The Aaron Renn Show

What are people saying about you when you aren't in the room? Everybody has a rap sheet. The only question is whether we know what's on ours. Unless we know what people really think of us, we have no opportunity to improve on our weaknesses.

In this podcast I share some of the personal, painful feedback I received.  I also discuss ways you can look for good feedback for yourself. And philosophies about how to deal with our weaknesses.

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In 2013 Bill Hybels foretold a looming succession crisis for churches. He ended up being more right than he knew. He observed that there had been an explosion of mega-churches, many still led by a founding pastor approaching retirement age.

His prophecy has very much come true. Not only did his own succession not go well, we've seen several succession plans unravel recently. John Piper's successor at Bethlehem Baptist recently resigned. There are pastoral searches underway for two of the three major locations at the spin off churches of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. And the challenges facing David Platt and McLean Bible Church likely also have some roots in succession.

There are three major models of succession: the internal successor, the external peer successor, and the unofficial interim. In this podcast I discuss these models, as well as other considerations of succession.  Given high profile succession challenges we've seen at churches run by world class leaders, this is an area requiring significant attention.

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A recent controversy over the election of elders at McLean Bible Church shows that power politics rule in the religious world as much as the secular one.  It's an illustration of what people in power are willing to do to win.

Christianity Today: Platt’s McLean Bible Church Hit With Attempted Takeover, Lawsuit from Opposition: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/july/david-platt-mclean-bible-church-elder-race-politics-critics.html

The media glamorizes people making the choice to defer marriage and children in order to focus on other priorities like career. While this is a free country and people absolutely have the right to live their lives how they want, the longer term consequences of this for many is not as well advertised. The proliferation of older singles in the pews is in part a downstream consequence of these decisions. The church should not simply become an underwriter of other people's choices to live life on their own terms. While the church absolutely be adjusting to the new realities of more singles in congregations, it should also make sure the role of individual choice in how people ended up where they are is fully acknowledged. And people should be challenged to make different choices going forward.

I also look back at a famous sermon on abuse by Jason Meyer, the successor to superstar evangelical John Piper as senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Blog post on Jason Meyer's sermon: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/bethlehem-baptist-churchs-jason-meyer

Text and video of Jason Meyer's sermon: https://bethlehem.church/sermon/fooled-by-false-leadership/

NYT article on deferring marriage:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/declining-birthrate-motherhood.html

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Are the top people in the evangelical world really elite? Are they elite evangelicals or evangelical elites?  In reality, they are a sort of sub-elite, more adjacent to than part of the genuine American elite. This episode looks at how to think about and talk about the top people within evangelicalism. It also examines the roots of progressive energy in red states in the "progressive yokel." 

This is the second installment in a series looking at the Dissident Right. This series is covering five major commonalities of Dissident Right groups, with this issue covering red pill sexuality and transgressive affect.

Red pill sexuality is a model of intersexual dynamics based on evolutionary psychology, and a library of techniques for picking up or interacting with women known as "Game." Transgressive affect refers to the use of provocative or offensive images or rhetoric as a shock tactic.

The email version of this issue, which has the images of sample memes and links to further resources, is available at: https://themasculinist.com/the-masculinist-54-taking-the-red-pill/

It's been 70 years since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of spying for the Soviets and sentenced to death.  The left continues to discuss this case and argue that the Rosenbergs (or at least Ethel) were victims of injustice. We can learn patterns of left-wing behavior from observing this case, including that they are relentless and never give up, that they are loyal, and that they use ever shifting rhetoric that often "disguises their power levels."  I discuss these patterns and then apply them to show how we might expect the sexuality debates in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) to play out over time (in part).

Links to articles about the Rosenberg case.

London Review of Books: How Utterly Depraved - https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n13/deborah-friedell/how-utterly-depraved

NYT: The Rosenbergs, 50 Years Later; Yes, They Were Guilty. But of What Exactly?  - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/weekinreview/nation-rosenbergs-50-years-later-yes-they-were-guilty-but-what-exactly.html

The Guardian: The Rosenbergs were executed for spying in 1953. Can their sons reveal the truth?  - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/19/rosenbergs-executed-for-spying-1953-can-sons-reveal-truth

NPR Boston: Why Ethel Rosenberg Should Not Be Exonerated - https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/01/05/julius-rosenberg-soviet-spying-mark-kramer

Wikipedia: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

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Conservatives and Christians are very enamored of classical education. Studying the classics, the American founding, etc. are important things to do.  But there are other important areas that people living in today's world. These items, including intersexual dynamics, the impact of industrialization, the revolution in scale, and the implications of mass media are often understudied. This leaves conservatives with key blind spots.

This episode also includes further thoughts on playing for keeps and whether or not pastors should use packaged sermons, research assistants, or other help.

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Darren Beattie once noted that "there is a profound psychological gulf between playing for scraps and playing for keeps."  This podcast is a short discussion of how people on the left play for keeps while too often conservatives seem to be playing for scraps.

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People on the internet throw the term "red pilled" around a lot. It obviously derives from the film the Matrix. But how should we think about the term and what it means? I discuss in using the examples of the statistics I've highlighted about how women initiate around 70% of divorces, doomsday cults, the Matrix, and Plato's Republic. To be red pilled involves some sort of painful disconnecting from beliefs that have shaped our reality or identity. This is difficult to do, which is why we need to think as much about how we deliver information as what information we are delivering.

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