For Your Consideration

June 19, 2024

There is a concern in our day that the so-called “Christian nationalist” faction of the Republican party is a greater threat to the American regime than any other movement within our political system. This concern is often expressed by liberals and the Democratic party, but even by moderates, independents, and those within the establishment of the Republican party. 

The basic argument is that, not only are these Christian nationalists devouring their own allies in the two party system, but they are a threat to the democratic system of government which Americans espouse to know and love.

I take issue with those who would identify themselves, or be identified, as Christian nationalists, but I also disagree with many who have framed the discussion about Christian nationalism.

First, the term “Christian nationalist(s)” or “Christian nationalism” has been associated especially in recent times with Trump and his followers. There is, perhaps, an instinct to associate this group of “Christian nationalists” with Trump, so as to discourage voters from supporting him, and because many of his supporters come from broadly Protestant Christian backgrounds. But I would argue that Christian nationalism has been around for much longer than Trump has been on the political scene, and associating the movement with him actually detracts from the seriousness of the idea.

In turning to our regime’s history, there is plenty of evidence that there has long been a significant portion of the American populace that turns to the support of the Bible, Christianity in general, and its God in political engagement. One could cite slavery, prohibition, and the non-voting of women and black Americans. One could also cite, though, the Abolitionists, the Suffragettes, and the Anti-segregationists, as using Christian moral appeals for the opposite political effects. All of these groups may be classified as Christian nationalists, in that they found it to be profoundly important to have a Christian morality, or Christian values, as an American. Each had arguably different reasons for thinking this, but one could also say that at the core of each was the belief that political systems must have a way of determining right from wrong; and the laws and teachings of Christianity seem to provide a moral foundation that give answers to the necessary questions of political life.

The point is that Christian Americans have always used the moral compass inherited from their common faith to make political arguments and change the political outcomes of our country. It is also not only naive, but unreasonable to argue that Christianity itself is the source of all our present day political ilk, when it is clear that those who profess Christian morality have been on both the “right” and “wrong” side of history. 

But let us further examine the modern iteration of Christian nationalism, which is what most people refer to when they speak of the movement, to see whether something has changed in this iteration of Christian involvement in politics. 

In recent times, specifically the Charismatic and Jesus movements in the 1960s, or the Christian counter-culture of the 1980s etc., there were moral reactions against the secularism that developed in 20th century America. Those Christian movements were defined by both hyper-spiritualism, as seen in many Apostolic and Pentecostal churches, and a hyper-legalism which can be found in many Baptist churches, among others. (This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of communities who adhere to these beliefs, merely examples common to our knowledge).

Both wings of that Christian spectrum have specific teachings which dictate certain works as imperative for salvation. These teachings create an ethos in which Christian Americans view political life, and the laws of the American regime, as the means to save others’ souls, and their own (and their posterity’s). Most importantly, these Christians believe that the heads of our regime must identify with their particular brand of the gospel to be good American politicians. 

This is not necessarily a new phenomena; after all, the Christian imperative is to spread the good news of salvation through Jesus, which requires communication with people in your community. And as Christians, if we believe something, we should be willing to share our opinions. However, the people who are products of the newer American Christian ethos may not actually believe in the specific teachings which created the political movement they identify themselves with; but they don’t have to be aware of the teachings to further the movement’s push for Christianity to guide American politics.

The importance of the salvific origin behind Christian nationalism cannot be overstated. In listening to those who identify with the movement, one can hear a “do or die ” attitude behind their political commentary, proceeding from a genuine desire to help people avoid what, in any particular Christian’s opinion, is bad for the other. However, it does breed an “us vs. them” mentality, in which anyone seeking a compromise for the sake of American freedom is seen as a spiritual enemy, who, whether conscious of it or not, has chosen to “give into secularism” at the expense of their faith. This is the mistake many American Christians make in judging their neighbors.

Faith is good, and piety is a virtue. But I see a lack of subtlety within these newer theological movements, in understanding what it means to be a human being with faith. Christians are called to goodness, but there must be an acknowledgement that even Jesus knew human beings live in political communities, and not all of the same kind. Nor does every citizen and person have the same moral opinion. As a result, Jesus’ command to love one’s neighbor, must necessarily be informed by who one’s neighbors are, hand in hand with the moral teachings of Jesus and his Church. This is not to say that Christian morality and political activity is in some way relativist, it simply means that how we are able to influence our neighbors may be different. This in turn means that our ability to affect our political regime may be lesser or greater; but we are called to work within the world which God has placed us, even if we are called to be a light in the darkness of that world.

Obviously then, there are limits to what Christians will accept as valid moral teaching and law, and many disagree on what those limits are. This is the concern of Christian nationalists. And it is what brings me to my second issue, which has to do with the description of Christian nationalism, and the anxiety about it furthered by its opposition.

Those who are concerned about the long-term effect of Christian nationalism usually frame their distress around the destruction of “American democracy.” This too is a mistake. It is a mistake because it does not accurately account for what Christian nationalism is, nor what it desires when moving to place Christianity at the head of the American regime. 

