The so-called Christian Nationalist view invites skepticism as to its proponents’ understanding of history. Ball says that “under the United States Constitution and a pietistic church, America has spiraled down into debauchery and degeneracy,” forgetting that Britain has fallen much farther with its own constitution and established churches.  Or again, James Baird quotes early American Presbyterians on faith and national wellbeing, such things as “when a nation has abandoned religion, the firmest basis of civil government is dissolved” or “the magistrate (or ruling part of any society) ought to encourage piety by his own example, and by endeavoring to make it an object of public esteem.”  Fair enough, but much of what he quotes could have been said by a Unitarian, Deist, heretic, Romanist, opportunistic infidel, or Baptist. 

Previously, I addressed a certain set of young men, called often ‘Christian Nationalists,’ as well as appraised the outlet American Reformer. This occasioned some correspondence, varying in tone from a courteous ‘I’m politically active, do you mean me?’ to an irritated ‘stop demoralizing conservatives by attacking American Reformer; pick on the liberals in the PCA.’ My articles were also quoted by others, and were poorly received by some people.

One man said I brought ‘a boomer level of energy to these discussions.’ Larry Ball said Christian Nationalism (CN) can’t be clearly defined, but is a rhetorical “boogeyman” which Left and Right assail while neglecting real threats, especially Islam. As such, a response and some clarifications are in order.

1. Note that adjective young that I used. If you do not fall into that category,[1] I did not rebuke you, for scripture commends against men of my age doing so (1 Tim. 5:1).
2. Disregard the Left’s use of the term. In their eyes anyone who does not lay aside his faith when considering political and moral questions is a ‘Christian Nationalist.’ I’m not a Leftist, and given their tendency to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (e.g., calling fiery riots “mostly peaceful protests”), I didn’t use the term as they do.
3. If you doubt that you’re part of the group in view, you’re probably not.[2] Perhaps I should have listed names, but I was confident that the men I meant know who they are. Who I meant will appear in this article.
4. This is not a political disagreement, but an ecclesiastical/theological one. In civil politics, I probably agree with many CN-ists about much. I favor the deportation of all illegal aliens and a long moratorium on legal immigration, for example. The disagreement regards the relation of the faith and the church to the state and politics, as well as how we are to act as citizens.
5. Contra Ball’s assertions, it is possible to define CN. It is the attempt to establish and maintain the faith by civil means, with a view toward securing its cultural predominance and bolstering the state. Ball says as much, for having said defining CN is “a little like trying to nail Jello to a wall,” he subsequently says of its various strains:

They all recognize the decline of America since Christianity lost its foothold on our culture.  Under the United States Constitution and a pietistic church, America has spiraled down into debauchery and degeneracy.  Only a recapture of the culture through the gospel of Christ which preaches his Kingship over all things can restore what we have lost. This is the theme of Christian Nationalism.

So we can’t define Christian Nationalism, but we can clearly identify its common “theme.” Pardon me, but if you can identify something’s theme(s), you can define it. If it walks, looks, and sounds like a duck . . . it’s a duck.[3]

