“One solution arrived at … was to set up Reason itself as a deity … Reason is appealing, because it implies that humans can use their facilities to order the universe, and that the universe will respond in kind … We want desperately to believe this story; in a Godless age, it is perhaps the only story that can save us, because it tells us that we understand the world, or are capable of doing so, and that this understanding will allow us to control it.” (60-61)

He writes about the goals of the French Revolution. Reason entered Western societies like a Trojan horse. A promise of great progress blinded us to the cause of great decline. Moral decline. We progressed materially, while the wellbeing of our souls suffered greatly.

After digesting Kingsnorth’s seventy-nine words like a four-stomached cow, I decided to write the piece you’re reading. A piece that explores a simple question.

How should we use our brain?

To participate or to create? That’s the question

You and your noggin are at a crossroads. For a modern human the options look like this.

1. You continue on the modern path because it has been turbo-normalized by the culture you exist in and it is almost impossible to think outside of the contemporary cultural story.

2. You see that the current normal sucks.

The current normal sucks, partly because it is built on the idea written down by Kingsnorth.

“Reason is appealing, because it implies that humans can use their facilities to order the universe, and that the universe will respond in kind.” (61)

The universe does not respond in kind because most of the things we can think of sin against God. Or - in less religious language - they are not in harmony with nature.

An example. I can think that it’s a good idea to drink 2.5 liters of Red Bull per day. I can even forbid any idea, study and newspaper article that claims differently. I can fund studies that tell me I’m correct. In short, I can seemingly bend reality to my will.

Also, I will die. Fast. Because I sinned against God. I went against the rules of His nature.

We do not create reality. We participate in it. Many problems of our time are created by not understanding this simple fact.

Observe what works. Don’t wish it was different.

Use your reason to figure out how to live in harmony with nature. Not to try and change its laws.

Your mind, my mind, and all the minds that went before us thought about how to live a good life. Before modern times, reason was used mainly to understand how to do so in harmony with the nature of things. In harmony with God.

Yet our time, as Kingsnorth mentioned, is a Godless age. Our ideas lost touch with Him. They are so far removed from the nature of things that - when followed - they lead to strange outcomes.

Health at every size is a good example of this. It is a falsehood based on the desire that the nature of things is different. That desire, paired with a belief that your reason can create reality, is a dangerous cocktail. It leads to plausible internal logic that crumbles when it hits reality. And when you believe the plausible, man-made story, it leads you down a bad path.

Use your mind is to stay out of trouble by figuring out the laws of nature. Do not try to write them. They’re already written and can’t be overruled. All that is possible is to discover them. That’s the right use of reason.

The problem with the prideful person

Obedience is required to yield to reality. It asks of you a submission to God or nature. A recognition that you are incapable of changing things you would like to be different.

Perhaps it is normal to be angry with God for the rules He provides. Our brain has given us the ability to look into what-if’s and if-only’s. That’s the curse we carry. The blessing is that we carry within our skull a connection to the divine. To God. To the nature of things. A connection that allows us to understand how God asks us to operate within His Nature. That is the use of reason for the right reason.

Anything else is hubris and pride. Anything else leads to Hell on earth.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

You might also be interested in…

Me too.

The problem of how to not give in to the darker parts can be blown up to a societal scale. There it results in an age-old question. Who watches the watchmen?

The question seems to be about political institutions and, therefore, has the great potential to result in an impersonal conversation. But institutions are made up of individuals. Those who could abuse the smallest amount of power.

Inside all of us exists a bureaucrat who takes pride denying someone a wheelchair, or giving an unnecessary fine. How do we deal with that?

Checks and balances. Ammiright?

A great-sounding solution is the system of checks-and-balances. Equally powerful institutions that can keep each other in check. If the people at institution A start to give in to their darker desires, institution B steps in to guide them back to the good. And vice-versa of course.

This way, nothing bad can ever happen at scale, the theory goes.

But what is good?

The above idea runs into a bomboclat problem. Who defines what is good? Politicians? The masses? Oligarchs? Hippies? Prince Charles? Tech-billionaires? None of them seem to have to the answer. Lots of superficial relativism combined with an undercurrent of ideological possession. Almost everyone is wrong.

There is an objective good. Individuals and states can try to live in harmony with it. If institutions are rooted in the objective good, you can get pretty far. The standard with which to measure is clear.

Modern institutions are rooted in something different. Competing, “equal” theories about what is good. And while words like “tolerance” and “equality” are thrown around often, institutions choose a clear ideological position. To paraphrase Mr. Yarvin, if you do not see this, you are in agreement with the position they chose.

This ideological position is certain to be incorrect about many things. Moreover, an ideologue requires a professional blindness to the above-mentioned truth in order to be part of the in-group. This leads to ideological capture of institutions and the breakdown of checks and balances.

Let me explain.

Ideological capture destroys the checks AND balances

Oh Lordy Lord because if you do not root the institutions that govern societies in truth, institution A, B, C and ellowmellowpee might all support the same ideology. That nullifies the checks and the balances because now everyone agrees with the same ideology.

Imagine you are a kid that gets sent out of class for writing with a pen. This is perfectly acceptable behavior according to the rules of the school. The teacher (person A), however, thinks differently and forbids it. She is of the anti-pen ideology.

So you go to the director of the school (person B). You ask him to go against the ruling of the teacher. But he is also anti-pen. What!? Even though there exists no clear rule against pens, the ideologically mono-position of the entire power structure still forbids it.

So you go the board (person C and ellowmellowpee). They founded the anti-pen ideology! And there you go. You will now be forced to use a pencil. Even though the system you exist is supposed to correct for these mistakes. That does not happen when all parts of the system think the same thing.

If many people who check and balance think the same thing, the system becomes useless. It simply becomes tyrannical in enforcing the ideas of the chosen ideology under the guise of being democratic.

Back to the individuals

But these institutions are made up of people. So can they individually connect to the timeless truths and incorporate them into their work? Not really.

The system selects for those loyal to it, so those who oppose the preferred ideology will not get into meaningful positions of power. Can you expect people to gamble with their family’s (financial) security to make a stance against an ideology that they will never change?

No.

But I do believe people respond to the truth. And you can be tactful and measured about it. Don’t be stupid and start preaching. Don’t tell. Show. Because just as people seem to have a visceral moral response to ideas of Bonnie Blue, people also seem to have an instinctual response to ideas that come closest to being in harmony with the nature of things.

