The Case for Christian Nationalism
5. The Good of Cultural Christianity | VI. Final Considerations (Part 1)
Previously:
All Christians today agree that the family is a vital source for transmitting the faith to the younger generation. It is not clear, however, why the family can play this role but not civil society.1
As shown previously, Scripture has many forthright instructions about the Christian family’s role in transmitting the faith, and is equally clear that God ordains civil societies, for the Christian’s good, that do not necessarily transmit the faith. Wolfe further builds his strawman, by writing, “No one accuses Christian families of being hypocrite-factories, sending their kids straight to hell.”2 Are there not myriad stories of fundamentalist Christian parents who, through their over-zealousness, drove their children away from the faith? Wolfe will find few conservative Christians who would not advocate for a civil society that is friendly towards Christianity, but he is attempting to justify far more than that.
Was God’s plan really to subject the little family and local churches to such powerful hostile forces and give them this narrow window of time (perhaps a dozen or so years) to prepare children for faith before tossing them to the world for testing?3
In short answer, probably. At least, there are some very direct words from Jesus that lead one to conclude that to be quite plausible. Though, as Viret reminds us, “He sends [us] in such a way that He always maintains [our] care.”4
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.” (Matthew 10:16-18)
“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:51-53)
As before, it would seem that Wolfe is not happy with the Christian’s status in the world, as plainly laid out in Scripture; perhaps this is why he is so indisposed to integrating it into his theory. His obsession with “living well in this world”, to a point that he is willing to institutionalize a cultural Christianity that he admits “often produces hypocrites”, is directly contradictory to the instructions of Christ to His disciples. There is no way around this; whatever Wolfe’s theory is, it is not Christ-centered.
At least intuitively, everyone seems to recognize that when you reject the idea of Christian civil society, some essential element of life is left unaccounted for, and so you must expand the church’s function and roles in the life of a believer.5
The repeated use of alleged certainty logical fallacies in this section (all Christians today agree, no one accuses, everyone seems to recognize) exposes the weakness of his argument, and perhaps a lack of intellectual testing of it, on his own part. In this instance, his appeal is a blatantly false one, because every Western Christian does not recognize explicitly Christian civil society as an “essential element of life”. Much of the Epistles are dedicated to how the ἐκκλησία (ekklésia), the assembly of saints we call a “church”, plays an essential and primary role in the life of the believer. No such role is given to civil authority, neither ἄρχων (archón, ruler) nor βασιλεύς (basileus, king). Instead, the believer is to pray for these authorities, that they may enact their primary duty of ensuring that the ἐκκλησία can live in peace (1 Timothy 2:1-2). While we may count it a blessing when a civil magistrate is a devout Christian, this is something that must come about through the peaceful application of the Great Commission. It comes from the work of the Holy Spirit, not our worldly antagonism towards unfriendly governments.
He next takes umbrage with the variety of resources many churches provide for members, “children’s ministries, schools, sports programs, family counseling, and an array of special-interest and support groups and clubs,”6 highlighting his inability to accept the current state of the Western mission field. Bible-believing Christians are in the extreme minority in America. I highly doubt that he would begrudge the church in Malaysia, Japan, or India for having similar, ecclesial programs. The SBC’s International Mission Board considers an unreached people to be “any people group that is less than 2 percent evangelical Christian”.7 By this metric, deep blue areas of America should be placed in the same category as Saudi Arabia and Nepal. Most Americans, including those in the Bible-Belt, do not attend church weekly, but there is good news that, unfortunately for Wolfe’s argument, backs up Russell Moore’s claims. Church attendance among Millennials and Gen-X is above pre-pandemic levels.8 Since it would be very difficult to make a case that American society has become more favorable towards Christianity since 2020, this would seem to prove Moore’s point that hostility helps the true faith flourish.
Wolfe is grossly incorrect in his following statement, that the church should be concerned with nothing but the liturgical worship of God9 - strangely, only two sections back in this same chapter, he was appealing to how charity work was administered in “medieval and early modern periods” (more often than not, under the purview of the church). Again, Scripture directly rebukes him. We may decide to parse the practical application of the following verses, for modern times, but it cannot be said that the apostolic church only concerned itself with “administering sacred things for the good of the soul” and that anything else was “accidental”.
