The Case for Christian Nationalism
8. The Right to Revolution | VII. Conclusion
Many want me to end with a word of caution, perhaps to reassure everyone that these are academic conclusions, that they are not serious. Instead, I’ll say this: it is to our shame that we sheepishly tolerate assaults against our Christian heritage, merely sighing or tweeting performative outrage over public blasphemy, impiety, irreverence, and perversity. We are dead inside, lacking the spirit to drive away the open mockery of God and to claim what is ours in Christ. We are gripped by a slavish devotion to our secularist captors. But we do not have to be like this. We have the power and right to act. Let us train the will and cultivate our resolve.1
The chapter on revolution ends with yet another, over the top, language of destiny appeal to emotion, one that has a new insidiousness, in that it is a genuine call to arms, right here and now. Wolfe will expand upon these ideas in the epilogue, which reads more like a manifesto than a summation of his theory, but, for now, let us work through these current revolutionary statements individually.
What “assaults against our Christian heritage” are Western Christians “sheepishly tolerat[ing]”? Our nation is growing increasingly divided over a clash between absolute, Judeo-Christian ethics and secular relativism. At the forefront of each flash-point - abortion, queer- and gender-theory, criminal justice - are conservative Christians legislatively fighting for the traditional position. These people are also ideologically and financially supported by other conservative Christians. Perhaps what Wolfe takes umbrage with is that, with legal means still much at their disposal, American Christians are overwhelmingly not interested in resorting to violence over “blasphemy, impiety, irreverence, and perversity.”
The phrase “claim what is ours in Christ” is borderline heretical. We have the right to claim nothing. We are all condemnable sinners who have been given the precious gift of salvation, through Another’s work, and have been explicitly instructed to actively seek lives of complete humility (Philippians 2:3). It would seem that Wolfe is unsatisfied with our Lord’s prerequisite of seeking to be last, should we want to eventually hold claim to any reward (Matthew 20:16).
The concept of his audience being awakened to their “slavish devotion to secular captors” would be comical if he did not genuinely believe it; seeing your fellow countrymen and elected representatives as evil captors, to be violently overthrown, is dangerously unhealthy. Again, next to nothing is preventing Wolfe from living life wholly as he sees fit and worshiping God in the manner he believes is most beneficial - a privilege that many of our brothers and sisters are still being killed over. But this is not enough for Wolfe; he wants more; he wants power over other human beings, including, as we will see in the next chapter, the ability to execute those with whom he disagrees. God help us if he, or another believer in his theory, should ever get his hands on the reigns of society.
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 352.