(Another) Christian nationalism discussion

The Public Square
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Christian nationalism has a history that serves as a stark warning to the wise today. Its best-known proponent of the past century was Adolph Hitler who, speaking to the sycophantic head of the nation’s “German Christian” unified Protestant church, said:

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who—God’s truth!—was greatest not as sufferer but as fighter.… As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.” (Rainer Bucher, “Hitler’s Theology,” p. 77.)

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I wonder if what the German Protestant church did was a function of the environment in Germany at the end of the 1920s. Faced with the insurgent Communism of the time and the decadence, indeed deviance, of the Weimar Republic, it might not surprise that anyone coming along promising a fix to all their fears, which is what Hitler was doing, would have quite an appeal. Once Hitler was in power, they were stuck.

So - faced with the fear of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and rampant trans and gay lobbies, I can begin to understand the appeal of Christian nationalism even as it puts the “Christian culture” cart well ahead of the Gospel horse. Thoughts?

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That’s not a bad analogy, but I’d still want to be careful equating the two.

It’s important to remember there are as many different brands of Christian Nationalism as there are voices. Some have become anti-immigrant, anti-Jew, anti-woman, anti-interacial-marriage, anti-anyone-nonwhite, and blatantly white-supremacist, all with supposedly Christian justification. There may be legitimate concerns that some of these people can see, but their solutions are straight poison.

Others, who I think make up the majority of the ordinary Christian interest in the subject of Christian Nationalism, are tired of the weak and useless philosophising of our Christian figureheads over the last generation. Colin Hansen’s ‘Christians should oppose immigration reform because even illegal immigration brings gospel opportunities.’ David French and Russell Moore kinda ethics. They’re tired of 'the gospel’™ only being invoked for political situations when it benefits leftist policies. They’re tired of what anything a leftist disagrees with being considered racism, and in ways that blatantly contradict scripture. They’re tired of having to bow the knee in public to BLM, Covid, LGBT, and whatever flavour of the month issue American Democrats see fit to prescribe. They just want to be Christian in public without apology, and without their Christian friends chiding them, as Doug Wilson says, about ‘tesssssssstimonyyyyyy.’ These Christians aren’t racists or Nazis or compromisers. They need scripture and good theology to help them sort through the issues of our complicated times.

I want to gain the ears of those who are legitimately interested in that Christianity has to say to a governor, a mayor, or even a president who becomes a Christian and wants to know what Jesus has to say about how he fulfils his public role. I want to be a help, as a pastor, to those in my congregation who want to know what Jesus’ Lordship over all has to say about political issues. I want Christians to be able to think, as Christians, about the key issues of the day, remembering both the authority of scripture and freedom of conscience.

As much nonsense and division as has been bandied about in recent days under the guise of ‘Christian Nationalism’, I’m still thankful for the recovery of good concepts the church has forgotten. Biblical Christianity makes a massive difference to how we think about society, and Christians have always believed this.

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Yes, fair points, thank you.

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But most of them didn’t start out that way. You present it as if we’ve got the baddies and the goodies, and it’s just a matter of acknowledging that most people in our churches aren’t baddies. True, most people right now aren’t blatantly white-supremacist, but I won’t pretend they couldn’t become blatantly white-supremacist, especially if they are already starting to turn that direction.

All you did was convince me that Ross’s comparison is quite apt. If you are willing to take as a given that people can be and are being tempted by this stuff, then the question becomes why? And the reasons I keep hearing sound remarkably like what you said, along with, “Large portions of this country literally want me dead because I am a white Christian man.”

I can understand the fear. God’s command is, “Do not fear. I will be with you.” rather than “Take political power, and then you’ll be safe.”

None of this even implies a rejection of Christianity affecting a country, including its rulers, but look at how people react to pointing out that Hitler was promoting Christian Nationalism. I’m not sure I would even quote Hitler at this point to make the argument anymore. Why? Because the young men tempted by this stuff are already saying the kinds of things he said, making Jesus out to be a fighter, claiming the crusades were good, etc. It’s a close call whether they will take warning or simply become fully convinced that Hitler wasn’t nearly so bad as people assume, which is what the not-so-fringe right is already claiming.

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I think generally across Evangelicalism, this is true. Though I’m aware that our circle of churches has more than its fair share of baddies.