At the end of the day, if enough individuals within an institution think a certain way, the institution will change. And as Corporate Ghandi would say,

“Be the change you want to see in the institution, but do so tactful enough that you do not get eliminated from it.”

Only God can watch the watchmen

The above-mentioned individuals need to be in contact with what is True, Good and Beautiful. With God. With the nature of things. The rerum natura. Whatever you want to call it, it is their connection to it, and their willingness to live in harmony with its inescapable rules that can keep their darker tendencies in check.

Any institution, company, organization or society is only as good as the people who form it. If people stop caring about what is good, things collapse.

We know this to be true at the individual scale. A person governed by bad ideas will end up in a bad state. The same is true for a collective of individuals.

God can watch over them in both contexts if they allow Him to. He can truly watch the watchmen.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

You might also be interested in…

We are at war. At war with a culture feeding us ideas that slowly kill our souls.

But war isn’t obvious to those born in it. A child born amidst flying bullets thinks peace is strange. We think a street without a McDonalds is strange. Or a life spent without pursuing one-night-stands.

Yet peace is good, even for the child born in war. And healthy food is good, even for the child raised on McNuggets. The natural order of things asks of us that we act a certain way. If not, we exist in disharmony with that Nature, and our lives start to vibe like a dissonant tone that makes your hair stand on end.

Does an Invisible Measure exist?

A very important question to think about is whether the Good is subjective or objective.

Andreas Kinneging wrote (in Dutch) a book with the title The Invisible Measure. A moral standard deduced by observing what works with the nature of things. The rerum natura. Simply put: the way reality works.

The Greeks and the Christian have spent countless hours thinking about what is good. Millennia of wisdom about the things that are in harmony with nature are out there.

Whether you call this God or Nature is a different conversation. The central question is whether there is an unchanging order with which you can live in harmony (or not), or if everything is socially constructed.

But ain’t it all constructed?

No.

The idea of a social construct is necessary to play god. The real God (or Nature) needs to be de-throned. Only then can you ignore millennia of wisdom and do what you think is good.

Without a fixed moral foundation, you are free to change the world into whatever you want. Nobody can judge you because you’ve destroyed the language to do so.

In my recent piece on Bonnie Blue’s baby shower (yes, I concern myself with the larger questions of life), I wrote about this. People judged her based on some sort of moral instinct, and needed Christian language to do so.

In Ms. Blue’s case, an extreme outlier pointed out a truth that exists in our everyday lives. The inability to really judge what is good and evil. And in a world where the mind is disqualified from making such judgements, the soul is slowly destroyed. For

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

- Matthew 26:41 -

You are governed by the flesh

Most modern people are governed by the flesh. Robbed from the idea of a rerum natura and disconnected from ideas about good and evil, the flesh remains as the loudest voice.

And what does it want? Pretty unoriginal things. Sex, drugs and fuck ‘em all.

But the flesh is like a strong retard. Very capable at getting what it wants, which is rarely a good thing. The spirit is like a weak angel. In touch with the divine, yet rather incapable of fighting the flesh.

Luckily, there is the will. Discipline. It can listen to both the flesh and the angel. When it listens to the flesh, the retardation gets turbo-boosted. When listening to the spirit, the combined force of spirit and will have a fighting chance. They win an x-percentage of the time, which is never 100.

That’s why we’re all sinners. Which is an annoying message. Easily beaten by the idea that everyone is perfect the way they are. Yet everybody kinda knows they’re not all good (except the strong retard).

The Inner Transformation

Andreas Kinneging offers the idea of the inner transformation (Dutch: de innerlijke ommekeer). He borrows this idea from Plato and the Christians.

Plato does not mention the strong retard and the weak angel. He’s far more diplomatic. He mentions mind, will and desires. The human being is inclined to follow their desires (the strong retard) which employ the will to override the mind (the weak angel).

The mind - your mind - has two choices. Let your big beautiful brain be employed to pursue retarded goals, or use it to employ the will and fight the retardation.

This is the modern fight. On an individual and societal scale. Use the mind to fight the retardation. Both you and me as individuals and we as a society need an inner transformation.

This is difficult because stupidity is both normalized and unrecognized. But what is True, Good and Beautiful isn’t democratically decided. The context of war doesn’t make rape and killing good, even though everyone is doing it. And the context of modernity does not make sins into virtues, even though everyone commits them.

Easy words and real life

Writing is easy. Doing is hard. It is impossible to live in perfect harmony with nature. You can’t win every fight with the strong retard inside you.

That’s where the Christian message hits the nail on the head. It allows you to look at yourself with grace and forgiveness whilst pursuing a life in harmony with the rerum natura, Nature or God (in the Christian case, obviously God).

Some look at this message and say, “the church creates a problem and then offers a solution.”

Could be true. Unless you believe there is a rerum natura. A nature of things to live in harmony with. God.

For if that is true, Christianity is one of the better answers out there on how to life a good life.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

You might also be interested in…

And you know this because you’re not sniffing cocaine. Or swallowing it? Shooting it up? Snorting?

Anyway…you are not taking it because it is better for you than taking it. And if you are taking it, you might know it be better for you to stop. BOOM. Hierarchy. Queue (pronounced as qwewe) Plato. Or Aristotle. Or Thomas Aquinas. Or Saint Augustine.

Newsflash. People are similar in fundamental ways and there is a fixed nature which means there are certain things you can do to live in harmony with this nature.

Newsflash 2. People have been wondering how to live a good life for ages and basically came up with the answers already but then Descartes was like I have brain I am and Hobbes was like follow your cock not your brain and all the wisdom of the ages came tumbling down.

Now we have this. What we live in. OnlyFans. Jealousy-inducing social media. Lust, greed and all the things the dead people struggled with, wrote about and gave pointers on. Like this banger from Saint Augustine which I found in an article with the somewhat hilarious title How to Fight Porn Addiction Like Saint Augustine

I just imagine Saint Augustine absolutely gooning to paintings of the hottest local women selling their services underground through OnlyPaint, and he’s constantly sending letters back-and-forth with dudes that these ladies employ to form a parasocial relationship with their clients. It’s funny in my head. And also sad because it’s reality for many a modern man.

Anyway, he writes,

“…I was bound not with the iron of another’s chains, but with my own iron will. The enemy held my will; and of it he made a chain and bound me. Because my will was perverse it changed to lust, and lust yielded to become habit, and habit not resisted became necessity.”

Point being, dude lived in the 4th century. That’s like 16 centuries ago. Or 17? I never really understand centuries reflexively because the second century starts in the year 100, which starts with a one, not a two. Friends call me retarded. I call it dyscalculia.