6. That said, I don’t like the term Christian Nationalism. Notice how I used it. I wrote to the young men “who are called Christian Nationalists,” and spoke of “whether the term . . . is your own or that of others.” I only directly used it to refer to the historical example of people with a similar attitude in 1960 Britain. CN’s weakness is that all sincere Christians are Christian Nationalists in the sense that they want everyone in their respective nations to be Christian. To be Christian is to be saved, and every believer should want all his fellow citizens to be saved, and for this salvation to work good effects in society and state too. But such a desire can be acted upon in different ways, and is, to boot, a vastly different thing than thinking it likely to happen.[4] What is a better term? None has met with wide use, and it is too much to answer here, but it’s worth considering now that the debate is shifting from the internet into the lives of churches.[5]
7. Criticism of so-called Christian Nationalism (or whatever we end up calling it) in theory, and of its proponents’ actual behavior, does not equal preference for the opposite positions of secularism, pluralism, multiculturalism, liberalism, etc., much less celebration thereof. In many respects, the debate is about how far to proceed along a continuum, not between polar opposite camps. Even many critics favor things that could be deemed as establishing the faith (e.g., having military or senate chaplains, recognizing Christian holidays in law). In my original article I said it was to my audience’s credit that they don’t rationalize the advance of infidelity and wickedness. That was a passing shot at all who naively think that dechurching and dechristianization will increase the health of the church. It’s clear that churches in lands that have forsaken the gospel aren’t conspicuous for doctrinal or moral purity, and continue to have at least as many issues as before (maybe more). But whether the response should include political activism or only works of witness and mercy is the question at hand.[6] One cannot understand the orthodox criticism of the so-called Christian Nationalists until one recognizes it is not motivated by fecklessness or worldliness, but by attachment to the faith given us in Scripture, and by a belief that our disputants depart from that faith by their program of politics.
8. A desire for an established church is a mistake, but it is one rather of prudence than of orthodoxy. Obviously, many of our forefathers were in established churches, and the Reformation both arose within and propagated such an understanding of church and state. (At first . . .) Some of us think that establishment is to be deprecated precisely because it won’t renew church and state; the best way to do that is with free churches and a state that does not explicitly try to propagate the faith.
9. Yes, the advance of foreign interests is a problem, not least that involving Mohammed’s followers. Much of Europe is discovering that it is folly to invite people into your lands who believe God commands them to hate your culture and to usurp it with their own. In my original article I mentioned “the false teaching of . . . Mohammed,” so let none accuse me of obfuscation on this point.
10. The so-called Christian Nationalist view invites skepticism as to its proponents’ understanding of history. Ball says that “under the United States Constitution and a pietistic church, America has spiraled down into debauchery and degeneracy,” forgetting that Britain has fallen much farther with its own constitution and established churches.[7] Or again, James Baird quotes early American Presbyterians on faith and national wellbeing, such things as “when a nation has abandoned religion, the firmest basis of civil government is dissolved” or “the magistrate (or ruling part of any society) ought to encourage piety by his own example, and by endeavoring to make it an object of public esteem.”[8] Fair enough, but much of what he quotes could have been said by a Unitarian, Deist, heretic, Romanist, opportunistic infidel, or Baptist.[9] And he quotes Gardiner Spring, who demonstrates the mess that often follows when mixing church and state. In the PCUSA’s 1861 General Assembly, Spring introduced a resolution to express the Assembly’s support for the US government during the Confederate War. It was hotly debated, but passed with the resolution “that, in the judgment of this Assembly, it is the duty of the ministry and churches under its care to do all in their power to promote and perpetuate the integrity of these United States, and to strengthen, uphold, and encourage the Federal Government.” Thus was the church subordinated to the state. Tell me, where in his word did God say that the church ought to surrender its independence and its eternal, heavenly mission and make itself the tool of an earthly government in a war of conquest? The Spring resolution brought forth several protests, and when the Assembly responded it said that “we sincerely believe that this action of the General Assembly will increase the power of the Church for good” (in reference to the suggestion it would cause strife). Actually, it forced the Southerners out till 1983, by which point the OPC and PCA had been founded by faithful dissidents, and the PCUSA was awash with apostasy. Its determination to take sides in a civil matter led the Assembly to mis-predict the consequences of its actions. Compare that to Deut. 18:22 (“when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him”), and it seems a reasonable interpretation that, in its zeal to offer the services of the church to the state, the Assembly descended to the level of uttering presumption.[10] Meanwhile the US Army marched to “John Brown’s Body,” which in one version reads “John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see” and “Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save.”[11] John Brown was a murderer – his actions in Kansas included the massacre at Pottawatomie – and failed insurrectionist, and yet he was compared to a prophet of God! May that strain of “Christian Nationalism” remain buried.
11. Last, and most important, the statements and behavior of some of the nationalists are occasion for objection. I mentioned their drawing on bad sources and keeping bad company in my articles on American Reformer. One can also find there arguments like this, from editor Ben Crenshaw:

Trueman bristles at the friend-enemy distinction or the use of crude language to win political battles. What Trueman fails to grasp is that in a negative world setting, the tangible human goods for which political Christians are striving take priority over the procedural means necessary to achieve those goods … politically-active American Christians who defy the enemies of God and wage war against evil, and who necessarily employ crude memes, subterfuge, and even deception toward these ends, will likewise be commended for their faith [i.e., like Rahab]. 

This occasioned much debate last summer, but it’s worth renewing. Regardless of Crenshaw’s intentions – and when he says Christians must “necessarily employ . . . deception” he draws those intentions into suspicion, here and always[12] – the actual effect of such teaching with the irresponsible tweeting heads on the internet is not likely to be behavior that looks anything like the New Testament would have Christians act. That “friend-enemy distinction” comes from the Nazi Romanist Carl Schmitt, not scripture. The “negative world” conception comes from Aaron Renn, circa 2022. If you use novel political classifications and concepts from a fellow traveler of one of the worst, most godless political failures in history to sidestep[13] scripture’s ethical commands and the experience of the early church – the New Testament was written in a ‘negative world’ much worse than America today – you’re not channeling anything remotely Christian. You’re trying to use the faith for your own political purposes. That is the biggest problem with some of these so-called Christian Nationalists. Far from disputing Crenshaw, his fellows came to his aid with Puritan and Anglican casuistry in an attempt to justify dishonesty to the enemies of God. Crenshaw doubled down, saying he only talked about “exceptions”[14] and “nowhere did I say that crudity, subterfuge, and deception should become ethical norms for all Christians.” And yet his response is titled “The Ends Justify the Memes,” and such memes are paraded about the web by the millions. Such wide circulation of crudity is normalizing it, not keeping it an exception like Rahab’s single act in a pivotal moment of redemptive history.[15] But with these men I will no more contend now; beware, reader, lest they ensnare you with their sophistry and cunning.