True as well, but I also don’t want to assume that because people in our church start listening to certain sources or individuals they’re necessarily going to turn that direction. That’s both uncharitable and verifiably false. Discernment is becoming a lost art, one we and our congregations desperately need. And I would guess that for most of the men in our churches who are susceptible to the poisonous versions of CN, this isn’t the first issue we’ve had to go to work with them on. Maybe bad CN is a fruit of a bad soul, not the root issue itself.

Look, I spent a decade in the UK trying to convince British Christians that American Reformed Christians aren’t just neo-Nazi, white-supremacist, racist loons. Only to come back to the US and find out that some Christians in our circles actually are neo-Nazi, white-supremacist, racist loons, and I flipped my lid. This is nonsense. More than that, it’s demonic. It’s heresy to assert ontological inferiority between different ethnicities. It’s a denial of the image of God and God creating as a good and loving Father, and ontological inferiority has massive ramifications to our doctrines of sin and redemption. I’m dealing with this in my own church, and in our circles as well. I’m opposing the poisonous versions of Christian Nationalism!

But I’m also having regular conversations with Christians who want to know how Jesus’ Lordship helps them think about politics. That’s what Christian Nationalism used to be, and for a lot of Christians in vanilla-Evangelicalism, I think that’s what it still is. These are people for whom even the mention of Hitler would provoke a visceral reaction, people who aren’t going to give the bad CN version a second thought (if they have even heard of it at all!).

Can we please leave some daylight between the two different versions rather than implying that interest in Christian Nationalism leads necessarily to the Third Reich?

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So either your judgment of American Christianity is that it is substantially healthier than Weimar Christianity was, or you think there is some other reason that American Christians can’t or won’t do what German Christians did. I’m curious which one.

As for the health of the church in the USA, 30% of weekly church attenders in Evangelical churches—this does not include the mainline churches—voted to enshrine abortion rights in our state constitution. Evangelical Christians are the reason preborn babies are less safe in Ohio now than they were before Roe v Wade was overturned. I’m confident that nobody in my church voted that way, and not only because we did the work of teaching on it. However, I’m much less confident on the issue of racism both in my church and in our circles, as well as in the broader Evangelical church. Regardless, the church should actually be teaching on these things, and sure, plenty of people are upset that it hasn’t been.

But that’s not my main concern. The closest you got to fear and faith and hope was, “They’re tired of having to bow the knee in public to BLM.” That doesn’t even come close to what people are actually feeling. I was not exaggerating or making up quotes when I said they are saying, “Large portions of this country literally want me dead because I am a white Christian man.”

My main concern is that so many Christians seem to have put their hope in political power. Less than a year and a half after Evangelicals enshrined abortion rights in Ohio, one conservative church was promoting a conference with a video that ended, “We’ve reclaimed the offensive. We’ve got the momentum. God’s enemies are in retreat. The time is now. Join us.”

The only explanation I can come up with for that sort of claim is that the church itself is confused between political power and gospel power, or it is seeking to benefit from the confusion of the sheep on the difference between those things. The cost will be that the next time Republicans lose, people will be convinced that the gospel doesn’t have power.

The gospel has plenty to say about politics. The main thing it has to say is that those who live by politics will die by politics.

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This is very true, which means we have work to do now. Let’s teach on the evils of abortion (in any form) and what both personal repentance and godly law would look like in response. Let’s teach on the evils of racism (in any form) and what both personal repentance and godly law would look like in response. I know you are doing these things.

We could also start with preaching and teaching on the Ten Commandments (Westminster Shorter Catechism anyone???) and what impact that has on our understanding of contemporary American society. Or why not an Evangel podcast on how one of the magisterial Reformers applied the Ten Commandments to civil society? Of course there are supposedly Reformed voices out there now getting this dangerously wrong, but what are we providing that’s right? We don’t like some of the loudest voices promoting Christian Nationalism today…so what are we providing that’s true? What does Christianity have to say about politics? What are we giving our people or the wider Christian world as an alternative? Your dad’s podcast is one source…the rest of us?

No, not even close. Dear brother, you don’t even believe that. Nor did any of the Reformers. Or the early church fathers. Or any other movement in the entire history of the church that wasn’t retreatist or R2K. Or the apostle Paul in Romans 13. Unless you want to somehow arbitrarily draw a line between politics and government. Good luck with that, if so.

This is precisely the confusion I’m trying to address. The solution to neo-Nazi Christian Nationalism is…what? Rejection of anyone/anything that uses the language of Christian Nationalism? That’s too broad-brush, by far. You won’t persuade the men who are already succumbing to the poison, and instead you’ll catch up genuine Christians who are just trying to make sense of a complicated world.

