I begin this post in the unusual manner of quoting myself from an article titled The Consummate Metagelical. “Following the phenomena of the Jordan Peterson series of lectures on the Genesis book of the Bible a Calvinist pastor in a rundown section of Sacramento made a YouTube video to express his astonishment that so many would pay to hear a sermon. Paul Vanderklay (PVK) was one of the many online creators I began to follow that became known among themselves as this little corner (TLC) of the internet. PVK’s gift is his pastoral presence, his ability for honest, sincere, interest and conversation about meaningful subjects with all manner of random individuals (his randos).”
One of the original randos is Sam Tideman. He is an Ivy league educated statistician by profession, and a relatively young husband and father living in the Chicago area. His family history goes back to colonial America through the famous Adams family. This ancestral line is fundamental to understanding his unique role in the TLC; that is, he comes from a family of Unitarians. I find his Unitarian arguments against the Trinity persuasive, yet I am not persuaded. But this issue is not the topic of this post.
Tideman has a YouTube channel called Transfigured. He has done several interviews that touch on Unitarianism. They are more interesting than you might think. For example, he has had fascinating discussions with Muslims: Jake Brancatella, The Muslim Metaphysician – Can Islam participate in Liberalism? and Dr Shabir Ally and a Unitarian Christian dialogue about Jesus. As an interlocutor, the most common response to his queries is, “great question.” There you can also find his unique Personal Story.
Herein I wish to point you to Tideman’s recent presentation, Does Moral Therapeutic Deism still exist? This is a socio-political analysis of American political history up to our current predicament. (PVK made an insightful commentary on Tideman’s presentation, The Fracturing of the Religions Nominalism Beneath American Culture and Politics.) The key premise is that there has been, and there must be, an agreed upon arena for political discourse; indeed, for all political activity to maintain a peaceful polity. The concept is similar to the Overton window or Tom Woods and his 3×5 card of allowable opinion, but much more implicit than explicit. It is the arena where civil politics can play out. If there is no agreed upon arena the ultimate result can be civil war until a new arena is established by the survivors. Furthermore, Tideman posits that in America this arena has been what an academic called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), and MTD is essentially Unitarianism. See the following slides from the presentation on the thesis and MTD.
Tideman’s Unitarian analysis of American political history nicely dovetails with Murray Rothbard’s Yankee Problem analysis as recently restated by Tom DiLorenzo; Public Enemies: Government Bureaucrats as Societal Parasites – LewRockwell
“Rothbard wrote of how the civil service reformers of the late nineteenth century were almost exclusively from New England and New York, were relatively highly educated, and were “shaped by the cultural and religious values of their neo- Puritan Yankee culture.” They wanted “good men” in government jobs, with the “good men” being themselves, wrote Rothbard. These were men who believed in “the inherent right of their sort to rule” over lesser citizens and believed in democracy, but only if guided by people like themselves.”
An important observation by Tideman is that the MTD, the socio-political arena, is dead; and therefore, we are at a dangerous moment in American history (for example see It Seems Like The War is Coming. Increased Violence is Inevitable..) The collapse of the arena came in the form of the left taking over, controlling the arena in their own favor. Imagine the umpire of a baseball game calling balls and strikes differently, in favor of one team (if you are a gambler you probably believe that is true).
The situation that comes to my mind is Spain in the 1930s before the civil war as depicted in the epic novel (the first of a trilogy) The Cypresses Believe in God by José Maria Gironella. Like the leftists who fled Spain after Franco’s rebels won the civil war, there are many Americans leaving the USA. Here is a short (30 min) French documentary on Americans who have left due to the growing “tyranny” of Donald Trump, Ils fuient l’Amérique de TRUMP | Reportage | ARTE Regards. Is this Trump derangement syndrome or justified fear? What Gironella also depicted in his novel is the right wing Spanish who fled earlier because of the reign of terror of the left wing government that ignited the war. Did MAGA Americans leave the US during the Biden administration as they are now? Not that I know of. They are of a different economic and social class that typically do not travel internationally. Furthermore, it must be said that to truly be MAGA one must stay in the USA.
Noting that the Charlie Kirk memorial event was much like a mega-church evangelical event, and the forgiveness offered in the widow’s speech, in this TLC adjacent podcast Tideman suggests that American Evangelicalism could be the “way forward to reset the arena. On another TLC channel Tideman was interviewed on the same subject delineating his thesis in more detail, When the Background Religion Breaks | Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and the American Soul.
Certainly, we are living in interesting times. Tideman’s thoughts on the situation bring clarity to what we are experiencing.
