The Polemicist's Manifesto
Christ built this. Christ will finish it. Onward, upward, and get out of the way.
They built men different back then. These are the words of General George S. Patton June 5, 1944, to American troops stationed in England.
My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bullsh**, either…All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain.
Those words should mean something to us, if for nothing else, acts of bravery in the face of opposition are considered symptoms of male toxicity, perhaps - as pietists pass around the word irrespective of Biblical context - pugnacious. The way evangelical celebrities use the term, always in a finger-wagging, self-righteous, scold-mongery way, is defined colloquially as “anyone who is slightly more zealous than myself.”
I’ve 15 years of polemics under my belt, and you’re reading this Substack, Insight to Incite, because you’re likely aware of it. I feel no need to tout my own credentials as the preeminent polemics caricature set to flesh (except when I often do feel the need, and then oblige). There are not many Original Gangsters of internet polemics, for good or for bad, or perhaps even for worse. But I hope you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been saying lately about a turn in focus away from pointless doctrinal infighting on the endless minutia of controversies that come and go like wind direction on a swept Midwestern wheat field, and toward a different, more useful direction.
If you’ve not caught up, you can check out this conversation with David Morrill of Protestia.
Don’t take this manifesto for what it’s not, which is a repudiation of what Christ has already done through the development, popularization, demonization, and contribution of Polemical Theology.
Neither I nor my cohorts reinvented the wheel a decade-and-a-half ago. Polemical Theology was always a part of the historic church. The vast majority of writings from the Church Fathers was polemical theology. Most of what we know, in fact, of the early church is exclusively from polemical writings. The early church councils that defined doctrines like Trinitarianism were nothing but true-blood, straight-lined polemics.
Athanasius, the greatest polemicist to ever live in the post-apostolic age, was so polemical his life is summarized by the phrase Athanasius Contra Mundum, or “Athanasius Against the World.” We think of him, who fought back the Arians to require a Christianity that confessed Christ’s deity, as conquering. But he was alone, almost utterly alone, until he came to stand in the Great Cloud of Witnesses.
The best-known and most purely-polemical treatise in the early church was from Irenaeus, his great work entitled simply, Against Heresies.
The reason why what we have done in the Internet Age to repopularize and re-justify polemics is only due to a brief period of Christian history from about 1945 to 2005. The first Christian publishing house in the United States was created in 1872, Standard Publishing, and its flagship journal, Christian Standard. But about 1945, or the close of World War II, most independent Christian publishers were swallowed up by denominational and institutional publishing monoliths. I would personally mark the end of the independent Christian publishing era in 1956 with the creation of Christianity Today (which I’ve called Christianity Astray for a decade and am woeful it never caught on with the general public) by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.
From that point onward, publishing material that questioned the status quo, openly speculating about the motivations of people selling religious goods, would be censored by the publishing houses designed to sell religious goods. A real gate-keeper developed that could snuff out any lone Christian trying to point out that there was no peace in Zion.
The Internet changed all of that in the same way that Herman Gunkle’s printing press changed things, subsequently bringing about both the Reformation and the Enlightenment. We could now, the common man, rightly criticize heretics and scoundrels and bad theological ideas for our fellow common men, without being censored by Christian publishing.
But as I explained in that interview with Morrill, I very much believe that things have to change dramatically in our approach and focus as polemicists, to account for what the Holy Spirit is doing in what I’ve been calling the populist social revival. In fact, a friend from an Indian reservation who had met Paul Washer when he came with me to preach there, texted me just yesterday and said, “I remember when Washer came, and he told me directly, ‘Find where the Holy Spirit is moving and then go there.’”
Washer was right.
Protestia, Pulpit & Pen, and then Dissenter, were probably the most influential, but the not the only ones who brought about this golden age of Internet polemics. But there were others of noteworthy importance, if I cared to show my notes, usually with “Berean” in the title. There were other outfits, like Pirate Christian Radio, but they largely did not care to examine the various trends of evangelicalism in any meaningful or analytical way, and were largely content to broadcast charismatic looney-toons largely for the humor. There were also proto-polemics blogs, probably the most notable was Pyromaniacs, who showed us in a very limited way the type of impact a constant, steady stream of theological correction could kill a false movement, as it killed the Emergent Church for our example. In the end, however, maintaining a seat in the Evangelical speaking roster, book publishing world, or among terrestrial broadcasters, largely neutered their capacity to keep that up for long.
No, we took a different path, called “going for broke.” Or perhaps, “ride or die.” It was the Old West and we were the cowboys who stopped caring what people thought.
I want to lean into that in the future of polemics, and go for broke harder. But, I want to do it in a different way that no longer focuses on dead theological debates among mostly dead men, which are fashionable only among dead churches, practicing largely dead religion.
More of that will have to be explained in time, which is what Insight to Incite is about. So, subscribe already. Saddle up.
I would submit this Manifesto, as brief as it might be, to Pulpit & Pen, Protestia, Dissenter, and the many other newer versions of what we do, and ask that they consider it with prayer and fasting.
Polemics must cease to beat dead horses, and consider our volume of work on past issues to be complete. Wheels do not need reinvented just because heresies are.
Polemics must cease to to focus on personalities, and instead focus on principalities.
Polemics must be unashamed of the influences of Fundamentalism on the left, and unconcerned about accusations of Charismaticism on the right, and embrace the Supernaturality of God.
Polemics must prioritize our work with Christ’s goals, balancing the purity of the church with evangelism of the lost.
Polemics must be utterly unconcerned with being gate-kept by any parachurch ministry or any celebrity aligned with a man-made institution, polemicists only being governed by local churches whose head is Christ.
Polemics must immediately brace for push-back by current theological gatekeepers who will view us as unbridled, or feel as they are losing us as their weapon or protection.
Polemics must immediately brace for some of our current readers, followers, or patrons to become disinterested with our new goal of evangelism rather than dogmatic, denominational skirmishes.
Polemics must commit, and commit entirely, to shepherding the masses within the current populist social revival into true religion, and away from a cultural or identity-based Christianity.
That’s the Manifesto. That’s it.
But I beg you to stay tuned. I will personally see that the major polemicist organizations for which I was personally responsible for developing or fostering, and all others with whom I have some degree of influence, are confronted with the reasoning for all of these eight points. Additionally, I will explain right here at Insight to Incite, what they mean and why they’re necessary.
In the mean time, if you’re available on Thursday nights at 630PM MST, I’ll review this eight points this evening at my usual hang out, which is the Bulldogmatic Bible Study. You can join by subscribing to the good work down at Protestia, on Patreon. Click the link above or graphic below to join us.
I believe God is doing something great, and we are all privileged for living in a time so extraordinarily close to Jesus’ return. Let’s do something great with our lives, and let’s tell people about the King who’s coming.
Please subscribe. I have to feed my chickens. Or don’t (everything dealing with this particular topic will stay on the free side of my Substack).