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As a zealous Christian young man, most of the books I had been reading were concerned with one thing: devotion, which I would basically define as loving God, avoiding sin, and proselytizing per The Great Commission. “Culture,” on the other hand, was, I believed, a distraction at best, certainly superfluous. A stumbling block for the would-be man of God. But Sham Pearls for Real Swine: Beyond the Cultural Dark Age—A Quest for Renaissance by Franky Schaeffer changed all of that.
In 1992, I came across the title while perusing the Christian bookstore shelves, as I was wont to do. Franky Schaeffer, from what I’ve gathered, has since become a raging leftist, disavowing practically everything apologetical that he wrote back in the 1980s and early 90s, but at the time he was right on point from an evangelical perspective, as was his dad, the much loved and still respected, Francis A. Schaeffer. And his book Sham Pearls made the strange case that, for the Christian, becoming a cultured man or woman was (drumroll, please) non-negotiable.
The next thing I knew, I had devoured Sham Pearls and was scouring the index and footnotes, ordering other books by Franky Schaeffer (Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts), his father, Francis (The Great Evangelical Disaster and the book/video series How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture), and other authors quoted therein who seemed worth reading, in particular C.S. Lewis and the inimitable G.K. Chesterton.
All of those works—all of those men—had Christianity in common, of course, but they also had something else besides, something which would for me become, decades later, even more important, more central, to my identity, than the faith I (then) professed: Europe—racial and cultural, beautiful and flawed.
A few years earlier I had finished high school, but had since been floundering: menial manual-labor and fast-food jobs, random courses at the community college, late nights at Denney’s with new-wave friends drinking coffee in the smoking section— the usual fair for those whose parents had respected their choices and the right to make them, carefully avoiding guidance.
But something in Schaeffers’ books got my attention, shook me up, and honed my interest: “You mean it’s possible to be a Christian and an artist? Wait, you mean these beautiful places and things I’d always just dismissed as vainglorious, idolatrous, pagan, or, even worse, Roman Catholic are not just okay, but somehow edifying? Not just okay, but mandatory?”
I’d always thought in terms of “commandments.” One did not merely have the luxury of opting to do things, he had a duty to do them, if they happened to be worth doing. And before I knew it, my new duty, new responsibility, had become not only to love Europe but also to go there. I came to see loving Europe as the proper way to live my Christian faith, not as something that was replacing it.
At the time, I was making five dollars an hour doing hammer-and-pry-bar demolition of city-owned apartments, trashed by Mexicans and blacks (of course) who’d lived in them.
South Texas summers are not for the squeamish, neither are trips to the city dump throughout those scorchers, with trailers full of nail-filled lumber, sheetrock, and shingles, to unload by hand beside euthanized animals from the city pound on one side and city trash trucks’ mounds of dripping unspeakables on the other. But it was necessary. Credit cards were not an option, believing, as I did, that “free money” was too good to be true and would never be given to me anyway (why even bother applying?) despite several friends’ having procured them with ease. No, I would have to keep working and saving money the honest way, old-fashioned way. And so I did.
These were, of course, the offline days, so a hard-copy travel guide was needed. Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, Frommer’s, Fodor’s. Those were the ones I’d seen. I got a Let’s Go: Europe and began.
Planning was a joy. I lived with my grandparents out in the country, surrounded by silos and hazy flat fields of cotton and corn. Mine was the “front bedroom.” There, at night, after all had gone to sleep, listening to cassettes of Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, I puzzled: “Where to go to first?”
After reading each country’s profile back-and-forth, the Czech Republic won the day. It seemed to be the best choice between exotic and familiar. From there I’d go wherever God, and whimsy, led.
I hate to travel now. I absolutely loathe it. Seeing what’s been done to Europe has all but ruined it for me, but going there in 1993 was my raison d’être. By May that year I had in hand a passport, plane ticket, and stack of American Express traveler’s checks. By June, I was landing in Prague.
Thirty-two years since, my faith has fizzled but I still love Europe—the place, the idea, the ideal—and Europeans: the menagerie of peoples paradoxically more different-and-alike at once, perhaps, than any other race found in the world.
