Nor the Battle to the Strong

Regarding, Brad Isbell’s, "The Various Christian Nationalisms"

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.¹

Introduction

If one of the occupational hazards of being a Christian with vaguely conservative doctrinal and social views (as I am) is being lumped in with Christian Nationalists, then one of the occupational hazards of being more critical of anti-Christian Nationalist arguments than Christian Nationalist arguments (as I am) is being lumped in with Christian Nationalists. I have in recent weeks and months placed myself in the paradoxical position of having written more criticism of some of my fellow anti-Christian Nationalists’ arguments than I have of Christian Nationalists’ (which, by my count, amounts to none). The chief reason for this is that in any sort of conflict, whichever side I am on must not only have better arguments (which we appear not to), but be better behaved, most especially to be fair (at which we could be better).

So, here I go, once again, to disagree with someone with whom I would prefer to agree, all the more because we are on the same side of an issue. This time, however, as a complete surprise, we have an intelligent critique of an aspect of the debates and arguments over Christian nationalism but, a first for Brad Isbell, an oblique inclusion of Christian nationalists with Nazis.

Just Ad Hominem

Consider the adage, “No enemies to the right.” In strictest terms it is not true: there may be some people to the right of you that are your enemies (or, you are their enemy even if only by being to the left of them). But at any given moment in a nation’s history, the political, and highly united and aggressive left may be so powerful, that, by comparison, any opponents you have to your right may be virtually insignificant. I observed this to be the case the last decade or so of the cold war, when (for purely pragmatic reasons) the establishment right, represented largely by the neo-conservative dominated Republican Party, courted right-evangelicals in order to combat Democrat timidity against the Soviet Bloc.

Those establishment rightists did such a good job of not punching right that those right-evangelicals thought they were running the party. But after the Berlin Wall was demolished, those establishment rightists could not run away from right-evangelicals quickly enough. Even George W. Bush softened the hard line between right and left with his talk of compassionate conservatism, correctly interpreted (in my opinion) as a suggestion that right-evangelicals, being conservative, lacked a certain amount of compassion. The same people who largely platformed someone like D. James Kennedy (who was a Christian nationalist when Christian nationalism was cool) barely noted his passing. Similarly for Jerry Falwell. I was 14 years old when the Moral Majority was founded; and you could not be of the right and not know who D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell were (among others). Once those men, and others, outlived their usefulness to the anti-Soviet, neo-conservatives, they were discarded like a clandestine military unit in Colombia. I have no complaints; that is the nature of alliances: they do not outlast the conflict that precipitated their formation. (Except for NATO. But I digress.)

At the end of the day, neo-conservatives and right-evangelicals had little in common apart from their antipathy for communism. And they didn’t even have the same reasons for their mutual antipathy. But while the alliance lasted, both neo-cons and right-evangelicals did a decent job of keeping the wagons circled, no punching right. It is a useful tactic; it wins wars². (Nevertheless, as with any principle, there are limitations upon the extent to which it can be applied uncritically, which Neil Shenvi discusses here.)

Bearing in mind the utility of the principle, consider this:

[The Highbrow Wolfeans’] "no enemies to the right" mantra (inherited from Schmitt, a Third Reich thinker) may make quitting the most unsavory elements in their orbit impossible.

Laying aside (for the moment) the disturbing connection to Andrew Torba, let’s ask: Assuming the generally applicable principle that, for certain practical purposes, one (being of the right) has no enemies to his right, what possible difference does it make that the mantra was “inherited” from a Third Reich thinker? It is a simple question: In general, are there some conflicts which require, even if only for a moment, adoption of the principle, that (assuming the applicability of left-right opposition) one has no enemies to his right (or left, as the case may be)?

I believe, on the basis of hundreds of years of military history, that the answer to that question is: Yes, there are such conflicts. It is therefore irrelevant that the popularizer of a specific formulation of the principle was a Third Reich thinker. What is the purpose of this tactic, if not to engage in the same sort of smear employed by the left? There are legitimate criticisms to make of Christian Nationalists; this is not one of those legitimate criticisms. There is no honorable, legitimate purpose to be served by connecting a particular mode of expressing a rational principle to a Nazi sympathizer who coined or popularized it. These sorts of arguments inadvertently strengthen pro-Christian Nationalist arguments by giving the appearance that anti-Christian Nationalists have no other arguments besides more or less successfully disguised ad hominem arguments. I have spoken at length with Brad on at least two occasions, and met him once. On the basis of this limited acquaintance I regard him as an honorable man. Unlike me, he probably hasn't a malicious bone in his body. In fairness to him, he has been writing about Christian Nationalism for a very long time; this is the first time I have seen him employ this tactic. I hope it is the last.

