Once again, I have created a stir on X. Here, I will give the original post and then my repsonses to various criticisms (if they can be called that), along with a some additional thoughts.
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“Give me Scotland, or I die.”
We should think and pray like John Knox. Knox prayed for the Lord to give him Scotland, not to give him whites. He thought biblically, in terms of ethnicity/nationality, not race. He thought of “my people” in terms of Scotland. Nations, unlike races, are covenantal entities and must factor into the ordo amoris as such. The mission of the church is structured and organized in terms of nations in the Great Commission. National consciousness > race consciousness.
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Nation and race different categories that work in different ways and do different things. It doesn’t matter if a nation is composed of one race, or many, for the purposes of my post. It has to do with how God had organized and structured humanity — and thus how we should pray with the grain of God’s purposes.
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There is nothing gnostic or multicultural about 1 Timothy 2:2, Knox’s prayer, or my post. Race, at least as I am defining it, is a real biological category. Likewise, nations have a real existence, usually with their own geography, language, and culture – all physically manifested realities.
Biological race and national/ethnic identity have been distinguishable at least since Genesis 10. But layered identities in no way necessitate Gnosticism or multiculturalism. Just the opposite in fact.
I suppose if people want to pray for a race or racial subgroup in their private prayers, that’s fine. Maybe that’s what Choc Knox is doing. But 1 Timothy 2:2 requires a kind of liturgical nationalism – in church, we should pray for the king (and the entity over which he rules).
The hyperventilating over my post shows some men have been so brainwashed with shallow talking points (mostly from the stupid and cultic Stone Choir podcast), that they cannot think for themselves. If Knox were around today, he would still pray, “Give me Scotland lest I die.” His prayer would still be offered and structured along nationalistic lines. But his prayer would also no doubt recognize that Scotland has been judged by God and that judgment is seen, at least in part, in the foreign invasion of people who speak a different language and worship a different God, the idiotic rulers who allowed or promoted the invasion, etc. Not to mention all the other national sins he’d want to confess on behalf of his people even as he prays for God to transform and convert his native land.
Again, nations are covenantal, races are biological. The covenant provides a much thicker sense of identity. “Scottish” means a lot more than “white.”
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From the responses, it seems a lot people think that if you “pray for Scotland,” you must be affirming Scotland as she is – which in our day would mean affirming the multicultural cess pool of liberalism that once great nation has become. But the opposite is true. Knox in his day was praying that Scotland would be radically transformed and reformed. If Knox were around today, he’d still be praying for her radical transformation and reformation – but he’d praying for Scotland’s deliverance from a very different set of enemies and oppressors (it was Rome in the 16th century, its liberalism in the 21st century).
Remember, prayer includes all kinds of petitions – including imprecatory prayers against those who wreck nations, promote sexual insanity, and oppress the church. Prayer is not a tame thing. It’s powerful.
Think about what Paul is telling Timothy to do in a first century context in 1 Timothy 2:2. If you were a Christian in Ephesus in the first century, with Timothy as your pastor, you would have NO political power. You cannot “vote the bums out.” You cannot run for office or lobby Caesar. The most impactful thing you can do politically is pray (and preach). In modern Western nations, we obviously have other tools and weapons at our disposal. But if we think those weapons will be effective in changing our nation *apart from liturgical/prayerful undergirding* we are practical atheists. Prayer is still foundational to righteous social reformation. We can do nothing without Jesus which means we can do nothing without prayer.
People who visit my church should be able to tell from the way we pray publicly each Lord’s Day, just as much as from the way we preach each Lord’s Day, what our political vision for our nation is. And we certainly cannot expect God to change our nation or bless our political activism if we are not persistently praying for God to work in our nation according to his Word.
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The result of all the pushback against my original post is that supposed Christian nationalists are opposed to praying for their own nation. Weird.
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1 Timothy 2:2 is about praying for rulers (and the entities they rule, whether empires, nations, states, or cities). Races do not have rulers. Nations do.
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Do you go to church on Sundays? If so, does your church have a public prayer? Does your church pray for America? Or do you pray for white people (and black people, etc.)? Does your church pray for kings, per 1 Timothy 2? Kings are kings of nations, not races.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
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Obviously, if Knox was around today, the *content* of his prayers would be different, but he’d still be praying *for Scotland.* In the 16th centruy, he was pryaing for deliverans from the tyranny of Rome and from a female ruler. Today he would be praying for deliverance from the Islamic invasion, the idolatry of statism and liberalism, etc.
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The fact that Scotland was entirely (or almost entirely) white when Knox was alive is irrelevant to the post. “Scottish” and “white” are not, and never have been, interchangeable terms. And “Scottish” represents a far thicker sense of identity than “white.”
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Can you give me an example of a prayer for white people (or any color of people) from the historic liturgies of the church? Or even from your own church (or another contemporary church)? I’m genuinely curious if such things exist. I cannot find anything like in the Bible, or hymnody, or any of the prayer books/liturgical books.
My post is about how we pray. We should be liturgiucal nationalists. We should be praying nationalists.
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People can pray for whatever the groups they choose. But biblically, the nation is the recognized unit for many things – nations are the object of Jesus’ saving work (Psalm 2), the object of the church’s missionary efforts (Matthew 28), and the object of our public prayers (1 Timothy 2). It may make sense to prayer for other groupings, such as a military alliance of nations, or nations that are part of a greater empire (cf. Daniel).
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As soon as a nation comes into existence, e.g., forms a government, it is a covenantal entity. This is true even if not openly acknowledged. The ruler of the nation is the covenant head of the people in the civil sphere. As Romans 13 says, all governing authorities are established by God — and that establishment is covenantal in character. God is the God of covenant. he works in the world by means of covenants.
This is why God blesses and judges nations as nations (e.g., Jeremiah 18). All nations can trace back their covenantal origins to Genesis 9. In the case of Israel, God made a special and explicit covenant with them, starting in Genesis 12. But Reformed political theology has generally operated with an implicitly covenantal understanding of all nations. If nations are not covenantal, how can they be blessed or judged as such?
Further, the new covenant embraces all nations. In Isaiah 42, the Servant of the Lord is promised as a covenant for the nations. This is why nations as nations are to be baptized (= brought into the new covenant), per the Great Commission.
Of course, Reformed theology sees the family as a covenantal entity as well. The premise of the family is covenant.