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] Say, you’re 50 or older.

[2] Here’s a rough rubric. 1) Do you spend a lot of time on the internet, especially social media like X? 2) Does most of what you read, share, and publish have to do with politics? 3) Does your activity involve much directly discussing and arguing politics with others? 4) Does even the Christian material you interact with or publish usually have a political angle or tie-in? 5) Would a third party observer who had never heard of social media or been desensitized to its norms say, on viewing your material, that you tend to be angry, to quarrel, to dismiss, to revile, or to mock those you disagree with, especially regarding politics and theology, and including fellow members and leaders in your own church or political party? 6) Do you favor the church being established in law to some extent, whether receiving subsidies and other aid all the way up to being made the official state church? 7) Do you believe Christianity should be recognized by law, not only in its principles, but explicitly, whether in particular laws or by being named the official state religion (generically or in one of its branches)? 8) Do you believe that political and social favor and activism are essential to recovering Christendom and ensuring the continued existence and vitality of the church, the faith, the state, and society, i.e., that evangelistic efforts and works of mercy and disciple-making are insufficient for revival? 9) Have you endorsed or signed an explicit statement of Christian Nationalism, such as Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism or The Statement on Christian Nationalism? Unless you answer yes to 9) or at least 7 or 8 of the others (inc. esp. numbers 6-8), you’re not whom I have in mind. And you might still might not be whom I have in mind unless you also abet your desires with historical and ethical revision that tries to justify the use of sin, involves doubtful representations of the past or doubtful use of previous sources of thought, or entails making bad alliances in the present (see points 10 and 11 of the body). I mainly mean people associated with American Reformer, Doug Wilson/Canon Press/the CREC, and Stephen Wolfe.

[3] Of course that analogy might displease some. They might say that it is a mistake to think in the broad sense of ducks, and to make no reference to their particular species. Wood ducks (Wolfeans) might not like being associated with Mallards (Wilsonians) or Redheads (oldline theonomists). They might say we should consider only species, not the wider categories of genus or family. But just as ducks can classed into smaller and larger categories, so also can we recognize a large school of thought and more particular strains of it, Christian Nationalism and the groups Ball mentions.

[4] Of course even absent a national conversion, many of us would like Christian principles to influence society, especially in laws against abortion and other cruelties. How to achieve that, and how much it involves a formal establishment of the faith or the church via law, is much of the question.

[5] Neo-Theodosians has its merits, since Emperor Theodosius I first made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the men in question wish to reestablish the faith’s formal status in our day and place. But the so-called nationalists are just that, and are most emphatically not imperialists (to their credit), hence the weakness of Neo-Theodosians. Another option is Reestablishmentarians, but it is long and clunky, and much of the debate occurs in places that value brevity (like X).

[6] Strictly speaking, even this is an oversimplification. Most of us would agree that certain legal and political action is prudent, such as working to defend our rights of assembly and free expression in all spheres.

[7] For example, the coronation oath for the British monarch includes this section (p. 66 here): “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?” The most charitable thing to be said is that no monarch has meaningfully fulfilled that in a long time, not even the much-liked Elizabeth II: the church largely committed suicide during her reign as ‘protector of the faith.’ Parliament recently legalized abortion to the point of birth, and it is widely-known that Scotland has criminalized prayer in one’s own home, provided it is within a certainty vicinity of an abortion clinic (approx. one furlong, or 220 yards).

[8] Samuel Stanhope Smith and John Witherspoon, respectively.

[9] Arguably Baird stumbled to silliness when, responding to D.G. Hart’s claim that republican and democratic government came from the pagan Greeks and Romans, he quoted Cicero’s De Legibus 2.19-20 (“Neither new gods nor strange gods, unless publicly acknowledged, are to be worshiped privately”), to the effect that religion is a matter of public rather than private nature. Presumably Baird means that we got our notion of established religion from the ancients, just as we got our forms of government from them, but I’m not sure what either his or Hart’s statements prove either way viz. the current controversy, except that the dispute is descending to clumsiness.

