Six Answers to Six Questions
PCA minister and Reformed Theological Seminary professor, Kevin DeYoung, recently posed six questions to those who identify as Christian Nationalists. Before offering my own answers, it is worth briefly recapping the context.
Since the publication of Stephen Wolfe’s book defending what he calls “Christian Nationalism,” evangelicals (broadly defined) have been debating the merits or demerits of both the term and the ideas often attached to it. This conversation has become intra-denominational. DeYoung’s own denomination, the PCA, formed a study committee at its most recent General Assembly to provide pastoral and theological guidance on the matter. Closely related is the ongoing debate over how to interpret the original Westminster Confession of Faith and the American revisions to that Confession on political theology in 1788. DeYoung addresses such revisions in his essay, but I do not intend to engage them directly here—my own interpretation is largely in continuity with James Baird’s reading.
I agree with DeYoung that, “there is still no shared understanding of what the term [Christian Nationalism] means.” One of the motivations for his essay—if his questions are indeed genuine, as I assume they are—is signaled by his subtitle, “I am not a Christian Nationalist, but I almost could be.” He needs convincing. What follows is my attempt to articulate a version of Christian Nationalism, or call it what you will, that I hope he will find “necessary, helpful, or wise.”
I begin by lamenting, as DeYoung does, the presence of bad actors among self-described Christian Nationalists. As someone once said, “they will always be with us.” The Wild West of online discourse leaves little jurisdictional room for controlling such behavior. I can warn against “edgelording,” but, to use the familiar metaphor, I cannot make the horse drink. With this acknowledged, I turn to DeYoung’s six questions.
Question #1: Do you unequivocally renounce antisemitism, racism, and Nazism?
Though I take DeYoung to be sincere, it is not obvious what he, or anyone else, means by these terms without further definition. For example, is collecting art produced by white men racist? Can rocks be racist? Is saying that the neocons wanted us to get into foreign entanglements antisemitic? Must we unequivocally renounce Trump’s comments about annexing Greenland because we are told it is Nazism? While I am unsure whether I can unequivocally renounce DeYoung’s interpretation of these terms, I will happily and unequivocally condemn or renounce all sin.
First, antisemitism. I harbor no disdain for Jewish people as Jews. They deserve the same love and care owed to every person. I do not think there is a “secret cabal of Jews … responsible for a litany of evils in our world.” Yet, is having concerns about divided political loyalties among some public organizations or lobbying groups—hardly secret cabals!—such as this, this, and this, antisemitic? That said, my “average” Jewish neighbor is likely not involved in such matters and simply wants safety and economic stability for his family. He, like myself, probably wants to live in a crime-free society where his children can get a house before they are 40. I desire the same for him.
Second, racism. The irony of DeYoung repeatedly quoting the famous defender of the southern cause, Robert Lewis Dabney, without unequivocally denouncing his racism (although DeYoung has elsewhere) is not lost on me. Nevertheless, I harbor no ethnic disdain for any group, including black Americans. The second part, however, of DeYoung’s question about racism raises difficulties. For example, is it sinful to believe that east Asians are, on average, more intellectually capable than other people groups? But this issue is beside the point. The important question is whether we are all equally born in sin and in need of salvation. Whatever one means by spiritual superiority or inferiority, I deny that any ethnic group is superior or inferior in that sense, for “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”
Third, Nazism. Uncritical admiration for Hitler is foolish. But is it inherently sinful to affirm what Churchill published in 1937, that “one may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement”? Is it “destructive” to agree with Pat Buchanan’s evaluation of the two World Wars? Is it crazy to note that fascism was a unique, twentieth century phenomenon, unlikely to be repeated, but nevertheless is incessantly used as a catchall political cudgel? When everything is literally Hitler, is it strange to empathize with younger generations who lash out against these hollow word games in predictably juvenile ways? Perhaps even more than racism, the term Nazism has been stripped of all coherent meaning.
Some may be critical of Nazism for its militarism, others for its socialism, others for its imperial ambitions, but I think we should all agree that the murder of millions of innocent people lies at the center of its horror. That’s pretty easy. Is a Nazi someone who actually celebrates genocide—there are few of those—or just someone who is what we used to call politically incorrect or who overindulges in post-ironic mockery? It’s hard to say and, therefore, hard to unequivocally denounce as an ism, especially this ism.
Question #2: When and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person?
This is a curious question, and I am not precisely sure what its exact import is, but given that Ben Crenshaw has addressed this question, I only wish to highlight some basic political principles. A nation is a union of governors, who possess magisterial authority granted by God, and the governed, who are subject to that authority. Accordingly, the civil magistrate always de jure represents his subjects insofar as he legislates, judges, and executes justice rightly. Likewise, subjects have duties of obedience and righteous conduct. Without righteous magistrates, a nation may have esse (existence) but not bene esse (well-being). A righteous nation requires both a righteous government and a righteous group of governed men.
