Barbie's world

"Insurrection Barbie" a couple weeks back posted a (long) comment calling out, sigh, Russian Interference. The claim is that Orthodox circles close to Putin have been running an op against American Evangelicals, with the aim to pull them away from the Jews as a people and Israel as a nation-state. This piece has bubbled up to Rafael "Ted" Cruz which kind-of makes it personal, inasmuch as I helped secure his nomination in my state in 2016.

Much of I.B.'s essay (or rant, or screed perhaps) reads like Scott Hahn and Ben Wiker poisoning the well against the Higher Critics. I.B. also distrusts the Higher Critics. As before happened to the elder generation of late-mediaeval Catholics; this younger generation of Protestants has received content critiquing the now-Protestant reading of our shared (Christian) scripture. Leaving this, they swapped one foundation for another;—emdash— in I.B.'s words. That other foundation would be patristic Christianity: either in Orthodox form, or in the form of some of the spicier Catholics like pope Pius X.

To the extent I.B. wants to talk theology - and I say this as a Zionist - she should know that evangelical sola scriptura failed because it was malum in se. Hahn has been derided as "the American Pope" exactly because he heads up a traditionalist wing; he too couldn't refute what the critics were saying in the AD 1200s, so had to cowrite a (long) book with that creationist clown Wiker to attack the critics. This tack is not going to work better for I.B. when anybody can drop in on an Ehrman vid online or, worse, Tovia Singer. And if you don't like Ehrman (or Singer), we Zionists are really going to dislike what's coming from the likes of Vridar and Richard Carrier.

If sola scriptura be no basis, luckily other base-eeze exist. One might even be muscular Singerite Judaism. Now, these Scriptures have problems too. So... come Orthodoxy, whose foundations build from Clement of Rome (or of Syracuse, whatever), and (later) Mark and Ignatius.

In Orthodox teaching, or at least the old Chalcedonian formulae as restrict Orthodoxy to the filioque and pope Martin's Lateran synod, we do have a distinction between the Church and the State, in Martin's days protected by the Empire (Constans II... based outta Syracuse, again). The state however must work in harmony with the Church. IB calls this "integralism", anyway a straw version of this which she credits to Vermeule, Ahmari, Deneen (and to Pappin whoever that is). Deneen shouldn't count and Ahmari is just some dude saying things on the Internet. Vermeule might be serious. Even here I get the impression I.B. relies upon Jason Blakely: Integralism seeks to subordinate temporal power to spiritual power — or, more specifically, the modern state to the Catholic Church. If true, that would indeed entail a resurfacing of Constans' monothelete heresy. But I.B. is writing a polemic, as was Blakely. The purpose is to paint traditionalists like Deneen with Vermeule on the way to run both of them off polite society.

I repeat: I support the preservation of the Jewish state upon the Jewish heartland. But I don't do this from the evangelical standpoint, because that standpoint is rotten and was falling apart even before various tradbros picked up on dubious Catholic teachings (honestly, Hahn wasn't even helping). Overall I do not believe that I must take I.B.'s standpoint. Christians can find (and have found) other arguments. If I.B. wants us to go back to John Hagee sermons, she may succeed in running us off... but many of us may simply conclude that there is nothing for us in any Jewish / Christian alliance.

GRIFTER 7:20 PM MST: I.B. is Irina Pavchinskaya-Cedano. Disbarred from Illinois; and although, you know, blue-state Bar associations generally suck, in this case the disbarment happened because she did a felony.