That said, and in further fairness to Brad, one has to acknowledge the fact that some people who are sympathetic to Christian nationalism behave in ways that could almost — almost! — justify the comparison. In the 15 December 2023 episode of Presbycast, guest Erick Erickson explained some of the abuse his wife and his children were subjected to because of Erickson’s opposition to Donald Trump (beginning at about 30:20 into the episode).

Strange Bedfellows

Pointing out the fact that the term Christian Nationalism is tossed about with abandon, Brad presents a useful description of three types of Christian nationalism:

the highbrow Wolfeans (HW), the folk evangelicals (FE) who have always spoken vaguely of "takin' this country back," and the barely Christian, mostly charismatic/megachurch dominionist…(CMDs).

Explanations, in reverse order:

Charismatic Megachurch Dominionists (CMD)

The CMD (charismatic megachurch dominionist) crowd is potentially more sinister. These are the types of people (including bleach-blonde lady preacher-entrepreneurs) you see laying hands on Trump. Their doctrine is barely Christian and/or protestant. They were influenced somewhat by Reconstructionists like Rushdoony but have added a lot of their own weirdness. This movement is full of bad actors and shysters. This is the crowd the left usually has in mind when they talk about Christian Nationalists.

Brad has nailed the danger of this group: they are indeed the sort that one sees laying hands on Trump and hailing him as our era’s Cyrus (Isaiah 45.1). Theologically, they are little more than the right’s version of left-leaning apostates such as Jemar Tisby and Anthea Butler, who have an hermeneutical approach to Scripture which is as convenient as the CMD. These are the right-evangelical version of the sort of left-evangelicals who excused Bill Clinton’s sexual sins and informed right-evangelicals that a president’s sex life (including alleged sex assaults) were no one’s business (because everyone lies about sex), until Donald Trump decided to run for president — as a Republican. Suddenly a president’s sex life was everyone’s business (especially alleged sex assaults) and a disqualification from office; right-evangelicals, taking seriously their left-leaning brethren’s claims about presidential sex lives, three decades ago, were accused of hypocrisy for not doing unto Trump as they had done unto Clinton.

Folk Evangelicals

The Folk Evangelicals (FE) have always been socially conservative, but not in a very thoughtful way. This is a group that are reliable Trump voters but their reasons for doing so are less religious than cultural. Their religious views are personal and local. This group is unorganized and has influence mainly in the South. They are easily won with the right phrases and policies. They are a political factor nationally only in some red suburbs.

The characterization of this group’s reasons for being reliable Trump voters as “less religious than cultural” is a curious one for two reasons. First, this group have been reliable Republican voters for decades regardless of the candidate; given that Brad is taking an historical view, this myopic observation seems out of place. Not a major point, but worthy of note, I think. Second, given the connection between religion and culture, one can’t help wondering what exactly is “merely” cultural, rather than religious, about their political commitments. Finally, it’s insulting to describe a group of people with which one has a fractional personal acquaintance as being “easily won with the right phrases and policies.” Phrases such as what? Make America Great Again? If so, point taken. Policies such as what? Lower taxes? Less government intrusion?Border security? Protection of parents who object to school board actions?

Highbrow Wolfeans

The self-consciously protestant HW crowd is numerically insignificant. They have the potential to make trouble in the NAPARC, the SBC, the vaguely "reformed" smarter evangelicals, and conservative megachurches. They claim the Reformed confessions when convenient. Without the Muscovite Wilsonians they would not exist. They have some connection to principled establishmentarianism and are clearly (but not thoroughly) influenced by theonomy and reconstructionism. What they really need for success is a time machine.

The most disturbing aspect of the HW crowd is their connection to and dependence upon (because the HW followers are few) the creepy Andrew Torba and ethno-nationalist online edgelord crowd. It seems the HW crowd does not know how to quit that element. In fact, their "no enemies to the right" mantra (inherited from Schmitt, a Third Reich thinker)² may make quitting the most unsavory elements in their orbit impossible. Their program (to some extent) rests on the idea that there has to be a societal breakdown for them to ascend. This is not an appealing or altogether rational ethos.