The Europe I met in 1993 is gone, for now at least. Everyone knows what has happened. Everyone. The prospect of seeing Muslims of any race, blacks of any religion, shiftless in the streets, concealing God-knows-what beneath their hooded black coats in summer is enough to make (to borrow St. Luke’s phrase) a man’s heart fail him. So, the erstwhile traveler ends up staying home.
The Schaeffer books were my own unlikely seeds of Europhilia. But for those in whom that love is also sprouting, what is theirs? And how does it get there?
I live in a small Eastern European town where I teach young children English. It is, notwithstanding the occasional pesky gypsy, about as white as it gets. Yesterday in class, while playing the game “Would you rather…?” we got to talking about which other time in history we’d like to live in besides now.
Some were enthralled by the 1990s, especially the lack of smartphones, and the tendency to roam outdoors with friends all day. One wished to go back just far enough to be her father’s nanny when he was toddling. Another, oddly, wanted to be one of Henry VIII’s many wives!
But a twelve-year-old girl I’ll call Voica (one of my two favorite kids, by the way), who’d suggested the game in the first place , said she wished she could live in the 1400s.
Why? Because, “I love Vlad Țepeș [of “Impaler” fame]. He cared about the Romanians. He wanted to protect them.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“He put the Romanians first. And he put all of his enemies on stakes. [Laughter] If I could, I would go back to the 1400s, be his best friend and help him defeat them. Help him defeat what’s-his-name . . .”
“Mehmed II,” Doina (her friend, and my other favorite) chimed in, laughing.
“Yeah, Mehmed II. Vlad Țepeș was . . . what’s that word again?”
Doina, consulting Google Translate: “‘Rough.’”
“Yeah, rough,” said Voica. “He was rough—rough and right.”
The mercurial class, now shifting gears and antsy to play other games. “Voica,” I said. “I like the way you think.”
Optimism is not my strong suit, but I must say, when pondering the fate of our race, a European girl on the cusp of her teenage years thinking in terms of us-versus-them; of siding with strength and the will to do drastic things; of slaying one’s foes, not gullibly opening doors to them; and stating as much before peers without missing a beat—for me—just bodes well.
41 comments
A nice ode, or lament, to Europe. I related to a lot in your story.
Thanks, Angelo.
Dear James, just a note to mention how much I admire your odes to our People; your writings conjure our deep connections spanning time & place. I’ve read everything I can that you’ve written and am a huge Fan! I’m interested in conversing with you offline, and request your contact information, please. Thanks in advance!
There are young in the heart of Mordor expressing similar sentiments.
I think you’re right about that.
When would the rest of us like to be? How about 1865 so we can make sure Lincoln did what should have been done.
I’d like to think showing him some World Star Hip Hop videos might make him stay the course.
I spent two years in Switzerland and Germany in the early aughts. Having taken German for six years throughout Jr High and high school I felt i had a pretty good grasp of the language, culture and history. I got there and was floored at its majestic beauty. Everything about it is stunning and awe inspiring.
But even 20+ years ago, Switzerland was swarming with Africans and Germany with Turks. My teachers never mentioned those, and as a young man I never thought about such things. It was a reality shock when I came across my first African “Heim”. A ghettoized apartment complex crawling with sub Saharans that you can smell from down the block.
Interesting. Yeah, my first visit was about thirty-two years ago. Alot could have, and apparently did, happen even after just twelve years of that, as you’ve described.
I went to Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, through Yugoslavia to Greece, France, Italy, and Ireland. Every single place was overwhelmingly represented by its own respective ethnicities. In Paris I noticed Middle Easterners at the Eiffel Tower, but that was about it. In Italy I saw one or two Africans selling bootlegged media on blankets, and it stood out like a sore thumb; felt like a novelty (how ironic, in retrospect).
I met several Italians in Ireland at my hostel and walked around Dublin with two of the guys one day. There was a tall African on the sidewalk walking towards us and one of the guys very deliberately shoulder-checked him. They almost got into a fight. I was frankly surprised that the Italian guy did that, but now tend to think he had some foresight and was acting at least understandably toward a member of a group that should not feel welcome in any European country.
