A common argument I see against me is that I’ve gone “too far” with my relatively new Christian faith. Instead of following the clear teachings of Jesus Christ, I should instead seek “balance” with the “middle path” where I only moderately sin to “enjoy” the pleasures of life since I’m a “biological” animal with “natural” sexual needs. Needless to say but this line of argument always comes from non-Christians who are so far away from God that witnessing just a little bit of faith causes them alarm.
Last year while visiting with my mother, I maintained a basic daily prayer rule. She does not pray as frequently as I do, so she was at first startled by my behavior, explaining that no one in her immediate family prays like that. No one in her family prays at all, so yes, I can understand how my minimum prayer rule is startling.
I attempt to attend the Divine Liturgy every Sunday unless I’m physically unable to do so. I’ve been told, “You know, you don’t have to go every week.” I know, but if my church has a service every week, it’s not just for their sake. Already, with just my daily prayer and weekly church attendance, I’m “very religious” to someone who lacks faith. Compared to the many holy men I’ve met across the country, however, I’m not even in the minor leagues of holiness.
To walk with Christ means to be concerned about your salvation. As Christians we are encouraged to sanctify our souls to prepare for the next life. This means turning away from all sin—fornication, lust, greed, pride, gluttony, and so on. I was addicted to fornication, and through God’s grace, I was able to stop it. Masturbation is never acceptable, since it’s a form of self-abuse, and I don’t intend to have sex again unless I get married. “You’ve gone off the deep end! You’ve gone from one extreme to the next!” To the faithless, chastity is extreme. To men of the world, following the basic commandments of Christianity is fanatical.
I follow only the absolute minimum of Christianity. I’m not going above and beyond and I’m not inventing my own rules. Praying daily, corporate worship (in church), and avoiding sin is Christianity 101, and for people to attack that shines a light on the darkness they allow to enter into their own lives. If someone thinks abstaining from fornication is extreme, we know what they treasure. If someone thinks taking twenty minutes out of the day to glorify God through prayer is too much, we know the sort of distractions and entertainments that occupy their mind. If someone thinks spending two hours with fellow Christians on Sunday is excessive, we know how actively their worship at the altar of sportsball, brunch, hangovers, and gossip.
As our creator, God knows what is best for us. Through scripture He wrote the instruction manual for our lives and enlightened some men to teach that scripture to us. The only rightful balance is striving with all our being to follow it. The men who tell me to seek balance, to avoid the “extreme” of Christianity think they are in balance, but through their separation from God, they are in communion with evil and are facing judgement.
It’s surely possible to go extreme as a Christian. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church attack everyone, even fellow Christians, through intense pride and anger. Other Christians distort the Gospel to state that God wants us to experience material blessings, and they end up worshiping mammon on a mad dash to becoming rich. Other Christians may call for violence against those who are not even obstructing their faith, and it’s not uncommon for someone to invent their own brand of Christianity by picking and choosing which rules they want to follow, but as an Armenian Orthodox Christian, I wish I was able to pray more. I wish that I lived near a monastery and could attend more than one service a week. I wish I had a spiritual father who could help guide me through rough spots in life. My prayer rule and church attendance amount to only 4% of my total time, yet to someone who devotes 0% of their time to Christ, my feeble 4% puts me on the same level as ISIS.
In the end, you’re either falling towards God or falling towards Satan. If you look at a man who is performing the absolute minimum as asked by his Creator and think he’s extreme, it would be worth examining yourself and the vices you hold tight. As the Western world descends into greater levels of chaos and evil, just a flash of faith will be shocking, a single prayer will be extreme. In such a world then maybe I really am an extremist.
Read Next: Worshiping Comfort Is Satanic
I like your stuff in general, but you really hit this one out of the park.
John 15:19 comes to mind.
God bless.
Great article. On the positive side, even having basic faith practices and learning can put you in a position to really try to spread the word and explain things to those who haven’t received much or been properly taught as of yet.
“You’ve come a long way, Pilgrim.”
Another thing is that we Christians get joy from our prayers and attendance at Church. It is not like we are making a huge sacrifice. After prayer or Mass, one feels refined and pure, rejuvenated and in control. Worldly pleasures are great fun, but nothing compared to that.
This is, of course, only my experience.
