must draw it down into our culture, our political concerns, our social norms, our economic practice, our military calculations, our institutions, our customs and traditions; not just through prayer but through building its aproximation in the here and the now. The former Christendom can be leaned upon for applications in all these spheres, but – it can not be slavishly recreated – it is gone; and whatever we reimagine it to be; it will be different from what was. So to pilfer Phillipa Stroud’s final speech; ‘Church I bid you stand’; and use ARC to build the Kingdom of GOD; and confidently declare this to be our better story; the story of all good and noble civilisations.