Sounds like that young lady has excellent parents who truly “get it.”
Yes, it does. And in a class of 12 to 14 kids, all white, not a single one recoiled or indicated the comments were in any way inappropriate.
I thoroughly enjoyed your autobiographical, anecdotal article, and relate to it. The anti-cultural element in the American fundamentalist Protestant is truly to be lamented. Although I do not believe you can ascribe its origins to Jewish subversion, it certainly has been their willing handmaiden in birthing the post-modern sewerage that is so toxic to authentic culture.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Ultrarightist. Yeah, those anti-culture tendencies really leave open a void that can easily be filled by opportunists that know all the right buttons to push.
The first thing that comes to mind is that snake-in-the-grass maxim, “God looks on the heart” (by implication, being unconcerned with comportment). The next thing you know, the greatest virtue is having a “good heart” whilst doing whatever else you want to do, and justifying it in the name of relating to people whom you’re ostensibly just “relating to” per Paul’s admonition to “be all things to all people,” in order to lead them to Christ.
Serious Christians should be theorizing the appropriate punishments for ethnonational treason. I may regret the horrors that were imposed upon so many innocent whites as a function of our “civil rights” movement, but an honest man can see how well-meaning whites could have supported it. One had to be either extremely clearheaded and farsighted; a true Constitutionalist; or just an old-fashioned bigot to oppose at least the early iterations of that revolutionary campaign. Blacks had been here for centuries; why shouldn’t they be granted equal rights at law?
I can even excuse support for the 1965 immigration law changes, at least in the early decades (say, 1965-1980). I always opposed mass immigration, from the early 70s until now, and initially for the correct racial reason (later, I came to see mass immigration as a corporate welfare policy and anti-labor issue, too). But many Americans didn’t initially understand what was happening to them, plus, again seeing through liberal eyes, we were never exclusively white (in law, sure, but never in physical fact). So I can forgive an immigrationist from the past (but not one today).
America is a “New World” nation, one founded and settled (and overwhelmingly built) by whites, but, as mentioned, never exclusively inhabited by us. What excuse, however, is there for those who threw open Europe’s borders, millennia after it had evolved into a common racial and religious civilization comprised of historically discrete nations with unique, anthropologically ‘thick’ ethnocultures, so as to facilitate Third World colonization and replacement? What is the moral justification for such treason? I don’t think there is one.
One can’t say “we were diverse from the beginning” (eg, there’s now an increasing and ridiculous historiographical effort to discover “black Europeans” – ie, to make of someone’s 18th century African slave transported to England or France a “black European“). Europeans didn’t dispossess any nonwhite ‘natives’, even in pathetic leftist theory. Even if some simpleton could claim that he had no idea of the modally morally inferior behavior of nonwhites (and could any European policymaker actually make such a claim in the decades following America’s black riots of the 1960s, and astronomical crime increase thereafter? or after the Islamist Munich Olympic massacre, or later terrorist incidents? or the 1970s air-hijackings? etc), surely he could see that allowing nonwhites, even if relatively peaceful Orientals, to take up residence in Europe was a direct assault on the possibilities for ethnocultural continuity? Is that not an act of war against one’s own people? And if so, shouldn’t there be punishments meted out to those who sought to destroy their own people by means of first diluting, displacing and degrading their identity and heritage?
I last visited Europe in the early 80s, and already was seeing disquieting things. I literally could not visit Europe again. Mentally, I know it’s been semi-destroyed; but to actually see the racial ruin would just depress me beyond relief. I’m not going to use my limited funds to put myself into a state of daily rage. It would be joyous to visit a liberated Europe, however.
I think you’re right. The truth is, say what you will about modern Christianity’s weaknesses, but there have been many eras right up to the recent past in which Christian men and women were stalwart race-realists. I’m not a believer now, and have my opinions about Christianity’s Achilles’ heels, apropos of staying the course on racial clear-sightedness, but many of the quality WNs I’ve come to know also profess the faith, and I don’t question their sincerity or fear they’ll be changing their minds about WN and its ideas about what makes a healthy white society.