If you look at Genesis 12, you see that while covenants include blood (a son) and soil (a land), they are also conditional. All nations and families are subject to the blessings and curses of the covenant.
The Solemn League and Covenant (proposed by the Scottish Covenanters) is just one illustration of the covenantal premise of nationhood. In that particular historical instance, the Scots promised military aid to the English Parliament and Parliament promised to seek a more thorough national reformation. But their actions make no sense if nations are not covenantal entities.
The American Revolution is another example. The Declaration of Independence is basically a covenantal document, accusing King George of failing to uphold his end of the covenant. The right of the colonies to break away and form their own nation was premised on a covenantal theory of government.
Rushdoony’s This Independent Republic and Doug Kelly’s Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World have some good background material on the Reformational view of the covenantal theory of the state and how it played out in America and elsewhere.
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Time spent mocking a post that calls on you to pray for your nation would be better spent praying for your nation!
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A so-called Christian nationalist movement that mocks praying for one’s nation is not worthy of the name and will never succeed. If you want Knox-like results in your nation, you best offer Knox-like prayers for your nation!
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The Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, is reputed to have said, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”
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As I use terms, races are biological. Nations are covenantal entities.
White is a race. Scotland, the United States, China, etc are nations.
The Bible commands us to disciple nations. The Bible commands us to pray for our nation, and for the ruler/king of our nation. God judges nations. Etc. Nations exist, not merely as human constructs, but as providential creations.
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At my church, we pray for our state (Alabama) and nation (America) each week. We have never prayed for people by race. Nor should we.
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The covenant is not mere propositions.
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My post has to do with how God has organized mankind.
My church prays for America every Sunday. We have never prayed for whites (or blacks, etc.). We are commanded to pray for kings who rule over nations, not races. Etc.
What does your church do? Do you pray for white people? Or do you pray for America?
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Knox waged liturgical warfare against those who opposed the work of the Reformation in Scotland. He prayed Scotland would be delivered from her enemies, including his fellow Scotsmen who stood in the way of reform. He prayed against his nation’s queen.
His prayers were effective. Queen Mary described him as “the most dangerous man in the realm.” God answered Knox’s prayers so abundantly, he later said, “God did so multiply our number that it appeared that men rained from the clouds” to carry forward the work of reform. The next monarch was a Protestant Queen, and England remained staunchly Protestant for generations afterwards. The prayers of Knox reverberated for centuries through the corridors of history.
John Knox was a true Christian nationalist.
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We are commanded to pray for and disciple nations, eg, 1 Timothy 2. God has divided the human race into nations, per Genesis 10 and Acts 17. Those realities should shape how we pray. In my church, each Sunday we pray for our city, our state, our nation. We have never organized our prayers into races.
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What about praying for the Allied powers in WW2? That’s fine, but you’re still praying for a group of nations allied together. It’s still a prayer offered in terms of nationalism. If you prayed for “white people to win the war,” that would not help in WW2, at least not in the European theater.
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From Doug Kelly’s book Emergence of Liberty:
“The Holy Commonwealth,” Rushdoony summarizes the New England Puritan vision as:
“… not individualism but a sense of destiny as God’s chosen people, in faith in their calling, not only in terms of the personal covenant of grace, and as a church covenant and the development of the Reformation, but as a civil covenant, a called people of God as a civil order, surrounded by the notable and marvelous tokens of His providence. Timothy Dwight’s Conquest of Canaan (1785) is eloquent evidence of this faith. … Dwight, in “Good Advice in Bad Verse” (1787) saw the restoration of Eden as part of America’s destiny and summoned America to “perfect her federal system… for this stupendous realm, this chosen race.”
Hence, unlike modern liberal democratic ideas, the New England Puritans were not primarily individualists seeking a neutral republic open to all religious views. Rather, they held to a Christian commonwealth…
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My approach is very much grounded in historic hymnody and liturgy, not to mention the Scriptures.
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An example of liturgical nationalism is the hymn, “Great King of Nations, Hear our Prayer.” The hymn recognizes that God blesses and judges/chastens nations as nations. The hymn is a sung prayer confessing the nation’s sins and calling on God’s aid. Look at it more detail.
The first verse calls on the nation to unite in humbly crying out to God. In the second and third verses, there is a corporate confession of sin, much like Daniel’s on behalf of Israel in Daniel 9. The fourth verse is a prayer for the nation to look to God for help in times of crises. A Christian nation is a nation that can say “to you we looked, to you we cried, and help was found.” In the fifth verse, the national “we” bows before the Lord’s chastening, and the sixth verse is an appeal to the Lord’s mercy that the nation might be spared.
Obviously this hymn is not a complete political theology. But many of the basic principles are there. Most foundationally, the hymn acknowledges that God is the King of the nations. Everything else flows from that recognition.
Today’s “Christian nationalism” is sub-Christian until it begins producing new hymns like this one. We can’t say “we’re back” until our churches fill their sanctuaries with these kinds of sung prayers.
1 Great King of nations, hear our prayer,
while at your feet we fall,
and humbly, with united cry,
to you for mercy call.
2 The guilt is ours, but grace is yours,
O turn us not away;
but hear us from your lofty throne,
and help us when we pray.
3 Our fathers’ sins were manifold,
and ours no less we own,
yet wondrously from age to age
your goodness has been shown.
4 When dangers, like a stormy sea,
beset our country round,
to you we looked, to you we cried,
and help in you was found.
5 With one consent we meekly bow
beneath your chast’ning hand,
and, pouring forth confession meet,
mourn with our mourning land.
6 With pitying eye behold our need,
as thus we lift our pray’r;
correct us with your judgments, Lord,
then let your mercy spare.
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On the race issue, here’s a private response to someone arguing that pastors (like me) are wrong and the anonymous laity (on X) are right about the race issue. Race is being used as a wedge issue to drive pastors and laity apart, and pastors should be more sympathetic to those who feel like their whole identity has been taken from them by the attack on whites:
I agree with your assessment of the problem. I don’t agree that “giving in” is the solution.
