The Case for Christian Nationalism
8. The Right to Revolution | IV. Conditions for Revolution (Part 1)
Previously:
The title of the first subsection, Revolution for True Religion, is antithetical to the entire purpose of the spiritual kingdom and is borderline blasphemous. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, demonstrates the true heart of our faith, that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13):
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Philippians 2:14-18)
Wolfe does not celebrate this type of peaceful, sacrificial love, in which Paul was imitating the love of Christ for his sheep (1 Corinthians 11:1). He would rather someone else die, so he can find his “true religion”. He believes that a tyrant is one who has “denied man the space to exercise his highest gift and tyrannized over the soul.”1 But, in order to accept this, one would have to believe that Paul, while shackled in a Roman jail awaiting execution, was not able to exercise his “highest gift” and was not able to find his “complete humanity”. There are few other false concepts about the Christian’s walk with Christ that deserve more condemnation.
His next claim that “violence can be used to secure [Christ’s kingdom] indirectly and outwardly”2 flies in the face of God’s statement that His “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). To “preserve [the church] by means of arms” is a circumstantial byproduct of the Second Table task to preserve innocent life, not a proactive, First Table task of preserving doctrine by force. That is not what Christ did and, therefore, it is not what we are to do.
With our minds enmeshed in the secularist norm, we confidently think that pleading for religious exemptions before secularist overlords is the timeless politics of Jesus. How convenient for us that we happen to live in secularist times.3
It is a rare occurrence that I completely agree with Wolfe; his definition of this problematic mindset among Western Christians is entirely accurate. His solution, to take up arms in order to bring about a government that throws the Western Liberalism baby out with the bathwater, could not be more wrong, though.
In November of 2021 I learned that the company I was working for was instituting the federal contractor version of the vaccine mandate. This mandate had no testing option, meaning that employees must either disclose their medical status to the company and the government, file for a religious exemption, or be laid off. COVID hysteria was at a fever pitch during this period. Leftist thought-leader and activist Noam Chomsky was calling for the unvaccinated to be separated from society and basic services4 and being lauded for it by MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan5, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, admitted on camera that she was looking to create a two-tier society.6 I understood the totalitarian ends of what governments around the world were attempting to implement; when it had already been proven that the vaccine did not stop transmission7, I also perceived the mandate as a secular, “religion of science” loyalty test, no different in principle than when Nebuchadnezzar demanded all of the state officials bow to his idol (Daniel 3). Knowing the moral ramifications of filing for a religious exemption and, by proxy, condoning the stripping of rights of consent from non-religious people, I refused and chose to lose my job. I politely let my manager know exactly why I was refusing the mandate, telling him, “Due to my Christian convictions, I cannot condone turning conscientious objectors into a pariah class.” He understood, let me know how sad he was to see me go, and told me I was welcome to come back, if things changed.
At this time, there was no sign that any of the government mandates would be overruled, and many companies in my field were implementing mandates of their own volition. I truly thought the career I had spent a decade and a half building was over, and that I may have been relegating my family to poverty. It seemed that almost every job in the software industry required proof of vaccination; most job postings were clear about having such a requirement, and the majority of the interviews I landed ended abruptly or awkwardly when I answered the first question of why I was looking for a new job - I had resolved not to obfuscate, not only because it was the ethical thing to do, but because any company that hired me might implement a mandate later on. My wife and I were making contingency plans on how we would work in the gig economy (as long as that was viable) and do odd jobs to keep a roof over our head and feed our children; even entry-level, manual labor jobs in our very politically left city required compliance and, with no job, we had no stable way to get out. It was a very frightening time and, in the privacy of my home office, I regularly cried out to God. But I knew in my heart that I was doing the right thing and being faithful to Him.
I had not bothered to call recruiters, because most of the jobs offered through them are for companies with at least one federal contract. A little over a week into my search, the recruiter who had placed me at the company I was leaving unexpectedly called me and asked what had happened. I told him the truth and he answered, “I understand. Let’s get you a new job.” I had an offer within a few days; I am still at that company and it is one of the best places I have ever worked. Now that the majority of America has left COVID hysteria behind, it can be easy to forget how precarious our national situation was in the fall and winter of 2021, and how draconian, ill-conceived, and long-lasting the policies were; the Biden administration did not announce the lifting of the federal vaccine mandates until May 1, 20238. That I found a new job may seem like a minor thing to most, but I cannot think of that situation, and how faithful God was to me after I made a Spirit-driven decision that put me in a very insecure position, and not instantly well up.
If there is anything I hope to impart to the reader it is that God is faithful to his people when they forthrightly and peacefully stand up for the truth of the gospel, even tangentially, as I did. He is a good and gracious God who will not abandon us, especially if we trust in Him above our own abilities.
Next:
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 338.
Ibid., 339.
Ibid., 341.
Paul Bois, “Noam Chomsky: Unvaccinated Should Be ‘Isolated’ from Society,” Breitbart, October 25, 2021, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/25/noam-chomsky-unvaccinated-should-be-isolated-from-society/.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/becket-adams, “MSNBC Host Agrees: Unvaccinated Should Be Denied Access to Basic Goods and Services,” Washington Examiner, October 26, 2021, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/msnbc-host-agrees-unvaccinated-should-be-denied-access-to-basic-goods-and-services.
Jacinda Ardern Admits New Zealand Will Become a Two-Tier Society between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, 2021, https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/jacinda-ardern-admits-new-zealand-will-become-a-twotier-society-between-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-b2179915.html.
“Covid: Double Vaccinated Can Still Spread Virus at Home,” BBC News, October 28, 2021, sec. Health, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59077036.
Catherine Lucey and Sabrina Siddiqui, “U.S. Covid Vaccine Mandates to End May 11 for Federal Workers, Others,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, sec. Politics, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-covid-vaccine-mandates-to-end-may-11-for-federal-workers-international-air-travelers-f8f60668.