We’ve strayed. Back to toxic self-love. Because if there is a fixed nature and only some things are in harmony with that nature, you must not love everything about yourself. At least not in the sense that you actively pursue those things.

You should of course also not hate yourself in a way that produces a negative spiral in which the self-hatred about something leads to the continued use of that thing because it provides short-term relief but keeps intact the long-term suffering about the very thing you use to relief it. Talking about a catch-22. This reeks of a catch-23.

But for that we have the grace and forgiveness of Christ. You can see what is wicked about you and love it. But love in the right way. Do not think that because you love it, you must chase those parts of yourself into a quite literal hell.

A great example of this is the body positivity movement. Again, fixed nature. Being overweight is a sin against this nature, i.e. it is not in harmony with this nature. Hence you get sick, your knees give in and you die sooner. ON AVERAGE. The one somewhat fat person you knew who lived until 86 does not disprove 87 years of statistics, Evelyn.

Real self-love would be to see these parts of yourself and love them, but then change them because you love yourself. Self-harm is to continue that which you know to be harmful to yourself.

Now, you cannot blame a people who have grown up without the idea of a fixed nature. You can certainly not blame them if they have grown up in a culture that tries to exploit all the parts within them that yearn to destroy their harmony.

But this is not about blame. This is about understanding that self-love is a notion that can be abused if there is no proper grounding of what is good and bad for a human being. In such an environment, it can become toxic.

Toxic self-love then becomes the celebration of self-destruction. It results in people who are in a bad spot to stay there. By claiming that continuing their self-destruction constitutes self-love, you push them deeper down the well.

True self-love is knowing what is right and wrong, and choosing what is right for yourself because you love yourself.

Luckily you don’t really have to figure out the fundamental questions of what is right and wrong all for yourself. There are all these dead blokes who wrote or spoke about them. One even got resurrected. Give ‘em a little of your attention.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Yet cars progress into trees. Missiles into apartment. Bullets into brains. All progress, but zero improvement. Decay, actually.

To protect yourself from the false faith in progress, it is important to understand what it truly is. Mere motion. The central question should be: are we moving in the right direction?

Material vs. Spiritual

Modernity has given us a lot of material progress. Fridges, TV’s, cars, planes, medical machines and that one cool fridge magnet that your best friend brought you from Texas, as well as a literal titty-magnet with New York on it that doubles as a bottle opener (I swear this is on my fridge, thanks Marc).

In the material sense, progress equals improvement. Things got better. The same isn’t true for the spiritual.

I see parallel processes. Material progress. Spiritual decline. Moreover, we use our material progress for soul-draining or soul-destroying activities.

The internet is filled with lust and greed. The promises of connection have turned into realities of isolation. Online gambling is growing rapidly. Servers are filled with porn. OnlyFans made prostitution scaleable.

Power in the wrong hands

In my recent piece Where is the modern cathedral? I argued that modernity cannot create beauty is because it’s built on vices. It optimizes for greed, lust, laziness etc. (yes it is ironic to use “etc.” after laziness).

In times of material progress, it is incredibly important that new capabilities are guided by Good ideas. Good with a capital G. Not good for the bank account, or good for the views. Morally Good.

For modernity now facilitates moral decay at hyper-speed because material progress is guided by age-old vices.

That’s why I try to bunkerize as best I can. To sever ties with a vice-fueled culture and seek to connect to those ideas that care for the soul.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Bunkerize with me, brothers and sisters! Join the ‘stack!

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Introduction

Modern ideas glorify ancient vices. This leads people down a path of embracing the behaviors that damage their souls.

Many companies profit from destroying people’s wellbeing. The Bunkerized Christian doesn’t seek to change these companies. He seeks to protect his soul. So it’s important to understand why people participate in their own destruction. Companies spend billions to make us addicts. Why do their efforts find fertile ground in our souls?

First we need to understand what a human being is, how he functions, and which ideas form him. Only then can we understand why people are aiding in the detriment of their wellbeing.

This essay explores Plato’s/a Christian understanding of human nature to reveal our inner workings, and compares it with the modern Romantic idea of the self-god. It argues that the loss of these Old Greek/Christian ideas has made us slaves to our desires because we have lost the ability to strive towards an ideal that exists higher and outside of ourselves.

Let’s get into it.

Plato about human beings

According to Plato, human beings have reason, will, and desires. Correctly ordered, they flourish. Ordered wrongly, they don’t.

In a virtuous person, reason leads. Will and desires follow. In a person who isn’t virtuous, the desires reign, and will and reason are used to satisfy them.

Those who let reason lead, can battle their desires. When tempted, they use will and reason to suppress the desire. Such a person literally becomes “reason-able”.

If the desires reign, will and the reason serve to fulfil the momentary desire. Such a person becomes “un-reason-able” and isn’t great to be around. They fall victim to vices to the detriment of themselves and those around them.

But the virtuous, reason-able person isn’t born. He is forged. A person can transcend their natural tendencies towards the bad and make choosing the Good their second nature. This requires reason to participate in something higher.

Participation in something higher

Reason can participate in something that is outside and higher than itself. Timeless truths. Plato calls these Ideas. They also contain Ideas about morality, about what is Good. He writes,

“The sun illuminates, bestowing the ability to be seen by the eye with its light, as goodness illumines the intelligible with truth.”

It is thus by participating in these higher Ideas - by using our reason - that we can figure out what is Good.

A similar theme exists in Christianity. Those who believe in God also see a higher realm in which a Being - God - resides. The participation of God in man is also clear. Genesis 1:27 states,

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

After the fall, the human being became a sinner. It is only to the amount that we walk with God - i.e. know and act in accordance with the Good - that we are able to live virtuous lives.

Romanticism and the self-god

Romanticism removes the idea of a higher, external God. It gives us a god that is deeper and within ourselves. We need to uncover this deeper, unique self before we can truly be ourselves. Reason must follow the desires in this process. As David Hume writes,

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”

Modern thinking correctly observes the original state of the human being. Hoever, it chooses to let it be. Instead of calling to forge a second nature that focuses on the Good, it applauds those who submit to their desires.

The assumed existence of the unique self-god leads to a massive problem. One cannot look for a source of wisdom that is higher and outside of oneself. The unique Me is completely dependent on itself to self-actualize. Following advice would be a direct attack on the uniqueness of the self-god.

The flawed person thus remains a slave of their desires. No outside source, be it God, timeless philosophy, or even parents can be trusted and used to override the desires. Such an act would go against the deeper self. It would damage the actualization of the self-god.