As far as pastors vs laity, what I see on X is not mirrored in real life. I’m not convinced the anons who attack a post like mine have spent all their lives in church. They don’t act or respond like Christian people (for the most part). The responses are full of anger and arrogance. They are sometimes very crass. They don’t express disagreement the way you’d expect Christian men to, even online, even with anonymity. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed to be associated with most of them. In real life, most of the young men I’ve seen get mixed up in this had it bear bad fruit in their lives almost immediately. So I don’t think it’s the way forward for anyone. It’s not healthy or wise. This isn’t laity vs pastors. It’s not even older generation vs younger generation (I’m Gen X). It’s mature vs immature. It’s Christian vs Christless post-liberalism.
Again, I agree with you on the problem: identity-less young men trying to satisfy their identity hunger with white identity politics. I agree that whites have been under attack. I agree they have suffered and many pastors have failed them.
But white identitarianism will not be the solution, for many reasons – theological, political, and practical.
Theologically, this is simply not the way God trains us think about reality. If you ask these guys what it means to be white, you see the issues emerge pretty quickly.
Politically, MAGA is proof that white identity politics is not needed to deal with anti-whiteness. It’s remarkable how much the anons turn everything into illegal immigration, as if it’s the *sole* issue we face. The jump from my post on Knox to assuming I think Pakistanis should run Scotland. That doesn’t follow. I most likely agree with them on the problems. I think the Muslim invasion of Europe is an atrocity. I think the open borders policy of the Biden administration was an abomination. The failure of Western leaders to defend their own civilization is wicked.
But even if we all agreed that immigration is the biggest issue, racial identity politics is not integral to solving it. Deportations and borders are just matters of the rule of law, not a race war. There’s no need to create unnecessary drama over this. Jeremy Carl gives plenty of solutions to anti-whiteness that do not require white identity politics (his book is great). Trump never racialized his campaigns; he made his appeals to blacks and Hispanics, along with rural and rust belt whites. Trump won largely because MAGA is not what the left wing media claims. If Vance is the heir apparent to MAGA, a race war that pits him against his wife is obviously not the way forward. The white identitarians can make hay on social media because *anyone* can make hay there. But they are no where close to institutional power. They are no where close to having candidates run on their platform at a high level. Etc.
Practically speaking, accepting race war rhetoric is accepting the left’s framing – something I refuse to do on any issue. It’s a dead end. If there is no way to harmonize the races, America is doomed, and along with it, all our institutions and prosperity. The reality is that America has been multiracial from the start. Even if every illegal is deported, we will still be a multiracial nation. Then what? The race war will be unending until there is nothing left to fight for. This is the wrong vision. It should be avoided.
The reality is that racial identity politics does not serve *any* group well. Blacks have perhaps gained political power through racial identity politics, but to what it end? Has it really served black flourishing? Obviously not. Feminism is a form of identity politics for women — it’s sexual identity politics. Has it helped women flourish? Dumb question, obviously. There is more to human flourishing than your group having political power. Racial groups that obsess over their own race never flourish, and that’s true even if they amass some measure of power. Racial identity politics cannot produce justice or prosperity or social capital. Racial identity politics ends with everyone outsourcing their thinking to others. It’s just groupthink. I have no respect for blacks who have generally conservative convictions but vote Democrat for no other reason than “that’s what black people do.” If whites were to do the same, I would not respect them either. Again, we need a better political vision than one that prioritizes race over everything else. Race doesn’t have enough built-in content, it’s too malleable, it’s too thin of a category, to function this way. Race simply can’t carry the freight people are trying to put on it. Even if we agree that collective action is the way to get things done in a quasi-democratic system like ours, I’m not convinced racial identitarianism is the right kind of grouping for Christians to pursue.
I think these young men want to win. I think white identity politics is a way to lose. In fact, if it does gain ground, it will subvert many of MAGA’s real world gains. The fact that the left would love the right to become racialized tells you all you need to know. We will the battle of ideas because the left has no ideas; all they have are “identities.” We can do better. Becoming what they accuse us of being is not the way to win. Guys who think that what the world needs right now is for us to rehabilitate Hitler’s image and produce more WBS videos should not be taken seriously.
I agree with you that young men want an identity. But I still think patriotism is better than racialism. I think it means more to be American than simply white. I think being a Reformed catholic American Christian with a family and a vocation is a thick identity. More people should try it. The identity problem is not going to be solved by championing whiteness on X or by letting bitterness over wounds, real and imagined, fester. It’s going to be solved in the real world by forming relationships, getting involved in healthy churches, learning and practicing simple virtues, and doing things that matter. It’s going to take more than racial consciousness to fix deracination.
It seems to me that at least part of the reason that “white” identity is suddenly being popularized is it allows whites to think of themselves as victims at the very moment when the wave of victim culture is cresting. We are now part of the aggrieved class. We have a our racial grievances. I am not denying that whites have been targeted — Carl provides plenty of evidence. This is especially true for white men. And it’s not surprising in such circumstances that whites, especially white males, would want to look for a scapegoat. But victimhood does not provide a way forward. Victimhood cannot provide a political vision by itself. We should correct injustices but we should be aiming at much more.
It’s one thing to be a victim. It’s another thing to try to turn victimhood into a currency, into a matter of social justification (this is the essence of wokeness). The right should not fall into this trap. Correct injusticies without creating a politics of the aggrieved.
In my opinion, the attack on whiteness is largely a proxy war. The thing they really hate is Western Christendom. This is why you have so many whites lining up on the anti-white side. Why wouldn’t they take their own side in a race war? Because they know its not *really* about race. Progressive whites have no intention of actually laying down their power and handing it over to minorities, even as they shame other whites. But that’s because race is not the *real* animating factor in all of this. The presenting symptom is not the real disease. “White” is a stand-in for traditional Christian faith when it gets berated by the left. It’s easy to attack whites by re-narrating history with whites as the villains, but the real target is Christendom.
More evidence we are not actually in a race war: To the degree that whites are being oppressed (and we are in many cases — again, see Carl’s book), the oppression of whites is mainly coming from other whites. It is progressive whites who have done more than anyone to push DEI and other anti-white policies. The main line — the antithesis — in American politics is not actually racial. How can I be in a race war when my main enemies (the likes of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Robin DeAngelo, etc.) are all the same color as me? Something else is going on. To accept the “race war” premise is to accept the left’s framing and to play into the left’s hand.