Yes there’s fear today. I’ve heard those comments as well. More the point, I understand where people who say things like that are coming from. Some is pent up emotion from the last decade and a half (and needs refocusing). Some is young and restless Reformed rage (and needs rebuking). Some is genuine concern for the souls in our nation (and needs encouraging). Faith and hope? Yes they have to be in Jesus not in politics, but what do faith and hope in Jesus have to say to our view of politics as Christians today? (Pssst…that’s exactly what a lot of normie Christians think of when they think of Christian Nationalism!)

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Actually, I think that’s precisely what Jesus meant by his statement that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. There’s plenty of people who put their hope in the sword, just like there’s plenty of people who put their hope in political power. In fact, I’m not sure the two can be distinguished. Peter was attempting to take power for the sake of the kingdom of Christ. It wasn’t self-defense or anything else that Jesus was addressing.

The gospel primarily says there is no hope in any of those things. Instead, there is only hope in the death of Jesus Christ.

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Several years back, whenever Grace of Shame came out, we heard a lot about the value of shame and social norms. The social norm against racism is eroding. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to just count on society at large doing the work for us.

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Amen. Amen. And praise God for that hope. Thank you for this reminder. All you say here is true, and we forget it to our peril.

But it doesn’t follow that because Jesus warned us about the abuse of earthly power, therefore we’re not to make use of earthly power, or somehow ignore earthly power. We were warned about mammon, and immorality, and love of mothers/fathers/sons/daughters as well.

My question still stands.

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Among other things, it says that abortion is wicked. I mean, that’s considered a political topic today by most churches that are unwilling to speak about “politics.”

It also says that the civil magistrate has authority in order to punish evil, which our nation has largely rejected.

But none of that addresses the fear that I believe is driving people not to call the civil magistrate to protect the innocent and punish evil, but rather to call themselves victims (who aren’t going to take it anymore). All the insistence on asking the question of what the church has to say about politics seems to boil down in my experience to simply, “But when am I justified in taking up the sword? You haven’t given me the answer that I want yet.”

Os Guiness has a book I’m reading for the Minnery Fellowship right now. (Minnery Fellowship has the goal of getting pastors to address political topics from the pulpit, and I volunteered to help get a new cohort going in Cincinnati.) The book is called “The Magna Carta of Humanity.” I’m not sure what I think of it so far, but he has some insightful things to say about the dangers the right is currently facing as the philosophy of liberty in the French Revolution overthrows the philosophy of liberty in the American revolution.

The pursuit of equality and nondiscrimination requires a strong authority to adjudicate the claims of the “disadvantaged” and the “victims” and then impose the socially engineered solutions in their favor. This becomes more urgent all the time because an equality-based society produces ever more claimants to be aggrieved and victimized because they are not treated equally. Thus engineered equality increases lack of trust between groups and reinforces rivalry, insecurities, jealousy, and paranoia. The result carries an almost mathematical certainty: The drive to achieve a more formally equal society ends with more and more legal interventions, a steady erosion of individual liberty and personal responsibility and the relentless strengthening of the central deciding authority. Society may be made more equal, but individuals will become less free, and the umpiring state (or university) will become stronger and more intrusive. (p 94)

In the above quote he is actually writing about the leftist egalitarian ideology that I’m sure you can see, but it seems so inescapably applicable to the right that I had to include it. In our supposed rejection of equality, we have insisted on becoming the aggrieved and victimized, with the resultant jealousy and paranoia, followed by the certain loss of personal responsibility and praising the idea of an increasingly powerful central authority that is (in our fantasy) on our side—aka Christian.

In this second quote, he is addressing the right specifically with a warning:

“…The opposite of the human is not the animal but the demonic.” First, and often on the extreme political right, there is the idol of “religious nationalism,” through which a nation literally comes to worship itself instead of God. Dostoevsky warned against this idol in his novel Demons and described it brilliantly through the character of Shatov, an extreme religious nationalist.

If a great nation does not believe that the truth is in it alone (precisely in it alone, and exclusively, if it does not believe that it alone is able and called to resurrect and save everyone with its truth, then it at once ceases to be a great nation… A truly great nation can never be reconciled with a secondary role in mankind… Any that loses this faith is no longer a nation.

(pp 64-65)

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Yes, I believe you’re barking up the right tree. Your thoughts reminded me of this post I made here on Sanityville back in 2019 (let the record show that we were talking about CN before it was cool). Check out the Barmen Declaration if you haven’t. Tim refers to it in that thread.

