The Case for Christian Nationalism: A Review

By Colin Samul - Posted at Gentle Reformation:

The cameras were pointed at the mob that was descending on the capitol, as images of men and women rushing capitol police donned in riot gear were broadcast on every major news channel. Between clips from the rally that preceded the riot, which were interspersed with images of American flags on display right next to Christian flags and other religious regalia, voices in the media began forming a narrative concerning the ideology that was to blame for the “insurrection” of January 6th: Christian Nationalism.

Like many Pastors and Christians at the time, I assumed that what was being referred to as “Christian Nationalism,” was the Moral Majority of decades past, which had evolved in the early aughts into the Evangelical voting bloc that put George W Bush in power (twice)—albeit now on MAGA infused steroids. American Evangelicalism had long been criticized for not having much of a mind (à la the title of Mark Noll’s acclaimed book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind), so the prospect of Evangelicalism now being wedded to rioters wearing buffalo hats and red, white, and blue face paint was an image that many of us wanted to quickly disavow. However, as the years have gone by, it has become clear that Christian Nationalism was never anything but the media’s trope for any orthodox Christian who makes their beliefs public, making the label about as ambiguous as the events of January 6th itself.

Since the beginning of 2021 the “Christian Nationalist” label has been appropriated by many on social media, not only because the “right people” are triggered by it, but because it also happens to accurately describe their political philosophy. Prior to the events of 2020 and 2021 books like The Case for Nationalism by Rich Lowry, and the Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony were being read and promoted by many Christian thinkers on the political right. And so like the early Christians and Puritans who took terms of cultural derision and proudly appropriated them as self-identifiers, Christians on the political right who identified with nationalism appropriated the term Christian Nationalist for themselves. And one Christian with postgraduate credentials in the area of political science, who has written for publications like Mere Orthodoxy, First Things, and History of Political Thought has written a book on political theology that has generated much debate and discussion which has changed the nature of the conversation surrounding Christian Nationalism, both inside and outside the church.

Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism was released in November of 2022, and has received acclaim and derision from thinkers on both the political left and political right. The book has reached the top 100 books on Amazon and is even endorsed by Yoram Hazony, the author of the aforementioned book, The Virtue of Nationalism. Wolfe, a Presbyterian, argues for a distinctly Presbyterian and Reformed form of Christian Nationalism, though his ideas have been endorsed by those from outside of the tradition.

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