In summary, these changes would make the PCA a less “grassroots Presbyterian” denomination. They would have the effect of making Presbyteries weaker—weaker in comparison to the General Assembly and weaker in relation to their own judicial commissions. They would concentrate power at “the top” of our denomination, and place important powers of presbytery into the hands of “the few.” Presbyteries would be wise to reject these changes to our BCO.

Against Item 3
Among the items the 49th Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly sent down to Presbyteries for approval is Item 3 (Overture 25 from the Houston Metro Presbytery). This overture would amend chapter 15 of the Book of Church Order (BCO), changing the way that Presbytery judicial commissions handle cases.
Under the current system, Presbyteries may commit a judicial case to a commission, but the commission cannot conclude the case it is given. Rather, after trying the case, the commission must submit a full statement of the case and the judgment it rendered to Presbytery. Then, without debate, Presbytery either approves or disapproves the judgment.[1] To put it simply, the commission does all the work of the trial, but the Presbytery approves the final decision.
The proposed amendment would change two things. First, it would make the judgment of judicial commissions final: Presbytery would not have to approve anything. Second, it would require that complaints related to the case be heard by the commission that tried the case, not the Presbytery as a whole.[2]
These changes are not flashy or outwardly exciting. They intend to simplify our BCO, making all Presbytery commissions function similarly, and removing an extra step from our already complex judicial process. However, these changes would prove inadvertently detrimental to our church and her government.
In summary, these changes would make the PCA a less “grassroots Presbyterian” denomination. They would have the effect of making Presbyteries weaker—weaker in comparison to the General Assembly and weaker in relation to their own judicial commissions. They would concentrate power at “the top” of our denomination, and place important powers of presbytery into the hands of “the few.” Presbyteries would be wise to reject these changes to our BCO.
Grassroots Presbyterianism
The PCA is often described as a grassroots Presbyterian denomination. One of the easiest ways to understand what grassroots Presbyterianism means is to look at what our Book of Church Order says about two things: power and parity.
Power
Our BCO specifies that the power to make judgments affecting the life of the church belongs to the elders of the church acting jointly in a church court.[3] The Lord Jesus has committed this power exclusively to the courts of the church, and so in the PCA it belongs exclusively to Sessions, Presbyteries, and the General Assembly.[4]
Because Christ gave this power specifically to the courts of the church, courts can never delegate this power to some other body. Just as an elder cannot delegate his preaching responsibility to a non-elder, a church court cannot delegate their responsibility to make binding judgments of doctrine and discipline to some other body of Christians.[5]
Parity
The PCA BCO also specifies that there is parity across the various courts of the church. One often hears about one kind of parity in the PCA—the parity between ruling elder (RE) and teaching elder (TE). Though TEs have been given the special responsibility of Word and Sacrament ministry, they and REs are the same thing at the end of the day: elders.
The same can be said about church courts. Sessions, Presbyteries, and the General Assembly differ in certain respects, but at the end of the day they are all “Presbyteries” in that each is composed of presbyters.[6] This means that Sessions, Presbyteries, and the General Assembly all possess the same inherent powers (BCO 11-3, 4). A Session has just as much right to resolve a question of doctrine, or judge a discipline case, as the GA, and the decision of each is equally binding.[7]
Protecting the PCA
These features of grassroots Presbyterianism aren’t just interesting “distinctives” of the PCA. They have the very practical effect of guarding the church against hierarchical Presbyterianism and oligarchical Presbyterianism.[8] These two deformities of biblical polity aren’t just imagined boogeymen. They are legitimate dangers to the life of the church, and were instrumental to the decline of both the Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches in the 20th century.
In a hierarchical polity, a higher court has more power than a lower court, and ends up dominating it. There is no longer parity between the courts. In such a situation, the General Assembly would wield inordinate power over Presbyteries and Sessions, giving it great power to steer the entire denomination. Even the barest majority of the Assembly would be able to direct the church on any ecclesial matter.
In an oligarchical polity, power resides not in courts, but in committees.[9] The courts lose their exclusive right to exercise their God-given powers, having delegated them to smaller groups of men. These groups of men functionally replace the courts of the church. Even though power formally resides in the court, the court is held captive to the committees which practically exercise all the power.
