On the Occasion of Alan Strange’s Strangeness

Watching again the pure grotesqueness of Alan Strange’s speech at the URCNA—a very special kind of repulsive blend of worldliness and manipulation seen in the fake piety of Reformed church courts—I’m struck this morning with some reflections from my life among the declining Christian “conservatives”:

First: how overtly disingenuous many ministers are. Many are actually fakes and frauds (among libs and conservatives alike). They cover for each other, depending on what they’re trying to accomplish for themselves. Pharisees and Sadducees all over again. I’ve got a long list of those who’ve ended up in jail, committed suicide, fallen into drug addiction, abused children and women, wrecked their families, apostatized, lost all their children, and so on. This isn’t normal. Stop thinking this is normal. None of the varieties (the showmen of the Baptists, the nerd-club, factious Presbyterians, or the TED Talk evangelicals) are doing well at authentic maturity, stability, and integrity.

Second: it is the lukewarmness, fear of man, forgetfulness, love of money and pleasure, sexual compromise, lack of zeal for worship and the Lord, family disorder, and so forth among the godly that allows for this slow, fussy decline. A spiritual anemia among men makes them concerned about things they should ignore and thoughtless about the most important things. We become mere reactive navigators and managers of difficulties, lacking a deeper foundation for action. Personal compromise means we no longer live out of truth with clear heads and clear eyes.

Third: the people of God are largely hungry for the blessings of various streams of Christianity without a real life drawn from their roots. The consumer model of Christianity—and a sense of “winning” or “progress”—is clearly the psychological root of what Christians end up supporting. What is your particular itch, obsession, feel, style, brand preference, or lifestyle ambition? What sense of self do you desire? There is a church for you, or you can make one. Gross.

In Presby/Reformed sects like the URC and OPC, it is usually that we are the “most correct” and therefore “need to make a statement,” even as we go judiciously down the same path of downgrade that everyone else has always, every time, gone down. We’re just a fussy, slow version of modernity’s rejection of biblical and natural reality at this point.

Fourth: there is a lack of vital dependence on, love of, and duty toward the person of Jesus Christ and his will as revealed in Scripture. Everything becomes politics, psychology, and preferences dressed up in the language of Christianity. It is as if people no longer really believe Jesus is real and his Word is true. Instead, they are concerned with their place in the flow of history, their immediate pleasures and pains, and their sense of self in a shifting, chaotic world. Hurting the eccentric brand and its place in the marketplace becomes the biggest sin. Breaking rank with the brand or sect becomes the new heresy and apostasy. Jesus and his commands become window dressing, adjusted to the moment and employed as needed to justify what people already desire.

The cynical adoption of nonsensical statements about race arises from these same roots, in my opinion.

Circus 🎪 performer video here:

https://x.com/mralangentry/status/2065542237065273435/video/1?s=46

Transcript of Dr. Strange's speech at the URCNA's 2026 synod:

“Mr. Chairman, Alan Strange, prevailed-upon guest.

I appreciate this body very much and have great respect for it and don’t seek to advise it in any particular way. But I would speak against this amendment because I think it’s preferable that you adopt, commend whatever word you wish, whatever the operative verb is, this unadorned [ARP/PCA/OPC] statement. So I don't think you want the amendment because I think you want to make it clear that you're joining in with the others.

Let me just say this to you about the OPC experience. The OPC, I would say, is as picky as any church can possibly be. So we understand everything you're saying here. We really do. And all the hesitancies, and this isn't exactly how we would say it. Let me just remind you what the OP did, and the fraternal delegate told you that, which was we both commended a version of this--or this statement and adopted, we adopted a committee. So doing this statement unadorned without the amendment. Let me put it this way: There was a lot of discussion about it. A lot of folks wanted to say different things than this, but we swallowed our pride. And we believed that it was an apt historical moment.

Part of a vision is to see when you need to do something and what you need to do in the moment. And the OPC felt like, particularly if you look at the others, especially the first two, the ARP and the RP, these are not churches that do things willy-nilly or without thinking. So understanding that the statement might have been drafted in some haste.

It's still, I think, a clear statement. And I think it presents all of us a clear opportunity to stand together. I don't think this is really comparable to some of the other moments. Something has happened, particularly in the post-COVID world, and I've been dealing quite a bit with this. There's a general populism, anti-establishmentarianism, anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism that is taking aim at our churches and your leadership, our governments, every sort of thing. And it's a lot of people on the right joining into this. You've got all kinds of problems we've had on the left. And this is something on the far right. And it particularly pertains to us. It's confessional reform churches of all sorts of churches that need to address this kind of thing.

Mr. Chairman. And so I think we are in a moment where other churches have been dealing with these matters and they have been dealing with them and they've kind of given us this on a plate. And the OP is very sympathetic to where you are right now because we weren't necessarily coming into our assembly the happiest with the plate we had been given. But sometimes this is what happens. I think it's--I don't think this is the same as previous speakers have mentioned with George Floyd, because churches weren't, our churches weren't saying something about that. The progressive left was saying something about that, and that's where the issues were more. This is something very much on the right. Let's not deceive ourselves. That's what your committee is gonna be addressing. Our committee is gonna be addressing that. We have another committee that's gonna be addressing general church state matters and Christian nationalism.

So, this is something I think in God's providence that falls to us and I think we need to see it and we need to seize the occasion and stand together with our fellow churches, the fellows who have gone before us in NAPARC.”