So asks Aaron Edwards in this article and I want to answer “not me.” You see, I’m not afraid, I’m not scared of Christian Nationalism. However, I do fear for the affect that it is having on some church contexts, on people we are seeking to share the Gospel with and on the people believing and teaching it themselves. However, that’s very different to being afraid of something. Anyway, I want to engage in detail with what Aaron says there as an example of the argument for Christian Nationalism.
First, Aaron states:
“Why does the prospect of Christian Nationalism terrify secularists? Because Christian Nationalism is a threat to Secular Nationalism.”
Now, there is some truth in that, though note first that it is the Christian Gospel itself that terrifies secularists. Secular Nationalists may or may not be threated by Christian Nationalism but that depends on whether or not they see it as a rival to replace them or an ally that can be partnered with or even consumed. The kind of ethno-cultural nationalism that has tended to loiter around far right circles is not Christian in origin, in that sense it is secular. At different times, it has attempted to co-opt Christianity to its cause and that is more noticeable at the moment.
Edwards then goes on to say:
“Debates over “Christian Nationalism” have been standard fayre in the US for the last half-decade or so, especially over Stephen Wolfe’s book on the subject, and Doug Wilson’s “Mere Christendom” vision. Where this was once seen as a “fringe” topic, over the last couple of years it has gained significant and sustained attention from the national US press (including high profile interviews of Wilson on Tucker Carlson, and more recently on CNN).”
He is right that the debate has been “standard fayre” for longer, though whilst the specific label may have become more prominent, the debate, particularly in terms of a Theonomist vision for the US goes back much further and arguably predates even the initial Federal Vision debates of the noughties. What has been perhaps been more overt is the syncing of this particular theological and ethical outlook with political movements and thought traditionally associated with far-right politics.
Edwards then sets out his stall further.
“Naturally, such a vision tends to invoke the predictable bucket of slander from the evangelical Sanballats and Tobiahs of our times, with some Christian leaders in the US (including Russell Moore and Phil Vischer) teaming up with various secular allies to make a documentary about what they see as the rising “threat” of Christian Nationalism. As far as I can see, their failing credibility as leftist evangelical sell-outs only seems to have helped the Christian nationalist cause rather than hindering it.”
This is an accusation and assertion but without evidence and he moves swiftly to the pejorative. Moore is identified as a “Sanballat or Tobiah”, these are the bad guys who seek to infiltrate and undermine God’s people in Nehemiah’s day. In other words, without evidence, these Evangelical leaders are being labelled as wolves, serious enemies who do not belong to God’s people and have infiltrated with an intentional agenda to destroy. One of the things that strikes me about the debate is that Christian Nationalists have been swift to go personal. We don’t go through the preliminaries of a discussion about the substance. Here is a poignant example. We sent shown what the opponents of Christian Nationalism say. We are not given evidence, least of all from Scripture as to why they are wrong. They are just accused of slander.
This is against the backdrop of those endorsing a specific Christian Nationalist agenda, and indeed the Unite the Kingdom Agenda of Tommy Robinson as “Patriot pastors” and the insinuation that anyone who dares disagree has a malign agenda and are traitors. It is also in the context of facebook comments even on Aaron’s own page describing Evangelicals who disagree with Christian Nationalism as “wet” and “whining”.
Later in the article, Edwards identifies John Stevens as an example of a UK evangelical leader opposing Christian Nationalism. He goes on in a facebook comment to say:
“John Stevens et al like the current order and want to leave it just as it is, despite all the damage it does not only to society (lots and lots and lots of human beings) but also to the purity of the Church and the Gospel (which is ironic because defending such things is what anti-CN evangelicalism is, in part, based upon).”
I responded to this as follows:
“ I guess I’m one of the et al. I can’t speak for everyone in that group but I can speak personally and for those I know to say you could not be further off in your accusation. I can also say that knowing John Stevens your assumptions are wrong too. John is an elder brother in Christ, a faithful servant who loves God, his word, people and the Gospel. He has planted a church that has gone on to be part of multiplying churches in Birmingham and has led a national network that continues to grow. I don’t agree with him on everything but I do respect him for those things and would encourage others to engage with him in that manner
To which Aaron’s retort was:
“you seem to misread conversations like this regularly. There’s no need to frame valid critique as “accusation”. I’ve met John, he’s a friendly and conscientiously godly person. I just believe he’s wrong about the culture war, and so are you. I talked about what I mean by my critique of Stevens’ in the article above. Perhaps you haven’t read it?”
