We're back with another edition at the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dshinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the
premium version of our website, The Federalist dot Com as well. Today I'm
joined by Michael Warren Davis. Michael is a contributing editor to the American Conservative.
He's also the author of the new book out on June eighteenth, after
Christendom. Michael, thanks for joining the show. Oh, thank you so
much for having me. It's a pleasure absolutely if you could give us a
little bit of background about just your personal history, your career, how you
ended up where you are. Since I think it's your first time on the
show, it's always helpful to go through of that. Just as we're getting
started here, give us a little bit about you, Michael. Oh sure,
I grew up what I call a swamp Yankee, just you know,
middle class kid from farm country in Massachusetts, northern Massachusetts. And I yeah,
I I I dabbled in different religious traditions. Growing up, I was
I was raised Presbyterian, but I was I experimented in Wicca, obviously,
living down the street from Salem, Massachusetts, which city I I doubled in
Wicca, unfortunately, daubled in Satanism and eventually found Christ, returned to the
Church through the becaming. I'm now an Orthodox Christian, very proudly so.
And uh, and this book is I think that, unfortunately, mine was
a was a pretty typical childhood. You know. I was raised in what
they call the mainlinetant churches, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran, these kind of
like mainstay American churches, by wonderful parent, wonderful parish, wonderful parents.
But I think my childhood is in many ways indicative how totally unprepared are Christian
religious institutions are for facing the challenges presented by our post Christian modernity. And
so a lot of this book is not autobiographical, but so much of this
book was written from my perspective. I just turned thirty, so I'm kind
of at the younger end of the spectrum as far as people that are writing
books about current events and trying to trying to warn not only my people in
my generation and younger, but also to wake up some possibly older right of
center and Christian people, readers and thinkers to these dangers that they even you
know, just being a couple of years old or may not even be aware
of just how bad things have gotten. And unfortunately, I'm not even sure
how bad it is for the poor kids that are turning ten, fifteen,
twenty years old now. So so interesting, and a lot of this in
the book. I want to ask if you could you talk about Christendom as
a quote walking corpse, and I wanted to see, Michael, if you
could maybe define Christendom or how you define it just as we're getting started here.
Yeah, absolutely, Christendom is to me it synonymous with Western civilization.
Right, Well, we're talking about Western civilization. We're talking a little bit
about classical civilization. Right we might meet Plato and Aristotle, but we're mostly
talking about the West after the flourishing of Christen. So whether you're talking about
Shakespeare or Beethoven or write any of any of that, that's all. You
know, all of those people are either either belong to a Christian ethos or
or they're you know, they're they're in inculcated in a Christian ethos and uh
and also the values that we talk about being Western values, values like respect
for human dignity and human rights. These are things that grew up in the
West uniquely under Christendom, have not been seen anywhere else, really, anywhere
else in the world at any point in history. No one has come to
these same conclusions that we have in the Christian West and also in the Christian
East, of course, and no one ever will yet. And this is
a big, a big part of especially the early chapters in my book,
is talking about how we're you know, we are as Christianity retreats in tutionally,
as the Christian Church gets smaller, as Christianity's influence on the West is
reduced, we're seeing these we're seeing these these values. Not only these is
that the the aesthetic of Christendom. You know, not only is the world
becoming uglier, but are we're we're also we're also betraying our own what we
would call values, right, And my point in the book is that,
you know, it's no point in there's no there's really no point in pointing
out the hypocrisy of these post Christian values like saying, well, you believe
you claim to you claim to care about people, but you but you,
and yet you kill babies right in abortion, because outside of the Christian context,
that just to use this one example, there's no contradiction there. There
was no like there was an outside of Jewish and Christian civilization, there's really
no sense that that that the that baby is in especially the unborn, are
worthy objects of compassion. You know, it would be like saying, well,
you claim to, you claim to care about people, and yet you
eat meat. You know, that kind of that lame Vegan reasoning is is
kind of the way that ancient peoples and also non Christian peoples in the world
today, like in China and India, largely view children. And so when
you when you go outside of the borders of Christendom, you know, the
these these values become warped. And what I'm trying to what I'm trying to
warn people is that you know, we're we're pointing out the alleged hypocrisy in
this world, in the worldview that is becoming dominant in the West, the
liberal democratic worldview is not going to work because they are fundamentally coming at these
at these moral and ethical and political questions from a different point of view than
we are, and they don't care if they if we think that they're hympogrants.
