The Case for Christian Nationalism

by Stephen Wolfe

This day—that is, July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille in Paris, France—marked the “secularization of our history and the disincarnation of the Christian God,” as Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel. This day sparked the French Revolution, the instigators of which sought to “overthrow the principle of divine right.” Camus continues: God played a part in history through the medium of kings. But His representative in history has been killed, for there is no longer a king. Therefore, there is nothing but a semblance of God, relegated to the heaven of principles. The revolutionaries may well refer to the Gospel, but in fact, they dealt a terrible blow to Christianity from which it has not yet recovered.

Christianity is often used as a coping device for inaction, even when under tyranny and slavery. It is a theological means to psychologically endure one’s gnostic unwillingness to struggle against earthly abuse. At its worst, theology is wielded to find pleasure in one’s humiliation. Many Christian leaders today are children of Rousseau in this regard, actively undermining Christian political action that opposes political atheism. They advance a sort of Stockholm syndrome theology.

Instead of establishing Christianity, Rousseau called for a “civil profession of faith,” consisting of “social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen.” Violators are declared to be “anti-social.” These “dogmas” must be “few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation of commentary.”

For decades, theologians have developed theologies that exclude Christianity from public institutions but require Christians to affirm the language of universal dignity, tolerance, human rights, anti-nationalism, anti-nativism, multiculturalism, social justice, and equality, and they ostracize from their own ranks any Christian who deviates from these social dogmas. They’ve effectively Christianized the modern West’s social creed. The Christian leaders most immersed in the modern West’s civil religion are those who loudly denounce the “civil religion” of “Christian nationalism.”

Thus, for Fremantle, we should not compartmentalize the “Christian religion” to an instituted church and clergy. All of life, including public life, ought to be Christian. The institutional church simply fulfills “one function of the great community [or nation] which itself, and as a whole, possesses this divine sanction.”

the Chinese theologian, T.C. Chao (1888–1979), wrote in 1927 about Chinese Christians “wanting a Christian nationalism.” He reasons this way: Chinese Christians are Christians; but they are also citizens of China. According to them, nationalism and Christianity must agree in many things; for if there are no common points between the two, then how can Chinese citizens become Christians and how can Chinese Christians perform the duties of citizens?

This is a work of Christian political theory, not sociology. If the social scientists wish to critique my book, they must step out of social science, suspend their belief in social dogma, and enter rational inquiry.

Here is my definition: Christian nationalism is a totality of national action, consisting of civil laws and social customs, conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation, in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ.

National action, therefore, is not merely extraordinary or heroic action but also includes the ordinary and mundane. One can hardly expect anything extraordinary in a nation where the ordinary is absent.

Thus, national actions compose a totality of action—each relying on the others for its possibility, support, and perfection; and together those actions procure for the nation its national good. Or, to put things simply, you typically cannot do anything well unless conditions are set for you to do it well, and those conditions are established by other actions conducted both by you and others. Subsequently, by this mutual support, a nation achieves its national good.

Now, since the end of Christian nationalism is the nation’s good (which I discuss in more detail below), rules of action are proper only if they conduce to the nation’s good. Thus, civil law and social customs, when proper, order the Christian nation to their earthly and heavenly good.

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 the people into concrete action.

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.

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. Neither is civil government introduced by the fall, for civil government would have been necessary for unfallen people to coordinate action for the common good. The fall required civil government to be augmented to restrain sin, though it still retained its same original principles and end.

salvation grants eternal life in Christ and a sanctified life in Christ. Having the same gifts as Adam, man is able to do (at least in form) what Adam could have accomplished in his work, which is to form nations under the true God. The people of God on earth are a restored humanity. Restored man ought to be naturally drawn to dominion, for dominion is the natural end or purpose of these gifts.

Furthermore, since shared culture is necessary for living well, nations have a right of exclusion in the interest of cultural preservation.

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. So civil government fulfills a natural principle when it directs its people to revealed religion, and thus the secular and sacred are not confounded but properly ordered—the lower serving the higher.

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.

I chose to use “Christian prince” because prince connotes a great man, not a bureaucrat or policy wonk. Our time calls for a man who can wield formal civil power to great effect and shape the public imagination by means of charisma, gravitas, and personality.

