Eight More Thoughts on Christian Nationalism

The Edmund Burke Foundation held a conference in July on the issue of morality in the West, and the featured speakers were Al Mohler, Doug Wilson, and Israeli-American political scholar Yoram Hazony. A number of points were raised during the conference that I thought were worth addressing and that raised other thoughts, especially in light of our recent podcast on Christian Nationalism (hereafter “CN”).¹When I speak of “Christian Nationalism” in this article, I am including related ideologies such as theonomy, dominion theology, and Christian reconstructionism, all of which advocate for something like Christian nation-state building as a necessary aspect of Christian endeavors in this present age.

Just as an advance warning, this article is long and sometimes redundant. That is because it wasn’t my priority to edit and trim for length, but simply to ‘make a clean breast of it’ and say what I have to say.

Without further ado, here are eight additional thoughts I’ve had about CN since the podcast.

Looking back on our podcast, we failed to mention one of the most fundamental points of emphasis for CN, which is that secularism is a failure. As we said then, it is essential to deal with what people are actually saying and not with what we can make them out to be saying, or with caricatures of what they’re saying. So not to acknowledge this assertion of CN was admittedly a swing and a miss.

For the record, secularism is a dismal failure. Societal evidence for this can be seen even in just a surface look at things like depression, suicide, mass shootings, fatherlessness, and a host of other issues that are at record highs in the U.S. At the policy level, we can see the simultaneous fruits and facilitators of society-wide cultural deterioration of the West in real time.

So we agree wholeheartedly with our theonomic brothers at that point: Secularism as conceived of today and as represented by the secular left has been spectacularly destructive.

As Mohler points out and the founders warned, an essentially-Christian worldview and something resembling an active Christian life (for lack of a better term) are necessary for the maintenance of a free, peaceful, orderly, and prosperous society. Along similar lines, Hazony, who is Jewish, plainly affirms that it is specifically the influence and involvement of Protestant Christianity that is necessary for the restoration and maintenance of American society: “Catholics and Jews, we can help in all sorts of ways, but without Protestantism I think it’s just not going to happen.”

The bottom line is that an essentially Protestant, evangelical, Christian view of humanity, morality, and reality has been unique in its ability to produce peace, prosperity, and equality, and it has done so at unprecedented levels. The fast-rising alternative in the West, by contrast—which is essentially secular, postmodern, and pagan—has only served to erode and destroy wherever it has attained a place of predominant influence.

The catastrophic failure of secularism is consistently one of the first arguments made by proponents of CN, and it’s important for us to acknowledge that, for one because it’s a crucial argument, and for two because it’s one with which we could not agree more.

But whether or not secularism is a failure is not the point of divergence between Christian Nationalists and non-activist Christians.

Whether or not secularism is a failure is not the point of divergence between Christian Nationalists and non-activist Christians. The real point of contention is in what to do about it.

The real point of contention is in what to do about it, and the answer has virtually nothing to do with secularism positively or negatively. Rather, it has everything to do with our understanding of “the relationship between private faith and public secularism”—between citizen and saint, and between church and state.

Ultimately, the whole issue comes down to what the Great Commission actually entails. Does Matthew 28.18–20 contain marching orders that are, in aim and scope: A) spiritual; B) social; C) political; or D) some or all of the above? CN’s answer to that question is D, whereas “ours” is A.

In his 1923 classic Christianity & Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen repeatedly argues that a fundamental distinction between Christianity and theological liberalism was that salvation according to the latter entailed a kind of social activism born out of a focus on this present world, and naturally so since it was a naturalistic, pagan, man-centered religion. By contrast, salvation from the perspective of historic New Testament Christianity means forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God through faith in Christ and his substitutionary death on the cross. The two could not be more opposite, Machen argues, because they spring from opposite and irreconcilable foundations. In explanation of the point, he writes:

At this point [of “the social gospel”] is detected one of the most obvious lines of cleavage between Christianity and the liberal Church. The older evangelism, says the modern liberal preacher, sought to rescue individuals, while the newer evangelism seeks to transform the whole organism of society: the older evangelism was individual; the newer evangelism is social.… [But the Christian] finds no solid hope in the improvement of earthly conditions, or the molding of human institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But…a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed. Thus Christianity differs from liberalism in the way in which the transformation of society is conceived (pp. 129, 134).

