A Retrieval Project Poisoned at the Root: A critical review of chapter 7 of "A Study Report on Reformed Christian Politcs"

I had previously planned on writing a review of the entirety of Wolfe’s, Garris’s, and McGowan’s A Study Report on Reformed Christian Politics. However, as I neared its ending, I felt that the chapter 7 overview of Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism served as an appropriate focal point for most of my thoughts and criticisms. Regarding other sections of significant interest to me, I found the theonomy chapter to be reductive, and regarding Kline and R2K, that’s someone else’s fight. The remaining sections certainly deserve some focus, but others can fill those gaps far better than I. Likewise, I’m sure others can discuss this chapter better than myself. But I also don’t want to sell myself short. Ethno-centric ideas and political theology are subjects I have some experience in, so here I am.

With that understanding, I’ve focused on Chapter 7. It should be noted that much of my criticism of this chapter is equally applicable to the rest of the book (especially concerning rhetorical matters and historical continuity).

Chapter 7 of the Study Report on Christian Political Theology attempts to defend Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism as a retrieval of “Classical Protestant politics” opposed to what the authors portray as the liberalized and ineffectual political theology of modern Reformed churches. While I agree that much of Reformed political thought is in need of reform (or, oftentimes, in need of being developed in the first place), and while I have no interest in defending late-modernity assumptions, R2K frameworks, or largely failed liberal pluralism, the “Christian Nationalism” that Wolfe is presenting (and presumably the other authors, unless it’s merely Wolfe speaking in the third person) centers its project on ethnic similarities rather than shared virtues rooted in the light of Scripture and the Gospel of the Kingdom. In addition, the authors repeatedly and significantly stretch historical two-kingdoms and natural law theology far beyond the views of our Protestant forefathers. Lastly, while the authors are busy on social media whining about not being taken seriously, it’s apparent in this chapter (and elsewhere) that they have little to no respect for their critics and the older men and women in our churches. While I don’t mind taking a sharper tone against some (E.g., this review), it’s too often the case that those most prone to indiscriminately wielding the serrated edge are also the first to clutch their pearls and insist that they be treated very seriously and very gently.

This habit is a central rhetorical weakness of the chapter. Contemporary Reformed theologians, especially within NAPARC and especially professors, are portrayed as intellectually unserious, historically ignorant, or captive to the spirit of the age. The chapter repeatedly dismisses dissent as ideological capitulation, sometimes going so far as openly mocking others (such as some establishmentarians). In other words, if you disagree, you’re either a liberal or you’re ignorant. These claims are never established, but rather asserted as givens. At one point, the authors, with some bravado, list out several philosophical, political, and theological concepts as if we should be impressed by the list and then question whether or not other Reformed thinkers know these ideas (like they do, they’ll have you know). Concerning retrieval, or, more precisely, the attitude taken towards this so-called retrieval project, it sometimes takes on the flavor of gnostic prophets revealing to us poor shmucks that they, and only they, have managed to retrieve the secret truth of the “real” historical Protestant political theology.

More concerning, however, is the chapter’s implicit movement toward an ethnically defined conception of nationhood. And yes, I know “nation” can mean “ethnicity.” To be clear, then, the Wolfe concept of ethnicity is explicitly genetic (that is, if Wolfe can be believed concerning Wolfe’s ideas). Although the overview attempts to present Wolfe’s position primarily in terms of cultural cohesion, homeland attachment, and shared ways of life, this description obscures a significant feature of Wolfe’s own argument. In “The Case for Christian Nationalism”, Wolfe explicitly states that blood relation and genetic similarity are “crucial” components of his nationalist vision. Yet this chapter noticeably softens that language, reframing the argument in terms of culture and experiential familiarity. This chapter ensures the reader that nationality is “not being reduced to DNA.” This comes across as reassuring. Interestingly, Wolfe also mentions DNA tests in his book. Let’s see what he says there.