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.

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.

Experience taught them that suppressing false religion is counterproductive—that it both encourages false religion and causes cycles of war and conflict. Contrary to what many scholars have concluded, the founding era assumed Protestantism as the background condition for religious liberty.

Nevertheless, it is important to maintain the distinction between the moral law as a rule and the moral law as a covenant. 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. That is to say, even if the covenant is fulfilled for you by another, the law remains binding to you as the only rule of life.16 This distinction is very important for the section on man in a state of redemption. The key takeaway here is that man is bound to obey the moral law regardless of his covenantal status before God, for obeying the moral law is the sole means to his happiness and the fulfillment of his nature as man.

It is important to emphasize that the powers, desires, and order required for Adam and his race to meet the demands of the moral law were innate to him. The moral law is not arbitrary; it is not a system of morality distinct from, opposed to, or indifferent to man’s nature. As Willard states, “The law of nature, or those rules imprinted on the natures of things, was most harmonious and agreeable to their natures.”24 Their natures were “put into the things themselves by the God of nature.” In other words, God as creator put his will for man in man’s very design. Therefore, God cannot rescind any requirement of the moral law (including dominion), for to do so would pit God against God; viz., he would command us to go against our nature in which the divine will already inheres.

in form the “image of God” ensures rectitude, integrity, purity, and order of body and soul, but in consequence to this dignity, man can exercise dominion well. In other words, while dominion is one purpose of the divine image, in itself the divine image concerns rectitude, integrity, and order.

The right to rule creation as vice-regents is derived naturally and necessarily from divinely-granted majesty. And since grace assumes nature (as we see in the next chapter), it does not rescind or abrogate the dominion mandate, and taking dominion well is one result of sanctification.

The image of God, and therefore human dignity, is not some fiat stamp of value, but refers to the possession of distinctive faculties the completion of which is found in noble action.

The household is the basic unit composing civil society; it is a society of households.37 We speak more properly, therefore, of households filling the earth rather than individuals filling the earth.

The particularities of culture, language, and literary arts are not innate to man. They flow from common principles, but localized interaction shapes their application and generation. Thus, an unfallen world would host diverse ways of life.

The interest of one trade might conflict with another’s. In such cases, the absence of rules hinders liberty. Shared rules coordinate diverse activities and provide order and a well-functioning symbiosis.55 Not all rules require a rule-maker; rule-making is often spontaneous and decentralized. People interact with others and observe which actions have worked for mutual benefit. Subsequently, they self-sort, form hierarchies, and adopt effective practices and mutually understood rules with little deliberation and centralized decision-making.

laws do not require civil penalties by definition, but such penalties are effective in a fallen world to shore up societal law-keeping. What motivates individuals to obey the law is the end of the law: one’s good and that of one’s neighbor, toward which the laws order.

It might surprise people but, as Bavinck states, “most Reformed theologians were of the opinion that eating meat was permitted to humans even before the flood and the fall.”65 Martial virtue was not, therefore, a sort of virtue in reserve in the case that sin might enter the world. It was an essential and active element of dominion and living well.

Since martial virtues involve physical strength, men would typically have this duty, and some degree of martial skill would be required of all men, as a necessary feature of their masculinity.

Martial virtue is, therefore, a necessary feature of masculine excellence, and effeminacy is no less a vice in a state of integrity than in a postlapsarian world.

Civil fellowship exists under civil magistracy (or secular authority), which can touch only the external forum or body. By nature, the magistracy has no jurisdiction over the conscience, the inward part of man. Magistrates direct the public by means of civil command (promulgated as law), obligating people to particular outward actions. They cannot make laws concerning inward action, and hence they cannot command people to act according to the proper inward principles, such as exercising faith.

Spiritual ministry is, in a sense, the soul of the community, not because it dominates secular magistracy, but because it serves the soul, which reigns over the body. Well-ordered individuals make well-ordered households and civil communities. Magistracy, for its part, serves the body, that it might in part facilitate the operations of the soul. Therefore, the two fellowships or relations, which fall under magistracy and ministry, are mutually supporting and serve to guide man to his earthly and heavenly ends.