All one needs to do to see the danger of these two polity dynamics is imagine that your “side” is in the minority at the General Assembly, or the minority of the various committees of the courts. Regardless of what “side” one is on, we all should want to preserve the grassroots nature of the PCA.
Protecting Grassroots Presbyterianism
The proposed amendment to BCO 15 would have two effects that damage grassroots Presbyterianism in the PCA. First, it would weaken Presbyteries in comparison to the General Assembly. Presbyteries would lose power that the Assembly would maintain—the power to correct any perceived error in the action of a judicial commission—making the Assembly a more powerful court. Presbyteries would then have to rely on the Assembly for something they formerly were able to handle themselves. Second, it would weaken Presbyteries in comparison to their judicial commissions. Presbyteries would have no natural mechanism to overrule a judicial commission, making commissions unduly powerful and functionally independent of the Presbytery itself. These effects would make the PCA both more hierarchical and more oligarchical—the Assembly would have more power than Presbyteries, and Presbytery judicial commissions would be functionally unaccountable to Presbyteries.
A Practical Example
These problems with Item 3 might seem theoretical at first glance, and perhaps minor in nature, but they would become very real when a messy discipline case comes before Presbytery. Imagine that a discipline case arises in your Presbytery and that Presbytery refers it to a judicial commission. Under the amended version of BCO 15, the commission conducts a trial, renders a judgment, and ends the matter. But what happens if it becomes apparent to the great majority of Presbytery that the commission erred in its judgment? These members can raise a complaint, but the same judicial commission would now hear and adjudicate the complaint. If they dismiss the complaint, then there is nothing else the members can do at the level of Presbytery. The commission’s judgments on the case and the complaint reign supreme. In a real way, the commission has replaced Presbytery in the exercise of judicial power. The commission has the power here, not Presbytery. The only recourse Presbytery has now is to raise the complaint to the General Assembly. Rather than having the natural power to overrule their commission, they must rely on what amounts to a more powerful court to rectify the matter.
Now consider the above scenario under the current version of BCO 15. The commission has erred. A great majority of Presbytery believes them to have erred.  To correct the error, these Presbyters need not complain to the commission and then raise the complaint to the General Assembly if that proves unsuccessful. All they need to do is not approve the recommended verdict of the commission. They then can either assign the case to a new commission, or try the case as a whole. Presbytery reigns supreme over its commission, and it does not need the General Assembly’s help or permission to do so.
The amendment to BCO 15 would lead to powerful judicial commissions and weak presbyteries, both of which would damage the PCA’s grassroots Presbyterianism.
An Amendment Without Good Reason
Item 3 originated as Overture 25 from Houston Metro Presbytery. In the overture, two main reasons are given for amending BCO chapter 15. First, it is said that requiring Presbytery to ratify the decision of a judicial commission is “a source of confusion and misapplication by Presbyteries.”[10] While I can readily sympathize with BCO-induced confusion, I have a hard time doing so with the matter of Presbytery judicial commissions. The very first sentence of chapter 15, which has the title “Ecclesiastical Commissions,” explicitly states that Presbytery judicial commissions operate differently than all other commissions, and references the paragraph within the chapter that sets forth the rules governing them.[11] Surely at least one member of Presbytery would think to read chapter 15 when Presbytery seeks to establish a judicial commission!
Of greater interest is the second reason given in the overture. It is said that requiring Presbytery to ratify the decision of a judicial commission runs counter to the purpose of commissions in general. Commissions are supposed to “deliberate upon and conclude the business referred to it,” but Presbytery judicial commissions are not fully allowed to do so.[12] This reason is a far stronger one, as it suggests that BCO 15 arbitrarily distinguishes between types of commissions, and therefore it arbitrarily restricts the power of Presbytery to address its own business.
Nevertheless, and contrary to Overture 25, there is good reason to distinguish between judicial and non-judicial commissions of Presbytery. The key difference between these two types of commissions is how they relate to the judgments that Presbytery makes. Consider a common commission of Presbytery: an ordination commission. It deliberates upon a number of matters relevant to the business of ordination (day, time, giving a charge, etc.) before concluding the business (actually ordaining a person). However, the commission does not judge that the man is ordainable. That judgment has already been determined by the Presbytery as a whole. The commission simply carries out the will of Presbytery.
