Category: Christian Nationalism

McAtee Contra DeYoung on Christian Nationalism – VI

“(4) Increasingly, the loudest voices arguing for Christian Nationalism are marked by juvenile insults steeped in online jargon from the dissident right. What’s more, some of these proponents traffic openly in racist ideology, antisemitism, and Neo-Nazi sympathies. The most strident Christian Nationalism proponents on social media are often a potent combination of oafery and demagoguery.”

Kevin De Young
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

This is the standard fare from those losing the argument. It boils down to “our enemies are meanies who are not as educated and refined as we are and who don’t know their place.” The accusations of “racism” and “antisemitism” are accusations that tell us more about pietistic  accusers like DeYoung than it does about those being accused. Honestly, this kind of potent combination of oafery and demagoguery we see coming from De Young in the paragraph above is hardly worthy of our time and demonstrates how weak his position really is. He has been reduced to name calling and absurd pejoratives.

McAtee Contra DeYoung on Christian Nationalism – V

“Championing Christian Nationalism is not the same as recognizing that for most of American history many Americans would have thought of their country as a Christian nation. Paul Marshall helpfully distinguishes between religious nationalism and religion-infused politics. Religious nationalism refers to a movement or ideology “promoting the interests of a particular nation, a group of people who believe they have a shared historical, cultural, lingual, or religious heritage, and commonly wish to have a state that expresses that heritage.” This is not the same as asserting that religion has been a significant shaping force in a country’s history, nor is it the same as arguing for key political principles on religious grounds. Religious nationalism, by contrast, usually calls for the state to protect the religious interests of one group, while marginalizing or suppressing other groups. “In so doing,” Marshall explains, “it treats the members of the dominant religion and/or language, ethnicity, and culture as the core citizens and others as second class.”

Kevin De Young
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

1.) De Young opens the article saying there is no agreed on definition of Christian Nationalism and now here he is pushing his (Paul Miller’s) definition of Christian Nationalism on people as if we have to accept his definition of Christian Nationalism (Religious Nationalism) as being THE definition of Christian Nationalism we have to work with.

2.) Despite that, I’d be glad to accept this definition of Christian Nationalism;

“Religious nationalism, by contrast, usually calls for the state to protect the religious interests of one group, while marginalizing or suppressing other groups. “In so doing,” Marshall explains, “it treats the members of the dominant religion and/or language, ethnicity, and culture as the core citizens and others as second class.”

Non Christians in the US should be treated as second class, just as, during this particular period, people of non-European descent should be treated as second class citizens. If we don’t prioritize our White Christian people at this point white christian people will go into abeyance.

“(4) Increasingly, the loudest voices arguing for Christian Nationalism are marked by juvenile insults steeped in online jargon from the dissident right. What’s more, some of these proponents traffic openly in racist ideology, antisemitism, and Neo-Nazi sympathies. The most strident Christian Nationalism proponents on social media are often a potent combination of oafery and demagoguery.”

Kevin De Young
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

This is the standard fare from those losing the argument. It boils down to “our enemies are meanies who are not as educated and refined as we are and who don’t know their place.” The accusations of “racism” and “antisemitism” are accusations that tell us more about the accusers than it does about those being accused. Honestly, this kind of potent combination of oafery and demagoguery we see coming from De Young in the paragraph above is hardly worthy of our time and demonstrates how weak his position really is. He has been reduced to name calling and absurd pejoratives.

McAtee Contra DeYoung on Christian Nationalism – IV

“Nationalism refers to a set of political and ethical commitments that arose at the end of the eighteenth century and was then shaped throughout the nineteenth century by romanticism and the industrial revolution.”
Kevin De Young
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

The idea that Nationalism is what De Young says it is, is a fantasy. Nationalism has been around from Old Testament times. Nationalism is simply defined as the prioritizing of one’s people as descended from a common ancestor, sharing a common history, while owning a common religion. If De Young wants to talk about Modern Nationalism that is one thing but to suggest that Nationalism didn’t exist before Modern Nationalism is utter nonsense.

Ironically, by defining nationalism in terms of Jacobin thought, DeYoung is acting as a hostile witness against his own position. Because he admits his presuppositions on the subject lay aside the definition of nations found in genesis in favor of the definition cooked up by Liberal revolutionaries in direct defiance of Christianity. (Dan Brannan)

McAtee Contra DeYoung on Christian Nationalism -III

“(2) The most prominent book making the case for Christian Nationalism, though not without some merits, has many serious problems, including a blurring of nation and ethnicity, a decentering of the importance of the church, a call for a “Christian prince” to “suppress the enemies of God” and to install a “measured theocratic Caesarism,” and a final section that rails against everything from living under a gynocracy to the presence of overweight PCA pastors who (presumably) have low testosterone and chug vegetable oil.”

Kevin De Young
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

1.) In the Bible, the word “nation” derives from the Greek word ethnos which can be translated “the same race or nationality who share a distinctive culture.” https://www.wordnik.com/words/ethnos
The Latin roots of nation convey a similar idea with respect to ancestry. One is naci, which means “to be born.” The other is nationem, which the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed. 1989) defines as “breed, stock., race, nation.”
Nationalism, as the Bible conceives it, involves blood and lineage, not just culture and abstract ideals.

2.) De Young would have to give examples of where Stephen Wolfe de-centers the Church in Wolfe’s book for me to deal with that claim. I read Wolfe and I don’t recall a de-centering of the Church. However, I will say this, given the abysmal condition of the Church and clergy in the West today (including De Young) one could understand why Wolfe might well de-center the Church. If I could de-center the modern conservative Reformed church in the US today I certainly would.

3.) If one reads the original Belgic Confession 36 or the original WCF on the subject of magistrate one would see that contained therein is, at least the beginnings, of the idea of a Christian Prince to suppress the enemies of God.

4.) I wonder if De Young has checked his testosterone levels lately?

McAtee Contra DeYoung on Christian Nationalism – II

“(1) There is still no shared understanding of what the term means. Many proponents equate Christian Nationalism with support for some kind of church establishment and for the use of the state’s coercive power in matters of religion. I am opposed to both of these things.”

Kevin DeYoung
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists

1.) While, as a Christian Nationalist, I would not necessarily require an established church, I would require a religious establishment and the religion that must be established is the Christian religion.

2.) This means, following the original Article 36 of the Belgic Confession of faith, I would require the state’s coercive power in favor of the Christian religion.

3.) I would also remind De Young that all States use coercive power in favor of the State’s religion of choice. In the US today the state religion is humanism and the State uses its coercive power in favor of humanism. This is seen in decisions in favor of sodomite marriage, in favor pulling prayer from schools, in favor of abortion. De Young is kidding himself that the State (all states) ever does NOT act with coercive power in favor of its religion.