Now, this is hardly up there in examples of academic discourse, there is a quick move to go personal. I also would suggest that yes, if you say that someone is wilfully and knowingly accepting a situation that they know will do damage, then that is an accusation. Of course, the issue is not whether or not something is an accusation or a critique, the question is whether or not it is true and accurate. We will look at that in the case of Stevens later. However, the point is here that you cannot say that someone is “friendly, conscientious, godly” whilst suggesting that they will allow harm to happen willingly. You cannot allow the impression to form that they come under the umbrella of being “Sanballats” and if you think they are godly and conscientious then you won’t allow slurs about people being “wet” and “whiny” to stand.
Next, Aaron says:
“Even if some of us have been writing and speaking about these themes for a little time already, it seems that the Christian Nationalist conversation has finally migrated to our Island too. That is, people now seem to be “allowed” to talk about it. The problem, however, is that the weighing scales for such a conversation are already very much tilted. The most recent example of this was the viral Sky News piece on Bishop Ceirion Dewar, a good man who has spoken boldly on various socio-political issues and the need for Britain to return to Christianity. Suddenly, secular journalists are alarmed by “the rise of Christian Nationalism in Britain”.
The essence of Sky reporter Tom Cheshire’s critique of Christian Nationalism is the fear of an “American” brand of Christianity infiltrating Britain. By this, I think he means the kind of Christianity that actually wants to make a socio-political difference—perish the thought! The funny thing is, what is now usually described as “fringe, extreme-Right Christianity” hurling across the Atlantic is, in fact, the kind of Christianity Britain exported to America in the first place. It is the kind of Christianity that does, in fact, still believe its beliefs, and therefore seeks to apply those beliefs to everyday life for the good of society and for the good of all people, even people whose views or actions they may need to oppose.
Observe the dismissive wave of the hand, the man who shared a platform with Tommy Robinson is not to be challenged or questioned because Aaron has decided that he is “a good man” in contrast to the forementioned Sanballats. Edwards then makes the assumption for Sky reporter, Tom Cheshire about what he means by Christian Nationalism. And perhaps that can be forgiven as Alice Roberts, the specifically open secularist that Edwards does quote, is in fact critiquing such a form of Christianity. However, what Cheshire is responding to is the association of professing Christians with the Unite the Kingdom rally. So, to prove that this particular phenomena is not far right requires the case to be proven that the organisers and agenda behind UTK (not the individuals who joined in the march) is not far right. And given that the organiser was a former member of the BNP and founder of the EDL, the onus is on those saying it wasn’t far right to prove their case.
This is important because Edwards says:
“Even basic displays of public faith are now deemed dubious. When asked about his Sky News report on a chat show, for example, Cheshire spoke of being worried by “how many crosses we saw” and “the Lord’s prayer being read” at Tommy Robinson’s recent Unite The Kingdom ally. One has to ask: would fewer crosses and no prayers be less concerning? Is there a certain amount of public Christian expression or influence that is “permitted” at such events without causing such concerns? If so, why?
Clearly, the average secular person has become accustomed to a weak, effeminised, and politically inconsequential form of Christianity, the kind that keeps one’s beliefs “private” and ensures, above all, that they never bring them to bear upon the public sphere unless under the strict surveillance of their secular overlords, who are apparently there to ensure that people don’t end up meaning their beliefs too much.”
But this is again to miss the point, let’s again assume mistakenly and naively. The objections being made were not to crosses being displayed in general or the Lord’s Prayer being read anywhere (though some secularists might object). It was specifically to their display at the Unite the Kingdom rally. Now, if the UTK agenda was neutral, one might go along with Edwards suggestion that less crosses and prayers would be worse. However, if the agenda was not neutral and in fact rooted in an ideology that we have been arguing is anti-Christian, anti-Gospel and if those crosses were being displayed as part of a movement of demos and marches that had been going on through out the summer declaring that some people are not welcome here because of their ethnicity and culture then yes, their presence would be a concern and this is exactly the concern that many Christians have expressed.
As I’ve just said above, Alice Roberts does prove a better example of a secularist conflating a Christian agenda with Christian Nationalism and the so called Christian Right. Though I wonder if Edwards has been oblivious to Roberts until now given that he says:
“Roberts’ problem is apparently not with Christian faith itself, but merely the kind of Christian faith that actually makes a difference, that actually opposes worldviews and morals which are detrimental to human flourishing:”
Alice Roberts is the professor who gets upset about Christmas and Easter on social media each year. Her problem is very much with the Christian faith!
