Virgin Mary Parades in the Year 2526

So I want you to follow me closely here. A hypothetical Protestant republic, centuries from now, would be . . . chock full of Protestants. That would be the ethos of the whole place. Gaming it all out is how you test the principles of the various systems. What would still be there, and what would be long gone? Pride parades would be long gone. Catholic church bells would not be. Why and how come? Let’s talk about it.

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The point of this podcast is pretty broad — “All of Christ for all of life.” In order to make that happen, we need “theology that bites back.” I want to advance what you might call a Chestertonian Calvinism, and to bring that attitude to bear on education, sex and culture, theology, politics, book reviews, postmodernism, expository studies, along with other random tidbits that come into my head. My perspective is usually not hard to discern. In theology I am an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order. In politics, I am slightly to the right of Jeb Stuart. In my cultural sympathies, if we were comparing the blight of postmodernism to a vast but shallow goo pond, I would observe that I have spent many years on these stilts and have barely gotten any of it on me.

Virgin Mary Parades in the year 2526. March 16th, 2026. Introduction. So I garnered no little interest last week when a clip from a podcast I'd been on started to make the rounds and something like a sheet of flame ensued. So in response to these reactions, and there were some zesty ones, unsaturday night I tweeted what you see off to the right. And so here we are now. I can see you've been waiting patiently drumming your fingers. The podcast was Dad Saves America, headed by John Papola, an amiable Catholic host. And that episode can be seen here. You can watch the whole thing, really. I would urge that in fact, as it was a great discussion of the sort that I thought I was having. In the aftermath of the excitement, I went back and listened to it again myself and was astonished at the levels of my moderation. And at the fatal moment, my Catholic host asked me a direct question about inter-Christian relations and the kind of setup I envisaged centuries from now. And I replied that in gaming it out, I wasn't trying to start anything, which shows what I know. In the course of the interview, I quoted John Stodd, who once said that fuzzy thinking is one of the sins of the age. In this instance, in the reactions, we see more than a little evidence of that fact, along with some instances that show that there are a few Catholics who feel a little more freedom about cussing than does the average evangelical. Boll of Poperie to help set the context. Poperie. Get it? I debated James White over where the classical Protestant should treat our Roman Catholic friends as fellow Christians. The presenting issue was whether or not our churches should receive Roman Catholic baptisms and, following the magisterial reformers I argued in the affirmative. And what I argued then is my position today. And when it comes to understanding our current cultural battles, I have high esteem for many Catholics, particularly Supreme Court justices like Alito and Thomas. If it were not for such justices, our current moon scape would be a hellscape. My gratitude to them and for them is great. I have profound intellectual debts to Catholic writers, men like William Buckley and Anthony Eslan and J.R.R. Tolkien and Joe Sobrin and Christopher Dawson and E. Michael Jones without the Jews' stuff and G.K. Chesterton. So sue me. And yet, I still wake up every morning as the decided Protestant knowing what I think about it all. As it happens, I'm scheduled to debate Joe Heschmeier in just a few weeks on the doctrine of Solar Scriptura. Not only that, I'm about to share some of what I think about all these issues with you people. In short, you are not dealing with the bigot, but rather with someone who wants to follow an argument all the way out. Walk with me. Be like John Popola, a hypothetical republic. Now when someone argues for Christian nationalism, as I certainly have been doing, there comes with this a moral obligation to answer the resultant questions. If I believe that an ideal form of government would be a Protestant republic, as I do, then it is incumbent on me to define and explain what I would propose to do with any religious minorities. We're such a republic to be established. It is intellectually dishonest to be coy and pretend that there are no issues like this to be addressed. This is not the same thing as proposing legislation that will deal with those groups in a completely different context, starting with this coming fall. John Popola and I were talking about a hypothetical situation centuries from now in order to weigh the principles involved. Open around, if I were discussing political theory with a Catholic intergalist, and he had the temerity to reject the noble sentiments of the 37th article, The Bishop of Rome, hat no jurisdiction in this realm, I would not feign shock or surprise, and neither would I call for smelling salts. I would differ with them and pursue the arguments. In any honest discussion about political structures in the aftermath of secularism's manifest failures, participants in that discussion should be willing to answer the questions. If a Muslim argues for a Muslim state, the question what would you do with the Christians and Jews is perfectly sensible. If a Jew wants a Jewish state, then the question would concern whether a Muslim can be a citizen. In modern Israel, Muslims can be Israeli citizens, as many are, but that is because Israel is a secular state. And if a Protestant Christian wants a Protestant Christian state, then what do we do with those who don't believe in the Protestant faith? It is not possible to be an honest participant in such a discussion like that while dodging the question. I want you to follow me closely here. A hypothetical Protestant Republic, centuries from now, would be chock full of Protestants. That would be the ethos of the whole place. Gaming at all out is how you test the principles of the various systems. What would still be there and what would be long gone? Pride parades would be long gone. Catholic church bells would not be. Why and how come? Let's talk about it. Two key distinctions. The first thing to note is the distinction I was making between public and private spaces. In a Protestant Republic, the public spaces would belong to Christ, and private property would remain private. In those public spaces, the Republic would not grant permission for any public displays of idolatry. There wouldn't be a ton of Muslims, but those who were here could gather freely in private spaces to pray. There wouldn't be a ton of Hindus, but they would be free to do the same. The Jews would be unhassled in their synagogues. But if the Hindus applied for a parade permit to haul a huge juggernaut down Main Street, the answer would be no, and the reason would be