We Must Solve This for our Civilization to Continue

There where I said the most important question.

Or defining question, I can't remember how I phrased it, for the future of our civilization and its survival is who fills the vacuum left behind by legacy institutions that we once trusted? And some of the reactions were, no, that's not the most important question, John.

The most important question is, is do people know Jesus? And I think this is actually one of the problems in certain forms of Christianity, like the idea that if people have a born again experience that solves all these social issues in the temporal realm, it certainly helps like a great deal with a great many things, but you can tell even in our Christian institutions where you have people who all have personal testimonies, it seems like there's a problem on the elite levels.

Does that mean that they're not Christians because they lack courage? Well, it means there's a weakness, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily not a Christian or they lack prudence. Does that mean they're not a Christian if they lack prudence?

Let's see what I'm getting at. So anyway, I want to kind of flesh out what I meant by that. And it's one of the reasons I actually wrote this book, Against the Waves, Christian Order in a Liberal Age.

You can go to johnharrispodcast .com or actually you can go to, I think, againstthewavesbook .com and get a copy, but it's on Amazon.

It's on Audible.

I wrote a few chapters though on this issue of leadership and just to briefly summarize something that I think is important for this. The temporal world that I live in, my children live in, my grandchildren will inherit, this physical world, it'll look a certain way.

It will have certain institutions or certain mechanisms that are inescapable. You're gonna have to have a market. You're gonna have to have a place to get information. You're gonna have to have ways to adjudicate disputes.

All of these things just come with life. And it's gonna look a certain way based upon the directions of these institutions that are influential. And those institutions and their direction, those are going to be determined based upon who controls those institutions.

So we want virtuous people who, preferably Christians, who have skin in the game and who are prudent and just and have self-control and are brave. We want those kinds of people behind our leadership class, in our leadership class.

And one of the problems we face is we have a leadership class that is loyal to itself. They're managers, managerial elites. They're loyal to themselves. A lot of them are cunning, they're snakes, but they aren't loyal to the people that necessarily serve.

And I think we all know that. I think trust has been broken, but what's gonna fill that gap remains to be seen. Now, in pre-modern times, I talk about this in the book, you had kings or nobility or even landed gentry that had a certain function in society.

They understood about themselves. They were self-aware. They had to set a moral example. So they had to exercise virtue in their lives so that people under them would exercise virtue. And then you had, during the Industrial Revolution, the robber barons or oil tycoons and big money, big oil, big steel, Carnegie and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, and these guys, I think that there was a switch that happened.

And they were maybe less concerned about those responsibilities, but they still took philanthropy very seriously. So they're somewhat of a transfer, but our tech elites, there really isn't much of a transfer.

You could say Elon Musk is exercising some courage and so forth, but like his personal life, is he really setting a standard? And our legacy institutions like academia, politics, and sports, and the marketplace, big business and entertainment media, things that we utilize, the people who are platformed and in charge and that kind of thing don't set standards of morality either, not very often at least.

They don't see that responsibility so much. And if they do, it's usually a bad standard, right? So I think one of the things we need is to get back to these standards. We've been relying on leaders at lower levels to set the standard in local communities, people in voluntary organizations, local pastors, people who take leadership in the community, they tend to have more virtue.

They tend to operate at a scale in which they can be punished more if they don't have virtue. And the accountability that comes with the people in their actual community rather than other managerial elites.

So knowing that exists means if you happen to gain power like a Trump figure, or you build an institution that outclasses, let's say you build a media empire that outclasses the media empire that currently exists, you have to look for people to fill these positions and you need to tap people that have exercised virtue at these lower levels and proven themselves.

That's one of the things I talk about. Another thing is if you live and have the bandwidth at lower levels to be involved in voluntary organizations or to start some charitable organizations, trail life for the formation of young leaders.

I mean, this is where things are tested. This is where men become men because they go from boys to that challenge that makes them prove themselves in the community of men. And you can be part of that.

You can even be part of that in communities where fathers have neglected their responsibilities and you can help, not perfectly, but in some way to restore a sense of order, to build these character qualities for future men who will be in more influential positions.

It also means you may need to stop running from an influential position. If you're a man and you have been in a position that lacks influence and maybe it's because, well, I don't want that hassle, maybe reconsider.

Maybe you should put yourself out there to run for school board first, or to run for town counselor. Maybe it's not politics. Maybe you need to take a more ministerial role or go to law school. I don't know.

But that's another thing that we're going to need, obviously, virtuous men. And I don't know exactly who fills this gap. One of the concerning things is there's a lot of people without a lot of trust and without a lot of discernment, and they're going to gravitate towards just online voices.

Even as I speak to some of you, you're listening to me online. How do you determine whether or not I'm who I say I am? And I mean, some of you have been listening to me for a long time. You hear me share personal stories.

You hear other people vouch for me. But in all honesty, you could do a lot in a studio. Obviously, I'm not in a studio. Maybe that's one of the things that vouches for me, but you could do a lot in a studio.

You can dress a certain way. You can be a complete charlatan and just act for a camera and gain a following. And this presents problems where there are also potential strengths. We can go around the classic traditional media, but it also means this makes room for some real bad actors.

So, you know, and that's obviously only one avenue. That's the media. That doesn't solve problems in other arenas. So what are we going to do with all the various arenas where leadership is demonstrated?

How are we going to fill those roles? That, I think, is the question. It really is moving forward. That's gonna set the tone for the rest of society and where people as a whole go. Because where power is, where examples are, are where people end up gravitating toward.

That's what sets policy. The experience of history shows this. So it's important, especially in Christian institutions, to make sure that the people filling these roles are virtuous. That's why you even have standards of virtue in scripture for the men who are gonna run the church.

They need to prove themselves to those in their communities, those around them. Even the non-Christians need to, those who observe their lives need to see virtue demonstrated there. And that's gonna manifest itself as there's challenges, as there's, I mean, it's one of the things I've said, like in 2020, look around you.

Who was actually bold? Who was saying true things in that moment? Who didn't cower, right? Those are the people you need to be looking for for leadership, even now. But sadly, like in institutions like the SBC, those people are still on the margins.

Those people are still ignored. And the people who ran you into icebergs are still the ones that are leading the organization, even though they're claiming they're, they're trying to position themselves like they're on the right or something.

This is a problem. So exercise discernment, and then put your money where your mouth is, put your time where your mouth is, and give to those things that actually showcase virtue and have demonstrated it on the field.

It's not about personality. That's not what leadership is. It's not about who your friends are. That's not what leadership is. It's about who you are internally. Do you have actual virtue? And when the going gets tough, it's tested.

That's how you solve the problem of leadership. And you're gonna have to have mechanisms to test this. We have some, but they're on lower levels primarily. So check out my book. I talk a lot more about this problem, and I talk a lot more about how to find leaders and some ideas that I have for figuring out mechanisms to do just that.

Against the waves, Christian order in a liberal age. God bless.