However, Edwards’ main contention is with us Christians who disagree with Christian Nationalism. First there’s the hyperbole:
“the national mourning over the assassination of the Christian apologist, Charlie Kirk (who was effectively a Christian nationalist, for all intents and purposes, in that he was calling the US back to its Christian roots and values) renders the vision of something like Christian Nationalism no longer just a fringe issue for online debate, but an urgent necessity for everyday Christians. There is only so much trauma and humiliation a culture can take before its people will rise up and say, “enough!” What kind of nation do we want? A secular nation? An Islamic nation? A former nation? You will have some kind of nation. Why not a Christian one?”
Was Kirk a Christian Nationalist? Possibly, though there seems to be a tendency just to use the term to claim whoever and whatever you want for it. My leaning would be that he was someone who happened to be engaged in politics and happened to be a Christian who happened to seek to let his faith influence his work and his public role. That however, does not make him a Christian Nationalist. One of the arguments I keep seeing put around is that we must all be Christian nationalists if we want there to be a Christian influence in the public square. But here’s the thing. When Aaron claims that people are suddenly waking up to the public/political nature of Christianity, it’s a bit of a mis-direct. It might be that people who hold to a particular political view point are waking up to it or that some people are waking up to it and at the same time discovering a brand of politics but actually plenty of people had woken up or were always awake to that point for a long time. Personally, I was involved in student politics as a member of the Conservative Party. There has long been a movement of Christian Socialists and returning to the Conservatives, if you can get hold of it (probably out of print) a collection of essays on Christian Conservatism including a speech by Margaret Thatcher was edited by David Willets back in the 1990s. So, perhaps the people who really are rather new to all of this should at least give those who have been engaging in the public square a hearing when they question this novel idea that they are getting all excited about.
Edwards says:
“Five years ago, there was no such thing as a “Christian Right” in the UK. Today, such a movement is emerging faster than the established leaders and churches can adjust to interpret it. As I have been arguing in various posts, British evangelicals have refused to reach the Right because they have become ideologically subservient to secular multiculturalism. This is why they often cannot fathom Christians who oppose mass immigration or who promote national identity, and end up seeing such people as potentially abandoning the faith by trading the Gospel for “Right wing politics”.
Well, perhaps not a “Christian Right” in the sense of the US style Christian Coalition/Moral majority but that probably reflects the tone of both British Evangelicalism and British politics. However, yes, there has been for a long time a sizeable body within Evangelicalism that advocate for right wing positions. Indeed, frequently in my life time I’ve known people who would have been likely to vote Conservative because their Christianity and resulting social conservatism meant they could not support left wing and liberal parties even if they may have sympathised with their economics.
Again, let’s be clear on this. Whilst personally I’ve come to a conclusion that if you want freedom of movement for trade, then it’s going to require free movement of people and with long standing conservative thinkers such as Fraser Nelson I’m also inclined to think that if you do believe in free markets then the challenges that come with such free movement will naturally correct themselves over time. However, there is no question that a debate on immigration control is legitimate. I respect those I disagree with on this subject. The reaction you get is to the way that asylum seekers particularly are demonised and dehumanised. The frustration you hear is from those of us involved in the frontline ground war if you like of witnessing day to day to both white working class and those from Muslim backgrounds at the unhelpfulness of many comments and actions from those who see themselves as in some kind of culture air war.
Edwards claims that:
“This lack of awareness among Christian leaders leaves them ill-prepared to deal with the challenges and opportunities of the present moment, which they cannot seem to see as having anything to do with the advance of the kingdom of God. They have become so influenced by secular liberal norms (whilst claiming to conserve orthodox Biblical convictions) that they are astonished that Right wing issues might actually concern faithful Christians. They appear to have no conception that their fears over some nationalist movement “corrupting” Christianity are more secular than they realise.”
He confuses “lack of awareness” with disagreement. Some Christian leaders are definitely ill-prepared. And for example, if you are not prepared or equipped to both love those who hold far right political views so that you proclaim the good news, and to challenge them over their nationalist idolatry and call them to true repentance then you are ill-equipped. Further, bluntly, as I’ve been observing, it is the Christian Nationalist movement that benefits from leaders being ill-prepared because prepared leaders spotted that this was a wolf and where this wolf was going to come for us a mile off. And you will notice that the Christian Nationalists show a reluctance to actually engage with the arguments from those who challenge them.
It is at this point that Edwards turns his fire on my friend John Stevens, national director (not head) of the FIEC. [1]
John Stevens, head of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, displays a classic example of the distinctly British form of evangelical prudishness regarding Christian Nationalism. He recently declared such anxieties in no uncertain terms:
“I have been saying for some years that, with the failure of overreaching liberal progressivism, the great cultural threat that evangelicals will face is authoritarian fascist nationalism. This is antithetical to the gospel and the way of Jesus, but it has attractions to conservatives who have convinced themselves that the most important thing is to fight a culture war against the left, and who will ally themselves with anyone to achieve their goal.
