Jesus, Bane of Tribalists
And why good things can't be ultimate
So lately its crossed our minds that some of you might be wondering about the hammering we’ve recently been administering to the so-called “woke right.”1 I mean, what gives? You paid (or maybe you didn’t) to see progressives roasted over a slow fire — why all this turning on our own side? No more brother wars, right? No enemies to the right — right? Well, not really. Paul, for example, felt free to announce God’s curse on his Jewish “brothers” for extending a counterfeit gospel to the Galatians. And he didn’t hesitate to shake Peter like a spaniel with a rope toy when he found out about his hypocrisy.
Brotherly rebuke is part of sanctification. It is part of God’s discipline. To avoid or be offended by it may indicate your illegitimacy, but it definitely doesn’t indicate your maturity. As Christians, our impulse must be to oppose any error, from any camp, including our own. The errors of the left are evil, but terribly disguised — like the 300-pound gorilla I saw last week with pigtails and a Jimmy Choo purse. The errors of the right are also evil, but they come like a shiv in the night . . . in that they’re unexpected. Not in that they’re made of soap.
The only way we resist evil — from whatever direction it comes — is to stay close to Jesus. He is the light that exposes the darkness.
Jesus the anti-tribalist
One of the many inconvenient things about Jesus is his stubborn refusal to be co-opted by special interest groups. During his earthly ministry, he managed to slice through every party line in existence: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Scribes, Zealots, Samaritans, Romans — you name it. And yet in refusing to trust himself to any of them (John 2:24), he somehow managed to offend all of them. Time and time again we see Jesus faced with the choice of harnessing the chaotic power of a mob. And time and time again we see him reject it.
Right about now would be the time to give a plug for Jesus as a classless socialist, but remember that Jesus also felt free to offend the classless socialists (Matthew 15:24, John 12:8).
Today we have different groups — globalists and technocrats, transhumanists and posthumanists, ethnocentrists and kinists, anarcho-syndicists and statists, neo-nazis, and Jewish playboys — but the same stubborn Jesus who refuses to lend his glory to their cause. And they know it. You’ve probably noticed how awkward, if not downright hostile, such groups get around Jesus. They’ll talk about politics, and economy, and birthrates, and technology, and identity, and nations, and family, and church, and homeschooling.
But rarely, if ever, does Jesus come into it. There’s a reason for this.
And the reason is that Jesus isn’t interested in the shabby triumph of any one of the million temporal kingdoms dream up for themselves — even the wholesome ones. He will not be their patron. He will not be grafted into the apparatus of influencers who need his endorsement for their online campaigns. He will not be worn as a pin or lucky charm on their lapels.
What he is interested in is the advancement of his kingdom, realized in the eventual and total redemption of all creation. His “tribe,” if it can even be called that, amounts to his eternally blood-bought church — nothing less, nothing more. Not that Jesus’ followers are absorbed into a tribeless collective (tongues and tribes are still identifiable around the throne) but that the fundamental barrier between people groups has been razed. “For [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made [Jews and Gentiles] one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,” (Eph. 2:14).
Again, this doesn’t mean that the legitimacy of nations, borders, and cultures are erased. It does mean that those who insist on the ultimacy of some lesser metric (i.e. ethnicity) in determining the bounds of Christian brotherhood are not actually acting like brothers. They’re acting like ideologues.
Disciples Vs. Ideologues
Perhaps the simplest definition of a disciple is someone who follows Jesus. Where Jesus goes, they follow. Where his word and his Spirit convict them of a sinful pattern of life or thought, they listen. Where they receive a faithful rebuke from a brother or sister, they repent. An ideologue, on the other hand, is someone who refuses to think outside his already-cemented paradigm. An ideologue cannot be Jesus’ disciple by definition since to be a disciple requires the willingness and humility to critique one’s own paradigms. A biblically equivalent term for an ideologue might be a fool — someone who insists on their own way despite wisdom’s intervention.
Because existing in a state of isolation is so precarious, ideologues are quick to form alliances with other like-minded ideologues. This echo chamber further entrenches them in the conviction of the rightness of their ideology while at the same time increasing their influence through sheer strength of numbers. Because they refuse to submit to any standard above themselves, the standard — the line that determines who’s “in” or “out” — soon becomes the tribe itself. What makes something true or false? The fact that the tribe says so. Within a tribe, evidence, reason, accountability, and sober-mindedness all become unnecessary. All that is needed are the ongoing assurances of the tribe.
Untethered from transcendent standards, the moral boundary markers of the tribe becomes arbitrary. Instead of appealing to biblical criteria for faith (i.e., the fruit of the spirit, repentance, faith, etc.) standards like physical capabilities, a luscious beard, and a cache of tribal nomenclature (i.e. “no enemies to the right,” “boomers,” “kings,” “based,”) become the new identifiers. These identifiers are powerful, and imbue the fragile ideologues with a sense of clandestine purpose.
One practical outworking of a tribal mentality is the reduction of all relationships into friends or enemies, with the line between them growing increasingly narrow. Those with critiques, questions, or concerns are viewed as a threat to the integrity of the tribe and are cast out. Viewed through the lense of Scripture, it appears that the rising ranks of pseudo-reformed gatekeepers do not accept the lines where Christ has drawn them — that is, between repentance and unrepentance. Rather, they only receive into their tribe those who pledge loyalty to them. Which is one of many reasons why such men should never be trusted with authority.
