An open letter to William Wolfe
Mr. Wolfe,
I’m sure you find it strange that someone whom you have never met, who only showed up on Twitter a little over a week ago, is bothering to write a public letter to you. Please allow me to explain why.
I am absolutely no one of note. In most respects, I am completely ordinary - a middle aged father with a desk job who is actively involved in his local Southern Baptist Convention church (mainly as a member of the discipleship committee). But, last year I discovered that I have a very unique trait among my Christian (and especially Reformed) peers, a knowledge of the history and philosophy of totalitarianism, gained from many years of personal study. My focused interest on this subject started around 2015, and consisted of several books a year, mostly on left-wing variants. In 2020, for obvious reasons, my interest increased exponentially; I have been knee deep in the subject for the last three years; when my formerly wonderful suburb failed the Milgram experiment in 2021, it became personal.
When Stephen Wolfe’s book came out, I immediately saw multiple correlations between his theory and that of early-20th century authoritarian nationalists. Surely, I thought, people in the Christian “thought-leader” space would pick up on this and inform their readers and listeners of these connections. Unfortunately, this did not happen and, as reviews of the book stopped but his political theory continued to gain ground, I felt God’s providence weighing heavily on my shoulders. I do not know if you have ever had that feeling, but I both wish it on no one and wish it on everyone; it is indescribably frightening to both fear Him and trust Him with potentially life-altering decisions (Deuteronomy 8:5-6). In my deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division I saw the depth of the horrors that man is capable of. From my study of right-wing authoritarianism I know that the road Christian Nationalism and its cobelligerents lead to is those horrors being brought to my children. Saying whatever I can, as loudly as I can, to get people to μετάνοια (metanoia, repent and go the other direction) is a hill I am both figuratively and literally willing to die on.
In December of 2022, I began gathering my research for a book refuting Christian Nationalist theory; this morphed into an expository commentary on Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, which I am currently live writing on this Substack (I am about two-thirds through the book). Part of my research was studying and archiving the tweets of self-described Christian Nationalists, and you were obviously in my dragnet. The behavior I have seen you exhibit in these last months is why I am writing you now. There are other people who deserve to be rebuked in this manner, but I am not in the same denomination as them, and they do not hold a public position that results in their behavior causing harm to the witness of both Southern Seminary and, by proxy, the SBC itself. Even though my book is not about you, you have been mentioned in it three times, thus far, because you are an irrefutable example of Christian Nationalists behaving despicably online. Your conduct is so consistently poor, that I will make my case by only drawing from two tweets you posted just this week.
The first is the one you blocked me on Twitter over. On April 2, Ben Marsh, the pastor of First Alliance Church Winston-Salem, tweeted, “Today's service had singing and prayer in three languages, sometimes simultaneously, prayer for the sick and for sin. Sermon from the Word. Ended with chapati, NC bbq, goat choma, fried plantains, beans and rice, peanut curry, peach cobbler, sweet tea. Multiculturalism [for the win]!” I do not know Marsh’s theology or politics, nor do I care for the purposes of this example. There is absolutely nothing objectionable in this tweet, even if you are against the left-wing definition of “multiculturalism”; if Marsh believes in that definition of the word, he obviously used it in this tweet in a way that Christians should find beautiful and praise God for. Instead of showing kindness and patience, or at least a little self-control (Galatians 5:22-23), you instead immediately responded with, “Is this ‘multiculturalism for the win?’”. Linked in your tweet was the Wikipedia article on rape gangs in Rotterham, England.
This response is so disgusting, and has so many implications, that I believe it to be a clear window into a thought process you normally keep behind closed doors. I also believe it to be close enough to a violation of the Baptist Faith and Message, chapter 15, that you should be held to account for it. When I justifiably rebuked you, tweeting that your response was “the most intellectually and ethically bereft thing I've seen from a public Christian in a while,” and commenting that your direct supervisor at SBTS, Albert Mohler, should be involved, you did not respond once, but instead blocked me from seeing your account on Twitter. This only prevents me from seeing your account from inside my Twitter feed and from sharing your tweets on the platform from my account (which would constitute a terms of service violation). It does not prevent me from looking at what you still publicly post in Twitter and writing about it elsewhere.
