Tag: Christian nationalism

Christian Nationalism’s Churchless Christianity

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What most critics of Christian nationalism, do not understand is that ChristNats believe in the spirituality of the church. Listen to George Sayour’s interview with Timon Cline and hear the younger interlocutor say that no ChristNat wants the church to become involved in law or public policy. Cline says it as if it’s a no-brainer. The church should, according to this view, stay in its lane, conduct the work of gospel ministry, and leave politics to the politicians.

This aspect of Christian nationalism makes it exceptional in the history of American Protestantism. Prior to our contemporary period, if Christians wanted a righteous or holy society, they threw all the resources at their disposal at the problem. The Social Gospel, for instance, drew upon the Protestant denominations themselves, gained support from ecumenical bodies like the Evangelical Alliance and the Federal Council of Churches, and relied upon Christian government officials to do the i’s and cross the t’s of Progressive policy.

Social Gospelers had no trouble conceiving of the church the way Ryan Burge apparently does in his recent book, The Vanishing Church. In a review at First Things, Brad East sees in Burge a nostalgia for the mainline Protestantism that threw the spirituality of the church to the curb.

“According to Burge, “the American church can (and should) be one of the primary drivers of depolarization in the United States.” Indeed, “the fate and future of American democracy may be at stake.”

This is pure, uncut civil religion. In Burge’s hands, the Church is not a biblical or theological entity; it is a voluntary association that exists to improve society, care for the disadvantaged, and forge bonds across differences. It is a spiritual NGO. It leavens democratic life with prayer and song and moral uplift. It offers a place for people to seek edification, whatever doubts may fester in their hearts.

In the words of Freddie deBoer, this is not worship of God. It is “worship of the God-shaped hole.” It lauds faith because it is “prosocial” and “builds capital.” DeBoer, to his credit as an atheist, calls it what it is: “Idolatry.”

The Church does not exist to grease the wheels of democracy. Paul did not found churches in Corinth and Ephesus to build up the civic health of the Roman Empire. The faithfulness of the Coptic Church is not measured by Egypt’s ranking in the social progress index. The Church is the body of Christ, called forth by the gospel into fellowship with the living God and sent by his Spirit to witness in the world to the good news of salvation. If, in the fulfillment of this mission, the measurable effects are hailed by social and political scientists, that is a happy by-product. If they are not, believers shouldn’t lose any sleep. With apologies to E. M. Forster: If I had to choose between betraying my democracy and betraying my church, I hope I should have the guts to betray my democracy.

There is a name for Burge’s preferred cocktail of religion and civics, Church and state. It’s Christendom. Burge’s book is one long lament for the passing of mainline Christendom in America. You might even say it is both a paean and a dirge for a certain style of Christian nationalism—liberal Christian nationalism. Make the mainline great again!

East has a point. This is Christian nationalism 1.0, the form it took among mainline Protestants. But don’t let the occasional remark by ChristNats that the mainline is “based” fool you. They do not want churches to do what the mainline Protestants used to do.

What East criticizes is not Christian nationalism of the 2020s variety. The bulk of ChristNats do not want either the PCA or the OPC (or any NAPARC communion) to perform the sort of political advocacy that mainline Protestants did one hundred years ago. They simply want Christian government to promote and advance Christianity in American society (they don’t talk much about the rest of the world).

This is as remarkable as it is exception if only because it means you do not need the church to have a Christian nation. All you need is a Christian prince (Wolfe) or Christian laws (Baird). Government, not the church, will make a nation Christian.

Churchless Christianity used to be the product of the world of evangelical parachurch networks. Go to a local Bible study led by Christian neighbors, or go to summer Bible camp, or download the songs of your favorite Christian pop song performer, and be sure to have a quiet time, preferably early in the morning, and you have a full Christian diet for the energetic life of holiness. The church is simply background noise. It only meets on Sunday and only has a handful of people speak. The real work of the real church, the grassroots one, is the daily pursuit of piety that the ordinary faithful conduct 24/6.

But now comes another version of churchless Christianity – namely, Christian nationalism. The making of a Christian society is going to come, supposedly, without the work of the one institution that God ordained, in the words of the Confession of Faith, to minister the “oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world.”

Of course, ChristNats will likely deny that they do not need the church to construct a Christian nation. But so far, they have not explained what kind of authority the Christian prince’s church will have over his conduct and profession. Nor have they commented on the effects of an increasingly Christian nation upon that nation’s churches: will some communions be government approved as superior places for Christian citizens? Will churches that Christian citizens avoid be able to register complaints with the Christian government? Will Christian governments support the construction of new church buildings? Will that Christian government institute an open application process or will it “pick winner” denominations or congregations? Will the Christian government even produce a confession of faith that explains the terms of its Christian profession?

You get the point. A Christianity without institutions (don’t the ChristNats read Aaron Renn?) is almost impossible. Even the most popular Christian musical entertainers need recording studios and distributors (Youtube is an institution, you know). How a Christian nation exists and keeps the church merely a spiritual institution is anyone’s guess.

What Could ChristNats Learn from Ulster Unionists?

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The parallels between Ulster and American Protestants striving to protect their cultural and political heritage is striking. Some of the similarities may be lost because Ulster Protestants use the language of “unionism” instead of “nationalism.” For parts of their history, Ulster Protestants have linked their religious convictions, quite plausibly, to British Protestantism instead of Irish Catholicism. Still, both groups, Ulster Protestants before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and American Christian nationalists (ChristNats) since roughly 2022 profess to view their societies’ governments through the lens of Protestantism (for some, “aggressive” Protestantism). Both have also viewed themselves as part of a beleaguered minority that represents the historic faith of its society (as opposed to Roman Catholics in Ireland or secular liberals in the United States).