Since the fall did not eliminate the natural gifts, it follows that man did not lose the knowledge of the principles and the faculties that most concerned his outward, earthly life.9 He retained his basic instincts for social relations.

Fallen man cannot please God in his works, but his actions can be good as to outward duty, and, generally speaking, fallen man’s actions reflect knowledge of natural principles (even when he errs in applying them).15 It follows that the fallen world, though very different from what could have been, is not radically different from the state of integrity with regard to the principles of social relations.

Our fundamental instincts—say, a mother’s preference for her own children—are reliable; they say something about our nature as created. The same is true of our instincts or “biases” for our own people and country. These are natural to us by design. We can further conclude that the diversity of nations throughout history is not a product of the fall but of human nature.

The right to vote or hold office, for example, are not natural or human rights. Indeed, many such institutions, norms, and rights, which today we consider essential to civil justice, are merely checks on abuse and would be unnecessary if abuses were absent. Thus, they are positive rights, not strictly natural, and are a particularity of a people—an inheritance from ancestors—not things owed by “inviolable dignity.” It follows that the more righteous the community, the fewer required egalitarian institutions.

The substance of this eternal life was not introduced in the Gospel: it is the same life promised to Adam. As Bavinck states, “The covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works in method, not in its ultimate goal. It is the same treasure that was promised in the covenant of works that is granted in the covenant of grace.”20 Redeemed man is not only restored to Adam’s state of integrity; he is given a full deposit of the glory promised to Adam.

Thus, whatever was required of the covenant in terms of its moral content remains required of the Christian. The content of duty has not changed. Working is no longer about obtaining eternal life; good works—which accord with the moral law—are “the way appointed to eternal life,” says John Davenant.22 This is more evident in the Reformed view of sanctification.

Now, just as depravity was total, sanctification is total as well. It affects the whole being.

Since man is restored to integrity, rectitude, and purity as to his faculties, he is capable of pleasing God in soul and body. Definitive sanctification, therefore, restores us to true obedience to the law of God, and progress in sanctification is not a process of transcending the law of God or of escaping it or fulfilling a new law.29 Rather, we progress in conformity to the original and immutable law of God.

To state things differently for clarity: Since a Christian—having restored integrity—possesses the same gifts as Adam, he is equipped and drawn, by his nature, to exercise the same sort of dominion—to mature earthly life according to its principles and to order this world to the next.

As I’ve said, the heavenly end promised to Christians is the same heavenly kingdom that was promised to Adam. But in the state of grace, that heavenly kingdom is known to be Christ’s kingdom, and thus all of life, including the institutions that serve human life, ought to be ordered to Christ and his kingdom. So Christian dominion does not bring the heavenly New Jerusalem to earth but rather orders life to

Indeed, the chief aim of Christian nationalism is ordering the nation to the things of God—subordinating the secular to the sacred in order to orient it to the sacred.

The Gospel gives us a title to the state of glory and reconciles us to the principles of the state of integrity, and so we ought to act in the world according to those principles and not “critique” them by appealing to the state of glory. Christians should affirm the nation and nationality and even seek to order their nations to heavenly life.

“people of God” refers to restored men in their completeness, pursuing not merely the highest good but the complete good. The people of God are like what Adam’s race would have been, only they are under the Final Adam—Jesus Christ. They remain human and, by grace, are fully human, having been sanctified and having received the divine image. They constitute a restored humanity on earth. “When men betake themselves to God, the world, which was formerly disordered, is restored to its proper order,” says Calvin.52 They are what Adam and his race could have been and as such are equipped to form and constitute commonwealths for their complete good. In sum, the term people of God recognizes that Christians are not simply heaven-oriented but are also restored to the principles of earthly life and thus can order earthly life to heavenly life in pursuit of the complete good.

Finally, Christian nations should regard themselves as nations of true dignity, being a people of the true God on earth. This status should give them confidence and even boldness in their national and international affairs. They can and ought to use their resources and influence to spread the Gospel in non-Christian nations and to support fellow Christians in establishing and maintaining Christian political orders. This dignity also places domestic obligations on them to uphold national holiness and righteousness; they ought to act in a way befitting their dignity.