The Gospel Is Definitely National, Maybe

The Christian Nationalism We Need (3): Conquering Every Man (and woman) For Christ

“[T]he field of Christianity is the world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity.... The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man.” ~ J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Culture.”¹

I

It’s difficult to disagree with men you respect, especially when you have some personal acquaintance with them, the more so when, as in this case, the man with whom you disagree is a fellow ruling elder in your denomination. But, here I go again, disagreeing, to an extent, with someone I would much prefer to be in agreement with.

In an article posted to his substack account Brad Isbell claims that Christian Nationalists overburden and spin the Great Commission in much the same way as (Kellerite) “for-the-city" transformationalists do to Jeremiah 29.7. Since, like the late Tim Keller, I am a neo-Calvinist, it usually comes a surprise to people to learn that I agree with Mr Isbell, Kellerites take a liberty with the passage from Jeremiah:

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare"

I do in fact disagree with neo-Calvinistic “transformationalists” who see in this a charter of sorts, for all the silly things Isbell would rightly delineate. One would think Jeremiah was telling the Jewish exiles to assimilate into Babylonian life, to “have an influence”, perhaps even to be winsome, to make sure that it is Moses, not they, who offends those Babylonians. Maybe, for example, those Jewish exiles shouldn’t scream so much about Babylonian sexual perversion (not God's best for human flourishing) because, after all, sexuality is one of those things that God, speaking through the prophets, only whispers about (and the Law of Moses wasn’t addressed to them anyway).

Outside of “transformationalist” circles, this passage has little application now to anyone except perhaps for amillennialists: Don’t try to take over the city; just make yourselves as comfortable as you can until the days of your captivity are complete -- until Jesus returns because you lose down here.

This passage from Jeremiah is addressed to a people under judgment. Regarding transformationalism, the key word in this passage is exile. Only an eisegete can find what Kellerites see there, a call to transform the city to which the Jews were exiled.

Once more with feeling: exiled.

II

But is it fair to say that Christian Nationalists treat the Great Commission the same way? The first thing to observe is that while Christians are sojourners in the world, we are not exiles in the world. The next thing to observe is that Jeremiah gives no “commission” to the exiles that they are to disciple the Babylonians, not a word about the Jews circumcising the Babylonians into Moses, and teaching the Babylonians to observe those things God commanded them. So, Isbell is correct to criticize Kellerites for using Jeremiah 29.7 to launch church plants and inform mission statements and church slogans for over three decades.

But then he writes:

The Christian nationalist crowd interprets “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” in a way that puts the transformational discipling of nations (as political entities or ethnic groups) nearly on par with the evangelism of individuals of all nations, thus undermining the church’s spiritual mission.²

One of the difficulties with generalizations such as “the Christian nationalist crowd,” “the Christian nationalist project,” or even “Christian nationalists” is that there is nothing definitive which can be called the Christian nationalist anything. For example, Isbell refers to “the Christian nationalist crowd” as a unified entity that engages in a unified act of interpreting the Great Commission in a singular fashion, which “puts the transformational discipling of nations…on par with the evangelism of individuals of all nations….” But the Christian nationalist Sith lord, Stephen Wolfe, explicitly denies being a transformationalist:

I reject transformationalism…since I reject the idea that human work can…bring the “new creation” to earth. ³

I do not know how Wolfe could make himself clearer. I suppose we would have tacitly to accuse Wolfe of being dishonest. He is a crypto-transformationalist: his end goal is the same as the “transformationalists”, he is just going about it a different way. The case can be made, but I don’t think it’s a very strong one. I do know it’s a very dishonest one.

But whether there is some definitive entity which can be called “the Christian nationalist crowd,” that is less important than Isbell’s claim about their interpretive move with the Great Commission: it calls for the “transformational discipling” of political entities and ethnic groups, that is comparable to the evangelization of the individual members of these political and ethnic groups. In his book, Wolfe offers an analogy which I believe refutes this understanding, but before I go there, we need to deal with a more literal translation of the text of Matthew’s rendition of the Great Commission:

“Given [to] me was all authority in heaven and upon the earth. Going therefore, make learners [of] all the nations, immersing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all [of] as many things as I commanded [all of] you. ⁴

On its face, the Commission commands three actions, as follows:

1. Disciple the nations

2. Immerse the nations

3. Teach the nations

In fact, we have only one command: “Disciple” (make learners of), in the imperative mood, is the main verb. “Immersing” and “teaching” are participles (present, active, and in the nominative case). The question then is how do these participles function in this imperative mood sentence?⁵ The structure looks something like this:⁶

