The Case for Christian Nationalism
The Case for Christian Nationalism
4. Perfecting Your Nation | I. The Christian Nation
Previously:
The chapter in which the distinguishing attributes of a Christian nation are described begins with a quote from the 18th century German philosopher and theologian, Johann Herder: “The Christian religion was only ever able and meant to permeate everything.”1 Considering that Wolfe, throughout the book so far, has made repeated references to a myriad of behaviors that the “gospel does not alter”, he should learn from Herder’s instruction.
The Christian nation is a species of nation, meaning that the “Christian” qualification does not destroy, eliminate, or preclude the features of the nation described in the previous chapter. (emphasis mine)2
Wolfe’s order of operations is again laid out through this statement; his “Christian Nationalism” is nation first and Christian second. If his perspective was properly Christ first, he would know that his utter dependence on the Son of God would have the potential to preclude anything, especially civil organizations. We are again presented with the necessary conclusion that Wolfe is proposing something better described as Nationalist Christianity.
A Christian nation… has been ordered to heavenly life in Christ, having been perfected by Christian revelation as grace perfects nature, without undermining that particularity but rather strengthening it so that the people might achieve the complete good. (emphasis mine)3
Again, grace does not perfect an already properly functioning nature, one that simply needs a touch-up, it repairs a broken nature where the reprobate are slaves of sin. As a slave of God I want His grace to fully “undermine” every particularity from my former, sinful existence:
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:20-23)
Wolfe’s continual reference to a grace that improves and perfects nature, when it even has the ability to alter nature at all, reads as Semi-Pelagianism - the belief that sin is a corrupting force that requires grace in order to be fully conquered, but that the power of one’s individual will is enough to take the initiative to repair it. Given the amount that this belief has been repeated, and that Wolfe has described his theory as built upon the work of Thomas Aquinas, it can be reasonably concluded that the Catholic theologian is the source of these views. Aquinas believed that, though the good of “original justice” was destroyed by sin, our “natural inclination to virtue is only “diminished by sin”, and the “good of nature is neither destroyed nor diminished by sin”.4 Wolfe’s Thomasian view is at direct odds with his own church’s book of order, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the common understanding of sin among most Reformed Protestants.
Wolfe then goes on to reiterate that the redeemed “possess all the native gifts once given to Adam”, “they can achieve all that Adam was commanded to do with those gifts”, and are “complete in dignity”.5 Do you, Christian, when on your knees in a private room of your house, asking the Father’s forgiveness for yet another sin you have committed, feel as if you are “complete in dignity”? Though we have been justified through Christ’s finished work on the cross, and though He is sanctifying us through the Spirit, unlike Adam before the fall, we are still corrupted by sin and will not be complete until the resurrection. It is true, as Wolfe states, that Christians can “relate to each other as fellow human beings and as God’s children,” but we fail to achieve this as much, if not more, than we succeed. No explicitly Christian country has ever been “the nation perfected”, as he next claims; in their zealousness, many have descended into atrocity. That should be the prevailing caution of anyone attempting to order a nation “to heavenly life”.
The remainder of the subsection is an explanation of how his Christian nation does not undermine the pre-rational love described in the preceding chapter. The nation receives an “infusion of Christianity” in a way that makes identity in the religion synonymous with citizenship.6 This character of Wolfe’s nation is inline with what was discussed in the last chapter about status in the totalitarian state being tied to public championing of official state ideology. Wolfe then correctly notes that modern Christian nations are not neo-Israels, bound by the same covenant. He then posits that the “complete Christian nation comes into being synergistically” when it explicitly names itself as Christian. He incorrectly states this as a prerequisite for the nation to “look upon national prosperity as a divine blessing and national troubles as divine displeasure”.7 God blesses and curses all nations as he pleases (Job 12:23), so the implicitly Christian nation (one that has an overwhelming plurality of Christians, but no state church) can also rightfully look at its condition in the same way.
Likewise, the people may look upon the architects of these laws [of an explicitly Christian nation] as great men, inspired by God as instruments of God’s will for his people’s good. (emphasis mine)8
This is very dangerous ground to tread, from both a theological and political perspective. Firstly, to what degree would Wolfe say that these hypothetical men are inspired by God? Secondly, how can he be sure they are inspired by God, when the principles of this nation are found almost entirely in natural law? Thirdly, to what degree are we to revere these men? Will monuments be built for them and be considered sacred national ground? If so, and these men are considered inspired, would that be any different than erecting a statue of a saint? This may seem ridiculous to an American reader, but think about how many autocratic nations deify their leaders. Is it out of the question to imagine portraits of the Christian Prince on the side of public buildings, hung in every classroom, and marched around during parades? This sort of cult of personality starts with claiming your founding politicians are “inspired by God”.
The place of a Christian people is a Christian land… Being a place of their activity and of their ancestors, this land is their Christian country, their Christian homeland. Their Christian ancestry speaks through it, as a mode of discipleship in Christian faith and life, and only they can hear it. Their Christian homeland is not suitable for all Christians, let alone all mankind.9
In the early 1830s, a reportedly “escaped nun” from the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Rebecca Theresa Reed, began publicly sharing dark tales of her supposed convent life. These calumnious stories of concubine nuns, in which they were the sexual playthings of lecherous priests, and where the offspring of their liaisons were born, baptized, and immediately murdered, were commonplace among nativist tracts, most famously in 1835’s The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. Primed by Reed’s stories, the mostly Protestant citizens of Charlestown concluded the worst when, on July 28, 1834, an actual nun from the convent, Elizabeth Harrison, had a mental breakdown and ran to the home of one of her students, seeking refuge. After regaining her senses, she returned to the convent several days later.