Earlier on, Machen argues that theological liberalism was eager to eradicate both social and political ills; it not only sought to rid the world of poverty and vice, but Marxism and militarism as well (pg. 127). In fact, liberalism’s entire view was that Christianity is an ethic characterized by a life of social service that offers ‘salvation’ from temporal problems (see pp. 23–25 ff.).

In other words, theological liberalism was a religion of social activism, and it aimed to save society from social ills.²As we pointed out in the podcast, theological liberals were largely postmillennial, which is an eschatology that historically has naturally lended itself to social activism, and it’s easy to see why. Interestingly enough, today’s Christian Nationalists are also largely postmillennial, and Wilson plainly acknowledges that his eschatology and his activism go hand-in-hand. Even so, it is important to recognize (and we do) that many postmillennialists reject activism (including CN) as a necessary component of the church’s mission in the present age.

By contrast, biblical Christianity is “a redemptive religion” (pg. 3) that aims to conquer hearts through the divinely-provided artillery of the message of the Gospel of Christ. Biblical Christianity neither offers nor inheres any kind of social-rescue program whatsoever; rather, it offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life, which naturally materializes in the transformation of the individual as the necessary fruit of regeneration.

It is at this point that our CN brothers—who, as we acknowledged in our podcast, do adhere to classical biblical Christianity unlike the theological liberals of a century ago—nevertheless find an ironic bedfellow in theological liberalism: Both insist on a kind of social activism as a necessary component of Christianity’s mission in the here and now.

At one point during the discussion, Mohler reflects on “the new Christian right” that emerged in the 1970s, a movement in which he was to become a prominent figure. It was, he recalls, “largely an awakening of Christians to a political emergency.” So it was not only social activism, but it was reactionary.

One of CN’s essential claims is that secularism is a failure, and again, we agree. Yet even at this point, CN, like the new Christian right, seems to be reacting to the fact. After all, both the ethos and the articulated end goal of CN is ‘the rebuilding of Western Civilization.’ American society is collapsing, therefore Christians must get serious about rebuilding it by means of societal takeover at both the spiritual and socio-political levels as a matter of obligatory Christian faithfulness.

In other words, CN, like the social-activist “new Christian right” of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, is yet another iteration of American Christian social-political activism.

CN is at root a kind of social activism. That is problematic because activism is at best a distraction—the inappropriate elevation of the peripheral or incidental—and at worst is an error—a conflation or even a replacement of the necessary with the good. This was true for theological liberalism a century ago; it was true again for the moral majority 40 years ago; and it is true today in CN.

In Christianity & Liberalism, Machen talks about the ‘baseless caricature’ of non-activist Christianity by theological liberals as indifferent navel gazers with no concern for this life (pg. 133). In my experience, this is the same caricature that I constantly hear from Christian Nationalists. We’re derided as “quietists” who are “[waiting] for revival so we can make our move,” or painted as ‘setting up the greatest commandment over against the second,’ or something similar.

Anecdotally, the caricature is always implicitly to the effect that we do not really believe in the lordship of Christ over all creation including the civil magistrate, otherwise, obviously, we would be endeavoring to set up Christian nation-states.

Multiple times over the past several years, I have been told tongue-in-cheek by theonomic brethren that their churches “preach the whole counsel of God.” Then just last week as of this writing, I had a friend tell me that a Christian Nationalist told him, “We preach the whole counsel of God,” and the rhetorical charge was that churches like ours do not. I don’t know if this “whole counsel of God” phrase is a ‘thing’ in theonomic circles, but the clear implication every time I’ve heard it is that CN believes “all of Christ for all of life,” while the rest of us do not.

It could not possibly be, for instance, that we simply do not see a socio-political aspect to the Great Commission. It couldn’t be that we believe the church’s mission is the spiritual mission of making disciples, and that there is no social or political mandate whatsoever besides that. It couldn’t be that we reject the notion of a theocracy in this New Covenant age—either as a possibility, or as an obligatory endeavor, or even as a “good idea” in light of universal human experience. It could not be any of those things.

It must be that we don’t really believe the whole counsel of God, or that Christ is Lord over the civil magistrate—otherwise, obviously, we would be trying to build a Christian nation-state.

The very fact that both Machen (pg. 133) and Mohler have to defend non-activist Christianity against the charge of ‘quietism’—and the fact that I myself have had to do the same in numerous personal conversations—points to the reality of the caricature: Non-activist Christians are weak, pacifists, indifferent, and ultimately unfaithful if we are not theonomic. Unfortunately, while that might be a dig and an insult, it’s not an argument and it’s not respectable.

