Upstream – the new ARC heresy

First, to explain the title.

• ‘Upstream’ is a term that is circulating and gaining traction amongst ARC (Alliance of Responsible Citizenship) devotees who gather for an annual conference overseen by Jordan Petersen, who, if you didn’t know, is a popular Canadian psychologist and social commentator.

• Why ‘heresy’? Heresy and heretics are emotive terms – heretics in times past have been burned at the stake - but the root meaning of heresy is simply ‘choice’. In the context of beliefs, choosing to believe something at variance with the accepted or majority view. So, I am treading carefully. My contention is that ARC espouses a return to a Christian civilisation but not in the way that Jesus taught and preached and, therefore, the ARC doctrine is open to the charge of heresy!

But let me explain something straightaway – I enjoy listening to ARC speakers. Why am I a fan of ARC speakers and the whole ARC agenda and yet brand Petersen and his followers as heretics? Maybe I am a hypocrite? You’ll have to form your own judgement; please read on.

I have selected two quotes from keynote ARC speakers to set the scene - it is important to lay a firm foundation if I am later going to take a spiritual wrecking ball to the whole reconstruction project.

In his central address framing the conference's spiritual thesis, Sir Paul Marshall introduced the ‘reconstruction’ vision of WRC in contrast to the ‘deconstruction’ philosophies arising from post-modernism and stated that the solution lay ‘upstream from politics’. He continued, ‘The late Andrew Breitbart said that culture is upstream from politics, but I would argue that worship is upstream from culture. Culture is religion externalized.’

Baroness Philippa Stroud identifies Christianity sitting at the top of that stream: ‘If the cultural foundations of a society crumble, it becomes much harder for any government to respond... It is difficult to tell the story of Western civilisation without recognising Christianity's role in shaping it. Our civilisation will struggle to survive without Christianity.’

To summarise: downstream is politics, upstream is culture, and upstream from culture is the spiritual source for that culture – namely Christianity. ARC speakers see the West, Europe, USA and other broadly ‘Christian’ countries as suffering cultural decline precisely because we are trying to fix the wrong thing: politics. It would be wiser to go ‘upstream’ and reconnect with the source…then reconstruction of politics and society will follow on quite naturally.

downstream is politics, upstream is culture, and upstream from culture is the spiritual source for that culture

At this point, you might be thinking that as a Christian believer, I’d be cheering. And, in essence, I am. I accept the premise, the argument, and, prophetically, I agree with the outcome…a just society rich in faith, at peace with itself, and its neighbours.

What then is the objection?

Precisely this: ARC does not go upstream far enough.

In Jesus’s day, Israel existed only under Roman occupation, ruled over by Pontious Pilate. The popular theo-political groups was the Pharisees. They had considerable fire in the belly along with the Zealots, which could be viewed as a paramilitary wing of the Pharisees party. Both groups were gunning for the same outcome, a restored Israel, free from foreign rule.

The Pharisees’ argument was simple and very appealing. It ran like this:

1. Israel has departed from its founding culture, the Law
2. By doing so, Israel was dismantled and exiled to Assyria and Babylon, and only exists now under Roman rule
3. Recovery demands that we return to the source, and obey the Law and the commandments; the moral framework as delivered by Moses
4. Therefore, disobedience to the Law must be stamped out. Sinners must be prevented from polluting the culture and rejected.

The Pharisees had unopposed political influence and power and were rightly criticised by many, including Jesus, for hypocrisy. But their ‘platform’ was clear enough, even if they were corrupt, and it resonated with many.

My contention is that no one, no individual, no organisation, no nation, in fact, can produce a society swimming in ‘Christian values’ simply by committing to do so, or by passing legislation, or by political persuasion. Man cannot create ‘culture’, let alone a ‘Christian culture’ suffused with so-called Christian values. It is a gross misunderstanding of true Christianity and a fruitless endeavour…as was the Pharisees. Jesus said of them, ‘leave them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind. Both will fall into the ditch’. The very people, the Pharisees, who were calling for national renewal, led Israel into collapse. Jerusalem fell in AD 70, less than a generation after Jesus had spoken those words.