I know, that’s probably the hardest part – even your closest relatives are holding you back, nobody will support you on this path:
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
To make it even worse – pseudochristian cults and sects like JW or mormons prey on that loneliness to steal money from you and simultaneously lead you away from God. They will give you the love and community you have been devoid of for your whole life, yet they will force you to believe and preach some hidden form of blasphemy against the Lord.
“1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” becomes as clear as a day. Only after death can we finally meet Jesus and our brothers in spirit. Yet here, in this life, we are bound to suffer all alone.
Well said – thanks
Planned Parenthood murders more humans in one week than the Spanish Inquisition did in 250 years. Secular peoples’ opinions on “Christian extremism” is totally irrelevant.
Wait… One week?!?! PlannedParenthood aborts more babies PER HOUR nationally than the Spanish Inquisition killed in its entire history!
Since the courts “legalized abortion” using case law (Roe v. Wad) about 62 MILLION innocent babies were aborted and murdered in the USA alone.
The much maligned Spanish Inquisition Killed (mostly indirectly) 32,000 people worldwide over 400 year period.
Again 62 million aborted just in the USA in less than 60 years vs 32k killed (mostly indirectly) over 400 year period worldwide.
You all noticed how leftists always like to point out to the Crusades or the Inquisition when attacking Christianity?
Meanwhile, atheists like H!tler, Stalin, Mao, the Castros, Hugo Chavez, PolPot, Nero, Lenin, and many other atheists-lefitsts LITERALLY caused the death and misery and death of hundreds of millions of people just over the last 200 years and yet are deified by the Left. -_-
If you gotta go back to the Inquisition over 250 years ago or the Crusades almost 600 years ago as a “bad stain” on Christianity, that goes to show you how much good Christianity has done for the world. 🙂 Just sayin’
Hitler was not an atheist, and there is zero evidence the holocaust ever happened. Not to say that Jews didn’t die or weren’t killed, just saying there was only a plan to move them all to Palestine. Soviets fabricated evidence in the Eastern concentration camps and didn’t allow the public access to their archives post WW2. And Westerners didn’t know that the Holocaust was a thing until the 1950s.
It is all fabricated like the moonlanding, 9/11, and the coronahoax. Large scale deception is not a modern phenomenon, but an instrument since ancient times. There is nothing new under the sun.
You’re DERANGED to say moon landing was false?! And 9/11 too?!
People like you are scary — your example of why Liberalism IS a mental disorder
We never went to the moon, ever- Not only is impossible, the moons is a plasma a transparent light, not a solid matter that no man will ever be able to land on – So yes no moon landing, and yes 9/11 was an orchestrated attack by those who claim to want to protect us. So before you call people deranged why don’t you do some research. And this is not liberalism or some political stance but simply the truth.
Ronald Reagan legalized abortion in California in 1967…5 years before Roe v. Wade. About 100,000 abortions a year in California each year of Reagan’s remaining two terms in office!
My aunt once told me, “I know you’re a very religious person.” It made me cringe, I don’t want that label- most Christians don’t. The Pharisees were religious and ritualistic. Legalism isn’t enough.
Grateful for your articles and videos Roosh. You bring real news, bits of comedy and most importantly encouragement with the Promises of Christ.
Indeed. Pharisees were the Virtue Signallers. Doing works in Public and Blaring Trumpets to Look Holy.
Yet by the Tradition of their Elders. Made God’s Word of none effect.(Mark 7:6-7:13)
This article hits home for me. It’s a tough situation when I can see that people’s disconnection from God’s fundamental biblical principles is the reason for so many problems in this world… yet nobody wants to accept this as the answer. They don’t even bother trying to listen to my arguments, instead labeling me as a religious fanatic or illogical. I’ve come to accept that most people would rather go to hell than go to church, it’s that unpopular.
It just feels like I have the answer to this insane puzzle called life, but so many people hate the answer so they just brush it off and continue down the path to perdition. It’s like my personal weight loss story. About 6 years ago I lost 70 lbs within a year. Everbody would be so excited and ask me how I did it. When I explained to them that it was a disciplined diet and exercise routine (sorry no magic pill), their faces would instantly droop and then either change the subject or justify their own habits instead of just listening my advice and following directions to solve their own weight problem.
This journey practicing my faith has helped me in my life in so many different ways and it’s something that I wish others could experience too, but the truth is that most just don’t care. They don’t want the truth, especially if it means getting out of their own comfort zone. They would rather choose to enjoy the drama, misery, nihilism and pain caused by their own vices rather than accepting that they may be wrong in order to solve the root of their problems, all the while whining along the way.
