The Cross and the Flag
Who are the Christian Nationalists?
To this point, I’ve not really paid close attention to “Christian Nationalism,” either as term or actually existing movement. This is for a few reasons: First of all, the religious right, as powerful and important as it is in America, is not as interesting to me as more secular currents. Second, I’d sort of dismissed the term “White Christian Nationalism,” which started to crop up everywhere a few years ago, as a sort of faddish liberal mantra, overly qualified and complex. It seemed to me that most of the phenomena being put under that label were either just plain old religious conservatism or, to me at least, plainly fascist, so the term was surplus to requirements. Third, and related to that, I don’t share a reflexive hostility to religious people that some on the left have and I also feel that sometimes by pointing out the “Christian” part of things just serves to tar large sections of people as bigots, which in turn allows the Right to make the case that liberals and the left are somehow persecuting Christians. The problem is their politics not their self-professed religious identity, so why make a thing of it?
But now I think was wrong and should revise this picture a little bit. For one thing, we are in the midst of a very nasty LGBT+ backlash, which is at least partly being justified on religious grounds. There are also now apparently a number of people who self-identify as Christian Nationalists. Some of them are in elected office, like Majorie Taylor Greene, who last year self-applied the appellation: “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” Christian Nationalism is also apparently a subject of considerable concern, debate, and polemic within the Christian community itself. There’s more than one organization of the “Christians against Christian Nationalism” type and regular articles in Christian publications warning against the dangers of the ideology. Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism became a bestseller and has been taken seriously in the Christian press.
Back Then
I will get to Wolfe in a moment, but it’s worth looking at the history of the phrase itself. “Christian Nationalist Crusade” was one of the many organizations founded by Gerald L.K. Smith. Smith begin as a minister in the Disciples of Christ Church, but during the Depression found himself attracted to politics. He made efforts to coordinate with William Dudley Pelley’s Silvershirts organization and even tried to contact Adolf Hitler. Based in Shreveport, Louisiana, he settled for becoming a worshipful crony of Huey Long and lent the Kingfish his considerable talents of oratory. After Long’s death, he attempted and failed to take over “The Share Our Wealth” movement, tried to ally with Father Coughlin with the Union Party, founded the America First Party, and became known as “The Dean of American Antisemitism,” distributing Henry Ford’s The International Jew and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It seems reasonable to conclude that “Christian Nationalist Crusade” was simply one of many front organizations Smith founded in his attempts to create an American Nazi movement. Smith’s project was what I’ve elsewhere called “American Völkisch,” the construction of a fascist ideology around the symbols of Americana. Sinclair Lewis’s (apparently apocryphal) comment, “When Fascism comes to America it will be carrying a flag and a cross,” perfectly fits Smith, who published a magazine entitled “The Flag and the Cross.”
What About Now
Recently, my fellow substacker
sent me a Twitter thread by Stephen Wolfe, PhD, the author of The Case for Christian Nationalism. Here’s how he begins:
This looks like a clear expression of the ideology sometimes known as “paleoconservatism” — he yearns for the pre-war America First Right, before its regrettable Buckleyite revision. (Buckley’s actual relationship to the Firsters is a long and complicated question that I can’t get into now, but this is more about political myth than political history.) Wolfe continues on how the Conservative acceptance of universalism dissolved the ethnic being of the country to the point that it no longer can be said to really exist:
Postwar conservatism was, in a way, a replacement movement opposed to the old American political tradition of Anglo-Protestantism, by insisting on the exclusive and simplistic *universalism* of the Founding, which permitted Roman Catholics and Jews to have equal standing in a country that deemed them, in a social sense at least, outsiders. But this unleashed the very universalism that has transformed this country demographically and morally. It is why they have no answer to our current crisis. It is why we no longer have a country.
Okay, highly reactionary and insane, but what comes next is where things get really creepy. Wolfe writes, “In other words, their attempt to be equals made everyone else equals and thus we are now a "nation of immigrants" and perpetually so. These "conservatives" created the very conditions ensure national suicide. And yes I'm fully aware that the Protestant establishment destroyed itself, largely by listening to non-Christian radicals in the Northeast (esp. NYC).” There is no other possible reading of non-Christian radicals in the Northeast than the Jews. What Wolfe is offering here is an antisemitic conspiracy theory on the origins of American decline.
His book does little to dispel concerns about the true nature of his ideological orientation. One of the key parts of Christian Nationalism as Wolfe defines it is “a totality of national action:”
A totality of national action, being the formal cause of Christian nationalism, refers to all the actions that a nation expects of its members for their overall, national good. These range from great acts of sacrifice to mundane, everyday things, like caring for one’s children. It is a “totality” because although each action has a good unique to it, together each strengthens, supports, or makes possible other actions to form an organic whole. A mother nursing her child has the child’s immediate good in mind, but that action—as part of a totality of action in the nation—is also for the national good, for well-nursed children grow up to be healthy, productive, and sacrificial participants in the nation. In this way, the nursing of children is a national action, and the good of nursing is not only the child’s good directly but also the nation’s good. In other words, the good of the mother in nursing her child transcends the immediate good of child nourishment.