I was trying to track with you, but you kinda lost me at this point. I think it remains to be proven that Christian Nationalism ever actually had a standing, legitimate definition. I believe I am sympathetic to some of what I think you’re referring to, but need help.

100%.

For what it’s worth, when Tim originally made this post on Facebook, I thought about asking him to give a paragraph or two giving his quick take comparison or contrast between Adolph Hitler’s Christian nationalism versus, say, the Cromwell era’s version of it, or the American Revolution’s version? Surely there’s a qualitative difference between these? And would any of these fall into what @aaron.prelock is referring to as the “OG” Christian nationalism?

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You’re exactly right @jtbayly. More of this please…here on Sanityville! So much of Christian Nationalism is creating a cheap copy of the previous decade’s secular trends. From Ogden’s Me-Too-for-men to Webbon’s Blanc-Lives-Matter to whatever the heck Wolfe is up to these days, we’re just providing a crappier Christian version of last year’s fad. And…not being funny now…it’s killing the church. It’s killing the souls of our young men.

Again, you’re right. Guys, I’m not disagreeing with the definitions or positions here! I am saying they’re insufficient. They don’t take into consideration the whole field of battle. We’re dealing with one fierce but relatively small fracas, and we miss the whole city that’s open for the taking.

I don’t know what the OG Christian Nationalism is or was, or if a definition is even possible. But I do know that, was it during President Trump’s first term? anyone who was vaguely existing as a Christian in public, any government official who invoked even the slightest category of Christian ethics, even President Trump himself, all were relentlessly accused by secular society and the media of being a Christian Nationalist. Doug Wilson wrote a post during that time stating he wouldn’t chose the term for himself, but as it didn’t matter what he said he’d be accused of Christian Nationalism regardless, might as well adopt the term. Then from there it seemed to become a movement with cases and plans and plots etc.

I’m insisting, and will keep insisting, that there are still large swathes of Christianity that are still thinking of Christian Nationalism with that late 2010s mindset, that - whatever anyone else here says about Christian Nationalism - they think of it as just trying to apply Christian theology and ethics to public society. Ordinary sheep who are tired of the secular rhetoric and the Christian compromise and want to live publicly as Christians. Good men and women. Yes, imperfect. Flawed. Poorly taught and poorly led. Insufficiently convicted. But still willing to learn about what ‘Jesus is Lord’ means today in 21st century America or Britain.

And for those Christians, Christians I have spoken with personally over the last few years, they need more than what not to think. Equating Christian Nationalism with the Nazis is going to push them away, at least without more qualification than is being given currently in this discussion. Of course there’s a branch of Christian Nationalism in the US that is exactly the same as what led the German state church to compromise, and of course it needs to be dealt with. But…all of us to who preach understand this each Sunday…do so without crushing the hearts and souls of those who are nowhere near that mindset. And those Christians, I’m still boldly (though perhaps wrongly) asserting, far outnumber the young, raging, and reformed nazis.

The Christians who are beginning to wake up from vanilla-Evangelicalism or recover from the autocracy of Fundamentalism are hungry for truth! Biblically saturated, historically grounded, contemporary focused truth. Theology and ethics. Both the courage to oppose heresy and the wisdom to teach orthodoxy. Not just to fight, but also to build.

And I’m pleading with you brothers here, please don’t lose these tender sheep who for so long have been harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Don’t lose the sheep who are just starting to repent of their spiritual torpor and now want to live for their Savior. Fight the wolves. Tenaciously. But don’t forget the sheep. Please.

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I agree. Mostly what they need to be taught is the relegation of political power in the gospel. And it seems to me that Christian Nationalism in all its brands is teaching people to raise political power up. Perhaps God is using the anger and dissatisfaction of the people to wake up pastors who have been unwilling to speak about “political” topics. I hope so. But if they instead jump on the bandwagon of teaching people political hopefulness, everybody will be worse off.

Also, it cracks me up that you throw Wolfe in with Webbon and Ogden. I’ve never read or followed any of them, but I can tell you that Wilson and Thistleton would say to you, “Christians I have spoken with personally over the last few years, they need more than what not to think. Equating Wolfe with Webbon is going to push them away, at least without more qualification than is being given currently in this discussion.”

