Joshua Pauling teaches high school history and was educated at Messiah College, Winthrop University, and Reformed Theological Seminary. His writings have been published in Areo Magazine, FORMA Journal, Front Porch Republic, Mere Orthodoxy, Modern Reformation, Quillette, Salvo Magazine, and The Imaginative Conservative. He is also head elder of All Saints Lutheran Church (LCMS).
We align with people who are pro-reality, who respect core community values such as truth and honesty, and who see the human being as a whole: body and soul. There is no metaphysical "gendered soul" separate from the body. Teaching body dissociation to kids ("born in the wrong body") has led to a tidal wave of self-hatred, body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, and self-harm.
Date posted: 2023-07-26
While the digitized promises of meta-man may entice us, they are ultimately false promises based on a rejection of fundamental aspects of human embodiment. There is an integrated wholeness to man that requires both resting in the givenness of human identity and actively engaging with the world.
Date posted: 2023-01-28
As young people prepare for college and early adulthood, they should reject conventional narratives that celebrate self-fulfillment and careerism. Instead, they should foster commitment to people, places, and ideas, and prepare for hardship and sacrifice. These countercultural habits and practices are difficult to establish, but they will serve one well in all stages of life.
Date posted: 2022-09-03
Among the ruins of family and faith, amid gender deconstruction, surrounded by endless intersectional identities, and with countless constructed categories being hastily erected in their place, where can a sure and stable identity be found?
Date posted: 2022-03-25
Church is not just a place to sing, listen, think, or emote. It is where God delivers Christ and his forgiveness through Word and Sacrament into the whole human person. Privatized, digital worship services subtly spurn physicality and community, unintentionally endorsing a mind-body dualism that runs counter to Christianity's holistic view of the human person.
Date posted: 2021-10-09
When gendered embodiment is treasured, maleness and femaleness are understood not as acts we perform, but as our very bodily essence. Being a man or a woman is not simply what one does, it is who one is.
Date posted: 2021-06-26
Eric Voegelin's warnings about the dangers of gnostic politics apply to the right as well as the left. Christians must make a clear and unequivocal distinction between the historic Christian faith and the misleading political religion that is more pervasive on the right than anyone seemed to realize.
Date posted: 2021-03-09
A powerful antidote to such atomistic existence, loneliness, and alienation, is found in the family: productive, resilient, and together. A family-centered life with the home as the engine of education and economics orders one's vocations and roles in ways that build lasting familial bonds and provide stability amid a changing world. COVID-19 quarantining provides an opportunity for this reality to sink in.
Date posted: 2020-05-09