One important difference is that Ulster Protestants have used the levers of government far more effectively than ChristNats. What is also true is that ChristNats write more books than Ulster Protestants.

Neil Southern’s 2007 article on Protestant alienation in Northern Ireland could, with a few tweaks, describe ChristNats in America:

Concomitant with the changes which have occurred at the level of politics, Protestants have had to contend with changes at the level of their cultural identity. Cultural alienation is treated as a separate analytical construct to that of politics and focuses on the emotional properties of Protestantism, whether in the form of the British identity of the Protestant and its symbolic displays in Northern Ireland, or the more regionally specific expression of Protestant culture in the form of the Loyal Orders.

. . . Protestants trace the increased presence of Irishness in Northern Ireland back to the Good Friday Agreement (and beyond). The Agreement states that, where there is a desire for the teaching and learning of the Irish language, the British government will ‘take resolute action to promote the language’ and ‘encourage the use of the language’. Yet many Protestants are alienated by the Irish language because they feel that it is not so much a cultural expression as a political tool. Protestants consider the issue of the Irish language to be used by Sinn Fein to emphasise the separateness of Irish culture within Northern Ireland as part of an overall political justification for their quest for Irish unity.

A pertinent example of Protestant cultural alienation followed in the wake of the decision of Queen’s University Belfast to dispense with the national anthem at graduation ceremonies. Many Protestants were of the opinion that the university was willingly discarding symbols of its Britishness in order to placate students from a nationalist background.

Obviously, ChristNats don’t regard the British national anthem as a marker of Protestant identity. Nor do Ulster Protestants seem to care much about blasphemy laws. They did want to align with a Christian prince – well a princess (QEII) – the way ChristNats pine for a Christian government. But Charles III’s emergence as the defender of multiple faiths may render Ulster Protestants more willing to support a Christian government in the USA. Maybe Ulster could become the fifty-first state?

But when compared side by side, Ulster Protestantism and American Christian nationalism look remarkably national (and cultural) rather than Christian. Instead of producing a common set of policies for a Protestant society anywhere, Irish and American Protestants calculate their “Christian” government according to patterns of Irish and US history respectively.

Maybe the one man who could have bridged the differences between Ulster and American Protestants was Ian Paiseley, the former First Minister of Northern Ireland. After all, Paisley worked with both Carl McIntire and Bob Jones to form a kind of trans-Atlantic Religious Right.

But I dare say no ChristNat could affirm what Paisley did in 1985 when he spoke on behalf of a Protestant Ulster. The Free Presbyterian pastor did not have American Protestants in mind when defending the Christian nationalism of Northern Ireland. he opposed political reforms in Northern Ireland that resulted in a shared Protestant and Roman Catholic government:

God has a people in this province. There are more born-again people in Ulster to the square mile than in anywhere else in the world. This little province has had the peculiar preservation of divine Providence. You only have to read the history of Ulster to see that time after time when it seemed humanly impossible to extricate Ulster from seeming disaster, that God intervened. Why? God has a purpose for this province, and this plant of Protestantism sown here in the north-eastern part of this island. The enemy has tried to root it out, but it still grows today, and I believe, like a grain of a mustard seed, its future is going to be mightier yet. God Who made her mighty will make her mightier yet in His Divine will.

9/11 Revealed Christian Nationalism before Stephen Wolfe’s “Case”

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Reactions to the terrorist attack then and now (25 years later) have been hard to miss or experience. One conferee this past weekend in Baltimore who gathered to honor H. L. Mencken’s cynical wit (and more), could hardly bottle up tears after stopping at the Flight 93 National Memorial on the way to Charm City.

Tallying Christian responses has also put the recent discussions of Christian nationalism in perspective. As it turns out, Protestants who have a high view of politics and nations (who are also invariabley pietist) rushed to find Christian meaning in 9/11. Confessionalists, in contrast, were reluctant to use Christian doctrine to make sense of the United States’ loss and suffering.

(Sure, this could come across as a case of confessionalists taking a victory lap at the expense of pietists. It might also be instructive about the way a high view of the church deescalates the importance of nations.)

John Fea surveyed evangelical responses to 9/11 from twenty-five years ago in a piece for Christianity Today. The opposition of Religious Right leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to immorality and secularism was clearly a forerunner to recent calls from ChristNats for laws against blashpemy and Sabbath breaking.

It took only two days for Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority and Liberty University’s chancellor, to publicize his interpretation of the attacks. On Thursday morning, he appeared on televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club and blamed the attacks on all his culture war enemies.

“I really believe,” he said, “that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

. . . A few days later, as the nation watched George Bush’s National Day of Prayer and Remembrance at the National Cathedral, Falwell spoke to cable news trying to walk back his comments. He told CNN, in the outlet’s paraphrase, that “only the hijackers and terrorists were responsible for the deadly attacks”—but even then he could not stop talking about his enemies.

Falwell again accused the ACLU of having “secularize[d] America” and “removed our nation from its relationship with Christ on which it was founded,” thereby causing God to “lift the veil of protection which has allowed no one to attack America on our soil since 1812.” (The editors of Christianity Today later quipped that Falwell spoke “as if America enjoyed a spotless record of righteousness until the 1960s.”)