I hosted a debate recently, kind of inadvertently actually with both of my
friends and colleagues, Ryan Graham over at breaking points in John Daniel Davidson at
The Federalist on Johnsony book Pagan America, and Ryan comes from the left,
and the argument to people who are sort of secular humanists is that, you
know, maybe in the West these things came from and were improved by Christianity,
but we don't need it anymore. This is something you deal with in
the book. Michael, could you give us a little bit of a response
to that. Yeah, sure, I mean there are I'm sure that there
are individual people who, you know, for what reason or another, are
convinced intellectually by what we would call Christian values or Western values, civilized values,
and they think that they can using you know, their their great intellect,
they can convince other non Judeo Christian believers to follow their ethics, and
you know, I wish them luck, but it's not going to It's just
not going to happen. And again, we know what's not going to happen,
because it's never happened before. Ever. The the the ethical system that
we have in the West, which comes from first Temple Judaism and then and
then traditional Christianity, that ethical system has never existed anywhere else in the world.
It didn't exist prior to the spread of Judeo Christianity, and it has
and everywhere where that the influence of the Christian West has retreated, not only
in the West, but again in Asia and Africa, but also very much
so in the West. Wherever that those the influence of Christianity has declined,
we have seen these pre Christian what do you call what we might call pagan
ethics coming back, and they come groaring back to life in a very real
way. But I so the thing, I think, the other important thing
to keep in mind mind is that our left wing friends, who who promised
that that the retreat of Christianity will not lead to the inhumane ethics, that
in fact will become more humane as as as we become more enlightened, as
become more unshackled from the the the fetters of traditional religion, almost exactly the
opposite will certainly be the case, it is usually the most civilized societies,
the most quote unquote cultured societies, that practice the most outrageous forms of brutality.
So, for instance, you have you have Rome at its very peak,
at the decadent phase, right at the height, so to speak,
of the material flourishing of Roman civilization. That is when you really start to
see the enthusiasm for crucifixion, for blood sports, or for you know,
the sexual abuse of slaves, especially children, for infanticide literally infanticide, and
you know, like murdering your your children after birth or simply leave there was
There are accounts of this period in Roman history where people would just walk around
the streets of Rome and there would be children lying on the sidewalk. Their
parents had just put them down outside of their house to wait for them to
die outside, of course, because they didn't want to have to listen to
the screams of the child wasting away. And this, uh and then this
but this again, this is this is what happens in a very high civilization,
right, This is this is what happens when you have the great the
greatest minds of a society, you know, rising to the top, but
without being without the without the influence of Christian revelation, of Jewish revelation.
And I think that this is really important to bear in mind again because we
can continue to flourish materially as a civilization. But not only are these values
going to retreat, but they're going to be held in contempt. And if
you read people like Aristotle played out Tacitus, the greatest minds of paganas,
you know, Greek and Roman civilization, not only are they uniformly in favor
of fanticide, but they mock the you know, they mock Jews. They
mark what feud shoes they encounter for thinking otherwise, for believing that that that
babe, that it's wrong to kill babies they considered. I think Tacitus calls
this a sinister and perverse practice. So so it's not to we don't we're
not insulting our progressive friends intelligence when we say that someday they're going to they're
going to condone the murder of babies. We're not trying to you know,
this is not a this isn't moral preening. It's just statistically inevitable. You
know, there's that they are going to embrace these truly evil and perverse things
because because outside of Christianity people always do. It's a historical fact. And
it's interesting that right now, in particular, I believe you believe Michael,
that it's about to get worse, and some people, you know, the
babies on the side of Roman Roads is something that Tom Hollands starts his book
with. There are there's been Ion Hercy Lee and Dawkins or Dawkins has said
some interesting stuff recently. This is there are people that were in the militant
atheist movement, aggressive atheist movement not long ago, who within just the span
of a couple of decades are changing their minds openly about some of this and
or maybe digging into it more deeply is probably a better way to put it.
Is there something about this particular moment that you think is bringing that out?
And some people, like for example, Tom Holland, I think that
we're having to face the consequences of the retreat of Christianity for the first time.
