Originally published February 28, 2025 for our End-of-Month Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get semi-monthly issues.
By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor
“Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.
Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him. Still, the Lord did not turn from the burning of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.
And the Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.’” –2 Kings 23:24-27
Our Political & Cultural Correspondent Joshua Bontrager brought it to our attention that there seems to be a rise of what might be called “whore culture” in the “conservative movement,” a casual sex culture that seems out of step with what American conservatism has traditionally been.
Writing for AGENDA Weekly, Joshua reported: On Valentine’s Day, conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair posted on X, “Five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world. Elon Musk is the father. I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child’s privacy and safety, but in recent days, it has become clear that tabloid media intends to do so, regardless of the harm it will cause.”
St. Clair said, “I am a good mom… My child is the most perfect thing that happened to me. I wouldn’t change anything.”
Musk, who is the father of 12 previous children by three women, has refused to comment on the allegations. But multiple conservatives responded with congratulatory notes, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who wrote, “This child has incredible genetics.”
Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey responded, “Babies are ALWAYS a blessing, no matter what. But I am genuinely heartbroken by the purposeful creation of motherless or fatherless children, and it feels weird publicly applauding that.” Stuckey added, “We need more stable families.”
The Blaze’s Delano Squires lamented, “Stripping marriage from the family formation equation paves the way for commercial surrogacy, unregulated IVF, and same-sex adoption. This shift has consequences… The belief that a man’s bank account can replace his presence in the home ignores a fundamental truth: Fatherhood is about more than money.”
President Donald Trump, the de facto flag bearer of American conservatism, has a history of affairs and broken marriages attested to by fathering five children born to three different women.
In Germany, the AfD, the current standard bearer for German conservatism, is led by Alice Weidel, who happens to be married to a woman herself, living an openly lesbian lifestyle.
Britain’s then-Prime minister Boris Johnson openly lambasted SCOTUS after it overthrew Roe v Wade, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that he “supports a woman’s right to choose.”
He clarified, “I want to stress that this is not our court, it’s not our jurisdiction. So, in a sense, it’s for the United States, it’s not for the U.K. But the Roe v. Wade judgment, when it came out, was important psychologically for people around the world, and it spoke of the advancement of the rights of women, I think. And I regret what seems to me to be a backward step. But I’m speaking as someone looking in from the outside.”
Edmund Burke, considered by many to be the “father” of conservatism (which emerged as a response to the “liberal” claims that led to the French Revolution), makes it clear what is at the heart of Western conservatism with these two separate quotes:
“Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.”
“There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations. “
Burke’s conservatism is not the same as Musk’s or Trump’s or Weidel’s conservatism, all three of which, in word and/or deed, deny the Christian cultural values that formed Western conservatism. For Trump and Musk, maybe, that foundation is the Constitution, which was the product of a Christian presuppositional worldview that all men are made in the image of God, all men are sinners in need of a Savior, all men are limited by their own humanity, and thus our government should reflect these Godly assumptions.
Weidel’s “conservatism” seems little more than some form of Enlightenment nationalism wrested on the bedrock of human speculation alone, not God’s laws, not revelatory wisdom, but human-constructed wisdom (the process of “knowing,” or defining for oneself, good and evil).
Like the humanists that smuggle in “oughtness” (assumed universal right actions) with uses of undefined words like “good” and “flourishing,” this godless conservatism smuggles in oughtness with undefined words like “freedom” and “liberty.”
Unlike Burke, who wrested his worldview assumptions about the universal good from revelatory wisdom (from scripture), these “modern” conservatives attribute the universal goods to human understanding alone.
This writer imagines that something similar was going on in Judah over 2500 years ago when King Josiah began what would be the last great reform of Judah before its final collapse. The comparison isn’t perfect because, in this case, Josiah was a righteous ruler who understood the foundation of governance wisdom, the Word of God.
While President Trump gives credit to God for saving his life in the PA assassination attempt, he is hardly a paradigm of a righteous ruler that will lead a nation to repent and seek salvation from the Lord alone.
Still, the fact that Josiah was a righteous ruler, in word and deed, who led a reform that would prove to be a mile wide and an inch deep, he serves as even MORE of a stark warning to Americans here and now. If our American reform is led by an unrighteous man, what makes you think this reform will be more than superficial when not even a righteous ruler like Josiah could make his reform deep?
This writer does not align himself with conservatives, or conservatism in general, though that is based on my philosophical disagreements with them, not necessarily the fruit of Western conservatism. I believe Western conservatism is the philosophical justification (at least the attempted justification) for a Christian cultural reality.
It is that foundation, Christian culturalism, if you will, that I hold in common with conservatives, but not because of the republic of letters, the logical, reasonable, common-sense speculations of men, but because of God’s divinely inspired Word, Scriptures.
Burke’s engagement with the French Revolution unwittingly gave rise to the justification for the removal of the true root of Western conservatism in how he justified his pushback on the ideas being espoused and cut into flesh during the bloody affair.
Burke was the product of the rise of the “republic of letters,” which is the rise of human linguistic wordcraft over the received wisdom of the Word of God. As such, rather than simply appealing to the Word as a rebuke of the evils being espoused and practiced by the violent revolutionaries, Burke appealed to the same false gods many conservatives of today appeal to: logic, reason, and even “common sense.”
Burke affirmed the revolutionaries’ true foundation, linguistic wordcraft, by appealing to logic, reason, and common sense over the revelatory wisdom of God’s word. Even though Burke would not be considered a liberal today, his apologetic in defense of a revelatory-based governance wisdom source laid the groundwork for the complete undoing of that foundation, so that now conservatives in America appeal far more to the Bill of Rights to justify their beliefs than they do the Word of God.
The fact that there now exists a distinct subset of “conservatism” in almost every Western nation called “Christian conservatism” should demonstrate to you just how far afield whatever Western “conservatism” has become (liberal enlightenment humanism, by the way).
It has veered so far from its roots that it can no longer be called conservatism as, at this point, what it wants doesn’t exist, and what used to exist, Christian culturalism, it no longer wants either. It is a new thing, not a preservation of tradition.
As this writer has declared in past reports and even Final Thoughts, America’s great reformation that is currently underway will not produce lasting results. Rather, it will hasten the demise of the American republic, officially. The only person that can “save” America is the only person that can save me, or any of you, Christ.
This comes from a repentant, humbled heart, poor in spirit in comparison to the recognition of God’s great Spirit, mourning, for we see the fallenness of the world just as God sees it, and meek in recognition that it is not by our works, but God’s, lest we should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), which begins with a recognition of your fallen nature and your need for a Savior. If your root is “freedom,” “equity,” “liberty,” “goodness,” or “flourishingness,” then your root is in human linguistic wordcraft, not truth.
Let us ourselves repent and turn to Christ to save our nation and pray that our leaders, starting with President Trump, do the same. Whatever their unrighteous past says about these “leaders,” the empty tomb invites them all to repentance and a turning away from the temptation to “know good and evil” for themselves.
These are leaders of the republic of letters, not sons and daughters of God. Let us hope God leads these men to Him or gives us truly godly leaders, for a good leader is a blessing on the land.
“When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan.” –Proverbs 29:2