Examining Kevin De Young’s Anti-Christian Nationalism Speech V

Kevin De Young’s recent lecture on Christian Nationalism really is an attack on not only Kinism but also theonomic postmillennialism. He attacks a “new postmillennialism.” That newer postillennialism understood that their was a connection between God’s people living in terms of God’s revealed law-Word (third use of the law) and the advance of the Kingdom of God. De Young bitterly complains about this “new postmillennialism,” saying that previously amillennialists like himself and postmillennialists really weren’t that different.
From there De Young insists that he is an optimistic amillennialist. But where is the optimism? It certainly is not found in the idea that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the earth covers the sea. It certainly not in the conviction that Christ shall reign UNTIL He makes His enemies His footstool. It certainly is not wrapped up in the declaration that the “Kings must Kiss the son, lest they perish in the way.” Except in asserting optimism where is you optimism Kevin? Where is the evidence that you are optimistic besides your just saying, “I really am optimistic.”

What we see here from Kevin is what we see from so many Amillennialists today and that is a rabid militancy against any notion of working towards the reality that Christ, having dominion, shall have dominion. Kev is all “not yet,” in his eschatology (like all Amils) with no, “now,” in his eschatology and because of that the one group he wants to inveigh against in the Church are those who do have a “now” that goes with their eschatological, “not yet.”

Examining Kevin De Young’s Anti-Christian Nationalism Speech IV

To be an American, for example, means a lot of different things but many people would still say if you can affirm the declaration of Independence and you affirm the Constitution – if you’re not an American – at least that kind of what it is at its heart – what it means to be an American.”

Kevin De Young
Lecture Against CN
TGC

Hey Kev, which interpretation of the Constitution must we believe before we are an American? The Charles and Mary Beard version of the Constitution or Forrest McDonald or John Eidsmoe or R. J. Rushdoony’s version of the Constitution? Kevin says to be good Americans we must believe in the Constitution but there is no consensus on what the Constitution means. So, Kevin’s answer to what is an American is not really an answer.

Of course, De Young’s view, is demanded by his a-priori belief in multiculturalism. There is no way one can get to his notion of “what it means to be an American,” without having first embraced the idea that a Nation has ZERO common ancestor component.

Again, this is Gnosticism. Per De Young, belonging to a people has nothing to do with genetic inheritance. Rather, per De Young, belonging to a people is completely about what goes on between one’s ears. If you believe you’re in Kansas, then you’re in Kansas even if you and your family line go 1000 years back in Han China.

This is Gnostic insanity.

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“Others say nation is more like ethnicity and that’s when you get to nations perhaps shouldn’t intermarry. Nations as ethnicities have such different cultures. Alan Guelzo has made the case that it really has more in common with blood and soil nationalism from German romanticism than anything that grew up in American soil.”

Kevin De Young
Lecture Against Christian Nationalism
TGC

Why is it so difficult to understand that different peoples in combination with different beliefs create different cultures? De Young’s view really is born of the Enlightenment which believed and believes that human being are interchangeable cogs that can be mixed and matched in any way desirable since all humans are basically the same. Thus the accusation that Christian Nationalism is born of Germanic Romanticism can be returned on De Young’s head by saying that Kev’s Liberal vision of social order has more in common with Rousseau’s Enlightenment thought than anything that grew up in American soil.

Finally, in terms of De Young’s claim that America never had an interest in what he calls “blood and soil,” consider just one quote of sundry that could be adduced that contradicts De Young,

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”

John Jay
Federalist Papers

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“Nation is amorphously defined (by the Christian Nationalists).”

Kevin De Young

The 1828 Webster’s dictionary didn’t have a problem,

“Nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe…”

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De Young argues that because Christian Nationalism in America (“there is not even a county that is Christian Nationalist”) has not yet happened therefore it cannot or perhaps, will not happen.

We would respond, “With God all things are possible.”

So, we see, with all the above, that Kevin De Young is now on record as being one who four-square supports propositional nationalism given his recent lecture where he salutes “Creedal Nationalism.” He even insists that the idea of “Heritage American” is bogus and malevolent. De Young’s thinking is that if you can own the basic American creed (whatever he thinks that is) then one can be considered “American.” As such, he completely denies the etymological origins of the word, “nation.” Given Kev’s statements, theoretically one could be living in Korea as from a long line of Koreans who have never left Korea and still be an American because somehow, while living in Korea our imaginary Korean began to believe in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

This is a position charted out by the progressives and puts De Young in the camp of the Gnostics.

Examining Kevin De Young’s Anti-Christian Nationalism Speech III

“Many would say that creedal definition is mistaken. That’s why you see the language of Heritage Americans which is bogus and malevolent. How many of us are Heritage Americans? Some of us are Heritage Americans who the people don’t want to be Heritage Americans. To try to distinguish those nations.”

Kevin De Young

Lecture TGC

First, the latter part of this is garbled. I’m not sure what he means after the question mark. Who are those among the “us” who the people don’t want to be heritage Americans?

Notice, how for De Young a label that seeks to support a position that is not his Creedal position is “bogus” and “malevolent.” By this labeling De Young is revealing that there is no room for compromise on his part. People who embrace the idea of “Heritage Americans” are, in De Young’s book, “malevolent.” So be it. Let us return the favor and pronounce of over his head the conviction that those people who hold to “Creedal American,” are “Gnostic and malignant.”

One wonders if, in Kevin’s Enlightenment inspired Worldview if it would be bogus and malevolent for Frenchmen in France to speak of “Heritage French?” Would Kevin be bummed if Germans, given the immigrant invasion there, would speak of “Heritage Germans?” Does Kevin desire the whole globe be characterized by propositional nationhood categories?