Make learners [of] all the nations

immersing them into the name

of the Father and

of the Son and

of the Holy Spirit

teaching them

all I have commanded you

An alternative understanding would be outlined as follows:

Make learners [of] all the nations

[by] immersing them into the name

of the Father and

of the Son and

of the Holy Spirit

[and by] teaching them

all I have commanded you

In the former case the two participial clauses are appositional, merely restating the idea of the main verb: to immerse and to teach are to make learners, which for what it’s worth, would be my view. In the latter case, the participles are understood as expressing means: the nations are to be discipled by immersing them (that is, into the name of the Holy Trinity) and by teaching them.

There is at least one other legitimate possibility:

Make learners [of] all the nations

immersing them into the name

of the Father and

of the Son and

of the Holy Spirit

[by] teaching them

all I have commanded you

In this case, “immersing” is appositional to “make learners”, and “teaching” connotes the means. That is, making learners of the nations is to immerse them (into the name of the Holy Trinity), which is accomplished by teaching them to observe what Christ has commanded. I think this highly unlikely, but it is still an option.

Of course, understanding how the participles function here depends upon how we understand “nations” in the passage. And on that point I need to acknowledge T. Davis Gordon’s own comment on Isbell’s article:

Contextually, “disciple the nations” is qualified by the two [participles] that follow, one of which says, “baptizing them (Greek αὐτούς)…”, which can hardly be a reference to a geo-political entity, which could not be baptized.

That is true: one cannot baptize a geo-political entity, in which case, relevant to the topic, it almost doesn’t matter how the participles function. The important point is that there is no understanding of the function of the participles which will support a Christian Nationalist understanding of the Great Commission: if you cannot baptize a geo-political entity, then you cannot teach or make a disciple of a geo-political entity. But, as I understand him, Gordon’s observation assumes that the Commission is talking about water baptism. It may not be: the baptism the Commission speaks of is into, not in,⁷ the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Most translations have baptism being “in the name of”, connoting baptism conducted under the authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, rather than into the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, a construction similar to 1 Corinthians 10.2, which refers to the nation of Israel (as both ethnic group and geo-political entity) being baptized into Moses. So, we may not be able to baptize a nation in water, but we can still baptize a nation. ⁸

This allows us to understand the grammatical structure of the Great Commission, a sentence in the imperative mood, the way we normally would do. The structure of the Commission is subject-verb-object. The understood subjects in this sentence are the apostles. The main verb is “make learners [of]” and the object is “the nations”:

“As you proceed [through the world] you [apostles] are to disciple [make learners of] the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [and] teaching them to observe what I have commanded you.” ⁹

I am not arguing, in favor of Christian nationalism, that this is the case, only that, even if they are mistaken, it is not far off base for Christian Nationalists to believe a nation can be baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as Israel was baptized into Moses. And if a nation can be baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, then that nation is, in some sense, Christian. That is itself a problem: even if we conceded the possibility that a nation can be baptized and, therefore, Christian; it is not clear what follows from that. Granting the proposition, that a Christian nation is possible, what would it look like? How would it be governed? Sometimes it seems the real problem for anti-Christian Nationalists is they don’t like the proposed answers to those questions. Who can blame them? I mean, really, who wants theonomy? Or a Christian Dictator (or Prince)?

III

We can look at other “commissions”, but we also need to look at how “the nations” function as the objects of other verbs in Scripture. What we find is that the term is used in reference to the whole (that is, as Isbell puts it, “political entities or ethnic groups”) not only the parts. The sentence structure, “Disciple the nations,” is the same as that of, “Disciple John Doe.” The meaning of, “Disciple the nations,” could have a similar understanding, without stretching the grammar. The nations, as nations, are to be discipled. And one need not be a commission-spinning 21st century American Christian Nationalist in order sincerely to believe this. Matthew Henry did in his commentary on this passage, as quoted in a previous article:

Christianity should be twisted in with national constitutions, that the kingdoms of the world should become Christ's kingdoms, and their kings the church's nursing-fathers.

We hardly have time for an extensive study of how the term nations is to be understood, but there are reasons to believe that what Isbell calls the Christian Nationalist spin is a legitimate understanding of the Hebrew goyim and the Greek ethne.

Take, for example, Jeremiah 18.7-10:

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot it, to tear it down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I planned to bring on it. Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will relent of the good with which I said that I would bless it.