James Betony: March 27, 2025 …[T]here have been many eras right up to the recent past in which Christian men and women were stalwart race-realists. I’m not a believer now…
—
That’s your conclusion that I was looking for after reading the opening sentence in your fine essay about what was apparently going to address one of my favorite subjects.
I found your mention early on of “the inimitable G.K. Chesterton” interesting since years ago William Pierce had quoted him as an early example of one with Cosmotheist leanings.
Edit: I was wrong, confusing Chesterson with novelist D.H. Lawrence, the early Cosmotheist, who Pierce quoted, that is worth repeating here:
We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great gleaming nerve-center from which we quiver forever… Now all this is literally true, as men knew in the great past, and as they will know again.
Source: WLP86: William Pierce on Cosmotheism, Wave of the Future | National Vanguard
This past weekend I came across my photo book from my backpacking trip to Europe in 1991. Going page by page my heart ached that my kids could never now recreate the experience with the same expectations of safety and enjoyment. In ‘91 the worry was getting robbed, and I was: someone stole my Let’s Go the minute I got to the Gare du Nord. And I saw thieves everywhere, but I didn’t fear for my life or being raped.
My faith in Christ is stronger now then it was then because I feel that as the world gets worse, God is pressing us to make a clear choice. I would be interested to hear why your faith has left you. Great read, by the way. I think I will do some reading on Vlad.
I know what you mean, Weave. It should be a generational rite of passage for all white peoples among their “extended family,” never needing to factor in the aggressions of inimical outsiders’. It should be a time of wonder, of looking up in awe, not looking circumspectly for sucker-punches.
As for the loss of faith, that’s a tough knot to untie. (Your question made me realize, I need to work on my elevator speech to be able to answer it.)
On that topic, BTW, I’ve actually been thinking to write about Christianity and White Nationalism, particularly in how avowed White Nationalists reconcile their faith and their politics. An answer to your question would invariably work its way into the topic, as I interviewed others (since my questions for them will obviously spring from my own beliefs/doubts/struggles, etc.).
I admire Christians who are White Nationalists, and think that the criticism of Christianity in our circles, which has its place, too quickly devolves into gratuitous bridge-burning of alliances, and I’d like to do something about that.
It shouldn’t be hard to convince repressive Christian authoritarians it’s okay to be a repressive Nazi authoritarian.
Do you ever not seethe?
You seethe every time I post a comment.
To: Buttercup Dew (the comment-thread ran out)
Nice jape, but that was a serious question.
I guess it’s only so important, but in all sincerity, you must be the most disagreeable and combative person that ever posts here. The odd thing is, you’re ostensibly pro-white, but what does that even mean for you? Again, a genuine question, not rhetorical. (You should write an article; I’d love to read it.)
It’d be refreshing if you’d just quit being pissy and snide and come out with what you believe, like a mature white man, instead of taking snarky shots all the time like some childish disgruntled sniper.
@JamesKirkpatrick
I should write an article . . . ?
C-C has published over fifty articles of mine, and a book. My most recent article is Left-Liberal White Nationalism which is at Nix Jeelvy’s place.
The seethe is all in your head, I’m just taking pot shots, sniping as you say, from my lofty perch of being an ex-WN. My original meta point in this thread is that WNs are authoritarians first and foremost which is why they’re widely despised, along with Christians.
Other than pointing to my past work and disavowing WN I have nothing to say about my current beliefs, sniper shots notwithstanding.
Are you both anti-Christian and anti-Nazi? Most anti-Christians on the Racial Right (are you on the Racial Right?) are either Nazis or Nazi-adjacent. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you.
Hey Lord Shang,
Yes, I am on the Racial Right.
I am not anti-Christian. I am not a Christian myself, though I was for much of my life, but I believe that people who profess Christianity can also be strong White Nationalists, and know many who are.
