The Case for Christian Nationalism
1. Nations Before the Fall | II. The Ends and Dignity of Man
Previously:
Indeed, the maturation of [pre-fall] earthly life would likely intensify one’s desire for something higher, as earthly life is disclosed as lower, even uncanny, and unable to fully satisfy. People would increasingly feel like strangers and aliens in this world.1
We know of no state God revealed to Adam other than to “work and keep” the garden (Genesis 2:15). Is Wolfe claiming that dissatisfaction with the station plainly given man by God is a good and natural thing? Geerhardus Vos, in his Biblical Theology, wrote of Adam’s state as probationary and that the tree of life served to point to a later “eternal life to be secured by obedience throughout [Adam’s] probation.”2 Thus, the probationary test is actually whether man will remain satisfied with God’s commandments as they are, the implication being that man would stay satisfied with his station, even should it later be elevated. There is also no great consensus among Protestant theologians as to whether “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1-4) constitutes an eternal earthly or heavenly existence, though the common, Reformed view is that it will be earthly. Calvin often referred to the temporal and spiritual kingdoms as “earthly” and “heavenly”, and this may be what Wolfe is referring to, but Calvin also saw this as the proper “outward” and “inward” expressions of redeemed humans. It would not make sense for Adam to be unfulfilled by his station, should he have passed the probationary period, as it would include “heavenly” existence. Wolfe’s picture of Adam rightly dissatisfied with his lower existence seems more Promethean than Scriptural.
This is one of the arguments that Wolfe claimed Neil Shenvi did not deal with or understand.3 I agree with Shenvi that, in actuality, Wolfe misunderstands the core conditions of Adam’s probation as his dominion and not complete moral obedience.4 This condition of obedience and satisfaction with station would have necessarily carried over to a successful, post-probationary life. Instead of acknowledging this, Wolfe injects fallen man’s sinful desire for stationary advancement into a hypothetical prelapsarian society.
The natural gifts are constitutive to man as man and include knowledge of what is good… (among other gifts). They are essential to man, meaning that without any one of them, the thing ceases to be a human being. Calvin says that these gifts pertain to “earthly” things, enabling man in “matters of policy and economy, all mechanical arts, and liberal studies.” (emphasis mine)5
John Calvin, in the section of the Institutes of the Christian Religion referenced, states that the natural gift is reason, “by which man discerns between good and evil”.6 The “knowledge of what is good” (and evil) is a product of man’s disobedience to God. When the first man and woman partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil their “eyes were opened” to that knowledge (Genesis 3:7). Clearly, man’s original, natural gift was not this knowledge. Vos postulated that the tree was “the God-appointed instrument to lead man through probation to that state of religious and moral maturity wherewith his highest blessedness is connected.”7 In this view, the ability for man to understand morality, apart from it being the “unexplained, unmotivated demand of God”, was only to be granted after man proved himself mature enough to possess it. In this way, even if that knowledge was meant to be a gift, it is one we have unceremoniously plundered, and that we wield like a child who has rummaged through his father’s toolbox and discovered something dangerous.
In ordering the soul, [spiritual gifts] ensure that one follow the proper internal principle, mode and end of action… performed to God’s glory as the ultimate end.8
It is good to see the glorification of God recognized as the ultimate telos of man. We have no secondary purpose that is not wholly subordinate to that end and which God, in His sovereignty, could not repurpose at will (Romans 9:21) - something that Wolfe will seemingly deny, later in this chapter. What sets the Christian apart from others is his recognition of that end (1 Corinthians 10:31) - this understanding served as the basis for the Puritans’ vision of vocation as worship. My concern is with the overzealous interpretation and elevation of the secondary purpose of dominion, in what could be described as a horizontal privilege to be taken more than a vertical responsibility to be nurtured (more on this later).
Reformed theologians universally agreed that the natural law was not eliminated at the fall of man, nor was it abolished, superseded, added to, or modified by the Gospel.9
Wolfe’s defense of a foundation of natural law is essential to his later arguments of civil restriction of religious thought. On one hand, it is true that 16th and 17th century Reformers used it as the basis for civil punishment of heresy. As Matthew J. Tuininga says of the execution of Michael Servetus, “That heresy should be punished by death was embedded in the Justinian Code, which was the basis for European civil law for a thousand years and was commonly seen as a reliable reflection of natural law.”10 Yet, Tuininga also concludes that Calvin, who condoned the execution of Servetus, “condemned the persecution of non-Christians, such as Muslims and Jews, and he maintained that it is unjust to punish heretics or apostates in societies with religious diversity.”11 Thus, we see the need for ethno/cultural homogeneity of the nation, if it is to adopt the Reformers’ understanding of natural law for civil punishment of heretics. From this need comes Wolfe’s justification of violent revolution, because, when limited to human means, no nation in the modern West can become ethnically, culturally, or ideologically homogeneous in a generation without it - nor could it maintain such a state without an iron fist.
Comparison must also be drawn to Wolfe’s previous statement that “the Gospel does not supersede, abrogate, eliminate, or fundamentally alter generic nationalism”.12 What, if anything, in Wolfe’s view of the Christian civil magistrate is modified by the Gospel? We are fifty pages into a case for Christian nationalism, and there has been no mention of the Gospel, other than what it does not have power over.
Taking dominion is not an adventitious duty or a divine positive command. It proceeds from the very nature of man, and so it cannot be rescinded, even by God, without violating the fundamental nature of man. (emphasis mine)13
Firstly, Wolfe’s language of what God can or cannot do, as if he’s legally locked into his decisions and not simply perfect in his ways (Deuteronomy 32:4), is incredibly troublesome. God will not rescind his perfect works - though cannot and will not may seem like semantics, it is worth pointing out the doctrinal difference, because the former can give a falsely elevated view of man, which comes through in this quote.
Secondly, “dominion” is generally expressed in four ways in Scripture:
The dominion God gave man “over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
The dominion of an earthly king over a kingdom. (1 Kings 4:24)
The dominion of death, defeated by Christ. (Romans 6:9)
The dominion of God over His creation. (1 Timothy 6:16)
My current hypothesis on the phrase, “taking dominion”, so common among more authoritarian-minded Christian Nationalists, is that it is a mixing and confusing of man’s dominion over nature with the dominion of kings, honed into a collectivist appeal towards those who see themselves as ethno/cultural heirs of the Reformation and/or Western Civilization. I aim to test this hypothesis through the analysis of this book, as well as Andrew Torba’s.14
Next:
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 45-46.
Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology : Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans, 1975), 27–28.
Stephen Wolfe, 21.
Ibid., 47.
Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), sec. 2.2.12.
Geerhardus Vos, 31.
Stephen Wolfe, 48.
Ibid., 50.
Matthew J. Tuininga, Calvin’s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Christ’s Two Kingdoms, Cambridge Studies in Law and Christianity (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 78.
Ibid., 2.
Stephen Wolfe, 11.
Ibid., 53.
I have yet to read Andrew Torba and Andrew Isker’s Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide For Taking Dominion And Discipling Nations, but I plan to give it an equally in-depth analysis here.