Against the Waves is Out!

Against the Waves and the Need for a Positive Christian Vision

Hey everyone, John here. I wanted to share some exciting news with you. My new book, Against the Waves, Christian Order in a Liberal Age, is now out. You can go to againstthewavesbook .com againstthewavesbook .com to get a copy, and if you like it, please rate it high on Amazon or wherever else you might might have purchased the book.

The reason I wrote this book is really because I think we are in a precarious position, approaching potentially a crisis, and that crisis is over a lack of vision, a lack of a positive standard. My books on social justice were really attempts to explain and refute social justice theory.

I wanted you to know that the left's utopian egalitarian standards are bad. You should reject them, and we don't have to conform ourselves to them even if they try to force them on us. This is different.

Liberalism, Conservatism, and a Rooted Social Order

I've realized that a lot of the ideologies and approaches that we see, which are buried now on the political right, are tethered to liberalism in some way. They're either cartoons, very simple ideological reductionistic takes that only exist, and get their life because of liberalism, and they're not really rooted, and I really want us to have a holistic rooted vision for what we really defend, and that's what this book is.

Conservatism traditionally has been the God's order, the created order, mediated through tradition and applied in particular contexts for the good of people, and that's why we have the laws that we do.

At least that's why we have had the laws that we've had, and it's more than just politics. This is a complete social approach, not a universal one in every sense, although there's universal values we're drawing upon, but I take a lot of inspiration and applications into particular situations from the American decentralized tradition, so there's a lot about localism.

Nations, Leadership, and Christian Institutional Renewal

You're going to see a lot of talk about what is a nation biblically. I refute the proposition nation. You're going to see a lot about leadership. I explain in the best way I know how what managerial elitism is, why it's a threat, and what the alternative is, which is a virtuous leadership that we need to restore to our institutions, especially our Christian institutions.

There's a lot in there about a lot of different things, but all problems that I've seen arising, especially since 2020, they've been around before that, but I'm seeing crisis points emerge where people really are trying to navigate questions that they haven't navigated before.

I talk about same-sex attraction in the book. I talk about what lessons we can pull from the woke church controversy, and now that we have some distance from it, we can look back and gain some applications.

National Revival and Hope in the Midst of Institutional Failure

I talk about national revival and what that might look like, and maybe even give you some hope, because I do see plenty of things to hope in. I think God's still working, even when our Christian institutions fail us.

So anyway, there's a lot more that could be said, but I don't want to give you the whole book. You got to read it yourself. Again, go to againstthewavesbook .com. It's available in Kindle. It's also available on Audible, so you can enjoy that as well if you're an audiobook kind of person, and let me know what you think.

God bless.