. . . Many evangelicals, whatever they thought of Falwell’s specific targets, seemed to share his underlying assumption: God was sending the United States a message through September 11. This was the old rhetoric of the Puritan jeremiad, sermons that called Massachusetts Bay to repentance in the wake of a society-wide tragedy. Puritans believed God used Indian raids, earthquakes, and losses of charters to punish the colonies’ inhabitants. Now, in these attacks, some evangelicals were sure God was again punishing his new chosen people.

Radio psychologist James Dobson pointed to America’s “pride and arrogance,” the “killing [of] 40 million unborn babies,” and the “mainstreaming of pornography.” He told his readers to “accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness.”

At the Nicotine Theological Journal, the editors adopted a different stance. One article, “God Damn Mr. Laden,” questioned the ubiquity of the phrase, “God bless America”:

The phrase, “God damn,” is one that devout Christians are not supposed to utter. Depending on how it’s said, it violates the Third Commandment which, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, forbids blaspheming and misusing the name of God “by cursing, perjury, or unnecessary oaths.” “God damn” would appear to fall into the category of cursing. That may explain why the only time I’ve heard a minister of the gospel say these words, and with noted effect, was when describing Jesus Christ on the cross, who bearing the sins of his people, was at that moment a “God-damned sinner.” The rest of those in the congregation that Sunday morning shifted nervously.

The recent terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, combined with the response of many Americans with a show of flags and the singing of “God Bless America,” have raised questions about Third Commandment and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Why is it wrong to say “God damn” but okay to say “God bless”? Surely the latter phrase isn’t a form of cursing by the lights of Heidelberg’s authors. But does “God bless” qualify, as Q&A 99 goes on to say, as the use of God’s holy name “with reverence and awe.” When it is as common as hand-painted messages on the rear windows of cars mixed with America’s civil religion of national messianism, the phrase “God bless” could legitimately be counted as a kind of cuss word. And yet few Christians seem to be aware that the Third Commandment requires the careful invoking of God’s name. In fact, because the idea that God has a special affection for the United States runs so deep in the American Protestant soul, responding to the terrorist attack with the phrase, “God bless,” is as natural as the Irish Catholic uttering “glory be” in reaction to a marvelous or unusual occurrence.

Another piece, “Faulty Towers,” noticed that invocations of Augustinianism were less coherent than what biblical theology gleans from the story of the Tower of Babel:

In reading some Internet “pastoral letters,” one common irony emerges. Pastors are frequently invoking the name of Augustine, and yet Augustine is being cited on behalf of some very un-Augustinian sentiments about American destiny and its role in the unfolding of the kingdom. Consider two messages from PCA pastors. “America is not the new Israel,” writes Larry Ball (on PCAnews.com), but “America has been special to God.” Now God is judging us, because “we have ejected the Christian God from our schools by denying prayer and refusing to teach his law.” Chief among American culprits was the immoral and heretical former administration (which seems to cast some doubt on God’s timing). America is a “cesspool of immorality and lawlessness . . . America has lost her peace because America has lost her righteousness.” It should not surprise us that God has used ungodly people to judge us, because that is the way he chose to judge Israel. America is not Israel, but she’s pretty darn close.

Slightyly more nuanced are the pastoral reflections from Tim Keller, a PCA pastor who ministers in Manhattan. He commends the mayor and governor for their public vision of the “resurrection” of New York City. “I personally believe that this is the right way for NYC to deal with its grief. It must reflect the gospel dynamic of death-into-resurrection at a civic level. Through this New York could become less a place of individualistic achievement and more of a community. Through this Americans could become on the one hand humbler and more sensitive to the injustice and pain in the world and yet more committed to and (rightly) proud of our nation than ever before. In summary, we could become stronger through this weakness, not just in spite of it. That is the basic gospel dynamic.”

This is as profoundly anti-Augustinian as you can get. To whatever extent New York City recovers, it is not in any sense being resurrected or redeemed. It remains the city of man, and therefore, at best, an instrument of God’s restraining grace. It does not reflect any reestablished role of America’s special purpose, nor is its recovery marking the breakthrough either of the gospel or the kingdom.

Is it too much to suggest that the better biblical metaphor to recall is the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11? In a consistently Augustinian understanding, the fall of the Tower of Babel was both judgment and blessing upon the city of man. In Meredith Kline’s words, it was a blessing in the sense that God was frustrating the “apostate ideology infecting the city of man,” frustrating their dialogue and “so ungluing the bonds of their ecumenical union.”

To close by saying that 9/11 stands above theological posturing may seem like a kind way to avoid using the tragedy to score religious points. In fact, the point of drawing on theology to interpret events in the life of a nation is to indicate that no success or failure of a political body is independent of theological interpretation. In which case, the choice of theological material for assessing dramatic events in the life of a nation is telling.

Does Aaron Renn Really Think Elites Will Save Us?

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Trying to situate Aaron Renn on the landscape of twenty-first century American Protestantism is a tall order. The Indiana native, who consults on urban planning and opines about churches, describes himself as a writer who covers “the human, cultural, and institutional foundations of American flourishing during an era of transition.” (Full disclosure: as someone who considers himself an urbanist, I regularly read and benefit from Renn’s social media links and commentary on urban planning, politics, and economies.)

Renn came to the attention of many with his First Things article (Feb. 2022) on the three worlds of evangelicalism, a scheme that identified 2014 as the beginning of an era when being Christian in America was no longer an asset but a defect. This was around the same time that he helped to found “American Reformer” as an outlet for aggressively Protestant reflection about politics and society. Over time, “American Reformer” became a platform for pronouncements on Christian nationalism, though Renn never seemed to embrace the label. His outlook about the importance of Christians establishing culture-shaping institutions is clearly compatible with Christian nationalism but Renn himself has not waded into those turbulent and sometimes dirty waters.