To take seriously the implications of the Christian nationalism question, there is, I think, something important to be said about the founding of our regime: something that I have borrowed from Leo Strauss and his student Harry Jaffa, in Jaffa’s letter entitled, Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy. And, if one is looking for a more recognizable source, can also be found in President Lincoln.

Jaffa argues that America at its founding was the zenith of the struggle to establish a regime which ensures free dialogue between philosophy and faith, happening in perpetuity. “And I had noted Strauss’s pronouncement that notwithstanding their theoretical disagreement as to the end or ends served by the moral virtues, revelation and reason had agreed substantially on what in practice morality was. And I had taken my bearings further from Strauss’s assertion that the very life of western civilization depended upon the continuing dialogue—the eternal dialogue—between revelation and reason…The vitality of Western civilization, of which Strauss spoke, was the vitality arising from ‘arguments advanced by theologians on behalf of the Biblical point of view and by philosophers on behalf of the philosophic point of view’…Political moderation is rooted in the refusal to resolve the mystery of human life by political means. It is rooted in the recognition of human freedom as grounded in the openness of the human soul to that mystery. It is rooted as well in the recognition of a moral order, which understands human freedom not as the mere absence of restraint, but as directed to living a human life in the light of its transcendent ends, whether these are defined by reason or by revelation.”

The idea of freedom America was founded on was not license, but freedom to live well and pursue virtue. One can pursue those ends using either reason or faith in God as a guiding principle. The Revolution was initiated by the assertion that there is a limit to the abuses which a person must suffer under the hand of someone else’s moral assertions, if those assertions are not founded on one of these moral foundations, i.e. reason or God. (Which is not to say that some laws based on moral assertions should not be suffered, see the Declaration of Independence.) But the Civil War was fought because some did not believe that black Americans had a right to pursue the good life, let alone any life at all. It was also fought because Southerners believed that it was their biblical right to subjugate others for the good of the regime and themselves. America needed an equally religious argument to battle those who used the Bible to justify slavery. Reason does not convince those who only desire to adhere to faith. 

Lincoln understood that the conflict between North and South, freedom and slavery, was indicative of the larger conflict which Jaffa and Strauss speak of, between philosophy and religion, but moreso of the modern “solution” to that conflict. The modern solution proposes to leave behind the moral foundations for our political regimes, and to give the reins over to reason unguided by philosophy or faith, in the hope that tyranny by moral powers will never occur, or at least be more rare. The modern solution hopes to end civil wars fought between warring biblical or moral opinions. But, “Strauss’s critique of modern philosophy, more than any intellectual event of our times, showed the impossibility of this enterprise. His demonstration of the self-destruction of reason ending in nihilism proved the superiority both of Socratic skepticism and of biblical faith to the modern attempts to supersede them.” 

Jaffa argues that all this modern “solution” does, is lower the ends which human beings pursue, bastardize virtue, and disguise the problem of immorality and lawlessness as a symptom of moral overreach into politics. The America of our day, has, I believe, only partly embraced this modern solution; but, only because there are still those who believe virtue has a place in our political regime, and they fight with fervor. But they often fight to advance their specific interpretation of the moral foundation, instead of the eternal dialogue between philosophic skepticism and biblical faith.

I am tempted to quote the entirety of the Gettysburg Address here, because it is very brief and would not be burdensome to read, but mostly because of its beauty; and really, it is shameful to quote it piece-meal. But to my point, it is clear in his Address that Lincoln recognized the intention of the American founding; and, he thought it imperative to reassert that founding principle of freedom, which leaves open the dialogue between philosophy and faith. Lincoln’s refounding of the American proposition is what is in contrast to the view that many hold today, of extinguishing moral influence over politics. 

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live…It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

This is a sober reflection upon the philosophic and faithful intentions of the American experiment. Lincoln calls us to carry the weight of the founding proposition as pallbearers, that we may never forget the goal which we must pursue, in the wake of the sacrifices made on our behalf.

The danger in our modern era of so-called Christian nationalism is not the insertion of Christian morality into our political discussions and our laws. It is that, in its fervor, it overreaches its essential place in our American regime, and snuffs out any opponent, most importantly its dialectical opponent, philosophy. 

But the deeper danger is that from an ill-formed opinion, and reaction against this potential overreach, Christianity loses all its moral influence because we mistakenly come to believe that we would be better without it. We need a balancing influence against the nihilism of modernity, and we must return to the proposition of freedom, which allows for the struggle between philosophy and faith. 

Perhaps, the increase in anxiety, violence, and discontentment of American citizens is not a symptom of the moral overreach of Christian nationalists, but a symptom of a disregard for what makes us human beings: our desire for the good life. 

I will conclude by referring one last time to Jaffa and Strauss. We must restore “the authority of the moral order common to philosophy and the Bible, and restoring with it the conviction that human life could be well lived only by devotion to the ‘high.’ Recognition of what was truly the ‘high’ moreover would engender modesty and humility, and therewith moderation.”

These thoughts are not complete by any means; but they are a start.

For Your Consideration,

Faith Elert