In the cultural battles of our day, conservatives always seem to lose. Some say progressives win because of their superior funding, organizational prowess, and cultural dominance. Others say conservatives lose because we are disorganized, factious, and lack an activist spirit. Perhaps they’re right on both counts. But that’s not why we lose. We lose because we have a much more difficult position to defend. We cannot go on thinking the left is acting in good faith for a good purpose, when in reality, conservatives and progressives are completely different projects with different goals and definitions of victory.

Roger Scruton once observed, “Good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.” Take the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, for example. It took 183 years to build but was almost completely destroyed by fire in a matter of hours in 2019. This is a fitting metaphor for the modern West, which was carefully built to sustain our civilization for generations, but is now crumbling after decades of relentless attack by a progressive ideology hell-bent on destroying it.
Progressivism is a demon-possessed ideology that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). The progressive disease has also infected evangelical Christianity, poisoning its bloodstream and spreading the contagion through trusted and once-conservative media outlets and educational institutions.
Conservative Christians, contending for “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), are being assaulted on multiple fronts by openly hostile secular progressives in government, business, news media, and Hollywood, not to mention apostate progressive pastors who claim to represent “the way of Jesus.” 
As Christian schools are overrun by tenured leftist professors and publishers sell cloaked leftist propaganda to unsuspecting conservatives, naive Christians convince themselves that “this too shall pass.” If they keep their heads down, silent and compliant, they’ll leave us alone.
Unfortunately, this is not possible. Sooner or later, conservatives must rediscover our fighting spirit and realize that we cannot play nice with progressives. They do not want to peacefully “coexist” with conservatives. They want to destroy us. Ordinary Christianity is the last major obstacle in their path.
Conservatism Operates Within Reality
Conservatism is only as good as the thing being conserved. In our day, what most needs conserving is nothing less than reality itself. Reality is conservative, and the more one accepts it as such the more conservative one will become. The progressive left is a reality-denying cope for those who would alter reality to match the idealized fictions of their minds.
This puts them at odds with God himself, for God is the ultimate reality. As Joe Rigney recently wrote, “The first imperative is to love the indicative.” We must accept reality as it is, as God made it. Daniel, describing God to Nebuchadnezzar, said, 
He changes times and seasons; 
he removes kings and sets up kings; 
he gives wisdom to the wise 
and knowledge to those who have understanding; 
he reveals deep and hidden things; 
he knows what is in the darkness, 
and the light dwells with him (Dan 2:21-22). 
This is reality. God made the world, set it on its foundations, made springs gush forth, and caused grass to grow. Finally, he entrusted it to the stewardship of man to subdue and exercise dominion (Gen 1:28-29). He orders the world such that it sustains life. God provides for all man’s needs through the ordinary means of discipline, skill, and work.
God also establishes limits, hierarchies and inequalities, and requires man to live within these constraints. These are not the result of the fall, but built-in manifestations of God’s wisdom in creation. Every restriction or inequality is an opportunity to trust God and work within the boundaries he put in place.
This is the world as it truly is, the world as God made it, that which is revealed in God’s word and observed in God’s world, a reality that must be respected for any society to thrive. Conservatism is a worldview of giving, receiving, and blessing. It dignifies work as a legitimate expression of Christian service, and dignifies man by beckoning him to discover the wonders hidden within creation. Such is the glory of God to conceal a thing, and such is the glory of kings to search it out (Prov 25:2).
Any kind of political or social conservatism that does not acknowledge God as the ultimate reality will inevitably fail. Christians are conservative not merely because we admire the constitution or love tradition, but rather for the sake of the transcendent, eternal reality upon which those things stand.
In other words, Christians aren’t merely conserving a nostalgic political worldview, but rather the application of Christian truth to all of life, including our society. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). Paul said, “God” commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Christ is “highly exalted” and has been given the “name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).
This is the worldview that built Western society. To be sure, not all of our founding fathers were regenerate Christians, but they did draw upon centuries of Bible-saturated political theology and wisdom. In short, we’re not merely conserving something political, but convictional: we’re fighting to conserve and rebuild a once-respected Christian heritage that is now under siege by a demonic ideology of pagan progressivism. 
The progressive project is not a matter of alternate policy preferences in pursuit of a shared, common vision for society. Progressivism is a political and cultural attack directed squarely at Christianity itself. It is more than a political ideology, it is a rebellion against nature, nature’s God, and an attack on all who worship him.
