American Protestant Churches — Why do they Decline?

No authentic fellowship, no doctrinal stringency, no masculine leadership, no spiritual relevancy, no life.

Readership: All; Men; Christians;
Theme: Cracking Nuts
Length: 1,300 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Why Are American Protestant Churches Declining?

We’ve all seen headlines like these.

These articles go over a wide range of reasons why the church is in decline, but I sense there are some things left unsaid. So here, I’ll go over what I believe are the foundational reasons why Mainline and Evangelical Protestant churches are fading, in that order, followed by some general conclusions.

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Posted in Choosing a Church, Churchianity, Collective Strength, Complementarianism, Convergence, Cultural Anthropology, Faith Community, Generations, Gynocentrism, Models of Failure, Paradigms of Religion, Protestantism, Reviews, Therapeutic Moralistic Deism | 26 Comments

American Evangelical Protestant Churches — Why do they Grow?

They focus on the family, fellowship, and young adults.

Readership: All; Men; Christians;
Theme: Cracking Nuts
Length: 1,200 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Foreword

I’ve done a little online research, covering many articles, to come up with the following summary of why some American Evangelical Protestant (AEP) churches are rising, while others are failing.  Many articles have covered this topic, but IMO, they fail to connect the dots and offer a comprehensive assessment.  So here’s mine.

This study focuses on AEP churches; however, I believe the following characteristics may correlate well for most growing Protestant churches in the West, and are not limited to AEP churches.

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Posted in Choosing a Church, Collective Strength, Discernment, Wisdom, Fundamental Frame, Leadership, Models of Success, Organization and Structure, Paradigms of Religion, Power, Protestantism, Purpose, Relationships, Sphere of Influence, Strategy | 28 Comments

The Prophecies of Ed Hurst

Ed Hurst spelled out the decline of American Evangelical Protestantism, and offered a legitimate alternative to that kind of Christian religion by returning to Hebrew mystical roots.

Readership: Christian Men
Theme: Christian Red Pill; Cracking Nuts; Cultural Surveys;
Length: 1,200 words
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Biography of Ed Hurst

Ed Hurst (born September 18, 1956, in Seminole, Oklahoma) is an American Christian writer, blogger, and founder of the Radix Fidem covenant community. After serving in the U.S. Army in Europe, he worked various jobs before entering public education. He studied at Oklahoma Baptist University with plans for ministry and pursued interests in Western Civilization, church history, and philosophy. Disillusioned by mainstream evangelical institutions, he developed Radix Fidem (“Root of Faith”) as a decentralized, heart-led approach to Christian living rooted in ancient Hebrew mysticism rather than Western rationalism or institutional structures. Since around 2012, he has written daily on his blog, Kiln of the Soul (AKA the Radix Fidem Blog), emphasizing covenant loyalty to God, the Unseen Realm, sacrificial love in small communities, and rejection of “monster churches” tied to empire and culture. He has also authored numerous books on faith, marriage, and masculine Christian identity, including Radix Fidem: A New and Ancient Religion.

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Posted in Authentic Authority, Authority, Choosing a Church, Churchianity, Collective Strength, Complementarianism, Convergence, Counterfeit/False Paradigms, Cultural Anthropology, Discernment, Wisdom, Faith Community, Fundamental Frame, Generations, God's Concept of Justice, Headship and Patriarchy, Headship Authority, Legacy, Models of Failure, Mysticism, Near East, Organization and Structure, Paradigms of Religion, Personal Domain, Power, Prophecy, Protestantism, Reviews, Society, Sphere of Influence, The Power of God, Zeitgeist Reports | 4 Comments

The Para-Prophecies of Dalrock

Dalrock unpacked Michael Spencer’s predictions to a T (for Tingles).

Readership: Christian Men
Theme: Christian Red Pill; Cracking Nuts; Cultural Surveys;
Note: The term, ‘Para-Prophecy’, is defined as expositions that explain prophecies in more exact detail.
Length: 1,000 words
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Dalrock’s Contributions to Spencer’s Impact

St. Michael Spencer died in 2010.  However, upon Spencer’s decommission, the Lord raised up another prophet in the Christian blogosphere to carry on his work.  Dalrock, a pseudonymous Christian Manosphere blogger [Archive], began his commission 75 days after Spencer went to be with the Lord, and remained active from 2010–2020.

It is unknown whether Dalrock ever read Michael Spencer’s writings (he never mentioned Spencer’s work in all his years of blogging), nevertheless, Dalrock expanded Spencer’s diagnosis by uncovering the same core failures of the Evangelical Church that Spencer had predicted.

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Posted in Adultery and Fornication, Antimonianism, Authority, Chivalry, Choosing a Church, Churchianity, Collective Strength, Complementarianism, Convergence, Counterfeit/False Paradigms, Courtship and Marriage, Cultural Anthropology, Culture Wars, Decision Making, Discerning Lies and Deception, Divorce, Education, Faith Community, Faux-Masculinity, Feminism, Fundamental Frame, Generations, Gynocentrism, Headship and Patriarchy, Headship Authority, Holding Frame, Models of Failure, Organization and Structure, Paradigms of Religion, Protestantism, Purity Culture, Therapeutic Moralistic Deism | 14 Comments

The Prophecies of Michael Spencer

The state of the Evangelical church today was predicted back in 2009.