And so I think that that's why a lot of the that's why a
lot of people who especially are you know, especially intellectuals, are recognizing the
brutality and thinking about it, and some of them are coming to regret the
the ideologies that they supported or even advanced. So I mean, for instance,
Richard Dawkins is you know, is more culpable in a sense than Tom
Holland. Right. I mean, Richard Dawkins was, you know, very
militantly in favor of stripping away the cultural religious framework of the West. But
I mean, I don't it won't change anything. I think that that's the
other thing to bear in mind. You know, we have all of these
moments right that we call it, like you speaking, you said about the
libertarian moment where Ron Paul was. Ron Paul was supposed to be this watershed
that that was going to allow you know, like classical liberalism libertarian values to
flourish in the republic Party, and of course that didn't happen. I mean,
if anything, he was just a last gasp of that old Republican tradition
before it was taken over entirely by by this kind of status ideology. I
mean, I mean, I don't care, but I'm not interested in politics
so much. But just to say that, you know, there are these
moments where people people seem to be awakening after their project goes really bad,
and they say Hey, maybe we shouldn't have done this, maybe we should
go back, but this ends up just being a Swan song, right,
And I think that I think that this is more or less what's happening now.
I think that the people, well, I think that the last generation
of kind of of optimistic atheists are are kind of coming to terms with what
they've done, with the havoc that they and their predecessors have brought, and
they've decided that all things considered, you know, they would rather be civilized
Christians than atheist barbarians. And good for them, I mean, you know,
welcome aboard. But it's too late. I mean, it's too late
for everyone else. It's the trends are irreversible at this point, barring a
miracle, you know, I mean, there's nothing, nothing is impossible for
God. But we but we can't. We can't turn that. It's not
going to be that easy to turn the dial back. It's not just going
to be a matter of you know, Richard Dawkins coming to his senses and
then you know, posting on Twitter that he's decided that he was wrong,
and then millions of upon millions of atheists and agnostics and apatheists decide that they
want to become Christian. I mean, that's never going to happen. And
I think that Christians have to be very Christians can't keep chasing this high of
seeing you know, Donald Trump appears with a Bible, and so we think
that everything is going to get better now it's you know, the right,
the uh, there's that we've reached this turning point. Finally, everything is
going to be easy now. And it's not going to get easy. It's
going to get worse and worse and worse and worse. It's going to get
harder and harder and harder. And we have to be prepared for that.
We have to be We have to be I think you you you probably know
the word asceticism, you know, like what monks do, comes from the
Greek word aschesis, which means basically the athletic training. And this is what
this is, what the Christian response to to persecution in the world has always
been has been askeesis. You have to get to you know, you don't,
you get tougher. It's not that you expect the circumstances to get easier.
You get tougher so that you can rise to those circumstances, and that's
the only response. Not not false hopes, not idolizing politicians, not not
getting excited on Twitter when an intellectual, left wing intellectual decides to become Christian.
That is a very beautiful thing. It should give us heart. But
I mean, we shouldn't be any under any illusion that it's going to change
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com. Yeah, let's actually stay on that point. You know, there
are some who look around at the comments Dookins made or look at you know,
what's happening in European politics, for example, and have a lot of
help and say this is reason for optimism. But Michael, you just were
mentioning that this is probably false hope, and in all likelihood this is this
is false hope that things are getting worse and that things are going to have
to the Christian is going to have to change their approach to sort of living
in these cultures. Why why do you think that is? Why? Why
do you I mean you just talked about it a little bit, But why
are you convinced that it's not These signs aren't signs of real change. Uh
but maybe you know the last gasps that it's too late. Well, I
mean the evidence is everywhere around us in our in our culture, you know,
we we have these these land these these landmark events that we we consider
very promising or and I include myself in this too. I mean I've I've
been trying to to become more chained. I've been making an effort because of
all the times that I've been disappointed by these things. But you know,
we had the election of Donald Trump, we had the the rise of the
Latin Mass, and there was something that was very The return of the Latin
Mass was something that was very heartening for a lot of a lot of traditional
Christians. We have you know, Anne hersy Ally's conversion, which which again
I don't want to poo poo that by any means, that was a beautiful
thing. She's a beautiful soul. Sure well. But meanwhile, while all
of this is happening, we see Germany just decriminalized child pornography. We see
school our education system becoming more and more entrenched with this, or rather we
see gender ideology becoming more and more entrenched within the educational system. We see
the Democratic Party continuing to move to left, We see the Republican Party slowly
transforming into a pro choice party. There's a fantastic essay and first things right
now, by Jonathan van Merin about how Donald Trump and whose aides like Kelly
and Conway are are helping to turn the GOP into a pro choice party.
