The charge by the political Left of a powerful, conservative Christian cabal, Christian nationalism, pulling the strings behind the scenes, a conspiracy working behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, is the theme of this little reflection on the divide between the political Left and Right in America.
It is part of the accusation by those of the Left to raise the danger of a radical right-wing violent takeover of the country. For those who make the accusation, such a civil war inspired by the right-wing constitutes how “democracy dies in darkness.” Since no one wants that, it ought to raise concerns by those sympathetic to the conservative political cause. Does the accusation have any validity? Since I often work through puzzlement through writing, here is my effort. I invite comments.
My instinct is that this description of Christian nationalism is a shibboleth. The accusation displays a profound misreading of what motivates the conservative vote of the Christian and is an egregious misunderstanding of Christian conservatism by scholars who ought to know better. It represents a demeaning view of some on the political Right, reducing them to anti-abortion, greedy, environment-destroying deplorables who cling to their guns and Bibles and are not comfortable with people who do not look like them. The instinct in such a tradition is the preservation of home that involves a covenant relationship with the living and the dead and future generations. Displacement of God in the minds of such persons by a political party, a political leader, or a political ideology is not in the cards. Such Christians love their country. The mission of the church in every nation needs to include a proper love of the country in which they find themselves, for people will rarely listen if they do not sense that you care.
The accusation of Christian nationalism directed toward Christian political conservatives is not limited to evangelicals. It has included criticism of the use of the rosary by Roman Catholic conservatives. Depending on the day of the week, the rosary involves meditation on various events in the lives of Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary. Those events include a pregnant Mary’s decision to rush to help her pregnant cousin; Jesus’ own birth; Jesus’ decision to turn water into wine when a wedding runs out of it; and Jesus peacefully allowing himself to be beaten, crowned with thorns, and crucified. This is hardly the stuff of violent revolution.
Thus, my instinct is that the accusation of Christian nationalism as described by the political Left is a shibboleth, announcing to other progressives that you are a loyal member of the progressive tribe. It also lets the politically conservative know that you are not to be taken seriously, since you have made no attempt to understand them. It is akin to the accusation of semi-fascism in that way. It has no connection with the real opponent the political Left face in conservatives of the secular or religious variety. The scholars (Sean Wilentz for one) who make the accusation against the Christian conservative that they are planning an authoritarian takeover of the United States are intensifying a genuine crisis of partisan polarization and eroding social trust.
America is not on the verge of a Christian nationalist theocracy. No one is arguing that we should throw out the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, or that we should make citizens, candidates for office, or government officials recite the Nicene Creed before they may enjoy legal rights.
As to why such writers would make the accusation, the political Left protects its violent sympathizers, such as antifa and BLM. Such protection has a history going back to the two Weatherman attacks upon the Capitol and includes the riots after the election of Donald Trump. The political Left became vulnerable to the accusation of circumventing the constitution if an election does not go their way. it has done so with the election of Donald Trump in weaponizing the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and IRS against Trump and political conservatives. Thus, part of the strategy becomes creating a shiny object to distract from actions they have taken. In that sense, the accusation is like the accusation of fascism and insurgency, as well as the motivation behind the Russia hoax related to Trump.
There is a form of Christian nationalism that concerns me. Mary Tooley of IRD has explored this in a helpful manner.
The Declaration of Independence grounds the ability to declare independence from Britain in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” It explicitly roots the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in an endowment from the “Creator.” It addresses its appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world,” with “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” This suggests that human rights are prior rights, that is, human rights are not established by the state. The state is bound to acknowledge and respect those rights which have their source in the transcendent dignity of the human person created by God. Such language would qualify as “Christian nationalist” in the minds of some on the political Left.
Christian nationalism does exist. It has an intellectual pedigree that I want to contrast with what the Pew Research Center refers to as the “Faith and Flag” conservative. It is not what some on the political Left fear and it is certainly no conspiracy, since those who adhere to this line of thinking are in the open.
Christian nationalists,[1] as represented by Stephen Wolfe, A Case for Christian Nationalism, are post-liberals who wants some level of explicit state established Christianity, a “Christian America” by statute. He presents a Protestant confessional state that suppresses the outward display of false religion while not trying to govern human hearts. He admits he wants a theocratic Caesar, a Christian prince who will lead America to a great renewal. He is a Calvinist, as are most Christian nationalists. For him, Christian nationalism is the idea that people in the same place and culture should live together and seek one another’s good. The grace of the gospel does not eliminate our geography, our people, and our neighbors. Instead, it restores us to pursue local needs and local leadership freely and without apology. Stephen Wolfe is not interested in American patriotism or very much in America in general. As a postliberal, he wants a premodern Christian society.
A hint of Christian nationalist themes is in National Conservatism’s 2022 Statement of Principles, declares that Christianity “should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private,” with Jews and “other religious minorities…protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions,” and with all adults “protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes,” but not evidently in their public lives.