I agree that the clergy class is mostly useless – obviously that’s the case for Big Eva, and most of Mid Eva, including most Reformed pastors. But there are plenty of faithful pastors in the trenches who want to see people grow and flourish. Their churches and ministries are bearing fruit. Their people are shepherded well. They have community and accountability. Those pastors (myself included) might be older, but that doesn’t mean we should be dismissed. After all, we have kids (and sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law and grandkids) and so we know what younger people are up against. We have skin in the game. We are vested in the future. I would simply point out to younger folks of the sort who mock my post online that no matter how bad things are, they can get worse. Be careful what you wish for.
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When I talk to the white racial identitarians about whiteness, what I find is that whiteness gets filled in with a lot of other things. They gerrymander whiteness around their own preferences, ignoring the fact that many whites are left out of their description. What does it mean to be white? What do you like about being white? Why are you proud of being white? The answer to these questions inevitably goes away from race to other things. For example, “I love my people and place.” Ok, but there’s nothing uniquely white about that. You could do that if you weren’t white. “I love the civilization whites produced.” Wonderful. I do too. But this is a pivot away from race to culture and even religion. Genetics obviously play a role the kind of culture a people form, but it’s far from the only factor, or even the most important factor. “I love my family and ancestors.” That’s great but not unique to whites. Every people group can appreciate their own particularity. If whites have been told they cannot appreciate their heritage…well, that’s stupid and wrong, so push back against it. Appreciate your heritage anyway. You don’t have to obey the left or let them define you or your agenda. Bottom line: When it comes to racial identity, what people end up pointing to is not *mere* genetics or skin color, but a host of other things. We will not solve the deracination problem with racial identity politics. We can solve it with faith, loyalty to church/theological and liturgical tradition, patriotism, localism, strong marriages and families, etc. Appealing to whiteness does not automatically create thick communities. Racial homogeneity does not automatically create high social capital.
The problem with white solidarity is that many, many whites in the world do not live in my country, do not speak my language, do not share my culture in any deep sense, and do not share my religious faith. In many cases, other whites are diametrically opposed to who I am and what I believe. They share my race but they we are enemies. I believe whites are the main bulwark of anti-Christian progressive ideology in the West. Whites are the ones doing the most damage to majority white nations. So what does whiteness mean for white identitarians on the right? Usually, white solidarity gets quickly downsized to white Americans and even white American Christians (basically, whites who think like me). But at that point, we are no longer doing racial identity politics, we are doing something else. Even if its still identity politics, it is not fundamentally racial.
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A Christ-less post-liberalism is no better than a Christ-less conservatism.
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I’ve been asked how to pray for one’s nation when it is being overrun with illegal immigrants.
If my nation was being invaded by foreigners because of lax border security, I’d pray for it to end since nations require borders. If my nation was overrun with illegals, I’d pray for the rule of law to prevail, which requires that those here illegally be removed. If my nation’s civil leaders were ruling in selfish and self-destructive ways, subverting the peace and prosperity and heritage of their pwn people, I’d pray for God to grant them repentance and wisdom or remove them from office.
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Race may be the terms of engagement on X but not in the real world of politics and culture and institutions. Or let me put it this way: the left would love for race to be *the* defining issue because leftists only have identities, no useful ideas for the nation. The left probably figures a race war is the only way they can win because too many whites will not take their own side.
We need to reject racialist framing altogether. We need to reject the left’s framing. We should not let the left set the terms of debate. Don’t confuse the presenting issue with the real issue. The attack on whites is just a proxy war – the real enemy is Christian civilization. Framing it in terms of whiteness just makes Western civ an easier target for the Christ-haters.
The antithesis in American politics is actually not white vs other racial groups. The main oppression of whites in this country comes from other whites (Biden, Pelosi, Deangelo, etc). White progressives who are in power have no intention of stepping aside and handing off that power to minorities. They talk that way to beat other whites down (conservative whites), but they don’t act it out themselves. Progressive whites are the real problem.
MAGA is not perfect but it’s the best we’ve got and it’s definitely not about racial identity politics. Not one MAGA figure talks that way. Just the opposite in fact. Trump tried very hard to appeal across racial lines and had decent success, especially with Hispanics. We should nurture that coalition, not detonate it.
Vance is the heir apparent to MAGA and he’s not going to precipitate a race war that pits him against his wife. Rubio is probably the next most prominent figure in MAGA going forward. You think he’s going to racialize MAGA? Of course not.
MAGA has already great success dismantling anti-white DEI programs. Trump will continue to wage lawfare against the white-haters. Just look at this latest round with Harvard. MAGA has shown traditionalist Americans how we can win – why deviate from that formula for a race-based approach that likely to lose?
White identity politics is actually not going to scratch the itch these young men have for an identity anyway. How can I find an identity in white solidarity when almost half the whites in the country vote differently and most whites don’t share my faith, etc.? The way to give them an ethnos, an ethnicity, is simple:
– get offline more and touch grass where you live
– know and celebrate American history (patriotism), and reject historical revisionism that paints America as the great global villain
– get involved in a faithful church where you can get mentored and form thick relationships
– reject the politics of the aggrieved, reject the idea that you are a victim, reject bitterness, do things that cultivate hope/optimism
– work hard and have realistic expectations for what success will look like (you don’t have to have Boomer-level wealth to carve out a nice life for yourself)
-pursue marriage and family life despite the risks
Most everything legitimate these guys want to accomplish politically can be done without racialist framing. And adopting racialist framing will make it much harder to do those things.
I work with dozens of young white men. I have kids who are young adults. I’ve walked through the Stone Choir valley with some young men. I have not seen any good fruit come from it. I have seen it turn once well-adjusted, maturing young men into bitter, disillusioned young men. White identity politics is going to be a disaster for all who go that route – though thankfully I think it’s going to be a passing fad if MAGA has staying power beyond Trump. If not, who knows what happens. But a race war is not going to produce peace and prosperity for anyone in America.
My 2 cents.
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Continuing the above covneration with a private dialogue partner:
I understand your point of view. I’ve encountered it many times.
You lay out two options: 1. Pretend race is not a salient category. 2. Race is the only salient category.
I reject both of your options. You say option 2 is closer to reality – but in the American context, it’s still the wrong way to go. My position represents a third option – not a “third way,” per se, but just a different approach, and one that is actually getting real world traction.
We have to distinguish what *ought* to happen from what *will* happen.
You might be right about what will happen — maybe we are headed for a state of nature in which race wars are inevitable. But I think it’s a bad path, and will not produce desired results. I want to focus on what we ought to do going forward.