As the use of the word “totality” may have clued you into, this is well, totalitarian — it conceives of every action of the individual as contributing to the good of the whole: there is no aspect of life, no matter how intimate, that is not geared at the biopolitical preservation of the all-encompassing social organism.
Wolfes also calls for something of a low-key Führerprinzip: “I envision a measured and theocratic Caesarism—the prince as a world-shaker for our time, who brings a Christian people to self-consciousness and who, in “his rise, restores their will for their good. “Prince” is a fitting title for a man of dignity and greatness of soul who will lead a people to liberty, virtue, and godliness—to greatness.”
Okay, so far we got a national totality, a charismatic, Caesarist leader who will restore national greatness, what else? How about some blood and soil nationalism:
Blood relations remain relevant to nations, when referring to one’s ancestral connection to a people and place back to time immemorial. … Christian philosopher Johann Herder was correct in saying that the volk is a “family writ large.” This is an apt description not because everyone is a cousin by blood but because one’s kin lived here with the extended families of others for generations, leaving behind a trace of themselves and their cooperation and their great works and sacrifices. Blood relations matter for your ethnicity, because your kin have belonged to this people on this land—to this nation in this place—and so they bind you to that people and place, creating a common volksgeist [national spirit].
First of all, by citing Herder here, he is being a little sneaky. Herder’s particular form of romantic nationalism is easy-going and pluralistic, not aggressive and chauvinistic. And Wolfe asseverates he just thinks people are better off with their own but that peaceful relations between different ethnic groups is both possible and desirable. This is a rhetorical gambit typical of White Nationalism, attempting introduce the concept of an ethnic nationalism and racial segregation in a way that appears benign and voluntary. But, as his choice of words above indicates, this is quite literally a völkisch conception, he is introducing the mysticism of national identity. And some groups are also apparently hostile or alien to that nation and must be rejected. The book concludes with something striking for a self-identified Christian; a call to reject “universalism” and embrace ethnic particularism: “Western man is trapped in a cycle of universality unable to wake up into and embrace his own particularity.” For the Christian Nationalist, Christianity is not really a faith as such: it is just an expression of the Western volksgeist; the emphasis is on the Nationalism part, not so much on the Christian part.
To sum up, The Case for Christian Nationalism is a völkisch nationalism calling for a totalitarian “Christian” state lead by a charismatic “Caesar” who will restore a lost national greatness. Why did the nation lose its greatness? An alien ethnic pollutant, of course! So, I revert back to my earlier position, Christian Nationalism is just fascism, or if we are being pedantic, proto- or para-fascism. Characteristic of much propaganda today, it presents a softer version, shorn of frightening verbiage, but the core ideas are all there. Wolfe’s Reformed Christian American Völkism is one several fascioid currents in politics today. Although there’s a lot more mainstream interest and concern about Christian Nationalism, it’s concerning to me that the clear connections aren’t being made. For instance, in the New Yorker’s long piece from March on the phenomenon there’s no real discussion of the history of fascism or Nazism. Once again, I wish people would just call this stuff what it really is.
"For the Christian Nationalist, Christianity is not really a faith as such: it is just an expression of the Western volksgeist; the emphasis is on the Nationalism part, not so much on the Christian part."
I think the most important observation about the Christian Nationalist phenomenon is that the volksgeist here is not really a "Western" volksgeist or even a general (white, protestant) American one--it reflects a very specific ethnic character, and the use of "Christian" is meant to be a more polite way of referring to that ethnicity.
One thing that's interesting to note is that there *was* an Christian theocracy in American history in the form of the Puritan New England--and for that matter one that was exclusively white and protestant--but the Christian Nationalists now who ostensibly want to build a Christian nation are largely disconnected from that history. Ironically, if anything it's the Catholic integralists who take positive inspiration from the Puritans--the Christian Nationalist types are more likely to use that as a word of derision than praise.
The "Christian" in Christian Nationalism doesn't merely refer to Christianity or even white protestant Christianity but specifically the born again evangelicalism, either Charismatics or sects associated with 2nd Great Awakening revivalism. These sects are all heavily associated with white southern "plain folk" types, and more generally people of Scots-Irish settler origin--the sort of people who ethnically identify themselves as American without adjectives. Notably, a map of where that ethnicity is most prominent almost perfectly maps to where Christian Nationalism is a strong political force in local conservatism, as opposed to Mountain West anti-government libertarianism or Midwestern "hardhat" Middle American radicalism--note in particular the exclaves in Idaho and Indiana, non-southern states where Christian Nationalism is unusually prominent:
https://i.insider.com/522c73e4ecad04741969646d?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Also note how closely this matches a map of where Mainline vs. Evangelical protestants predominate, in states where whites are the predominant population (nonwhite protestants tend to be evangelical because the evangelicals were the ones doing the evangelizing).
https://religionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/thumbRNS-RELIGION-CENSUS050112a.jpg
"Christian" here is an attempt at giving a definition for that group without specifically identifying the ethnicity in question, an ethnicity which most Americans--and for that matter most Christian nationalists themselves--are not explicitly aware of. Christian Nationalism is meant to be a heritage American, Anglo-Protestant nationalism that excludes--and in fact primarily opposes--the Northeast, which always figures in Christian nationalist rhetoric as malicious, anti-Christian force (although they'll always call them coastal elites or somesuch instead).