This requires some comment, which I do immediately below. But I wonder which of these three types Voddie Baucham belongs to.

A Drive-by Rejoinder

What follows is a bullet-point commentary explaining what I believe the HW reply would be, which I engage in as an exercise in attempting to understand an opponent’s position as will as he does.

The self-consciously protestant HW crowd is numerically insignificant. They have the potential to make trouble in the NAPARC, the SBC, the vaguely "reformed" smarter evangelicals, and conservative megachurches.

As I will develop more fully below, the fewer numbers of HWs, may not be significant. Depending upon how well they leverage whatever influence they may have, it is possible that they could have more power than their numbers would suggest. Mr Isbell belongs, as I do, to a Protestant denomination (or “family” of denominations³) which has been similarly characterized: possessing more influence among evangelicals than their few millions of members would suggest,⁴ and despite not being, technically, an evangelical denomination.

They claim the Reformed confessions when convenient.

How are we to understand this convenience? If Wolfean has any meaning, then this claim should entail some engagement with Dr Wolfe’s book. At the very outset, Wolfe acknowledges that he is not a theologian or Bible scholar; therefore, at least for purposes of argument, he assumes the truth of the Reformed tradition, grounding his arguments in the Reformed confessions, Calvin’s Institutes, Turretin’s Institutes and other sources. He also appeals to and quotes from other Reformed and Puritan preachers and teachers. On occasion, he quotes from some Roman Catholic theologians, most notably Aquinas; however, it did not strike me that his reliance upon Aquinas was due to convenience to fill in holes for which Reformed confessions provided no help. Now, if Isbell means by “they” someone other than Wolfe himself, that’s fine; but for this objection to be fair, there should be a group of individuals, self-avowedly Wolfean, and a great many of them need to claim the Reformed confessions (only) when convenient (once the nature of this concept is well-defined).

Finally, in the interest of fairness, a great many Old School Presbyterians seem to invoke the spirituality of the church when convenient.⁵ The fact is, unless we exert careful rigor it likely always appears that our opponents make selective, convenient use of sources. We all need to be careful.

Without the Muscovite Wilsonians they would not exist.

Philosophically speaking this claim doesn't assert much. It is a counterfactual claim, asserting that had some set of circumstances not held then some other set of circumstance would not have held. In this instance the claim is: If the Muscovite Wilsonians had not (among other things) published and promoted Wolfe’s book, there would be none of these so-called Highbrow Wolfeans. This type of reasoning is popular with politicians and ideologues: “If the political party to which I do not belong had not voted down the bill that my party put forth we would finally have wiped out poverty.” To quote Aslan, “No one is ever told what would have happened.” Claims about what would or would not be the case, are speculative.

But even if we could know it to be true that Highbrow Wolfeans would not exist without the Muscovite Wilsonians, that fact tells us nothing substantive about HWs. It certainly tells us nothing about the truth of HW nationalist claims. If anything, it seems to render HWs guilty of something by merely virtue of some association with Voldemor

They have some connection to principled establishmentarianism and are clearly (but not thoroughly) influenced by theonomy and reconstructionism.

Once again, use of the term they presents a difficulty. Wolfe himself is not a theonomist; in fact he is critical of theonomy and distinguishes it from Christian Nationalism, which advances as a system distinct from theonomy and reconstruction.⁶ In fact Dr Clark should be a fan: Wolfe claims that the role of the civil magistrate (Christian Prince) is to administer the natural law. More likely, Mr Isbell is not talking specifically about Wolfe, but rather some sort of garden variety type of HW. But really, this type of HW would not, strictly speaking, be a Highbrow Wolfean; he should probably be better understood as a nuanced CMD or nuanced Folk Evangelical, especially given the supposed role of theonomy and reconstruction. The “sophisticated” HW (if the term Wolfean is to have any intelligible meaning) has little interest in theonomy and reconstruction.

What they really need for success is a time machine.

Well, here is quite a spicy take. On the other hand, atheists say the same thing about religion.