Someone’s morality and theology must govern, and societies that are governed by the principles of God’s truth are far better than those that are not. That is another one of CN’s most fundamental claims, and here as well, we could not agree more.

In fact I do not know of any serious, thinking Christian who believes otherwise. Law is inherently moral, God’s laws are better than man’s, and an American society that is increasingly departing from laws grounded in a Christian worldview for laws grounded in postmodernism, secularism, and paganism is committing civilizational suicide. There is absolutely no argument here; rather, it is an argument that I myself frequently make.

However, it is really worth recognizing that the only reason Wilson even has the opportunity to argue this way is because American society is predominated by people who do not believe that God’s ways are best precisely because American society is in the main no longer committed the presuppositions that grow out of a Christian worldview.

In, say, late 18th-century America, there was literally no one to argue with in this regard; they all agreed that law must reflect, and be based upon, the laws and values of the ultimate Law-Giver. (That included men like Benjamin Franklin, who was a Deist, and John Adams, who was a Unitarian—both of whom, in spite of their heretical idolatry, were nevertheless operating out of a throughly Christian worldview.) They also believed that they were setting up just that kind of government and establishing just those kinds of laws for which CN advocates. And by all accounts, that is what they did.

In other words, we might say that the United States of America was a theonomic endeavor in its founding, by the very nature of the case. Early American culture was thoroughly Christian in its essential values and worldview, whereas contemporary American culture is basically secular, postmodern, and pagan—as Wilson clearly and cleverly points out.

But note the point: The original policy grew out of a cultural dynamic, and the new cultural dynamic was not legislated into existence. Rather, the direction of policy today and the original policy of the founding are both the natural byproducts of their respective cultures.

The basically-Christian moral code that was firmly in place at the Nation’s founding, and which gave it birth, has not been scrapped for one that is secular because of some landmark act of congress. Obviously a post-Christian moral code has been making headway within the legal system—but that is not what we are denying. Rather, we are saying that the seismic political shift in the U.S.—and in the West generally—has taken place as the natural and necessary fruit of a shifting culture, and not the other way around.

The seismic political shift in the U.S.—and in the West generally—has taken place as the natural and necessary fruit of a shifting culture, and not the other way around.

To illustrate the point, when I became a Christian just twenty short years ago, nearly 80% of Americans identified as Christian (down from 90% in the early 1970s) and held to a basically-Christian morality and epistemology, even if only basically and inconsistently (which, as Mohler implies, was simultaneously the case as well as the necessary condition for the existence of ‘the Christian right’). As of 2021, that number was down to just 63%, while the percentage of the religiously unaffiliated had doubled from 15% to 30% of the American population.

What is obvious is that the basically-Christian culture which once comprised the totality of American culture and which naturally produced a legal system based on essential Christian assumptions about man, God, morality, and reality has eroded over time, and a culture that is basically secular, pagan, and postmodern has increasingly taken its place. And since ‘politics is downstream from culture,’ as John Stonestreet frequently says, the system we have in place is giving way to one that is secular, pagan, and postmodern because the new culture is neither able to produce nor to sustain the old system.

While Wilson’s ‘By what standard?’ argument concerning law and authority—an argument that resonates with me as a Calvinist and a presuppositionalist, and an argument that I have made many, many times—is only intelligible because of the cultural shift that has taken place in American society. Because the farther back you go in American history, the fewer people there would have been who had ever even thought otherwise.

I am a California native, and I remember vividly in 2000 when Californians voted in favor of Prop 22 to restrict the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. I also remember shortly after when the then-mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom defied state law and unilaterally ordered the city clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I was twenty years old and not a believer at that time and could not have been less interested in politics, but as I have reflected on those events over the years, it has become increasingly clear to me that it doesn’t really matter what the law is; what matters is what people think it is and what they think it should be, because that’s what it eventually becomes.

It doesn’t really matter what the law is; what matters is what people think it is and what they think it should be, because that’s what it eventually becomes.

In other words, politics is downstream from culture. As we said in our podcast, governments and laws are the natural products of the cultural soil out of which they grow.

(Off-topic, but this is part of what I find so disturbing about prevailing assumptions concerning the notion of “separation of church and state.” What is actually intended to limit the government from interfering with a person’s right to live out their beliefs in peace and freedom has come to be understood to mean that personal religious beliefs do not belong in the public square—or, more specifically, that Christians need to keep their bigoted, backward views entirely to themselves. Now consider again: It doesn’t matter what the first amendment actually says; what matters is what people think it says and what they think it should say, because that’s what it will eventually become. And there are even Supreme Court justices who think “separation of church and state” means the government must prohibit personal beliefs from entering public spaces.)