Thus, Christian nationalism is uncomfortable with the constitution, which has public neutrality about religion, with a state granting equal rights to all regardless of faith, is subversive to morality and social cohesion. Christian nationalists are some form of Protestant integralists. Catholic integralists want a society where the Catholic Church is paramount in society including in civil law. Both Protestant and Catholic integralists believe the state cannot be neutral. Either it will establish the “true” faith, or it will establish a false one, which is currently, as they define it, aggressive secularism. They both believe that a truly Christian society will have a government pointing to the highest good, and that magistrates are God’s shepherds for directing the people towards the truth. Coercion in religion is necessary to protect society and individual souls. Christian nationalists are isolationist and concerned about restricting immigration. They are not supporters of Israel, which is a sharp contrast with Faith and Flag conservatives as defined by the Pew Center. They are suspicious of limited government and believe in a regulatory state when it is in the right hands. Christian nationalists, as seen in Wolfe’s dream of a theocratic prince, are more open to the strong man view of history. As staunch Calvinists, they have a strong view of social hierarchy. Some quietly oppose voting rights for women. They have more trust in the “elect.” Rousas John Rushdoony represents a Christian Reconstruction persuasion, also called Dominion Theology or Theonomy, which would seek to replace the American constitutional order with a new conception of biblical law. Their brand of post-millennial eschatology guides their conviction that by the spreading of the gospel and the observance of biblical law, the faithful are preparing the world for the return of Christ, who is coming to complete the mission of the faithful in this world.[2] The Coalition for Revival, with an Internet presence at www.reformation.net, presents its statements of fundamentalist worldviews and calls to action. They believe in separation from other Christians, wants to rescue the church, and want to make America a Christian nation. Such persons want “biblical law” applied to today where possible. Christian nationalists do not want biblical law in terms of Old Testament punishments. But they do want establishment explicitly favoring Christianity against other religions. Christian nationalism is more intellectual and has far fewer adherents. But its intellectual prowess enables it to insinuate itself into postliberal wider circles.
From an historical perspective, Christian nationalists prefer the First Great Awakening, led by Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and mostly still tied to established churches. But even more so, hardcore Christian nationalists revere earlier Christian commonwealths such as the seventeenth century Puritans, or Scotland under John Knox, or Geneva under Calvin, whose models they deem instructive if not binding. More moderate Christian nationalists will try to argue the U.S. Constitution, even while disavowing religious establishment and religious tests for public office by the federal government, did not preclude established religion for local government.
Such views are distinct from “Faith and Flag” of traditional Christian conservatism. A 1981 statement, Christianity and Democracy, was drafted by prominent Christian conservative intellectual Richard Neuhaus, backed by fellow Christian conservatives Michael Novak, who was Catholic, and Carl Henry, who was Baptist. It is a vigorous affirmation of democracy, human rights, religious freedom for all, limited government, and capitalism, which most Christian conservatives could still support. Religious freedom as paramount. They are American exceptionalists and enthusiasts for the country’s founding charters and for democracy. They value the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom, crafted by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They trace their heritage to the Second Great Awakening that followed the American Revolution, which was voluntarist, democratic, hostile to state churches, and launched a tradition of moral and social reform through political action. They advocate for an aggressive American role in the world rooted in foreign and defense policy. They championed U.S. victory in the Cold War. And they supported the Iraq War. They support the resistance of Ukraine to Russia. They are staunch supporters of Israel. They favor limited government and free markets. Christian conservatives are more suspicious of political strong men, which they would deem cultic. Christian conservatism has mostly been a populist movement mobilized by parachurch groups and leaders, all of which leads to a natural alliance with the populist Right.
Noble ideals do not make their way into history except through persons and institutions. Such carriers inescapably fall short of the ideals to which they witness. This is most dramatically true of the Church as the bearer of the Gospel. To say that America has a singular responsibility in this historical moment does not mean that America is God’s chosen nation, as, for instance, God chose Israel. God has made no special covenant with America. God’s covenant is with creation, with Israel, and with the Church. However, because America is a large and influential part of creation, because America is the home of many Jewish people who are heirs of the divine promise to Israel (Rom 9-11), and because this is a land in which the Church is vibrantly free to live and proclaim the Gospel to the world, America has a peculiar place in God’s promises and purposes. This is not a statement of nationalistic hubris but an acknowledgment that America bears a particular and grave responsibility. Beyond this, Faith and Flag conservatives are also mindful that this is the nation for which citizens and the church of America are most immediately accountable.
Part of my point here is that there is no conspiracy to forcefully institute a theocracy. That is a chimera for those who want to believe the worst of their political opposition and who project onto their opponents the violence they themselves protect and the coercion through government agencies and through manipulating popular technology that they are willing to use, to impose their ideology upon the country.
I contrast these two movements within Christianity with what is happening on the political Left. Here is where violence is present.