Readership: Christian Men
Theme: Christian Red Pill; Cracking Nuts; Cultural Surveys; 
Length: 1,700 words
Reading Time: 9 minutes

A reader asked me to review the life, work, and impact of Michael Spencer, AKA The Internet Monk.  So here it is.

About Michael Spencer

Dennis Michael Spencer (1956–2010), known online as the Internet Monk, was a Southern Baptist minister, campus chaplain, teacher, and influential Christian blogger.

Spencer was born in Kentucky and lived most of his life in Oneida, a small town in rural Kentucky. He graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1984 and served for decades in youth ministry, pastoring, and as a chaplain and teacher at a Christian school.

Spencer described himself as a “post-Evangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality”.

In the early 2000s, after the 2000 elections, he launched the Internet Monk blog, where he critiqued American Evangelicalism with honesty, wit, and a deep love for a “Jesus-shaped spirituality”. His writings attracted hundreds of thousands of readers who appreciated his candid reflections on faith, his love for the church, and his willingness to expose shallowness, political idolatry, and “cultural captivity” (later termed “cultural convergence”) within Evangelicalism.

He authored the book Mere Churchianity (2010) before dying of cancer on April 5, 2010, at age 53.

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Posted in Authority, Choosing a Church, Churchianity, Collective Strength, Complementarianism, Convergence, Cultural Anthropology, Culture Wars, Decision Making, Education, Evangelism, Faith Community, Generations, Legacy, Models of Failure, Organization and Structure, Paradigms of Religion, Parenting, Politics, Power, Prophecy, Protestantism, Reviews, Society, Therapeutic Moralistic Deism, Zeitgeist Reports | 8 Comments

Who is Making the Upper Cut?

What divides the “Have’s” and the “Have Nots”?

Readership: All
Theme: Cracking Nuts; The Christian Red Pill;
Author’s Note: Based on an email exchange with jvangeld on 2025/12/14-16.
Length: 1,350 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Greene’s Series on the New Economic Divide

A long-time regular reader, jvangeld, writes in.

Hi Jack,

I don’t know if you have seen Michael Green’s series on downward social mobility.

From the conclusion of Green’s second article:

“By inflating asset prices, we didn’t create wealth; we destroyed mobility. We turned the ladder into a drawbridge, raised it up, and told the people stuck outside to be grateful that the castle looks so expensive.”

There’s a lot to unpack. But the entitlement of the sexual “Have’s” against the sexual “Have Not’s” of the 2010s is mirrored exactly in the current economic discourse.”

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Posted in Building Wealth, Collective Strength, Cultural Anthropology, Discernment, Wisdom, Fundamental Frame, Generational Curses, Generations, Introspection, Models of Success, Power, Socio-Economic Class Studies, Stewardship | 3 Comments

Is the Current Drop in Fertility due to the Decrease in Marriage or the Mating Glut?

Histrionics or unrestrained hypergamy?

Readership: All
Theme:
 Cracking Nuts; Gunk;
RPA’s Note: This post explores my previous comment.  Coauthored with Jack.
Jack’s Note: RPA and I kicked this around for a few days in early October 2024, but couldn’t arrive at a conclusive answer to the titular question. Nevertheless, I think it’s worth publishing what we discussed.
Length: 2,600 words
Reading Time: 14 minutes

Decreasing Fertility

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), defined as the average number of children born to each woman in a country, has been decreasing all around the world since the 1960s, and is now below replacement levels in many areas of the developed world.

What are the mechanisms leading to the abysmal birth rates?

Jack and Red Pill Apostle have studied this for a while, and we’ve identified the following factors.

  1. The Convenience of Choice — The primary reason, coinciding with the timing of the decreased birth rate, is the wide availability of Abortion / Birth Control, making it waaay Too Easy for women to avoid or end a pregnancy.
  2. Fading Religious Convictions have led to a decreased motivation for women to marry and have children.
  3. The Decrease in Marriage — Fewer men and women are getting married.
  4. The Postponement of Marriage — Women are postponing marriage into their late 20s and 30s, and are therefore having fewer children.
  5. The Difficulty of Out of Wedlock Births — Although it’s easier than in the past, single women who have children must depend on themselves, the government welfare dole, or a court order stipulating that a man (not necessarily the father) must pay child support. All these are incentives NOT to have OOWB.
  6. Women’s Preference to Wait until Marriage to Have Children — In general, women are unwilling to have children outside of marriage. Although we’ve seen an increase of OOWB coinciding with the decrease in marriage and an increase in cohabitation, we believe this uptick doesn’t make up for the overall decrease in births.
  7. Women’s UNWillingness to Have Children — In general, Western women view pregnancy as if it were a death sentence, hence why they impulsively and profusely abort and postpone having children until their last resort option of freezing their last dozen eggs. Marriage notwithstanding.
  8. The Stalemate — Women are unable to pair up with and latch down men with whom they’re willing to marry / procreate with, before they Hit the Wall, mostly because these women are not offering anything more than sex in the way of a relationship and are wholly unworthy of commitment / marriage / motherhood.
  9. The Mating Glut — Women are unwilling to have children with the men available to them for commitment / marriage, presumably because the men they want are not willing to commit, or the men available to them are seen as inferior quality, but actually because of women’s entitlement and vanity.
  10. Government Support — Governments offer incentives which can either increase or decrease marriages and the fertility rate, but we don’t have many of the former, and plenty of the latter.
  11. Artificial Insemination is increasing, and this should, theoretically, increase the birth rate, but again, we don’t believe this makes up for the overall decrease in births.