One other part of Renn’s body of work so far to attract attention is his lament about the absence of evangelical elites. Again at First Things (where the editor, Rusty Reno, features an odd selection of Protestant writers), Renn wrote the provocative article, “The Problem with the Evangelical Elite” (December 2025). The problem comes at readers fast and hard in Renn’s opening paragraph:

The problem with the evangelical elite is that there isn’t one. All too few evangelical Christians hold senior positions in the ―culture-shap―ing domains of American ―society. Evangelicals don’t run movie studios or serve as editors in chief of major newspapers or as presidents of elite universities. There are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court. There are hardly any leading evangelical academics or artists. There are few evangelicals at commanding heights of finance. The prominent evangelicals in Silicon Valley can be counted on one hand. There are not even many evangelicals leading influential conservative think tanks and publications, despite the fact that evangelicals are one of the largest and most critical voting blocs in the Republican coalition.

Renn goes on to offer an explanation for the problem. Evangelicals stress soul-winning over vocation and lack institutions that incubate leaders in business, law, technology, and higher education. But his analysis comes with a reason to be concerned about the lack of evangelical elites. Renn views the United States as a society coded Protestant. Consequently, for the country to go forward in a healthy way, it needs people who come from America’s historic religious heritage. “America needs Protestants to take on the leadership burdens of society,” he writes, “and in view of the dramatic decline of mainline Protestantism, they must come from evangelical ranks.”

Renn does concede the presence of evangelicals in certain elite positions but deems this inadequate for providing real leadership. The one place where evangelicals produce “elites” is in Christian ministry. Renn writes, “evangelicals overwhelmingly fund and support people who focus on Christian ministry” and create “pathways to sponsorship for missionaries, church planters, and campus ministers.” They do not do the same for “people engaged in secular domains and activities.” Renn used Grok to supply the receipts. When asked about the top evangelical leaders, AI supplied the names of “fifteen evangelical elites” that was “100 percent pastors and other professional Christians.” A similar query for Roman Catholics produced a list where only 20 percent were clergy.

Renn’s nonchalance about evangelical pastors and theologians may explain why he pays so little attention to the communions that belong to NAPARC. He does not say this explicitly, but it comes through in the people he does interview on his podcast. He has hosted leaders of the Reconquista in mainline Protestantism, both Jake Dell (another contributor to First Things), a Congregationalist in Woodbury, Connecticut, and Richard Ackerman of Redeemed Zoomer fame, as an apologist for the PCUSA. In fact, when Rusty Reno interviewed Renn as a follow up to his article on evangelical elites for the First Things podcast, the Hoosier consultant praised the Social Gospel, political Progressives, and the mainline churches that spread those movements a century ago. This is not meant to score points by brushing Renn with the guilt of Progressivism and the Social Gospel. It is, though, an observation that suggests Renn has a soft spot for Protestants whose theology and practice did not measure up even as they transformed (for a time) American society.

NAPARC does register occasionally on Renn’s radar. At “American Reformer,” Renn wrote positively about two PCA pastors who have articulated a “positive vision for America.” One is C. R. Wiley’s First Presbyterian Church of Battle Ground, Washington. Renn observes that this church is “creating well-paying jobs and paying taxes, turning vacant downtown buildings into a farmers’ market and bakery, and building an architecturally significant new church that provides needed community and conference-center space.” More than a church, First Presbyterian is also building community.

The other NAPARC exception is the exceptional Tim Keller. Renn argues that Keller’s book Every Good Endeavor explains the doctrine of vocation in a way that “comprehends the exercise of power—that validates and valorizes people who reform public policy, invent new technologies, become presidents of elite universities, acquire major media properties or foundations, organize research teams, or serve as Supreme Court justices.”

Renn also credits Keller’s last white paper, “The Decline and Renewal of the American Church,” with calling for the “creation of a think tank, the endowment of chairs at top universities, the creation of grants for young Christian scholars, and the establishment of a Christian equivalent to the Federalist Society.” This is the sort of infrastructure necessary to cultivate evangelical elites. In his “American Reformer” article, Renn added “people today could learn from figures like Keller, who built an influential institution grounded in an expansive vision of the future.” The New York City PCA pastor was doing what Protestant leaders “have done throughout our national history,” namely, created “the institutions and norms that are absent today.”

What is especially odd about Renn’s reflections on Protestant churches and American society is that the institution-building conservative Protestants performed after liberalism and the Social Gospel captured the mainline denominations – creating seminaries, denominations, colleges, magazines, publishing companies – don’t register on Renn’s elite Protestant meter. Of course, they should not because these conservative Protestant institutions are not producing the leaders of Silicon Valley or qualifying for nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court. But for a man who pays attention to institutions, it is surprising that Renn pays so little to the institutions that comprise NAPARC — the very institutions that shaped Renn’s beloved Keller. Instead, he himself starts new institutions like “American Reformer.”

