WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Is the Left Fighting Oligarchy or Fighting Christianity?

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Bernie Sanders claims to stand for justice, but his embrace of anti-Christian rhetoric suggests otherwise. Aidan Grogan explores how progressives undermine the very moral foundation they claim to defend.Aidan Grogan, a writer and history PhD student at Liberty University and a Young Voices Contributor, examines in his latest op-ed why the left’s hostility toward Christianity contradicts their fight against oppression and injustice. He joins WRFH to discuss.From 03/27/25.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Harold Berzer, and with me today is Aiden Grogan. He is a history PhD student at Liberty University, a contributor with young voices. His work has been featured in The Daily Wire, The Federalist, the American Spectator, the Real Clear Markets, and A-I-E-Rs, the Daily Economy. We are discussing an essay Aiden wrote, At Real Clear Religion, Fighting Oligarchy, fighting Christianity. Aidan, in your article, you say Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world, yet it is the only religion that can be openly mocked in the United States without consequences. Who gets to decide there are no consequences to these actions?

And why has this become such a popular thing to do today? Well, I think there's a tremendous hatred of the Christian faith, not only in the United States, but around the world, that's certainly been the case throughout Christian history, particularly in the earliest centuries of the church. Christianity has a very simple message to love your neighbor as yourself, but the world, of course, is saturated in sin and hatred. So Christianity has always been the subject of much attack and persecution. I think many secular progressives today are hostile to the Christian faith, not necessarily because it commands its followers to help the poor or help those who are oppressed and downtrodden, but rather because of its moral

prohibitions on various behaviors that progressives champion, particularly the LGBT lifestyle or abortion. Then on that topic, even though it's not as popular in the Democratic Party, there's still like a form of progressive Christianity. So I was kind of curious in the article. Was there any kind of reaction from that section of the faith towards this song? Not to my knowledge. I have not heard any on the left criticizing Bernie Sanders for hosting Laura Jane Grace, the singer of Against Me at his rally,

to perform this song blaspheming the Christian faith. I think he's only really received opposition. from those on the right. So we also in America have seen a recent spike in conversions to Christianity. Do you think this may be affected in any sort of way if this kind of thing continues to happen? Well, I think Christianity is still on the decline. That's been a consistent trend overall. Recent research has indicated that the decline may have stalled a bit,

but nonetheless, people are attending religious services and engaging in religious practices a lot less than they used to. So the decline is ongoing, and as America becomes a more secular society, we're going to gradually see the Christian norms and Christian sentiments, which undergird so many of our values, really start to wither away. I argue in the piece that if we lose Christian conceptions of justice, of morality, of truth, and we have this culture of moral relativism, under those circumstances, those who are in positions of power and authority can simply impose their idea of truth and justice on the population because there isn't any universal standard to oppose what those in power may do. You have no grounds to rebuke them if you believe that morality is subjective or that truth doesn't exist.

So I had actually heard the opposite, like not saying Christianity has, like, spiked by, like, a large percentage, but it was slowly, like, going back up the past few years. So maybe I was wrong about that. There's different ways to analyze the data. John Daniel Davidson, who's editor at the Federalist, recently wrote a piece on this topic, arguing that the decline in Christianity has really not stalled despite what recent data has seemed to indicate. And I would recommend people go and read that's a very interesting piece. Okay, yeah, I will check that out. So also, is there an incentive structure in place that

rewards these kind of attacks against religion, or is this more just what you said earlier about this sort of being a cultural norm? I think it's a cultural norm. It's become morally acceptable to even blaspheme the Christian faith. We see this across Hollywood and the music industry. There's a lot of symbolism that is very offensive to the Christian faith because it's been the dominant religion in Western countries for so long and historically had tremendous power through the Catholic Church and through the various Protestant churches. People still think it's a form of rebellion to attack the Christian faith.