Rumors quickly spread all over the Boston area. It was “generally believed that she had been forced to return and had been cast into a deep dungeon in the cellars of the convent building as punishment.”10 Boston newspapers, such as the Mercantile Journal, Morning Post, and the Commercial Gazette printed a false claim that Harrison’s friends were unable to find her when calling on her at the convent.11 On August 9, spurred on by the citizens of Charlestown, leaders of the city visited the convent building and found Harrison in sound mind and good physical condition. Edward Cutter, the father of the student she had sought refuge with, was with the group and “satisfied himself that she was contended with the lot and not languishing in a hidden dungeon.”12
Despite this, a Congregationalist divine, the Reverand Lyman Beecher, sought to whip the citizens of Boston into an anti-Catholic frenzy, giving three sermons at three different churches on the night of August 10, “exhorting overflowing audiences to action against Popery.”13 It was not uncommon, in those days, for Protestant ministers to make a decent side-income through verbal and print exhortation of “No-Popery”. Beecher is considered the main ideological instigator of what happened the next night. Historian Ray Allen Billington's description of the event is worth quoting at length:
A mob had begun to gather in the school grounds at nine o’clock on the night of August 11, carrying banners and shouting “No Popery” and “Down with the Cross.” One Charelstown selectman was present and others were notified but they insisted that the town’s one police officer could handle the situation adequately. While the crowd was milling about, a group of forty or fifty men, evidently well organized and more or less disguised, approached the building and demanded that they be shown the nun who was secreted there. They were told to return the next day when the children would not be awakened and retired, seemingly satisfied. But at eleven o’clock a pile of tar barrels was lighted in a neighboring field, evidently a pre-arranged signal. Fire bells were set ringing and crowds of people began pouring into Charlestown. Fire companies appeared but stood helplessly by as the mob began the attack. The Mother Superior vainly tried to appeal to the throng, first by pleading, then by threatening that “the Bishop has twenty thousand Irishmen at his command in Boston.” This only infuriated the crowd. Led by the same forty or fifty organized men who had been active from the first, they burst open the doors and entered the convent building as the dozen sisters present hurried the sixty pupils through a rear door and to a nearby place of refuge. At a little after midnight the torch was applied to both the school and a neighboring farmhouse belonging to the Ursulines. The large crowd stood by until both buildings were consumed by the flames.14
We are the same, fallen people the Protestant citizens of Boston were in 1834. They believed that they lived in an explicitly Christian nation, and that the Irish Catholics who had emigrated were a foreign horde, bringing the scourge of “Roman Popery”. It was common among Protestants, well into the 20th century, to believe that the Pope was the beast of Revelation. The people who burned down the Ursuline convent school, including the fifty disguised vigilantes, likely believed they were doing what God would want them to, that they were protecting the true religion and the state sanctioned church. They likely believed that Boston was “a place of their activity and of their ancestors”, that Massachusetts was “their Christian country”, and that their “Christian homeland [was] not suitable for all Christians.” This would not have been an unreasonable estimation. As journalist Michael Williams wrote of the anti-Catholic interpretation of Massachusetts civil law regarding religion at the time, “In 1800 the Rev. Mr. Cheverus, later to become the first bishop of Boston, had married two Catholics in Maine, then a part of the state of Massachusetts. Father Cheverus was arraigned and prosecuted for violation of the law on the charge that he was not a ‘settled minister’ of the state… The judges were divided as to his guilt, and the criminal prosecution collapsed” (emphasis mine).15 This indecent happened nine years after the Bill of Rights was ratified, yet the judges were still divided. Can it be truly believed that a nation built upon Wolfe’s theory, thus far, would not easily fall into the same excesses?
On January 25, 2023, Neil Shenvi tweeted, “Today, my timeline was filled with ‘Christian nationalists’ who think Hindu temples should be illegal (not sure how they feel about mosques/synagogues/Catholic churches).” A former Trump administration deputy secretary, now a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary student and vocal proponent of Christian Nationalism, William Wolfe (no relation), wrote, “This is bait. Don't take it. He is setting up a motte and bailey.” Shenvi replied, “No, it’s not a motte-and-Bailey. CNs need to decide what limiting principle (if any) would permit non-Christian religious expression. This is clearly an open question for lots of Christian Nationalists.” William Wolfe went on to deflect from the topic of self-described Christian Nationalists promoting hard-line enforcement of the First Table of the Ten Commandments (shutting down Hindu temples for promoting a false religion), by appealing to Second Table violations, writing, “No, it is, because there are plenty of limiting principles in place now. Satanists can't perform child sacrifice. Mormons can't practice polygamy. You are repackaging an entirely mundane and ongoing question - the limits of religious liberty - into a scary-sounding talking point.”16 William Wolfe has since deleted the tweets.
Next:
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 173.
Ibid., 173.
Ibid., 174.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II Q. 85.
Ibid., 174.
Ibid., 175-176.
Ibid., 177.
Ibid., 178.
Ibid., 179.
Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade,1800-1860, First Paperback (Chicago, Illinois: Quadrangle Books, 1964), 72.
Ibid., 72.
Ibid., 74.
Ray Allen Billington, 72-73. Michael Williams, Shadow of the Pope (New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1932), 65.
Ray Allen Billington, 74-75.
Michael Williams, 56-57.