The most disturbing aspect of the HW crowd is their connection to and dependence upon (because the HW followers are few) the creepy Andrew Torba and ethno-nationalist online edgelord crowd.

In the absence of further exposition (which, in fairness, would not be possible for him to provide, in such a brief article) it is difficult to grasp what is the nature of the connection with and dependence upon Torba and his fellow travelers. Is it a connection that outside observers make in their minds? This seems unlikely: the justification for the connection and dependence is the small numbers of HWs. Clearly, Isbell believes that HWs have courted Torba and his friends for purposes of numerical strength. But connections don't spontaneously materialize; connections are formed by human action and, if Isbell’s criticism is to be valid, must be formal, which would be impossible, since neither HWs nor Torbanians are organized as groups. There are no representatives working to negotiate the terms of an alliance. Also, it isn't very clear what it is that HWs depend upon Torbanians for. We are not talking about a voting bloc; so while it is true that HWs are small in number, what's needed is some explanation of what, other than numbers, Torbanians have to offer. This is particularly true in Torba's case: he is Eastern Orthodox (or was last time I talked to him — via Gab). When Wolfeans (or at least Wolfe himself) talk Christian nationalism, by Christian they mean, specifically Protestant.

For reasons I explain below, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, the Torbanians have greater need for HWs than vice-versa: Torbanians don’t have anything but numbers, and those numbers won’t mean much where it counts. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Their program (to some extent) rests on the idea that there has to be a societal breakdown for them to ascend. This is not an appealing or altogether rational ethos.

If by “their program” Brad means the Torbanians’ program, it may be true: they may indeed believe there must be a societal breakdown in order for their brand of CN to ascend. I have been interacting with Torbanians and their ilk since at least 2015 (including a few, brief exchanges with Torba himself). I believe Brad’s claim here is unfair. It is not that they believe they can ascend only if society breaks down; there are circumstances in which they could perhaps ascend without societal breakdown. It is simply that those circumstances do not hold; the time for ascendancy without collapse has passed. The majority report seems to be simply that societal breakdown is now inevitable. It's not that they require societal breakdown; it's that they believe societal breakdown is coming. (Honestly, history is on their side.) And in their minds, secularism is done; the future belongs either to Islam or to Christianity. They prefer the latter. (Who wouldn’t?) All of that being the case, however, it would be truer to say that most Torbanians would prefer to prevent societal breakdown since it will result in much suffering. Many of them are married and have children; societal breakdown means suffering for their children and grandchildren. They also just happen to believe that the only force that can prevent societal breakdown is religion. They prefer that religion to be Christianity. The questions for them are (i) Who will take the reins of cultural leadership in the wake of the coming breakdown? and (ii) What kind of leadership do we need in order to rescue us from societal breakdown, if indeed we can be rescued?

Despite my criticisms, I believe Brad Isbell has provided us a very useful taxonomy here. (I would have assigned the greater influence of theonomy and reconstruction to the Folk Evangelicals, but potato or potatoe.) One could attempt a taxonomy which included five, rather than three, varieties of CN. But the attempts would simply be variations on a theme by Isbell: other varieties will likely be nuanced versions of these three. As an example, while I do not know how Brad would do so, but I would categorize Torbanians are nuanced-HWs: they care little for evangelicals, and less for CMD.

But I wonder just how closely Brad is listening to HWs.

Here's the issue for the Highbrow Wolfeans: The Folk Evangelicals have little use for them and the CMD bunch have no use for them. The CMD are larger and have real political influence now...thanks to the megachurches and charismatic media empires. The HW must be content to live online and mix with the creepy, edgelord, often pagan right wing typified by Torba and friends. The HW would have to lose much of its doctrinal emphases by allying with either the FE or CMD crowds. Pragmatism and politics go together: Which alliance will they choose? The other possible ally for the HWs is another that would require abandonment of most of their doctrinal commitments: the Roman Catholic integralists. They have real political power in the US and have been at this for a long time. They are not hobbyists-come-lately like some of the HW crowd. The one constant in American religious and political life is constant change. What these groups are now is not what they will be. They'll probably look quite different post-2024 than they do today.