The above example helps us to see why it is proper to distinguish between judicial and non-judicial commissions of Presbytery. In the case of the ordination commission, the Presbytery has already made a judgment on the matter at hand (ordination) and the commission enacts this judgment. In the case of a judicial commission, the Presbytery has not made a judgment on the matter at hand (the guilt or innocence of the accused). Indeed, it is part of the very nature of a judicial commission that Presbytery cannot have made any judgment at all—that is what a trial is for. Because there is no judgment, the commission has no right to enact any judgment. The judgment of the commission only becomes final when the Presbytery makes it their own.
Conclusion
The PCA is not perfect, and neither is our polity. But the glorious thing about our polity is that it can be more and more conformed to the command of Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ is King and Head of the Church, and He has appointed a government for it. It is our duty to conform our polity to the appointment of our King. While he reigns supreme over the Church as an exalted King, he administers his government through lowly elders. In his perfect wisdom, He has given the responsibility of judgment to elders acting together in courts, not acting individually. We cannot improve on this, and our polity should reflect these principles as clearly as possible.
Rather than clarifying these principles in our polity, Item 3 obscures them. Therefore, it should be defeated.
Stephen O’Neill is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Assistant Pastor of Hope PCA in Lawrenceville, NJ.

[1] Though the presbytery cannot debate the verdict of the commission, there is nothing in the BCO that would prevent questions being asked of the commission from the floor of Presbytery.
[2] Complaints are addressed in chapter 43 of the BCO. Notable for the purpose of this article is BCO 43-2, the first sentence of which reads: “A complaint shall first be made to the court whose act or decision is alleged to be in error.” With the current language, Presbytery, not the commission of Presbytery, receives and addresses complaints.
[3] BCO 3-2 distinguishes between the “several” powers and the “joint” powers. The “several” powers are those that can be exercised by an officer individually (i.e., “severed” from the court). Preaching is an example of a several power. The “joint” powers are always exercised in church courts in the form of judgments rendered by the courts.
[4] The classic example of this in Scripture is the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. There, after careful deliberation, “the apostles and the elders” render judgment on doctrinal matters that become binding on the churches.
[5] This point was stressed by James Henley Thornwell when the 1847 Old School General Assembly considered a report on the topic of ecclesiastical commissions. Thornwell agreed that ecclesiastical commissions could exercise any power the court possessed, but not as a delegated power. Commissions exercise the powers of the court as the court itself. The commission, in a sense, is the court. An unappreciated consequence of this is that all members of church courts are, de jure, members of commissions of the court. See James Henley Thornwell, “The General Assembly,” Southern Presbyterian Review 1, vol. 2 (September 1847): 83-85. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/590be125ff7c502a07752a5b/t/5fceb7dbb4902412734c1a64/1607383005407/Thornwell%2C+James+Henley%2C+The+General+Assembly.pdf
[6] BCO 10-1 states: The Church is governed by various courts, in regular gradation, which are all, nevertheless, Presbyteries, as being composed exclusively of presbyters.
[7] This is why higher courts are instructed to grant great deference to lower courts (BCO 39-3), and why higher courts only take up the business of lower courts under specific circumstances. Either a lower court asks the higher court to take up a matter, or some allegation of error is made against the lower court and filed in due order.
[8] The PCA’s first three stated clerks, Morton Smith, Paul Gilchrist, and Roy Taylor, have all written about the grassroots nature of the PCA’s polity in opposition to hierarchy and oligarchy. Dr. Smith’s “How is the Gold Become Din,” and Dr. Taylor’s “Non-Hierarchical Presbyterianism” can be found on pcahistory.org. Dr. Gilchrist’s “Distinctives of Presbyterian Church Government” can be obtained from the PCA historical center, though it is not on the website.
[9] I use committee in a non-technical sense here, referring to any subset of a body that has been given some task, role, or power by the larger body. True committees, commissions, boards, and agencies all fall under this broader use of “committee.”
[10] Overture 25 can be found in the 49th General Assembly Commissioner Handbook, 97.