In this passage, nation (Hebrew, goy; LXX ethnē) is clearly used to refer to “a political entity or ethnic group,” especially given the mention of kingdom. This entity, as an entity, acts; it can commit evil, or turn from evil.¹⁰ Thinking in terms of the Christian Nationalist spin we can conceive of a nation turning from its evil as a result of its hearing the gospel proclaimed. The nation (an ethnic and political entity) acting for its collective good, turns from its evil; and God, in response to that national turn, relents of the judgment he intends against it. If we can conceive of a nation turning from its evil, it requires no stretch to conceive of a nation being discipled. We find such uses of goy and ethnē throughout Scripture. Nation certainly refers to an ethnic group in the calling of Abraham (Genesis 17.4-6):

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

In this passage, in addition clearly to referring to an ethnicity, nation (Hebrew, goy; LXX, ethnē) also refers to political entities: kings, rulers of nations, will descend from Abraham. At base, the operative terms (goy, ethnē) refer to groups of people bound to each other by common descent, language, customs, traditions, culture and so on. The Great Commission can be understood, therefore, just as Christian Nationalists understand it, and without spinning the term nation to do so.

But what about those other “commissions”? Brad is certainly correct to ask about them, and he begins with the longer ending of Mark (16.15-16):

Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

and them Luke 24.47, according to whom the program, is:

…that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Curiously, Isbell adds John 21.17, the “personal-churchly” command to, “Feed my sheep” – curiously, because according to him this command was addressed to all the disciples, not only to Peter. Six times, according to this passage, Jesus addressed Peter alone. Frankly, the Christian Nationalists’ spin on Matthew’s commission has more going for it exegetically than Isbell’s rendering of John 21.17, according to which Jesus addresses all his disciples, not just the one who three times denied knowing him the night he was betrayed. More importantly, this passage, even with his gloss, contributes nothing to, nor takes away anything from his argument.

The implication of these other commissions, for Mr Isbell, is that the structure of Matthew’s commission does not tell us what similarly structured sentences would tell us: that in some sense bodies of humans (ethnic and political entities) called “nations” are to be discipled, baptized, and taught. Whereas Isbell would have Matthew’s commission understood in terms of the others, those others can be understood in terms of Matthew’s. The proclamation of the gospel to the whole creation (Mark 16.15) is a call to the nations to turn to the true and living God, in discipleship to the teachings of the true and living God’s only begotten Son. The “program” of preaching “repentance for the forgiveness of sins...in his name to all nations” (Luke 24.47) is a program of calling the nations to turn to the true and living God, in discipleship to the teachings of the true and living God’s only begotten Son. Thus, the nations, as nations, are discipled, baptized, and taught, which does not require that each member of the nation be a believing Christian. It is a well-established principle in logic that propositions which are true of wholes do not need to be true of each of the parts, as Stephen Wolfe explains in his book:

Though a soccer team wins its match by individual players scoring goals, we say that the team won the match, not the individuals who scored the goals. This is because, although the individual action of scoring is the key to winning, these actions were supported and made possible by the actions of the other team members, including the defensive players. So we say the team won and that winning is a team effort because each player has a role with regard to winning. Thus, a totality of action can be defined as a set of actions that are interrelated such that their effect (e.g., winning the match) is a product of the whole (e.g., both defensive and offensive actions), not any particular part of the whole.”¹¹

It shouldn’t be too difficult to understand this. All groups perform in this way, including churches, of which any number of propositions can be affirmed without those same propositions being affirmed of each other individual member, including the proposition that each individual is redeemed. A nation can be Christian without each individual citizen being a professing Christian. Applying Wolfe’s observation, even the non-Christians in a Christian nation can participate in the totality of action, in the same way (looking back at Jeremiah 18.7-10) that the actions of non-repentant members of a nation can still contribute to the totality of action of the nation which turns from its evil. (I explained myself more fully, here, defining a Christian nation as, “a polity with a supporting culture that, under the influence of traditional Christianity, orients its members toward the kingdom of heaven.”).

IV

Isbell’s next line of argument against Christian nationalists’ spin on Matthew’s commission is to invoke the spirituality of the Church, supposedly unique to the southern Presbyterian tradition,¹² which should tell us that the Church is not to disciple the nations:

“Post-Pentecost in Acts 2:42 we see the life of the church that began to send missionaries all over the known world:”

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Note the spiritual character of the commissions that prompted the church’s true apostolic mission. We can only conclude that these other “commissions” in the gospels and the example of the life of the church in Acts just don’t support the Christian nationalist reading of the Great Commission in Matthew.