We see Mike Pompeo, you know, actively supporting the liberalization of the Orthodox
Church. This is just something that's very dear to me and on behalf of
the United States State Department trying to you know, working in going to degrees
too to help advance a liberal Orthodox agenda, and in the Orthodox Church in
Greece. It's it's just the more and more institutions, both left wing and
right wing, are being captured by this secular liberal ideology. And and it's
and so while we have these these things, that should that do and should
give us heart. I mean, they should give us Christian hope, as
in faith we we should believe that in the end God's will will be done,
and that if we hold to the narrow if we follow the narrow path,
we will reach the gate of life. I mean, that's hope.
We should these things should give us hope, They should give it, They
should give us good cheer. What does what does Christ say when he when
he comes to the when he walks on the on the sea of Galilee to
the boat in the ocean, and the and the apostles are terrified because they
think of the ghost. He says, be of good cheer. This is
you know, that's that is we should be of good. These things should
harp us. They should make us, they should make us be filled with
good cheer. But if you look outside, if you look at the world
around you, we are losing our pagan values are being are becoming the norm
again, not only in the way that individuals conduct themselves, but also the
way that government and big government, big business conduct themselves. Those norms are
being enforced increasingly. They're being forced on us. They will continue to be
so Christians will most certainly, you know, suffer through you know they will.
They will lose economic privileges, they will, churches will have their tax
exempt status, bold children, parents who are considered we will there's just recently,
right, the Congress passed the bill saying that widening the definition of anti
Semitism to include passages of the Boy, I mean in a way that would
almost inevitably include certain passages from Scripture. So people who who faithfully preach on
the on the the events of Christ's passion and resurrection will be be imprisoned under
hate speech laws. Uh, I mean things manifestly, everything outside. Uh,
you know the world is getting worse and worse, and there's no there's
absolutely no sign that this trend is being reversed. In fact, all of
the all of the white knights that appear to save us, they you know,
they come, and they go and and and by the by the time
that they fizzle out, you know, we look around and the darkness has
continued to encroach on us. So I think that we I think that at
some point the only reasonable mature thing to do is to say, well,
I guess I guess that I guess our hope is going to ride up onto
on a you know, on a white steed. I guess that we we
have to change track. And that's what that's what my book is about.
So what does this look like for the daily life of the Christian and say,
uh, suburban Minneapolis or you know, even in let's say Brooklyn.
Obviously those are two very different places, Michael, But can you walk us
through basically what you think is coming and how people can react, you know,
just in normal places every day America? Sure, Sure, one of
the one of the reasons that I wrote this book is because I I personally
and I think I think other people would agree with me. I'm really tired
of people coming up with strategies and and and and manifestos and game plans and
because they again, they don't work. None none of them have worked.
None of them have. There's some there's more truth in some than others.
And you know, I think, but I didn't want to write. I
didn't want to sit down and give everyone my personal opinion on what I think
that we should do. What I did is I went back. I went
to to the great thinkers of modern Christianity, like from C. S.
Lewis to to put Ben at the sixteenth to Father Sarah Rose, Orthodoxed,
Catholic and Protestant. I mean, there's it's about you know, it's about
a third each. I tried really hard to make this an ecumenical survey and
see what they recommend. See what these these great saints of the modern world
have recommended. And and I was really surprised to find that almost all of
them said the same thing. They said, you know, politics is a
dead end. The darkness is going to keep spreading. The Pagans are taking
over. The devil is the ruler of this world, and he's asserting his
power right now. It is God has God is allowing this to happen because
Christians have become faithless, we have become too preoccupied with worldly power. We
have become too comfortable. We've forgotten the fundamentals of the Gospel. And so
what the only thing that we can do is to embrace the fourfold path that
is laid on the Book of Tobd prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness.
We have to completely rededicate ourselves to Apostolic Christianity. We have to.
We have to pray more. We have to we have to devote our practices.
Our political practice, so to speak, should be prayer. We should
be praying for the salvation of the world. We should be praying for the
conversion of our leaders. We should be praying for the end of war.
We should be praying for the protection of innocent life. We should be fasting
again as part of its kesis because this is how we this is how we
grow detached for worldly goods and comforts, and this ensures that that we won't
we won't forsake Christ. We won't we won't we won't abandon our faith when
the government comes to us it tries to put us them through, or when
our bank right, when our bank closes our bank account because we've been found
guilty of hate speech, as has already happened in the West. When we're
you know, when we're when our children are taking from us because we because
we try to raise them traditional Christian values. The fasting. Fasting helps us
to to understand what Christ meant when he says, you know, mention,
I live on bread alone, but from everywhere that drops in the Father's mouth.