This most decidedly is not an issue for Highbrow Wolfeans. The CMD and the FE, as far as HW are concerned will have to be content with “also ran” status: they have nothing of substance to offer. As for Roman Catholics, considering how HW understand “true religion” — they will have to be satisfied with toleration. It cannot, apparently, be emphasized enough: when Wolfe and Company say Christian nationalism, they mean Protestant nationalism. There will be no doctrinal compromises; if I understand correctly, non-Protestant Christians will be tolerated, not promoted. (This is what angers a lot of them, but given what they intend for Protestants in a Catholic-dominated nation, HWs are not bothered by Roman tears.)

Also, Brad seems to be of the opinion that HWs intend to achieve their goals within a few election cycles, hence his focus on numbers, alliances, connections, and dependencies which explain his caution about the role of time. In contrast with his view, the majority of HWs take the long view. Yes, it is true, as Brad says, that things will “look quite different post-2024 than they do today.” But they are not thinking in terms of election cycles; they are thinking in terms of decades, if not (especially for Moscovites) centuries. A change in the nation’s political life must be preceded by a change in the nation’s culture, which takes decades. And it may gratify Mr Isbell to know that HWs believe that during those decades, Christians truly desirous of a truly Christian nation will spend much of their energies devoting themselves to the apostolic teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.⁷ They may expect societal breakdown, but societal change is the true key to their ascendancy. Even Stephen Wolfe believes the preaching of the gospel is the key to that; so, in fact, does the Christian Prince (or Caudillo) himself, Doug Wilson.

Conclusion

Isbell ends his article with a very good question, coupled with an astute observation:

The question remains: What are Christian pilgrims and strangers to do with the various forms of nationalism? Embracing labels invented by bad actors is probably a bad idea.

Ignoring the fact that the question is premature (if not even inapplicable), about the only good answer to the question is that those pilgrims and strangers will do with the various forms of nationalism as they do with any other political-cultural movement or party. At present, unless they don’t vote, those pilgrims can hold their noses and vote Republican, or hold their noses and vote Democrat. The more daring can expectorate into the wind and vote Reform, Libertarian, Socialist, Natural Law, Constitution, or Green and so forth. But then, despite being a good question, it overlooks a possibility: that, other differences aside, the various forms of (Christian) nationalism share a common answer to the general question: What does it mean for a nation to be Christian? If Highbrow Wolfeans, Folk Evangelicals and Charismatic Megachurch Dominionists all share the same general answer, and differ only (or mostly) about the practical matters, then that may be enough.

Whatever the case may be, I do not share Brad’s conviction that it is a numbers game, and I don’t think anyone should. The fact is, while HWs may be the minority report among the various Christian nationalists, often it is not the numerically superior group that achieves and maintains leadership; it is often the group with the greatest intellectual rigor, creativity, and moral authority that achieves and maintains leadership.⁸ One of the things about the CN discussions that has captured my attention, is the conviction that the sort of CN that Brad here calls Highbrow Wolfean may be the faction that takes the lead if and only if it exhibits the sort of intellectual rigor and moral authority that Wolfe and Company hope for, and describe.⁹

I have at least two reasons for thinking so, neither having anything to do with politics. First, as David Stroud, citing historian Arnold Toynbee, argued in a talk he gave to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, it doesn't require a very large group to arrest civilizational decline, to give a civilization rebirth. All that is required for this rebirth are small groups of leaders that Toynbee called creative minorities.¹⁰ An HW vanguard could conceivably form the core of an effective, Christian, creative minority.

My second reason is an extrapolation from an observation by J. D. Unwin. In his magnum opus, Sex and Culture, Unwin argues that in order to maintain themselves (that is, to avert decline) civilizations must control the sexual drive and direct it to more productive work, which requires restricting sexual opportunity, especially prenuptial sexual opportunity. The effect of such constraints (both pre- and post-nuptial) has been the increased flourishing of the cultures enforcing such constraints. As a rule of thumb: the more sexually disciplined, the more prodigious the cultural output. On the other hand, he argues, increased sexual freedom has, without exception, resulted in the collapse of culture within three generations. (The United States are right on schedule!) Unwin also presented some insights on who will control a civilization: simply, that segment of the society which practices the most sexual restraint, thus channeling their labors into precisely those endeavors which must be engaged in in order to run those civilizations.¹¹

I extrapolate as follows.