This raises a tremendously important question to my mind, namely, why did the culture change? Why have our Christian roots given way to secularism? The CN claim is that the church should tell the magistrate, by the authority of the Lord Jesus who is Lord over the magistrate, to stop making laws that make God angry. And with the premise itself and its underlying assumptions, we obviously agree.

So fair enough—but why are current magistrates making those laws?

Were no-fault divorce laws in the Constitution at the founding? Were pro-abortion laws there at the founding? Was Obergefell there in 1788? Were laws that legally denied constitutional rights to certain people—or laws that withheld from them the status of personhood altogether—originally in the Constitution? Or are not all of those instances of laws that arose in places where a Christian worldview was vacated and what filled the vacuum was something very un-Christian?

Of course, many today argue that the entire American experiment was created for the sole purpose of protecting and perpetuating race-based chattel slavery. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth; while the Constitution as originally ratified made provisions that regarded the existence of slavery—which isn’t surprising seeing as how slavery had been a standard feature of human existence in all places and at all times since the beginning of recorded human history prior to the unique intervention of the West in the 18th and 19th centuries—it said nothing about slavery per se. In fact, it manifestly affirmed nothing other than “all men are created equal,” which is evident from the fact that it contains within itself sufficient principles to overturn the shameful race-based slavery and segregation that were contrary to those principles.

Along these same lines, Thomas Sowell demonstrates that pro-slavery apologetic literature existed uniquely in the antebellum American South, and it frequently argued that black people were not actually people. And it had to argue that way precisely because the slavery movement had the American ideal to contend with (“all men are created equal”), and ultimately the Christian worldview with its doctrine of the imago Dei (see Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, New York: Encounter Books, 2006, pp.127-128).

Historically, wherever a Christian worldview has prevailed, the life and dignity of human beings has been affirmed and protected. Unfortunately, people in American society have frequently found ways to skirt around the Constitution and its essentially-Christian principles, redefining personhood and arguing that certain people aren’t actually people at all, in order to be free to abuse and mistreat them. Two notable instances are race-based oppression and abortion.

The laws follow the culture, and un-Christian laws will follow an un-Christian culture. American culture, which was once largely grounded in a basically-Christian worldview, has been replaced by one that is basically pagan, secular, postmodern. As a result, while we formerly had a civil code that overwhelmingly respects and protects life and liberty—and that is able to correct transgressions—we now have one that is increasingly plunging headlong into total disregard for life and liberty and that is punishing those who attempt to stand in the way.

Our point is simply this: The current shift did not come about through legislation, but through a change in culture that naturally produces changes in legislation. Similarly, a “return” (if we can call it that) will not come about through legislation, but through a change in culture that naturally produces changes in legislation.

Ok, but why did the culture change? That is our question, and we haven’t yet addressed it.

The answer is two-fold.

It is difficult to see how CN can seriously claim to be for the implementation of God’s law at the policy level and yet not advocate for the execution of idolators.⁴Stephen Wolfe does argue for the legitimacy of “civil action against heretics,” by which he means “capital punishment” and the use of “the civil sword” (Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2022), pp. 390-391), though he never goes so far as to say that it is a necessary aspect of the implementation of God’s law. It is worth pointing out here that Wolfe’s argument is not in any way exegetical; rather than citing even a single text, he builds a theological-sounding argument that is really purely logical and theoretical based on the example of three past leaders—Calvin, Turretin, and Beza—who affirmed the civil magistrate’s right to execute heretics (see footnote 7). Deuteronomy 18.1–18 is clear: Execute the idolators, or their idolatry will spread through the community like gangrene.

Isn’t that precisely what has happened in the United States? We have the tremendous blessing of freedom of religion where we get to believe whatever we want—the only problem is that that is exactly what people do.

So, for instance, we study the history of Christianity in the American church, and we learn that, from roughly 1890 to 1940, theological liberalism infects massive swaths of American Christianity with Kantian relativism and enlightenment naturalism. During the course of those decades, the American population discovers that God isn’t actually worth holding on to if he isn’t real, and the Bible isn’t worth believing if it isn’t true, so everyone abandons the churches but they take their naturalism and relativism with them.

Now a century later, here we are with a nation full of empty churches and a population full of secular postmoderns.