You say, “JD Vance is arguing for Americans as a people. It’s not a leap to suggest that others will start advocating for white Americans as a people.” But that’s actually a *huge* leap. It’s the leap from my position (nationalism/patriotism) to your position (racialism/race based identity politics). Who at the macro-political level is going to make that leap? The right is used to coalescing around issues, not identities, and that has been true of MAGA up to this point. On the right, we coalesce over being anti-abortion, anti-Obergefell, anti-woke/DEI/CRT, pro-borders, pro-economic growth, pro-small business, pro-America, anti-unnecessary war, anti-trans, pro-rule of law, pro-tough on crime, etc. To shift away from issues-oriented politics to racial identity-politics – to unite around our race – will be a big shift at the macro level. Maybe it will happen, but I’m not totally convinced. Who leads the way in that direction? What institutions would be onboard with it? Where does the funding for it come? You can say politics is about power, which is true, but behind the power is money. Who is going to invest in funding white identity politics at the level necessary to make it a player on the national level? What candidate will run on that platform? What promises to white people will that candidate make comparable to the promises Democrats made to black people?
But even if it does happen, we have to ask if it will it be for the better or the worse? I totally agree that Democrats whole strategy at least since the 60s has been to promise benefits to minority racial groups. “Give us power, we will give you stuff.” They’ve done exactly that. But have those racial groups actually benefitted, in terms of peace and prosperity, from the exchange? No, just the opposite. The Democrats’ black identity politics has been disastrous for blacks. It has destroyed the black household. It has created a culture of statist dependency on the government. Do we want whites to end up in the same place? Does anyone really think, “black identity politics has produced so much flourishing for blacks, whites should try it too.” This is where I say we have to pay attention to human nature – racial identity politics ends up playing to our basest, most fallen instincts.
And the same is true of S Africa. Sure, they have racial identity politics – and it has resulted in violence and the destruction of whatever prosperity they had. Racial identity politics is destroying the nation. Why would we want to repeat that here? S Africa’s only hope was always to submerge the racial issue so there could be some measure of cooperation at the public/political level. They refused and now a lot of people are probably going to be murdered or starve to death. S Africa is exhibit A for why race war politics is a terrible option. You might say what they are doing in S Africa accords with human nature, but I’d just say it reveals human fallenness.
My point is not that whites are the only racial group in America that should not do racial identity politics. I don’t think *anyone* should be doing racial identity politics. I don’t like Stone Choir but I don’t like BLM either. People who obsess over their own race rarely accomplish anything. It creates a culture of entitlement, victimhood, and dependency. I have no problem with racial identity communalism – at a private level if someone wants to have friends and associates exclusively of the same race, that’s their preference. Privately, you can be a racialist as much as you want. But at the public level, racial identity politics is not a pathway forward to a just and flourishing society. America really only works if we find ways to draw people into the American story and what has made our nation great; fragmenting into racial identity groups that constantly war with each other will not make for a free and flourishing America.
I would argue that the left has (technically) lost the last 3 presidential elections precisely because so many people *don’t* want to play the game of racial identity politics anymore. For the right to adopt racial identity politics at this moment would be foolish. We need something far more substantive. MAGA has gone a long way to providing it.
What does it mean for whites to be “tribal”? I think whites have a hard time being tribal in America because we are so culturally and religiously diverse. Who represents true whiteness – Trump or Biden? Vance or Pelosi? How can whites have racial solidarity when we oppose each other so deeply at the ideological level? I’m not about to vote for a candidate *merely* because he shares my skin color. And I don’t want a candidate promising me special favors just because of my skin color – I’d like to think I can’t be so easily bought. If Gavin Newsom runs for president against Tim Scott, does white tribalism mean I have to vote for Newsom even if I agree more with Scott’s policies? Who has written the political playbook for white identity politics? I don’t see how white identity politics could work unless we first had some kind of religious revival or political movement that united whites ideologically much more than what we see today. I agree with Wolfe that leftist-driven white guilt has caused whites to make their own ingroup an outgroup. But that is not the whole picture. We also outgroup other whites because we genuinely disagree with each other over first principles. Before you can have true white solidarity, you have to figure out how to unify a much higher percentage of whites.
So I ask: when you say you want whites to engage in white identity politics because it goes with the grain of human nature, what exactly does that look like? Wilson and McIntyre talked about this on their recent podcast. Are we talking about white politicians granting special benefits for other whites? Affirmative action hiring practices for whites? DEI and CRT but in favor of whites? What kind of special treatment should whites be agitating for? Are we asking for whites to get biased treatment in law courts or in school admissions policies or in hiring practices or in tax breaks or….just what is on the table?
I would still argue we are better off with a different approach. This is what I advocate: Let MAGA continue to do its thing with borders/immigration/deportations, dismantling DEI, rebuilding American industry, etc. Stop the anti-white, anti-male agenda the left has been pushing. But instead of substituting an affirmative action plan for whites, move towards pro-family policies, free association for businesses, meritocracy for universities and licensing/credentialing, etc.
I think this more or less mirrors what MAGA is aiming at. I think the actual effect of those on the right overplaying their hand by doing white identity politics will be the loss of power to the left once again. It’s odd that you think I’m disarming “my people” when at this very moment “my people” have more political power than they have held in a long, long time. MAGA has shown the right a way to thread the needle and actually win. Granted, it isn’t perfect – I wish MAGA could be more consistent in its rejection of the sexual revolution/feminism. But MAGA is on the right track. Why derail it with an obsession over whiteness? I think it’s your view that would actually disarm the “good guys.”
Thanks for the dialogue.
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Another response:
Can you fill in the content of this white identity politcs looks like? What policies does the platform include? What special benefits will whites get if its successful? Tha’s a big question for me.
I wonder how white solidarity is going to work (and succeed) as a poliitcal movement because the white guys who push on it on X have managed to alienate a white guy like me who might otherwise have quite a bit in common with them. If politics is about coalition building, and their goal is to build a coalition of white people, I think they’re off to a bad start. I’m far, far to the right of the normies and yet hardly anyone (yourself excepted) is capable of anything other than insulting those they disagree or posting stock Stone Choir reponses (like dictionary screenshots) that don’t really answer the questions being raised.