Disconnected from timeless wisdom, people are doomed to repeat timeless mistakes.

About the consequences, Kinneging writes,

“What does this lead to? A whole heap of pathologies. First of all, as mentioned before, a restless, passionate experimentation. And because man actually isn’t so unique, those are experimentations with similar things: sex and relationships, food and drinks, drugs, education, jobs and life-philosophies.” (164, Onzichtbare Maat, translated from Dutch)

Kinneging then explains what this leads to in the end,

“Most people are done with experimenting before they turn forty and settle. But the unrest remains. Do I have the right partner? Do I have a job that suits me? Shouldn’t I get more from life? All those experiments never lead to certainty. On the contrary, it creates existential confusion, indecisiveness, restlessness and all kinds of pivots in life, because even when your feelings at one moment tell you with the utmost certainty: ‘This is good!’, later the doubts always return.” (165, Onzichtbare Maat, translated from Dutch)

This is a life in which one is slave to the desires. Reason and will are used to fulfil momentary desires, but the person remains forever restless. Always looking for more and new. A life in which desires lead can - by definition - never be satisfying because the desires can’t ever be permanently satisfied.

The modern human is at the mercy of his desires

Since the desires cannot ever be permanently satisfied, the modern human is ripe to become an endless consumer. Every temptation is a chance for short-lived happiness, yet also carries within it a hope to find lasting peace.

Cut-off from something that is higher and outside of themselves, they drown in the strong desires within them that they are told to follow. When companies offer food, gambling, social media, porn and quick fixes, they are the mercy of their desires.

If one would have access to older sources, one would understand that this is a problem as old as time. For in the Bible we read,

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)

There is a clear understanding that man and his desires are weak. But the spirit - that which can participate with the higher realms - is willing to do good. And by praying - seeking guidance and strength from a God higher and outside of yourself - you can battle the desires.

Conclusion

Part of the reason people willingly aid in their own destruction is because they can’t battle their desires. Companies exploit this human weakness, and with clipped religious wings, the human being can do very little to transcend his lowly desires.

Modern society acts as if it magically appeared around the 1970s. As if modern ideas are the bedrock of our societies. What if they are not? What if modern ideas are slowly destroying the societies built on Christian ideas? What if we are witnessing the fall of a people who reject their ancestors in a display of pride? It comes before the fall.

If one looks around, doesn’t one witness a slow-motion fall? Obesity and addictions are rising. People are blinded by screens and deafened by headphones. Churches empty. Therapist’s offices fill. Divorce rates sky-rocket. People are focused on the Me.

If the ideas that fuel a society are bad, it must decay. The battle of ideas of the past decades is strange. It wasn’t really a battle at all. Ancient wisdom got nuked. It’s misrepresented and laughed off the stage.

What you can do is save your own soul. Bunkerize. Try as bestyou can to live according to Christian principles. See where it takes you. Expect to fail. Keep going. Aim up. Focus on what is higher.

Trying to lead a good life is a difficult path to take in a world that seems hell-bent on making you live a bad one. Matthew 7:13 tells us,

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

May you find the gate that leads to the path of life. The directions are in books nobody reads. The misdirections are all around you.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

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1. Obsessive pursuit

2. Not starting

The idea of obsessive pursuit is only logical when a goal can be reached. Benching 100KG in 3 months might be possible, therefore I’d obsessively pursue it. Benching 150KG in 3 months is not. I wouldn’t even start.

Living as a follower of Christ can feel like having to bench 150KG in three months. An impossible goal which your failing body (failing in relation to the goal) cannot handle. The difference is that Christ is more forgiving than the bar.

For the bar - loaded with 130KG of plates - will kill you. Christ will not. Grace, love and forgiveness towards your sinful nature are part of the deal. As well as an invitation to do better. To live your life according to principles that may better it for you and those around you.

Imagine you’ve trained to lift 150KG and you manage a “mere” 117.5KG? Do you think Christ would scorn you, or celebrate your achievement?

If one thing, Bunkerized Christianity has freed me from the obsessive pursuit, which most often leads to quitting. Understanding the inevitable limitations of my being, I can aim up without expecting to be perfect.

Compared to perfection, you can only live like a fraud. Grace, love and forgiveness towards you imperfect nature aren’t things that hold you back. They stop you from quitting, and allow you to become as good as you can be.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

This story is about two sons. Their father divides the inheritance equally over them. The older son takes good care of it. And the younger one? Well, he embodies the spirit of modern life.

“…the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.”

Turning away from God feels good…for a while

To be free from rules you do not quite understand about what is good and evil feels great. It allows you to do - as the Dutch saying goes - everything that God has forbidden.

That’s a rush. A first line of coke. A one-night-stand. Booze, booze and more booze.

But then what?

Soon you realize that God might have been right here and there. That a life turned away from Him - from what is Good, True and Beautiful - actually isn’t what you thought it would be.

“After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need”

Cultural and spiritual famine

The famine we experience today is not starving the body. Our famine is a cultural and spiritual one.

It destroys a more abstract part of us. The soul. And while lack of food destroys the body rather swiftly, spiritual famine slowly destroys the soul while the body keeps functioning.

Many people today report feeling a lack of purpose. They turn to places firmly rooted in the culture that produced this lack. Careers, therapists and worldly possessions. And that is if they are “lucky”. Many also turn to the many addictive substances modern culture produces to soothe the pain this lack creates.

But you will not find nourishment for the soul there. At least not lasting nourishment. Perhaps you can score the spiritual equivalent of a Big Mac. Shortly taking away the hunger, but never providing the ingredients you need.

You can just turn back to Him

When the lost son returned home, his father was beyond happy with his return.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

We, too, can return home. To God. To that which is True, Good and Beautiful. You can decide today. A decision to be in this modern world without being of it. Doesn’t mean it will be easy. Doesn’t mean you won’t fail. Doesn’t mean that the sinner inside you won’t be tempted by the offerings of modern culture.

But it is modern culture that produced the spiritual famine you suffer from. The hard-to-define emptiness that lives inside many of us. Bunkerized Christianity offers a framework to individually pursue a life following Christ. You are more than welcome to join.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Ms. Blue expressed the following plan for her baby shower in a recent interview with LBC. She said,

“I have a baby shower on Saturday … and I’m inviting the public to turn my baby shower into a golden shower … I’ll be having sex with the people as well. It’s going to be a mixture of wholesome baby shower games like the traditional trying different baby food, along with other fluids added in there.”