But does the spirituality of the Church really correct the Christian nationalists’ understanding of the Great Commission? Only if Isbell’s previous argument, about how to understand the commissions, is correct.¹³ As I have argued, the Christian Nationalist reading of the Great Commission, even if ultimately incorrect, is not unreasonable. Secondly, as I have already observed, Matthew Henry had a similar understanding of the Commission; and needless to say, he pre-dates Christian Nationalism by a few years. If anything, “the life of the church” as described in Acts 2.42 doesn’t tell us that the Church (more correctly, Christians) is not to disciple entire nations; it tells us what kind of Christian one needs to be in order to disciple his nation: one who is devoted to the apostolic teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.¹⁴ If I were applying Acts 2.42 the way Isbell does here, I do not think I would even bother voting, or spending even a fraction of a moment contemplating politics at all.¹⁵

Looking at Acts 2.42, the question is whether these disciples, having devoted themselves as described in Acts, go out in the world and transform their social circles by the moral authority of their lives, offered as a living sacrifice. We can employ Wolfe’s soccer team analogy to see how this works out. Let us say that a soccer team is involved in some charitable work, for example helping at a soup kitchen. Let us further stipulate that the entire team is there. Consider the two propositions:

1. The soccer team has won every match they have played this season.

2. The soccer team has helped at this kitchen every weekend for a year.

In (1) it is the soccer team, acting as a soccer team that wins the games; but in (2) this is not the case: the players are all there, but they are not there as a soccer team. Soccer teams, when working as soccer teams, play soccer; they do not serve meals, not even if they wear their uniforms while serving those meals, still less so if they wear street clothes when doing so. Applying Isbell’s logic, soccer teams should not help out at soup kitchens because that is not what soccer teams are organized and trained to do.

But does that really work out? Yes: strictly speaking, the term soccer team does not have the same meaning in both propositions. The members of the team are identical in both scenarios; the members of the team are present in both scenarios. But only in (1) are the members of the team present as soccer players, who have an obligation, in their capacity as soccer players, to win soccer matches. In scenario (2), the members of the team are present in a different capacity, and in fulfillment of a different set of obligations, call them civic obligations, obligations they do not have because they are soccer players, but because they are citizens.

So, while the spirituality of the Church rightly limits the Church as Church to the activities of devotion to the apostolic teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers, it does not restrict the Christian from discipling his nation. The only way it could be otherwise is if the discipled nation, as a discipled nation, gathers together for “national” worship, under the leadership of its national “elders”, or something similar. No, the Church as Church can be distinguished from the nation’s life in the same way that the Family as an institution, is distinguished from the nation of which the Family as an institution is the basic building block. The spirituality of the Church allows for the Church to disciple entire nations just as she disciples entire families. What it does not allow is the institutional confusion of the Church and the nation. We can talk of a discipled nation without working out what a discipled nation might look like and how it might function, in ways that account for it that not every member of that nation is a professing Christian.

The important question is not whether the Great Commission calls for the discipling of entire nations, but rather what those “discipled” nations look like. In other words, a “discipled” nation could legitimately be called Christian; but that does not mean, for example, Stephen Wolfe is correct about the way in which a nation goes about being Christian, or that Doug Wilson’s Christendom 2.0 is what we should be looking for. A nation with a significant number of professing Christians just really should look different than a nation with very few professing Christians, whether the Law of God is applied, or not. And if the 80/20 rule applies to national life, it shouldn’t require very many professing Christians at all; even that slim a margin can result in the transformation of a culture.

Of course, the idea that Christians (or, the Church) should have any role in cultural transformation is an issue for Isbell, and rightly so, to an extent: the downgrade of the mainline Protestant denominations was due in some measure to a desire to influence American culture. But there are as many ways of transforming a culture as there are of winning wars; and, according to General Patton, there are an many ways of winning wars as there are of skinning cats. And someone very important to Isbell, argued for the necessity of changing the culture so that the gospel is more readily believed:

It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless, but as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.... What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate. So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity.... What more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty experience of regeneration, who, therefore, do not, like the world, neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced in Christian experience – what more pressing duty than for these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error?¹⁶

One problem when it comes to the proclamation of the gospel, or the discipling of the nation, is the role played by defeater beliefs. What Machen is referring to here is the transformation of culture which removes such beliefs. But here are a couple of questions: (i) Given the axiom that politics is downstream from culture, how could a culture be changed such that defeater beliefs opposed to Christian truth are themselves defeated, but without that changed culture also affecting the politics? and (ii) In what sense is a culture changed such that defeater beliefs are defeated without it being legitimate to refer to that culture as having been discipled?

