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Notes -
Christian Nationalism
Within my own circles this is rather a hot topic, but I've yet to see it discussed in this forum. Christian evangelicalism has had its own version of the culture war; to whit, how involved and in what manner should Christians (both individually and the Church) be engaged in society and politics. There are factions of "Big Eva" who seem to be moving more Left (see the recent "He gets us" commercial in the Super Bowl). There are those who think that the "third-way"ism of Tim Keller (taking a high road that transcends politics and culture war) is still relevant in these days (from my perspective, with echos of Martin Niemoller). And there are those who are actively seeking a more aggressive and explicitly Christian approach to governance and policy. For those interested, a useful taxonomy provided by the Gospel Coalition describes to a reasonable first approximation the different approaches that Christians have to our current moment.
I have had my own journey in the direction of Christian Nationalism (though I wouldn't...yet...apply that label to myself). While in college I was a pro-life Ron Paul libertarian, over the years I've become less individualistic as I've grown in my faith. I used to think of religion as a private exercise. I know recognize the centrality of community. I even have begun to entertain the idea that there may be salvific consequences for those who are under the authority of a Christian leader. If the unbelieving spouse can be sanctified by his or her believing counterpart, and an entire house can be baptized when the head of the house believes, could there not be salvation extended to a nation whose head of state is an orthodox Christian and whose government practices the precepts of the Word? (If you are interested in more of my ramblings on this topic, https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/what-is-christianitys-role-in-culture and https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/on-theocracy-and-redemption)
Christianity in America has enjoyed centuries of being a dominant culture. Many Christians, having grown up in a culture that was at least outwardly compatible with Christianity, have slipped into casual acceptance of cultural norms. They are in the world, and of the world. In many cases self-proclaimed Christians are functionally agnostic, with no significant lifestyle differences from Atheists. Do we really believe Christ is Lord or do we not? Do we not believe in divine judgement and divine mercy? Is Church a weekly therapeutic exercise or is it a place where we meet the transcendent and drink of the body and the blood? Christian Nationalism, at its core, recognizes the reality and consequence of a world in which Christ is Lord. There is no "third way", there is only God's way. (For a somewhat related essay on the reality of God, see https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/christianity-and-culture-continued).
There is a common assumption among Christians that all sin is equally damning. Man can never follow the Law, and Jesus even makes it clear that the Law didn't go far enough (the Law allows divorce, and does not explicitly proscribe lust). At the individual level, this assumption is correct. Outside the atonement found in Jesus, we all stand condemned. Yet at the societal level, there are varying levels of alignment with God's will. Every single person in Nazi Germany was a sinner. Every single person in 1941 USA was a sinner. Yet it would be an unusual Christian who would argue that 1941 USA was not more aligned with God's will than Nazi Germany. Not all societies are created equal, and there are varying degrees of misalignment. If I look at a woman in lust, I am clearly sinning and am condemned; but at least my desires are in alignment with God's ideal. It is only the object of my desires that is inappropriate, as being attracted to my wife is not only not a sin, but is a key part of a relationship that is a representation of Christ's love for the Church. Same-sex attraction is more disordered as both the object and the desire itself are misaligned. Transgenderism is completely disordered: the object, desire, and self are all misaligned. Societies that venerate increasingly disordered behavior will inevitably sink into corruption and decay. Christian Nationalism, perhaps alone among contemporary strands of Christian thought, fully acknowledges these implications.
I've read/watched a couple of debates on this topic, and my thoughts are rather inchoate and unformed as of yet (I often thought both sides made good points), but I'll try to lay a couple of them out here:
First, I tend to agree with a couple of people out there (I don't remember which) who argued that, while they agree with the substance, "Christian nationalism" makes for a poor label.
Second, as I've said on Tumblr, I think we need more people saying what Heidi Przybyla has said, as to the defining characteristic of "Christian nationalism":
Yes, we need more people saying that Americans' rights come from Congress and the Supreme Court (except when they overturn Roe or keep Trump on the ballot), and anyone who says otherwise (such as Thomas Jefferson, or the rest of the Founding Fathers, or pretty much any American statesman up until maybe half a century ago) is a dangerous, fanatical “Christian Nationalist” theocrat.