The inescapable reality is that if you are going to maintain a truly theonomic society, you have to execute the idolators. Otherwise, people who are free to believe what they want and say what they want will do just that, and they will find plenty of people to follow them. And that is precisely what has proliferated in the United States since its inception, to the devastation of the true church.

American Christianity is a den of divorcées, pornographers, false believers, and consumers. Freedom of religion has been a powerful greenhouse for the creation and proliferation of all kinds of Christian heresies. Even the true church has overwhelmingly abandoned God’s truth and his clear standard for biblical leadership in exchange for ear ticklers, charlatans, and entrepreneurs.

For over a century the American church has been preoccupied with everything except making disciples.

We’ve been more interested in entertaining goats than in feeding sheep. Instead of building ourselves up in the faith, we’ve built brands and organizations. Instead of loving our wives, honoring our husbands, and raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, we’ve entertained ourselves and our kids to death—in our homes and in our churches. Instead of focusing on righteousness, faith, love, and peace, we’ve focused on standards and externals. Instead of calling sinners to repentance, we’ve begged them to ask Jesus into their hearts and manipulated them into praying prayers. Instead of pursing the “one another’s,” we’ve pursued personal experience and our Personal Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.

And instead of focusing on the Great Commission, we’ve focused on social activism.

For over a century the American church has been preoccupied with everything except making disciples.… instead of focusing on the Great Commission, we’ve focused on social activism.

Thinking again about the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early 20th century (the time period in which Machen wrote and labored), you can see how devastating a period it was. Fast-forward a hundred years, and the now-secular offspring of those theological liberals to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations are turning on historic, biblical New Testament Christianity as the single greatest threat to human progress. Happiness and liberation is what society wants, and Christians stand in the way.

And to think that we are dealing with this existential crisis in large part because armies of men like Harry Emerson Fosdick were allowed to continue propagating their idolatry instead of being stoned to death in those early decades of the 20th century. Maybe American Christianity would not be crumbling before postmodern, secular paganism if Christians had only spent the past 250 years being more faithful in burning the heretics.

Now, to be clear, unlike the most consistent advocates of CN, we are not the ones advocating for the execution of idolators. (Rather, as baptistic, ‘conversionist,’ non-activist, premillennial Christians, we are the ones arguing that the establishment of a theonomic society is not required, likely not possible, and maybe not even desirable.) But what we are saying is that, according to its own principles, CN cannot give a good answer for why the idolators should not be put to death—which is one of the reasons Stephen Wolfe is so problematic—or for why they should.⁵As noted above, Wolfe argues for the legitimacy of the execution of heretics. However, the fact that he does not come out and explicitly advocate for it—but instead urges for restraint and caution in its implementation—is telling. He writes: “civil action against heretics is justified in principle but the practice of it requires considerable discernment, care, gentleness, and prudence. I say this not to place doubt on the action but simply to establish the appropriate principles and heart toward error and the proper process in addressing it” (Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism, pg. 391). One senses his implicit appeal to the “Christian kindness” he counters just pages earlier (ibid, pg. 388) and recognition of the thin, delicate ice he is on. In other words, there is an obvious tension in Wolfe between the legitimacy of executing heretics and the difficulty with plainly advocating for it, both on biblical grounds.

In the end, what CN is advocating for is in a sense materially identical to what was established in 1788—namely, a nation whose laws intentionally reflect those of the Ultimate Law-Giver because, per Wilson, society’s “transcendent anchor” was “the true and living God.” (However, I must confess that I don’t “know what we are all referring to when we say ‘extended family’” and whether or not Unitarians and Deists were supposed to be a part of it.)

But that raises an important question, namely, if the inclusion of Deists and Unitarians is actually part of God’s vision for the Christendom we are to be building on the temporal side of the Great Commission coin—which is what the founders established—why hasn’t it really worked out? Maybe the answer is that we didn’t execute the idolators. So unless we do that this time around, how can we guarantee that it will succeed this time? After all, executing the idolators is one of God’s primary means for providentially sustaining a theonomic society (Deut 18.1–18).⁶The implementation of Deuteronomy 18.1–18 would appear to be even more imperative not only if I’m advocating for the implementation of God’s law as the law of the land, but if I’m a covenantalist. If one of the cornerstones of one’s entire theological framework is that we are true Israel, and that the fundamental relationship between the Old and New Covenants is continuity, it is even more difficult to see how the execution of idolators could be argued against. This is not intended to be a dig at covenantalism; on the contrary I serve alongside several faithful covenantal men whom I love in the Lord and trust with my family—plus all my heroes are covenantal. But it is meant to highlight what appears to me to be the inconsistency of arguing for the selective implementation of God’s law if in fact a consistent implementation of it is what a faithful, consistent theology requires.

