I took every course offered by Dr. Glenn R. Martin in undergrad. He remains to this day a instrumental and formative presence in my life. He was the one who set me on the trajectory of presuppositionalism and Weltanschauung thinking. After, I left Martin’s tutelage I still had miles to go in understanding those categories of thought but I was set on the trail.
One of the courses I took from Martin was “American Intellectual & Social History.” It was basically a “History of Ideas in America” course. The kind of course that looked behind the events of American History to ask the question; “What was the thought world that drove the disputes and ideas in American history.”
Naturally enough a good amount of time was spent on the epochal event of US History — what we were taught to refer to as “The War of Northern Aggression.” We examined the theological thought world of both North and South and through that prism we were taught how to understand that conflict.
We were taught, rightly enough I still believe 45 years later, that the conflict was between those who theologically were committed to a social order system where authority and power was purposefully diffused and decentralized against those who were theologically committed to concentrated and centralized power. One one side one found the Nationalistic impulse of the Hamiltonians that resulted in a Unitarian Nationalism and on the other side one found the Anti-Federalist impulse of the Jeffersonians that resulted in a old style Republicanism. Over the decades I’ve continued pursuing this explosion in American history in my study and with my books and nothing I learned in 1980 in my “American Intellectual & History” course has overturned that essence of the conflict.
What has changed, oddly enough, is that I am now pursuing my Republicanism via a stodgy and unstinting defense of Nationalism. My convictions have not changed. However, the historical circumstances that we are now living in have changed. The contest we are now in against the Globalist is not significantly different than the contest our American forebears in the South fought against the Yankees. The difference is that in 1861 they wanted National Unitarianism. Today they desire Global Unitarianism.
I was and remain opposed to Lincolnian Nationalism because it was a centralizing and top down Nationalism pursued with a vision of destroying the various nations that comprised these united States of America. I now strongly champion Christian Nationalism because it is, at least in my vision, a movement that is committed to pursuing a of maintaining the distinctiveness of White Anglo Saxon America as against the earlier Lincolnian tendency to support Unitarian elimination of distinctives as found among states, regions, and even peoples.
In other words whereas the Unitarian Nationalism of 1861 was basically a nationwide globalist-like movement against regionalism and sectionalism, today Christian Nationalism, in my vision, is basically nationwide anti-globalist-like movement in favor of a regional identity (Americans as a distinct people and place) vis-a-vis a opposition that would do to all the world what Lincoln and the Black Republicans did to all of America, to wit, put us all in a blender in order to make all mankind into interchangeable cogs in a New World Order.
So, my remaining anti-Unitarian Nationalism in relation to the War Against the Constitution pursued by the Blue Devils in 1861 is consistent with my pro-Christian nationalism anti-Globalist convictions today. Indeed, my anti-Unitarian Nationalism formed between 1865-1877 is of a piece with my pro Christian Nationalism of 2025. If you genuinely understand the dynamics of the contest today against the globalists you will find yourself embracing increasingly the position of the Anti-federalists in 1787 and the Southerners in 1861.
It is interesting that historically speaking, Karl Marx, in a letter to Lincoln spoke of how he saw Lincoln’s war as having continuity with the European Revolutions of the 18th century. Indeed Marx writes to Lincoln clearly connecting the dots between the work of Lincoln and the Declaration of the Rights of Man scribbled in the French Revolution. This is consistent with the observations by some that the War Against the Constitution was America’s “French Revolution.” What more reason does one need to conclude that not only did the bad guys win out during the French Revolution against a faulty but a still clear Christendom but also the Enlightenment strength carried the day in the last Protestant Christian social order in the West.
There are some other similarities between the Unitarian Nationalism recreation of the US social order and the attempt today to snuff out Christian Nationalism’s resistance to globalism. One of those similarities between now and then is the “conservative” church. As the Yankee Church gave “Christian” cover for Unitarian Nationalist project of 1861 so even the “conservative” “Reformed” churches give cover today for the Anti-Christ Globalist project. Just as Yankee Churches in 1861 needed to be plowed under & salted so the Globalist churches today need to be treated as the enemy.
Like Confederates of old we are now fighting not to be absorbed in a heathen top down system that would erase our identity in favor of bland sameness. Johnny Reb fought against a Unitarian Nationalism. We are fighting against a technocratic Globalism. If we lose, we lose who we are just as Johnny Reb lost his civilization between 1861-1877 and just as all Americans lost all remnants of that same civilization with the burgeoning impact of Wilsonian Democracy, FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s great society as well as the hits that have just kept coming since then.
I must say though that just as Johnny Reb lost in his contest with collectivization and centralized authority so I am not optimistic, in the short term, that we will succeed any better. Johnny Reb knew what it was to be a free man living in a free social order that was regulated by Christian law. We however, who desperately want to resist just as Johnny Reb did do not live among a people who have much knowledge of what it means to be a free man living in a free social order regulated by Christian law. Modern Americans have become accustomed to living off the teat of the centralized state. It is hard for me to believe that when push comes to shove the average American is going to be willing to be (switching metaphors) unhooked and detached from the Matrix. We as a people have become so attached to the centralized, managerial, and technocratic state that I don’t think that, in the short term, we have the will to tell the Globalists to “go bugger yourself.”
Americans may have to, for a time, live under the lash of Globalism with its creation of mass, uniform, global culture. However, I remain hopeful for the long term. Globalism is a culture of death because at its foundation is a hatred of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; Jesus the Christ. Scripture teaches us that, “All those who hate Christ, love death.” As such since Globalism hates of Christ (which is the chief characteristic of Globalism) therefore I am assured that it will die and everyone knows that death can’t win. So, while Globalism may continue to be victorious in the short term, in the long term, like its attempt in Genesis 11, it will be totally and utterly defeated. With its defeat will be the return of Christian nations embracing variant expressions of Christian nationalism.
In the short term we epistemologically self-conscious and stubborn few must continue to run up the flag of Christian Nationalism and the banner of Christendom. We must be able to explain the connection between men bowing to Christ individually and the subsequent result of all the nations being discipled and bowing in allegiance to Christ. We must earnestly pray that the Lord Christ would leverage us to advance His Kingdom. We must pray that we might get the opportunity that Samson got in his last hour — the ability to deal a devastating blow to the enemy of Christ and His people.