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Viewed as a whole, the Christian nation acts for itself by a three-step process: (1) It achieves a national will for itself; (2) that will is mediated through authorities that the people institute; and (3) the people act according to the dictates of that mediation. That is, the national will for its good establishes civil authority and constructs a social world—both of which prescribe concrete duties and norms—which the people then act on. Thus, the entity that causes Christian nationalism is chiefly the people, not Christian magistrates, though magistrates are necessary to direct the will of
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. . to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ.” The purpose or final cause of Christian nationalism is to establish the best possible conditions for the procurement of what I call the “complete good”—the goods of this life and of the life to come.
Platonic
In my generic definition of nationalism, I delineated earthly good and heavenly good. I did this because, as I argue in the next chapter, ordering people to heavenly life is a natural end for even the generic nation; that is, it is neither a new command nor something introduced by the Gospel. Had Adam not fallen, the nations of his progeny would have ordered themselves to heavenly life. Thus, heavenly good is an end of the nation. Since the Gospel is now the sole means to heavenly life, nations ought to order themselves to the Gospel in the interest of their heavenly good. “In Christ” modifies
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A nation has no power in itself to bring anyone internally to true faith—to realize heavenly good in individuals. But nations have the power to ensure that outwardly the things of salvation—the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments—are available to all and that people are encouraged, even culturally expected, to partake and be saved unto eternal life.
Adam’s original task, his dominion mandate, was to bring the earth to maturity, which served as the condition for eternal life.
His work did not itself bring heaven to earth but rather was the divinely prescribed condition for God to bestow eternal life on him and his progeny.
The question is, what is the extent of discontinuity from prelapsarian (or pre-fall) Adam? I argue that postlapsarian social organization—viz., as human society has manifested in post-fall history—reflects true and good principles, but in every time and place there is some degree of abuse of those principles. Thus, the formation of nations is not a product of the fall; it is natural to man as man. But the evil in nations and caused by nations is the abuse of what is intended for man’s good.
Restored man ought to be naturally drawn to dominion, for dominion is the natural end or purpose of these gifts.
the fall nor grace eliminated the natural instinct for an attachment to people and place.
Grace does not destroy natural affection, and our basic experience with regard to people and place reflects the way God created us.
Choosing similar people over dissimilar people is not a result of fallenness, but is natural to man as man.
Furthermore, since shared culture is necessary for living well, nations have a right of exclusion in the interest of cultural preservation.
Complacent was once used positively as a sort of delightful love for something. In my usage, it refers to the pre-rational preference we have for our
own children, family, community, and nation.
The Christian nation is a nation of Christians in which their everyday life is infused or adorned with Christian practices and Christian things. Christianity has not replaced their particularity, nor does Christianity undermine it. Though Christianity is a universal religion—a religion for all nations—it does not eliminate nations, nor does it create one global alternative nation, nor does it provide a universal “gospel culture.” Rather, Christianity assumes nations (as previously described) and completes them. Thus, we can speak of Christian nations. The Christian nation is a perfected nation
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This is a natural duty of civil government, for civil government was always intended to order man to his complete good, which includes heavenly life.
A supernatural conclusion can
follow from a natural principle when it interacts with supernatural truths. Thus, given this supernatural truth that Christianity is the true religion, it follows from the above principle that civil government ought to direct people to the Christian religion.
Nations ought to be hospitable, but they are not obligated to be hospitable to their detriment, just as a household ought to practice hospitality but not to such an extent that it harms it or leads to its destruction.
It implicitly orders people to the Christian faith, though it cannot bring anyone to faith.
Though not a spiritual force, it does remove hindrances to faith by making Christianity plausible, and it socializes people into religious practices in which one hears the Gospel.
I use the term social fact in this chapter as a way of describing how cultural Christiani...
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It refers to social norms that are not centrally enforced but still act as a sort of authority over the community and upon individuals in that community. It delineates what is normal and abnormal, and people p...
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My argument is that cultural Christianity, as the normalization of Christianity in civil society, sets social conditions that aid in the reception of the Gospel and people coming to faith. It is akin to the Christian norms of the Christian family, which requires certa...
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A people can say we are Christian and call themselves a Christian nation. Out of this self-conception comes the national will for both earthly and heavenly life in Christ. This national will for itself is channeled through implicit and explicit authorities and results in a particular way of life. One role of this Christian way of life is socializing or discipling its people, especially younger ones, in the faith.
