New Substack: Christian Nationalism Notes
As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently in the research phase for a book on the more authoritarian ends of self-described “Christian Nationalism”. One of my research tasks is a deep examination of the most prominent book of the movement, Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism. As part of this task, I will be doing line-by-line note taking, and I figured there would be two key benefits to making these notes public:1
To keep me honest. Putting these notes in the public domain will serve as an incentive to refrain from strawmanning my ideological opponents, as is so common among anti-Christian nationalism books from theologically liberal authors.
To serve as a line-by-line commentary on these books for others interested in the subject, that they can reference in their own works.
For those interested, here is a sampling of two, successive quotes from the book that I found to be very much of note:
Indeed, there were self-described Christian nationalists. For example, William Henry Fremantle, a well-respected and accomplished Anglican priest, published a lecture in 1885 on Christian nationalism. He affirmed the belief in the “divine character of political rule, and in the unity of the sacred and the secular in the Christian nation.”2
It is interesting that Wolfe would paint W.H. Fremantle in a positive light, for a conservative Christian audience, to make a case for long-standing Christian nationalist thought. Fremantle embraced a critical interpretation of Scripture, including denying a literal interpretation of Christ’s divinity, miracles and resurrection.3 In Stephen Wolfe’s Christian nation, Fremantle would face civil penalty as a heretic. Fremantle’s 1916 obituary noted his “political Liberalism” and “ecclesiastical latitudinarianism”.4
In 1972, Albert Cleage published Black Christian Nationalism in which he calls for a redefinition of salvation along black Christian nationalist lines: “Black Christian nationalism… calls men to a rejection of individualism, and offers a process of transformation by which the individual may divest himself of individualism and submerge himself in the community life of the group.” (emphasis mine)5
This is presented uncritically. Also from Albert Cleage in Black Christian Nationalism: “Today if you advance the thesis that all people are the same, Black people will reject it, saying that we could not do the bestial things that white people do. We possess human qualities commonly called soul which white people cannot even understand. We are creative because we can feel deeply and we can respond to the feelings of others. White people cannot grasp the meaning of love, music, or religion because they exist on a lower, bestial level of violence, materialism, and individualism.”6 This quote could be compared to one from an article Wolfe wrote for IM—1776: “For complex reasons, blacks in America, considered as a group, are reliable sources for criminality, and their criminality increases when constraints diminish.”7
I decided to create a separate Substack for these and any other notes I make public, to spare my regular readers’ email inboxes. If you’re interested in this subject, please head over to Christian Nationalism Notes and subscribe. I have already completed the first two subsections of the first chapter, which you can find here:
William Henry Fremantle, “Theology Under Its Changed Conditions,” in Popular Science Monthly Volume 31 June 1887.
Death of Dr. W.H. Fremantle, The Times, December 26, 1916.
Latitudinarianism was a theologically liberal movement, beginning in the seventeenth century, that argued for a loosening of liturgical restrictions in worship. By Fremantle’s time, the term was also synonymous with a heterodox elevation of human reasoning in matters of doctrine.
Albert B. Jr. Cleage, Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions For The Black Church (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1972), 94.
Stephen Wolfe, “Anarcho-Tyranny in 2022,” IM—1776 (blog), March 18, 2022, https://im1776.com/2022/03/18/anarcho-tyranny.