The Sin of “Equalatry”
Contrary to what we’ve been told, human differences inevitably produce inequalities–divinely established natural hierarchies hard-wired into creation for his glory and our good. While some inequalities can be exploited for sinful gain, a virtuous society organizes them into a productive division of labor that benefits everyone. The most fundamental, inescapable human difference is sexual: God made us male and female from the beginning (Matt 19:4). The inequalities between men and women are a divinely designed gift for the harmonious joining of the sexes in mutual love and the creation of new life. Similarly, other human inequalities are positively presented in scripture as gifts for the edification of the church.
The left cannot accept this fact. Their sin is “equalatry,” which is making equality into an idol. The sin of equalatry is what Murray Rothbard once called a “revolt against nature,” rooted in envy and resentment towards those with superior skills, intelligence, beauty, or accomplishments. It regards all inequality as oppression and all hierarchy as tyranny. Since it bears a superficial resemblance to fairness, a biblical virtue, equalatry makes the left’s demands for “social justice” feel virtuous to Christians. But since the left defines justice as the elimination of all inequality, exceptionalism must not be tolerated.
The left subverts reality through media “narratives” that reward grievance. A man’s feelings of envy are merely a byproduct of his oppression. All inequalities are “privileges,” unjustly acquired. Their propaganda campaign that relentlessly categorizes the whole human experience as an epic struggle between oppressive villains and oppressed victims slowly brainwashes ordinary people into vicious cycles of self-righteous indignance or self-loathing guilt.
Deep down, people intuitively know that society cannot function without the basic virtues of hard work, competence, and honesty, yet they are gaslit into affirming the opposite.  They gradually find themselves nodding along with the guilt-inducing narrative that they are oppressors whose sins can only be absolved by yielding to the irrational demands of the state, BLM activists, and the rainbow mafia. Over time, the propaganda wears them down. One can only resist for so long.
The left regards our Christian heritage as a blight that spawned injustices that can only be remedied by tearing it all down and rebuilding anew. Captivated by the social Darwinist “myth of progress,” humanity must break free from the antiquated shackles of Christianity and march towards their vision of an eschatological, secular utopia.
As Thomas Sowell once said, we have “reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today.” Americans have now reached peak efficiency in our ability to manufacture victims at warp speed through a malicious parade of patriarchs, homophobes, and white supremacists. It doesn’t matter that their thinking is irrational, because they have already determined that rational thought is yet another tool of oppression.
Progressives arrogantly believe reality itself can be bent to their wishes. With enough funding and power, they can refashion the world any way they choose. With enough medical technology, they can overcome the dreaded gender binary. They act with high-handed moral certitude, believing they possess sufficient wisdom to save our planet, end hunger, correct injustice, house the homeless, eliminate suffering, maximize erotic pleasure, turn men into women—you name it. This is delusional, of course, but they can’t see it because their worldview is predicated upon a carefully curated denial of reality.
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Wherever you may be in December 2021, this is not your final destination. As believers, our hope is more exciting than the anticipation I experienced as child, unable to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Back then I couldn’t wait to open presents in the morning. But the gift that awaits those who trust in Jesus Christ is not worth to be compared with any material possession. Now, I can’t wait for the day when our faith shall be sight and we will see God face to face, and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

I wasn’t eavesdropping, but while waiting in line for coffee this week I overheard two separate conversations between two different sets of friends say essentially the following: “This is the best! I love this time of year and I can’t wait for all the festivities with my family” and then not 5 minutes later I heard another person say, “It’s only December 1 and I already am ready for the holidays to be over. This time of year is the worst”
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I think we can all agree that this time of year can bring out the best and the worst, not just in our culture around us, but even within ourselves and our  families. Like those individuals in the coffee shop, for some the holiday season is truly wonderful. It’s a time of giving, of gathering with loved ones and friends, and a time of celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. But for others, this time of year can be stressful, lonely, and a bombardment of hyper-commercialized, unbiblical sentimentality.  Our Westminster Confession of Faith teaches us that God alone is lord of the conscience, and so I don’t intend this article to give any recommendations or suggestions as to how or why a believer should navigate the 31 days in December, but I do wish to offer 3 reminders that I believe can help keep the holidays in perspective, and hopefully encourage us as Christians amidst the hustle and bustle.