The interviewer responded,

“Now I’m uncomfortable. This is your baby. This is your child.”

To which Ms. Blue replies,

“Yeah, again. My body. This is what I’m choosing.”

Modern culture cannot judge Ms. Blue

While this caused a flood of judgements, modern culture does not have the language to condemn Ms. Blue. Her planned baby shower is a logical consequence of modern ideas. To name a few:

• Morality is subjective.

• You are free to do what you want unless you hurt others.

• The goal of life is to chase/gain pleasure.

• It’s her body, her choice.

But the online brouhaha shows that people have a moral instinct. Even though this instinct is dulled by decades of moral relativism, it shows up when confronted with an extreme case. People said,

• “I hope this poor innocent child is removed immediately as soon as it takes its first breath.”

• “She should be arrested.”

• “Not trying to be funny or anything, it really has seemed like a very long manic episode to me.”

• “If this isn’t as clear a case for safeguarding you’ll ever see then I’ll be the next pope”

• “I hope her baby gets taken from her and she gets clocked”

These judgements cannot be rooted in modern ideas. They borrow a moral language from a time long gone.

Religious morality in the modern world

Christianity is the root of the language used to judge Ms. Blue’s actions. Christian ideas are the moral foundation of the Western world. And - as this case shows - Christian language is necessary to stop the moral downfall of the Western world.

Without this language it is impossible to aim at the Good, True & Beautiful. That’s why people use religious language, even though they might not recognize it as such. They might think it comes from the United Nations, laws, democracy and all such things.

Most - if not all - Western moral language is built on Christian ideas. This language is not cut from its root. Divorced from God. And when people just “made it up”, it is easy to regard it as subjective and subject to change.

You do not want subjective morality, actually

A morality rooted in people has major issues. It cannot protect you from smart people with bad intentions. Evil is easily framed as “moral” in the moment.

A morality rooted in God keeps a culture from abandoning moral rules that seem to make little sense in the moment. Single moral failings do not destroy a culture. An accumulation of vices surely will.

In other words: it took a long time after Nietzsche killed God before we ended up with Ms. Blue’s baby shower.

Which is not to say that a culture in which religious ideas about morality are mainstream does not produce evil. The difference is that modern culture’s evil is its logical consequence. In the Christian religion, evil is the consequence of human failure.

Don’t fix Ms. Blue. Fix the culture that produces her.

The playwright Terence wrote the following words

“homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto”

Which means: I am gay, and not humans, but aliens are whores (This is misinformation)

It actually means:

“I am human, nothing that is human is alien to me”

It is easy to judge Ms. Blue harshly and move on. Doing so absolves us from looking at the horrid state of our culture, and the vices that live in our souls.

Ms. Blue grew up in the same world as us. A world that rewards lust, greed, gluttony and pride. All of us fall victim to vices incited by modern ideas. Are we not all sometimes lazy, lustful and greedy? Jealous and gluttonous?

I sure am.

What I dislike about modern culture is that it inspires these moral failings. It turbocharges them. Perhaps Ms. Blue got the biggest turbocharger of us all, but she isn’t fundamentally different from us. She’s merely gone further. Quite a bit further.

That should worry us. It means we are behind her on the same path. Not on a different path. Ms. Blue is a glimpse into the future, not one into a different world.

Ms. Blue is a blessing in disguise because she shows what modern ideas will make of all of us. Without faith in objective moral rules, we’ll be taken over by the vices that inhabit our souls. We won’t even know that they are vices. The culture will tell us that we’re doing good.

But people in a culture that has no moral cannot aim at anything good. The greatest trick of evil is to confuse people about good and evil. To make them applaud the vices, and abhor the virtues. Are we not already there?

The way of Bunkerized Christianity

The Bunkerized Christian tries to distance him- or herself from modern culture for exactly this reason. It’s a moral dead end. We might all end up at Ms. Blue’s baby showers because modern culture does not provide the language to judge them.

To save his or her own soul, the Bunkerized Christian tries to live according to the Christian virtues, and tries to stay away from the vices. Not in a spirit of perfection and harsh judgement, but of forgiveness, love and daily improvement.

It is hard to fix a culture. I wouldn’t even know where to start. But a starting point is your own soul. To connect to the ideas that can make it flourish, and to bunkerize against the vices that modern culture cannot judge.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Not only that, the misrepresentation of past times leads them to believe that modern times are better. As people really “in the know” about these pre-smartphone times - yes we felt old - it is nearly impossible to explain how these times were better without sounding like an absolute turbo-boomer.

The early life of the young boomer

Both me and the Italian creator of coffee machines grew up in worlds where you met your friends by taking a chance. You’d go to their house, ring the doorbell and…wait. Sometimes nothing, sometimes they would open the door. More often their parents would and tell you the approximate whereabouts of your friend. You’d then venture into the neighborhood, listening for sounds of friends and joining them in whatever they were doing.

Explaining this to people in their early twenties makes you sound like a fossil incarnate. Insisting this was actually better gets you a one-way ticket to a retirement home.

But was it better? Maybe yes, maybe no. That’s not for this piece. The interesting part is that it is possible to be oblivious about something while judging it as worse. To imagine something you have not experienced as worse, and thereby defining the era you live in as “better” in comparison.

The Bunkerized Christian as a spiritual boomer

Due to my recently acquired mild obsession with Christianity, I took this idea and placed it in the context of modern culture. Many people in the West live in countries shaped by a culture - the Christian one - that they now reject based on a lack of knowledge or a misrepresentation of what it is.

Modern culture defines Christianity as some strange belief in a man in the cloud that knows and controls everything. It paints Christians as a bunch of half-wits that used it to fill the gaps of knowledge that people in history suffered from. Yet now, with the advances in science, these knowledge-gaps are filled so a belief in man-in-the-clouds betrays a specific form of retardation.

It is useful for modernity to frame Christianity as such because it puts the bar very low for doing better. Sure, modernity throws out virtue, chases pleasure and turns billions of people into addicts by exploiting their vices. But hey, at least we do not believe in man in the clouds!

But “man-in-the-cloud-people” actually managed to build cathedrals of timeless beauty, and modernity keeps pushing out one uggo building after the other. That should tell you something. Garbage in, garbage out etc.

I think a fair representation of the richness of Christianity is no match for the vice-fueled emptiness of modernity. But it is very hard to explain this to people who have no connection or a false connection to it. The result: we cannot tap into the wisdom of Christianity, wisdom that built the worlds we live in, to save our souls from the spiritual - and therefore material - wasteland called modernity.