[11] The sentence reads: “A commission differs from an ordinary committee in that while a committee is appointed to examine, consider and report, a commission is authorized to deliberate upon and conclude the business referred to it, except in the case of judicial commissions of a Presbytery appointed under BCO 15-3.”
[12] Commissioner Handbook, 97. The overture references the previously cited sentence, but excludes the special provision for Presbytery judicial commissions.
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“And now, my good mother, I beg you to show yourself as a virtuous woman in your afflictions, and bear patiently and joyfully  this trial that God has sent you, knowing that it is the good will of God against which no one can resist, even if he would.  Live the rest of your days in the fear of God, remembering me, and how I served my God till death.”

Among the Reformation martyrs was the author of the Belgic Confession, Guido de Brès. He served as a pastor in present-day Belgium during the Spanish Inquisition. Eventually he was captured by the authorities and spent a long time languishing in a dirty, sewage-filled dungeon in Valenciennes. Nevertheless, as he lived out his last days somehow he was able to find the strength and resources to write several letters. One of them was a letter to his mother. I’m pleased to be able to share this letter with you, as it gives a personal glimpse of this brother and father in the faith.
Last Letter from Guido De Brès to His Mother
The grace and mercy of God the Father, and the love of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, be for your eternal salvation.
My dear and beloved mother, when I consider what a sorrow my imprisonment is to you, and how hard to bear because of the enormous maternal love you have always had for me, I cannot keep my heart from becoming sad nor from greatly trembling within me.  And certainly I can say from experience that it is a hard parting that takes place between a mother and her child.  But the parting would be much harder if a man would leave his God and give up eternal life.  I am somewhat relieved of my sadness when I think of my calling and the cause of the Son of God which I have upheld before men.
It seems to me that I hear Jesus Christ, my Master, speaking with a loud voice and saying to me, “Whoever shall love his father and his mother more than me, he is not worthy to be one of mine” (Matthew 10).  Then he says to me, “Truly I say to you that every one who has given up home, or parents, or brothers or children for the kingdom of God shall receive much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (Matthew 19).  Such words cause me to put all other things aside, and my heart leaps for joy.  When I think of the certainty and truth of the one who has spoken thus, I can say with St. Paul, “I esteem all things as dung and consider them for loss, for the excellence of the knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ.”
You too, my beloved, must rise above your sorrows with the consideration of the good will of God, who wants to bring glory to himself through this poor, fragile body.  Restrain your grief remembering how it has pleased God to call me to his service against all human expectation.  Recall how, before I was born, you were going through Mons to hear a certain Italian Jesuit, who was preaching in the streets.  You said then, praying to God, “My God, if it could be that you could give me such a child, even maybe the child that I am carrying, to preach your Word.”  You said it and God heard your prayer.  Because he is rich and merciful, and because he can do all things more abundantly than we dare to ask, he gave you more than you asked for.  You asked that the child you were carrying could be like that Jesuit.  He became a Jesuit alright – but not of the new sect that people call “Jesuit.”  In order to make me a true imitator of Jesus, the Son of God, I was called to the holy ministry, not to preach the doctrines of men, but the pure and simple Word of Jesus and his Apostles.  This I have done up to the present with a good and pure conscience, seeking nothing else than the salvation of men, not my own glory nor my own profit.
Witness the zeal of God which has been in me, accompanied by many crosses, afflictions and sufferings, and not for a small number of days, but for many years.  To all these things you ought to return for your comfort, and you should consider yourself fortunate that God has given you the honour to have carried, nurtured, and reared one of his servants – who will receive the crown and glory of martyrdom.  Then it is not for you to object, if my God wants to now receive me as a pleasant-smelling sacrifice and strengthen the elect by my death.
I myself am joyful and I pray that you will join with me, knowing that all will be for my great good and salvation.  I submit myself to what it pleases him to do to me, knowing that he will not do anything that is not just and fair.  He is my God and Father, having only good will toward me and the power to deliver me, if he finds it good to do so.  Therefore, I rest in that knowledge.  If he has found it pleasing to take me from this poor life now, I shall be taken in the prime of life, having laboured diligently and sowed in the Church of his Son.  He has already allowed me to see the fruit of my labours and trials, having blessed and made my ministry so fruitful that the Church will feel the effects for many years after my death.  I am happy to see that which my God has permitted me to see.  There is yet much good seed that I sowed, which is still in the ground, but after being watered with my blood, it will grow and manifest itself amazingly.  What more then should I now desire, since the will of my God has been done, and I am ready to reap in heaven in glory and incorruption the fruit of that which I have sowed on earth with tears in my eyes?  And I hope that the many people which I have won to my Lord Jesus through the Gospel will be my glory and my crown in the last day.
