The Case for Christian Nationalism

8. The Right to Revolution | III. Just Revolution (Part 1)

Previously:

God’s law is thereby mediated through the judgement and promulgation of appointed human magistrates, effectively making these judgments ordinances of God. For this reason alone, they bind the conscience: they are derivative of God and hence (mediately speaking) God’s judgments. When a legitimate ruler uses civil power to command what is just and the people disobey this command, they are disobeying God himself…¹

Like “tyrannical”, the term “legitimate ruler” is entirely subjective, and is of no help in justifying revolution. Since 2016, the United States has been in an ideological struggle between two, increasingly polarized sides, both of whom have openly declared the other’s elected President “illegitimate”. As of right now, every American is allowed to worship how he pleases, speak his thoughts freely, and exude as much “masculine prominence” as he wishes. The overwhelming majority of human beings who have previously lived and died would choose our conditions over theirs in a heartbeat. That Wolfe is so incredibly upset about the state of the West that he would, in this subsection, begin a case that our civil leaders are illegitimate, because they, like the Romans when the New Testament was written, enact laws that are at moral odds with Christianity, is a sign of - to use the military terminology - a lack of intestinal fortitude.

This is not, in any way, to claim that Christians should retreat from the civil sphere, but the statement, “Thus, civil authority extends only to what is for our good²,” is simply not inline with Scripture or the Reformed tradition. As shown previously, even Calvin wrote, in his commentary on Isaiah, “The power of a tyrant must indeed be endured, even by men of courage.”³ The hardline notion that any command one finds unjust does not bind the conscience⁴ is a recipe for disaster. Only civil commands that directly violate God’s commandments are not conscience binding on the believer. For example, a Christian who concealed carries a pistol is conscience bound to obey the laws of states that ban concealed carry, even if he considers them in violation of his basic rights.

The child ought to obey his father within the scope of fatherly order. But if the father were to lose his mind and seek to murder his son, the son is free to resist, seize, and incapacitate his father.⁵

The brokenness of Wolfe’s distinction between the authority of person versus office is shown in that the father/son analogy must be taken to the utmost extremes before it makes sense within the context of revolution. I have not seen any roving bands of deputized death squads, going about the country, murdering dissidents; that would be the civil government equivalent to this analogy. What Wolfe argues for is violent resistance from the child, because his father is verbally pressuring him to do something immoral, but not physically forcing him. There are issues that Christians should be alarmed about, such as the postmodern left’s obsession with irreversible “gender-affirming” procedures for minors, but that issue is still very much a legislative battle, and there are plenty of peaceful options remaining on the table for opponents. As with the introduction to this chapter, Wolfe’s position is one of absolute hyperbole.

The analogy of lawful and unlawful orders is not applicable either, because the bounds of lawful orders are not individually subjective, they are explicitly codified in military law and agreed to by soldiers when they raise their hand and give the oath of enlistment. Should the Uniform Code of Military Justice be updated by military leadership, or the United States sign a new treaty, any order a superior gives within those updated bounds is still lawful, regardless of whether “tyrants” are in the chain of command that updated the law. A soldier does not have the right to disobey such an order simply because he finds it “unjust”. I once had to obey an order I found utterly despicable.

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I was the foremost American guard at the same checkpoint in Iraq where a car bomb had previously been detonated. In front of me was a quarter-mile long line of cars waiting to come into the base, one by one; a vehicle would first be inspected by an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldier, pass by a trailer with a bomb scanning x-ray, and then go through my position, where I would direct them into an area where the vehicle would again be inspected by someone in my platoon. My job was mainly to be the first-line contact for an Iraqi soldier, should he find something suspicious.

One of the soldiers came to me and, through the interpreter, informed me that there was a man in line with two very ill children, looking for medical assistance. I radioed for our platoon medic and he went out to the car, about fifty yards from my position, with the Iraqi soldier and the interpreter. A few minutes later they came back with the father, and the medic told me that the children likely had advanced spinal meningitis and would soon die if they were not immediately given antibiotics. I told the father, through the interpreter, that we would help them. The thought did not even cross my mind that not helping was a possibility. This is simply what we did in Afghanistan; our forward operating bases served as de facto hospitals for the local town, and the Balad, Iraq, hospital was barely functioning. The man thanked me profusely and I told him, “This is what we’re here for.”

I got on the radio and notified the base’s tactical operations center that we would be sending the car to the sizable medical facility on base (this was the biggest air base in country and they surely had the necessary medicine). I was immediately told to hold on that decision; we stood there for what seemed like an eternity until I heard back on the radio that I was to tell the man to leave. I double checked with command, and reminded them that there were two dying children and I was speaking to their father. We could have at least had some oral antibiotics brought to the father at the gate and given those children a chance. They were unsympathetic and repeated the order. I had to look that man in the face and take back my promise to him, both of us knowing that it meant his children would die. We both cried. God, forgive me.

It was a lawful order.

1. Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 329.

2. Ibid., 329.

3. John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, [on Isaiah 3:12].

4. Stephen Wolfe, 330.

5. Ibid., 331.