The revolutionary instinct of the progressive wants to take their agenda to the street in violence, such as BLM and Antifa. To be clear, I accept what many progressives will say when raising the shibboleth of right-wing inspired civil war: there really is no place for political violence in America, period, none, ever. However, I want to explore an example that calls the genuineness of their proposition into question.
Conservatives have condemned the one-day act of buffoons on January 6. As one significant example, Ivanka Trump and press secretary Judd Deere gave depositions on tape for the Select Committee that they accepted the Electoral College vote as the end of legal avenues.
Unlike January 6, Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters were engaged in a systematically organized a series of destructive and deadly riots across the country for more than four months in the summer of 2020. The issue here is not “What-about-ism,” but about the equal application of the law. Violence done to government buildings is wrong, regardless of where it occurs or if it occurs on one day or over several months. The failure to apply the law equally suggests a biased application of the law, depending upon which ideology is behind in the illegal act. That is why the unequal application of the law is so significant here. The lethal toll of their work was more than 35 dead, $2 billion in property losses, and some 1,500 police officers injured, around 14,000 arrests. They often aimed such violence at iconic government buildings, from courthouses to police precincts. There were never any federal investigations to determine why state, local, and federal officials allowed the destruction to continue. Why were the vast majority of those arrested simply released by authorities? And how had Antifa and Black Lives Matter radicals orchestrated the violence using social media? What was the role of prominent elected officials in either condoning or encouraging the violence or communicating with the ring leaders? The 1619 Project architect Nikole Hannah-Jones boasted, “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence. Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pontificated, “And please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.” I also wonder where the belief that violence is always wrong was when radical abortion activists violently attacked more than 80 churches and life-saving pregnancy centers and threatened to harm Republican-nominated justices following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision. The Left is silent on this violence. Of concern to me as a Christian is that the religious Left is silent. If ever there were a time from the religious Left to be prophetic regarding its own, it would have been in such circumstances.
On May 31, 2020, for another example, violent demonstrators tried to rush the White House grounds. Such violent protesters torched the iconic St. John’s Episcopal Church and attempted to fight their way into the White House grounds. Their violent agenda prompted the Secret Service to evacuate the president of the United States to a secure bunker. The New York Times gleefully applauded the rioting near the White House grounds with the snarky headline “Trump Shrinks Back.” As a precaution, the Secret Service removed the president and first family to a safe underground bunker. Such riots near or at the White House continued for much of the fall, before mysteriously tapering off in the last weeks before the election. Less than three weeks after the violent Washington riot, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris incited the continuing violent protests, “They’re not going to stop … This is a movement … they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.” Note that Harris’ cheerleading was joined by a host of prominent left-wing luminaries who contextualized the violence.
As a further example, when those with such a revolutionary instinct are in power, they are willing to use the power of the federal bureaucracy to implement by force its agenda. Former United States Attorney General Bill Barr referred to the actions involved with the FISA warrant and its use by friends of Hillary in the FBI as a “seditious” conspiracy against former President Donald Trump. He thought the country was headed toward a constitutional crisis because Russia narrative was a grave injustice, a dirty political trick used to hobble Trump and drive him from office. It was a hoax. The use of impeachment twice, attempting to try him as a private citizen, barring minority congressional representatives from House committee memberships, and tearing up the State of the Union address on national television, were acts of insurrection consistent with the revolutionary instinct of the progressive today. The combination of social media empires, the entertainment industry, and many large corporations are doing what they can to silence any opposition to their agenda. Time essayist Molly Ball in early 2021 gushed about a brilliant “conspiracy” of wealthy tech lords, Democratic Party activists, and Joe Biden operators. Ball bragged how they had systematically poured hundreds of millions of dark monies into changing voting laws and absorbing the role of government registrars in key precincts.
I accept that one has no right to adopt the position that one loves the country only when your side wins. Such a proposition has the effect of setting the stage for civil war. As I understand it, some on the Left abandoned celebrating American independence because, according to them, celebrating America’s founding is racist and obsolete. Some on the religious Left have abandoned the celebration entirely because in their view any form of love of country conflicts with the love of God.
This revolutionary instinct of the progressive is part of the heritage of the progressive that reaches back to the Jacobins of 18th century France, as well as Marx in the 19th and 20th centuries. The fact that so few progressives or others on the political Left today express little concern for this violence and undemocratic use of power places democratic institutions at risk.
The Lord’s Prayer includes the petition to deliver us from evil, which suggests that one of the major tests of a human life is to recognize such evil and resist its temptation. The presence of anger is often a sign of the test that confronts us.
There is an idolatrous hope placed in politicians and political parties. The revolutions inspired by Marx, their attainment of political power, and the failure of Marxists states, reveal the emptiness of its romantic and utopian dream and its failure to deal with human communities as they are. The dream of a Christian prince who will be so faithful in implementing biblical law that it will prepare the world for the fulfillment of that mission in the return of Christ is just as empty.
It would be a gift if America could at this juncture in its history have a president who could act upon the humble and gracious sentiments Lincoln expressed in his Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
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