I am going along the way where all the prophets passed, and the Apostles, even the only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and thousands of martyrs who shed their blood for the witness of the Gospel.  It is the voice of Christ who says, “Enter by the narrow way, for I say unto you that many will try to enter and will not be able.”  It is the narrow way of which Ezra speaks, which is not wide, and under which is a great river and a fire which devours those who stumble and fall.  This road leads to a city filled with blessings, where the children of God have want of nothing.  What should it profit me if I should travel with the world along the broad and spacious way, only to fall at the end into ruin and eternal perdition.  I know well that if I should renounce my good Lord Jesus and return in my impurity and pollution to this life, the world would embrace me and respect my person.  But it would not be pleasing to God to renounce my Saviour, to put idols in his place, and put profane things in the place of his precious blood.  I have served him for more than twenty years, and never has he failed me in anything, showing to me always a love which surpasses the understanding of men.  Beyond this great benefit, he gave himself to the inglorious death on the cross in order to give me eternal life.  What then?  Should I leave the living to find refuge among the dead?  Should I give up heaven for the earth?  Eternal things for temporal?  Abandon the true life for bodily death?
He who alone is my strength and my rock will keep me from it, and himself will be my shield and defense and the strength of my life in my weakness and infirmity.  I can say with St. Peter, when Christ asked him after many of his disciples had abandoned him, “And you,” he said, “do you not also wish to go as the others?”  Peter replied, “Lord, to whom should we go?  For with you are the words of eternal life.”  The Lord my God will not permit me to leave with the world the fountains of living water, in order to dig cisterns which do not hold any water, as God so rightly said by his prophet Jeremiah of his people Israel.  I believe with conviction that I am not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.  I can say with Moses that I would rather be afflicted with the people of God, than to enjoy for a time the pleasures of sin.  I would rather esteem the favour of Christ as greater riches than all the treasures of the world, for I look to the reward, and trust that the power of faith will not fail me in my need.  For by it I have already overcome the world and all my adversaries.  The Apostle has showed me how the faithful ones of the Old Testament, having the same faith, surmounted their afflictions.  He speaks of some as being regarded as drums to be beaten, who refused to be delivered, hoping for a better resurrection, and of others who were mocked and battered.  They were arrested and put in prison.  They were stoned. They were sawn in two.  They were tempted.  They were put to death with the sword.  They wandered about dressed in the skins of sheep and goats.  They were destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.  They wandered about in the deserts, in mountains, and dens and caverns of the earth.  All these holy people have overcome the world through their faith at death, and stand as victors though people killed them.
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If Christendom is to be restored, it will require men who model themselves on the knights of the Round Table: men of faith bound in loyalty, prepared for war, and dedicated to a common cause. Perhaps the standard set by Arthur and his knights is too high for men of a world such as ours. But maybe some are willing to take up the task and to recapture what glory of old Christendom is still possible for us in this age.

Heroes of Christendom Surpass Bronze Age Legends
Ever since the publication of the infamous Bronze Age Mindset, conservatives of various stripes have entered into a seemingly endless conflict over what to make of its erratic prose and challenging content. A number of conservatives, especially those of a more religious inclination, have denounced the book and its author as anti-Christian and fascistic. Yet, there can be no doubt that Bronze Age Pervert holds great purchase among younger conservatives. Further, even a growing number of strongly religious conservatives embrace the text as an empowering exhortation, finding little conflict between BAP’s message and their faith. Can it be that the king of frog Twitter may actually have something to teach conservative Christians?