.This is, I think, also key to understanding the strange beliefs Christian Nationalists have about Jews, which wildly swing between philosemitism and antisemitism. A lot of the qualities attributed to Jews in Postonian antisemitism are associated with Northeastern elites and culture more generally by Christian Nationalists, of which liberal Jews just become one part. This produces the sort of "broad conspiracism" that we typically associate with Christian Nationalists--there are the Rothschilds and Soros and what not, but also the Clintons and the Qanon Satanic Cabal and so forth. When Wolfe says "non-Christian radicals in the northeast", he doesn't necessarily just mean Jews but liberal northeasterners as a whole, who are made into an ethnicity in their own right. Since Jews are not the end-be-all of the conspiracy anymore, conservative Jews have an out for now and can be welcomed into the movement in a way that they can't for explicitly white nationalist types--although I can't imagine that will last for long if these guys actually take power.
This all not only makes Christian Nationalism definitely a form of volkisch, ethnocentric fascism, but actually makes it probably the least inclusive of all the fascoid political currents in the US. The imported European fascisms, neo-nazi white nationalism and integralist clerofascism, have a sort of artificial, fetishistic character to them--they are built around groups, whites and the traditional religious respectively, that don't actually have a genuine, shared ethnic identity with a significant population to rally around, which generally restricts them to fringe movements. Traditional American nativism as represented by the Old Right, on the other hand, included and was driven by northeastern WASP conservatives, who have now mostly become irrelevant--the transition from the Old Right to modern paleoconservatism is probably best understood by this shift in ethnic character.
The Christian Nationalists' obvious cousin among the American fascoids are the neo-Confederate southern white nationalists as represented by the KKK and the like--effectively, they're what happens when that movement breaks out of narrow Southern particularism and its specific relationship with slavery and segregation, and is able to appeal to the "plain folk" ethnicity even outside of the south, which is pretty much what you see from the movement's lineage. That being said, even then the specific group that Christian Nationalism appeals to probably isn't enough to win power on its lonesome--especially since the mainline white anglo-protestants and white ethnics tend to look down upon this tendency in particular as being backwards and provincial as 2022 demonstrated, correctly sensing that Christian Nationalism is basically meant to oppose their own ethnicity.
I think that the broad coalitional nature of Trumpism, which loosely unites divergent fascoid political tendencies that each aren't large enough to win power individually, is an underexplored element of the whole movement. You can basically think of each major element of Trumpism as attempting to construct their own notion of the predominant white American volk:
-Christian Nationalists: Evangelical heritage American-without-adjectives and white ethnics who assimilate into that culture
-"Middle American Radicals"/2016 MAGAs: Working-class white ethnics
-Radicalized Movement Conservatives/2020 MAGAs: White petty bourgeois boomers
-Anti-Woke/Barstool Conservatives: GenX men (oft. multiracial)
-Antigovernment extremists (Militia movement, sovcits, etc.): Rural people, esp. in the Mountain West
-New Right trads and Alt-Right white nationalists: Alter-political tendencies within the white college-educated coastal population, who still identify with that population and want it to be in charge but don't want it to be liberal
These groups, and the underlying populations that they want to appeal to, are actually pretty heterogenous, and building a complete political program that can satisfy all of them is pretty hard because of serious fissure issues that exist *within* the coalition like abortion. It might potentially speak to ways that elements of this coalition could be pealed off without having to actually compromise left-wing values by pushing those fissure points--an extremely funny example of this is how few marginalized alt-right white nationalist types, most notably Richard Spencer, have basically migrated back into mainstream liberalism as a result of rightist infighting about Ukraine.
Interesting post. Wolfe's views do seem like fascism, with the "Christian" part mostly a nickname for white heartland folks. How does that variety of fascism, apparently gaining ground among Christians, relate (or not) to the organized, activist religious right described in studies like Kathleen Stewart's The Power Worshippers?
On one hand, their goals seem more openly religious rather than only ethno-nationalist. But it also seems possible to me that these Christian nationalist networks––very plugged into Washington––may be getting their agenda newly advanced by the national GOP and by policy entrepreneurs like Chris Rufo. I'm thinking, for instance, of the way the GOP seems to be seizing the post-covid moment to go all in undermining the current public education system so as to give state and federal funding to highly segregated Christian schools (the issue that sparked the original organizing according to Stewart). The reversion back to open hostility to gays and lesbians (still very much there within the anti-trans stalking horse) seems like another possible piece of evidence that these networks have acquired new power.
Their goals are certainly fascist and by definition totalitarian (capture all seven "mountains" of social authority). But they seem to me like something distinct from either MAGAverse people like Taylor Greene, or paleoconservatives. I find reflexive hostility to religion among leftists to be tedious, and I don't think politics should even try to banish religious interests. But this may not be the religious right of the Bush era anymore.