It learns us to be radically dependent on God by by shedding our dependent
on material things. Alms giving is part of I also discussed in my book
a considerable link how much the the good works performed by the early Church led
to the spread of Christianity. You you see, you see in the early
Church Church fathers like Terutilian and others talk about how during plagues the pa the
pagan authorities would basically abandon the people and it would only be the Christians who
are who are taking care of the sick. And even Emperor Julian the opposite,
you know, raged against the against the pagan priests and said, this,
this Christian cult, this this Nazarene cult, is spreading across the empire
because basically because the because the Christians so obviously care about people more than we
do. And so even in the midst of persecution, Christians were going out
into the streets, making themselves known, contracting these deadly illnesses, dying but
for the sake of love, and not just love for their failed Christians,
but love for the Pagans who are persecuting them. And that's that's what I
mean. That's the broader sense of alms giving is self sacrificing love, whether
you're giving money or time, and righteousness, living lives of virtue, this
is, this is this is really the forgotten component, especially when it comes
to you know, excuse me, conservative Christians. We we complain about things
like you know, Internet pornography and and whatnot, but statistically it's we see
that Christians use those things at equal rates to to everyone else. We haven't
conquered these demons in ourselves, how can we hope to conquer them in the
world. And so we have to rededicate ourselves to living lives of holiness.
And and I add another one, which again is not from me. I
mean, it's it's the it's the oldest way of of helping to take the
culture, but the simplest, it's the oldest and the most effective and the
simplest, but the least appreciated, which is evangelism, especially especially street evangelists,
actually going out into the public square and preaching the good news of Christ
resurrection. Uh. This is for me the part of the book that I
was the most passionate about. That my that my blurbists highlighted and said,
you know, this is I think this is the really the forgotten piece for
a lot of people, is that we have to get into the habit of
sharing our Christian faith with everyone. And if you again statistically, you see
that that religions that practice street evangelism like that are the ones that grow the
fastest, like Mormonism has been growing at roughly the same rate in the United
States that Christianity grew had spread in the Roman Empire in the first three centuries
when Christianity was taking over the Roman Empire. And Mormons, whether or not
Mormons, you know, win many even if they win, you know,
only one of a thousand people they preach to. If they're preaching to everyone
in the country and we're not. They're going to you know, we Orthodox,
we Catholics, we Protestants, they're going to take over. And this
is this is the tool that Christ gave us. Right, he says,
go and preach the Gospel to all creation. This is what Saint Peter did
on the first Pentecost. As soon as the Holy Spirit descended, he went
out to the street converted three thousand people in the course of minutes by preaching
the Gospel. And this is the this is the great tool that Christ gives
us to do as well. But it's the one that you know, traditional
Christians like worth up with me, like Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Protestants,
that we laugh at, right, we made fun of more minutes and to
hopeus withitnesses for doing these things. And meanwhile, you know they're they're beating
our butts. So I uh so, yeah, so I would I would
say it's it's five prayer, fasting, obsciving, righteousness, and evangelization.
And but I do want to emphasize that this is this this all comes from
the Gospels, the New Testament, the Early Church, the Church Fathers,
and also the Great the great modern saints. I just tried to collect all
of their all of their wisdom, all their insights into into one book,
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you know, we're of similar age, Michael, and this is something that's
been in conservative circles clear for several years now. But there's there's a movement
towards you know, Latin Mass with younger Catholics, and some people have talked
to this, have talked about this to talk to the subject to death,
I should say, but I always like to ask this question and it's very
very relevant to the book that you wrote. What is it about people our
age and you know, even younger, going into teenagers and people in their
early twenties. What is it about some members of our generation? Roughly?
Who are that? Why are they? Why are we turning to traditionalism,
to orthodoxy in some cases after being inundated with hypermodernity. Basically, I'm going
to give a really disappointing answer to that question. I don't think. First
of all, I really don't think that it matters. And secondly, I
think it's mostly superficial. C. S. Lewis talks about this, and
he he he was part of a Christian renaissance, so to speak, in
his own time. He was part of this kind of revival of interest in
Christianity, especially among urbane Could's educated Englishmen. And someone asked him, you
know, is this Christianity taking over again? And he said, no,
probably not. He said, this is probably actually just a fat He said,
we should expect the trend of de Christianization to continue more or less a
pace. He said, I think most of these conversions he said, I
hope I'm wrong, he said, but I think most of these conversions are
probably superficial. He said, I think that they're responding to a real need.