In order to answer that question, we have to understand what the “Bronze Age mindset” is according to Bronze Age Pervert. Luckily the pseudonymous author tells us explicitly in the third part of his book. According to BAP, there are two principles that set the mindset of the ancients apart. The first was that the secret desire of every Greek was to be worshiped as a god among men. The second was that, for the classical man, life was characterized by the competition of life against life; force against force. The Greek conceived of nature as a manifestation of an inner fire, seeking to gather and discharge power, as Heraclitus described. Every particular being was understood as a manifestation of this universal power, and each being sought the expression of its inner force and differentiation, as a consequence. Hence, the classical man would train and beautify his body in the gymnasium with the aim of attaining eternal fame among men through victory in war. In BAP’s view, it is this vision of life that led to the greatness of classical antiquity, which stands in stark contrast to the spiritual poverty and effusive ugliness of postmodern society, described by BAP as an “iron prison.”
Despite what BAP’s critics argue, there is a great deal of overlap between his worldview and the Christian tradition, particularly the medieval chivalric tradition. Unfortunately, those aspects of Bronze Age Mindset that resonate with Christianity have been obscured by Christianity’s modern pharisaic expositors seeking to reduce Christianity to a mere set of moral axioms. Let us explore this exhortation, section by section, and see for ourselves what a Christian might have to learn from Bronze Age Mindset.
Inner Fire and Physical Beauty
The first part, “The Flame of Life,” serves as an elaboration on the metaphysics of BAP’s Heraclitean vitalist philosophy. BAP argues that the nature of life is not merely a struggle for survival, as Darwinists claim. He argues that there are two kinds of life: “yeast life,” which reproduces aimlessly, and “higher life” which seeks to develop itself upward through greater complexity. “Higher life means many fancy and mysterious things too of course but at its most basic it has to do with differentiation and structure. Yeast is an ‘amorphous blob’ that expands, whereas a higher organism has different parts with different functions, different organs, different systems within itself.” Life at its best is as Nietzsche describes: the development and expression of power. Life is best, in other words, not when it exists for the sake of being—but when it aims at something greater. “Life has a thing inside it that reaches beyond itself… if you don’t reach beyond yourself you are dead!”
The Christian can certainly find agreement in many of these points. After all, the Christian life is about perfection of the soul and spreading the message of the gospel so that others might do the same. All Christians are called to be transformed by God’s love in order that they are able to put their life on the line for God and neighbor. We are always to be reaching beyond ourselves until the end of our lives when we are judged by Christ according to our works.
For BAP, human life can go the path of yeast or the path of higher life, and typically it takes to the former. Human life becomes yeast-like under conditions of pressure, such as slavery or in overcrowded filthy cities. To illustrate the point, BAP gives the famous example of the “longhouse,” which is the prehistoric default communal setting of humanity, where the young were browbeaten by “the old and sclerotic” and “matriarchs.” Under such conditions, human life “devolves… aesthetically, morally, intellectually, physically.” The alternative is the “life of the immortal gods who live in pure mountain air,” symbolized by the “aesthetic physique,” which is a physical manifestation of “energy is marshaled to the production of higher order.” He concludes that “Those who forget the body to pursue a ‘perfect mind’ or ‘perfect soul;’ have no idea where to even start. Only physical beauty is the foundation for a true higher culture of the mind and spirit as well.” Since any given organism, including the human, is its physical body, life on the ascent must begin for BAP with the development and the perfection of the body.
The tension here lay therefore in the exaltation of the body over the soul. A Christian certainly cannot abide by deifying the body at the expense of the soul. However, the body does play a central role in Christian theology. After all, God Himself took on a physical human body in which he lived, died, resurrected and ascended to heaven. All of mankind is also expected to be resurrected at the end of time in order to enter the New Jerusalem or into eternal punishment for all of eternity. We are creatures intended to possess a physical body and we are incomplete without one.
Consequently, it would make sense that training the body is relevant to the perfection of the spirit. Austerity through fasting and abstinence has always been common practice for Christians seeking to direct instincts and emotions toward their proper end. In this sense, Christianity is decidedly against the gluttony characteristic of the contemporary American approach to food. Further, training the body to increase physical power, and consequently beauty, is in no way alien to Christianity. The medieval knight, for instance, would have found physical training an essential aspect of his lifestyle in order to prepare for combat, since a strong body would have been necessary to defend the innocent in battle and gain honors thereby. The knight also beautified himself with ornate sets of armor and weaponry. In the medieval world, strength and beauty were to be put in the service of loving self-sacrifice. Although there is something to be said for potential excess or vanity, strength and beauty directed toward noble ends can only ever be a good thing.