Sadly what I have warned about is increasingly coming to pass. Right-wing Christians and Christian Nationalists, especially in the US, have allied themselves with those who seem to drink from the wells of overt racism, white supremacy & anti-semitism. This is nothing new. It always been a feature of the far right. It is a mistake to think that it is only the radical left and Islamists who are deeply anti-semitic. Views that were once beyond the pale are now routinely espoused on social media, and are attracting young men on both sides of the Atlantic.”
I don’t have time to dissect all of Stevens’ incorrect assumptions here, but I will merely point to the fact that, from his assessment, it seems that anyone who claims the label “Christian Nationalism” in any positive sense becomes an automatic promoter of racial hatred.
These issues are not without complexity, of course, but Stevens’ catch-all interpretation lacks understanding whilst presenting itself as the informed, prophetic voice when, in fact, it is the voice that continues to aid the propping-up of wordly secularism as the political “norm”. He even refers positively to the scaremongering of someone so obviously compromised as Russell Moore: “Russell Moore challenges evangelicals to make the stark choice between Christ and Hitler. It really has come to that.” Has it? Says who? Russell Moore…?
Notice again the unneeded addition of personal jibes. Russell Moore is “obviously compromised” (says who, on what evidence and does that invalidate his analysis?), whilst Stevens is guilty of “evangelical prudishness”, whatever that is.
More concerning is that Edward’s analysis simply does not stack with what Stevens says (and remember that this was in a quick facebook post providing links to articles, not a fully worked essay). First, observe that Stevens sees “liberal progressivism” as failed. Edwards may think Stevens to be premature in his assessment or over optimistic but that’s hardly the same as wanting to keep a status quo that damages. What Stevens does not say or even come close to implying at any point is that “anyone who claims the label ‘Christian Nationalism’ in any positive sense becomes an automatic promoter of racial hatred.” Edwards has created a strawman out of something Stevens did not say which distracts from what he does say and prevents proper debate on it. Namely, Stevens; point is that there are those on the Christian Right who are allying themselves with “overt racism, white supremacy & anti-semitism” That is objectively recognised as happening and indeed, it is specifically this with the example of an interview with someone alleged to be an apologist for Neo-Nazi-ism that Moore rebukes in the article that Edwards is so dismissive of.
Now, there is much to discuss in what Stevens does say, noting again that it was a quick comment. For example, there are many in the US who would reject the overtly racist agenda, ethno-cultural nationalism works more subtly as we’ve discussed on this site previously. Further, I have previously commented to the effect that there has been a pivoting at least in the UK so that you are unlikely to hear overt antisemitism, indeed you will hear people lauding Israel. However, at the same time, you get the old tropes banded about concerning globalism, an elite, the Frankfurt School, Cultural Marxism and of course George Soros. However, the point remains that he doesn’t say or even imply what Edwards takes him to.
Edwards continues:
“Despite critiquing the Left in some ways, Stevens is unaware of the extent to which he is unduly influenced by the leftist agitations and fears over Christian Nationalism, which are so vague that it renders the term little more than a stick with which to hit people. For example, some of the characters associated with the movement (e.g. Nick Fuentes) are not representative of what most people mean by it. Some of what Fuentes has said even in recent months is so obviously abhorrent that it should be clear to anyone that, while he may profess to be a Catholic, and while he undoubtedly has significant political influence upon millions of disenfranchised young men, the Christianness of his “Christianity” is extremely dubious.”
There we get what I’ve learnt to be quite a normal form of attack. If we disagree then it is because we are unaware about the extent to which we are duped and influenced. It’s not possible for us to have made our own assessments, we must have been influenced. And again, Edwards seems to entirely miss the point of Moore’s article when he says that some of what Fuentes says is “obviously abhorrent”. Moore’s point is that despite this, Christians are far too silent and then offers suggestions as to why. Of course, as I pointed out myself, it should not need sating that you can’t marry the cross to Nazi-ism. The interview Moore responds to would have been unthinkable to many of us in the past. It doesn’t seem to be now.
If Edwards is going to attempt a defence of Christian Nationalism, then he is going to have to do much better than this.
[1] It is perhaps a minor point but we need to do better at understanding the polity of others. Of course, all evangelicals would answer that no human is head of a church denomination or network, Jesus is. However, in terms of the FIEC and indeed many Evangelical networks, it is impossible to describe anyone as the head over a group of freely associating independent churches.
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