“Anti-Nazi” is vague, as I understand it, so if you have more in mind please elaborate. That said, I believe that there are good white people who care about the white cause who have decided to identify with National Socialism (NS/Nazism). So I’m not “against them.” But I also believe that Nazism itself is 1. completely unnecessary and 2. irredeemably controversial.
In short, there is nothing gained from donning Nazism whatsoever, besides shock, which is the currency of unserious people. So, you could say I’m “anti-Nazi(sm).”
Replying to James Kirkpatrick (because no further chain-commenting is possible on this mini-thread):
If you look carefully (and I know it gets confusing on long reply threads) I was actually asking that of Buttercup Dew, not you. This comment (and others of his) left me confused but also intrigued as to his ideological position:
Buttercup Dew
March 28, 2025 at 4:17 pm
It shouldn’t be hard to convince repressive Christian authoritarians it’s okay to be a repressive Nazi authoritarian.
I know Buttercup is anti-Christian, but he seems also to be anti-Nazi. If so, I’m curious why. I’ve known prowhite but anti-Nazi Christians as well as anti-Christian neo-Nazis. I’ve yet to encounter a white nationalist who was both anti-Christian and anti-Nazi. To me, that is a very odd stance.
WRT your comment, your position is literally identical to my own. That is how I have more or less been describing myself for decades. My only possible point of divergence is that I very much wish to be a Christian, but remain a theological agnostic reluctantly inclining towards atheism. Unlike Buttercup (and Will Williams, among others) I see no contradiction, however, between being a Christian and a white nationalist – though I see no theological way to be both Christian and Nazi (ie, Nazism is only one form of white preservationist ideology among many).
This is a wonderful article. Thank you.
I hope you don’t put people off going to Europe, though, because even today there are plenty of places in Europe where travel is safe and beautiful.
Thank you, Greg.
You’re right, my general rule (admittedly influenced also by hermitic tendencies) has plenty of exceptions. And no, I wouldn’t want to put anyone off of traveling altogether, either. In fact, I’m looking forward to contradicting myself soon and going somewhere that is as you’ve described.
I have travel plans in July. 7 days in stockholm 4 in prague. This article has provided me additional clarity of focus in planning my daily itinerary. Ill bring back a report for y’all.
Please do, thank you.
That’s great! I can’t wait to hear details.
It shouldn’t really need to be stated *yet again* but Christianity and White Nationalism are not compatible.
“I should write an article . . . C-C has published over fifty articles of mine, and a book.”
Yes, that’s right. You should, as I suggested, write an article about your present beliefs, since all you ever do in comments is drop hints about them to be inferred by what you oppose.
“My most recent article is Left-Liberal White Nationalism which is at Nix Jeelvy’s place.”
Most “recent”? It says it’s from November 2022. In contrast, your last one here was published in March 2023. Your “I have nothing to say about my current beliefs” statement is confusing though, since you mention the article posted at Jeelvy’s; does that mean it doesn’t represent you now? Or it does?
“…I’m just taking pot shots, sniping as you say, from my lofty perch of being an ex-WN…. Other than pointing to my past work and disavowing WN I have nothing to say about my current beliefs….”
So you’re an ex-WN whose purpose in commenting is only to antagonize and who wants to keep his current beliefs a secret??
Is this ironic? Honest? If ironic, it’s a waste of time. If you’re being honest, then the pro-white articles you’ve written that no longer represent your beliefs also no longer serve you as bona fides.
Is there some captcha or check box that only allows white nationalists to comment that I’m missing?
Of course my prior stuff counts as bona fides. It proves I’ve been in the movement for long enough that I’m not attacking it from a position of ignorance but experience and knowledge.
I will take a simple position here, seeing as you have taken the time to really push for answer: white nationalists are paramilitary authoritarians or wannabes who simply use Muh White Race as an excuse to shill for some kind of moralistic military junta rule of imposing a strict and unrelenting ultraconservativism. If that’s not true and easily disproven, then why is my commentary an issue?
There can and should be dissenting views in comment sections because otherwise what’s the point. Unless it’s meant to be a closed talk shop for only the in-crowd? Are you hostile to mainstream viewpoints being voiced on the C-C discussion platform?