Be in this world, not of it

I do not think the world before phones was perfect, just as I do not believe the world before modernity was perfect. Many things have gotten better through advances in science. But science isn’t spiritual. It does not care for the soul.

Modern life abuses the soul. That realization is both terrifying and extremely sad. It makes you understand the GenZ’er who defends the modern way of life. It is of great psychological use to view the times you live in as better. It saves you from the torment of wanting the world to be different.

That is where Bunkerized Christianity can help. Albeit imperfectly, it allows you to be in the world without being of it. To connect to timeless ideas that held as true today as when Jesus was walking the Earth.

That’s why I think it is important to speak of an honest representation of Christianity. As a bridge back to God. For I don’t believe we have killed God. We merely lost sight of His light within our souls. Those who feel similar about the lacks of modernity and who want to care for their souls are welcome to voluntarily walk this bridge back to God.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

“You don’t need twenty friends. You need three bad motherfuckers.”

Joey Diaz, decent comedian and memorable guest of the Joe Rogan Experience, solved a question that was floating around in my head for quite a while with that line.

How do you stay away from isolation in your pursuit of Bunkerized Christianity?

Sweet-spot for the Bunkerized social animal

Bunkerized Christianity can be pursued individually. However, the human being is a social animal, so any functional way of life must allow for interaction. And a shared mission can also make your individual pursuit more powerful when shared with the right people.

The sweet spot, then, is a few motherfuckers. Not necessarily three. Could be 5 or 8. Perhaps 12. The number of people doesn’t really matter.

The group need a shared mission pursued with a similar degree of intensity. A possible mission for a group of bunkerizing people could be: acting as sovereign as possible within the confines of modern life while pursuing virtue.

A distinctly Christian pursuit isn’t required. One person could take the Christian route, another the Buddhist, yet another could take virtue ethics as a guide.

Can’t you just do it by yourself?

Naval Ravikant’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience delivered a quote that I often revisit. It is quite long, but perfectly explains why it isn’t all that wise to go at it alone.

“In modern life we’re so free, everything has become atomized. We stand alone. You live in your apartment alone. You live in your house alone. Your parents don’t live nearby. Your parents don’t live nearby. You don’t have any tribal meaning. You don’t believe in religion anymore. You don’t believe in country anymore. It’s fine, you got a lot of freedom. It’s fantastic. But, now, when they come to attack you, you’re alone. And you can’t resist. So how do they attack you? It’s all well-meaning. I don’t fault capitalism. I love capitalism. But, look at how it happens. Social media, they have massaged all the mechanisms to addict you like a Skinner pigeon or a rat who is just going to click, click, click, click, click, can’t put the phone down. Food, they’ve taken sugar and they weaponized it. They put it into all these different forms and varieties that you can’t resist eating. Drugs, they’ve taken pharmaceuticals and plants and they synthesized them, they’ve grown them in such a way that you get addicted, you can’t put them down. Porn, right, if you’re a young male and you wander around the internet it will sap away your libido and you’re not going out in real life society anymore because you got this incredibly stimulating stuff coming at you. Video games, another way to addict people. So you have entire large factories of people who are working to addict you to these things and you stand alone. So the modern struggle as an individual is learning how to resist these things in the first place. Drawing your own boundaries, and there’s no one there to help you.”

Part of not being alone is accepting God into your life. This provides a sense of connectedness to something higher. It fills the spiritual gap that modern life exploits with empty promises of pleasure.

Yet there is also a social gap. To bunkerize effectively you must stay away from isolation and from large collectives embedded in modernity. The solution could be a small network of interconnected bunkers inhabited by those with a shared mission.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Problem is, that’s not easy. It’s actually quite difficult.

Because of that, it’s appealing to read more. Reading feels like you’re doing something. But are you?

Right after I complimented a friend on his epic posture, I felt much more inspired to fix my own hunched-over position as I write this short piece. I’ve watched many videos on posture, and know mine is suboptimal. Yet seeing my friend’s posture inspired me way more to change.

Why?

An embodied idea is far stronger than an explained idea. Doing beats preaching. By a lot. A silent, good man can change far more people than a preacher with thousands of listeners.

Talk is cheap. Well…talk can be cheap. I do not underestimate the power of ideas. It is very useful to have ideas to get started. Ideas provide an aim, but it is action that hits the target.

But because it is difficult to do so, and somewhat scary to go out in this world and announce yourself a follower of Christ, I’ve retreated in the bunker. I’ve read books. I know a lot of things. It is only quite recent that I’ve started to act. Very imperfectly, but acting nonetheless.

The most important consequence of this is taking myself more serious in my pursuit. Merely thinking, knowing and speaking of an idea brings an empty kind of “change” with it. Actually embodying an idea creates a much deeper self-respect. A more real change.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

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Churches and city skylines

This idea struck me shortly before I visited the Aachen Cathedral last Christmas. I’d been there years before. A decade perhaps. I’m getting older.

The cathedral really is otherworldly. Yet it was made in this world. A mind and/or culture different from the modern one must’ve built it.

I am writing this piece in a building called The Forum. It’s a great feat of modern architecture. Impressive. Not beautiful. Because irony wills such things, the Forum is built next to a church, and its beauty pales in comparison to this church.

The Forum was finished in 2012. The church was built between 1225 and the 1500s. One has fancy elevators, a cinema and escalators everywhere. The other touches the soul.

Churches vibe with the soul

Walking into the Forum causes a rational process of being in awe. It’s superficial. It needs to be argued for. The building is cool because it has a fancy design and because they used these new techniques and because etc. etc.

The church causes a deeper, effortless awe. It’s not beautiful because. It just is.

There’s something deeper at work here. The gut. The soul. God. Whatever it is, it’s attracted to the church, and feels little in the Forum.

Beautiful vs. impressive

The distinction between Christianity and modernity is partly found in the difference between beautiful and impressive.

The iPhone is impressive. So is the Forum. The Empire State Building. VR-glasses. Wind-turbines. Modern architecture. The list goes on..

None of these things are beautiful. Which begs the question why a more advanced society fails to produce anything equal in beauty.

It’s because modernity is built on vices while Christianity strives for virtue. Both acknowledge the vices, yet modernity monetizes them while Christianity seeks to transcend them.

There is a lot of money in vices. Greed, lust and jealousy are weaponized to make sure people pay. But all this trickles down into our culture, politics and souls. Ugly ideas build ugly worlds, however impressive they are. Destruction can be sophisticated too.

