Christian Nationalism, Constantine, and the Barbary Pirates
By William Conley - Posted at Substack : Published April 30, 2026 It may seem like a strange title, and it is, but these things do have a strange correlation. I speak as one who has had Christian Nationalist-adjacent ideas and tendencies before it had a name, though the problem today is that no one seems able to say exactly what Christian Nationalism (CN) is. I have also been somewhat sympathetic to the storyline that Constantine the Great was a blessing for the church, though I now suspect that what has often been called a blessing may, in fact, be the root of some of our deepest confusions. Now, the Barbary Pirates—what has this to do with any of the above? I am referring, of course, to the conflict remembered in the United States Marine Corps Anthem: “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” In that era, the early United States had a piracy problem off the Barbary coast. American ships were being attacked, and the United States sought to defend the right of its citizen...
