The Case for Christian Nationalism

7. The Christian Prince | V. The Christian Prince (Part 1)

Previously:

The Case for Christian Nationalism

A prince is a Christian prince only if he wields his power so that the totality of national action is Christian.¹

In this statement one can see the vice of authoritarian power closing in on the people of the nation, coalescing around the will of a single man. One Caesar has the power to wield “the totality of national action” to what he and those closest to him consider “Christian”. It may be possible, though highly unlikely, that a coalition of Western Christian zealots could come to an agreement on what civil enforcement of the doctrine of a state church would entail without devolving into multiple, warring factions. Perhaps, for the first several generations, this nation’s definition of “Christian civil enforcement” would be in alignment with what most conservative Christians consider to be orthodox, but to remain that way Wolfe’s would have to be the first nation-state in history with this amount of intended control over its citizens’ behavior to not get drunk on its own power. The 21st century West is overwhelmingly ideologically disparate (with orthodox Christians in a significant minority), and shows no sign of changing; his nation would need to employ an iron grip to maintain what it sees as “social order”; in all of human history, only one “great Man” has had the gravitas to peacefully change that many hearts and minds, and yet He was still murdered by His countrymen. We Christians must recognize that we are far more like them than Him, and temper our earthly ambitions accordingly.

Quoting the Puritan minister John Cotton, Wolfe claims that the prince should not “draw his sword to compel all his subjects to the obedience of the faith of Christ and to the profession of it,”² but he very much envisions the prince enforcing orthodoxy in public discourse, making this a mute point. What would be the outcome for certain credobaptists who see believer’s baptism by immersion to be a prerequisite for salvation? What of fundamentalist baptists who believe the King James Bible to be the only authoritative English translation? What would happen to megachurch charismatics who have “prophets”? What of all the mainliners who see liberal politics in the gospel? What are the actual limits of enforced public orthodoxy in such a nation? Wolfe will later argue for “prudence”, but there is such wide variance in belief among Protestants, five hundred years into the Reformation, that some professing Christians in his nation would ultimately wind up with a boot on their neck.

The majority of the remainder of this section is dedicated to the majesty of the prince’s rule, and how he would “Christianize civil life” by “adorning and perfecting it with true religion.”³ As with many of his other appeals to Christian culture, there is nothing distinctly “Christian” about any of these descriptions; for example, Wolfe asks us to consider the “Christian harvest festival” of fellowship and thanksgiving, as if most non-Christian, agricultural peoples do not have harvest festivals where they fellowship and give thanks to their god. Though there are many appeals to actions that vaguely “point the people heavenward”, there is nothing in particular that could be tied to scriptural ethics. Wolfe also claims that the military of his nation would be “soldiers of Christ”, which is a designation ripe for abuse. Otherwise, there is nothing of significant note; this is mostly standard nationalist propaganda about the greatness of the nation under its figurehead. I would rather focus on a thought that gets its first emphatic utterance in this section.

Punishing blasphemy would certainly solidify a culture of pious speech.⁴

Let us conduct a thought experiment regarding “punishing blasphemy” (and heresy) in the 21st century West, to see if the end result would be any different than other state actions in history that implicitly or explicitly designated a people group as “other”. The Latter-day Saints hold a myriad of beliefs that are heretical to all Christian churches - Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant - not the least of which is that Elohim was once a man who ascended to the status of a god, receiving his own planet. Likewise, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in the divinity of Christ and that God is limited in his being. Both groups have at least ten-thousand believers in every state (1 out of every 115 people in Wolfe’s state of North Carolina are Latter-day Saints⁵), and both groups are fierce evangelists. It must be remembered that, as Christians, though we know we worship the true God, those who do not are often, practically speaking, just as firm in their belief as us. Those of us who are Reformed must also remember that the only reason we are not lost in false belief, just as them, is because God, in his mercy, moved us to belief through His Spirit.

In Wolfe’s nation, it would be illegal for both of these groups to evangelize in public spaces or go door to door, because such action would constitute a Third Commandment violation. Would these people stop? Would there not be at least some who obstinately continue, in their belief that they are spreading life-saving truth? When missionaries are fined and forced to go home, will some not go right back out as soon as the “police of Christ” leave? Will some not refuse and be taken to jail? When released from jail, will they not continue evangelizing? When banished, will some not return? If they are executed, as Wolfe will claim as a possibility⁶, will their death not only embolden their comrades? Would a nation doing these things not quickly cut itself off from other nations, including its neighbors? Would the best and brightest not flee to places where they would be free to express their heterodox opinions? Lastly, what happens if an entire congregation or denomination of a false religion decides to peacefully disobey these laws, believing they are doing the will of God? Would tens of thousands of people, or more, need to be forcefully removed from their land and shipped out of the country? What if they decide to not be peaceful?

This last scenario actually happened in the United States, when Mormons clashed with Christians in Missouri, with the resulting state action turning murderous. The story of what came to be known as the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri is a sobering example of how a Christian nationalist state would likely see perpetual inter-group violence, insurgency, and state-sponsored persecution and atrocity.

(To be continued…)

Next:

The Case for Christian Nationalism

1. Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 293.

2. Ibid., 295.

3. Ibid., 295-298.

4. Ibid., 293.

5. “Statistics and Church Facts | Total Church Membership,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2023, http://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-states.

6. Ibid., 392.