Isbell’s concern for the spirituality of the Church is not out of line. The issues presented by Christian Nationalists raise questions about the mission of the Church, and it is important to get those questions right, and to answer them correctly. Since the mainline denominations departed from orthodoxy (a process completed roughly a century ago), they have had difficulty defining the mission of the Church. In the end, for those denominations, the mission of the Church is determined by the spirit of the age, and has been generally applied as a theology of liberation and transformation of the social order.¹⁷ For anyone concerned about getting it right on the mission of the Church, and more than passingly familiar with the many ways people have gotten it wrong, Christian Nationalism’s talk of transforming society, will raise the hackles. If there are, as I believe, legitimate forms of Christian nationalism, the illegitimate forms are simply rightist versions of leftists’ liberation theology. I do not fault anyone for being critical of Christian nationalism per se, but for pretending to give serious critique of something they dismiss as cosplay. The men and women who trained me to think taught me that if I cannot, or will not, explain and defend a view with which I disagree, so well that I am mistaken for someone who holds said view, then both my understanding of that view, as well as my integrity, can justly be called into question.

Critics of Christian Nationalism seem to draw no distinction between Christians doing things and the Church doing things; and so you have arguments such as Mr Isbell positions here: the Church is to preach and teach, not to transform culture. Advocates of Christian nationalism are at great pains to explain that their position does not call upon the Church qua Church to do otherwise. One wonders how a Christian nationalist such as Stephen Wolfe, could be clearer:

Churches are integral to the spiritual health of the…movement. But since it is a political movement, pastors as pastors should not take the lead. Pastors are to political movements what chaplains are to military commanders: they advise and serve people’s spiritual needs, but they do not lead, nor are they decision-makers…. We are Christians pursuing Christian things outside the sphere of the instituted Church. The instituted Church is not a hub of Christian activism or the “embassy” of godly political rule.¹⁸

No one who denied the spirituality of the Church could write that: it is not the Church as Church that would bring about a Christian nation, but Christians, “pursuing Christian things” who would do so. Now, while Brad Isbell, R Scott Clark and others may argue that even Christians pursuing Christan things should have nothing to do with Christianizing their nations, they cannot do so as if Christians pursuing Christian things (including Christianizing their nations) are acting in a fashion at odds with the spirituality of the Church.

This concern for the spirituality of the church would make more sense if Christian nationalists were arguing for a state in which her spiritual leadership (specifically, her teaching elders, or equivalents) to take up the mantle of the civil magistrate. Calvin describes this condition in his Institutes, at 4.11.7:

But as evil always produces evil, the bishops, disdaining this jurisdiction as a thing unworthy of their care, devolved it on others. Hence the appointment of officials to supply their place. I am not now speaking of the character of this class of persons; all I say is, that they differ in no respect from civil judges. And yet they call it spiritual jurisdiction, though all the litigation relates to worldly affairs. Were there no other evil in this, how can they presume to call a litigious forum a church court?

If Christian Nationalists such as Stephen Wolfe were advocating a national polity in which clergy are doing the legislating and adjudicating, the spirituality of the Church would be grounds for an objection. The only role for clergy, at least as Wolfe explains it, is simply to follow their calling, to preach and teach the Scriptures and administer the sacraments so that the Christians “pursuing Christian things” are the best Christians they can be. The spirituality of the Church does not prohibit Christians from pursuing Christian things, not even the (arguably) Christian thing of working to conform their nations to God’s ethical requirements as they are set forth in the moral law, the most complete exposition of which is to be found in the Bible.¹⁹

A final comment on Christian Nationalists’ appeal to the Great Commission: the most I think we can say is that, while the commissions altogether do not explicitly command the conversion of nations, such conversion is nevertheless consistent with, and not contradictory to, the commissions. There simply is not a very strong argument to be made from the commissions. Also, if we aren't trying to disciple whole nations, Christian Nationalist or not, are we really being faithful to the Great Commission? Or are we being sloppy because, “ Everyone isn't going to believe, so why bother with sort of boldness?”

