“This is Christian Nationalism as articulated by the author of the most popular book arguing for it.”

Some more from

A democratic life is not the highest thing or the best thing. But as a way of living amongst our neighbors and seeking to live a life of conscience under the law, it is a very good thing. The Christian Nationalists, with their strong man politics, support for revolutionary violence, and obsession with racial solidarity would destroy all of that.

What worries me now, though, is not the Christian Nationalists themselves. Frankly, many of them are too reckless, undisciplined, and reactive to be able to accomplish the revolutionary change they seek. What worries me is that there are a great many socially conservative evangelical voters who love the democratic life who are constantly being called “Christian Nationalists” by the likes of Heidi Przybyla for believing things that are utterly unremarkable in Christian history. If our secular media outlets continue to tell them that “Christian Nationalism” is the belief in things virtually all Christians across history have believed, I fear they will listen. And they will find these ethno-nationalist totalitarian aspirants and, not realizing what they are doing, they will make common cause with them.

This is an important read. The fact that “Christian Nationalist” is being used pejoratively a lot by people unaware of Christian history doesn’t erase the fact that there is a very real and seriously damaging ideology that calls itself Christian Nationalism.

There are also more benign perspectives and sentiments that overlap with this CN, but overlap with an ideology on a few points is not a good reason to identify with it. Those with a little overlap ought to be the most active in distancing themselves from the parts that don’t overlap—rejecting these deeply problematic ideas and their advocates.

This is by now a very old play from the left to marginalize and isolate perceived threats by taking terms that nearly everyone agrees is bad due to historical grievances (e.g., racists, fascists, Nazis, CNs, etc.), then expanding the definition as much as possible to fit their targeted group (often Christian conservatives that held views everyone considered mainstream up until 5 minutes ago). It also attempts to shift the Overton window for socially acceptability.

For my part, I don't know if the best response to this is to aggressively separate ourselves from the term. I mean, that really hasn't worked at all up to this point. I feel like it's still playing into a game that has been strategic and disingenuous from the start. It also assumes there's some kind of neutral middle we need to convince, to the extent that one still exists that is even convincible.

I'm at the point where if someone wants to call me a "Christian nationalist" for holding to natural law, for example, I'll just shrug it off. And I'm not going to devote my energies to attacking Wolfe, or even reading him or his cronies (this is the most I've read of him, tbh), so I can clear myself of such charges.

If they're determined to apply the label to me, well, I won't apply it to myself. But I'm not going to spend time trying to shed or distance myself from it either.

In short, I'm not playing.

Did anybody use the label of themselves before the new right/alt right? It certainly wasn’t something active politicians and pundits claimed.

It doesn’t take much effort to say to someone who has conflated our views w/CN: “I’m opposed to CN. It’s a newer thing than what I’m talking about.”

(Of course religious nationalism is a really old thing, but we’re talking about a new movement on the right, mostly.)