All these factors exist to varying degrees in many states and countries around the world, but especially within Western and Westernized nations, and the combinatory effect will vary on a country-by-country, or even a state-by-state basis. Nevertheless, the overall effect is massive.

In this post, we’ll go over our findings for some of these factors.

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Posted in Abortion and Birth Control, Adultery and Fornication, Asia, Calculated Risk Taking, Central America, China, Contraceptives, Courtship and Marriage, Cultural Anthropology, Decision Making, Ethical Systems, Female Evo-Psych, Fundamental Frame, Government, Hypergamy, International, Intersexual Dynamics, Manosphere, MGTOW, Incels, Models of Failure, Organization and Structure, Parenting, Philippines, Psychology, Relationships, Sex, Single Parents, Society, Socio-Economic Class Studies, South America, Taiwan | 24 Comments

Student Loan Forgiveness: Pros and Cons

To forgive debt, or not to forgive debt? — A poignant question for the younger generation.

Readership: All
Theme: Cracking Nuts; The Christian Red Pill
Length: 1,000 words
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Intro

With the rising chasm between the “Have’s” and “Have Not’s”, the issue of widespread student loan debt and ‘forgiveness’ has become a pivotal flashpoint in today’s politicoeconomic climate (or it was until recently).

It is insightful to have a comprehensive summary of this topic, reflecting upon Biblical / Red Pill wisdom, accountability gaps between genders, government overreach, and declining employment prospects for young men and women alike, due to contradicting social forces.

Here, I’ve compiled a summary of the topic, heavily informed by Farm Boy’s post at Spawny’s Space, Bail Me Out (2025/12/29), and the responding comments.

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Posted in Agency, Calculated Risk Taking, Choosing a College, Choosing A Profession, Collective Strength, Conserving Power, Cultural Anthropology, Decision Making, Determination, Devouring Mother, Discerning Lies and Deception, Forgiveness, Freedom, Personal Liberty, Fundamental Frame, Government, Holding Frame, Masculine Disciplines, Maturity, Personal Growth and Development, Politics, Power, Purpose, Reviews, Society, Socio-Economic Class Studies | 17 Comments

Why Taiwan Can Liberalize, but China Cannot

Earning potential and social capital are more important than what the CCP thinks!

Readership: Men
Theme: Cracking Nuts
Length: 800 words
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Why China Cannot Liberalize

“Broadly, [Liberalization is defined as] the opening of society, politics, and the economy. Specifically, … measures like relaxing press censorship, opening elections, and opening financial markets.”

“…liberalizing is fraught and difficult and creates vulnerabilities, perhaps catastrophic vulnerabilities that the Chinese likely see as becoming more acute…”

The Reading Group: Why China Cannot Liberalize (2025/11/11)*

In response to this article, it may be insightful to compare China and Taiwan — the same ethnic people, the same culture, but vastly different political and socioeconomic conditions.

So here, I’ll go over a few reasons why I think Taiwan has been able to liberalize.

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Posted in Asia, Authority, China, Collective Strength, Conflict Management, Conserving Power, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Differences, Elite Cultural Influences, Gentile Authority, Government, International, Models of Failure, Models of Success, Organization and Structure, Power, Society, Taiwan | 5 Comments

A Concise History of Christian Missions in China and Taiwan

Christianity has endured a long hard slog in China and Taiwan.

Readership: All
Theme: Cracking Nuts; The Christian Red Pill; Transactions;
Length:
 1,500 words
Reading Time: 8 minutes

There’s a lot of history here, so I’ll only summarize the highlights in this essay.

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Posted in Answered Prayers, Asia, Authentic Authority, Calculated Risk Taking, Catholicism, China, Collective Strength, Communications, Conserving Power, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Differences, Determination, Discipline, Enduring Suffering, Ethical Systems, Evangelism, Faith Community, International, Leadership, Models of Success, Mysticism, Paradigms of Religion, Perseverance, Power, Protestantism, Socio-Economic Class Studies, Sphere of Influence, Taiwan, Teaching, The Power of God | 5 Comments