Conclusion

I was wrong. Not only old things are beautiful. Things inspired by old ideas are. These ideas are still out there. You can connect to them and create based upon them.

That is the goal of Bunkerized Christianity. To live according to what is Good, True and Beautiful.

So I humbly invite you to reflect. Just a little. Why do the ideas of modernity produce such little beauty? And what is possible for us if we invite into our lives the old ideas that did?

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

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Everything is nothing. Telling small humans - a.k.a. children - they can be anything they want might not be as great as it sounds. Sure, it ascertains that these tiny humans don’t get their infantile hopes and dreams crushed. But it also leaves them with little guidance.

Some people are blessed - or cursed - with a wildly certain purpose. Many are not. Because modernity has placed the burden of figuring out what you want fully on the individual, a chronic existential crisis emerges in those without clear answers.

Christianity doesn’t offer a purpose as specific as: become a firefighter. It does, however, call each and every person to a lifelong task. Inner transformation.

What is inner transformation?

We’re all born imperfect sinners. Our aims are not ordered correctly. Plato already noticed this. He saw the human soul as having three parts.

Ratio. Will. Desires.

Incorrectly ordered, man is a slave to his desires. The ratio and will are employed by the desires to fulfill as many of them as possible. Drugs, alcohol, junkfood, sex and luxuries become paramount in this person’s life.

Correctly ordered, the ratio rules and uses the will to suppress the desires when necessary. This prevents a person from destroying their body and soul with the aforementioned.

The inner transformation is the daily and continuous process to order your soul correctly.

Seven vices. Seven virtues.

Christianity - building on the four cardinal sins of Plato - offers seven cardinal sins. These are things that exist in all human beings, and all have the duty to wage an inner battle against them.

1. Pride - Excessive belief in one’s own abilities or importance, a sense of superiority.

2. Greed - An excessive desire for material wealth or gain, beyond what is necessary.

3. Wrath - Uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and hatred.

4. Envy - A desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or possessions.

5. Lust - Intense, uncontrolled longing or desire, often sexual.

6. Gluttony - Overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste.

7. Sloth - Laziness or spiritual apathy, a reluctance to exert oneself.

Looking at the modern world, the sins reign supreme. Social media offer us pride, greed, envy, lust and gluttony. OnlyFans a combination of greed, lust and sloth. Politics a feast of pride, greed and wrath.

The cardinal sins bleed from our souls into the world, and from the world back into our souls. They are encouraged by the world we built, and we built this world because we encouraged them. Void of the language to pursue inner transformation, we are doomed to bathe in sin and call it good.

Yet the language is there. You just read it. It’s in books we forgot about or ridiculed. And these books also offer the things you can aim for.

1. Love - Loving God above all things and neighbor as oneself for the love of God.

2. Hope - Desire for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as one’s happiness.

3. Faith - Belief in God and all that He has revealed.

4. Prudence - The wisdom to discern the true good in every circumstance and choose the right means to achieve it.

5. Justice - The constant and firm will to give what is due to God and neighbor.

6. Fortitude - Courage in the face of difficulties and constancy in pursuing good; overcoming fear.

7. Temperance - Moderation in the attraction of pleasures and balance in the use of created goods.

These are what the inner transformation should focus on. To both not become what we are and to become more than we think we could ever be.

Knowledge about this is a first step that allows one to answer the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

All of us will stumble and fall into sin as we give in to our desires. All of us will also enter through the wide gate. This is the fate of the sinner. Embrace it. Aim up and do not lose sight of the narrow gate.

The Spirit of Transformation

Reading this can be confronting. It means you’ve missed the mark since…forever. It opens up the road to harsh self-judgement and even self-hatred as you try to live up to these difficult standards.

That’s why love, grace and forgiveness are such powerful elements of Christianity. They offer the correct answer to dealing with our inevitable imperfection.

If trying to follow Christ leads to self-hatred, you’re doing it wrong. The inner transformation must be done in a spirit of love, grace and forgiveness towards the self.

Inner transformation ≠ Purpose

Inner transformation isn’t the answer to the modernity-induced chronic existential crisis. But it does offer a path. A place to aim. More importantly, a worthy place to aim. Forward and upward in a loving, graceful and forgiving spirit.

By walking this path, the everything that modernity offers turns into a more graspable amount of options. The inner transformation offers a strong inner foundation upon which you can make choices about what to do with your life.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

This isn’t about a house. This is about your soul. Those who have built it on rock - i.e. ordered it correctly - can withstand the inevitable issues that life throws at us much better than those who have built it on sand - i.e. who have incorrectly ordered souls.

A strong foundation causes things to fall into place. Purpose isn’t chased erratically. It is found, given by God. A weak foundation will cause you to anxiously search for a purpose.

“…but like, what is my purpose?”

To transform yourself. To order your soul correctly. To have faith that on that strong foundation, things will fall into place.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

The (Non-) Existing Titty-Bar

Imagine a society that decides what is right and wrong for you. You can’t enter a titty-bar. Not because there is a big dude with surprisingly quick hands in front of the door.

No.

There is no door. The titty-bar was never built. And even if there was an illegal one, the big dude would enforce societal norms.

In modernity, titty-bars are prevalent. The big guy doesn’t stop you from entering. And while you can avoid the physical ones, the online titty-bar is everywhere. Endless titties. No monetary costs. How do you say no to that?

Well…you don’t. Or at least the ever-curious hormone-exploding adolescent fails. Chronic online motorboating follows.

No worries about this. All the great saints were great sinners. All fell victim to a titty-bar in real or metaphorical form. None leave this place unscathed.

BUT!

There is something great to do. While many are succumbing to the gravitational pull of the tit, you can turn to the Lord. You can start the process of inner transformation and aim your mind and soul at the things that are Good, True and Beautiful.

For chasing titty - the real of the metaphorical - is a soul-draining activity. It relegates you to being a slave of your desires. It corrupts you mind to not participate in those things that are Good, True and Beautiful. It merely uses your brain to get more titty and - in the process - nearly extinguishes your divine flame.

So…? Exit titty-land. Then what?

Unbothered in The Titty-Bar

In the modern world you cannot avoid desire-awakening artefacts. Not if you want to be in this world. Modernity keeps hurling these things at you.

Gambling-ads. Half-naked Instagram-models. Gossip about celebs. Envy-inducing TikToks. Alcohol. Drugs. Greed. Pride. Lust. You name a cardinal sin and modernity provides.

BUT!

You do not have to become of this world even though you are in it. You can bunkerize.