Sometimes I want to just isolate away from the never ending irrational chaos of human beings but then I take a prayerful step back and God reminds me that I too am a human being, just as lost and messed up as everyone else with my own vices and struggles. The only saving grace is that I have Jesus to hold on to. It’s so easy to just give up on the world but Jesus never did that. So I will push on living my life as he tells me to and sharing the good news despite the ridicule while praying that the seeds plant on fertile ground in the hearts of the lost.
So seeking pleasure is bad but if I follow a certain code you prescribe I can get eternal pleasure? I see your motivation. Eternal bliss, winning, happiness and enjoyment takes earthly pleasures to the next level doesn’t it!
There’s always this level of sarcastic bargaining with skeptics. Anything Holy and of Christ, is beyond what our little human brains can comprehend. Christianity isn’t about “If I do this, I will get this”, and if people see it this way, they are mistaken. When we are truly graced with God’s presence, we don’t think this way. The walk is spiritual, the walk with Christ surpasses all human endeavour. Humans chasing fleeting pleasures is a sign that they aren’t truly conscious or a denying that what they are chasing is empty, unattainable, imaginary, elusive, basically nothing. Nothing but ego, an unhealthy spirit. It always shocks me when I look around and see a person, who is this little speck of dust, who can be extinguished in seconds think that they are in control, or that science and evolution will save them, or that their higher consciousness will help them across to the other dimension when they’re gone, or that they’ll be able to somehow save their precious transient pleasures and hold on to them. I don’t get it, maybe in the same way they don’t get it either. Even if they are ok with living to the “fullest” here and then believing they are nothing thereafter, who cares? Why shake your fist at God? Go about your merry way, enjoy your pleasures, if that’s what you’ve chosen. But, let those who walk, walk.
Then why constantly mention being “saved”? It’s classic carrot vs stick conditioning. Of course we don’t want to be thrown into a fire guess I better do what you say lol.
It’s very clear you get the oven for eternity so guess it’s not much of a choice.
If you confine Christianity to one argument, very difficult to have a discussion. Why would being saved matter to an unbeliever anyway though? If someone doesn’t believe it, then why would they worry about their eternal life?
I’m wondering if your motivation is anything beyond a basic fear of pain.
Keep searching, you’re obviously looking for answers and have some fears of your own. What my own motivation is holds no real importance to your quest for ‘truth’. God Bless.
I think whites have genetic empathy and Christianity is just an expression of that. Even the white leftists are constantly trying to help other races, as misguided as they are I think it’s just a genetic behavioral drive we have that other races certainly don’t.
What part of the Bible says a man can declare himself “saved” and thus eternal life is guaranteed?
Orthodox Christianity doesn’t focus on overnight admissions of salvation. The road to Christ is a difficult one, a long road, unthinkable without spiritual help from God. In Orthodoxy, even monks who have given their lives to walk the holy path don’t feel worthy. The Bible has many passages which talk about salvation. Some of these have been misinterpreted by certain denominations. Perhaps, a good one to refer to is: Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Nobody asked for you to evangelize your atheist faggotry here. Go tip your fedora someplace else.
Indeed, when you see it for what it is, religion starts to look very much like a man-made rather than godly invention, something designed by one group of humans to control the rest. It makes sense after all; people will be more likely to behave if they think they are being watched and will be judged and punished if they do wrong.
It also keeps people prepared to live shit lives in this realm, to tolerate being enslaved, because there is some carrot on a stick ‘reward’ for being a ‘good boy’ in the afterlife.
Now maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but it sounds like bullshit to me.
Well, Nietzsche, you got it wrong just like your poetic namesake. If you look at the tradition of Christianity, not just some dumbminded segment of Protestant Churches, you can go pretty deep. I dont mean to bash Protestant, but it seems to me that in the U.S. you just get this view of practice of Christianity as “one quick trick, Satan hates him” – and it is hard to criticize the sceptics for seeing that.
In my understanding, to not give yourself to Earthly pleasures is – on the most basic level – supposed to keep you centered, to not lose yourself to your passions, to your limit (borderline) personalities/modes of existence, because then you can truly become a slave. You can see that pretty clearly with various addicts. But you can just as easily become slave to much subtler things than drugs or alcohol. Now in the very center of your existence, or “heart” as the tradition calls it, you may encounter that what holy men try to encounter. But you can hardly encounter it with your mind and conciousness shattered by your slave-masters.
