That Good Fight: A Reformation for Gentlemen – Details, episodes & analysis

What kind of leadership changes cultures for good? President Trump's first week in office included all sorts of executive orders which go against the grain of the cultural tide of previous decades. To many observers, much of this seems like the kind of common sense decision-making we've not seen in some time. Yet for others (including many Christians on our side of the pond) such actions only further fuel the fires of malice against the likes of Trump. Why is this?

Is the modern Christian aversion to strong, masculine leadership a good thing or does it show the way we've been unduly influenced by the principles and stories of the secular, liberal, feminist paradigm over decades? What is the root of the loss of honour and risk in modern leadership? How might the recent "vibe shift" towards conservative principles in the US affect the culture (and the Church) here in the UK?

Why is Christmas still the high point of the secular calendar year? Why does it remain so embedded within the cultural imagination? Perhaps because Christmas is the clearest public manifestation of "Christendom" that there ever was.

 

What is at stake when the Christianity of Christmas is gradually minimised? Is it something worth fighting for? With secularism and Islam encroaching in the West today, seemingly innocuous Christmas traditions may matter more than ever. The Church of England often squanders its unique opportunity to uphold this Christendom heritage in/around Christmas. What can good Christian gentlemen do to take back "Xmas" for Christ and proclaim his lordship in and through it?

 

Join Aaron, Nathan, and Tom for a special festive episode of That Good Fight, where we talk about everything from carols, lights, sermons, Saracens' heads, Dickens, Scrooge, Kierkegaard, Prince Albert, Luther, Handel, all the way to Nathan's curious model Christmas village. God rest ye merry, gentlemen!

How should Christians think about their nation? Is patriotism inevitably idolatrous? Whilst modern Christians have many reasons for being cautious of nationalistic fervour, few are aware of the reverse problem. Many westerners today are taught to be embarrassed by their national heritage and culture, leading to significant cultural decay. This affects not only national cultures but also local family and folk cultures, which risk becoming evermore obsolete as the West becomes more uniformly globalised.

Does God not care about any of this? Has he called His people to care about such issues or to ignore them? Does national identity play any role in a Christian's mission to advance the kingdom of God in and to the nations of this world? Join Nathan and Aaron as they talk about this vital topic for our times.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might
Defy the devil and act like men
Love the brotherhood
Fear God Christ is Lord
God save the king...

That Good Fight **SPECIAL EPISODE** - on Aaron's Week in Court

In this special episode of That Good Fight we talk about Aaron's recent employment tribunal with the evangelical Bible college that infamously fired him for a tweet challenging the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the Church. Aaron recounts his story and elaborates on some of the details he was previously unable to disclose about the case. Alongside Nathan and Tom, he discusses the lessons that might be learned from the experience of being an evangelical in a courtroom seeking truth and justice. They also talk about why more Christians ought to think about the significance of the legal system, and the role it will play in the rebuilding of Christendom in these lands and beyond.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Defy the devil and act like men

Love the brotherhood

Fear God Christ is Lord

God save the king...

What Does It Mean To Be Christendomian?

Many evangelicals have been taught that to care too much about wider issues of culture, politics, and society, would be a distraction from the Gospel. But even if forms of "social action" have often been a worldly preoccupation for liberals, evangelicals dismiss the call for societal transformation at their peril. Refusing to be salt and light in the world will eventually come back to haunt the Church in the end. While there are certainly some negative byproducts of historic Christendom, including worldly corruption and nominal faith, what if those evangelicals most keen to embrace a "post-Christendom" attitude invite other forms of worldliness and unfaithfulness into their thinking and (in)action? Does a robust approach to socio-political influence inevitably lead to compromise? Or are there ways of combining a truly pious faith of the heart with the outward influence akin to the kingdom of God for which we're called to pray "on earth as it is in heaven"? Aaron and Nathan discuss all this and more, including the surprising significance of a certain Kevin Costner film.   

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Defy the devil and act like men

Love the brotherhood

Fear God Christ is Lord

God save the king...

What was the Reformation and why does it matter?   In this episode, Nathan and Aaron discuss when church authorities can and should be challenged in light of the authority of Scripture. Whilst some see the Reformation as sacred and the Reformers almost like venerated saints, others see it as a heresy that undermined the Church and introduced liberalism. But how can we think about applying the spirit of the Reformation to the wider Church today? What are the "traditions" that get in the way of hearing and applying the Word of God in our time, and what can we do about it?  

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Defy the devil and act like men

Love the brotherhood

Fear God Christ is Lord

God save the king...

What is an "evangelical" and why should we care?

Here's some of what we got into:

• Emerging Church apostates
• Exvangelical deconstruction
• TGC-centredness
• Compromise & cowardice
• Defence, offence, proclamation

Given the increasingly broad amount of people who now use that term, should we ditch it altogether? Aaron and Nathan talk through some of their own story as evangelicals over the last two decades, including the influence of various movements that have arisen within evangelicalism in the time they've known one another, such as the Emerging Church, the New Calvinism, The Gospel Coalition, and now, "Exvangelicalsm". They talk through and what we need for a more robustly evangelical approach in the years ahead, concerned not merely with "guarding" the truth, but going on the offensive in "proclaiming" the truth when and how it needs to be proclaimed.

 

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Defy the devil and act like men

Love the brotherhood

Fear God Christ is Lord

God save the king...

A new podcast from 'That Good Fight' - a Reformation for Gentlemen. Featuring Aaron Edwards (@aaron_p_edwards), Tom Chaldecott (@TomChaldecott), and Nathan Paylor (@nathanpaylor).

This first episode is a “teaser” introducing the key themes around which we’ll be circling, focussed on what it means to being evangelical, reformational, Christendomian, patriotic, and gentlemanly. At a time in which the evangelical establishment is compromised, Christendom’s legacy is reviled, patriotism is despised, and Biblical masculinity is mocked and undermined, we seek to encourage a more hopeful, evangelical vision for Christendom which galvanises the right kind of gentlemen for the right kind of fight.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might;

Defy the Devil and act like men;

Love the brotherhood;

Fear God;

Christ is Lord;

God save the king.

One of the paradoxes of evangelical history is the tension between cultural excellence and religious piety. We have often been suspicious of aesthetic excellence, opting instead for simplicity and heart-level devotional experience. Why does Scripture instruct us to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs? Does God care about how melodic the music is, or are such concerns an inevitable heart distraction from true worship?

In this episode, Aaron sits down with special guest, Chris Horn, a trained chorister, to discuss music, worship, and the timeless brilliance of Handel’s Messiah, composed at the same time as the Great Awakening. What did John Wesley & co make of it? Are the concerns of evangelical heart religion divorced from a piece of music as complex as Handel’s?

How can evangelical churches begin to take musical aesthetics seriously again without succumbing to the aesthetic idolatry often found in the secularised choral tradition? How might musical excellence help the Church shape culture again?

For decades, western Christians have sought to build bridges to the socio-political Left.

They have sought to understand where such people are coming from and to “engage” with them, even where their beliefs have been sub-Christian. Yet this approach is not applied to men on the socio-political Right.

Is this because they fear association with social deplorables? How should Christians reach men on the right today? What are the dangers?

What are the consequences of shutting out the young men of the Right, and what is at stake if we do?

In this follow-up episode to their previous discussion, Aaron, Nathan, and Tom talk through the implications of the socio-political Right in the UK, the postwar consensus, the ongoing shadow of fascism in western culture, and the ongoing feuds these issues are causing within the new Reformed Right, encompassed by the recent “Antioch Declaration”.