Bunkerizing secures the proper burning of your divine flame. Most are near-extinguished in those who believe the soul-draining “promises” of modernity.

Since you can’t avoid the desire-inducing artefacts, you must resist them. Cultivate the power to say no.

Imagine this. Your friends drag you to a titty-bar because it supposedly is “a lot of fun”. A stripper starts grinding you. Being of this world means you accept the touching of your semi-erection through several layers of clothing. Your friends will applaud you. “Forgive them Father…”

How do you bunkerize your soul?

Take out your Bible - always carry - and read to her in the loving spirit of Christ.

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5)

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

What will happen? I don’t know. People will probably look at you like you’ve lost it a little. But in a crazy world, don’t follow the crowd.

Alas, you gave yourself the language to resist the pulls of modernity. That’s how you do not become of the world while being in it. Stare the devil straight in the eyes and preach at him. Watch his power crumble. Feel God on your side.

Unbothered Everywhere

Hurl Scripture at sin. It gives you a moment to ponder your choices and the language to guide your soul. Have a couple of quotes in the chamber, to fire when modernity start attacking your soul.

Here’s a couple to get you started:

• James 4:7 "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you"

• Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

• Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

• Proverbs 4:14-15: “Do not go where evil people go. Do not follow the example of the wicked. Don’t do it! Keep away from evil! Refuse it and go on your way.”

Maybe this sounds dumb. Hurl Scripture at sin.

But try it. Feel the space that it creates between desire and acting on desire. Experience your mind participating in what is Good, True and Beautiful. Stop being a slave to desires.

Do not become hopeless when you fail. Hopelessness is a tool of the devil. You will fail because you are imperfect. You are a humble follower of Christ. Not the Son of God.

Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”

Resist the real and metaphorical titties whenever you find the strength to do so. And if the titty sometimes gets the best of you - for titties do be like that -, accept and move on.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Modernity does’t hurl missiles at your body. It targets your mind and soul. You need a strong structure in order to protect them. You need to bunkerize mind and soul. A strong foundation of ideas and principle is necessary to be in the world shaped by modernity without becoming of it.

What is bunkerizing?

A very close friend of mine came up with the concept. It is a way of life that allows you to be in the world without being of it. You can live according to your own preferences and principles without having to build a cabin in the woods.

Remaining in this world requires a balancing act. You cannot simply leave the world behind and find “ultimate freedom” somewhere. You must guard the line between you and the world constantly, and be careful about what you let in.

The way you navigate this constant negotiation is up to the individual. But understanding that you are in a position to negotiate is half the battle.

What is Bunkerized Christianity?

Bunkerized Christianity takes the empty blueprint of bunkerizing and fills it with Christian values. It attempts to follow the teachings of Christ within the context of modernity.

What this looks like exactly is up to the individual that pursues this type of bunkerizing. Christianity offers guidance on how to live a good life. A couple of worthy mentions are:

1. The clear distinction between good and evil

2. The idea that everybody is a sinner, and a reformed sinner at best

3. The grace of forgiveness

4. Placing love as the highest virtue

5. Clear vices and virtues that offer concrete guidance

These five things alone provide more depth about living life than the entirety of modernity. Moral relativism and an embrace of the vices have been reigning the modern world. The bunkerized Christian sees the negative consequences and seeks to protect himself from them. Being clear about good and evil, and trying to be virtuous while being loving and forgiving towards yourself and others is a good start.

All this can be done while still being in this world. No need for a cabin in the woods. Build a cabin in your soul.

Where does this lead?

I don’t know. I just started. But I hope it can lead me away from the moral relativism of modernity. I hope it gives me the language and strength to bunkerize my mind and soul. To protect me from the (spiritual) attacks of modern culture. To battle that which is evil, and to focus on what is True, Good and Beautiful.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Cover-photo: Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Briton Rivière

She based her conviction on an idea similar to that in Ephesians 2:8,

“For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”

It is possible to interpret this gift as a birthday gift. If somebody does not give it to you, you cannot get it. However, a gift of God is freely given. Not getting it lies with the taker.

Saint Augustine wrote,

“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”

Faith is a choice. A gift that you can choose to accept. You must decide to believe.

However, she - my friend - thought this was manifesting. It is. But her definition of it was to fool oneself into doing or believing something. This seems false to me. Manifesting is the use of faith to uncover something that was already there in potential. Faith is the vehicle to realize the potential.

In other words, we haven’t killed God. We merely closed our eyes to Him.

The divine flame lies dormant in our souls. It’s not extinguished. But modernity has carried us so far in the direction of sin that we are numb to the heat of this flame. All of us are free to be warmed by the flame once more. To choose faith and see where it leads.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

For Wittgenstein’s words to make sense, one must suspend the belief in moral relativism. What if morality isn’t made, but discovered? What if there is an invisible moral order to measure up to? Timeless principles. Moral truths.

In that light, your conscience becomes a guiding voice. Guiding you to live in accordance with these principles. And since you are a sinner, it is important to view it as a loving voice.

Heard as the voice of a tyrant, the conscience becomes paralyzing. The sinner can never live up to the moral standard. Everybody fails. Everybody fails spectacularly. In the words of Jordan Peterson,

“...probably everyone makes unforgivable mistakes.” (09:20)

That’s why God carries grace with Him. For grace forgives the unforgivable so one can move back towards the Good. As Peterson puts it,

“...actually what you want to do, to atone, is to set yourself back on the right track.” (07:28)

Therefore, imagine your conscience as a friend. A good friend. A friend who sees you struggle, and believes you can do better. Such a friend would point out your mistakes and point you towards a better path. Not with judgement, but in the spirit of love.

However, divorced from God, the conscience becomes an anxiety-inducing internal monologue. Disconnected from the idea of a moral order, the conscience becomes incomprehensible. A misunderstood friend pointing you towards an unknowable road.

So blessed are the ones who hear their conscience and understand it. God is speaking to them. Fools are those who take His voice as punishment. One must treat their conscience as the loving voice of God. Guiding sinners towards better roads, in the spirit of grace and forgiveness.

P.S.

I cannot stress enough I am telling you this from inside the crowd. I do not intend to preach at you, but to speak with you. I am humbly trying to live a life focused on the True, Good and Beautiful, and I hope you get some value out of me describing how that’s going.

May the Lord bless you today.

Cover image: The Awakening Conscience, William Holman Hunt

Sight: Pieter Lastman - Jonah and the Whale

Speech: Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

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Sight: Gerard de Lairesse - Hercules between vice and virtue

Speech: C.S. Lewis

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”

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