Richard M. Gamble on Christian nationalism
This is a fascinating review by Richard Gamble—Professor of History, Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Chair in History and Politics at Hilsdale—of Stephen Wolfe's recent book on Christian nationalism: https://opc.org/os.html?article_id=1128
His conclusion:
Wolfe and Christian nationalism more broadly promote a national gospel that has more in common with the social gospel than appears at first sight. Many who advanced an agenda for “Christianizing” America used a modernist theology and an earth-bound ecclesiology to remake their world. They were optimists who believed in inevitable human progress to the reign of Christ on earth. They mobilized pastors and parishioners to that end. Like Wolfe, they spoke the language of power, will, action, and discipline. They wanted to be at home in this world, despite all Christian teaching against such aspirations. Jesus told Pilate, one of those arrayed against the Lord and his Anointed, that his kingdom was not of this world, and if it were his disciples would fight. He warned his disciples that the world hated them because it first hated him. But Wolfe imagines a world populated by Christian warriors led by Christian Princes with pastors serving as the “chaplains” of Christian nationalism, as he said in a podcast interview. Sounding like Nietzsche, he warns Christians to reject their slave mentality. He feeds on resentment. If the minds and imaginations of young people, especially young men fretful about assaults on their masculinity and the rule of a “gynocracy,” are formed by the emerging vision of Christian nationalism, this generation will be disappointed and disaffected by churches committed to Word and sacrament and teaching how to live “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim. 2:2, NIV). The world does not belong to us, and we do not belong to it. It is not ours to “take back.” Christianity plus nationalism will only distract us from the genuine gospel, from preparation for a life of suffering for the name of Jesus, and from embracing the scandal of the Cross. The nod to Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism in my title is intentional. Christianity and Christian nationalism are separating as two theologies engaged in heated competition in our world a century after Machen. The stakes may be as high today as they were then.