Nothing has proven more controversial in Christian circles in the last year than “Christian nationalism.” Broadly speaking, this is the view that it is a positive reality for nations to be formally Christian. The book associated with this view in recent days is The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe.
I am still working out my own substantive reply to this view. With a team of theologians, I have the joy of offering a response to “Christian Nationalism” at The Gospel and the State, an exciting pre-conference held in September 2023, just before the G3 National Conference. You should definitely come to this one-day event. Until then, I’ll wait to share (most of) the substance of my view.
Today, however, Stephen Wolfe kicked up a dust-storm on Twitter when he wrote this: “White evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America.” Wolfe has a talent for drawing attention, and this short message did not disappoint in that regard. It seems that Wolfe was engaging material from the Washington Post that attacked “white evangelicals” for their backward views (Megan Basham cited an old WaPo piece along these lines, and rightly so). The point was this: the American media, currently drenched in wokeness, uses “white evangelicals” as a dog-whistle for “retrograde group that only holds really abhorrent positions.”
That’s a correct point. I’ve levied similar criticisms as Basham’s, even in recent weeks. It’s entirely right to defend “white” evangelicals (or any other group singled out for nasty censure) against woke attacks. But rightly defending “white evangelicals” is not the same thing as asserting that this group is the “lone bulwark” against what ails us. The former is right; the latter is wrong. In the simplest terms, it’s a mistake to frame the hope of this nation as dependent on one group and one group alone. This is at the very least careless and at the very worst sinfully partial (see James 2:1-13 on partiality).
It’s amazing how tangled this knot is. In what follows, let me briefly try to untangle it. I’ll do so through six propositions.
First, it’s wrong for the media to target “white” evangelicals. This should be obvious. The now-common practice of despising “white” people is despicable. So too is woke skin-color-based partiality (as the book of James calls it) of any kind. It’s not necessarily wrong that America has a lot of “white” people; neither is it necessarily great. It’s the way things are. “White” people are made in God’s image just as people of every skin color are. “White” people are not our last great hope, nor are they the devil incarnate in bloc form.
Second, if “white” evangelicals vote for what is good and true, that’s great. That’s what we want as believers: we want people of every background, ethnicity, and skin color to promote good and fight evil. We want that at the common-grace level amongst unbelievers; we want it at the level of redeeming grace amongst the church.
In this country, again, we’re glad that there are lots of born-again Christians, and we’re glad that they vote conservative in general terms, and we want that to continue and even increase in days ahead. But the “whiteness” of this group is incidental; it’s not constitutive. Said differently, we’re not locating our future civilizational hope in this group, to be sure, but if they generally vote conservative, that’s something we’re glad about.
Third, in human terms, the church is what nations need. The church may skew in one major sociological direction in a given nation; if so, fine. If that’s “white” or any other such marker, Christians don’t have an issue with that. We’re not partial about such things. But neither do we find our hope, civilizationally or spiritually, in any one group. The New Testament doesn’t teach us to identify ourselves according to the flesh, but according to the gospel (Ephesians 2:11-22).
This is really important: I have much more kinship with an Egyptian born-again believer than I do an American person of conservative principles who has “white” skin color like I do. Actually, that’s way too weak: I have gospel brotherhood with the Egyptian, and I do not with the American. I’m glad for the American to vote conservative; in common-grace terms, please do. However, my brother or sister is not someone of shared ethnicity or skin color, but rather someone of shared gospel conviction and salvation.
At the level of “salt and light” influence, then, we would say most biblically that “Born-again believers are the key bulwark against moral insanity in America.” That’s a sound statement in New Testamental terms (Matthew 5:17-20). The group I’m looking to as the hope of this country and any other country is not defined by skin color, but by worldview. I care about the church, and the true church is composed of born-again believers from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group.
This isn’t theological boilerplate. The church is identified in Scripture as the “pillar and foundation of the truth,” a massive statement (1 Timothy 3:15). This is borne out in the array of voices who have responded, as just one example, to wokeness. Think of men like Voddie Baucham, Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker, Samuel Sey, and many others. These men aren’t “white,” but they are crucial leaders in the fight against sinful partiality. In fact, they’ve instructed tons and tons of “white” people about wokeness, and thus helped lead many “white” people to be a moral bulwark.
