Circling back around to last week’s subject once more.
So, What is it Again?
Last week I wrote about Christian nationalism. Small wonder that in the last week I’ve seen at least four articles on the topic appear in my inbox or some other place. I’ll forgo linking to each of them here as that would just create more work for me in trying to contextualize and respond to each.
Instead, let me share a question a reader emailed me: “Just an honest question – In your opinion, what is Christian nationalism?”
Without trying to sound evasive, I don’t think there’s a consensual definition of Christian nationalism any more than there is one, universally agreed-upon definition of many ideologies. Take your pick: cultural Marxism, democratic socialism, liberal democracy, romantic individualism. A decent dictionary can give you a definition that basically works, but which would be contested by various parties.
Now, we could make a distinction between a definition and an expression or variation. We can define a tree or chair in a fairly basic way while acknowledging the many different kinds of trees or chairs. I think Christian nationalism is like that.
It is something like this: “Christian nationalism is a commitment to ordering a nation legally, politically, socially and spiritually according to historic Christian beliefs, ideals, and/or practices.” (Notice that this definition could be articulated in nations besides the U.S., even if America is the context we’re mostly thinking of here.)
I suspect many Christian nationalists could get on board with this definition, although most would probably like to say much more or possibly a little less.
I don’t think believing something about the religious influences upon the American founding is logically required by Christian nationalism, though it is much more plausible for those two factors to be linked. In other words, if you believed in something akin to a “Judeo-Christian founding,” then you’d have a sturdier foundation for various forms of Christian nationalism.
Another aspect of my definition that warrants further comment is the question of means. Saying “legally, politically, socially, and spiritually ordered” doesn’t specify the precise legal, political, social, or spiritual means one might employ in bringing about this Christianized nation. Once again, I think you’d see a lot of diversity on this point.
Christian nationalists would probably also be distinguished by their definitions of “nation,” and “Christianity.” For example, is a nation the type of thing that can be, properly speaking, “Christian?” In my view, this is part of why Christian nationalism runs into problems. (Also, nations and countries aren't exactly the same thing, but I'll leave that for another time!)
If we place regeneration and redemption at the core of Christianity, as the Bible does, then it becomes a touch more challenging to understand how “Christian” can be applied to non-persons. I suppose the rejoinder from the Christian nationalist might be, “We mean that the nation in general, that is, the majority of the population, would be living more in a society shaped by Christian values, ideas, practices, and institutions.” That certainly sounds like a place where I’d like to live, but I wonder if calling that a Christian nation doesn’t create new and worrisome problems.
Hypothetically, one could live in a country where 70% of the population were Christians, but the nation was awash in immorality and secularism. Conversely, one could live in a country where 30% of the population were Christians, but the nation was characterized by widescale law keeping and happiness. Would it be because the 30% were very clever at statecraft? Would it be because most of the 70% who weren’t believers thought Christianity was a decent enough thing to let have its way?
You see, it’s tricky. Our goal is the redemption of people, which of course translates into the restoration of the cultural spheres people inhabit. But it is hardly a straight line here. Liberal democracies, whatever we may think about them, don’t yield those kinds of tidy outcomes. Of course, this may explain why many Catholic integralists and Christian nationalists alike think liberal democracy is in crisis—and I don’t think they’re entirely wrong. (Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed is an important attempt to levy this argument.)
So, what kind of country we want to live in and how we conceive of concepts like mission, vocation, politics, law, and much more coalesce in this complex conversation.
Regardless of where you are on the “Christian nationalism spectrum,” we must insist on holding together many ideas in tension: (1) the heritage of the nation; (2) the stewardship of citizenship; (3) the many biblical warnings about political power; (4) the gradual, slow, hidden, and ordinary work of the Kingdom; and (5) the centrality of the gospel, the Great Commission, and the Great Commandment.
Follow-Up:
In Newsletter #30 I discussed one of the most irksome things: presidential rankings. Never has something so subjective paraded itself as something akin to an objective science. Jonah Goldberg puts it so well in a recent, fantastic article:
These rankings tell us almost nothing interesting about the presidents they rank, but they tell us a lot about the rankers. In other words, flip the telescope around and you can learn a lot about what the “experts” value at any given moment, but very little about the inherent value of the presidents being ranked….And that’s why I hate the pretense of these rankings. The academics who participate—and much more so the publicists who foist this stuff on us with the help of a pliant media—want to pretend that these are using objective criteria, that there’s something borderline scientific and certainly something manifestly authoritative about the results.
What I’m Reading or Rereading:
J.I. Packer and Thomas Howard, Christianity: The True Humanism.
Caroline Leaf, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.
Quote of the Week:
They were suffering from what a British captain had dubbed ‘the plague of the sea’: scurvy. Like everyone else, Byron didn’t know what caused it. Striking a company after at least a month at sea, it was the great enigma of the Age of Sail, killing more mariners than all other threats—including gun battles, tempests, wrecks, and other diseases—combined.
David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Mutiny, Shipwreck, and Murder.
Common Grace Wisdom (CGW): Channeling McLuhan Against Social Media
I’m quite excited (and disturbed) about social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. You can find out much about the book online, including some excerpts from his outstanding Substack newsletter, After Babel.
In a recent post, he underscores a crucial point that people often bypass when they attack social media for its “content problems.” He channels the thought of the late Marshall McLuhan to remind us that content is the least of our worries:
…content moderation is to some extent a red herring, a distraction from larger issues. Yes, it must be done and done better, but even if these platforms could someday remove 95% of harmful content, the platforms will still be harmful to kids. The discussion of online harms can’t just be about making an adolescent’s time on Instagram safer, not even 95% safer, because so many of the harms I describe in The Anxious Generation are not caused by bad content. They are caused by a change in the nature of childhood when kids begin to spend many hours each day scrolling, posting, and commenting. Even if Instagram could remove 100% of harmful content and leave only photos of happy girls and young women enjoying their beautiful lives, the effect on adolescent girls would still be devastating from the chronic social comparison, loss of sleep, addiction, perfectionism, and decline of time spent with their real friends in the real world. Even if social media companies currently enjoy protection from lawsuits based on the content that other people have posted (Section 230), they absolutely must be held legally responsible for the hundreds of design choices and marketing strategies they have used to hook tens of millions of children.
More here: “Marshall McLuhan on Why Content Moderation is a Red Herring.”
Parting Shot
My apologies for the shorter-than-normal newsletter. I was sick all last week and could barely do anything. Or perhaps I should just say, “You’re welcome!”