Question #3: What is the purpose of civil government?
This may be the most significant question. There is a notable divide among those identifying as Christian Nationalists, between those with libertarian impulses and those without. I would never describe my vision of Christian Nationalism as “limited government.” I do not necessarily want less government, I want better government. One purpose of government, as DeYoung notes, is to protect natural rights. But this complicates his desire for limited government, since protecting rights often requires limiting other rights. If my neighbor plays loud music at 2:00 a.m. and I desire quiet, someone’s rights must give way. All government, by its very existence, both protects and restricts rights. Without government, I would be free to go wherever I please, whenever I want. It is only because of government that I am forbidden to go to certain places at certain times.
There are other factors involved when we consider whether a government should or should not be large. After all, where unlawfulness is rampant, government will generally need to take a more overbearing approach; rarely do conservatives complain about more police or a larger military. Alternatively, where there is no crime, there is little need for law, slightly modifying the Apostle Paul. DeYoung summarizes Madison’s claim that, “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary,” but he fails to give due weight to the other side of the ledger, namely: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Madison, continues: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Richard Baxter, more than a century before Madison, similarly lamented the problem: “Princes that have strength, do make some shift with much ado, by severity to restrain the Subject from Rebellion. But how to restrain the Prince from Tyrannie without disabling him from necessary Government, is much yet undiscovered, or the discoveries unpractised.” The problem Madison and Baxter were wrestling with was not so much about the size of the government per se, but about how to form a government which best remedies the stubborn fact that both subjects of governments and the governors themselves are fallen humans.
With that in mind, I contend that the best commonwealth is the one that has as its chief end, the common or public good, especially in relation to spiritual matters, the glorifying and enjoying of God forever. If this is the chief end of man, it ought to be the chief end of every institution in the world, whether government, school, family, or religious assembly. Kuyper was correct: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
DeYoung objects: “I do not want government to direct its citizens to the highest, heavenly good, or to order society around true religion, because I do not trust the government to determine true religion from false religion, and because I do not trust human beings to wield this kind of authority well or wisely.” This objection rests on a questionable assumption: that magistrates can avoid determining true from false religion—that they can be neutral.
DeYoung grants that the magistrate has a duty, qua magistrate, to maintain piety. If so, then the magistrate must be trusted to discern true piety. We demand that parents direct their families to the highest, heavenly good and we trust parents to determine true religion from false religion, wielding this kind of authority well. Is there something about being a magistrate that diminishes the ability to distinguish between true and false religion and piety? We assume, demand even, that individuals are capable of it, but especially ministers. If a magistrate cannot perform this function, how is he trusted with determining good and bad policy in other realms?
The abuse of a thing does not take its use away. We consent to the government’s power to judge our actions and to execute corporal punishments! Magistrates might abuse the power of the sword. Should we eliminate criminal justice? The Apostle Paul calls magistrates ministers of God, not ministers of no one, or, realistically, ministers of Satan. In other words, it’s in the title.
Telling a magistrate that he should not concern himself with spiritual ends does not prevent abuse; it removes the very constraints that might check it. By disclaiming any obligation to true religion, we do not get a humble, “limited” government. We get, in Baxter’s words, “an atheistical infidel politician” who recognizes no authority beyond his own will. Removing the duty also removes the accountability.
Question #4: What does it mean for the civil magistrate to promote the true religion?
If the chief end of government is the public good, as the Confession says and the American founders said, especially the spiritual welfare of its subjects, then he must both decide what is true religion for himself and promote it. The most obvious means is the enforcement of God’s moral law, classically understood as both tables of the Decalogue. American history offers precedents: blasphemy laws, which are still on the books in a number of states, and Sabbath laws designed to preserve public piety and protect Christian practice. If DeYoung grants that the magistrate is to maintain piety, then that entails that the magistrate must discern what true piety is, and maintain it. I interpret the apparent tension in the American revision to the Westminster Confession between the obligation of a magistrate “to maintain piety” with the prohibition against interfering “in matters of religion,” to mean that while the magistrate must create conditions conducive to religious piety, he must not take upon himself the powers God has granted to church officers: preaching, administration of the sacraments, and church discipline.
Question #5: Was the First Amendment a mistake?