Now, in Roosh´s approach you can probably see some penance, but that is what he himself chose according to his own conscience and he knows what he is doing.
I could go on but I believe that is the elementary basic of this. If you are really interested, there are always plenty books to read, so make your own mind.
Christianity is a form of a control. It is a form of self-control because it helps you avoid a lot of bad decisions and bad habits that over time will produce disastrous results.
Gluttony, drugs, and drunkenness will destroy your body. Pornography and fornication will destroy your relationships with women. Atheism and hate will destroy your relationship with society. Consumerism and greed will destroy your finances.
Christianity is also a form of social control because restricting those sins (and others) will help lead to a healthy functioning society. Western society is decaying precisely because the moral order as instituted by Christianity has been rejected en masse. Individualism has proven to be a total failure. Men are social creatures who need guidance and boundaries, they are ubermenschen only in the fantasies of broken individuals posing as deep thinkers. Your namesake is a perfect example of that.
Any and all of those sins will also destroy your mental health (not to mention stunt your emotional development). How’s yours? Hanging around the comments sections on websites for the sole purpose of lobbing hackneyed juvenile insults towards other men is definitely not an indicator of a well-adjusted mindset.
“people will be more likely to behave if they think they are being watched and will be judged and punished if they do wrong.”
You’re doing the exact thing you accuse religion of. You’re trying to use insults and social shaming to steer people away from their own beliefs and enslave them to yours. Go examine your conscience and see if you live up to your own ideals.
Your choice. Tell me something true, can you? That’s all this is.
I don’t think you understand the difference between pleasure-seeking and striving for happiness. The first is ephemeral and solely of the flesh, the other is eternal and spiritual.
I can certainly empathize with Roosh. I have been also viewed either as a Christian pariah due to some of my desires to hard-reset the dating and marriage systems or because of my deep conviction in Chris. Our country and culture have been pulled so far away from Christ and its foundational principles (family, faith, and freedom), that even mentioning you attend church, some people look at you as if you were an alien.
The reason America has been in such a steep decline, is that we are separated from faith, mainly the Judeo-Christian principles that have made the Constitution, freedom, private ownership, and individualism possible.
Right now, America is a land of division, tribalism, nihilism, and anarchy. President John Adams explained the Constitution and the American success story would only be functioning with a moral and religious people.
The Left, following the Chinese model of governance and thinking, has uprooted Christianity from media, education, movies, music, and Social Media. They first attacked men and fathers, then after the undermined the leaders of the family unit and using broken families, they raised a generation of marxist entitled kids. That is what we see with Antifa and BLM on our streets today.
Without Christian principles, there is a lack of firmament. There is no common culture. Nothing to look forward to, except fleeting earthly pleasures, and nothing to get people to work hard, to be well, and to do well in whatever they choose to do.
We need a revival of our Christian culture and a restoration of Christian America like never before. Our Constitution and the freedoms we enjoy will not survive without a moral and religious people.
It is that simple. Call me over-religious or whatever, as long as you allow Christians to speak, think, and advocate for our faith with freedom and respect.
Where is the inherent value in ‘working hard’? I could break my back all day digging a huge hole in the ground and then filling it in, it would be very hard work and afterwards I could feel I’d been a good boy but it would have been pointless. Worse even. After a few decades of ‘hard work’ I’d be only fit for the knackers yard. And yes, most ‘work’ in modern society is pointless when you boil it all down.
Nobody is watching and keeping track of your ‘achievements’, your grades in ‘education’, your ‘career’, how new your car is, how big your house is. The Earth is millions of years old. You may be here for 80. Maybe Christianity says arbeit macht frei but some of the rest of us aren’t so prepared to play along.
Christian Cool,
Valid points. Something I’d like to share, be it a lengthy narrative.
Back in 1987, I read the newly released book “The Closing Of The American Mind” by Dr. Allen Bloom. Bloom was a professor of Philosophy at Rutgers.
He was both a secular Jew, and a liberal, but he was also a realist, and he gave credence to the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our culture. One of the premises of his book was that America once had a common bond, that being a belief in a God, but along the way, we lost that. Even 33 years ago, he pointed out what was going on in our nation’s universities, and how our society was being eroded. It’s almost prophetic to see the end results today.
