<blockquote>
It all begins with a small, anonymous Twitter account. It has less than 50 followers. One of those followers is Stephen Wolfe, who occasionally “liked” some of the Tweets emanating from this account. A theologian by the name of Alastair Roberts, while working on his own criticisms of Wolfe’s book, became curious about this anonymous account. He did a lot of digging around on social media and <a href="https://alastairadversaria.com/2022/11/27/the-case-against-thomas-achord/">came to the reasoned conclusion</a> that this anonymous account is run by Stephen Wolfe’s podcast co-host and collaborator, Thomas Achord. And then Alastair said so publicly.
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You should go read the whole post by Brian Mattson. I feel like he ably captured the thoughts swirling around in my head in a more coherent manner than I ever would have been able to. But suffice to say that it was all, "shock, horror, that's not my account, definitely not, nope not mine" for days. Then, finally, after the smoking gun was found and the dust had settled, Thomas Achord fell on his sword in the lamest, most passive way possible.
<blockquote>
This is sordid business, and I apologize for having to bring it to your attention. Why does it matter? Well, Alastair Roberts explains why he thinks it matters, and I think he is right: there are actual, real, live white supremacists attempting to use “Christian Nationalism”—and classical Christian education!—as a Trojan Horse to help promote their deviant views. And the world has a right to know whether the author of The Case For Christian Nationalism is one of them. Guilt-by-association? It is certainly worthy of a little suspicion-by-association. This was not a case of “a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend” saying vile things. This, as I understand it, is Wolfe’s closest collaborator. And I frankly don’t find believable any of the “explanations,” such as they are—not Achord’s, and not Wolfe’s. It’s a matter of record that Achord was lying—brazenly so, and to my mind still is—and Wolfe’s (non)accounting of things simply does not add up.
Alastair Roberts (whom I greatly respect and admire) cares about the cause of Christian Nationalism and wants to empty out the Trojan Horse, or, to use another metaphor, drain the movement of its swampy elements. I do not care about the cause of Christian Nationalism—least of all Stephen Wolfe’s version of it—and wish it to die a quick and tidy death. I have done my part to help make that happen. But on this Alastair and I are aligned in lockstep: there is no room for racism or white supremacy of any kind in anything claiming the name of Jesus Christ, certainly not in a “Christian” vision of public and social policy.
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I, like Brian, do not care too much about the name Christian Nationalism or the broader movement <a href="#user-content-fn-1" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-1" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a>. Though, doubtless, some would want to lump me in with many who embrace the term. Indeed, I do not doubt there is significant overlap in what I believe and what Christian Nationalists tend to believe. Christ is Lord, Christ rules and reigns now, and men's governments and laws should legislate the morality of Christ and God's word rather than the immorality that comes from a bitter and blackened heart and those who curse His name. And yet there always seems to be a lot of "sordid business" surrounding this nationalism stuff. Guilt by association isn't always right. It takes wisdom and discernment to figure it out. But after enough times, you can start to put 2 and 2 together.
I've dealt far too much with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinism">kinism</a> and racism in the reformed circles I run in and I, too, wish it to be swept away entirely from my sight. It doesn't look like that will happen in my lifetime.
<hr>
As somewhat of an aside — though certainly related to the nationalism conversation — I think one of the problems in the Christian Nationalism movement continues to be a high view of the "state" and a big government, top-down view of running the world. We moderns care a lot about things happening at a big, huge national level but not too much about what's going on in our communities. To be sure, what happens at a national level affects us far more often and to a larger degree than it should, and that causes us to care a great deal. But there's not a lot we can (or should) be doing from such a top-down position.
The U.S. is HUGE — both in population and land mass. There's just no way to properly and accurately represent all the interests at the national level. There's no way to have a shared identity and sense of "people" that the Democrats, Republicans, or the Christian Nationalists (probably Republicans?) wish to foist upon us. Are there usually things that most Americans can identify with. Yes and no. But the conception of those things will be different depending upon whether they are held in a big city, a small town, or the rural farm land. Each one of those groups has very different ideas and conceptions about being American, and they have very different interests. And because all the power is concentrated in a small group of governing officials and bodies, it doesn't really tend to work out well for anyone.
I don't think anyone, not Democrats, not Republicans, not Christian Nationalists, and not conservative libertarians (or Biblical libertarians or conservatarians, or whatever I try to call myself these days), is happy with the way things are right now. No one's interests are being served. The entire country is polarized along (falsely drawn) political lines and bad-faith argumentation. Our top-down authoritarian government has made us hate the other parties that do not serve our interests because each party is forced to vie for power to serve their own interests at the expense of others out of self-preservation.
The answer is not "nationalism" but localism. Remove the concentration of power. And as Christians we should focus on our communities, our local churches, the gospel, and righteous local leaders. No doubt, out of self-preservation, we should continue to vote in federal elections. But we should seek to be putting into federal power, those who would seek to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, not those who would use it as a battering ram for whatever political pets they or their constituents want.
Of course, when people hear localism, they also hear cliquishness and racism. And I don't deny that the human tendency toward suspicion, even hating the "other" is strong (sorry to use the "other" buzzword). But it's also strong — as we see now — at the federal level too. And it causes far more problems from the top down than it would from a position of less power and influence <a href="#user-content-fn-2" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-2" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a>. The thing is that Christian Nationalists tend to speak of our nation in a tribal sense. In a way, I'm advocating for real tribalism through localism, which is ironic. But I believe that focusing more locally would make for much better neighbors nationally. To use a very broad generalization, the city of New York trying to force their ways and their values on the rural areas of TN is precisely what has caused the rise in cliquish fear and aggravated the issues around the so-called "shared identity" of being American.
The answer of nationalism is to change the top-down thinking via authoritarianism. The correct answer is, in my estimation, localism <a href="#user-content-fn-3" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-3" aria-describedby="footnote-label">3</a>.
<h2 id="user-content-footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
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Do not misunderstand me, I do care a great deal about Christ being the sovereign over all. <a href="#user-content-fnref-1" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
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<li id="user-content-user-content-fn-2">
Sin affects every human institution, since sinful humans are involved in every human institution. <a href="#user-content-fnref-2" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
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Of course, as a Christian, a healthy dose of the local church is also necessary! <a href="#user-content-fnref-3" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
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Brian Mattson — Sordid Business