Discipline is a “package” deal. From Unwin’s observations, I am arguing that the brand of Christian nationalism which is the most disciplined (whether sexually, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, even physically), and in the greater numbers of endeavors, will assume leadership of all various types, simply by attrition: they will be the ones who channel their energies into those endeavors which must be engaged in in order to lead. The other varieties, busy with other interests, will contentedly let HW take charge.

I believe discipline best explains Brad’s observation that Roman Catholics have “real political power in the US and have been at this for a long time.” They are a highly disciplined community, which more than anything explains their overtaking Protestants in terms of cultural and political power and capital.¹² The fact is, while Protestant institutions go liberal (on average) within 70 years, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox institutions really don't. Fifty-eight years after Vatican II, Rome is just now beginning to tack liberal. But the discipline of rank-and-file Catholics seems strong enough even to resist a heterodox, if not heretical, Pope who has been dubbed by some Traditionalist Catholics as the Protestant, or Evangelical, Pope.¹³

By contrast, Protestants, especially evangelicals, can only excuse their lax discipline by claiming that Rome's discipline is legalistic and grounded upon a works-based soteriology. “Of course they are well-disciplined,” the argument goes, “they are motivated by fear. They believe they must do all those things to be saved.” There may be some truth to that. But what is this but to say that Protestants don't have to work because they are supposedly saved by faith. For their faults, Highbrow Wolfeans propose to be the antithesis to Protestant laxity, which no doubt explains one of the most offensive passages — to some — of the epilogue to Wolfe’s book:

Christian nationalism should have a strong and austere aesthetic. I was dismayed when I saw the attendees of a recent PCA General Assembly—men in wrinkled, short-sleeved golf shirts, sitting plump in their seats. We have to do better. Pursue your potential. Lift weights, eat right, and lose the dad bod. We don't all have to become bodybuilders, but we ought to be men of power and endurance. We cannot achieve our goals with such a flabby aesthetic and under the control of modern nutrition. Sneering at this aesthetic vision…is pure cope…. If our opponents want to be fat, have low testosterone, and chug vegetable oil, let them.¹⁴

There is no field of human endeavor in which I have participated and not received similar council, whether as a cross-country runner in high school, as a musician, as soldier, as a 10K runner, as a restaurant manager, university and seminary student. A similar sentiment is attributed to Socrates:¹⁵

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

Socrates who, like most Athenian males, saw combat, lived in a time and place during which any man might be called up for military service. Very few, if any, Athenians could participate in Athenian political and religious life and avoid military service. Discipline was the order of the day. All this to say, I seem to be one of the few who have read Wolfe’s book and found this passage to be worthy of criticism. There was a time when much of what Wolfe writes here was, for the most part and to some extents, what all men were to aspire to. I know this because I was raised during this time, and by the sort of men Wolfe calls us all to be — none of them white, by the way. Not that there’s anything wrong with white men; I just wasn’t raised by one.

Discipline, in all it’s forms and manifestations, is what will ultimately decide which of the various nationalisms, if any, is the form that will assume the position of vanguard. I will not live long enough to see that, if it happens, so I have nothing further to add. I will simply conclude with the observation that with the sort of discipline Wolfe advocates, we may yet see that Highbrow Wolfeans are not the “hobbyists” Brad believes them to be. With just a bit more discipline than Roman Catholics practice, these hobbyists could conceivably end up in charge, despite their having come late to the party, and being relatively few in number. At times the key to victory is simply showing up and merely doing your duty. A successful, significant battle against the Moors during the Spanish Reconquista was won by a Spanish force which took the field just after sunrise and fought all day. Worn out by a military force that simply would not accept defeat, the Moors retreated.

Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

1. Ecclesiastes 9.1

2. Another formulation of the principle which underlies “No enemies to the right,” is “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Neither principle is strictly, or absolutely true, but that is the case for any general principle. Consider the alliances which formed up in World War 2, in which the allied bloc included the communist empires of China and the Soviet Union; these alliances broke down almost immediately after the allied victory. The overnight shift in alliances was accurately described by Malcom X, discussing the power of the media: During World War 2 Americans were told to love the Chinese and the Russians and to hate the Germans and the Japanese; after World War 2 Americans were told to hate the Chinese and the Russians and to love (West) Germans and Japanese. And the American people did so.

