The Case for Christian Nationalism

4. Perfecting Your Nation | II. Christian Nationalism

Previously:

The Case for Christian Nationalism

Wolfe repeats his order of operations of “nation, nationalism, and the Christian nation”, then restates his definition of Christian nationalism from the introduction:

Christian nationalism is a totality of national action, consisting of civil laws and social customs conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation, in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ.¹

Given all that we have learned about Wolfe’s views on the fall and generic nationalism, I propose an alternate definition:

Christian nationalism is a totalitarian political ideology, based upon a faulty, unscriptural understanding of prelapsarian man and the nature of sin, which seeks to create a “Christian” nation that is genetically and ideologically near-homogeneous, and looks to procure, by the exclusion of other peoples through the process of “taking dominion”, what it perceives as the earthly and heavenly “complete good”.

Wolfe correctly states a key component of orthodox Two-Kingdoms Theology, that “Civil power cannot legislate or coerce people into belief.” He then goes on to express another belief of Calvin, that the civil authorities are responsible for the “suppression of public blasphemy, heresy, and impious profanation” and “obligating Sabbath observance”.² When Wolfe goes into detail in chapter 7, I will contend, from a theonomic standpoint, that such action is precluded by the New Covenant. This will not only put me at odds with him, but with many theonomists as well. I am confident that my scriptural reference of New Testament commandments that negate Old Covenant enforcement of the First Table, as well as its application within the realm of natural law, will force both groups to at least admit that the issue is not as black-and-white as they would have us believe. I will also show that any attempt to enforce blasphemy law in the 21st century West would likely result in crimes against humanity.

The faulty claim that a “supernatural application can follow from a natural principle” is repeated and affirmed as “crucial for [his] argument”.³ As mentioned earlier, this belief fails to account for the sovereignty of God, rendering the statement worthless. Supernatural application can follow from a natural principle, but it can just as easily follow from working against nature. God decides when supernatural application happens, not us. Believing that certain behaviors result in supernatural application is no different than a charismatic Christian believing they can prophesy on-demand. Wolfe uses his rule to state the following:

(1) Civil government ought to direct its people to the true religion.
(2) The Christian religion is the true religion.
Therefore, (3) civil government ought to direct its people to the Christian religion.⁴

There is a giant hole is Wolfe’s logic, in that he has provided no empirical evidence that the first item is true – his later arguments for this point assume the conclusion that the only beneficial role of civil government is to proactively direct man to the highest good, through a false dichotomy that contains no room for a neutral position. These types of either/or dilemmas are a common trope of authoritarian political theory. For example, suicide or revitalization leaves no room for the legitimate, third option of thoughtful moderation and skepticism towards both extremes (Matthew 5:9, James 4:1-3).

After listing these points, and seemingly recognizing that he has put forth something akin to a categorical imperative with the first one, Wolfe immediately attempts to obfuscate it with a sidebar appeal to special revelation. Christians may want the first item to be true - depending on how it is accomplished, I might like it to be true - but it is not necessarily objectively true for civil governments that are not explicitly Christian, but that are still ordained by God. It also may not be beneficial or even God’s will, in general. The only way we could know for certain would be to reference it from Scripture, not our fallible interpretation of “natural principles”. We cannot appeal to Mosaic law, because Israel served a specific, priestly function. One might appeal to the several times Nebuchadnezzar recognized Yahweh in the book of Daniel, or the king of Nineveh leading his nation to repentance (Jonah 3:5-9), but neither actually directed their people to the true religion; they only acknowledged the sovereignty of God, and did not explicitly enforce the First Commandment (Daniel 6:25-28). There are many verses about the good of a king, or a people as a whole, orienting themselves towards God (Proverbs 25:2, Psalm 47:1), and of the government not suppressing the true religion (Romans 13:1-4), but these are different than the government actively directing its people to the true religion. I am not arguing that it is impossible for a Christian nation to direct its people towards the true religion in a beneficial manner, but that such action is not a self-apparent natural principle. Also, through Romans 13, Scripture itself affirms that God may ordain leaders who do not take such actions, but who let people openly practice their religion in peace.

This was the mode of government under the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine. In the Edict of Milan, given a year after his conversion to Christianity, he set the bounds of religious direction in the empire, as required of the imperial governors:

We thought it our duty to express this to thy Lordship in the plainest terms, so that thou knowest we give to the afore said Christians free and unlimited permission to practice their religion. Thy Lordship understands, that for the tranquility of our times the same freedom as to religion and observance is likewise expressly and liberally granted to others, so that every one may enjoy the fullest permission to worship what he chooses.⁵

Constantine believed the result of a government promoting such peaceful plurality would be God dispensing His “divine favor towards us, which… we have experienced on the most momentous occasions, [and] will forever prosper our future enterprises and the happiness of our people.” Certainly, much of America’s material blessings in the 19th and 20th century were a direct result of its welcoming attitude towards immigrants seeking religious freedom, fueling the industrial revolution. Much of what we see now, in the sharp decline in that prosperity, is from the institutionalization of a domineering, state-promoted religion of έρως (erōs⁶) that is explicitly antagonistic towards orthodox Christianity. The answer to this problem is not for Christians to lower themselves to their postmodern adversary’s game of power-dynamics, seeking to wrest control and impress our own, First Table dogma on them, but to affirm the mode of Second Table enforcement laid out in Romans 13, social mores that a significant portion of non-Christian Americans agree with. That can be done without compromising on any of the current pre-political positions of conservative, American Christians, such as our pro-life stance, because they all concern Second Table violations.