Only God can bind the conscience; fellow man cannot, except by divine sanction, command you to do this or that particular thing. Man, as a moral being, is bound only by the natural law (or God’s moral law) as the rule for his action. But the natural law in itself does not prescribe specific action—it must be applied. Applications are necessary in every sphere of life: the civil sphere, the family, and the individual. For the civil sphere, God ordained civil power as a mediator of divine civil rule, authorizing civil rulers to determine applications of natural law for the public good. This was
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Natural Law
Civil law is the chief means by which civil rulers order their people to their good.
emphasis in chapter 6 is on civil law as a determination of the civil lawgivers and on how their determinations must reflect what is righteous and what conduces to good. A civil law is righteous if it flows rationally from the natural law, but this does not necessarily make it a good law. Each law must be suitable, given the circumstances and characteristics of the community. Thus, deliberation about civil law requires two things: a consideration of what is just in itself and a consideration of whether the law in question would conduce concretely to the good of a community. So civil law is not
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More natural law
Civil law can direct men only outwardly; it cannot command the soul. The conscience is free from coercion. Still, civil law can outwardly order people to that which is good for the soul. Thus, Sabbath laws are just, because they remove distractions for holy worship. Laws can also penalize open blasphemy and irreverence in the interest of public peace and Christian peoplehood. The justification for such laws is not simply that God forbids these things in the First Table of the Ten Commandments, but that they cause public harm, both to the body and the soul.
shape the public imagination
Carl trueman
The civil power of the prince comes immediately from God as the root of civil power, but the people, by their consent, are the instrument or mode by which God confers it on him.
intermediating authority between the national will and national action.
Hoping to reignite this debate, in chapter 8 I argue that Christians are morally permitted to violently remove tyrants.
The right to revolution follows from the civil
ruler’s mediatorial role and the fact that his power was ordained by God for the good of civil communities. It is not ordained for evil. Thus, any civil command to do evil or abstain from what is good is not a command of God, nor is it backed by divine power; it is a command of men, and no man by his own power can bind another man’s cons...
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Just disobedience is directed at the civil ruler as a man or as a person, not at the civil ruler as civil ruler.
One can honor the man in his formal capacity but disobey him as man, for any civil ruler commanding what is unjust commands as a mere man, not as civil ruler.
Revolution itself is the forcible reclamation of civil power by the people in order to devolve that power on just and more suitable political arrangements. I offer several arguments that justify deposing civil rulers. Generally, they rely on the conditional nature of rule—that the people installed or consented to his rule, and they can withhold their consent, if he acts to their detriment. Remember, the civil ruler mediates the nation’s will for its good by determining concrete national action. If his commands harm them, they can depose or remove him and enact better arrangements. National
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Everyone agrees (1) that the civil magistrate cannot compel things that are properly internal, such as belief or feelings; (2) that he must not punish one for simply holding a false belief; (3) that he must not punish in order to reform an errant mind; and (4) that he must not punish someone whose false religion causes no outward harm.
The classical Protestant position is that the civil magistrate can punish external religion—e.g., heretical teaching, false rites, blasphemy, and Sabbath-breaking—because such actions can cause public harm, both harm to the soul and harm to the body politic.
Thus, the civil restraint of false external religion is not punishment for offending God but the prevention of public harm. The role of civil government is to act upon society to remove what outwardly prevents or hinders ...
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But will he in fact do that? What about the prudential questions? Can we trust that civil rulers will not attack true religion? Doesn’t history prove otherwise? And what about sectarian conflict? These questions are difficult to answer, for there is precedent in Protestantism of bloody conflict, especially in the first two centuries after the Reformation. One might ask, “Haven’t we learned from experience to leave government out of religion?” I agree that we’ve learned much, but we should also learn from our own time that governmental and societal “neutrality” are impossible
and that secularism is pervasive and relentless. It has evolved into a sort of pagan nationalism, in which bizarre moralities and rites are imposed upon all areas of life. Let us learn from all our experience. It seems to me that experience teaches us that established Christianity is better than its secularist alternative.
Pragmatic natural law. This isnt theonomy
Thus, chapter 9 shows that the religious toleration in the founding era was rooted, not in Enlightenment thought or liberalism, but in good Protestant principles applied in light of Anglo-Protestant experience. Early America is a Protestant resource for an American return to Christian nationalism.
One 17th-century minister, Increase Mather, affirmed that it is not wrong in itself to extend toleration to Baptists (to erect their own churches), and it would be appropriate in England. But he denied that New England ought to do it, given their unique composition, fledgling status, and the original intention for settling.
Christian nationalists seek the instauratio magna—the Great Renewal. We struggle for the instauration of our homeland and the revitalization of our people. We are not “conservative,” nor are we “traditionalist.” We do not merely look to the past or to some past golden age. This is not an ideology of nostalgia. Still, we do not repudiate the past, nor do we desire to progress from some “checkered” ancestry. Rather, we look forward: we strive to take the future because we love our past; we love our homeland and its people.
Fulfilling this mandate is not a process of progressively bringing heavenly life to earth by human effort. Man cannot bring ultimate rest by the work of his hands; he cannot transform the state of integrity into the state of glory.
The state of glory—the promised heavenly life—is a gift of God’s grace; man can neither merit it (as if it were a wage due to him) nor bring it about in his work.
Adam and his progeny’s work on earth was always penultimate;5 it was subordinate to a higher end obtained only by a divine act of grace.
If one fulfills the moral law as a covenant on your behalf, the moral law does not thereby cease to be the only rule of righteousness.