On April 5, King’s College professor Dr. Anthony B. Bradley, referring to Stephen Wolfe and mistakenly writing your name, tweeted, “A modern example of the Christian Reconstructionist resurgence is William [sic] Wolfe’s work. It’s a variation of the presuppositions of Rushdoony, Gary North, Doug Wilson (who wordsmiths his way around having the labels attached), and others. Don’t be fooled folks!” Bradley is wrong about Stephen Wolfe’s political theory; he actually rejects much of the work of Rushdoony and North. I believe Bradley is attempting to parse his book through the rubrics he knows; this is the same issue I took with other reviewers last year that set me on this path. I said as much to Stephen Wolfe when he refuted Bradley. I genuinely pray it serves as an example, for you, of how to respectfully speak to people with whom you are fierce ideological opponents, as I am with Wolfe.
Your response to Bradley’s tweet was, on the other hand, beyond the pale. Instead of refuting his claims respectfully, which would have been terribly easy, you decided to tweet, “Wow [Anthony B. Bradley] is literally just making stuff up! This is as laughable as it’s false. Guess that PhD doesn’t help you tell the truth.” Though this response is banal, it would not be a disciplinary offense by itself, although I would rebuke you and tell you to “not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone” (2 Timothy 2:24). The photo you attached to the tweet, however, proves you were acting directly against the Spirit, towards a brother in Christ.
Here is a full size profile picture of Bradley:
You used this meme six times that day, in response to Bradley. I am sure you know the cultural connotations of telling a Black man that he smokes crack. If you had done it once perhaps it could be seen as a mistake, but your repeated use of the meme makes it inexcusable. Again, this constitutes a violation of BFaM chapter 15. Regardless of your reason for posting it, it is proof that you do not possess the wisdom or discernment to be a public Christian, implicitly representing SBTS and the SBC. Others have noted something that I can concur; when Twitter users rebuke you, “racist anon accounts come out to engage” with them. This person also astutely noted that “it’s telling on who [William Wolfe] resonates with.” A major reason that I returned to Twitter is to be a missionary to these men, because I know how to logically disarm, and plant seeds of doubt within, the ideology they have been captured by - an ideology that you condone, whether knowingly or not.
As for other violations of our denomination’s statement of faith, your advocacy for a nation in which non-Christian religions would have a legally lower status is in violation of chapter 17. I could go through that here to further my case, but I am sure by now you know that I also have much of the conversations between you and both Neil Shenvi and Scott Aniol archived; in those with Aniol, as recently as yesterday, you push “Christendom” without distinguishing your view from how it is overwhelmingly presented by other Christian Nationalists, an explicit state-church and the violent repression of heterodoxy.1
So, brother, I am calling on you to repent and return to the body of Christ in open, forgiving arms. I sincerely pray that you accept this offer and we can be reconciled, even though we have never met. I pray that, on this Good Friday, that God would grant you full knowledge of your sin and the price paid for it, and bring you to repentance. Though this is public, I will continue to do my best to adhere to the Matthew 18:15-17 example as I possibly can. Know that I am willing to go all the way with this, for the sake of the people, church, and Lord whom I love dearly.
Your brother in Christ,
Blake Callens
I have discovered a tweet where he clarified after Scott Aniol wrote “Baptists and Christendom are inherently incompatible.” He later says in that thread that he would “purge woke ideology”. I have included another tweet to show how he views “purging woke ideology” in a political context.
https://twitter.com/William_E_Wolfe/status/1643030872650657793
https://twitter.com/William_E_Wolfe/status/1644159034335920128