This question deserves careful consideration, because DeYoung treats it as nearly sacred (his precise words are that he thinks “it can be supported from, and arises out of, Christian principles”). Thus, I want to briefly go through Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story’s commentary on the First Amendment from his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, published in 1833. Story spends many paragraphs (§1865–1873) discussing the religion clauses of the First Amendment. The main points I want to demonstrate from Story is (1) that he says belief in Christianity necessitates the belief that one’s government must encourage and promote religion; (2) that he recognizes various ways a government can do this; (3) that he interprets the First Amendment as determination by the federal government not to do this (but rather leave it to the States); (4) that this was an experiment which could fail.
He begins his discussion (§1865) observing that the question of how a government relates to religious matters has been much contested. Yet, Story admits that
“it is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of private judgment in matters of religion, and of the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience.”
In §1866, he notes that the “real difficulty” is trying to discern how far a government can go in supporting religion. He lays out three possibilities:
(1) A government can favor a general religion (e.g., Christian), afford aid to that religion, while allowing freedom of conscience.
(2) A government can choose a particular sect as its religion (e.g., Episcopalianism), while affording others religious freedom.
(3) Finally, a government can choose a particular sect as its religion, and tolerate or exclude others from public privileges, etc.
Which possibility did the federal government choose?
In §1867, Story surmises that few people in his day would claim that a government would be “unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth.” He observes that “this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period [i.e., 1833], without the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty.” In the following section (§1868), Story believes that at the adoption of the constitution, “the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.” According to Story, there would have been “universal indignation” at an “attempt to level all religions” and to “make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference.”
One of the key paragraphs is §1869, where he notes that it “yet remains a problem to be solved” as to whether any free government can survive “where the public worship of God, and the support of religion” make up no part of the policy or duty of the state. He continues: “The future experience of Christendom, and chiefly of the American states, must settle this problem, as yet new in the history of the world, abundant, as it has been, in experiments in the theory of government.” In §1870, appealing to John Locke, Story distinguishes between supporting Christianity and “the right to force the consciences of other men, or to punish them for worshipping God in the manner, which, they believe, their accountability to him requires.” In §1871 Story says that the real object of the amendment was “to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.” The next section surveys William Blackstone’s approach to the question of religious liberty and finds it wanting.
Key to understanding Story’s concluding paragraph (§1873) on the First Amendment and religious liberty is to read it in view of his basic claim, taken from §1869, that it is still an open question as to whether a government could survive without the state supporting religion. Story observes that because of the fear of religious sectarianism, along with the diverse religious make-up of the various states at the founding, the framers of the constitution “deemed [it] advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject [of religion].” Not just that, but they also declared the right of free exercise of religion and a prohibition of religious tests at the national level. Thus, “the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions.”
Put simply, for Story, the First Amendment, by “extirpating the power” to deal with religion in any way, was an experiment (as he observed in §1869) of choosing none of the approaches (outlined in §1866) it could have taken. The experiment says that the federal government will not deal with religious matters and leave the duty to foster religion completely in the hands of the States.
My apologies for the Story excursus but I make one more observation from Story’s Commentaries, on his discussion (§621) about the House of Representatives not having a religious test for office. There he writes:
“In the actual situation of the United States a union of the states would have been impracticable from the known diversity of religious sects, if any thing more, than a simple belief in Christianity in the most general form of expression, had been required. And even to this some of the states would have objected, as inconsistent with the fundamental policy of their own charters, constitutions, and laws. Whatever, indeed, may have been the desire of many persons, of a deep religious reeling, to have embodied some provision on this subject in the constitution, it may be safely affirmed, that hitherto the absence has not been felt, as an evil; and that while Christianity continues to be the belief of the enlightened, and wise, and pure, among the electors, it is impossible, that infidelity can find an easy home in the house of representatives.”
This is a very telling comment because here Story claims that “hitherto the absence [“of any qualification founded on religious opinions”] has not been felt, as an evil.” Indeed, he further remarks that America’s elite still, by 1833, believe in Christianity and that it is impossible for unbelief to find an easy place in the House.
I take him to mean, the experiment (per §1869) seems to be working. But, this is not true in 2025. Our elite are, by and large, not Christian. It is not difficult to get elected to an office in the federal government today if you are a manifest unbeliever. Would Story think the experiment was working if he knew that Tim (Sarah) McBride, Ilhan Omar, and Jasmine Crockett were Congresspeople? I highly doubt it.
I believe Story when he writes in 1833 that the experiment was working. Indeed, I am willing to admit that this experiment worked fine for a good century or so thereafter; but it is essential to remember that many things have changed in our Constitutional order since 1833. The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, and especially the 14th Amendment, empowered the federal government over State governments in ways the original framers would have never countenanced.
Additionally, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however well intentioned, had many unintended consequences which further eroded State’s rights. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the States have gradually shirked their duty to promote true religion, while the federal government, by the mid twentieth century, insisted that they must shirk that duty. I need not recount all the various ways our government in the past 75 years has openly supported positions which hardly any Christian at any point in history would have countenanced, such as gay marriage and the “right” to abortion.