CN is a practical endeavor for those who enjoy the providential privilege of engaging in it.

First, CN is a practical endeavor and not an obligatory one. It does not grow out of any clear biblical mandate, but out of implications of implications, out of principles of principles. In that sense, it is very much like a soup kitchen, or a prison ministry, or a rescue mission. They’re good things so far as it goes and if you can swing it (cf. Galatians 6.10), but to hold that out either as an obligation in which all Christians are to be engaged or as a necessary aspect of the Gospel is simply a distraction away from the church’s actual mission, which is the Great Commission, and which is spiritual.

If you’re not mandating that Christians engage in nation-state building and it’s just something you want to do, great. And if it all goes down tomorrow and Moscow, Idaho becomes the survivor colony, I may well be the first guy knocking on the door and apologizing for all those mean things I said in that podcast and this article.

But if you’re actually imposing it as part and parcel of Gospel faithfulness on people who simply reject the premise because they don’t see it in Scripture, you would be what commonly goes by the title “legalist” and overstepping the authority of the Word of God by speaking where God has simply not spoken. You can’t make your conscience and convictions the litmus test for everyone else’s Christian faithfulness.

But to our point, any practical ‘opportunity to do good’ that I might have as an expression of Christian truth lived out is great—but that is precisely and entirely what it is: A practical endeavor if I have the opportunity.

Two thoughts here.

First, when I became a believer, some of my first Christian friends were Egyptians who had fled to the U.S. decades ago because of Muslim persecution. CN is simply not an option for Christians in that kind of environment; unfortunately, they’re relegated to ‘quietistically waiting for revival so they can make their move.’

Second, my family on my dad’s side came from Mexico to the United States in the 1930s to escape severe poverty and a life of extremely limited prospects. They weren’t Christians, but what they were was poor, lower-class people who had virtually no ability to change their current circumstances in Mexico, so they left. As Solomon points out, money isn’t everything, but it’s hard to do much without it (Eccl 7.12, 10.19).

Conversely, the raw existence of the glut of institutions and ministries like The Master’s Seminary, Ligonier Ministries, the adoption industry, the world of rescue missions, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Gideons, Al Mohler’s ministry, and even the network surrounding Christ Church in Moscow—all of it is a massive testimony to what free, faithful people with means can accomplish.

The reality is that Christian nation-state building is a fantasy the entertainment of which most of the world’s societies simply do not afford. It is the unique preoccupation of Christians who providentially have the freedom and the means to pursue it.

As Wilson acknowledges, lowest-common-denominator joint endeavors inherently carry the potential for conflict and implosion. That is because—by the very nature of the case in a Genesis 3 world—no matter how much disagreement you eliminate, there will always be another point of disagreement that creates the conditions for a rupture. The solution, Wilson says, is to have hard, ‘grown-up conversations’ where we don’t ‘lose our tempers or treat each other badly.’

The difficulty, of course, is that Christian nations in Europe and the Mediterranean world for the majority of Christian history have often had a hard time avoiding that.

By contrast, the lowest-common-denominator, non-sectarian, culturally-Christian nations of the West in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries have done a good job of avoiding it. And not because they have been Christian nations in the theonomic sense, but because they have been culturally Christian, and as such, have had entire cultures with a basic, biblical sense of what a person is, what objective morality is, what reality is, and that God exists and men are accountable to him (to say nothing of the fact the Christianity is an entirely spiritual and non-political thing which seeks to convert men by the proclamation of the Gospel and not by the sword). In fact, those societies been so successfully tolerant that they have all become first-rate incubators for heresy and secular rationalism, which in turn have produced the very cultures that are devouring those societies today.

But that brings us back to one of our chief concerns mentioned in the podcast—a concern which Mohler voices and Wilson recognizes—and that is, where, for example, do baptists fit into the equation in this brave new world? Wilson’s answer is essentially, ‘Well, I’m cool with baptists being there, but yeah, we still have to figure that out.’

Besides, it still must be explained why apostates, idolators, and heretics (like Catholics, or theological liberals, or Jews, or Unitarians like John Adams) get to live and not be executed, especially if allowing them to live spells—and always has spelled—certain spiritual doom for a society.

What is the relationship between saint and citizen biblically? How does the Bible define the relationship between church and state? That is really fundamental to the entire question of CN, and our position is that CN gets the answer wrong by blurring the lines.

