Fait Accompli

A very interesting thing has happened in the “Reformed” Christian Nationalist world within the last few weeks, signaled by what, in internet lingo, is called a “vibe shift.” The situation feels very different, as of late; positions and alliances are shifting. For a while, I couldn’t put my finger on what was causing it, but it recently dawned on me: Everyday actors in conservative Christian media and ecclesial institutions, who had mostly regarded “Reformed” Christian Nationalism with trepidation, waiting to see how the political winds shifted, have begun treating it as what it truly is, a white-nationalist movement.

The Christian Nationalists themselves have ripped off the mask. For example, a lesser known player in the space, Michael Spangler, who recently tweeted that “Whites are supreme,” has written a book on “Christian race realism” that is being published by Cody Justice’s Sacra Press, which previously ran a reprint of the 1930s Deutsche Christen, Nazi manifesto, Positive Christianity in the Third Reich. Both of these men continue to be befriended and defended by the bigger players in “Reformed” Christian Nationalism.

Yet, nothing has signaled an admission of what the movement really is more than Stephen Wolfe reviving his Ars Politica podcast with his openly white-nationalist co-host, Thomas Achord. Two and a half years ago, as Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, was first hitting the shelves under Doug Wilson’s imprint, Canon Press, Achord was exposed for having explicitly white-nationalist, anonymous Twitter and Facebook accounts, both followed by Wolfe. On Twitter, “Tulius Aadland” called a sitting congresswoman the n-word, claimed all Antifa are Jews and advocated for both “a robust race realist white nationalism” and the Nazi concept of Blood and Soil.¹ Wolfe has also admitted that his advocacy for a politics of “people and place” is tantamount to Blood and Soil.²

After being exposed, Achord lost his job as headmaster of a Christian school, went offline and moved to another city, where he began attending a church in Wilson’s CREC denomination that had become a refuge for white nationalists, including Spangler’s compatriot in the OPC, Shane Anderson. Recently, he resurfaced on X and began posting similar content to what he used to as “Tulius,” now under his real identity, including a daydreaming post about “reflecting on life with comrades in arms,” where those “comrades” were Waffen-SS soldiers.

For Wolfe—who has gone as far as to publicly defend Spangler on multiple occasions, including after he was recognized by mainstream Christian media as a white nationalist—to bring Achord back on the podcast in his current state is to admit what his project really is. That Eric Conn—who also followed “Tulius” on Facebook, recommended Achord’s kinist book and who has laundered several white-nationalist slogans into Christian Nationalist discourse—announced that Wolfe and Achord’s revived podcast will appear on the “network” of his imprint, New Christendom, solidifies the new “masks off” era of the movement.

This brings us back to the vibe shift. Strangely enough, the only major players in Christian media still avoiding the obvious, that the bigger, name-brand voices in the “Reformed” Christian Nationalist space over the last few years are white nationalists—from Wolfe, Achord and Conn to the eugenic racism promoting Joel Webbon—are the men who put many of them on the map, and who virtue-signaled with an anti white-nationalist declaration last year. For some reason they cannot bring themselves to actually use their declaration and admit that they were a primary factor in how white-nationalist Christian Nationalism came to the forefront of “Reformed” discourse. It’s no matter, as practically everyone else in their broader genre has decided to mark and avoid the movement.

This means that, as far as affecting normal conservative Christian churches is concerned, “Reformed” Christian Nationalism is hamstrung, perhaps permanently; the average, moderately aware pastor has been apprised of the situation, and sympathetic pastors, few and far between, are openly shifting their churches towards the movement, where they can be easily avoided by normal Christians. On top of this, as our national situation continues to polarize, members of the movement who are more concerned with attaining political, rather than ecclesial, access are jockeying for minor positions within a largely secularized right-wing power structure. At best, they can hope that the increasingly secular far-right will prevail in whatever is to come, and to carve out small concessions for their tribe within that system.

As for my project, it has succeeded. The only reason I decided to step out and write about “Reformed” Christian Nationalism was because none of the initial reviews for Stephen Wolfe’s book, from theologians and Christian pundits, recognized what he had laundered. A little over two years later, the average Christian mediaite is fully aware that Wolfe is a white-nationalist pretending to be a Christian scholar; there’s even a new crop of commentators interested in playing the Christian media game and more than willing to continue to point out what is now obvious. With the White House moving towards a cult-of-personality style governance some have accurately described as Peronist, Christian Nationalism is being subsumed. To continue to document it would be to fight mainly political battles, something that I’m not willing to do. I have to eat my own dog food, as they say, and focus most of my efforts on telling the people whom I meet in real life about some much more important good news.

1. You can read about all of this in chapter 3 section VI of my book, The Case Against Christian Nationlism (pp 104-111)

2. Right Response Ministries | No, Diversity Is Not Our Strength with Stephen Wolfe - ICYMI (57:19)