The Boniface Option

 

The Boniface Option - A Strategy for Christian Counteroffensive in a Post-Christian Nation - Adrew Isker

Dear Lutherans: Yes, justification is the doctrine on which the Church stands and falls. Yes, the primary end of Christianity is the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation of souls. But we are not to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. Recall, the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind" but the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself". We love our neighbors when we expose the lies and the framework that modern industrial society (which enables 'fake and gay') has created for us to sustain a consumer environment. For the pearl-clutchers hung up on a 'winsome witness' - are you going to allow modern society to frame your witness? God forbit it! No, rather, we must fight the frame of the world and present Christ as He truly is: unwilling to snuff the smoldering wick, but willing to tie millstones around necks and clear temples with a switch when the situation demands it. 

With that in mind, a review of The Boniface Option.

In the preface Isker sets up the tone for the book, telling us we live in trashworld to refer to our dystopian society (I'm not sure the genesis of the term but I kept thinking of Idiocracy), and that it's all 'fake and gay' a pejorative used throughout, but thoroughly explained: Modern life is fake, we eat industrial foods and such that can only be supported by the unprecedented wealth created by industrialism, and modern life is gay - when not literally, spiritually - in the sense of creating alpha consumers with high time-preference, quote "the homosexual is both the apex consumer and the easiest personality to manipulate and lord over." 

Isker starts off by reminding us that different groups use the same words but different dictionaries (13) and goes in hard on early feminism being the root cause of modern problems (24), and he digs into this with particular detail throughout the book. Women have been liberated to a soulless existence. He further expands on being 'spiritually homosexual' while first introducing the idea that hate, properly directed, is Christian (this caused a little tizzy on the Twitter, but come on guys, Ps 139:22...). Our modern environment is designed to emasculate men (50). 'The sexual revolution began at around the same time all revolutions got their start... at the very outset of the Enlightenment... waiting for technological advances to fulfill the grand, utopian designs they had only theorized after casting the Triune God from His heavenly throne" (59). "The trans man is the physical embodiment of what the feminist is spiritually" (63). 

With chapter 7 and following Isker provides correctives. The decline started with Charles Finney and the Second Great Awakening by shifting the focus of the Church's worship from delivering God's gifts to the faithful to being fundamentally about evangelism. He takes a few pages to talk about liturgical worship and how the NT church is an extension of the OT church and the directives in Leviticus 9 (83) largely have shaped traditional liturgy. (As Lutherans - we should know this better than anyone, and yet we fail time and time again.) Without giving too much away (you should buy the book), Isker then suggests that modern households have more in common with ancient slaves than households (94), that men need to lead change first with their families, then by 'de-atomizing' (108) and forming real flesh and blood bonds in the local congregation, then by improving themselves physically and spiritually (118) to take care of their family and congregation, and extract their children from government schools. 

An extended quote from the conclusion: "The only thing that emasculated, non-confrontational, neutral-world Christianity can do is do everything it can to make the Christian religion palatable to the bugman... We cannot act like Paul on Mars Hill pointing out the altar to the unknown god in Acts 17. Globohomo believes in nothing; it has no Areopagus, much less an altar to the unknown god. What they believe is undergirded by nothing ... Instead, you must do what Jesus did when opposing those who are incapable of acting in good faith - you hold them in derision. That is Christlike... We must learn to become truly Christlike, to confront the great evils and disgusting idolatries of our day manfully and with great passion and intensity, and also to show kindness and gentleness to those suffering the most from the horrors of Trashworld."

In my opinion the book provides a good diagnostic and lays out the problem of modern society in an easy to access manner and provides some useful suggestions for countermanding. If you are in Isker's circles on Twitter/Gab a lot will be a rehash of things of which you are likely already aware but having it all in one place is useful, convenient, and a concise resource to share with others. While Resisting the Dragon's Beast was focused on government resistance this book is focused on broader societal issues, and in that sense, they complement each other well.

Finally - the cover art is fantastic. And the quality of the typesetting for a print on demand book is excellent. Well executed and a pleasure to read. Thank you, Pastor Isker!