Saeculum: government, law and culture

Or why evangelicals should stop clipping their own wings

Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism made something of a splash upon its publication in 2022. In one sense there may be little that is controversial about the idea of Christian nationalism. If all it means is that Christians should be thankful citizens of their nation, have a special concern for that nation, and desire it to be deeply influenced by the gospel, it seems difficult to disagree with such a proposition. What Christian would not want their nation to be deeply impacted by the truths of God’s word?

Prescribing in advance the contours of precisely what a Christian nation would look like is a fraught exercise. Wolfe in fact avoids such prescription but recognises that what laws a Christian nation would enact and precisely how it would be structured is a matter of prudence which would depend on the circumstances (257). His main concern is to outline the principles by which a Christian nation would be guided.

The main strength of the book is a detailed exposition of core principles of Reformed political theology. This includes a helpful explanation of the magisterial Protestant approach to natural law and how this is enacted into civil law within particular contexts. For those who are cautious about the idea of Christian nationalism, the book is generally more nuanced and helpful than might be expected.

Other authors have commented that Wolfe’s book is really three for the price of one, namely an exposition of central principles from the magisterial Protestant approach to political thought, a twist on nationalism as a political phenomenon, and an angry attack on what Wolfe sees as the modern “gynocracy” which characterises modern politics and the church.

There is much that I cannot cover in this post. I make three criticisms of the book. The first relates to Wolfe’s advocacy of revolution as the means to establish a Christian nation. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, the book argues that we today are living under tyranny:

“When Christians are under a universalizing and totalizing non-Christian regime that wields implicit powers against true religion, how is this not tyranny? Is this not an assault on the people of God, who are forced to live in a public square that wars against Christ’s kingdom and against the nature of true humanity?” (344).

Secondly, Wolfe argues that a Christian minority has the power to “establish a political state over the whole” without obtaining the consent of the whole people. This is because “although civil administration is fundamentally natural, human, and universal, it was always for the people of God”. Civil administration was created to serve Adam’s race in a state of integrity, and so civil government is for “those who are restored in Christ” (346).

Non-Christians are entitled to justice, peace, and safety but “are not entitled to political equality, nor do they have a right to deny the people of God their right to order civil institutions to God and to their complete good” (346–7). Christians would therefore be entitled to disregard the lack of consent of non-Christians. Wolfe considers that those who disagree with his position simply lack the resolve to properly exercise dominion (347, 352).

Wolfe would be hard pressed to find Reformed writers advocating such a position. Unsurprisingly, the citations to writers within the Christian tradition peter out at this point. It might have been helpful for Wolfe to engage with the many biblical texts which directly contradict his argument, such as Matthew 26:52–54.

The second major defect of the book is that it essentially advocates that Christians should “love those who are like us” as a Christian duty. The logic here is based on the Thomist maxim that grace does not destroy but perfects nature. Given that humans have a natural tendency to love those who are similar to themselves, this continues post Fall as an obligation of the natural law:

“It is also evident, from both instinct and reason, that we ought to prefer our own nation and countrymen over others. This instinct is not from the fall or due to sin; it is natural and, therefore, good” (150–1).

There are two problems with this. The first is that it severely misunderstands the concept of natural law. In natural law thinking, which is the ostensible basis for Wolfe’s argument, human inclinations are a normative concept, not merely descriptive of what humans happen to be like. That is, the natural inclinations which make up the content of the natural law (such as the value of human life, marriage and procreation) are things which humans recognise as normatively good, not mere descriptions. It might be true that humans tend to prefer those who are similar to them, but this does not mean that it is good.

Secondly, Wolfe expressly excludes references to Scripture in developing his argument. The problem, of course, is that here as elsewhere there are many biblical texts which seem to directly contradict Wolfe’s argument. The gospel introduces a radically new set of loyalties, transcending and even confounding our natural inclinations.

The gospel is a universal kingdom, drawn from every nation and tribe (eg Revelation 7:9). In Matthew’s gospel a would-be disciple of Jesus said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus replied: “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:21–22). In Matthew 12 Jesus asked, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” The answer: “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48–50).

Wolfe makes much of the similarity among people of the same ethnicity to ground the natural inclination to love those like us (150–1). However, the sheer size and impersonality of modern nations means that the bounds of likeness cannot be equated with the boundaries of the nation. Australia is a vast country, and Melbourne bears little resemblance to Ningaloo.

And Christianity upends much of these similarities. Christians are aliens and strangers in this present age (1 Peter 2:12), and so do not feel at home in modern Western democracies – even among those who are ethnically very similar to themselves. Even on its own terms Wolfe’s view is a jaundiced conception of human affection. As Jacques Ellul argued, conflict – difference – tension – is the lifeblood of political life:

“For democracy and man to exist, it is necessary to maintain at all costs the differentiations that spark communication and relationships. All assimilation (such as of an inferior or minority group to a superior or majority group), all adaptation (of the individual to society), and all integration … must be avoided” (The Political Illusion, 237).

My third criticism is of Wolfe’s argument that Christian nationalism necessarily arises from the inherently social and political nature of man. Had the Fall not occurred, Wolfe thinks that humans “would have formed distinct civil communities—each being culturally particular. The nation, therefore, is natural to man as man, and the matured earth would be a multiplicity of nations” (79‒80).

The logic here does not follow. While it is widely accepted within Christian political thinking that humans are inherently social and political by nature, the primacy of nations does not follow from this fact. Human communities exist by nature. Nations, however, are a recent construct, being merely one potential form in which human sociability may be expressed.

Chapter 5 mounts a spirited defence of cultural Christianity, including the good of a kind of social pressure to conform to a particular (Christian) way of life (eg 211). The evangelical world today places far too much emphasis on the institutional church, and arguably views evangelism largely as a purely private, intellectual matter. While of course there are problems with merely cultural forms of religion without a living faith, and God is not limited by what is culturally acceptable, Wolfe helpfully highlights the importance of social, cultural and even legal/civil factors in promoting the plausibility of Christianity. In the modern West the cultural influence of Christianity is small and diminishing, and there are cultural forces which pressure Christians to adopt certain beliefs and conform to certain ways of life (211).

One lesson from this is that evangelicals should stop clipping their own wings. As Aaron Renn notes in his recent book Life In The Negative World, evangelicals need to pay more attention to the importance of pre-evangelism. If Wolfe is right that faith is not merely intellectual assent, but that a whole host of factors are relevant to the decision to believe (or not), then social and cultural factors are a gospel issue, as they are directly related to the plausibility of faith. If so, then Christians should pay much greater attention to questions of cultural influence and should be actively building excellent Christian institutions.

From an Australian perspective there seems little prospect of anything like Christian nationalism gaining any serious traction either in church or state any time soon. Is The Case for Christian Nationalism worth reading? The book is certainly interesting and provocative. There is plenty with which to disagree but also a lot of valuable material, and it can be worthwhile to read writers with whom one does not agree.

It is not a difficult read, but its length (478 pages) will likely give pause to those who do not have a particular interest in Reformed political thinking.

Is there a case for Christian nationalism? Yes, probably. But I doubt that this is it.

Originally published at https://ap.org.au/2024/08/21/book-review-christian-nationalism.