One of the reasons that we’ve been slow to respond to Christian Nationalism is the belief that it is not one single thing and therefore impossible to define. So, for example, Kevin DeYoung in his article “Six Questions for Christian Nationalists” says: “no one agrees what a Christian Nationalist is”[1] whilst Andrew Wilson recently wrote, with reference to a Tim Suffield article:
So one thing we need to get clear on is what we actually mean by the term “Christian Nationalism.” Tim argues that it could (and sometimes does) refer to any of at least fifteen different things, ranging from the self-evidently good to the totally unacceptable. Six of them, it seems to me, are biblical-theological in nature, differing over the extent to which we should expect to see God’s ways taught, lived out or even legislated for in the current age. They form a kind of spectrum, ranging from innocuous, kingdom-not-yet amillennialism to muscular, kingdom-now postmillennialism:[2]
I appreciate that to some extent, Christian Nationalism could look a bit like Tim, Andrew and Kevin describe. However, I would argue that this misses two crucial things.
Castles
The preliminary point is that what we have seen quite frequently is a tactic sometimes referred to as the Motte and Bailley fallacy. Think of a very early Norman castle. These consisted of two parts. There was the outer part, the Bailley and then the inner part, the keep on the mound, the hardest to capture and easiest to defend, the Motte.
In this fallacy, the Bailley refers to the more extensive, far reaching and contentious elements of an argument. In the case of Christian Nationalism that would refer to the most overt references to authoritarian, theocratic rule , to the idea that God’s kingdom is extended through the outward discipling of nations, through Christians winning the fertility war and especially at the outer edges to overt ethno-cultural nationalism.
The Motte refers to what Suffield and Wilson list as the first two forms of Christian Nationalism.
- Christians who think that God’s word contains wisdom for running a nation
- Christians who think that churches should be able to preach God’s wisdom for the nation to the nation
The tactic is to wait until the outer arguments are challenged and questioned, then retreat to the Motte. So, you end up with people saying things like “We are only arguing that the best thing for a nation is to be obedient to God’s word and have godly people leading it. Surely you cannot disagree with that.”
COVID
Cast your mind back to 2020 and the horrific pandemic that swept around the world leading to many nations essentially shutting down and going in to a form of hibernation to wait it out. What we were hit by was a coronavirus, a particular type of virus that there are actual numerous examples of including the common cold. These viruses are all pretty unpleasant and could lead to more serious health complications for the elderly and vulnerable, however most people just get on with life and don’t worry about them because we are used to them and have built up immunity. However, this particular virus was novel, or new. So, our immune systems were completely unprepared for it. When it hit communities it had catastrophic consequences leading to hospitalisations, intubations and many deaths. But then what also happened was that the virus began to mutate, we ended up with lots of variants, Alpha, Beta and so on through to Omicron. Within those variants were sub-variants due to mutations. There were also reports of symptoms changing. However, we were still dealing with essentially the same virus.
It would have been an error to think of Alpha and Omicron as different viruses and therefore suggest that no agreement had been reached on what COVID was. Similarly, we might observe these different variants of Christian Nationalism and conclude that it is impossible and pointless to attempt to define. We will also have the pushback whenever we talk negatively about its influence that goes:
“But which version of Christian Nationalism are you disagreeing with.”
However, the reality is that the whole thing is much more closely linked together than you might think. Indeed, it is arguable that it is related to other common cold equivalents of Christian thought (as well as some pretty nasty heresies like The Prosperity Gospel).
You see, what we have seen is two things. First there was this strain of ideology that was first given the name “Christian Nationalism” in 1940s, South Africa, an overt attempt to link Christianity to Nationalism, referred to as fascism and National Socialism in other places.
Then more recently, going back to around the turn of the Millenium, you had the development of an ideology, sometimes referred to as Federal Vision that brought together ideas about infant baptism, theonomism and post-millennialism. From there, you have people like Douglas Wilson developing the ideology until it mutates into the variant articulated by Stephen Wolfe who reuses the name Christian Nationalism but also makes it clear that the idea is a modification of nationalism. The FV variant has come together with the South African variant.
In the UK, we’ve seen examples of the FV variant but a wariness fo the full blooded Stephen Wolfe approach until recently. However, particularly in the last year, we’ve seen a linking up with the ethno-cultural nationalism that has its roots in the BNP and EDL.
Conclusion
If we are to respond effectively to Christian Nationalism, we need to avoid being distracted by attempts to portray it as a bad umbrella term for lots of very different things and to give more time to analysing how these variants link together. We also need to get back to the common root cause of the whole movement with all its variations and tackle the problem at source.
[1] 6 Questions for Christian Nationalists | Clearly Reformed
[2] Disentangling Christian Nationalism | Blog | Think Theology
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