But I think that ultimately they're not that that most people who are who
are becoming interested in Christianity right now are going to become disappointed and move on
because it's just not it's simply not what they think it is. It's it's
going to be much harder. The Christian life is going to be much harder
than they think it is. It's not going to be it's not going to
it's going to it's going to require, you know, self death, which
they're not necessarily prepared for. And I do not say this to discourage people.
I mean I say both to give people a fair warning and h and
also to challenge them, you know. I I because I think that I
think, like C. S. Lewis, that we're responding that people who
are that the younger people who are converting to Christianity right now are doing so
because they recognize a very real, uh, a very real lack in our
civilization. I think that they on the one hand, they into it that
people that we have become more miserable by abandoning Christianity than otherwise, that the
that that be that you know, having a culture of promiscuity, but also
infertility that have that encouraging endless self indulgence does not bring happiness, but in
fact, paradoxically, the self discipline and self sacrifice required of mothers and fathers,
you know, settling down having a baby, having hopefully many babies,
right, and accepting a certain amount of dignified poverty relative especially relative to their
to their you know, to their single or childless friends, is actually is
a grace. It's a source of a real enduring happiness. Is that other
other people don't necessarily share. And I think also why you know, why
traditionalist Catholicism, why Orthodoxy, why High Church Anglicanism Because it's beautiful, because
it's objectively beautiful. And uh. And I think that you know, we
the the the movement for esthetic relativism, This idea that buildings should simply be
functional, that or that liturgy should should be about connecting with people on an
emotional level, like you see in some dosor Catholic churches or even you know,
like the Hillsong Protestant churches. This idea that worship should be should should
that we should worship should be lowered to our level is is pat It doesn't
satisfy the need for for the need for liturgy that we see in the that
we have neatly in the in the human soul, and that expresses itself in
every in every culture right, whether whether it's whether it's the splendor of a
high mess, you know in the Roman right with the with the incense and
the Latin chance, or whether it's you know, a tribal dance where you
put on the a special headdress in war paint. We've we've always had this
sense that worship should elevate us, that we should that we should be putting
our best forward for for God or the gods, or whatever you want to
say. This is in innate need to again to give the best of ourselves
to the highest right, to the highest, to the highest, to the
heavens. And and I think that this is this need is awakening again.
The question is whether whether this need, this this this wholesome desire, will
we'll be able to triumph over, you know, the reign of sin and
carnality that's now taking over. And again I'm personally trying to be realistic about
it and say no, probably not. But but will many of those conversions
be sincere? Absolutely will the people that are coming to the church now,
the people that are that are converting to the church now, some of them
will unfortunately fall away. Let's be reasonable about that. And if we do,
if we if we find that some of our friends who join the Latin
Mass or the Orthodox Church with us, whatever, if we see them falling
away, let's not say let's not assume that that discredits Christianity. Let's say
that the that you know that the way to the to the gate of life
is narrow, and that many will not find it right that this is This
has been told to us by Price over and over again. He kept saying,
you know, most people aren't going to make it. Be aware of
this fact. So even if even if this fad quote unquote, even if
this fad passes Christianity, Orthodox traditional Christianity is still true. And the people
that are that are coming to the church now and are having sincere conversions,
they're not just becoming traditionalist Catholic or Orthodox because it's based in red pilled but
they're doing it because they want to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Those
people are are are going to will someday be remembered as the new founders of
Western civilization. We will look to our children's children's children's children's children will look
to them the way that we've looked to Saint Cyprian, you know, Saint
sat or Saint Clement of Alexandria's all the great fathers of the early Church,
the Apostles, right we they are the refounders of Christendom. And and those
are the people that this book is for. I don't I mean, personally,
I don't expect most Christians, most conservatives who who read this book to
agree with it or to get it. I you know, I I just
because because again because because the devil. This is the this is the age
of the devil. The Pagans are taking over. But I really do hope
that it finds its way into the hands of of a few people that that
need to hear it, that will hold on to it, people that that
that need to hear the wisdom of the church, fathers of of Pupe Bank,
the sixteenth of uh, of of saraphrom Rose, of C. S.
Lewis, and that are preparing to that that we'll be ready to h
to to to undergo the esesis, to to to to run, to run
the race and declaim the prize at the end, and to lay the foundations
for a news Michael Warren Davis is the author of After Christendom. Thank you
so much, Michael for joining the show. Oh thank you. It's been
a it's been an honor. I appreciate it. Of course, you've been
listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski, culture
editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray check clubman and dumbhab on platom