For Christian Nationalists: something you lack is what I would call a Biblical Theology of Christian Nationalism, explaining how it fits into the Bible's story.

V

My point in this essay has not been to defend any case for Christian Nationalism, but to call for more attention to detail in arguments against it. Thus far in my experience the arguments are not hitting Wolfian or Wilsonian Christian Nationalism head-on; they are reactionary at best (seeking to put down Christian nationalism as an obstacle to their goal of returning to some status quo ante),²⁰ or strawmen at worst. In the case of this article by Brad Isbell, the process is to dismiss, as spin, a claim about the Great Commission (in relation to Christian nationalism), and then critique the putative spin, and then point to a doctrine (e.g., the spirituality of the Church) that refutes no claim made by Christian Nationalists. We need better arguments. And right now, neither Brad Isbell nor, frankly, R. Scott Clark,²¹ are providing those better arguments. This raises the question: Why am I not providing those better arguments I think we need?

The answer is that my arguments against Christian Nationalism would not help anti-Christian Nationalists such as Moore, French and Clark. Their arguments are less anti-Christian Nationalist and more pro-American Project, applying a “baptized” Whig view of history. Very few anti-Christian Nationalists fail, at some point in their arguments, to point out that various planks of the Christian Nationalists’ platforms are at odds with the US Constitution. (I applaud Isbell for raising the spirituality of the Church and for never, from my experience, critiquing Christian Nationalists on the basis of contradicting the Constitution, or the American Project.) No argument I would position against any form of Christian Nationalism would be grounded on a commitment to the American Project: the America for which so many anti-Christian Nationalists have such devotion is dead.²² David French, Russell Moore, R Scott Clark and others see the same things as Christian Nationalists; they just disagree about what it all means. French, Moore, and Clark see cancel culture, and other things, as people just not playing by the rules, those rules which require viewpoint neutrality. For anti-Christian Nationalists, we just need to get everyone playing by the rules again; and Christians need to set the example by just continuing to play by those rules, even though no one else is right now. For Christian Nationalists, the reason people are no longer playing by those rules is because the Project – the game – in which those rules functioned is dead. The rules of a game make the game. The reason no one is playing by the rules is that they are playing a different game; and viewpoint neutrality isn’t one of the rules. They changed the game while you weren’t paying attention. You are still playing hide-and-seek; the new game is seek-and-destroy. The rules of the new game don’t determine who is “It”; they determine who keeps his job, who keeps his house, who must bake a cake, who must take a photograph, who is permitted to dispute election results, who can assault the Capitol, and so forth.

But Christians are supposed to be good people; and good people follow the rules. It’s a Romans 13.1-4 kind of a thing. So let’s all keep playing hide-and-seek while our opponents play a different game, possessing different rules. And we need to do this because the right thing to do is to attempt to persuade our opponent to return to the agreed-upon game, and play by the agreed-upon rules. And if our opponent continues playing seek-and-destroy, ultimately destroying us, our families, our livelihoods, our associates, our neighbors, that’s okay. The important thing is for us to be good people. Yes, yes, this is our nation and our opponent is bent on destroying it, but remember, this world is not our home.²³

I would find it difficult to help anti-Christian Nationalists craft better arguments against Christian Nationalism because, while I disagree with the most popular forms of Christian Nationalism, I fundamentally agree with them that the problem is not that people are no longer playing by the rules, and we just need to try to get everyone back to the game; I believe the problem is that people are playing a completely different game, a game which, among other things, is less inclined to care about natural law than the most rank of Christian Nationalists (whose opposition to natural law is greatly exaggerated). Appeals to the Constitution won’t work either: when people like French, Clark and others talk about the Constitution, they are referring to that 18th century document that’s been amended a few times but is still largely the same, written and ratified by men who believed in natural law. Their opponents, to the extent they accord that document any authority, are not referring to the same Constitution, and reject the natural law upon which the document is based. The storybook-reading drag queen isn’t just enjoying the First Amendment; that is not his game. His game is called “Queer the Culture;” and its purpose is the destruction of the very structure anti-Christian Nationalists want to preserve. The First Amendment is intended to maintain, or to serve in maintaining what the drag queen wants to destroy. Continuing to play along with him is like continuing to play KAOS with your nerf gun long after one of the players dropped his nerf for a Sig P238.