However, love of beauty in itself does not exhaust the issue, since for BAP what is most important is the beauty of the body itself. Although Christianity is not anti-body or against physical beauty, as previously acknowledged, the Christian tradition does not seem to exalt the body in the same way as the classics have. Where in antiquity the young handsome quick-footed Achilles was considered to be the ideal human type, Christians have tended instead to idolize the monkish priestly type, like St Francis of Assisi for whom bodily beauty is unimportant, and in some cases considered a hindrance.
A major aspect of BAM’s appeal is the sexiness of his aesthetics, to put it bluntly. As it turns out, men want to be physically powerful adventurers and warriors, and women are attracted to men who embody that type of ethos. For Christianity to survive and appeal to men in the modern day, it must move beyond the preaching and navel gazing of the priest, and provide an ideal with some vitality in it. Emulation of priests and monks has certainly had some appeal, as evidenced by the tendencies of many modern traditionalists and integralists. Further, there is nothing wrong with priests as such, but merely their exaltation as a model for all men. It’s not priestly moralizing that establishes (and re-establishes) civilization. Instead, that is the prerogative of the noble warrior or knight who wrests territory from the hands of the enemy and secures it against threats internal and external. It is Lancelot that ought to serve as a model for Christians today. Endlessly preaching about the need for a rejection of modernity in favor of communitarian escapism comes off as stuffy and weak. Calling men forth to friendship and adventure with concrete benefits makes for a much more attractive message.
C.S. Lewis acknowledged this specific point in his essay “The Necessity of Chivalry.” Lewis argues that in order for Christian civilization to thrive, it must produce men like Lancelot of the Arthurian mythos. He describes Lancelot as “a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-of limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.” He argues that the knight is the middle ages’ unique contribution to mankind, as the middle ground between the ignorant brute and the effeminate man of culture. Unfortunately, it would appear many traditionalists today fall into the latter camp, advocating forms of escapism and self-comforting admonitions of their enemies, rather than actively taking up the fight. If only Christians would have heeded Lewis in his exhortation to emulate the chivalric ideal.
For the knight to do his work, he must develop a powerful physique that strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies and inspires those squires under his tutelage. However, he will not fall victim to the vulgar body obsession of many modern bodybuilders and fitness influencers. His beautiful body should not be abused for the sake of vanity or licentiousness, nor is a well-developed body alone sufficient for the knightly vocation. Rather it ought to reflect a more beautiful soul and serve as an instrument of God’s will.
Human Biological Hierarchy
Elaborating further on the significance of the body, BAP argues in the second and third parts that there are politically important biological differences between the sexes and among ethnic groups. He argues fervently that there are insurmountable biological and behavioral differences between men and women that have severe political consequences if ignored. Although women have a penchant for positive characteristics, such as farseeing intuition and childlike carelessness, BAP considers giving women authority to rule over men to be a fatal mistake. In BAP’s view, rule by women results in the stifling of freedom and life’s proper development.
This should not be controversial to the Christian, since scripture itself attests to the same reality. Various passages from Old Testament wisdom literature contain warnings for men against the wiles of women who lead men to ruin when men submit to women. “Give not your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings” (Proverbs 31:3). Additionally, the prophet Isaiah associates rule by women with waywardness, as he says, “My people—children are their oppressors and women rule over them. O my people, your leaders mislead you, and confuse the course of your paths.” (Isaiah 3:12).
The New Testament is in some ways even more explicit than the Old. For instance, Saint Paul writes in both first Corinthians and Ephesians that men ought to be the head of their wives and families just as Christ is the head of the church. “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:22-26). In the traditional Christian view, wives submit to their husbands and husbands sacrifice themselves for their wives, just like Christ. It’s also very telling that Christ Himself appointed only men as apostles to lead his church. This fact has been used as a justification not only to support the general assertion that men should occupy leadership positions but also the more particular practice of ordaining exclusively male priests, as maintained by both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In any case, the polarity of male and female has always been accepted by Christians and is explicitly preached in scripture.
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