The Nationalism Conversation

<blockquote>
Advocates of so-called Christian Nationalism now are mostly a part of a protest movement, even if they pretend otherwise. Secularists deny certain historical truths about America’s founding; the CN camp replies with excessive revisionism of its own. Secularists scream for the coerced removal of God from the public square; the CN camp replies with advocacy for some coercive notion of their own. Secularists scream that Christianity has no part of America’s identity; the CN camp seeks to merge Christian and American identities. I could go on and on. Things that ought to be acceptable at worst and commendable at best get taken to a place of authoritarianism or nativism out of a temper tantrum.
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The Shine Falls off Christian Nationalism

Bahnsen on Christian Nationalism

<blockquote>
You might ask why I would describe this paragraph on page 118 as the “end” of a 475-page book? Because the sentence that follows begins, “Having established these conclusions…” Since, as I will explain at length, Wolfe has in no way “established” these conclusions, everything that follows from page 118 to page 475 is essentially superfluous. There may be some material of interest—and some of it will elicit comment—but none of it reaches the heart of the matter.
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Brutal.
<blockquote>
Wolfe begins the book by exempting himself from the tasks of exegesis and biblical theology: “Some readers will complain that I rarely appeal to Scripture to argue for my positions. I understand that frustration, but allow me to explain: I am neither a theologian nor a biblical scholar. I have no training in moving from scriptural interpretation to theological articulation.”
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…
<blockquote>
Wolfe’s ambivalence toward the Bible has deeper roots, however, than mere feigned ignorance about how to do biblical interpretation. The fact is rather that he doesn’t think he needs to do any biblical interpretation in the first place. The irrelevance of the Bible to the task at hand—political theory—is deeply embedded in his own understanding of reason and revelation, nature and grace.
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What I find fascinating is that Wolfe sees the Bible and Biblical interpretation as not interesting or important to what he's writing about. Yet his work is being promoted by those of my acquaintance or who's work I have liked or am familiar with, who cast themselves in the Van Tillian or Kyperian traditions. In The Defense of the Faith, Van Til (perhaps famously) says:
<blockquote>
The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work, but it also tells us who God is and where the universe about us has come from. It tells us about theism as well as about Christianity. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the word of God that you can separate the so-called religious and moral instruction of the Bible from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe.
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I'm not sure how you can cast yourself in this tradition unless you are willing to apply the Bible and Biblical interpretation to everything, including the political realm.
Stephen Wolfe is also of a very two kingdoms persuasion. I do have friends of the two kingdoms persuasion. I would never say they weren't Christians. We can be friends and I even have some sympathy for some two kingdom thinking. Nevertheless, the primary influences in my life are not of two kingdom thought. Yet this book, which is clearly based on two kingdom theology, has taken my non-two kingdom influences by storm.
<blockquote>
If one consults, say, his academic Ph.D thesis looking for some deeper explanation, one finds more of the same: the crassest sort of dualism, with everything divvied up very neatly between “heavenly” things about metaphysics and salvation known by faith and “earthly” things like science and politics known by reason. In that work he even includes a flowchart dividing it all up that would get full marks from Professor Kant of Königsberg, who would then, of course, just tear the sheet of paper in half and throw the “heavenly” side into his fireplace.
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Because you like someone's conclusions (and I'm not saying I like all of Wolfe's conclusions, though I dare say I would fall in line with a great many of them) does not mean I agree with the means used to arrive there. Just because two opposed trajectories intersect, that is no reason to jump on the opposing train. If you jump off the train going in the right direction for the intersecting train going in the wrong direction, you will find yourself at the wrong destination.
And finally, somewhat relatedly, I made a meme, and Andrew Sandlin saw it somewhere and shared it 🙂.
<blockquote>I always knew Brian Mattson was a superhero. <a href="https://twitter.com/The_Square_Inch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@The_Square_Inch</a> <a href="https://t.co/AT5HAWEX2m">pic.twitter.com/AT5HAWEX2m</a>— DocSandlin (@DocSandlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/DocSandlin/status/1594182974840311808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2022</a></blockquote>

Posts tagged “Nationalism” from the blog