Really, by embracing the idea of propositional nationhood that births the idea of “Creedal nation” Kevin has embraced the idea that a nation is merely a social construct. If enough cogs that live in the same geographic area can all be convinced to abide by the same creed there you have a nation.

How many of us are Heritage Americans, De Young asks. Does it really matter how many of us are Heritage Americans? If people invade my home so that Heritage McAtees are in a vast minority does that mean that somehow it is bogus or malevolent for a McAtee to speak of “Heritage McAtees?”

Finally, in this quote above Kevin De Young calls those who embrace the term and identify as “Heritage Americans,” as being “malevolent.” Malevolent is an adjective that means having or showing ill will; wishing harm to others. It describes someone or something that is malicious or spiteful.

This is an example of Stephen Wolfe’s statement that “white people are their own in-group/out-group.” Consider that 95% of Heritage Americans are white and here De Young call those folks who identify as “Heritage Americans” malevolent. This is an example of racism against white people by a white person.

Examining Kevin De Young’s Anti-Christian Nationalism Speech II

“I think often in this Christian Nationalism discussion, the main proponents of it have the intellectual advantage of practical impossibility. That is to say that they never have a remote chance of having to live with the actual implementation of their ideas or to see how would this vision actually work.”

Kevin De Young

Lecture Against Christian Nationalism for TGC

If I understand the argument here, De Young is suggesting that Christian Nationalists should not advocate for Christian Nationalism precisely because they will never see CN in their lifetimes. We might call this eschatological presentism, which teaches that since there is no hope for the future we just live in the immediate now. The consequence is that we don’t try to improve upon where we are at since that improvement is not going to happen in our lifetime anyway.

Sorry Grandkids and great-Grandchildren, etc. …. “sucks to be you” The problem with De Young’s faulting of postmil given his amillennial position is that De Young, by intimating that we shouldn’t advocate for the postmil future given that it will never come to pass is that De Young’s own vision of “we are only going to have to live in this present malaise” is that it bequeaths a self-fulfilled prophecy. If, per De Young, we are never to advocate for our postmil vision because we “never have a remote chance of having to live with the actual implementation of their ideas or to see how would this vision actually work,” then by necessity the De Young’s “optimistic amillennialism” that teaches that good will never triumph in this life over wickedness will by necessity exactly that which comes to pass. A people who have no vision for the future get the present repeated over and over again.

Honestly, De Young is irrelevant because his amillennialism presentism will never work because even if the Christian postmil thinking, which envisions a glorious future and works towards that end is not a view embraced by the Church, a secular postmillennialism (Marxism) will triumph and De Young’s vision of eschatological presentism will end up in the dust bin of history.

Next note here if it is the case that the pro Christian Nationalists have the intellectual advantage of practical impossibility, because the Christian Nationalists “never have a remote chance of having to live with the actual implementation of their ideas or to see how would this vision actually work,” that, by necessity means, that the anti Christian Nationalists have the intellectual advantage of practical possibility since they are guaranteed of living with the actual implementation of their ideas. Look around at this culture at the successful implementation of the Amil thinking. Do you really want to continue with the successful implementation of Amil thinking?

De Young, is just not the brightest bulb. I’m sure he means well, but like so much of our modern Reformed conservative clergy he doesn’t understand what time it is, he doesn’t understand the Reformed “anti-thesis,” and he doesn’t understand that neutrality is a myth.

Examining Kevin De Young’s Anti-Christian Nationalism Speech I

 “Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water. “Pathetic,” he said. “That’s what it is. Pathetic.”

He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again. “As I thought,” he said. “No better from THIS side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that’s what it is.”

There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came Pooh.

“Good morning, Eeyore,” said Pooh.

“Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it IS a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt,” said he.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

“Can’t all WHAT?” said Pooh, rubbing his nose.

“Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush. …I’m not complaining, but There It Is.”

A.A. Milne

“We’re actually dividing a lot of Christians right now upon things that have no remote chance of ever being realized.”

Kevin De Young
“I’m Against CN” Lecture
TGC Leadership conference

Kevin, along with the rest of the current drove of asses in the church today, represents the quintessential modern Eeyore from Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. Paraphrasing Mark Chambers, In the contemporary Amillennialists we find the perfect Eeyorization of the Christian faith where Christians are defined by the simple and quite desperation of those who know that all is not well and never will be this side of Glory and are damned determined to make sure that it never will be well, even if it means fighting like a Tigger against those who say that one day all will be well. The modern Amillenialists admits that, “Oh, yes, someday things will be fine. Everything will turn out for the best—someday. But today is not that day and alas, it is always today.”

Of course, this is the voice of unbelief. Kevin and his fellow Amill Eeyore Asses are looking at the cultural landscape and without the eyes of faith they insist that the Postmillennialists and Christian Nationalists are living in a fantasy land. In point of fact this quote by De Young was likely echoed by 10 of the 12 spies that came back from spying out the land of Canaan in the NT. I can easily envision them saying, “Joshua and Caleb, you are actually dividing God’s people right now over things that have no remote chance of ever being realized.”

De Young’s voice is the voice of unbelief. His eschatology demands the man to say things like this. Does he realize that outside his eschatology Christians believe that the realization of the postmillennial vision is not just an option to be embraced or not embraced, rather, it is a matter of God’s promises. The postmills believe that God has promised that the matters that De Young says have “no remote chance of ever being realized,” are going to be realized. When the postmills hear De Young say things like this all they can hear is “treason,” and “traitorous.” De Young’s words are fighting words because, in the ears of the postmillennialist they are words that call into question God’s promises and God’s faithfulness.