“My intent here is not to discount or dismiss the importance of blood ties in ethno-genesis—a dismissal that is fashionable, politically correct, and could save me some trouble. It simply is the case that a "community in blood" is crucial to ethnicity. But this should not lead us to conclude that blood ties are the sole determinate of ethnicity, as if all we need are DNA tests.”

In other words, while it’s true that Wolfe doesn’t reduce nationality to genetics, it’s not at all accurate to suggest or imply that genetics are not vital to his concept of nation.

In an opaque move to anyone paying attention, this chapter does attempt to save the authors some trouble. I suppose Wolfe, Garris, and McGowan are trying their hand at fashionable political correctness. At least according to Wolfe.

Regardless of this obfuscation, the chapter still includes Wolfe’s genetic-nationalism, albeit while whitewashing some of his previous rhetoric. Even with these palatability revisions, the pseudo-sociology of “similarity” rooted in (at least in crucial part) blood relation as opposed to shared virtue is exactly the same formula used by kinists to justify their racial separatism. To be clear, it’s not similar to the kinist formula. Rather, it is the kinist formula.

Sure, God in good order has sovereignly worked it out that there will be different people groups and nations and that diversity is a good and beautiful thing. Amen. What is less evident and is merely assumed by kinists, and these authors, is that it’s also good and proper for these diverse peoples to segregate based on cultural and genetic similarities. Now, while similar folks may naturally group together for a variety of innocent reasons, something else is going on when this organic segregation transforms not only into an explicit political virtue, but also a necessity for “common good.”  While it’s easy to find thriving, relatively homogeneous communities, it’s also easy to find thriving, diverse communities. Communities that are safe, orderly, and happy. Further, it becomes clear when you look just a layer or two below something as shallow as skin color and genetics that even communities that seem homogeneous are often not genetically homogeneous at all. Yet, it's genetics that Wolfe finds crucial to nationalism. Again, according to Wolfe.

While the Reformed tradition has affirmed the importance of natural law, social bonds, and even national particularity, these concepts have rarely been grounded in genetic affinity or biological similarity between citizens. Wolfe, Garris, and McGowan very much desire to draft historical Protestant political theology into their project, and while much of this tradition would resonate with many of the same ideas (I also sympathize with many of the ideas), what you’re hard-pressed to find in the literature is the same sort of explicit racialist structuring. The chapter fails to directly address this tension and instead sidesteps this significant discontinuity between Wolfe’s Christian “ethno-genesis” Nationalism and historical Protestant beliefs.

Finally, the chapter greatly overstates the continuity between Wolfe’s proposal and the historic Reformed tradition in ways other than their artificial implantation of modern kinist anthropology into our theological heritage, namely in how the authors see the division between church and nation or spiritual and natural. While these are certainly real historical distinctions in historical Protestant thought, he absolutizes these boundaries in ways that we rarely see described in either theological literature or historical accounts of how the magisterial reformers actually engaged with the state (much less later Reformed thinkers, Augustine, the prophets, and so on). It results in an argument that presents itself as historical retrieval while selectively interpreting the tradition to support a predetermined conclusion by mining reformed literature to find appealing concepts while ignoring or minimizing anything that may contradict Wolfe’s binary worldview. This concern, of course, is also very present earlier in the book.

In the end, the chapter raises important questions about liberalism and political theology (questions raised by rambling communitarians and many others), but undermines its case through bombastic vanity, youthful dishonoring of our spiritual elders, hypocritical whining about critics, failing to wrestle with or even acknowledge the ethno-nationalist implications present within Wolfe’s own framework, and a misleading characterization of their ideas as retrieval without plainly noting vital points of discontinuity. In a number of ways, it’s a project marketed as being rooted in history while being functionally marked by modern traits. Whether it’s the distinctly contemporary style of racialist dogma (the style and specific racialist formula, not merely racialist ideology) or the cavalier and individualistic dismissal of institutional authority and the flippant dishonoring of elders, it’s a retrieval project poisoned at the root with methods and ideas that are, ironically, very much “in the spirit of the age.”