It may surprise many Reformed readers to learn that most of Calvin’s reasoning for First Table enforcement also came from his interpretation of natural law. Its attempted justification in the Institutes begins with an admission that Scripture does not teach enforcement of both tables, followed by an appeal to tradition logical fallacy, through a consensus of “profane [pagan] writers”, before turning to references from Scripture that are more about maintaining Second Table order.⁷

The Christian nation is not the spiritual kingdom of Christ or the immanentized eschaton;⁸

It is quite interesting to see that Wolfe believes that “the nation perfected” through leaders “inspired by God”, which brings about “supernatural application” among the people who “possess all the native gifts once given to Adam” and “can achieve all that Adam was commanded”, orienting them to the same “heavenly life” of “complete good” promised to him does not immanentize the eschaton (bring about utopian conditions that create heaven on earth). In true, totalitarian political theory fashion, it would seem to promise everything just short of that.

Wolfe then lays out an eight point case for his first premise (civil government ought to direct its people to the true religion), using nothing but his own deduction, and not a single reference to the actual religion he would want to enforce through civil punishment.⁹ The hubris of this position, that the foundational premise of a godly “nation perfected” should be arrived at from his own errant interpretation of general revelation, as opposed to God’s inerrant special revelation that he has easy access to, is astounding. My counter arguments follow:

1. The people of God can “institute a civil government… that is cognizant of true religion… and is for their spiritual good,” without civil policies that explicitly “direct them to the true religion”. They are already the people of God and, through the work of the Spirit, will direct themselves and their progeny to the true religion regardless of whether the state gets involved. Civil law can protect the church and the true religion without proactively enforcing it.

2. It is not true that for “any civil government that lacks in principle any knowledge of the highest good, earthly goods must be the chief and highest good of man,” nor that a nation that does not actively promote the true religion “fails to meet its natural end or telos” (Romans 13:1). A nation can consciously choose to limit its “knowledge” to the earthly good of its citizens and protect their ability to seek higher good on their own. For example, a nation can enforce universal Sunday sabbath or it can pass a law preventing companies from forcing employees to work on their sabbath. The latter preserves the Christian’s ability to observe the sabbath without actively discriminating against Jews, Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

3. If a government made of fallible men decides it has the mandate of God to “regulate outward things for the people’s heavenly good,” it runs a higher risk of working against the people’s earthly good, and undercutting the supposed “complete good”. Looking back to the sabbath example, one would expect that enforcing a nation-wide Sunday sabbath in the 21st century West would result in strong push-back and even civil unrest - Seventh Day Adventists would take it as a sign of the end-times tribulation. On the other hand, personal-sabbath law would still allow the people to freely seek heavenly good, while the policy would probably only receive moderate criticism from non-religious business owners.

4. Wolfe’s prelapsarian nations theory has already been conclusively disproved, so there is no need to address any further appeals to it as an example for good postlapsarian government.

5. Wolfe asks, “Why, after all, would man come together to form society if not for mutual support in procuring all [earthly and heavenly] good things?” Firstly, societies can form for means of survival in the harsh climate of a fallen world, with no initial thought to higher benefit. Secondly, many societies in the third world still operate on fealty to the most powerful individual; a warlord dictates the membership and terms of his society and there is very little mutual benefit for lower caste subjects. This notion of a naturally arising “community of mutual cooperation… procuring things earthly and heavenly” is quite Rousseauian.

6. It is true that “Well-ordered souls are made possible only by true religion,” but that ordering takes place within the eternal kingdom of the church and by the work of the Holy Spirit (John 6:44). This is not directly connected to “administration of law, justice and good order”, as that is civil enforcement of the Second Table (when not promoted through church discipline). It can be equally claimed that a government which focuses its efforts on Second Table enforcement and strictly protects religious freedom will attain similar, if not greater, good order, because it understands the use of both stick and carrot.

7. It is not the role of government (the temporal kingdom) to “encourage civic virtue”, because, as Wolfe stated himself, “Well-ordered souls are made possible only by true religion” (the eternal kingdom). Civil law, therefore, should concern itself only with the “abhorrence of vice”. For example, would it make more sense to write laws that reward parents for fulfilling their duty to care for their children, or to write laws that punish parents who neglect their children? Those who attempt to proactively legislate “civil virtue” are socialists.

8. Wolfe again references his prelapsarian theory and Thomasian view of sin, then repeats Calvin’s appeal to tradition, citing “Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, and others.” He then takes his consistent theme to new heights when he says, “And thus neither grace, nor the Gospel, nor the New Testament, nor anything subsequent to creation could destroy or abrogate this principle [of nature].” Wolfe should be disciplined by his church for such impious writing. The gospel is everything. Jesus changes everything. He turns the “world upside down” (Acts 17:6). There is not a single thing that we can not put completely at His disposal and still properly claim to be Christian. If He wants to abrogate anything that we perceive as natural to us, that is His prerogative. He is God.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)

Next:

The Case for Christian Nationalism

1. Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 180-181.

2. Ibid., 182.

3. Ibid., 183, 185.

4. Ibid., 183.

5. Francis S. Betten, “The Milan Decree of A. D. 313: Translation and Comment,” The Catholic Historical Review 8, no. 2 (1922): 191–97.

6. έρως, unlike ἀγαπάω and φιλέω, is a lustful love, from which we get the word erotic. In 1953, the German postmodernist, Herbert Marcuse, published Eros and Civilization, in which he argued that a sexually unbridled society (including pederasty) would orient the people towards self-actualization and an ultimate utopia. Considered a foundational work of Critical Theory, its philosophy drives much of today’s thinking on sexual ethics.

7. Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), sec. 4.20.9.

8. Stephen Wolfe, 186.

9. Ibid., 187-193.