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Oh, and I meant to include this quote from Guinness a paragraph later:

Today, Dostoevsky’s warning is amplified through reactions to the perceived menace of the process of globalization and the philosophy of globalism. Many people are now tempted to resort to religion, whether true or false, as the best and only way to bolster their own national culture and to guard the cultural differences that they see threatened by the ironed-out uniformity of globalization.

People do need to be taught positively, not just negatively. But we shouldn’t be Pollyannas with regard to what is motivating them to suddenly be interested in hearing about Christ’s lordship.

  1. They are scared of persecution.
  2. They are feeling the earth move under their feet with globalism and AI, so they are scared of financial ruin.
  3. They are angry, and they want somebody to blame.
  4. They are restless, feel like their hands are tied by basic Christian teaching about authority, and they want justification to take action.

For the record, it’s interesting that the people who were most insistent that wearing a mask was putting hope in government are the ones I feel are putting their hope in government right now. There is a certain consistency to it in the restlessness, but man does it shine another light on 2020.

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Just one comment to this exchange:

Joseph Bayly:
The gospel has plenty to say about politics. The main thing it has to say is that those who live by politics will die by politics.

Aaron Prelock: No, not even close. Dear brother, you don’t even believe that. Nor did any of the Reformers. Or the early church fathers. Or any other movement in the entire history of the church that wasn’t retreatist or R2K. Or the apostle Paul in Romans 13. Unless you want to somehow arbitrarily draw a line between politics and government. Good luck with that, if so.

What we must keep our eye on is that these present men have their eagle eye focussed on the church and state, not preaching the Ten Commandments to judges and Christian rulers sitting in the congregation—which is to say not man and state; not session and state (Covid, church disciple in Geneva when some sins were turned over to state to handle as we have done many times at Trinity). What we must warn against is the church seeking to work with and through the state to bring in the Kingdom of God. To seek and use political and military power to establish the kingdom of God in and through their state. The CREC’s Pete Hegseth and his tatoos, anybody? His bringing in Doug to preach at the Pentagon. This is what they wanted and what they got. And they want more of it.

Gaining and using political power to bring in the Kingdom of God is ground zero of their commitments. Not fulfilling the Great Commission, obeying our Lord’s specific commands to baptize and make disciples. Not to tattoo ourselves and go to Rome and take leadership over all Rome’s legions in the name of the Church and her pastors seeking to bring in the Kingdom of God.

That is the Christian Nationalism that everyone understands is being hawked today and it bears not the slightest resemblance to Calvin. Read the history of Geneva. Read the history of what Calvin turned to the state for and what he forbade the state. Just listened to Prof. David Calhoun’s lecture on Calvin and he explicitly denounced these attempts to make Calvin’s Geneva a theocracy. Explicitly.

To use sermons on the Ten Commandments applied to the civil magistrates has nothing to do with Christian Nationalism. I’ve done it all my ministry and I’m opposed to Christian Nationalism as it’s being sold today. Why?

As I’ve said from Moscow’s Christian Nationalism’s very beginning, the minute the church tries to make a deal with the state in promotion of Church political power, the church gets corrupted. Compromised. The church loses. Ellul wrote this back in the mid-twentieth century and he was perfectly right.

It’s not abuse of Naziism to point out that he wrote this shortly after the German Christian (Lutheran) church went whole hog into Naziism, and ended up themselves (the church) being responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent people, including baptized and communing Jews. Corporate endorsement of Naziism and corporate responsibility for Naziism’s horrors).

I haven’t read the exchanges below the comments I quote above, so maybe someone else addressed this. Love,

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Yup. But the difference is that opposition to any shame being attached to sodomy came from the Canaanites whereas the present recrudescence of racism is traceable to the church. Make no mistake: the people of God are promoting racism. Love,

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Recall that Sodom’s sin was twofold: both sexual and her failure, being rich, to show hospitality to strangers. Scripture connects the two together.

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Coming back to this, I keep thinking of Jeremiah 29: Pray for the prosperity of the city into which I have carried you into exile, for if it prospers you too will prosper. Now, I know that none of us are especially happy with what Tim Keller did with that verse … but maybe if we reframe our view of ourselves as being exiles, “strangers in a strange land” (and cf 1 Peter 1:1), it might be a better place to start?

So, along these lines, and to answer @aaron.prelock’s question, we have the examples of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, as they engaged with secular and (often) unbelieving powers. It can be done; and today, there are Christians in many parts of the world who have to engage in their own wider cultures in that way. Given that we are not going to get Christendom back, thoughts?