You are not alone.  “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” Matthew 28:20b
The Holidays can be the hardest on those who are missing someone around their table this year. The loss of a spouse, parent, child, or even just the physical distance and separation of family across a country (or for missionaries a whole continent!)  can present a host of pain and heartache. Not to mention everything we’ve been forced to endure the last two years with a  global pandemic. In the age of social media, when seemingly everyone is posting or sharing photos of great gatherings of loved ones together, it’s not hard to dwell in loss and loneliness. But as our Lord reminds us, take heart! God promises He is with us. That’s not an idle or empty promise. God sees us, even in our struggles and heartaches, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are truly not alone. Regardless of our marriage status, or if we have multiple children or are childless, we have Christ and His bride, the church.
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All in all, the five points of Calvinism like the Five Solas recognize that God is the one who works salvation so only God deserves glory for every aspect of it.  God is the one who predestined all of the elect before time began apart from any merit of our own.  Jesus Christ’s atoning work purchased salvation for all of the elect.  The Holy Spirit works in the elect so that they desire to repent and believe such that God’s grace is irresistible.  And God will cause all of the elect to persevere to the end.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us….For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-Romans 8:28-34,38-39, ESV
Last time, we began to discuss the distinctives of Reformed theology with the Five Solas that represent the core reasons Protestants had to break away from Roman Catholicism.  John Calvin expanded on this, so this time will focus on the distinctive of most Calvinists, the five points of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.
Calvin and Arminius
As the Reformation spread, various positions began to form on the finer points of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  One of the foremost second-generation Reformers was John Calvin, who articulated a complete theology in one of the great works of church history: Institutes of the Christian Religion.  His work was is foundational to what we now call Reformed theology, but he is best known for how his followers responded to a strong opponent regarding salvation.  Jacobus Arminius disagreed with Calvin’s view of predestination—that God determines who will receive salvation.[1]  His followers believed in the total depravity of man, but they also believed in conditional election based on faith in Christ, unlimited atonement (Christ died for all people not just the elect), that God’s grace was resistible (people can reject it), and conditional perseverance of the saints (a person had to remain in Christ in order to be truly saved).[2]  In response to these five articles, Calvinists laid out what we now know as the Five Points of Calvinism.  John Piper explains them in his book Five Points.
Total Depravity
The first point of Calvinism is one with which true Arminians would largely agree: that all people are totally depraved.  This does not mean that every person acts in as depraved a manner as possible but that our natural condition is depraved.  John Piper describes it this way: “The totality of that depravity is clearly not that man does as much evil as he could do. There is no doubt that man could perform more evil acts toward his fellow man than he does. But if he is restrained from performing more evil acts by motives that are not owing to his glad submission to God, then even his “virtue” is evil in the sight of God”.[3]  Arminians and Calvinists can agree on this because it is so clear throughout Scripture.  All have sinned (Romans 3:23) so there is no such thing as a righteous person who seeks after God (Romans 3:10-11 cf. Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3).  Even our “good” is so polluted by sin that it is unacceptable (Isaiah 64:6).  Plus, sin includes anything not done in faith (Romans 14:23), any good we fail to do (James 4:17), and any impure thoughts or motives, so we sin incessantly.  We are dead in sin apart from Christ, unable to do anything to save ourselves (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Despite the clarity and prevalence of human depravity in Scripture, our society largely denies it.  Most Western churchgoers today would say that people are basically good and any evil is largely due to circumstances.  Critical theory, socialism, cultural Marxism, and the like are built on this error.  Any church that ascribes to these has therefore followed Rome into the error of glorifying human teaching over Scripture.  But even it we officially agree with total depravity, we still significantly downplay our sin and cannot fathom that we deserve hell along with everyone else.  But when we honestly consider our vast sin in thought, word, deed, motive, action, and inaction, we should be cured of that error.  We are far worse than we think we are, so we should all say with Paul: “wretched man that I am, who will delivery me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
Unconditional Election
Where Arminians and Calvinists begin to differ is on how God elects those He saves.  Scripture is clear that God chose those He saves in eternity past (Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 1:9), but what does that mean?  Arminians would say that God foreknew all who would trust in Christ and elected to save those people, so election is conditional.  But those God foreknew are the ones who receive salvation: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30).  This passage is the most complete form of the ordo salutis (order of salvation) in Scripture, explicitly listing God’s foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification while alluding to adoption and sanctification.  This only happens for believers, so foreknowledge can only refer to those God has chosen for salvation.  Predestination then is not God knowing who would choose Him and then choosing them but God choosing who He would save before even creating them (Ephesians 1:5,11).  This election is completely independent of anything we do.  Total depravity means we cannot choose God unless He first chooses us.  God made His choice before time began, and any choice we make is a result of that choice:
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