Fourth, we need to beware any “Christian” approach that emphasizes identity politics. The strategy to influence our nation—to show my cards for a moment—is not biblically grounded in any man-centered scheme. It’s a very bad idea, to say it differently, to embrace identity politics in order to try to save and remake America. The way to influence and strengthen America is to promote the truth, love the lost, preach the gospel, be the church, and pray for God to work in our midst.
But even there, we’re not trying to make America “Christian.” I for one don’t want America to be “Christian.” I want unbelievers everywhere to become true Christians by trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ and repenting of all their sins. I don’t want unbelievers, not even one of them, to think they’re a Christian when they’re not. That’s a fate worse than a spiraling nation (which America surely is). “Formal” Christianity is a scourge.
You find this datum in history over and over again. The nations of the “magisterial” Reformation have suffered precipitous decline in spiritual and civilizational terms; at minimum, we see in the example of one European country after another that a populace that is formally Christian is no salve at all to the raging problem of sin in our world. The nation that wrought truly ferocious suffering in the twentieth century was the nation where the magisterial Reformation took hold in the sixteenth century. That doesn’t mean that the German Reformation was bad; it does chasten us in a massive way about our expectations for “formal” Christian nations.
Fifth, we want maximal Christian influence in a nation. In all this, am I calling for a public square shorn of Christian influence? No sir, no how, no way. To the contrary, I want a nation that is “under God” and that makes space for a free-wheeling religious free market. I want freedom of speech, maximal religious liberty, a state that respects the church per sphere sovereignty, and a government that punishes evil and rewards good (Matthew 22:21; Romans 13:1-7). There’s much more to say here, but that at minimum is what I think Scripture sets up in terms of civil expectations in the new covenant era.
But the law in what is called its “civil” dimension is flatly not made for nations of the new covenant era. It was given for Israel in the old covenant era. Laws today are not required to be explicitly Christian for them to be right; it is right that Christians in this era make laws that reflect biblical truth, definitely, but not in a way that approaches the state as if we are living in the era of Moses.
Sixth, we need to remember where all this is going. All the preceding is in the hands of God. We can’t save anything or anyone. Only God can. It’s right to want America to not crumble. It’s right to fight for the good of this civilization. It’s right to vote for the best possible candidate and policy; as Christians, because Jesus is never on the ballot, we’re always and only voting for the lesser of two evils. That scheme does not occasionally pop up in our political engagement; Christian public theology is the-lesser-of-two-evils engagement.
Nor, again, should we demonize “white” people. We shouldn’t hate anyone for their skin color. But we also shouldn’t lionize “white” people. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that “white” people are the solution. Certain nations in our world have lots of people with “white” skin. Contra wokeness, that is not evil or bad or wrong, necessarily—not at all. In general terms, it’s no terrible, horrible thing if a given country has a lot of “white” people in media, sports, entertainment, politics and so on. That’s not inherently a sign of evil “non-representation”; it may just be how the nation is.
But Christians as a people are not attuned to the success of one ethnic group. We are part of something bigger than our nation. Actually, we are part of the true “nation”—the true humanity that is in Christ (Romans 9:6). We’re not taking up permanent residence in this world. We’re going to inhabit the finally-realized kingdom of Christ in the age to come, when Christ will be the reigning regent of all that is. “White” people will be in the new heavens and new earth, many of them. But so too will people of every skin color. What a glorious day that will be.
Conclusion
There is much more to say about “Christian nationalism” than I have said here. Truly, this is a complex and very big conversation. It takes time to work through all the layers of this discussion. Let me say this as a synthesis of what I said above: it's right to defend "white" evangelicals against vicious woke attacks. But the best defense, ultimately, is not to see "white" people as the hope of America, but to show how Christians of all backgrounds stand together against evil.
The point stands: while we Christians should seek to be salt and light in America, and seek to preserve and strengthen this civilization however much we can, we must fundamentally remember our true citizenship. God really is building the nation of nations in Christ. It’s the new, and true, humanity—one new man in Christ, an unbroken people bought by the Savior and resurrected in him (Ephesians 2:15).
Does this mean we sit out politics until we go to glory? No: we should do all we can to love our neighbor while we’re here. It’s literally the second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:34-39), and it has profound consequences for citizenship. But as a believer, you’ve got to remember that you’re not ultimately a citizen of any earthly populace. You’re already a member of the city of God. This is the city not that you and I are building, but that God is building. It is the city that will soon overtake all that is, and it is a city that will not crumble, fail, or suffer attack.
It is the city of eternal rest and eternal peace (Revelation 21).