But perhaps the best reason I cannot present those better arguments is, as I have said previously, that while I do not think the forms of Christian Nationalism promulgated by the likes of Joel Webbon, Stephen Wolfe, A. D. Robles, Jonathan Harris and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, are the ones that will “make the cut”, I do believe the future will be some form of Christian nationalism. Even if that is not the case, the future will not be any form of the American Project, that anti-Christian Nationalist critics, proud Americans that they are, seem intent on maintaining. That game is over. And the soul of the anti-Christian Nationalist is so hypernormalized it doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration to say that some of them see Christian Nationalism as the biggest existential threat to their way of life – the American way of life – since the fall of the Soviet Union, so much so that they will pull a page from the left’s playbook and employ allusions to fascism and dictatorships, if that is what it takes to quash it. Seriously, at times I can’t tell what offends the anti-Christian Nationalists more, that it is contrary to Scripture or that it is anti-American. Watching Christian conservatives and Christian progressives make common cause with opponentsof Christ reminds me of the Cold War, when evangelical Christians and neo-Conservatives stumbled into each other’s arms in common cause against world Communism and overnight became Republicans. (Historical note: once the neo-cons had no further use for them, they discarded evangelicals like a man does a one-night stand when he wakes up, sober, to the knowledge that he did not in fact leave the club with a hot chick the night before, and hopes to dress and sneak out before she wakes up.²⁴)

The real problem is that anti-Christian Nationalists cannot imagine another way of life, so they will demonstrate their loyalty in a common cause with enemies of Christ and prop up a system so corrupt that some have ceased to say the west is falling and now say the west has fallen. This is where the Christian Nationalists and I are in complete agreement; and I think one must be delusional to believe otherwise. To paraphrase Elena Gorokhova, “They know our civilization is dead. We know our civilization is dead. They know we know our civilization is dead; but they keep pretending they support it, and we keep pretending we believe them.”²⁵

Kudos to Brad, though, for being one of the few to present an argument which attempts to rebuke Christian Nationalism solely on the basis of scripture and not accusing it merely of being anti-American, racist, white-supremacist, fascistic or any other such attempts at rejoinder.

1. Here, at page 6.

2. While I share Isbell’s concerns about Wolfian and Wilsonian renditions of Christian Nationalism, it is not entirely out of the question to understand nations as “political entities or ethnic groups”. Take, for example, the following passage from Psalm 2:

Why are the nations in an uproar

And the peoples devising a vain thing?

The kings of the earth take their stand

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,

“Let us tear their fetters apart

And cast away their cords from us!”

[…]

Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;

Take warning, O judges of the earth.

Worship the LORD with reverence

And rejoice with trembling.

Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way,

For His wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

Whether the nations in this passage are thought of as ethnic groups, they are certainly being understood as political entities; and their kings and other officials are exhorted to “do homage” to the Son and to take refuge in him. The Christian Nationalist case put in terms of this psalm would, I think, be that the nations whose officials “do homage” to the Son, could legitimately be called Christian.

3. The Case for Christian Nationalism, 97. Wolfe is, of course, only one man, a single Christian Nationalist; but I have yet to encounter any Christian Nationalist who doesn’t have the same view Wolfe expresses.

4. My translation of Matthew 28.18ff:

Ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς· πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος.

5. There is a range of uses for participles, as with all parts of speech. A brief grammar refresher: participles modify the main verb, answering how, why, when, and where. As such, they can express cause, condition, concession, result, manner, means, attendant circumstances, purpose; they can be redundant or appositional (conveying the same action as the main verb).

6. Annoyingly, Substack did not preserve the structure, which entailed some strategically-placed indentations. Hopefully, the explanations suffice.

7. The difference is that the preposition ‘eis’ connotes motion towards (“to”, “unto”, or “into”), while the preposition ‘en’ connotes location, influence or dominion (“in”, “by”, or “with”). We should normally expect, given the english translations to find ‘en’ in the greek text. In fact, if I recall (from previous study) most places in which ‘eis’ is translated “in” to refer to belief in Christ, and are found in the Gospel of John. There is a use of ‘eis’ similar to that in Mattew 28.19: in Matthew 10.41 (KJV), the Lord says, “He who receives a prophet in (‘eis’) the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous man in (‘eis’) the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward.” The ESV renders the same passage as, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward.” More discussion here.)

8. The issue would be what is meant, given context, by the term baptize. This to a weakness in a Christian Nationalist argument from the Great Commission, which is that baptism — whether into Moses or into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — signifies, among other things, union with God. See John Murray, Christian Baptism, Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, p. 3.