Other than the Against Me song, sorry, the Against Me Band, can you name any other examples of just Hollywood and media in general, maybe having explicitly anti-Christian symbolism? It's hard to identify specific examples since it's so pervasive throughout the media, movies, Netflix, television shows, all you have to do is simply turn on the television or listen to any major record put out by a rap artist, a hip-hop artist, and you'll often find themes and content that is opposed to Christian morals and even explicitly opposed to the Christian faith. Okay. Hmm. So it's more or less not like they're spreading like satanic imagery. They're just having thematically things that are against Christian teachings. Mostly, yes, but there are certainly cases where there is satanic imagery that is presented. And that's not to suggest that those in positions of power, particularly in the entertainment industry, are.

Satanus themselves, I think since they oppose Christianity, in this rebellion against the faith, they think that sort of taking on the image of the enemy in Christianity is the ultimate form of rebellion. So in your essay, you stated, by abandoning Christian ethics and norms, progressives have no basis to oppose inequality and exploitation. In this scenario, where does one find the basis for moral authority to enforce laws and regulations? Ultimately, they can only appeal to popular opinion or to their own personal opinion of what is right and what is wrong. And that might be sufficient for many secular progressives, but you have to ask them a question, what if the majority opinion believes that we can get rid of certain groups of people whom we dislike. Certainly,

that was the case in Nazi Germany, and most Germans were willing to go along with the brutal actions of the Holocaust. So public opinion can quickly change based on political circumstances. If you want to have a universal conception of justice, then you have to appeal to a divisive authority. So we've seen a bit of that cultural change in a few years of people openly supporting genocidal acts, but do you think that could actually happen in maybe the next decade or so? I don't think that we will see something that extreme in the United States or in other Western nations, but I do think that there will be a revival of sort of a pagan ethos or a pagan milieu.

Again, to reference John Daniel Davidson, he wrote a recent book called The Pagan America, where he describes sort of the chief assumption of paganism is that nothing is true and everything is permitted. And so under those circumstances, those who are in power, such as the Pharaoh in ancient Egypt, can simply impose their will on a captive population and nobody has any real moral argument to resist such persecution. Because after all, if nothing is true and everything is permitted, then all that exists is will to power. We've seen that sort of formulating in the United States in recent years. I think the best example was during COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci

said that if you attack him, you're attacking science. So essentially, he was saying, I am science. made flesh. I am the standard of truth. If you disagree with me, you're wrong because I am the ultimate authority. So that was really a good example of this sort of pagan ethos, resurging itself in the United States. I would just like to remind listeners that this is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Harold Berzer, and with me today is Aidan Grogan. So I am pronouncing your name correctly. It's not that hard of a name. I just want to make sure I'm saying it right. Yes, that is correct. Okay, sorry. So you're saying that the rise of paganism in modern day is more of the ideologies of paganism, but could that shift more towards ancient paganism, like Egyptian form?

I think it already is to some extent a really illustrative headline from new. Newsweek a few years ago is a telling case and point. The headline said, the number of witches rises dramatically as millennials reject Christianity. So as people become more quote-unquote secular, they are not becoming atheists or agnostics committed to reason, but they're actually becoming increasingly spiritual and sort of falling into all these bizarre, ancient, practices, they're obsessed with the supernatural, they're trying to contact these beings and so forth. So I believe, like great thinkers, like Edmund Burke and so forth, that man is a religious animal. So if Christianity is not the dominant religion, something else is going to replace it.

In the 20th century, that was communism and fascism. I think of the 21st century, That's sort of progressive wokeness in one respect, but increasingly it's going to be various sort of idolatrous, spiritualist types of religions, which are rather similar to the ancient pagan practices. I think paganism is really sort of the default religion of mankind. Christianity is something very unique. Yeah, I agree, because there's a lot of similarities between pagan religions, but Christianity's really the only one that has these teachings?

Absolutely. Paganism is a worship of natural forces, and Christianity is predicated on this belief that there is one God who is the Logos, divine reason, and he incarnated through a human person. So that conception of the universe and of God is simply not. existent in the various pagan traditions. So moving a little bit away from Christianity, but since we've been talking about that a lot, but Bernie Sanders earns about an estimated $170,000 a year. And with this wealth, why has he become trusted to be the vocal leader of like the socialist movement in America, or at least one of the leaders?