Mohler identifies this precise point of disagreement with CN: “I’m just speaking as a baptist, a conversionist, and so I have to keep the citizen and the saint categories very clear.… Some of the issues that are germane to the policies even to be put in place [in a ‘Christian nation’] have to do with the relationship between the church and the state, and the citizen and the saint.”

No serious Christian denies that governments “work best” when they’re informed by God’s Word and character, or that secular, pagan, postmodernism is a catastrophic failure on a collision course with reality and destined for chaos, violence, and mass executions if allowed to run its course.

Every serious Christian would affirm that we long to see the authority of God in his Word as the controlling influence in society. Every serious Christian would affirm the rightness of endeavoring to “maximize the Christian commitments of the state.”

Every serious Christian would also affirm that civil magistrates have no the right to rebel against the lordship of Christ or to operate independent of his reign any more than I do or than my next-door neighbor does.

And to the matter at hand, every serious Christian would affirm at some level that saints have real, biblical obligations as citizens (Matt 22.15–21, Rom 13.1–7, 1 Pet 2.13–17). The question is what those obligations are, and how the two “categories” of citizen and saint relate; and how we answer that question, as Mohler demonstrates, is determined by what we the believe about the Great Commission and the nature of the church.

As one of my old professors used to say, ‘The Great Commission is about building local churches.’ This doesn’t mean building local church brands, or building personality cults or personal kingdoms, or building mega organizations, but creating and maturing Christians through God’s ordained means of the proclamation of the Gospel and the basic dynamics of body life in the New Testament local church.

Consider again the text: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matt 28.18–20).

The Great Commission does not include the mandate to create Christian nation-states, or to rescue society from societal ills, or to feed the poor, or to set up charities or soup kitchens, or any other such thing. Any social or political endeavor in which Christians engage is merely the fruit of biblical Christianity, or a good idea if we have the opportunity, or the way we decide to work out the implications of implications of principles that underly principles. But it most certainly is not a biblical mandate, and in no legitimate sense can it be called a necessary component of the Great Commission.

It only becomes a necessary component of the Great Commission within a particular theological construct when one implication logically flows from another which flows from another, etc. For instance, someone might say that since all authority belongs to Christ (v.18), then the civil magistrate is under the authority of Christ, and it is therefore the church’s obligation to tell the civil magistrate by the authority of Christ that he has no right to create laws that make God angry, and all of this necessarily implies that the Great Commission entails a socio-political mandate in which the church must engage in Christian nation-state building.

Now, that kind of theological train of logic might sound good on the surface. But it should be remembered that American fundamentalism has been affirming for decades that CCM (Christian contemporary music) is sin and that drums in music are fleshly and worldly because the Bible says “Be ye holy as I am holy, saith the Lord,” and “Come out from among them and be ye separate,” and “Love not the world neither the things in the world.”

There’s a big gap between 1 and 10, and you don’t just get to say, “If 1, then 10.” If you’re going to set 10 up as matter of sin and righteousness for everyone else, then you actually have to draw a line from 1 to 10 that is biblically supported. Otherwise—besides having become enamored with peripherals and having lost sight of the things that really matter—you’re speaking where Scripture has not spoken.

Ultimately, there is simply no socio-political component to the Great Commission according to the plain meaning of the text—or any other text in the New Testament. It’s only there within a particular theological construct, where a principle implies a principle which implies an implication which implies an implication.

Social and/or political activism—up to an including, we might concede, the building of Christian nation-states—may conceivably be a good thing to do if one has the opportunity. But to denigrate and caricature and imply that Christians who are not engaging in social or political activism are pitting the first and second greatest commandments against each other, or that we don’t really believe in the lordship of Christ, or that we don’t preach the whole counsel of God, or that we don’t believe in all of Christ for all of life, is almost reprehensible.

At the very least it’s irresponsible because it flatly misrepresents where we actually stand, when the reality is that we simply we reject the premise that the Great Commission inheres any kind of social-political component. To say that it does, from our perspective, is a misreading of the Great Commission text and of the rest of the entire New Testament.

Ultimately, there is simply no socio-political component to the Great Commission according to the plain meaning of the text—or any other text in the entire New Testament.

To close—as redundant as it may be—there are three particular points of critique I would like to emphasize.

In my fifteen or so hours of church and theological history through my BA and MDiv degrees, one thing in particular that has impressed me is this: A primary theme of Christian history has been the failure of Christian states and theonomic governments (in contrast to the incredible triumph of a Protestant Christian culture and worldview). Oppression and persecution—up to and including executions—has been the norm, not the exception.