Third, this is in many ways an extension of some debates that have been going on longer than I've been alive, particularly the "you can't legislate morality" vs "all law is 'legislating morality'" debate; and also the question of what extent the voters in our democracy are allowed, by way of their elected representatives, to enact laws that reflect their collective moral values, specifically when those values are informed by their religion and you have the 1st Amendment. I'm reminded of times in the gay marriage debate, when proponents would argue that secular arguments against gay marriage are really just religious arguments if the person making them is Christian, to a level that almost approached 'separation of church and state means only atheists get to make laws.'
I'm reminded of Sullivan's The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. That true moral neutrality of the public square is impossible, and that there will always be some sort of dominant moral framework to the law which "overrides" any religious views to the contrary; that in the early days of America, this was a generally Protestant Christian framework, with freedom of religion primarily being a truce between denominations not to use the state to settle matters of doctrinal differences; and that since that's no longer the case, we should instead "solve" the current tensions by moving toward the French, by rethinking "freedom of religion" to mean something more like "freedom of conscience," but that once you step outside your church/synagogue/mosque/temple, your moral views must become totally subordinate to a "secular" moral system.
In other words, that with the Constitution forbidding the establishment of theistic religion, the void may — and must — be filled by the unofficial establishment of a nontheistic religion-substitute.
Fourth, I don't remember where it was, but I recall one commenter on the issue of "Christian nationalism" arguing that the reason it's rising as a new boogeyman for the left is because many of them had thought, post-Obergefell, that they had indeed pretty much achieved Sullivan's solution and banished the last traces of "Christian morality" from the public square. But then Trump and Dobbs happened, and older people on the Christian right — who'd previously taken the existence of a sort of "Moral Majority" Judeo-Christian consensus in America for granted — realized just how much they'd lost in the public square and began shedding some of their passivity. That Christian-informed moral views might begin inching back into our politics, particularly with the influx of Hispanic immigrants, is thus a trend to be squashed.
In short, that this is simply a fight as to which set of values is going to have cultural dominance.
There is a big difference between
and
I suspect people are more worried are more about the latter than the former.
Thomas Jefferson would dis-agree.
In theory, sure. The argument is that in practice, the results tended toward a Protestant framework, and that other religions — particularly Catholicism and Judaism, but also to a lesser extent Buddhism, achieved the tolerance they did by "Protestantizing" their forms of practice to varying degrees. Indeed, it's not just Sullivan who has argued that the way Americans — particularly the courts — think of religion almost entirely in terms of beliefs about the supernatural (orthodoxy over orthopraxy) is very sola scriptura and sola fides in character.
I've seen something along these lines also raised as a criticism of modern reconstructionist neopaganism as contrasted to both (what we know of) the original, as well as surviving polytheistic practices (such as Shinto and Hinduism). Specifically, that neopagans tend to focus a lot more on belief — personal belief — in a list of deities, as opposed to centering upon the performance of rites, making of sacrificial offerings, reading of omens; that "traditional" polytheism is much more orthopractic and — for lack of a better word — transactional.
Back during the Iraq War, and still occasionally since, I encounter people online arguing that Islam "isn't a religion," but is instead a "political ideology" or similar. And when those folks bother to try to make case for this position, it usually boils down to an inability to fully squeeze the likes of fiqh into that Protestant-tinged frame of what is or isn't a religion.
For that matter, even that proposed reduction of freedom of religion to "freedom of conscience" is based on the implication that the most important part of "religion" is what you, in the privacy of your own head, do or don't think about god(s) and the supernatural. (I'd note that this is a rather unusual view historically speaking. The Romans would have found it pretty alien. Their contemporaries in China too. Probably the Aztecs and the Incas, too.)
And I'll note that contemporary American protestantism is, ironically, pretty orthopraxic. Modern day American protestants, some confessionals aside, are not very focused on believing in specific doctrines. Evangelicals care more about making a personal devotion to Jesus, a practice, and within broader Christianity many of them are not very orthodox at all. Liberal protestants, of course, well...
Catholicism is more orthodoxic, but Catholic doctrine returns to orthopraxy by the requirement of works for salvation.
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