The Christian ethic is a far different one from the world’s, which seeks to hold on to the present state at all costs. How Christians behave in this life is to be formed by the summary principle of all commandments: love. When this is forgotten, Christians can suffer a lot of persecution for the wrong reasons.

Driving to my hometown through Bakersfield on CA-99, there’s an overpass that inspires the bad boy in me to grab the country station dial. Every time I see “Merle Haggard Way,” I’m ready to hear, “Are the Good Times Really Over” or “The Fightin’ Side of Me.” Don’t people see “we’re rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell?” I really miss Merle. Yep, these people, “they love our milk and honey but they preach about some other way of livin’.”

That’s it, I want out of Commifornia. My dream is now Utah with a little a ranch, some open terrain for my 4×4, and a place where I can hunker down and survive—a place where I can “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” All of a sudden, I wake out of my daydream back to civilian reality and this mundane thought: Jesus called me to die to myself and become a servant. Out comes a big sigh; that’s just not as exciting.

The church today is filled with the normalizing of extremes from both political sides.

As American culture morally bankrupts itself into lawlessness and as we face a soft totalitarian revolution, we are witnessing the rise of Christian political and Covid-19 warrior-children. Parroting our political divide, the church today is filled with the normalizing of extremes from both political sides. At one extreme are effeminate, compromised pastors and parishioners who have adopted the social agenda of the political left. With this includes compromises of Christian mission in all areas the culture has defined as the most pressing issues of the day: social justice, liberation theology, sexual revolution, feminism, etc.—a certain crisis of identity in attempted cultural adaptability.

There is, however, predictable as it may be, another crisis of identity emerging. Like the social hipsters who were critiqued for the last fifteen years for trying to be cool (see here), there appears to be a reactionary outlaw brand of Christianity emerging that weds together the cowboy muscle era of American past with the pulpit—you know, “a country boy can survive” kind of redeemed persona.

Many are weary of a culture demonizing what it is to be male while elevating feminism as the ideal.

The thing is, in all honesty, this is a very attractive response for those who feel emasculated by the culture. I, too, am weary of a culture demonizing what it is to be male while elevating feminism as the ideal—yes, there are objective standards of this both biblically and culturally. People are appalled by what has been normalized in the sexual revolution. Beards, guns, flannels, smoking stogies, or driving 4x4s provide a perception that men have stood up to this nonsense.

To be sure, there is nothing wrong with any of these things. I drive a ’79 Bronco if you must know. But it is a fair question to ask whether what we are seeing is a giant swap of one kind of hipster for another, simply the other side of the same coin of an identity crisis. We all knew the little guy in town who jacked up his Ford on 38-inch tires to give the appearance of being a bad boy—the “don’t tread on me” kind of guy. He was not tough, and everyone knew it.

My dream moment under the Bakersfield overpass made me feel strong and ready to take on the world—and fight. But fight precisely for what? That is an important question for Christians at the moment. Certainly, Christians have a biblical obligation to push back and fight against these dominant trajectories that assault creation norms and harm the ability for society to function as God designed things. Yet, is there something much bigger that we are forgetting as we struggle with how to conduct ourselves in revolutionary times?

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