In hindsight, I would suggest that the founders probably should have created in our national constitution more checks regarding “infidelity.” Perhaps a religious test for Representatives would have been a good idea. Perhaps a basic claim in our constitution that we are a Christian nation would have provided a check against the rampant unbelief among our leaders.
You might recall that the fear of some Democrats about Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was not because of worries about foreign jurisdiction (insofar as she is a Roman Catholic), but because she expressed devoutly Christian ideas. Whatever that is, that is not what the Founders envisioned would develop from their decision to keep the federal government out of religion.
My position is not revolutionary. Was it revolutionary for A. A. Hodge or Supreme Court Justice William Strong (also a Presbyterian) to seek an amendment to the federal constitution which would “indicate that this is a Christian nation?”[1] Treating the experiment, the open question, of leaving religion wholly to the states (and then later, forcing religious agnosticism onto the States) as heavenly doctrine is the revolutionary position.
Question #6: What is the historical example of the political order you would like to see in America?
I am surprised to see that DeYoung answers this question by pointing to the original political order at our founding. To recap, our original, founding political order was one which permitted slavery (no 13th Amendment), civil discrimination, including on religious grounds (no 14th Amendment; no incorporation doctrine), limited suffrage (no 19th Amendment), along with state established churches.
For example, at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Connecticut, it was a felony to deny Christianity or Holy Scripture to be divine, and a resident could lose many of his civil rights on account of such a denial. This was entirely constitutional at the time.
Is this really the political order DeYoung wants? If so, I will enthusiastically support such a political order, though I think we should probably keep the 13th Amendment. Yet, even DeYoung admits that we cannot have this political order: “We are not overturning the Nineteenth Amendment”—and I might add, most of the other amendments. DeYoung wants a First Amendment, not the one we had at our founding, but one reinterpreted and shaped by the evolution our of constitutional order throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The political order I want is one which makes explicit what was implicit in our unwritten constitution—that we were founded as a Christian nation and that our government is obligated to govern as such.
In practice what might this look like? First and foremost, our leaders need to be men who publicly profess Christian faith and demonstrate godly and virtuous character in their conduct. Religious tests for office are not antithetical to freedom of religious exercise—a Muslim or atheist remains free to worship (or not) as his conscience dictates. But holding civil office is not a right owed to all citizens; it is a position of trust that requires certain qualifications, and fidelity to the Christian foundation of our laws is chief among them.
Second, such men should explicitly proclaim in written law that this is a Christian nation, as was implicitly understood at the founding. This would likely require a constitutional amendment, as A.A. Hodge and Justice William Strong proposed in the 19th century. Such an amendment would clarify what was always assumed and provide a check against the secular drift that has characterized the past century.
Third, we should work to wrest control over religious matters from the federal government and return it to the states, where it constitutionally belongs. Why should a state not have the right to have and enforce blasphemy laws? The First Amendment, as Story demonstrated, was meant to prevent federal establishment and interference, not to prohibit states from maintaining public piety. Such laws need not prohibit worship in a synagogue or mosque; private religious exercise can be tolerated even where public blasphemy is restricted. Freedom of conscience, rightly understood, protects belief and private worship; it does not grant license to publicly undermine the religious foundation of civil society. Fourth, magistrates should enact laws which provide conditions conducive to public worship. Sabbath laws are good, actually. J. Gresham Machen rightly wrote in 1933: “I am a Christian, and it is quite clear that a commercialized Sunday is inimical to the Christian religion.” Such laws do not compel worship but create space for it.
Finally, we should also reform marriage laws to align with Christian teaching. No-fault divorce should be eliminated, and marriage should be defined according to the created order revealed in nature and Scripture.
Conclusion
DeYoung says he “almost could be” a Christian Nationalist. I hope these answers bring him closer, at least to what I have articulated. The choice before us is not between a neutral public square and a Christian one. Neutrality is a myth we can no longer afford to believe. The question is whether we will explicitly acknowledge what our founders implicitly assumed, or whether we will continue the experiment that Justice Story rightly identified as unprecedented and unproven. Two centuries we have seen that a government which refuses to concern itself with true religion will not remain neutral; it will actively oppose it.
The time for treating this experiment as sacred doctrine has passed. We need a government that fears God, promotes his truth, and governs accordingly. This is not because we trust sinful men to wield power perfectly, but because the alternative, magistrates who serve no higher authority, has proven far more dangerous. If this is Christian Nationalism, then I am its advocate. If it is something else, call it what you will. The label matters less than the substance: a nation under God, governed by his law, ordered toward his glory.
Image Credit: Unsplash.
