Bruce notes that there is now a group of Christian reactionary bloggers with sufficient cohesion–he mentions Jim Kalb, Larry Auster, Laura Wood, Proph, Daniel, himself, and myself–that we should have a name for ourselves. The first suggested name was “Kalbosphere“, but now “Christian Reactionaries” or “Orthosphere” seem to be emerging as favorites. Last night, I spent an hour writing up some detailed thoughts on this, but when I clicked “Save Draft”, the whole thing got erased. A week’s blogging time down the toilet. Oh well, here’s the short version:
It seems that there are two classes of people we might want to name so there should be two words. The classes are
A: The group of Christian reactionaries that have found each other and read each others’ blogs regularly. That is , the point is not just that we share certain beliefs (as we might share beliefs with people we don’t know exist), but that we’ve coalesced into an intellectual community.
B: Anybody who shares our core beliefs, which I summarize thusly: God and His natural law should rule human communities as well as individuals, and this ordering under God should be subjectively clear to the community’s participants. Plus, Christianity is true.
All members of A are also members of B, but not vice versa. A descriptive name like “Christian Reactionaries” should probably be used for group B, since it would be awkward to say that so-and-so who has been laboring alone as a Catholic monarchist for years but hasn’t yet heard of us is not a Christian reactionary. “Orthosphere”, “Kalbosphere”, or something like that would be good names for group A. Since it denotes a particular group of people, it should be more like a name than a description, so ideally people should not understand it until they get to know us.
Also, you guys can settle on whatever you want, but I’m not going to type anything with plus signs.
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Throne and Altar 
Anyone on the VFR/Auster side of things isn’t orthodox, just reactionary. There is a fairly big distinction there, not least that it undermines the ‘Christianity is true’ argument by granting validity to those who do not accept the fullness of Christian truth.
Of course, I am a Reformed lady who will not privilege the Magisterium above the Scriptures, so perhaps I too am part of the problem and only reactionary and not orthodox, in a very different fashion.
See my thoughts here:
http://collapsetheblog.typepad.com/blog/2011/12/on-what-to-call-us-far-right-bloggers.html
What we decide to call ourselves is going to require making a decision about who “ourselves” includes, as A Lady astutely points out.
I’m just gonna put this here, because typepad is wonky. The VFR brigade are mostly Catholic (to my knowledge), but heterodox in weird ways. Reformed heterodoxy, if you will, is already baked into the cake.
I guess, which do you feel is more great the modernist error– Biological determinism or sola scriptura?
Like Luther, I’d rather not be separated from the Catholic Church. But you know, it’s been over 500 years. I think bio-determinism is a bigger problem than sola scriptura, as it stems directly from industrial and post-industrial modernist thought. Protestants are pre-industrial in tradition and have coherent traditions of what we find to be orthodoxy, and I think that is quite important when sifting reactionaries into the blogging barrel. The same cannot be said for bio-determinists.
I would ask that you not choose the phrase “Orthosphere” as this, with a capital “O”, indicates an affinity with Orthodoxy, which isn’t the case). A small “o” “orthosphere” would be less misleading, but still somewhat so.
You have something else in common. You rule out of court “the Jewish question”. Larry Auster does it vehemently, Jim Kalb does it quietly, but one way or another it gets done.
This is worth noticing because it isn’t intuitively obvious that Christian rightists who look to the past would prefer not to consider a conflict that is deeply religious as well as ethnic and racial, and that is highly relevant as a source of the great, long international progressive push. Formerly, Christianity had a very different attitude.
(I am using the awkward phrase “Christian rightists who look to the past” to avoid using the word “conservative” in the context of a reigning liberal and neoconservative orthodoxy that rightist Christians have no obvious interest in conserving.)
You could be called the unity of Judeo-Christian reactionary blogs in terms of what interests you ultimately tend to favor, and what taboos you respect and what boundaries you feel should not be drawn.
Reformed theology? Huh, talk about determinism!
But if we made that a criterion, they’d have to exclude me, since I am well known to be an anti-semitic loon who violates that taboo all the time:
https://bonald.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/is-spinoza-the-most-overrated-philosopher-in-history/
Why don’t you spell out what you mean, instead of cloaking it in vagueness like “the fullness of Christian truth (as I understand it)” ??
Are you now, or have you ever been, an adherent of the teachings of Ken Ham? Out with it!
Hi A Lady,
Could you give me some more details about their heterodoxies? I know Auster is an Anglican, and often expresses his hostility to materialism, and even Darwinism (mistaking, I believe, the scientific theory with the metaphysical baggage that is often attached to it). I’m surprised that you call him a bio-determinist.
I too am confused by the description of Lawrence Auster as a bio-determinist, particularly in the light of the discussion of evolutionary psychology that has taken place at his blog and at What’s Wrong With the World over the last couple of weeks. The only way I can see of fitting Mr. Auster into a box marked “bio-determinist” is to expand that box to include anyone who considers race to be an important rather than trivial or false category.
The greatest modernist error is sola fide.
I like the name “Orthosphere”. This name could include Orthodox Jews, but I realize many here wouldn’t approve of that.