3. That is, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council.

4. As an example of this influence, my first acquaintance with Reformed theology was watching R. C. Sproul’s video on the holiness of God — a video loaned to me by my Pentecostal brother-in-law, who along with several others of his denomination, found the works of Sproul and others to contain a depth of thought they found missing from the works of many Pentecostals. Chappell’s book, Christ Centered Preaching, is used by seminary students who might never darken the door of a PCA church. I myself was in the PCA for a few years, before I realized that the aforementioned D. James Kennedy was a PCA Teaching Elder and that Coral Ridge was a PCA body.

5. A fact I mentioned in this article, citing Sean Michael Lucas.

6. See The Case for Christian Nationalism, pp. 269 - 271.

7. See Acts 2.42.

8. George Steiner, commenting on the role of the Torah and Mishnaic study in Jewish life and its connection to the prevalence of Jews in the arts and sciences, writes:

[T]he the sometimes hallucinatory techniques and disciplines of attention to the text, the mystique of fidelity to the written word, the reverence bestowed on its expositors and transmitters, concentrated within Judaic sensibility unique strengths and purities of disinterested purpose.

It is these which have made so many [Jews]…most native to modern intelligence. It is these that have generated the provocative pre-eminence of the Jew in modernity, be it humanistic or scientific. The ‘bookish’ genius of Marx and of Freud, of Wittgenstein and of Lévi-Strauss, is a secular deployment of the long schooling in abstract, speculative commentary and clerkship in the exegetic legacy…. The Jewish presence, often overwhelming, in modern mathematics, physics, economic and social theory, is direct heir to that abstinence from the approximate, from the mundane, which constitutes the ethos of the cleric. George Steiner, “Our Homeland, the Text”, emphasis added.

At one point in the West, Protestant literacy rates far exceeded that of Roman Catholics, attributable to Protestant desire that people are equipped to read and understand the Bible. If one traces the pedigree of many of America's “bluebloods”, one finds a great many Puritans and Separatists, who were not wealthy and powerful when they arrived on this continent. Just one example are the hundreds of descendants of William Brewster, one of the so-called Pilgrim Fathers, including Roger Baldwin (founder of the ACLU), Sarah Palin, Zachary Taylor, Fanny Crosby, Allen Dulles, Avery Dulles, John Dulles, even Angela Davis!

9. Possibly, this may explain a part of Wolfe’s book that bothers many; that is, where he launches into a rabbit trail on masculinity and a criticism of what he calls a gynocracy. In fact, however, he is not the only one (see here, and here). For the left, including left-evangelicals, anyone who spends much time thinking about the Roman empire might as well be a Christian Nationalist.

10. David Stroud, “A Realistic Way to Reverse Cultural Decline?”, 28 November 2023. See also Michael Metzger, “The Church as a Creative Minority,” Religion Unplugged, 28 January 2020; Jonathan Sacks, “On Creative Minorities,” 2013 Erasmus Lecture, First Things;

11. When one contemplates the economic consequences of out-of-wedlock births (single motherhood) it is easy to grasp the relation between discipline and social power. See here and here. I would position what I regard as the very prosemitic observation that the sort of discipline I am talking about here explains better than all else, what antisemites regard as the disproportionate representation of Jews at all levels of American life. I believe the same observation holds for Asians. So-called whites, largely as a result of generational capital (not all of if money) have gotten careless and rather undisciplined, and is the cause, not the result of, the current anti-white sentiment. But this is way off-topic.

12. One of the most well-known claims of the alt-right is that, in the United States, we have a predominantly Protestant nation, run by Catholics and Jews, for which they blame Protestant laziness, their lack of discipline.

13. Many traditionalists regard Vatican 2 as the protestantizing of the Church.

14. The Case for Christian Nationalism, pp. 469-470. I'm sure many of Wolfe's fellow Presbyterians were nonplussed by his characterizing them as “sitting plump in their seats”. Wolfe is hardly the first to assert the need for a “strong and austere aesthetic”. When I arrived for basic training at Ft Knox, I found in my wall locker a book titled The Man of Steel and Velvet: A Guide to Masculine Development, written a Christian named Aubrey Andelin. Summed up, Andelin's counsel was similar to Wolfe’s, including the need for strenuous physical exercise. Although I was not a Christian at the time, I was fascinated with such theme expounded by a Christian. At the and of my training, I left it for the next guy.

15. I have never bothered searching for it, but I would start with Plato's, Symposium.