The Case for Christian Nationalism
Epilogue: Now What? | I. The New America (Part 4)
Previously:
Facebook and Instagram explicitly allowed calls for violence against Russians on their platforms.
Any promising Christian nationalist movement would face the same degree of opposition. The GAE will see no difference between Putin’s Russia and any Christian nationalist movement. To them, we’re like the Taliban of the West.1
Why would Wolfe dedicate an entire chapter to justifying violent revolution, yet take umbrage with the notion that his GAE opposition would frame American Christian Nationalism in the same light as Russia or the Taliban? What other response would be expected towards a movement that openly seeks to upend the constitutional system via civil war? He goes on, writing, “Christians [sic] nationalists threaten liberalism; they see us as regressive and authoritarian.” As has been proven, Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism does not only appear authoritarian (and not only to liberals), its core tenets are genuinely inline with rightist authoritarian political theory of the early-20th century. One cannot argue for execution of individuals for publicly expressed wrongthink without giving the appearance of being regressive and authoritarian.
With zero self-awareness, Wolfe next evokes the “Two Minutes Hate” from George Orwell’s 1984, likening it to pro-Ukraine propaganda, somehow missing the fact that he has spent the last six pages building his own Emmanuel Goldstein of the globalist American Empire.
The bulk of late-modern Western man sits on his couch watching Fox News or CNN (it doesn’t matter which) enmeshed in the Breaking News, as if watching the latest Marvel movie…
It is only a matter of time before Christian nationalists become the villains in the next imagined reality, and our fellow believers, who are just as enmeshed in this world as their secularist neighbors, will join in the Two Minute Hate. But let us remain free in mind, be the true liberals. The mind is its own place.2
The truth is that very few Americans are aware that a “Reformed” Christian nationalist political theory exists. What little coverage the mainstream media gives “Christian Nationalism” is focused on the Donald Trump supporting, non-denominational movement led by people like former General Michael Flynn and a former worship leader at the highly charismatic and prosperity gospel preaching Bethel Church, Sean Feucht. Perhaps the most mainstream, secular outlet to take serious notice of Wolfe’s book is Reason; in contrast to those from pastors and theologians, Paul Matzko’s review for the outlet spent little time on doctrinal claims of prelapsarian earth, and focused more on how those claims feed an authoritarian- and ethno-nationalist political theory:
… Wolfe has composed a segregationist political theology. If ethnic differences are the natural order of things and if the natural order is good, he reasons, then those differences should dictate the bounds of an ethnically homogenous Christian nation. Wolfe denies that he is making a white nationalist argument, partly on the grounds that he has nonwhite friends and partly because “the designation ‘white’ is tactically unuseful.” But black friends or not, if you wanted to inject a sacralized white supremacy into the conservative mainstream, this book would be a primer on dog whistling past that particular graveyard.3
Matzko was so struck by the ethno-nationalism in Wolfe’s theory that he wrote a separate, supplemental blog post on his personal Substack, entitled A (White) Wolfe in Sheep’s Clothing.4 In it he reveals that the quotation of Sam Francis, which opens the first chapter of The Case for Christian Nationalism, is from an article published by VDARE, a website dedicated to anti-immigration policy and particularly known for its regular publication of articles by avowed white supremacists. Matzko correctly concludes, “At this point, Wolfe’s sheepskin is so threadbare as to be a disguise for only the most gullible sheep in the herd.”
Whatever mainstream attention this particular variant of self-described Christian Nationalism receives, it would be hard to mischaracterize it, because it genuinely lives up to the fears of the most dedicated MSNBC watcher. Wolfe’s public utterances, such as, “White evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America,”5 a statement so rife with ethnocentrism that his publisher felt compelled to publicly denounce it6, meets all the parameters of “White Christian Nationalism”, a moniker increasingly pushed by the liberal-wing of anti-Christian Nationalist authors. Again, anyone who calls for violent revolution in America to instate an ethnically homogeneous, theocratic monarchy has no room to complain about being portrayed as an extremist.
Some political theorists fear that modern liberalism, by pathologizing any way of life besides the last man, offers no outlet for what Francis Fukuyama called “megalothymia” - viz., striving for superiority, the passion for a higher life.7
It is incredible that Wolfe would write two whole subsections about man’s desire for a purposeful life, without once mentioning the only true life available through Christ Jesus. This exposes the rot at the heart of his theory - nobody can properly take the commandment “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23) figuratively until he is has first accepted it literally. Through the course of his book, it has become obvious that Wolfe is far more concerned with his earthly well-being than his heavenly treasure, and seeks to convince other disaffected men to do the same at the cost of genuine, focused dedication to Christ. The Christian nationalist call-to-action does not speak of Christ’s “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13); it instead attempts to Christianize George Patton’s “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”
Next:
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 444.
Ibid., 446.
Paul Matzko, “Beware the ‘Christian Prince,’” Reason.Com (blog), May 13, 2023, https://reason.com/2023/05/13/beware-the-christian-prince/.
Paul Matzko, “A (White) Wolfe in Sheep’s Clothing,” Substack newsletter, Matzko Minute (blog), May 16, 2023, https://matzko.substack.com/p/a-white-wolfe-in-sheeps-clothing.
Canon Press: “To be clear, this is dumb.”
https://twitter.com/canonpress/status/1648067653645516800
Stephen Wolfe, 441.