The other odd part of Renn’s institutional analysis is a failure to see where churches becoming leaders in the community leads. This is a lesson that ChristNats should also consider. The mainline churches a century ago abandoned the teaching of orthodox pastors and theologians who were not obvious leaders in their communities but leaders in the church, charged with trying to remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the practices of their communions. What led to the failure of Protestantism in the United States at elite levels was the loss of Protestant faith at elite levels. Mainline Protestants remained moral and culturally Protestant (especially in opposition to Roman Catholicism and in support of American exceptionalism). But in the words of H. L. Mencken, they tried “to get rid of all the logical difficulties of religion” and were left with “ a row of hollow platitudes, as empty as of psychological force. . . as so many nursery rhymes.”

Aaron Renn is a smart fellow and well worth reading about urban planning, economic development, rents, architecture, traffic rotaries, and mass transit, but he has apparently yet to consider the paradox that haunts Christianity. Christ taught in Matthew 16:25: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” That verse need not relegate Christians to a perpetual underclass of underachievers. But Christ’s words suggest a paradoxical relationship between Christian devotion and cultural success that moved John Newton to write in his famous hymn, “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”:

Fading is the worldling’s pleasures,
all his boasted pomp and show;
solid joys and lasting treasures
none but Zion’s children know.

Every honest student of church history has seen near term success turn into fool’s gold of apostasy. Surely, Renn could offer a few warnings about the dangers of elite Christianity.

The Twists and Turns of Doing the Reading (Part Two)

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Part one is here.

In the seventh chapter of The Case for Christian Nationalism, Stephen Wolfe tries really hard to sound like David VanDrunen. That is, he traffics strongly – two lanes worth – in the two-kingdom distinction between Christ’s rule as creator and redeemer. 2kers employ that distinction to elaborate how Christ’s rule over the state is different from his rule over the church even if both governments derive their power from the same Lord.

This distinction between creation and redemption, between civil authority and church power, also often explains 2kers’ willingness to affirm the legitimacy of civil authorities who are not professing Christians. Because pagans and Christians both use natural law to govern society, requiring civil magistrates to be Christian shows hesitation about the integrity of the creational and redemptive spheres, not to mention having doubts about Christ’s capacity to rule the civil sphere through the magistrates he providentially appoints.

These distinctions and worries inform Wolfe’s discussion of “The Christian Prince.” He sounds the most 2k when he quotes Calvin and Rutherford approvingly. Calvin distinguishes between one government which pertains to eternal life (spiritual) and the other which “pertains only to civil institutions and the external regulations of manners.” [301] Rutherford echoes Calvin when he contrasts civil and spiritual power. The civil authority is “coactive by the Sword, the other free, voluntary by the Word.” [303] Wolfe carries this distinction forward when he insists that “no ecclesiastical institution wields civil-like power over itself or over its members.” Churches are subject to civil authorities in such matters as building codes and emergency orders. But the church’s divine ministry – preaching, the sacraments, church discipline – “are outside the civil jurisdiction.”

Those distinctions between earthly and eternal matters, between repairing potholes and baptizing babies, are ones that Wolfe tries to explain and affirm. He acknowledges that discussions of church and state cannot escape 2k’s host of contrasts – “civil/spiritual, natural/gracious, earthly/heavenly, power/grace, or outward/inward.” He does not include sacred/secular but it is another in the 2k toolkit, however much Kuyperians have demeaned the distinction with the bumper-sticker phrase, “every square inch.” (Don’t the Dutch use the metric system?)

But Wolfe ties himself in knots when he tries to find ways for the Christian Prince to order civil affairs so that his subjects will – trigger warning – gain eternal life. For instance, he writes, “Christ’s mediatorial reign does extend to all things in a way, in that all things ought to be ordered to the spiritual kingdom.” He adds that the civil kingdom, “by its nature, is obligated to order the people to the things of eternal life” and those things are only found in “Christ’s spiritual kingdom.” For this reason, Christ’s “spiritual reign extends to the civil kingdom.” “Christ as spiritual Head of his church has instituted what the civil kingdom ought to order itself to.” [306]

At that point, Wolfe takes away the 2k that he had previously offered by way of Calvin and Rutherford. Instead of keeping the distinctions between creation and redemption intact, Wolfe collapses them.

Maybe the best example comes a page later after trying to give the civil kingdom spiritual significance. He does so by distinguishing Christians as church members versus Christians as the people of God:

Since the spiritual kingdom does not possess civil power, the civil kingdom cannot arise out of the spiritual kingdom. Nor does the civil kingdom arise out of the visible church (strictly speaking), for the visible church is the externalized spiritual kingdom. Civil power is indeed divine in origin but still natural to man as man. It is an instrument of human institutions. It originates in God, the creator, and is devolved through human consent.

So far, so 2k.

Hence, a Christian people can erect a civil kingdom, though not as the visible church but as the people of God. It is worth citing Franciscus Junius again: ‘For to the extent that we may be Christians, we do not cease being humans, but we are Christian human beings.’ A civil kingdom, instituted by a group of the people of God, is fundamentally human, follows natural principles, and possesses the same kind of civil power as all civil kingdoms. Yet, as I’ve repeatedly stressed, the fact that it is fundamentally human does not (like the family) preclude it from being Christian.

That last series of sentences reveals the main problem. Wolfe can acknowledge the legitimacy of “all civil kingdoms,” Christian or not, because their origins are creational or natural. But simply leaving civil authority on the relatively stable basis of the created order is not sufficient for Wolfe who wants – you may have heard – a Christian civil government (or nation). For that reason, he equivocates — just because the government formed by Christians is fundamentally human and natural does not mean it cannot be Christian.