Now, granted, the history of the Protestant West is not nearly as brutal, oppressive, and blood-soaked as the history of Catholicism or the default pagan history of the human race everywhere. Nevertheless, the striking exceptions to that tragic theme in the West have not merely been in those places where Protestantism has held sway culturally, but in which non-sectarian freedom of religion is protected by the state. In every other instance, where heresy is punished by the state in the name of orthodoxy, terror and oppression reign, and the corpses pile up.

In other words, first, theonomy heretofore has not been a particularly successful endeavor. It is not only Wilson’s ‘Someone’s morality must govern’ that must be factored in, but also ‘Someone’s orthodoxy.’ Combine that with the fact that it is impossible to legislate regeneration or even moral improvement into existence, and you will forgive us if we’re skeptical about theonomic success this time around, no matter how confident Christian Nationalists are that they know what they are doing.

Secondly, the CN movement today is contemptuous toward non-activist Christianity. In fairness it is typically not ugly, but it is there and it is smug nevertheless. Historically—at least over the past 150+ years of American and European Christianity—this is common among Christian movements that either abandon essential New Testament Christianity, or that wrongly equate peripherals with things of first importance. Two prominent examples are theological liberalism

⁹Referenced by Machen above in Christianity & Liberalism, but also notably in J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity in Conflict,” in J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, edited by D. G. Hart (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), pg. 557, originally published in Contemporary American Theology, vol. 1, edited by Vergilius Ferm (NY: Round Table Press, 1932), pp. 245–274. and American fundamentalism.¹⁰As mentioned in the podcast, I spent my first six years as a believer in fundamental baptist churches in the Bob Jones University orbit, and I earned my B.A. in a fundamentalist institution. While I have always maintained that I was in one of the “good parts” of fundamentalism, it nevertheless became apparent to me then that the movement on the whole had long ago ceased to concern itself primarily with the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and instead was entirely preoccupied with peripherals, conscience issues, and externals—music, diversions, organizational affiliation, Bible translations, dress, etc. It is precisely for that reason that I left it 15 years ago, and why I believe it has been virtually entirely irrelevant to American Christianity since 1950—unknown and having contributed virtually nothing—in spite of the many good men within its ranks in previous decades and today. Not only is the distraction away from the actual essentials an error in itself, but it invariably breeds a legalistic, contemptuous spirit that is preoccupied with externals and that confuses preference, conscience, and conviction with principle. It always has, and from my limited vantage point it appears to be doing so again in contemporary CN.

Lastly, and following our previous point, CN holds to a view of the church’s mission and the Great Commission that we simply do not affirm. The church’s mission in the present age is not social, political, or social and/or political plus spiritual, but all and entirely spiritual.

And because we cannot say this without having to defend ourselves against ‘baseless caricatures,’ let me be clear again: We do not mean by this that biblical New Testament Christianity is indifferent toward policy or society at large, or that it doesn’t matter how a Christian treats his neighbor. New Testament Christianity most certainly has implications for how I treat my neighbor, how I live as a citizen, etc., etc., but in no sense whatsoever do those implications inhere or necessitate or even suggest social and/or political activism. What we do mean is that the church’s mission is wholly spiritual, namely, the making of disciples—or, put more plainly, the creation and edification of Christians through the proclamation of the Gospel and the local church enterprise.

The church’s mission in the present age is not social, political, or social and/or political plus spiritual, but all and entirely spiritual.

What is really ironic is how that purely-spiritual endeavor—naturally, organically, and incidentally—created the West with all its incredible, unprecedented socio-political and economic features, which in turn have produced in the 19th through 21st centuries the freest, most equal, most prosperous society the world has ever seen, which in turn has been a rising tide that has had ship-lifting reverberations across the entire globe.

I recently listened to a presentation by the very thoughtful Aaron Renn—at New Saint Andrews College, interestingly enough—in which he talks about how Christians should respond to a hostile culture. I’ll close with one of his comments from the end of that presentation:

“We’ll pay our taxes, we’ll do our civic duty, we’ll be good citizens, but we’re focused on this thing we’re doing over here. So I’m…inspired by the New Testament church.… If you look at Paul’s letters, [he’s] remarkably unconcerned about what the Roman Empire was doing, very concerned about what the church was doing. And I think maybe we should have more of that mindset” (Aaron Renn).