As a pastor (in fact as a Christian), I believe I must be concerned with the “ought” and not just with power. Power is not morally neutral, and God is not gentle with those who use it for self-serving ends. There are good and bad ways to use power. I want Christians to have power and I want them to weild that power Christianly, but the question is: what does that mean? I will not settle for being a mere pragmatist. I believe the view I am articulating arises out of Scripture and is consonant with the best of the Christian political tradition. I just cannot get a racial identity politics (with all the partiality that would entail) out of anything in Scripture.
I think it’s disingenuous to suggest Trump is actually doing a covert version of white identity politics when many in the Trump administration have openly denied that (Trump himself, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, Bond, etc.). Yes, Trump courted the (mostly white) deplorables but this whole discussion is about framing, and Trump never, ever used racilalist framing. The left tried to paint him as a racist and as a white supremacist but they could only do so by lying. The one thing Trump definitely did not do is race-based identity politics. Just the opposite in fact.
One thing I’ve seen online is guys say we can’t stop with just deporting illegal immigrants — we should deport people who are here legally, who may have even been here for generations, but who have darker skin and don’t have a western European heritage. I just don’t see how that would ever be feasible (or just), but is that the kind of thing that you would advocate for? How far does this go?
Finally, it seems that you are conceding to white identity politcs because it has a sense of inevitability — it may not be for the best but its going to happen so we need to go along with it or we will not have creditability when the white supremacists are in power. Maybe I lack imagination, but I have a hard time seeing how the white nationalists are going to go from anonylous X accounts to running the country that quickly. What’s the playbook here? What am I missing? Outside of what seem to be fringe X accounts, I just do not encounter this with anyone in real life and I pastor a decent sized church, am well connected in my wider community of suburban Birmingham, have close conservative/Christian friends all over the country, etc.
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Another response:
It sounds like you are saying there are no universal political principles that can be drawn from Scripture or nature/natural law to solve social and political problems. That’s quite a claim if so.
That’s why I really don’t think this is *Christian* nationalism. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s nationalism anymore either – it just sounds like racial tribalism in an amoral power struggle. As I have understood it, Christian nationalism is a political philosophy/theology in which the Christian faith supplies the general religious framework (moral, cultural, etc.), including the absolute principles that guide a just use of power, for a particular nation. You seem to be talking about something quite different. I want to know where you are getting your “oughts,” even if they are contextual and not universal. Where does my obligation to do anything come from if there are no universals/absolutes?
Universal principles do not have to equate with some kind of utopian scheme or ideology or “ final solution.” Augustine, Aquinas, the Reformers, and the founding fathers all believed in universal political principles without becoming utopian. Those principles were crucial to their view of the common good. Indeed, many of the universal principles I’d want to advocate for in the public square are decidedly anti-utopian, eg, the circumstances under which civil disobedience/resistance is justified. Universal principles no doubt get applied in different ways in different times and places – this is as true at the personal level as the political level. In that sense there is no one size fits all universal solution that will look the same everywhere. But solving particular problems will still rely on universal principles, wisely and contextually applied.
I would guess our political agenda does overlap a good bit, eg, I think the principle of free association is a good one. But I need to know more about the legal/political alternative to colorblindness. (Reminder: we are not here talking about private preferences but public policy. I’m not colorblind in my private life.) For example, I don’t want any racial group getting special favors in a court of law. You may say that’s impossible because everyone is tribalistic; you may think I am out-grouping my own in-group; you may think this is a utopian ideology. But this is just simple justice. Partiality in court is forbidden.
It’s important to remember we never actually tried colorblindness as a society. The civil rights movement did not level the praying field; it tilted it in the other direction. We basically went from Jim Crow to affirmative action – from one extreme to the other. The black identity politics of affirmative action and welfare (LBJ’s Great Society) created a sense of entitlement/victimhood, a system with built-in partiality, etc. I would like to not only dismantle affirmative action/DEI, but the welfare state as well. The whole thing is utterly corrupt.
In terms of identity politics, remember, feminism is just a form of tribalism too. You want whites to organize as an identity group the same way women have. You say that colorblindness is parallel to feminism but I think you have it backwards. Feminism has all kinds of parallels with racial identity politics. It’s just a matter of which identity group you decided to ally with in order to get special favors/power. I think whatever time is spent trying to get whites as whites to organize into a political identity group would be better spent trying to get women to stop doing it. All identity politics results in Balkanization – a war of all against all. It’s us the politics of social destruction.
To continue the parallel: for years, I’ve heard that men were going to organize into a political identity group to counter feminism and try to level the playing field in family court, tax breaks for women owned businesses, etc. It really hasn’t happened. And that despite the fact that men really are victims of injustice.
If whites become a minority and other racial groups gang up on us with explicitly anti-white policies, sure, I’d expect people to fight back. But that’s just being defensive; it’s not a positive vision for politics going forward. I still think it’s going to be hard to find enough issues that all (or most) whites agree on so that we can have a true white identity politics. Whites in America are very divided religiously and politically. A white identity politics assumes we can figure out how to get along – a big assumption.
The church is the true and new Babel – and the church will be unstoppable when she has that kind of unity, rooted in truth. I agree, we cannot politically impose this kind of unity on a multiracial, largely non-Christian society (though the unity and catholicity of the church should certainly have public and political influence). But I do not think rejecting racial partiality in our political and legal system IN ANY WAY equates with trying to build a modern Babel. Babel was not about colorblindness.
Finally, you seem to think that racial tribalism and violence are inevitable and so we should get out in front of it by having a more mature white identity politics than the crazies on X. Ok, I can see why you’d want to go that way given your predictions about the future (and I’m not here disputing the possibilities of racial violence – I agree that’s possible if not probable, especially if people keep agitating for racial identities). But I am fine with just letting crazy people stay marginalized. I don’t want to mainstream them in any way. I don’t need to find a slot for them in whatever political movement I am part of. I see no need to “get out in front of them” so more moderate and sane white identity voices can prevail. Crazy is as crazy does. Like I said, I’m reasonably happy with how MAGA is doing things – it’s far from perfect but I do think it’s doing more real world good than anything else from the right in a long, long time. It has a place for many things I care about and has provided many Christians with a way of exercising real political power for good. If MAGA morphs into white identity politics in my lifetime, I will deal with that when it happens. But I’m not going to overhaul my view of what Christian nationalism should be based on black-pilled guesses about the future. There are so many other factors that will play into want MAGA becomes that have nothing to do with the race issue and might be far more significant – especially the male/female gender divide, the potential for AI to disrupt the economy, the out of control deficit, tensions in other parts of the world that might involve us even if we don’t want them to, etc. I just can’t invest in white identity politics and see no reason to. I’ll stick with MAGA and patriotism over white identity politics.