This is a problem as the heart of Wolfe’s proposal. The civil government’s true purpose really is what is unusual if not controversial about Wolfe’s argument. He grants to the Christian prince a Christian mission:

The Christian prince is a civil ruler (as divinely ordained in nature) who possess and uses powers (both civil and interpersonal) to order his people to commodious temporal life and to eternal life in Christ.

That is Wolfe’s own definition. He adds, “if the prince must order his people to eternal life (by natural duty), and eternal life is attained only in Christ, the prince ought to order his people to eternal life in Christ.” Wolfe explains that the prince does this by laws, custom, personal example – not through word and sacrament.

This is a view of the prince that has no basis in the New Testament. Paul and Peter understood that the pagan emperors were divinely appointed to administer the laws of nature, but they would have been gobsmacked to think the Roman governors, Jewish kings, or Rome’s emperors were called to direct people to eternal life.

Wolfe invokes Calvin’s preface to the Institutes where he appeals to Francis I, King of France, to ensure that God’s glory and truth be preserved on earth. What Wolfe does not do is cite exchanges between Calvin and Geneva’s city government. When Calvin went beyond what the Christian councilors wanted on powers of excommunication, the Christian magistrates of Geneva told Calvin to take a hike.

The question Wolfe needs to answer is how he comes up with the idea that civil government’s purpose is to direct people to eternal life. Is it because he needs all things in life to be explicitly devout and reassuring? It is because he has lost confidence in the church as the means of carrying out the plan of salvation? Is it simply a function of the status envy that haunts members of NAPARC churches when they realize how small and marginal their denominations are?

Whatever the reason, the Christian prince that Wolfe defines and advocates would have been inconceivable to Jesus and the apostles for accomplishing the Great Commission.

The Twists and Turns of Doing the Reading (Part One)

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Christian nationalists (hereafter ChristNats) tell us that the modern church has lost its way, not on the gospel or worship (though I wish they’d pay attention to the songs Protestants sing). Contemporary Presbyterians, ChristNats tell us, have lost the teaching of the Reformed churches on politics. Dating the instance of this loss can be tricky.

Did it happen with the American Founding, which many scholars associate with Lockean liberalism? Even if the American instance of political liberalism was a break with Christendom, ChristNats insist that the Founders were aggressively Protestant. That means that for most of the nineteenth century America still had a Christian government even though Covenanters were dissatisfied and wanted an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to make it truly Christian.

Sometimes ChristNats say positive things about Progressives, mainline Protestants, and the Social Gospel because those Americans were still trying for a Christian government.

This chronology leads many ChristNats to locate the origins of American Presbyterians’ loss of political moxie in the period after World War II, the so-called POSTWAR consensus (“postwar” capitalized because the United States has been involved in many wars resulting in many “POSTWAR!!!” eras).

Whatever the timing, ChristNats insist that contemporary Presbyterians “do the reading” of older Protestant theologians on politics and government. Such immersion in the sources will awaken people in the churches to a truly Christian understanding of government and ideally lead to a healthier society. Substituting Christian politics for POSTWAR liberalism will restore order, decency, and stability at least to the United States if not to all countries where Protestantism was the dominant faith.

This way of framing of Christian Nationalism – as the product of having done did the reading – could well confuse readers of Stephen Wolfe who was the first out of the blocks with a case for a recovery of Christian politics. His 2022 book, The Case for Christian Nationalism ignited discussions that prompted the PCA to commission a report on Christian nationalism. In the run-up to the 2026 General Assembly, Wolfe along with Zachary Garris and Sean McGowan wrote Report on Reformed Christian Politics in which the authors provided greater precision and historical examples in support of Wolfe’s 2022 book. Both of these publications promise instruction about a proper understanding of government based on Protestant sources older than the corruptions introduced by twentieth-century Presbyterians cooking, like frogs in the kettle, of American liberalism.

What is striking about this recent explanation of traditional Protestant politics is how difficult it is to understand. If someone wanted a guide to an unfamiliar subject, the teacher might use a primer or basic guide that walked a student through the elementary categories before subsequent lessons handling conceptually challenging material.

This relatively simple approach is exactly what readers find in the Westminster Confession chapter twenty-three on the civil magistrate, whether the 1646 original or the 1788 revision. The four paragraphs outline the foundational truths of Reformed politics as follows:

  1. 23.1 – God ordains civil government and gives it the means of enforcing law.
  2. 23.2 – Christians may lawfully serve as civil magistrates.
  3. 23.3 – Civil magistrates may not conduct religious activities but should protect the church or churches.
  4. 23.4 – Christians are obligated to pray for and submit to civil magistrates even if officials do not profess Christianity.

Each of the confession’s paragraphs say more, but the basic outline is straightforward. It explains where the authority of civil government comes from (God), reassures that Christians may actually bear the sword if called to serve in government, distinguishes the godly origins of the magistrate from the church’s spiritual responsibilities, and calls for Christians to be good subjects. In other words, God grants the sword, Christians may wield the sword, the sword is not redemptive, and believers are obligated to submit to the sword.

Some political theorists may quibble with the outline. But it is clear. And it represents the way seventeenth-century English and Scottish Protestants distilled their thoughts about government when speaking to fellow Christians in the pews and in Parliament. It is, in other words, a decent introduction for those who have not done the reading.

Compare this outline then to what Stephen Wolfe produced in the 2026 Report on Christian Politics. Keep in mind that in the book’s first chapter, Wolfe tries to clarify his argument from the 2022 Case for Christian Nationalism. As the introduction to Report explains, this “chapter, in part, is a philosophical argument for our main proposition: that civil government must promote true religion. The author grounds this claim in nature and follows the proper principia of practical philosophy (viz., nature and reason) while also demonstrating how revealed theology further specifies political conclusions, making possible a distinctly Christian politics that promotes the Christian religion.”