Earlier this year we celebrated the Day of All Saints in the Orthodox Church. Our Abouna (priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Church) gave a very powerful homily (we don’t have social justice sermons, or Mr Rogers sermons, in the ancient church) from Matthew’s gospel “so the last will be first, and the first last….”. He told us we are saints, and we can have a place in the kingdom of heaven. He pointed out that we live in such an “anti-Christian world”, and that it was not surprising that we get mocked and attacked for this (think the old ROKs site). He also said there are christians that act like Peter, they run and hide and deny Christ, but not to deny him, but to acknowledge him as lord and savior. He asked “when you go out to eat are you afraid to make the sign of the cross and pray because people will say “you’re a Christian”?
Ironically, the following week, I was out making industrial sales calls in my day job, and I stopped for lunch at a small Mexican place that has vegan options on the menu (we fast on Wednesday’s in remembrance of the lord’s betrayal, and on Friday’s in remembrance of the lord’s crucifixion). I live in left leaning Kansas City, and I was passing through a neighborhood called Brookside, that’s known for its strong liberal influences. I sat at the bar and ordered my food. Next to me was a young 20 something hipster guy with a much older woman, who appeared to be in her late 40s, and appeared to be his girlfriend/mentor (I see this out and about in my area more and more, older women who prey on young, often vulnerable, men). They appeared to be having a liquid lunch of margaritas. She was telling him what to do, and how to do it.
When my food arrived, I made the sign of the cross and silently prayed. Evidently this triggered him, and with the older woman goading him, he went off. “It stinks in here, and I’m uncomfortable”, he said. “🤬Trump supporter“, he continued as he leaned in at me in a threatening manner (huh??). Fortunately, the young bartender 86ed them. I’m an unassuming 62 year old guy with a trimmed salt’n’pepper beard, and a military style flat top, so I’m not unfamiliar with off the rails unprovoked attacks from young liberal men and older combative women (one of the reasons I avoid going out much anymore. It’s just getting too weird). But here’s the rub, Christian Cool, as I drove out of this neighborhood, I passed by several mainline Protestant churches (ELCA, UCC, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopalian, DOC, UMC) waving rainbow banners, and marquee boards out front stating they’re inclusive, and chalked full of social justice quotes. Any wonder we are seeing the end results today.
Roosh,
Good article. It brought to mind this passage from the diary of St Faustina:
“One day, I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings.”
~ St. Faustina; excerpt 153 from The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
You are the rare inspiration and encourager
Thank you for this fantastic article. I agree 100%.
This article struck a chord with me.
Not unlike yourself, I’ve re-verted to my Christian faith in the last 18 months to 2 years. I was just in an extended exchange on social media with a few people who called me an “extremist” because I steadfastly defended the historicity of Jesus Christ. At first, I was taken aback – hurt, even.
But then I realized that yes, to someone who’s got no prayer life, no practice of reading scripture or studying the faith, who rarely if ever sets foot inside a church, and who hasn’t received the sacraments in years, that would sound extreme.
Since then, I’ve come to realize the truth in this:
In the tender compassion of our Lord
The dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
And the shadow of death,
And to guide our feet into the way of peace.
We live in a world full of lost souls looking for something to fill a yearning that only Christ can fulfill. You’re on the right path. Never deviate from the truth. Never shrink from speaking it.
Every one of the “extreme” measures that anti-christians complain about — daily prayer, attending church, refraining from sin, letting go of self-blame — are things that any smart doctor would tell you, are good for your health. Want to stay healthy, avoid disease, avoid mental illness? Become a Christian. Whatever denomination…it doesn’t matter, God loves them all.
I’ve also noted over the years that such things are good for personal prosperity. People of faith are generally more successful in their profession. They stick to basics, work hard, provide real value, don’t rip off or abuse their co-workers or customers, and avoid overspending. Christ was a carpenter…which by the way, in that era, was a highly important profession.
There is a reason that faith has been a part of the human world for all of history. It works. People of faith succeed and prosper more than people of no faith. It’s God’s perfect plan for us, guiding us towards “what works”. Isn’t that the definition of God? God is “good”. God works best. By definition.
So many straw men, logical fallacies and non-sequiturs in that post, it’s hard to know where to start.
Sorry I don’t debate cynical or negative people.
I recently asked my partner (a Non-Orthodox Christian) to continue our relationship in celibacy and he left me. How does one navigate the secular dating scene to ply onto the Orthodox rule of celibacy until marriage?