You have to decide what really matters in defining the group, faith/belief or works/action. I recently wrote my reaction to Martin Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty where I realize that Luther’s idea of sola fide inevitably leads to liberalism. This is why liberalism developed and is strongest in Protestant countries. In my opinion, what really matters for fighting liberalism is works and only those religions that respect works have any hope. This includes Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Mormonism, Anabaptism, and Orthodox Judaism. If instead, you define your group around faith, then I expect a group so busy talking about belief that nothing will ever get done.
She’s saying we should accommodate Auster’s Protestantism because at least he isn’t a biodeterminist. (She is responding, I think, to the point I made at C:TB that I’m OK with a definition that excludes most Protestants because I regard the Reformation as a precursor to modern antiauthoritarianism).
Oh.
bonald, good answer. I withdraw my suggestion of “the unity of Judeo-Christian reactionary blogs”. “The unity of Christian reactionary blogs” is better.
How about just “The Old Order Blogs”.
I’ve been banned by Auster just because I uphold the old Catholic teaching that the Jews are to be suppressed.
We are traditionalists who uphold the Old Order, Christendom.
Daybreaker writes: “You have something else in common. You rule out of court ‘the Jewish question’. Larry Auster does it vehemently, Jim Kalb does it quietly, but one way or another it gets done.”
What ignorance. See, for example:
Why Jews Welcome Moslems
Jews’ idiotic [and wicked] anti-nationalism
Is my criticism of Jewish attitudes the same as Kevin MacDonald’s?
The anti-Semites and me; and my solution to the Jewish problem
Lindsay Wheeler wrote:
“I’ve been banned by Auster just because I uphold the old Catholic teaching that the Jews are to be suppressed.”
For the record, here is an one of the e-mails from Lindsay Wheeler that got him excluded from VFR:
By the way, I have never spoken of “Judeo-Christianity” or of a “Judeo-Christian” culture or nation, which I agree are false concepts. I have used the term only in one sense, when speaking of “Judeo-Christian morality.”
There’s a reasonable point in that email, but the insults and obnoxiousness are indeed uncalled for.
Is there anyone who actually uses the expression “Judeo-Christianity”? I see “Judeo-Christian” used as an adjective frequently but I don’t recall seeing the noun “Judeo-Christianity” very often. I can’t imagine what such a term would refer to, except perhaps a religion which blends Judaism and Christianity. I know of people of Jewish ethnic background who have accepted Christ as the Messiah but continue to eat kosher and observe Jewish festivals. Such people usually refer to their faith as “Messianic Judiasm” rather than “Judeo-Christianity” however.
I’m kind-a-proud of that email. I don’t apologize for it at all.
The Church has always taught the suppression of the Jews. The Jews instigated the Protestant Reformation and the Modern Republicanist movement. The killing of kings began with a Midrash teaching that said “monarchy is idolotry”. The Puritans and Levellers ran with that. The so-called “Enlightenment” was not an “Enlightenment” but the cultural revolution that destroyed Christendom. The Jews led this. The Jews were not suppressed but given their freedom. Now they are the ruling aristocracy of America and of the world.
If you doubt, look at this emblem Hermes alquimico
That is all you need to know about what happened in the Renaissance and in the so-called Enlightenment. Emblem books were spread all across Europe. This of course was a secret message. The truth which Hermes is bringing is Judaism.
“The Jews instigated the Protestant Reformation”
I have read a lot of dumb things, but this wins the grand prize. Martin Luther hated the Jews. Protestantism is the exact opposite of Judaism because Protestantism focuses on faith while Judaism focuses on works.
Oh no. FSchmidt, does not believe, my precious.
I refer you to Newman, Louis I. (1925) Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements, Columbia University Press, New York. You can read that online at Questia.com.
Martin Luther only hated the Jews AFTER they refused to convert to his style of Christian heresy.
“Sola Scriptura” is a Jewish meme. Jews in their studies only read words, they go to books.
Those weren’t “reform” movements but ways to break up the solidarity of the Christian faith.
Hello wlindsaywheeler,
What do you mean by Jewish? If you mean actual Jews, then few of the Reformers and philosophes had much contact with them, and they certainly didn’t derive their ideas from them. But sometimes you use the word “Jewish” as if it means something broader, so that hostility to Christendom and even book-based belief systems are “Jewish memes”. By that definition, you have a better case that the Reformation and Enlightenment were “Jewish”, but your definition of “Jewish” is much broader than what other people mean when they say that word to refer to actual Jews.
John Toland and others around him were in contact with a certain Jewish rabbi. John Toland was one of the biggest movers and shakers in the “republican” movement in England.
Many Christian theologians, many among the Catholics, were Hebraists. St. Jerome, even earlier, instead of using the Septuagint, went to the Masoretic text for his Latin translation. In a sense, yes, my term is much broader. The Kabala had a huge influence; even amongst Catholics.
Northern Italy, esp. Venice, was the seat of very vigorous Jewish activity. And don’t forget Spinoza.
The irony here is that it was actually the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment that ruined Judaism, Spinoza being a prime example. But it isn’t a Jewish habit to blame others for their problems.