The insanity of trusting distrust

Unstable social foundations

One of the good things to come out of COVID was the bracing revelation that, by and large, the majority of Canadian institutions and industries had thoroughly failed Canadians. For the people paying attention, this was not a novel discovery. In fact, that understanding is why so many people both questioned and defied the mandates and policies brought down by the State.

Our civil government operated against the best interests and well-being of Canadians, proving that far from protecting the rights given to us by God, our elected officials were out to gather unto themselves power, control, and wealth.

Our health industry created policies and encouraged practices that were detrimental to the overall health of Canadians. From incessant intubation, to prohibiting a proven prophylactive, to a ghoulish gene therapy injection, they destroyed far more lives than they saved (which is no surprise considering how they promote pre-natal infanticide and doctor-assisted murder).

Our legacy media establishment mutated into a State-approved narrative crafting machine. Instead of reporting on the facts, they repeated Big Brother’s slogans so that Canadians would be beaten down by fear and anxiety into submission and compliance.

Our education system, rather than teaching children and doing what was best for students, opted for teacher-union-driven corruption and self-preservation, thus becoming the Ministry of Truth from ‘1984’ instead of actually learning from the book and warning of its Socialistic outcomes.

Looking for a branch in the fastest of quicksand

Given all of this, it is understandable that dissidents in Canada would feel an overall sense of distrust and skepticism with regards to our institutions. When you have been lied to so much by so many for so long, you begin to question everything these defunct institutions have been telling you the whole time. When you feel so alone, you may wonder, “Who CAN I trust?”

This free-floating uncertainty began to solidify into several defined positions among certain Christians in Canada in the wake of the COVID era. I personally saw these perspectives sharpen significantly between 2020 and 2023. Almost always, whether people advocated one or two of these beliefs or held to all five of them, their positions sprang from a common source, which I can only describe as an unhinged skepticism.

What were these beliefs? I have mentioned them briefly before, but I will list them again:

1. The earth is flat

2. The moon landing never happened

3. Modern Bible translations are Satanic corruptions

4. Christmas and Easter are pagan festival celebrations

5. The COVID jabs had microchips in them that are probably the Mark of the Beast

All five of these can be followed up with the exact same qualifier, which is, “They have been lying to us about everything, and Satan is behind all of it.” Now, I am not concerned with what pagans believe. Their minds are darkened by their foolish thinking. When professing followers of Christ begin to swim in the deep sea of skepticism, it is a dark and dangerous place where finding a life-preserver can be difficult.

A faulty attempt at foundation reconstruction

Once the active threat of COVID tyranny began to subside, Christians began to engage in the necessary and thoughtful work of understanding not only what just happened, but also what the way forward looks like. Many great statements were crafted, many wonderful books were written, and new alliances were formed. It was an encouraging time.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, unhinged skepticism began to rear its ugly head. This time, it appeared among theologically sound Christians who had been faithful during the COVID madness. Furthermore, there was a shift away from traditionally Reformed and Puritanical thinking toward Aristotelian and Thomistic categories and thinking. The ground underneath us was shifting, and it was about to create significant divisions.

Then came the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7^th, 2023, which created a schism in the world, forcing people into one of two camps – total support for Israel in every way, or total support for Hamas in every way. These same Christians tried to find the balanced middle, condemning the attacks by Hamas as well as the existential threat that is Sharia Law-driven Islam, while also being honest about the corruption and Christlessness within the Israeli State.

All of these developments added two more items to my previous list of five. Again, while believing any two does not necessarily mean acceptance of all, they all have, as their source, the same rabid uncertainty. These new beliefs are:

1. A secret global cabal of Jews run the world and operate for their self-interests

2. The events surrounding World War 2 have been altered in order to further the “Post-War Consensus”

The byproduct of these beliefs has been the emergence and solidification of the Woke-Right. How are they Woke, and in effect similar to the Woke-Left? Well, they use the same equipment, but they are playing a different game. Both groups deal in tribalism and identitarianism. Both groups posit an evil oppressor class that rules the world through their systems and institutions. Both groups hold to a significant revision of the past in order to understand the present situation. Both groups reject the wisdom of the old, white man who doesn’t buy into all of their ideas.

These Woke-Right positions have generated the ever-oxymoronic Reformed ethnocentrism and Reformed antisemitism that are unbecoming of a Christ-follower and a woeful denial of the unifying, peace-creating, and wall-of-hostility-tearing-down power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which creates one people out of many. The ground around the cross is level and shows no variance due to ethnicity and nationality (Ephesians 2:11-22).