that there would be no public idolatry allowed. Mosques would be okay. There would only be a few of them, but no minarets. No public calls to prayer. Church bells would be fine. No 90-foot statues of Hindu gods by the freeway either. One critic was astonished that I would restrict Catholic displays like this, while being as friendly as I am to the Jews. But this is an equal way to measure's thing. The Jews couldn't have virgin Mary parades either. These note that the level of quote-unquote persecution envisaged here is that of denying a parade permit for an idolatrous display. Hindus, Jews, Catholics and Mormons would be absolutely free to write editorials criticizing the Protestant President who would likely be, I freely admit, a hypocritical skunk. The second key distinction is one that I noted in my discussion with John Papola. I argued that the reason why there could be carveouts for Catholics in our down the road America is because we have had a long history in which we have worked out certain accommodations. One of the significant accommodations is the fact that in our country, Catholicism is adapted to become part of our valentrous denominational system, which is a Protestant system. There are forms of Catholicism in other countries where there is no history of that kind at all. And because politics is a potential exercise in which you work with what you've got, it would be the same here. Catholics are already playing the Protestant game here, which is really helpful. At the end of the day, the reason a Stout Protestant Republic could not allow virgin Mary parade is because it would be public idolatry. Sorry, but there it is. You guys shouldn't be doing that. But please note that this is not meant to cast any shade on our Lord's mother herself, who should always be held nice, deemed by all Christians everywhere. I even wrote a poem once entitled Our Lady of Westminster, which begins, Mariano Beatians, the Jewelry of God, has adorned gracious necks of many great women, Hartzbury Joysting and God their Savior, Theotnicki. Religious Liberty really is precious. So I really do believe in religious liberty and liberty of conscience. But we must also recognize that religious liberty is a value that arises from certain religious commitments and not from others. In order to defend religious liberty, it is therefore necessary to keep certain religions and ideologies away from the reigns of power. So I would want to bar radical Muslim cleric from holding office in this Republic of mind, not because I hate religious liberty, but rather because he does. Take the comment made by President Erdogan of Turkey. When he said that democracy is like a streetcar, you ride it until you get where you want to go, and then you get off. People whose expressed faith contradicts the constitutional order should never be entrusted with protecting the constitutional order. People frequently comment on the fact that in John Locke's famous essay on toleration, he exempted Catholics and atheists from that toleration. But remember also that he was writing only a century after the Armada. There are circumstances when I think Protestants should celebrate Guy Falkstay even harder than they ever did before. But that is not our circumstance. And it is not ours because Protestantism is winning. We can take a principle from Aristotle here who distinguished between behaviors that democracies like and behaviors which will preserve democracies. They are not the same behaviors. So is it our duty to maintain democratic processes absolutely, even if it means voting an attire, or is it our duty to put up fences to keep that from happening? In other words, democratic absolutism means that democracy itself will soon disappear in a whisper of smoke. Absolutism in democratic processes has this flaw. It cannot defend itself. In the same way, absolute religious toleration is also insane, and more to the point it is an approach which devours itself. There is no quicker way to get rid of religious toleration than by introducing a bedlam of competing views and opinions while demanding that everybody tolerate everything. I can remember a time when it was easy to accommodate a peaceful Muslim neighbor because he wanted to be Western. But we don't live in that time anymore. Because of relativism, multiculturalism, and mass immigration, we live in a time when a Muslim shooter can shoot up a classroom while yelling al-Oqbar and all our anointed authorities can tell us that the motives are yet to be determined. That is the kind of chaos we live in. The kind of anarcho tyranny which is deliberately undermining the foundations that make any religious liberty possible. This liberty was the development that grew up out of the Protestant West. It is our baby. We invented it. So people shouldn't talk as though a decided Protestant culture is the enemy of such liberty. It is the historic foundation for it. So a Protestant approach to religious liberty will preserve the maximum amount of religious liberty, including for Catholics, while an absolutist and blind embrace of the idol religious liberty will destroy religious liberty. We must have fences. We must have form and freedom together. That can provide that, while the void provides nothing. What secularists miss. One of the central errors that secularists fall into is that of attributing certain practices to our generic human nature, but which were actually inherited from our shared Christian consensus. They serenely believe that they can import millions from the Third World without turning us into the Third World. In their view, because of our shared generic human nature, the only things that might change would be the color of the traffic signs or the increased availability of exotic restaurants. Everything else would somehow magically stay the same. This is actually a striking example of blinker intellectual bigotry. Quote, everybody in the world shares my assumptions. Everybody in the world deep down agrees with my values. Every person is a white liberal in their heart. We are all different colors, but we all think the same way. That way being a soft socialism. This actually is a parasitic worldview. One that is viewed America, a country that was in the main built by the Protestant World View, as an ever accommodating host. Not a host welcoming invited guests, but rather a host body feeding the parasites. So let me conclude with a question. Is it possible for a country to be built by Protestants and have a Protestant heritage? A Protestant legacy. With that same framework, serving as the foundational basis for our laws, customs, and constitutional order. We're such a country to come into existence would it be lawful and appropriate for such a country to protect and preserve that legacy? Or are Protestants the only ones not allowed to do so? I really think the question answers itself. If you are enjoying these videos and would like to support this channel and the work of Ken and Press, join up at KAMMIN PLUS. Just click the link, create an account, and have a look around.