That is quite a wind up.

Here is the pitch, or the subheadings of the first chapter, “Reformed Political Theory”:

I. Distinguishing Theology, Ethics, Politics

II. The Definition of Politics

III. The Fundamental Principles of Civil Order and Common and Natural
A. Commonness
B. Nature and Grace
C. Natural Religion as Necessary to Commonwealths
D. The Magistrate’s Cognizance of True Religion
E. Civil Powers over Pastors
F. The Magistrate as Mediator
G. Civil Law

IV. Natural Affection
A. Affection, Duty, Action
B. Does Grace Relativize Nature?
C. Brothers and Sisters in Christ
D. How Grace Does Not Relativize Nature

V. Civil Power is Granted to Rulers Solely by the Consent of the People
A. Consent
B. Nations are Real
C. Nationalism

VI. Civil Politics as a Prudential Art
A. Religious Toleration
B. Christian America

That, as the kids used to say, is a mouthful.

Wolfe’s outline is also several steps removed from the basic categories of seventeenth-century Protestants. That could sound like a gotcha – see! SEE??!! – Wolfe is not a confessional Protestant. Since he is not an officer of a Reformed communion, we have no reason to expect him to hold to the Westminster Standards or Three Forms of Unity.

But what we might reasonably expect is for a recovery of Protestant politics to start with Reformed Politics 101, not with a seminar in political philosophy with flourishes of theological reflections on nature and grace, creation and redemption.

Perhaps the Westminster Divines were thinking all of Wolfe’s thoughts before him when they came up with the basic categories on the civil magistrate to be subscribed by church officers. Perhaps they would agree with Wolfe on “Commonness” or the “Magistrate’s Cognizance of True Religion” before then boiling down ideas about civil government for a confession of faith.

But chances are that Wolfe may be guilty of imbibing too much of the POSTWAR!!! consensus that he laments. If so, the cause of such error stems from spending too much time in graduate school and learning the ways that political theorists, steeped in the ways of American higher education downstream from the POSTWAR!!! consensus.

Wolfe was not wrong to go to graduate school. He is certainly not wrong to bring his training to bear on debates about Christian government and social decay. But his proposals are hardly thinking political thoughts after Althusius and Rutherford. The Case for Christian Nationalism and the Report on Christian Politics have a lot of twenty-first-century fingerprints on them. If Wolfe and other ChristNats want to recover the sources, then why not try to figure out why the Westminster Divines ordered their thoughts about the civil magistrate the way that they did?

Machen Day 2026: Just Say No to Christian Government Schools

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Christian nationalists do not seem to consider that Christian magistrates or the laws that they write and enforce could ever have unintended consequences. If the advocates of Christian government ever read about the PREWAR consensus, the period that runs from 1870 to 1940, not only might they encounter Machen, the Presbyterian controversy, Progressivism, and liberal Presbyterianism, they might also have second thoughts when pining for a Christian government and laws that support Christian norms.

One example of Christian government encouraging religion for the public good is prayer and Bible reading in public schools. For some Protestants, these practices look wholesome and straightforward: a little dip into the Bible and a prayer at the beginning of the school day; what could possibly go wrong?

Machen supplied an answer:

I think I am just about as strongly opposed to the reading of the Bible in state-controlled schools as any atheist could be.

For one thing, the reading of the Bible is very difficult to separate from propaganda about the Bible. I remember, for example, a book of selections from the Bible for school reading, which was placed in my hands some time ago. Whether it is used now I do not know, but it is typical of what will inevitably occur if the Bible is read in public schools. Under the guise of being a book of selections for Bible-reading, it really presupposed the current naturalistic view of the Old Testament Scriptures.

But even where such errors are avoided, even where the Bible itself is read, and not in one of the mistranslations but in the Authorized Version, the Bible still may be so read as to obscure and even contradict its true message. When, for example, the great and glorious promises of the Bible to the redeemed children of God are read as though they belonged of right to man as man, have we not an attack upon the very heart and core of the Bible’s teaching? What could be more terrible, for example, from the Christian point of view, than the reading of the Lord’s Prayer to non-Christian children, as though they could use it without becoming Christians, as though persons who have never been purchased by the blood of Christ could possibly say to God, ‘Our Father, which art in Heaven’? The truth is that a garbled Bible may be a falsified Bible; and when any hope is held out to lost humanity from the so-called ethical portions of the Bible apart from its great redemptive core, then the Bible is represented as saying the direct opposite of what it really says. (On the Necessity of the Christian School)

Somehow Christian nationalists would have us believe that even of public school superintendants might garble the Bible, the Speaker of the House or the Secretary of State will not?

To borrow a line from Harry Emerson Fosdick, “what incredible folly.”

Christian Church (not Christian Nation) even in the Psalms?