The stakes are high. Much of what is said by ARC speakers is good, commendable, morally correct and, if implemented, arguably, would be a welcome correction to the cultural decay that Petersen and others write about extensively. The diagnosis is correct. The cure is not.

ARC has a righteous aim. Here’s a summary:

ARC’s vision rejects narratives of civilisational decline in favour of a hopeful alternative, looking to a restoration of Judeo-Christian ethics to secure future prosperity. ARC champions individual responsibility and the nuclear family as foundational, opposing top-down, bureaucratic structures. It supports free enterprise and seeks to build a global coalition dedicated to human flourishing, free expression, and technological advancement.

ARC champions individual responsibility and the nuclear family as foundational, opposing top-down, bureaucratic structures

A vision that may have some appeal, especially for Western right-leaning liberals…like me?

Whether or not you agree with the ‘downstream’ political vision or have differing priorities, ARC speakers pound out the ‘upstream’ message – ‘you can’t have this downstream society unless you return to Judeo-Christian ethics’ and therein the problem lies. The heresy.

It’s not, though, that all ARC speakers are blind to the need to go far further upstream. In the inaugural ARC conference in 2023, Dr Johannes Hartl said, ‘The answer is not superficial religion, but true spiritual renewal. We do need a conversion of our own hearts’. He concluded this thought by urging churches to move away from mere cultural maintenance and to ‘become houses of prayer again.’

Detecting the departure from ARC’s call that I believe is needed, starts by asking, ‘how do we obtain true spiritual renewal?’ and the ‘conversion of our hearts’?

The nighttime encounter between the Pharisee, Nicodemus – who later showed his devotion to Christ by taking his body along with Joseph of Arimathea, wrapping it with expenses spices and laying him in the tomb – and Jesus, is found in John chapter 3. It sheds light on the chasm between ARCs conceived Pharisaical’s solution and Jesus’s:

‘Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’

Jesus replied, ’Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’

‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’

Jesus answered, ’Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’

‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked.

‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ’and do you not understand these things?’

Jesus’s reply to Nicodemus is the answer to the ARC project. True spiritual renewal and conversion of heart is not just a revelation that, as a society and civilisation, we are suffering the consequences of ignoring Jesus’s moral teaching – as contained, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount – and that we need to recover, to study, to pray and so on, to recover all that has been lost. This is the dead hand of religion: man’s attempt to put himself right with God, with himself, and with his neighbour; it’s the Pharisee walking and talking wearing ARC costumes.

Jesus tells us to go further upstream. Notice Jesus’ incredulity ‘You are Israel’s teacher, and you do not understand these things!’

‘Flesh gives birth to flesh’, Jesus says. We reproduce who we are and what we believe. We cannot escape this ‘nature’ with all its flaws. We can try, but we will fail. It is the downfall of all ideologies. Worse, we end up urging others to look down on, and reject, those who won’t bother, or fit in, the ‘irresponsible citizens’, and we end up advocating a political system that eliminates the weak, the lepers, the ‘sinners’.

But Jesus went on to say ‘Spirit gives birth to spirit’.

Later in John’s gospel, Jesus continues His teaching on the Holy Spirit. In chapter 7 He is taking His message into the capital city, Jerusalem, during the feast of Tabernacles:

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given.’

Finally we have reached the source of the river. The message is as simple as the Pharisees’, but different. The Pharisees demand action, reconstruction of culture, work to reclaim a dying civilisation. Jesus says, leave all that to one side, all your commendable or not so commendable efforts, and come to Me and drink; everything flows from that point on.

That is the spiritual renewal, the conversion of heart that is required. It cannot be achieved by legislation but by individuals obeying the call: ‘anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink.’

Lastly, John’s final record of Jesus’s teaching on receiving the Spirit begins in chapter 14 with:

‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.’

And will be in you.

To conclude. There is much that is said at ARC that I not only enjoy but stirs the blood! Many speeches are superior the diet we are fed by the average political leader.

I accept the ‘upstream’ message.

But it is fundamentally limited, flawed, and heretical. It is impossible to recreate a Christian culture full of Christian virtues and values without listening to what Christ teaches. We need to go further upstream than ARC, to Christ Himself and leave all our reconstruction efforts behind, just like the disciples leaving their nets, and do what Jesus told us to do,

‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’