[10] Granting that the Assembly doesn’t speak in the same sense as an ancient prophet with his “thus saith the Lord” (i.e., as inspired by God in the same sense as scripture), it does speak in Christ’s name in a lesser sense when it acts, being his church.

[11] The author of that version, William W. Patton, was a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York, though he had quit the Presbyterian church for the Congregationalists by the time he wrote the song. He was later a president of Howard University. His version’s tune was used by Julia Ward Howe for “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Howe was a Unitarian, whose husband had secretly funded Brown’s would-be revolt.

[12] Compare Crenshaw here, saying “I didn’t say ‘crude speech,’ but ‘crude memes’ and I had in mind the soyjak memes as unrefined and coarse. Nowhere have I countenanced vulgarity or swearing” (May 21st, 2024) and him elsewhere reposting something with vulgar cussing in it here (Aug. 1^st,  2025). Also, as seen in the first sentence of the block quote, Crenshaw did mention “the use of crude language” in his article. That does not invite confidence in his integrity.

[13] Regardless of whether scripture permits exceptions to the Law in extraordinary cases, saying that our political squabbles provide an extraordinary case that qualifies for deviations is normalizing such exceptions, for our politics is continual and widespread: Rahab was one repentant Canaanite in one city at one point of war, but there are approx. 91,000 local governments among the United States, plus a Congress that currently has almost 5,000 bills before it. That’s a lot of potential for exceptions, especially when buttressed by the language of “the tangible human goods for which political Christians are striving take priority over the procedural means necessary to achieve those goods.” And that scripture prohibits lying and other dishonesty is so obvious to need no great elaboration: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25); “you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another” (Lev. 19:11b); “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes” (Ps. 101:7); “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit” (1 Pet. 3:10); “out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts . . . deceit” (Mk. 7:21-22). Yet Crenshaw and his casuistical pals whom I link would dodge this by clever redefinitions of neighbors, enemies, lying, etc.

[14] An emphasis upon exceptions is thoroughly Schmittian. “Sovereign is he who decides the exception,” is how Schmitt begins his Political Theology (1922), as quoted by Charles Haywood here. As I said in my first article on American Reformer, Haywood is an influence upon them and is a founder of their partner group, the Society for American Civil Renewal. Read the following statements from Haywood’s linked article and compare it to Crenshaw, et al.’s arguments, and tell me these men are not a) thoroughly influenced by Schmitt and acting in light of and replicating his thought; b) laying the theoretical groundwork for election fraud, civil strife, and maybe even civil war or a Caesar.

In his 1921 work Dictatorship, Schmitt had explored states of emergency, states of siege, and states of exception (which for him are not identical, though they are similar), primarily through a historical lens. These are the crucial “recognized political situations” on which he focuses in Political Theology; thus this book underpins and reinforces Schmitt’s analysis in his earlier book, even as it departs from it in some ways. Exceptions result where there exists a constitutional order or other legal form of government, but it is incapable of meeting some unexpected contingency, and a political problem has therefore torn through the legal norms of governance. A gap has appeared in the law, and it must be filled; this filling is inherently political. This is true regardless of whether the constitutional order itself provides some mechanism for addressing exceptions; the Weimar Constitution famously did, but an ambiguous one, creating no end of interpretive headaches, and in any case, for Schmitt, an exception is always possible, if not inevitable, and it ruptures any formal legal structure. (emphases mine)

The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything: It confirms not only the rule but also its existence, which derives only from the exception. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid through repetition. (This is all Schmitt)

[15] Crenshaw complains that:

Trueman’s own position lacks exegesis. In appealing to the “redemptive historical context” of Rahab and verses from 1 Peter 2 (vv. 1, 11-12, 15) to refute my position, he assumes what he hasn’t proven: that biblical injunctions preclude exceptions. This constitutes a type of hermeneutic and proof-texting juke that presupposes that Trueman need not engage in exegesis or argue for his redemptive historical hermeneutic because it is simply assumed that his position is correct and beyond reproach, whereas any interlocutor is burdened with all the historical-grammatical-exegetical work that Trueman sidesteps.

Scripture explicitly lists Rahab as an ancestor of Christ (Matt. 1:5), the Redeemer (Tit. 2:14), and as an example of redeeming faith (Heb. 11:31). There is no great “historical-grammatical-exegetical work” needed to establish the validity of the “redemptive historical context” of her place in scripture when this is so, and pretending it requires some such effort on that point is ridiculous. It is too obvious to merit lengthy exegesis.