9. On the assumption that the participles indicate manner or means, then the baptizing and teaching are the means by which the discipling is done. Alternatively, since there is no copulative between the participial clauses, it could be argued that “teaching” is the means by which the baptism is accomplished: discipling the nations is by means of baptism (into the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit) which in turn is by means of instruction.

10. This comports well with Wolfe’s understanding of nationalism as a nation’s acting for its collective good. See The Case for Christian Nationalism, p. 165.

11. The Case for Christian Nationalism, 12. Note: Interactions with his book are due to the book’s relevance to the contemporary debate, and should not be taken as evidence that I agree with the book’s argument. Where Wolfe is correct, he is correct; and this point is one of those about which he is correct.

12. This doctrine asserts, as stated by James Henley Thornwell, that the church:

has no commission to construct society afresh…to change the forms of its political constitutions…. The problems, which the anomalies of our fallen state are continually forcing on philanthropy, the Church has no right to solve. She must leave them to the Providence of God, and to human wisdom sanctified and guided by the spiritual influences which it is her glory to foster and to cherish. The Church…has a fixed and unalterable Constitution; and that Constitution is the Word of God…She can announce what it teaches, enjoin what it commands, prohibit what it condemns…Beyond the Bible she can never go, and apart from the Bible she can never speak.

On the basis of this doctrine, Southern Presbyterians did not address the African slave questions in the 19th century or the Civil Rights questions in the 20th. In fact, this doctrine which is supposedly unique to southern Presbyterians, is actually unique to southern Protestants, period, as Sean Michael Lewis points out (see note 3 ). The inconsistency with which this doctrine is applied, as Lewis mentions in his article, gives it the appearance of a doctrine that (southern) Presbyterians enjoy appealing to when they don’t want to do something that could upset the reigning cultural zeitgeist's apple cart.

13. In fact, his argument from the spirituality of the Church is really a restatement of his argument comparing and contrasting the other commission.

14. This sets it apart form the Kellerite transformationalism which Isbell rightly rejects. A Christian Nationalism taking the spirituality of the Church seriously (while disagreeing with Brad about how it is correctly applied) would care little for Keller’s third way, winsome triangulating and, for example, call homosexuality a sin, rather than minimize its sinfulness by referring to it as not being God’s best for human flourishing — and do the same for all sins. More than likely, being devoted to the teaching of the apostles, they would also eschew Kellerite dishonesty with things like ordination of female deacons by ordaining no deacons and “commissioning” male and female “deacons” and have the apostolic integrity to leave for denominations which do those things without tap-dancing (or Communion ballet dancing).

15. I’m not being sarcastic. I am talking about the limited argument he makes in his article, not some more extensive argument he might offer in which he explains how the spirituality of the Church does not prohibit or discourage political involvement. I am also not intimating that if Mr Isbell is politically involved he is contradicting himself here.

16. Machen, “Christianity and Culture,” quoted here.

17. For fuller treatment, see Edmund Clowney’s chapter on the mission of the Church in The Church, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1995, 155-166.

18. The Case for Christian Nationalism, 470.

19. If you are thinking natural law, please see my post here, in which I write, among other things, “...the substantial identity of both natural and moral law renders application of the former substantially indistinguishable from the latter.”

20. This status quo ante seems to be that which held during the period of time Aaron Renn refers to as “Neutral World”, as a time (roughly 1994 to 2014) when the marketplace of ideas was truly open, a time before cancel culture, a time we need to return to, a time of view point neutrality, which requires us to accept drag queen story hour as a legitimate expression of the First Amendment guarantees, so that Christians can also enjoy those protections. Christian Nationalists, with their supposed threats of silencing dissent, which is just a form of cancel culture which all true Americans must reject, are roadblocks to the efforts of Christians and drag queens to restore the First Amendment.

21. As I hope to explain in a subsequent essay.

22. Sorry to be the Black Pill all up in here, but “Nox Venit” is derived from the Latin of John 9.4: “…night cometh, when no man can work.”

23. I won’t elaborate here, but the spirituality behind this attitude is as selectively and conveniently applied as the spirituality of the Church.

24. I know what you’re thinking. All I have to say is that if you are not familiar with that movie trope, then I envy you the sheltered life you have lived. Go with God.

25. Only, our civilization isn’t just dead, is it? It has committed suicide, as a result of one of the most successful PsyOps in world history, inducing in a sufficient number of an entire ethnic group the conviction that it needs to die.