It should be said that the new wave of Christian Nationalist tribalists are not actually the defenders of the Christian West they claim to be. The ideological behaviour that is characteristic of their movement is, rather, the undoing of civilization. Not the foundation of it. The perpetual victimhood, lack of self-awareness, and resentment are not the attitudes of those that crossed oceans, cleared forests, built cathedrals, or penned constitutions. They are not the ones to defend the weak or feed Christ’s sheep.
They are, rather, those who would seek great things for themselves (Jeremiah 45:5).
Traitors in the gates
But the tribalist isn’t just a fool. He’s also a traitor. As we’ve noted, the tribalist requires ultimate allegiance to the tribe; which, in the end, is ultimate allegiance to oneself. But offering ultimate allegiance to anything or anyone but Christ is treason. Only when King Jesus is ultimate in our loyalties are all other loyalties ordered rightly. Only then can our allegiances be expressed appropriately.
Although some degree of loyalty is required in any healthy human relationships, it is always limited. In a marriage, a man is truly the head of his wife, but he himself is subject to Christ, who is the Head of the entire Church (Eph 5:23). One of the implications of this is that while the loyalty of a husband’s wife and children to him is real and binding, it isn’t ultimate. Only Christ possesses that kind of authority. Never mind that we’re also expecting treason of others when we make such demands for unconditional loyalty.
It was telling to see the unhinged reaction of a few online tribal warlords in response to the basic and non-controversial suggestion that the authority of husbands is not ultimate, and that a wife can honour both her husband and Christ by appealing to God-ordained authorities to help her. These men, apparently, consider the faithful petition of a wife treasonous. Again, the only way you can think such a thing is if someone considers allegiance to themselves ultimate. That is the attitude of a traitor and a tyrant — and when they tell you who they are, believe them.
It is also telling that the recent crop of tribal influencers will turn their daggers on their own fathers in the faith at even the slightest rebuke. These men know no honour. Again, they are only loyal to those who pledge allegiance to them. Their desire, like the false teachers of Paul’s day, is to flatter fools in the hopes of gaining influence: “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). They are self-aggrandizing revolutionaries who are desperate for allegiance, even if it’s a bunch of angry anons.
In contrast, a godly man does not desire the kind of allegiance which can only rightly be offered to Christ. And a godly man is eager to offer any and all allegiance that Christ requires him to give to others.
The tribalist gives neither. In his heart, he is a traitor.
Such treachery is antithetical to the faithful, loyal love that ought to characterize brothers and sisters in Christ (John 13:34-35), regardless of what tribe they’re in. This loyalty orders our duties or obligations. We have a duty to do good to all people, but “especially the household of God” (Gal 6:10). Pledging allegiance to King Jesus means pledging allegiance to His brothers and sisters as well. The love that ought to characterize Christian brothers and sisters is not a mere sentiment, but the overflow of a covenantal union that is brokered in blood and will stand forever.
Beyond mere humans
Paul resisted the tribal temptation fiercely. In his first letter he reminds the Corinthians that “Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not acting like mere humans?” This wasn’t a compliment. To behave like a mere human is to behave in a tribal manner; it is to behave in a manner the world understands and appreciates. Paul clarifies that the intent of his ministry wasn’t that they would build on him, but on Christ.
This is key. If you want to find out if a church, or a pastor, or a movement, is cruciform and not tribalistic, you should work hard to assess how much of their vocabulary is christocentric. Assess also how often they make reference to themselves, their ministries, and their influence.
We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking our Reformed-ness makes us safer in this regard. In a spectacular feat of irony, it seems like those who most fiercely cling to the doctrine of total depravity are also least likely to acknowledge it in themselves, their children, and their churches. Go to many Reformed churches and you will hear all kinds of sermons condemning the evils outside — of marxism, communism, and wokeism. But will you hear a sermon on the evil of pride? Or divisiveness? Or hypocrisy? Or partiality? Or envy and hatred? A church that can’t see the logs in its own eye is unlikely to be able to see clearly in regards to any of the logs outside. And let me tell you — there are whole lumber mills at work in even the most orthodox churches.
Being a disciple of Jesus will set you against others, but you will find the lines falling in surprising places — the father against the son, the mother against the daughter. In the kingdom of God, it is union with Christ that marks the fundamental boundary between brothers and sisters. It is non-intuitive; it is, in one sense, non-human. This is why the world hates us — not because we’re united with those who are like us, but because we’re united with those who aren’t. Such an attitude condemns the sectarian, power-hungry worldly system.
Jesus alone is the only good Shepherd. Where we hear his voice, we follow him. And the voice of another we dare not follow. This means we will likely have few heroes here below. And those we do have will most likely be dead, having the testimony of a faithful life to speak of them. It is remarkable to see, even now, how quickly bad fruit follows false teaching. It is why we need to keep close to the Word, and close to Christ.
This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
May he be honoured and glorified in the church.
The term has been variously defined but loosely refers to those who push traditional values and right-wing ends using woke leftist means — including postmodernism, critical theory, and marxist conflict theories. They’re activists and, more shamefully, pastors, who use woke tactics (desire for power, victimhood narratives, identity politics, subjectivism, etc.) yet claim to be the only “true conservatives.” (Posted by James Lindsay on X)