The Case for Christian Nationalism
3. Loving Your Nation | III: Nation (Part 2)
Previously:
Moving to the specific content of this section, Wolfe’s assertions on ethnicity lead to several observances of note in regard to his views on the importance of both genetic relations and mythologized history in his ideal nation.
My intent here is not to discount or dismiss the importance of blood ties in ethno-genesis - a dismissal that is fashionable, politically correct and could save me some trouble. It simply is the case that a “community of blood” is crucial to ethnicity. But this should not lead us to conclude that blood ties are the sole determinate of ethnicity, as if all we need are DNA tests.1
In the average ethno-nationalist state, being of the correct ethnicity is nothing more than a physical sign of one’s citizenship, although, in more extreme states, there were degrees of bureaucratic access based upon how far back one could trace his ethnic purity. What is truly required of the status-minded citizen is his willingness to go along with state-sanctioned ideology, foundational to which is an official account of the nation’s “heroic past, great men, [and] glory” that seeks to affirm that the “nation is a soul, a spiritual principle” (as Wolfe quotes from the 19th century, French philosopher and historian, Ernest Renan).2 This mythologized history of the nation serves as a point of personal identity and pride for the true-believers in the state, men who often lack similar accomplishments of their own. As Priorelli writes, “Both [Italian and Spanish fascists] identified the nation as the instrument to rebuild people’s identity. For them, it embodied the ideal weapon against the political, social, cultural and moral crisis caused by modernity, which liberal democracy, despite its best efforts, had failed to overcome.” Italian fascist intellectuals saw the nation as having an “authentic spiritual dimension that went beyond liberal individualism.”3
By quoting Renan, as with W.H. Fremantle, Wolfe is building his case for an ideologically homogeneous, Christian nation utilizing selected quotes from a heretic who, if he lived in Wolfe’s ideal nation, would be crushed by the organs of the state. In 1862, Renan was elected to the chair of Hebrew studies at the Collège de France, but when his opening lecture was published it was revealed that he had referred to Jesus as “an incomparable man” and the founder of “the eternal religion of humanity, the religion of the spirit, disengaged from everything sacerdotal, from all rights and observances.” Within days he was suspended from his post. In his official protest he wrote, “The supernatural has become a sort of original defect, of which one is ashamed; even the most religious want no more than a minimum of it; one seeks to make it play as small a part as possible; one hides it in the corners of the past.” He then went on to write Vie de Jésus (Life of Jesus), a historical account which omitted all supernatural events.4
Members of ethnic groups share similarities that are distinct to them. They possess similarities not only with regard to their common humanity but also in particulars. By “particulars,” I refer to what one cannot ascribe to all mankind; or, to put it positively, it refers to features (e.g., culture) that can be ascribed only to some people…
The human instinct to socialize and dwell with similar people is universal, though for many today, especially Westerners, this instinct is understood as evil or pathological.5
Socializing with others who like the same pastime as you, or who share similar cultural interests, is not considered evil or pathological in the West, nor is purposefully marrying someone who is culturally, ideologically, or temperamentally similar to you. Even the most dedicated critical theorist aims to socialize with people of similar disposition. Wolfe has overplayed his hand, because the only thing, in this ethno-cultural vein, that is considered taboo in Western culture is to purposefully seek to surround yourself with people of the same race. One might argue that seeking similar sexual ethics has risen to that same level of taboo, but that has nothing to do with a pre-rational love for ethnic similarity. He has sunk his claim that ethnicity is as much cultural as it is genetic. He goes as far as to say that seeking this similarity is “universally good”6, in other words, that the gospel does not touch it. An attempt is made to obfuscate or ease this statement with, “The clearest example of this enablement is having a common language.”7 But seeking to order your everyday social relations along the lines of language is not at all considered “evil or pathological” in the West. He then moves to discussing the inverse urge.
Exclusion follows not necessarily from maliciousness or from the absence of universal benevolence, but from a natural principle of difference that recognizes for oneself and for others the goods provided by similarity and solidarity in that similarity.8
This is a rephrasing of his earlier sentiment that “much good would result in the world if we all preferred our own and minded our own business,”9 but we now have a much clearer idea of along what lines Wolfe sees these societal groupings. I am reminded of the many documentaries and news specials I have watched over the years on white nationalist organizations, where an interviewed member inevitably says something to the effect of, “We don’t hate other races, we just think everyone should stick to their own kind.” Though Wolfe continues to pepper his description of ethnicity with references to “culture”, to make it more palatable, from here on I will address the term from the conclusion that he is primarily concerned with genetic similarity and sees culture as downstream from that.
Wolfe then moves to a distinction between citizen and foreigner which, from the general standpoint of any sovereign nation, is ethically sound.10 But, taking an already diverse nation and trying to form a new citizen/foreigner dichotomy along ethnic lines is anything but moral. He affirms his openness to this when he later states that he is “not saying that ethnic majorities today should work to rescind citizenship from ethnic minorities, though perhaps in some cases amicable ethnic separation along political lines is mutually desired.”11 This begs the immediate question of what those conditions would be, but he conspicuously makes no effort to elaborate on his statement. One wonders how he would accomplish amicably moving the millions of people not of his ethnicity who have lived in almost every region of the West for generations.
Nearly a page and a half towards the end of this section is given to a Rudyard Kipling poem on the citizen/foreigner distinction.12 In of itself, this is nothing of great note except that, almost 150 pages in, the book has not given so much as a paragraph to Scripture. This is doubly insulting to his Christian audience, because, immediately following the poem, Wolfe appeals to Aristotle’s use of κοινωνία (koinōnia), to promote a community based on pre-rational preference for one’s own ethnicity. This is the Greek word in the New Testament that is translated as fellowship, communion, church. That he would use it to justify the following statement to Christians is disturbing.
People of different ethnic groups can exercise respect for difference, conduct some routine business with each other, join in inter-ethnic alliances for mutual good and exercise common humanity… but they cannot have a life together that goes beyond mutual alliance. (emphasis mine)13
The absence of Christ from Wolfe’s political worldview has been made painfully apparent through his description of the ethno-nation. In stark contrast stands the Christ-centered writing of Bonhoeffer, in the first chapter of his aptly titled book on deliberate Christian community, Life Together. It serves to remind the reader what genuine Christian writing on our interrelations looks like.
Because Christ stands between me and an other, I must not long for unmediated community with that person. As only Christ was able to speak to me in such a way that I was helped, so others too can only be helped by Christ alone. However, this means that I must release others from all my attempts to control, coerce and dominate them with my love. In their freedom from me, other persons want to be loved for who they are, as those for whom Christ became a human being, died and rose again, as those for whom Christ won the forgiveness of sins and prepared eternal life.14
After examining such a displeasurable section of Wolfe’s book, the Apostle John’s use of κοινωνία stands out to me:
If we say we have fellowship (κοινωνίαν) with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:6)
Next:
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 140.
Ibid., 140.
Giorgia Priorelli, Italian Fascism and Spanish Falangism in Comparison: Constructing the Nation, Palgrave Studies in Political History (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 25, 56, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46056-3.
Wardman, Harold W., “Ernest Renan,” in Brittanica, February 24, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Renan.
Review of Vie de Jésus; The Life of Jesus, Ernest Renan, by Ernest Renan et al., The North American Review 98, no. 202 (1864): 195–233.
Stephen Wolfe, 141, 142.
Ibid., 142.
Ibid., 143.
Ibid., 145.
Ibid., 25.
Ibid., 145-147.
Ibid., 147, 149.
Ibid., 147-148.
Ibid., 149.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (Fortress Press, 2015), 17–18.