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After listening to Chris Gordon and Brad Isbell talk about Christian nationalism and two-kingdoms theology (where it did sound like Chris said “R two Gay” instead of “R two K”), I was surprised to read Martin Luther this morning on Psalm 87. That Psalm reads:

1 On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
2     the Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
3 Glorious things of you are spoken,
    O city of God. Selah

4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
    behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush —
    “This one was born there,” they say.
5 And of Zion it shall be said,
    “This one and that one were born in her”;
    for the Most High himself will establish her.
6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
    “This one was born there.” Selah

7 Singers and dancers alike say,
    “All my springs are in you.”

Here is how the two-kingdom Luther introduced the Psalm:

The 87th psalm is a prophecy of the Holy Christian Church, that it shall be a city as wide as the earth is, and in it shall be born Ethiopians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Philistines, residents of Tyre, and people of other lands and tongues. This shall all happen through the Gospel, which shall preach marvelous things of God, namely the knowledge of God, how one may come to God, be freed from sin, and be saved from death, through Christ. And the worship of God in this city shall also be singing and dancing, that is, they will proclaim, praise, and thank God’s grace with joy. In that city, no Moses shall plague and torment us with his Law.

Here is a sixteenth-century two-kingdom advocate, not someone from the 1990s reacting to theonomy, reading the city of God in the Old Testament and identifying it not with empire, kingdom, or nation but with the church. Of course, Luther needed a Christian magistrate (a Roman Catholic one, to boot). Without one he would have been executed. But his thoughts were on matters other than a Christian politics when looking for the kingdom of God.

What may be especially upsetting to those who subscribe recent versions of Christian nationalism is Luther’s throwing down a welcome mat at the door of the church to all tribes and ethnicities. It sure must seem odd to think of the Christian church as multi-ethnic and multi-racial when some insist that ethnic homogeneity is necessary for a Christian nation.

The jab at Moses’ law could, however, confirm the anti-nominan reputation of two-kingdom proponents. No one’s perfect.

Summer 2023 NTJ Available (pdf)

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To repeat, this is not a typo. The Summer 2023 issue is now available at Oldlife.org. Huzzah? Maybe not.

In it, readers will find a case for shorter (8-10 years) pastorates as opposed to the increasingly common one of decades long tenures for pastors. Here is an excerpt:

In lengthy pastoral tenures a congregation becomes so comfortable with their minister (and vice versa) that the identity of the place has more to do with the people in this particular setting than with the denomination. Such a situation makes it harder to find a successor to the long-term pastor. A congregation might need to conduct a lengthy search to find that one person who has just the right gifts for this group of Christian. At that point, the congregation might well forget the nature of the ministry according to the common standards of the denomination. They might want “our guy” more than, for instance, a generic Presbyterian pastor who can do all the things that a man trained for the Reformed ministry is supposed to do. The congregation might forget what it means to belong to a certain communion because it functions largely within its own local context with its own pastor. A pastoral search could then depend more on personal qualities than on the demands of presbytery and the denomination’s corporate witness.

Conversely, expectations for relatively short pastorates, say from five to seven years, likely nurture a sense of belonging to a wider communion in which ideally all of the ministers should be able to serve in any congregation. Instead of building up a kind of co-dependency between minister and congregation thanks to a long tenure, a series of medium-term calls may encourage church members to deepen their membership in the broader communion beyond the congregation.

Gemini AI is More Reliable than Chat GPT: Here’s Why

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Looks like the folks at Google have a better read on two-kingdoms theology and Christian nationalism than those at Microsoft. When you ask Chat GPT “which is a greater threat to American society Christian nationalism or two kingdom theology? here’s what you get.

ChatGPT

Determining which is a greater threat to American society, Christian nationalism or two kingdom theology, is a nuanced question as it involves various perspectives and considerations.

  1. Christian Nationalism: This ideology intertwines Christianity with patriotism, often asserting that the United States is a “Christian nation” and advocating for policies and laws based on Christian principles. Critics argue that it can lead to exclusionary practices, discrimination against minority religions, and a blurring of the lines between church and state, potentially undermining religious freedom and social cohesion.
  2. Two Kingdom Theology: This theological perspective emphasizes a separation between the kingdom of God (spiritual matters) and the earthly kingdom (secular matters). Proponents argue that it helps maintain religious integrity while engaging in societal affairs. However, critics suggest that it may lead to disengagement from social issues and a lack of accountability for addressing societal injustices.

The assessment of which is a greater threat depends on various factors such as how these ideologies are interpreted and practiced, their influence on policies and actions, and their impact on social harmony and justice. Christian nationalism, with its potential for exclusionary practices and erosion of secular principles, may be viewed by some as posing a more immediate threat to pluralistic societies like the United States. However, two kingdom theology’s potential for disengagement from societal issues could also be seen as a challenge, particularly in addressing pressing social injustices.

Ultimately, both ideologies have their risks and potential impacts, and the assessment of their relative threat to American society may vary depending on one’s perspective and values. It’s essential to engage in critical dialogue and evaluation of these ideologies’ implications to foster a more inclusive and just society.

At Gemini this is the answer your receive:

Two Kingdom Theology is generally not considered a threat to American society. In fact, it’s a concept used by some Christians to navigate the relationship between their faith and civil authority.

Christian nationalism, on the other hand, can be seen as a threat because it blends Christian identity with American national identity. This can lead to policies that favor one religion over others, or a belief that America is inherently superior to other nations.

Here’s a breakdown of why Christian nationalism is considered more concerning:

  • Exclusionary: It can lead to discrimination against those who don’t adhere to a specific Christian belief system.
  • Erosion of Democracy: It can lead to a push for policies that reflect a specific religious view, rather than the will of the people.
  • National Chauvinism: It can breed a sense of American superiority that can be harmful to international relations.

Two Kingdom Theology, while it might be debated in its theological applications, focuses on maintaining separate spheres of influence for the Church and the State. This can promote a peaceful coexistence between religion and government.

It’s important to note that these are generalizations. There are variations within both Christian nationalism and Two Kingdom Theology.