None of us would have anticipated a Woke-Right, but here we are.

Anchor-less ships lost at sea

The solidification of the Woke-Right has been driven by and is a driver of increased, unbalanced skepticism, which is not a place where believers can rest. It is a place of uncertainty, distrust, fear, anxiety, and unrest. I have talked with several young Christian men who lack peace in their souls because they don’t know what to believe, and they don’t know who to trust. If everything is a lie, and if everyone has been lying to us, then everything is now up for grabs. Everything can be questioned. We must approach everything with skepticism. This is an utterly destructive stance.

The unhinged questioning of history has led people to doubt everything we’ve been taught, even about Biblical and Church history. I mean, after all, how deep does the deception actually go? Can we trust our Bibles? How do we know what is and is not the Canon of Scripture? What if the same kinds of corrupt and sinister men who drove the Post-War Consensus and COVID are the same men who decided which books to not include in the Bible, and for what reasons? Yes, men are really wrestling with these deep doubts.

Can we trust any authority at all? Older men who were once trusted are now being questioned because they are thought to be promoting the alleged lies and deception about Hitler, the Jews, and World War 2 that have been uncovered. One’s trusted ideological circle has become very small indeed.

This kind of thinking is untethered from reason and reality, and it is not a tenable position if one desires to have peace and joy. In order to stand firm, you have to have solid ground upon which to stand. If everything is shifting sand, how do you know where you are and what to believe? Many of the men who have drifted into this slurry believe the wildest and weirdest ideas. It looks like they are getting their ideas from some wonky YouTube video.

Anchor down and overcome the waves

The Scriptures give us the tools and teaching necessary to remain faithful and balanced, so as to not be swayed by skepticism and distrust, even though, yes, we have been lied to and deceived by many people and institutions. We have to find a place to drop anchor, otherwise we can’t be certain of anything, and we can’t trust anyone, and that is neither a wise nor obedient way to live as a follower of Jesus.

We read the following in the Scriptures. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The local church, with elders and faithful believers, have been given, “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).

The irony of the unhinged skepticism that marks this Young, Restless, and Red-Pilled movement (see here and here) is that they question and doubt everything except their own skepticism and doubts. Apparently, the only ideas that can be totally trusted are the ones that proceed from their own minds, and the only thing they can be certain about is their uncertainty. Yes, if you have any experience in logical and critical reasoning, that is what we call a self-defeating inconsistency.

Much of the unbalanced questioning is based on assumptions, new ideas, and the works of various people who haven’t done the due diligence required for historical analyses. I would say that the idea of Hitler being a misunderstood guardian of Christianity in defense of Communism is a dangerous and deceitful idea based on human tradition, namely a hyper-skeptical and revisionist-history one. I would say that the idea of Jews during the Holocaust being mere prisoners of war who faced a merciful death in gas chambers to prevent a worse death by starvation due to supply lines being cut from Germany is tendentious, an idea that tosses the mind round and round like a strong wind carries a feather.

Disconnecting in order to reconnect

What is the way forward? Well, first of all, efforts such as The Antioch Declaration (I would encourage you to read it and sign it here) is a united effort to combat these very corrosive and cancerous ideologies that have taken a rather unnerving foothold in the Reformed community. Second, one of the ways young men can be grounded in reality is by linking themselves with older, godly, faithful, and wise men who have been following Christ for years. Age, so long as it is met with maturity and humility, is a vital tool to sharpen the minds and hearts of young men. There is something about decades of faithful, costly obedience, mixed with suffering and hardships, that can be used to help young men remain sane.

Finally, it might be time to curate your social media and online experience. Part of that looks like spending more time in person with flesh-and-blood brothers and sisters in Christ as opposed to blue-eyed, red-tinted theobros online. Your soul will be blessed. Another part looks like unfollowing or blocking people (which I am very hesitant to do myself). If people are willing to engage in good-faith and robust discussions, and remain respectful and charitable, that’s one thing. But if cowards hide behind their anonymous social media accounts, or if they are sarcastically biting and disrespectful just to be trolls, then don’t feed the trolls.

I suspect these new and distinct positions, which are thoroughly dug in, will remain for quite a while, or at least until the next wave of State tyranny forces us to work together again. Until that time, we must continue to plod on, wherever the Lord has placed us, intentionally connected with real people, building strong communities, and advancing God’s Kingdom in unity.