Edit: for the record, I think my review of Equilibrium holds up. It’s hardly a glowing endorsement of WN but a hard critique of it. I’ll stand by the critique of fascism I make there with the caveat that I’m against all “fascistic methods”, not just fascistic methods in their “proper place.” Look around and tell me with a straight face this isn’t a movement of killjoys and tattletales.
There can and should be dissenting views in comment sections because otherwise what’s the point.
I do agree with you there. We can learn, sometimes see a new angle we had never considered or been exposed to. I do remember Greg scolding me some years ago because I disagreed with something Roger Devlin said. But that’s us females – we have a hard time forgetting things sometimes. Or rather often, to be honest.
I never really cared for Devlin’s stuff. He’s not exactly a snappy writer.
If the dissent is in good faith, meaning the dissenter isn’t just being a turd and getting off on creating strife, it can be useful, though not always. If people have the same end goals but disagree about means, then arguing one’s position has merit. But it’s often a waste of time quibbling over how to get an ethnostate, for example, if your idea of an ethnostate and mine are fundamentally different.
Determining whether we agree on the ends upfront is a courteousy that we should extend to each other, which is why I ask direct questions, strive to answer clear questions (asked in good faith) directly myself, and am intolerant of evasive answers.
I read your essay, BTW (the one at Jeelvy’s), even though you didn’t answer my question whether it represents your current views. Based on comments you’ve made, and drawing inferences from them, I’m assuming it does. (Feel free to confirm that.)
I made an impersonal, snarky but fairly accurate observation that Christians and Nazis are birds of a feather, and instead of being able to cope with it you got so incensed you attributed it to me “seething.”
Did it never occur to you that I thought my observation was valuable in and of itself?
You said I should “come out with what I believe” instead of being a “childish sniper” but I told you what I believe in my very first comment. That Christians and Nazis are both repressive authoritarians. You have a victim complex.
I took the time to write a pithy comment that gets to the central issue under this entire article: WNs and Christians trade in the same coin – and your response was to try and grill me and imply I’m a bad faith actor. I was acting in good faith from very start, but you were too busy seething to realise.
@Buttercup Dew
Just quit.
The very idea that “the central issue under this entire article: [is that] WNs and Christians trade in the same coin” is absurd.
Since that is so far off from what is the central issue of the article (i.e., coming to love Europe and one’s own might derive from unexpected places, in the author’s case the work of a Christian author’s book on the arts), I believe you most likely just read a paragraph or two, got scandalized by the mention of Christianity, then went into seethe-posting mode that you’re so reknown for. (Nazi! Repressive! Authoritarian!)
(Anyone with the time to read your lengthy article on what I’ll call Libertine Nationalism will see why this is a reasonable assumption.)
You have a knack for muddying the waters, I’ll give you that. Anyway, we’ve reached an impasse. It’s going nowhere.
State your position boldly: is your primary ideological goal the purity and perpetuity of the white race, or not? If yes, you’re some type of prowhite. I suppose one can draw distinctions between types of prowhiteness, of which, say, Nazism, white nationalism, even paleoconservatism could be considered varieties. So maybe you could argue that, OTOH, you’re prowhite, but OTOH, you oppose Nazism, WN, and paleoconservatism. So how would you describe your ideology? Just curious.
If anyone is curious, I consider myself to be a paleoconservative, but one who a) is race-realistic, and b) recognizes that the foundational thing to be conserved is the genetico-cultural identity of our people. Because our race is under threat (and has been for my entire life; I’ve been conscious of that threat for over 45 years now), I have focused both my online and, earlier in my life, real world activism on white preservationism (in the real world this took the form of immigration restrictionist activities, as well as paid work for Pat Buchanan’s Presidential campaign in 1995-96).
But if we should achieve the Ethnostate in my lifetime, I would certainly push for extremely conservative political positions (the racial threat having been neutralized).
It’s a losing proposition to give away information when one has nothing to gain by doing so. But no, I’m not for the “purity and perpetuity of the white race” and I deny the existence of such a thing.
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