Yeah, the phenomenon of millionaire socialists. goes back a long way. I think those who live this comfortable upper middle class or even wealthy existence often feel that they have a moral prerogative to give back and to do what's right. George Orwell wrote at length about this despite being a democratic socialist himself. He believed that many of these upper middle class socialists were very pompous, aristocratic, and they actually despised the very people whom they claimed they were trying to help. They didn't want to hang around the actual working class people or those who were down and out. They much preferred the company of their educated elites. Yeah, I've always wondered why was it that Orwell was a social society?

despite writing against socialism or at least like protesting against many ideals that they hold up. It was really the context of the times in which he grew up, I think, just as it's normal and understandable for young men in this day and age to be on the political right in his time, coming of age in the wake of the First World War, which of course was caused by this aggressive nationalism, imperialism and so forth. It seemed a reasonable. for young intellectuals to be more on the socialist side of the political spectrum. You mentioned in the article that Laura Jane Grace, a transgender singer, would not be able to do any of the things that she is able to do in the Middle East that she is allowed to do here. So, a point being transgender. This is a common trend among the LGBT community where they support Middle East terrorist groups.

who absolutely do not tolerate any of their ideologies. Why do you think that is? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I think those who really do hate the Christian faith or perhaps were treated badly by Christians earlier on in their lives in Western countries really despise that whole message. and perhaps they see Islam as the religion of the poor oppressed brown people. And in Arab Muslims living in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine, they see victims,

just as they believe that they are victims. So they consider them allies in this broader fight against the tyrannical, patriarchal, Christian establish. All right. I'd just like to remind listeners one last time. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Harold Berzer and with me today is Aidan Grogan. All right. So that's just about all the questions I had. Is there anything about this article you would like to discuss? I think in summary, I view the divide in America today as fundamentally theological. I think as CS Lewis said, there's really only two types of people. in the end, those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says, thy will be done. So we see this rise of this moral relativism where people want to sort of appropriate the criterion of divinity to themselves and define good and evil in accordance with their own will or their own desires. But for people on the left who are inclined

toward that type of thinking, they actually undermine the causes that they are trying to advance. Because if there is no universal standard of justice, then it ultimately doesn't matter what they personally think. There's no moral obligation to help and lift up those who truly are oppressed or impoverished or downtrodden. It all becomes a matter of subjective opinion. And justice truly doesn't exist. And the result of that is the rule of the strong over the weak. And do you think that media control is slowing down a bit that the left has gained? Or do you think that will increase more over the next few years?

There's been a significant rollback of wokeness across all institutions, media, nonprofits, academic institutions, and especially government in the, the past year, the public simply was not on board with woke initiatives, regardless of whether they were somewhat liberal or more on the side of what is considered conservatism today. There was a lot of opposition to the sort of far-left progressive activism. some. So the culture war is slightly shifting in the direction of moderation, I would suppose. Do you think that's just because of the Trump administration or is just people are getting tired of all the? I think public. Yeah, I think public opinion really turned against the woke industrial complex in the past year. And that change in public opinion is what propelled Donald Trump

into the White House. Are you currently working on any more articles that you could talk about? Yeah, I'm drafting an op-ed currently on the decline in the marriage rate. There was recently an essay published in the Wall Street Journal about American woman giving up on marriage largely because they cannot find suitable men to marry who measure up to their standards. And I argue that as social norms and Americans' views on marriage and sexuality liberalize, we're going to see polygamy promoted and perhaps legalized and socially sanctioned as a legitimate practice and perhaps even as a way to solve the mating crisis.

if there's a dearth of liable men for young women, particularly highly educated and successful woman to marry, perhaps some would be willing to make that trade-off and accept the ideal man, but sharing him with several other women then have the unconditional devotion of an average man whom they're not genuinely attracted to. All right. Well, that has been just about all of our time for today. Thank you so much, Aidan, for coming on. He is a history PhD student at Liberty University. You can read his essay at Real Clear Religion, fighting oligarchy, or fighting Christianity. I am Harold Berzer on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

Thanks for listening.