Again, thanks for the conversation.
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From another round of discussion:
We have different uses of the term “colorblindness.” You think the term must mean that race must be ignored in every facet of life. I’ve never argued that. I’m just talking about the legal aspect – the way race relates to matters of justice. People can have whatever preferences they want when it comes to personal lives and relationships. Like you, I am in favor of reworking the civil rights regime in order to re-establish free association. So make that the cause, the movement, the stated goal: not a white identity politics, but free association.
Businesses should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, and religion if they want to. Perhaps there should be exceptions to that, eg, not denying people life saving services and a few other things, but businesses should be able to hire and transact with whoever they want. But, again, this is the important point: arguing for free association is *very different* from arguing for white identity politics (the content of the matter is still largely empty). Framing matters. I would urge men like yourself to drop the racial component and just make the case for free association. You’ll get libertarians, theonomists, natural law types, conservative blacks, plus lots of normies onboard arguing for free association. You will alienate normies if you frame it in terms of race (for good reason). And you’ll run into a host of other problems that are counter-productive. This has been my argument all along. You say, “My belief is that both forced segregation and forced desegregation can use racial strife.” I agree. So keep race out of it altogether and focus on matters of principle – like free association. Free association is a matter of freedom – and what’s more American than that?!
I actually don’t think racial identity politics is the way people align in real life. What happens to black conservatives? Other blacks view them as traitors. Thye’re not *really* black, even though they’re black. Black skin is actually not enough to belong to the “club.” You have to vote a certain way – it really comes down to ideology. Even for blacks, ideology is more important than race. Likewise with whites. The only thing preventing whites from collective action is white people – the biggest oppressors of white people and the biggest proponents of white guilt are white. Whites cannot collectivize because they are ideologically divided and the ideology is more important than shared skin color. The way I get treated by white anons on X shows it’s about ideology more than skin color.
Think about history: Most wars have fought between people who shared the same skin color. The American Civil War was fought mainly by whites against other whites. It was about ideology. Race was not a strong enough basis for peace. WW1 and WW2 (at least in the European theater) were fought by whites against other whites, with lines drawn ideologically. Wars on the continent of Africa have been black on black. Shared race is not enough to keep the peace. The same is true in America’s inner cities where most violence is racially homogenous, not racially mixed. Girard is helpful here — the deepest and most hostile rivalries are “sibling” rivalries. It is sameness that breeds contempt, not difference. This is not to say that in a fallen world racial tensions, rivalries, and war will not manifest themselves — they do, especially when different races are forced to live side by side against their will. But the idea that racial homogeneity somehow ensures social peace is a lie based on historical ignorance. And the gospel has had enough success reconciling people of different races over the last 2000 years (going back to the earliest apostolic churches, which were often racially and ethnically diverse) that we should not act as if racial differences make community impossible.
One last thing – the CRM did NOT create a colorblind society, it tilted society in favor of special treatment for minorities, and eventually any “victimized” group. Caldwell summarized the damage this has done. And it needs to be undone. On that we definitely agree (and I’ve said as much in this app and elsewhere for a long time).
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Suppose our political goals are the following:
- drastic reduction in federal and state level bureaucracy and regulation, including drastic reduction in welfare programs
- downsize the civil rights regime to allow for free association, including ending all DEI quotas, Affirmative Action, Title 9, etc.
- Slow legal immigration and deport illegal Immigrants
I like all of these goals. The government at every level is way too swollen. We must end the managerialism and bureaucracy that eviscerate accountability and we must get back to real leadership and responsibility. We should downsize the regulatory burden on American companies so they can be more competitive. DOGE has made some steps in this direction but many more need to be taken.
We need to move education and hiring practices back to a (color blind) meritocracy. Let companies hire who they want. Let companies pay a man a family wage if they want. Recover and defend free association.
I would add: We need more family friendly policies all the way around. We need to undo the sexual revolution, including Obergefell and no-fault divorce. We need more equitable divorce courts and family courts that won’t scare man from marrying and that won’t incentivize women to end marriages.
Reining in immigration is hard because hospitality to immigrants is built into the American DNA at this point. But deporting illegals is a very popular position and Trump should continue to push through legal obstacles to get it done. Removing illegals will take burdens off our social services, loosen the job market (hopefully Americans will take up the slack), and bring real estate costs down.
But note: NONE is this agenda requires any expressions of racial anger or animosity. None of it requires racial framing or “white nationalism.” The entire agenda can be carried out in the name of justice and the rule of law. Theonomists and natural law guys should be able to get onboard with this agenda and work together on it. Nothing in this agenda requires us to scapegoat the Boomers or adopt certain conspiracy theories about the Jews. We can work towards these things without any such distractions.
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The only institution that will benefit from racialized politics (or a “race war”) is the state. Nothing will grow the state’s power and control faster than a race war or widespread racial violence. Identity politics turns into a war of all against all. It separates political power from justice — something Christians should be very sensitive to.
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Here is an older string of X posts relavant to the question of nationalism, ordo amoris, etc:
The gospel creates unity amongst all believers; the gospel unites all who are in Christ into one people, one family, one nation. Jesus prays for the unity of his people to be manifested in the world (John 17), and that oneness is always a spiritual reality, even if our sin sometimes obscures it. There is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, as the creed says. This oneness means all believers are part of the same body; catholicity means this one church is universal, embracing all believers in all times and places. The gospel includes the reconciliation of different nations and people groups in Christ (Eph. 2:11ff), with the result that nations can beat their swords into plowshares (Isa. 2).
1/7
We must also affirm that the gospel does not annihilate creational or providential structures like distinct families and nations, but rather sanctifies them. The gospel does not obliterate the distinction between my household and the other households that make up the membership of my local church. The gospel links us together in Christ but does not negate the integrity of each natural family. My household continues to be a real household, even as my household is incorporated into the larger household of God.