I went through the exact same scenario as you recently, but the rub for me was I had a much younger and very pretty lady friend who was born into an Armenian Orthodox family. I surmised that it appeared like “Orthodox in name only, or by birth only”. She talked to me of marriage, but refused to remain celibate and wanted to seal the deal, and refused premarital counseling and an Orthodox crowning in lieu of wanting an outdoor hippie wedding. I dodged a bullet on that one. I have a friend, a guy Roosh V’s age, and his story is much like Roosh’s. He’s in a ROCOR parish, and he also went through this scenario as well.
On the Feast of St Elias my priest gave a powerful homily from Kings on the prophet Elias, Ahab, and Jezebel. He admonished the young people to marry in the Orthodox faith only, or marry someone who’s respectful of their faith and willing to convert. He also told them to not marry on beauty alone, but on a good heart, and he bluntly said to the young men “don’t marry a witch”.
I guess if it were me I’d talk to my spiritual father and seek his counsel on this. Maybe establish some ground rules from the onset? I should’ve in my case.
“Don’t marry a witch”
OMG that’s great. If only to have a video of it.
Actually, I have it recorded.
You don’t navigate the secular dating scene. You stay away from it as far as possible and serve God. When He wants you to marry, He will send you a man.
I believe what people criticize is that you preach despite being Christian for just one year, and rationalize your weaknesses (e. g. living in your mom’s basement, having no job etc.) with the excuse of being Christian. I met a couple of Christian men over 30 like you, and it’s the same story every time.
What you advocate by being completely anti-materialistic and anti-pleasure is not Christianity 101, but monasticism 101.
Your pendelum swings from one extreme to the next, and you won’t have a peace of mind with any of it either.
“Basic Christianity Is Extreme To Those Without Faith”
Change “basic” to “traditional” and your point comes across a little better.
At least in the US, commercialized megachurchianity has become the primary face of Christianity as opposed to traditional Christianity like the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Megachurchianity exists as just another face of capitalism. Its churches resemble office buildings and entertainment venues more than holy places. Its music consists of low-grade pop bands instead of the timeless works of chant and the great composers. Its “worship services” resemble a talk given by a motivational speaker instead of a solemn Mass conducted with the real presence in the Eucharist, with the added insult of attendees dressed like slobs in their street clothes instead of their Sunday best.
Traditional Christianity seems extreme because it requires a little more effort than the easily-consumed commercialized megachurchianity which most now see as Christianity. If you spend your whole life in a consumerist-capitalist mindset then anything which requires a little more effort than bringing a product to the cash register or buying a concert ticket seems extreme.
Unlike megachurchianity, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are societal structures in-of-themselves apart from capitalism; to participate you have to exit the consumerist world and enter another, which for many modern men seems (understandably) extremely difficult due to those men having lived their entire lives trapped in that consumerist-capitalist mindset.
You’re spot on right!
There’s (yet another) strip mall megachurch in my city that touts a “come as you are” spiel. Young people show up with lattes in hand, and in their pajamas. No kidding.
I’ve even seen Rick Warren preaching in Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks. Is this reverent worship, or is it a BBQ?
In the quest to be culturally relevant, or as the Gospel Coalition and the ERLC of the SBC incessantly preach “engaging the culture”, this is yet another gimmick. One need only look at where mainline Protestantism is at today to see where evangelicalism is headed in the future.
I no longer have a dog in that fight, but have embraced the ancient and unchanging faith (as the original Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 proclaims) of the “one holy catholic and apostolic church“.
Great post. I do hope that you also continue to share your insights on the male/female relationship. I am a Christian, and I was always as attracted to the relationship as much as the physical gratification. Sex with a stranger never made much sense to me, so I did not share many of the application opinions set out in your posts of previous years, but I always valued very much your explanation of female motivations. The more young men that you can red pill and arm with that knowledge, the happier they will be.
Thanks Roosh, another great article. Praise God for the work that Christ has and is doing in you.
Great writing brother.
The worst scoundrels make the best Christians! A great handbook for the Reformation: https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Reformers-Douglas-Wilson/dp/1591281792
“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us’.” (Saint Anthony the Great)
“Needless to say but this line of argument always comes from non-Christians who are so far away from God that witnessing just a little bit of faith causes them alarm.”
— Roosh V
Don’t I know it brother.
Beautiful article. Thank you