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-35)
He then moves on to claim that, “Having only social power, cultural Christianity cannot, by itself, lead anyone to act internally according to the proper spiritual motivation” (emphasis mine).10 This statement would take on a wholly different character to the average reader if it was placed after the chapters where Wolfe advocates for violent revolution followed by execution of “arch-heretics” and obstinate evangelists of false religions. I have expressed this several times already, but it cannot be stated enough: Wolfe’s brand of cultural Christianity does not do anything “by itself”. It is the “Christian nationalist” version of the Junior Spies in George Orwell’s 1984, an ever-present, propagandized people ready to denounce anyone engaged in thoughtcrime, allowing the authorities to determine if their publicly expressed, heterodox beliefs are worthy of “civil punishment”. It would be inevitable that not only non-Christians in his proposed nation, but also Christians who do not belong to the state church, would live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.
The irony that civil enforcement of orthodox Reformed doctrine is promoted by Wolfe is shown in his later statement that, “But only [our children], by grace, can choose spiritual obedience; only they can adorn their virtuous habits with true piety.”11 This pneumatologically hazy statement, when mixed with his previous one that “man cooperates with grace”, once again casts doubt on his adherence to his church’s doctrine of Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints. In the Reformed view, we do not choose spiritual obedience, God chooses us and effectively calls us to a spiritual obedience (WCF 17.1) that is in no way dependent on our own will (17.2). In fact, our fallen inclination is to run away from such grace (17.3). An orthodox Reformed version of this sentence would read more like, “Only by the work of the Holy Spirit can our children be called to spiritual obedience; we pray that God would lead them to adorn the virtuous habits we teach them with true piety.” As previously mentioned, this would not be an issue if he did not define his theory as “Presbyterian Christian nationalism”. If orthodox Presbyterianism was made the official state religion in Wolfe’s mode of government, most of the theological assertions made in his book would put him in the position of having to explain himself to a civil doctrinal committee; not the least of these is his wildly heterodox prelapsarian theory.
But [secret non-Christians’] conformity is still good as to the outward action, for (1) it has led them to regularly hear the Gospel; (2) their conformity helps to sustain the cultural practices in the community, leading others to hear the Gospel - and (3) it helps to sustain civil honesty, social institutions (e.g., marriages), and civil manners that work for the common good.12
It would seem that, instead of having to contend with the disciple’s expressly stated, evangelical requirement of associating with, and not judging, sinful people in a fallen world, Wolfe would rather make his whole country an extension of the church, so he can revert to judging everyone (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). This is also implied in his injudicious assertion that his nation would “make the earthly city an analog of the heavenly city”, because the real heavenly city has no ecclesial/civil separation and is not occupied by sinners. He closes this subsection by strawmanning his opposition’s argument, claiming they believe cultural Christianity “lead[s] the unregenerate to sin.” Aggressive cultural Christianity causes people to fear expressing their doubt, leading us to not properly minister to them, and leaving them in a position less likely to accept the gospel than if they felt free to speak openly. Jesus Christ - the One we are to emulate - does not force anyone to pretend to believe in Him under threat of being cut-off from earthly good, in this life. These verses bear repeating:
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (Matthew 5:44-46)
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 233-234.
Ibid., 234.
Ibid., 234.
Peirre Viret, When to Disobey, ed. Rebekah Sheats and Scott T. Brown, 1st edition (Church and Family Life, 2021), 129.
Stephen Wolfe, 235.
Ibid., 235-236.
Zane Pratt, “Here’s What We Mean by Unreached Peoples and Places,” IMB (blog), November 22, 2016, https://www.imb.org/2016/11/22/what-do-we-mean-by-unreached-peoples-and-places/.
“A New Chapter in Millennial Church Attendance,” Barna Group, accessed March 22, 2023, https://www.barna.com/research/church-attendance-2022/.
Stephen Wolfe, 236.
Ibid., 236.
Ibid., 237.
Ibid., 237.