Here I find myself just a tad bit over 3 weeks out from open heart surgery. On top of that I have managed to contract a very slight, but still discernable cold. I am, to say the least, feeling blah and quite lackluster. I have been kicking myself about not blogging more but I have just not had the oomph to do so.
Until now. Leave it to that grand idiot Dr. R. Scott Clark to write with such determined torpidity and stylistic buffoonery to cause me rise out of my languid pose of recovery so as to expose his shallow offerings and lampoon his “insightful reasoning.”
Recently, at his blog, “The Heidelfog” Clark had yet another go at the concept of “Christian Nationalism.” Naturally, as Clark is a stupid man he is opposed to this Biblical concept. It is ironic that a man who wrote a book on “Recovering the Reformed Confessions” would insists that those who wrote the “Solemn League and Covenant” (a steroidal advocacy of Christian Nationalism if there ever was one) and were largely responsible for penning the Westminster Confession of Faith were foursquare opposed to any idea of Christian Nationalism.
I mean R. Scott Clark is trying to tell us that the guys who penned the following were against Christian Nationalism;
WLC#191 Q- What do we pray for in the “second petition” of the Lord’s prayer which is Thy Kingdom Come?
A – the Kingdom of God is to “be countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate.”
Or
Q-108 which asks what are the duties required in the second commandment.
A – “the disapproving , detesting, opposing all false worship; and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.”
The magistrate’s place and calling requires him to remove all false worship and all monuments of idolatry.
Or
Q-118 “What is the charge of keeping the sabbath more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors?”
The answer says that it is directed to other superiors, because “they are bound not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge.”
Other superiors include the civil magistrate.
It looks to me like Dr. R. Scott Clark needs to recover the Reformed Confessions on the issue of Christian Nationalism because those documents clearly support Christian Nationalism.
But let us not deal merely in generalities. Let us dig into the subterranean chambers of Dr. R. Scott Clark’s and Dr. Kevin DeYoung’s idiocy. Let us take the time to pop their ponderous puss-filled pontifications on the position of Christian Nationalism. In order to do so we examine Clark’s 07 June offering on the same subject on his “The Heidelfog” wherein he quotes Dr. Kevin DeYoung to sustain his vile bile against Biblical Christianity.
First Clark argues that it was the end of sodomy laws combined with the rise of SCOTUS’s Obergefell vs. Hodges decision that made the way for the return of discussion supporting Christian Nationalism. Here Clark is only half right, which means he is completely wrong. Should we be surprised? It is true that pro-sodomy laws and pro-sodomite marriage may have lit the fuse to a return of conversation on Christian Nationalism but the larger issue was the realization of more and more Christians that their nation was embracing a Nationalism that was thoroughly pagan and anti-Christ. More and more Christians began to realize, because of the rise of sodomy and now Tranny-ism and child abuse sex change laws that their nation was indeed embracing a Nationalism but that that Nationalism was pinioned upon hatred of Christianity. So, instead of giving in to the rise of humanist Nationalism a chord was struck to once again begin thinking about Christian Nationalism. So, Clark is right about those issues driving conversation but he is wrong in not realizing that people began waking up to the fact that Nationalism is an inescapable category and that if we have to choose between a anti-Christ Nationalism where sodomy, Tranny-ism, pedophilia and sodomite marriage are expressions of the theology of the land and Christian Nationalism where Biblical morality is the law of the land they would rather rally around the flag of Christian Nationalism.
Clark then goes on to cite Paul Miller’s 2021 Christianity Astray article on Christian Nationalism as a beginning point of conversation on the subject. Clark ties together Miller’s work with Samuel Huntington’s writing on the same subject. Clark then goes out of his way to try and tie Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s “The Case for Christian Nationalism” in with Theonomy — which Clark hates with all the passion of Juliet’s love for Romeo. Clark fails to mention that Wolfe goes out of his way in his volume to communicate that he is no friend to theonomy. Indeed, it is my conviction, as a general equity theonomist that Wolfe’s book fails magnificently precisely because he pins his Christian Nationalism on Natural Law’s anti-theonomic thinking. However, the fact that Wolfe goes out of his way to distance himself from theonomy does not stop the libelous R. Scott Clark from disingenuously seeking to tie Clark to Theonomy. (Alas, if only it were really true.)
Clark next appeals to fellow well educated chucklehead Kevin DeYoung for support for Clarks own vitriol. DeYoung pleas for rejecting Wolfe inveighing;
“The message—that ethnicities shouldn’t mix, that heretics can be killed, that violent revolution is already justified, and that what our nation needs is a charismatic Caesar-like leader to raise our consciousness and galvanize the will of the people—may bear resemblance to certain blood-and-soil nationalisms of the 19th and 20th centuries, but it’s not a nationalism that honors and represents the name of Christ.”
Now, I am 75% finished with Wolfe’s book and I would dearly love to have the page number where Wolfe expressly said that “ethnicities shouldn’t mix.” I wish he had said it. I was disappointed he didn’t say it. As such I’d love the exact quote from DeYoung.
Second, how can DeYoung be a Christian minister living in a land where we still routinely kill the unborn and even the newly born and contend that violent revolution isn’t already justified. On this basis alone I think any pulpit worth its salt would be ashamed to be filled by DeYoung.
Third, while I think it is dang near impossible for a Christian prince to rise in Weimerca I certainly would not be opposed if one did arise to set matters straight. I would love for a Protestant Christian Franco, Pinochet, or Salazar to take the helm in this country. Would that God would raise up a Alfred the Great, a Charlemagne, or a Cromwell to lead this country. Can anyone tell me why DeYoung is opposed to a Christian Prince rising up to destroy all the high places in the nation?
Do not fail to notice how DeYoung subtly suggests, via his “blood and soil” descriptor that all who disagree with him on this are closet Nazis. Can DeYoung please tell me why Christian Nationalism that Wolfe puts forth (and frankly which I think is weak sauce) is not a Nationalism that honors and represents the name of Christ? Methinks when Kevin DeYoung talks like this Kevin DeYoung and Bret L. McAtee are serving different Christs because I think that Jesus Christ would be well pleased with that kind of Christian Nationalism.
At this point R. Scott Clark leaves off from quoting DeYoung and gives us more of his own blather. Red Clark, like any good Commie, directly ties Christian Nationalism to Nazism, making explicit what DeYoung offered implicitly;
“Segregationism (known among theonomists as “kinism“) and the lust for a “charismatic Caesar-like leader” should cause any decent American’s blood to run cold. These two features were also essential to the very “blood and soil” nationalism of the Nazis. We fought and won a war against these very things. The idea that religious heretics should be put to death is a repudiation of the first amendment of the Constitution and constitutes an anti-American revolution. Miller has seriously understated the nature and intent of the most popular form of Christian Nationalism.”
Here, I, in a decent and warm-bloodily manner, note;
1.) There have been many many Christian Kings throughout history and many many Christian Kings whom God’s people loved. To suggest that a rise of a good Christian King should make any Christian’s blood run cold reveals again that R. Scott Clark is historically ignorant.
2.) Is it R. Scott Clark’s position that any people who want to retain their heritage, traditions, and even their common bonds of blood are automatically wicked? Is the desire to belong to a set people in a known place really the kind of realities that should make the blood of Christians run cold? I mean, I know that thinking that way makes the blood of Cultural Marxists run cold but why should we think that thinking in such a manner as to love people and place to the point of wanting people and place to carry on into the future is something that makes all decent American’s blood run cold?
Honestly, R. Scott Clark saying that about Kinism makes my blood run cold.
Awesome article pastor Bret!