2/7
Likewise, the gospel does not negate nationalities. Nations in a group of Christianized nations would each retain their own unique identity (language, borders, culture), even as those nations are linked together in a wider network of nations we’d call Christendom. Yes, a group of Christianized and discipled nations will share many things in common because of their common submission to Christ, but they will also bring their *peculiar* treasures into Christ’s kingdom (Isa. 60).
3/7
In other words, Christendom – a collection of Christian nations – is not the same kind of program we see with secular globalism today. Indeed, it is fundamentally antithetical to it. The gospel does not destroy cultures but sanctifies and transforms them. Globalism dehumanizes; the gospel rehumanizes. Globalism destroys diversity for the sake of unity; the gospel sanctifies diversity for the sake of unity. Globalism is totalitarian; the gospel is liberating.
4/7
Within a Christian nation, the gospel will serve as the foundation of civil unity. A Christian nation, after all, is a people who seek to share not just temporal goods but the eternal good of Christ’s kingdom. A Christian nation is not a nation in which every individual is a Christian, but a nation that is committed to conforming its corporate life, it social customs, its laws and culture, to the rule of Christ as much as possible, recognizing that civil government, the church, and the family each have their own spheres and their own roles to play.
But this does not mean that two Christian nations will become identical any more than two Christian families are identical. The same principles and truths can be worked out and applied in various ways. A Christian nation is simply a nation that recognizes the truths that Christ is Lord, the church is his bride, and the Bible is his Word.
5/7
Note that Pentecost in Acts 2 is not the reversal of Babel but the sanctification of Babel. At Pentecost, the various ethnicities do not revert to speaking one language (= Babelic globalism) but rather each hears the gospel in his own tongue (= distinct Christian nations). The point of Pentecost is not to recreate the Babelic situation, where all of humanity is smushed together into one people with one language. Rather, the point of Pentecost is to bring about the transformation of those nations downstream from Babel. History never goes backwards, it only goes forwards, and Petencost does not undo Babel but take the gospel to the nations formed in the aftermath of a Babel. The point is not for all of humanity to speak one language again, but for the gospel to be spoken in a multitude of languages.
6/7
There is a kind of global oneness promised in the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12) and reiterated in other texts (Isaiah 2, Psalm 2, Daniel 4, etc.), and of course these promises undergird the church’s Great Commission. But the discipling of the nations does not eradicate nations, it just transforms and sanctifies them. The Great Commission does not make us faceless, placeless “global citizens.” Rather, the it makes each nation Christian in a distinctive way. Thus: the Christianization of China makes the Chinese more fully and uniquely Chinese; the Christianization of Brazil will make Brazilians more fully and uniquely Brazilian; the Christianization of Canada will make Canadians more fully and uniquely Canadian; etc. The eschatological vision for the nations is one of unity *and* diversity, of many unique people groups joined together as one in Christ, with the oneness and manyness equally ultimate.
7/7
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A modified/expanded series of X posts on race, nation, ordo amoris – from March 2025:
God judges nations as nations. And he does not judge races as races.
Races are not covenantal entities the way nations are. Nations, like families, have heads so they have covenantal representation. That’s not true of races. Obviously there some nations in the world today that are monoracial. But there are no races (I am aware of) that are mononational. In sum: Race is a biological category. Nation is a covenantal category.
Many nations, from ancient Israel to modern America, are not strictly genetic (eg, there is no common ancestor from which all Americans descend, which is why we use the term “founding fathers” in a symbolic, metaphorical sense). National identities can be fluid, so that it’s possible to have a multiracial nation. Of course, in mega-nations (empires) this is even more true. That’s just an empirical fact about the world – just as empirical as the existence of biological groups we call “races.”
Nations the size of the US could be considered empires with a variety of ethnicities. Think of the Apostle Paul’s multi-layered ideneity: He was a citizen of the Roman Empire. He was also a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, etc. Then he became a Christian. He had an imperial identity as a Roman, an ethnic identity as a Jew, and a religious identity as a Christian. Of course, it was the Christian identity that was most fundamental and that shaped the way he viewed the other layers of his identity.
If wde think of American as an empire, then hyphenated identities make snese: African-Ameircan, Irish-American, etc. Alternatively, we could say that America is a nation, and therefore “American” is an ethnicity. Within that ethnicity, there are various subethnicites (and subcultures) that connect with race, region, etc. I like the latter way of looking at America better.
Where do races come from and in what way do they matter? It’s hard to see how Noah’s sons constitute different races in a biological sense. This deserves a longer answer, but I’d say his sons founded nations which eventually, providentially, morphed into various races. Genesis 10 gives a table of 70 nations, not races.
Given what we know of Abraham’s household, the original Hebrews were 1/319th Abrahamic genetically. Even when Israel became a more formal nation-state, Israel was not a pureblood nation. Israel was multi-racial from the start (Exodus 12:38). That may not seem like a “proper” nation, but God does not seem too concerned with our ideas of propriety a lot of the time.
The blood “purity” of the nation of Israel was again in the 40 years of wilderness wandering as the mixed multitude of Exodus 12:38 got incorporated into the nation as a whole. (This was typological of the 40 year period from 30 to 70AD when the mixed multitude of Gentiles were incorporated into the new Israel. If blood purity was the key, surely the Messiah would be a pure blood. And yet we can see from Jesus’ genealogies that he was not. But the fact that Jesus had a mixture of Gentile and Abrahamic blood in his veins pointed to the reality that his blood was shed for all peoples.)
Also, consider Exodus 21:1-6. The “homeborn” slave has his ear opened/circumcised on the doorpost and basically becomes a full member of the family. Adoption is a sign of the fluidity of the “natural” family. Nations can “adopt” outsiders too. Israel – the model nation – certainly did this. One reason Jesus and Paul challenge the extreme “blood” identity politics of the Jews in their day is because it was a real shift away from how Israel operated when Torah was being kept. In Romans 4, Paul makes quite a big deal out of Abraham’s twofold fatherhood – he is the father both the circumcised and uncircumcised who have faith. Abraham was justified by faith while he was still a Gentile, prior to be circumcised.
There is no doubt that most nations through history have a common ancestry. That’s an empirical fact. But the Bible shoots a lot of holes into the idea that such shared blood ancestry is absolutely necessary. And most nations, at least healthy and viable nations, end up incorporating at least some who are not direct blood relatives. And, of course, pushing blood ancestry too hard undoes nationalism altogether, because we all descend from Adam (and Noah).
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