Too many white, evangelical leaders have bought into a lie. The lie being that Christian nationalism is in itself a bad thing. The idea of an identifiable nation-state grounded by and governed in accordance with Christian moral values and duties has become to many Evangelicals the equivalent of all things abjectly wicked: chattel slavery, the KKK, Hitler, the music of Vanilla Ice, etc. But, unfortunately, these people are stupid. In fact, one might say they are “useful idiots” of a certain type. They represent those who buy into various straw-mannish critiques of Christian Nationalism, yet without considering what really are the alternatives to a Christian nation, or to nationalism more broadly.
I realize my rhetoric may sound harsh. May God forgive me if I am being overly judgmental, or if I am judging in the wrong way (John 7:24). But judge we must. After all, Jesus, who last time I checked was still God, commanded us to do so. This judging can include calling out a certain type of stupidity. This is especially the case if it is a stupidity which is divisive to the faith delivered, once and for all, and to human flourishing in general. Moreover, without judging, how can we expect to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of “discipling the nations?” (Matt 28:16-20) Can one really disciple a nation without also making a case for how that nation should be properly governed? In spite of all the Church’s historical failures (and there are many), the principle of the magisterial Reformers still holds true. If man is to be governed at all, then let it be through the basic precepts of the Christian religion and not in accordance with his own wild speculations and base desires.
But the stupidity I am speaking about has to be distinguished from raw intelligence or the lack thereof. Dietrich Bonhoeffer identified in the German people of his day (including the church’s leaders at the time), a kind of stupidity that is independent of raw intelligence. Nevertheless, it is a stupidity which supports evil and, in doing so, is itself a kind of evil. This stupidity is, in one sense, worse than the malice spawned by those at the top of society’s food chain. It is not evil in its essence but in its effect.
As such, I hope a little stark language, albeit never obscene language, is justified given the current state of affairs and the battle in which we find ourselves. In suggesting that some of my brothers may be stupid, I recognize I may find myself liable to the supreme council (Matt 5:22). But, given I am a Protestant, the ambiguity of who the council actually is makes it easier to go ahead with the critique of stupidity. In the end, I am not really going after the person him or herself. Rather I am pointing out a noetic effect of sin that we all can manifest.
Bonhoeffer On Stupidity
Stupidity, Bonhoeffer writes, in playing a supporting role to evil, “is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.” Malice, unlike stupidity, can “be protested against” and “exposed,” and, if need be, “prevented with force.” But one cannot protest, at least not much or very directly, the stupid person. One can try to expose the stupid in their dullness of mind, but the stupid have abandoned reason for the sake of a poetic narrative (or “poetic truth” as Shelby Steele calls it). They have exchanged reason for an emotional drama and, as such, they are irrational. The lie they have imbibed, which has consumed them, possesses an emotional appeal that overwhelms any lack of logical substance or factual basis. The stupid have jettisoned rationality for a cultural story, one which is essentially rhetorical and a blatant embellishment of the truth. Bonhoeffer says that when it comes to stupidity like this, “we are defenseless [against it].”
This stupidity, he goes on, does not necessarily have to do with intellect. There are many who are intellectually “remarkably agile,” yet still stupid. This intellectually gifted yet stupid person acts like a drone, and no matter how many facts are presented to the contrary, he boldly holds on to the “slogans” or “catchwords” that have “taken possession of him.” This stupidity has more to do with human nature in general than with IQ. People are either “made stupid” or they “allow [stupidity] to happen to them.” In America this making stupid comes mainly through education.
Propaganda and The Educated
Konrad Kellen, writing the introduction to Jaques Ellul’s classic treatise on propaganda, confirms Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the stupid person, who is often quite intellectual. It is the educated intellectual who becomes the primary target for and vehicle of propaganda:
A related point, central in Ellul’s thesis, is that modern propaganda cannot work without “education”; he thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. On the contrary he says, education, or what usually goes by that word in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda.
Ellul is clear in his analysis: the “intellectual” is the most vulnerable in society to modern propaganda. Kellen summarizes Ellul’s reasons for thinking so:
1) they [intellectuals] absorb the largest amount of secondhand, unverifiable information; 2) they feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information; 3) they consider themselves capable of ‘judging for themselves.’
Thomas Sowell, in an interview on his book, Intellectuals and Society, corroborates Ellul’s analysis, especially points 2 and 3 (10.00 – 20.00 roughly), coming roughly to the same conclusions as the Frenchman. Sowell presses the issue of intellectuals and the unrecognized errors of their ways, arguing that it is their public role as “intellectuals” that forces them into so many mistakes in judgment. Sowell points out that these public intellectuals have a “huge ego stake” in their theories.
Being confident in their own powers of intellection, and desiring to safeguard their societal roles, they are unwilling to entertain evidence that contradicts their views. Further, as “public intellectuals,” (a relatively recent social category in the history of human affairs), they feel they must pronounce on every domain of human life. This is how they stay relevant and powerful in the eyes of the culture they claim to serve. Finally, this intellectual class is driven by novelty. They are progressives in character and disposition because to acquiesce to something like past wisdom or prior modes of thought would be to diminish their identity as the truly smart ones in society.
The Ego and The Intellect
To highlight the tragic role of intellectuals in modern history, Sowell relates an anecdote of when he asked tongue-in-cheek a former colleague, “why in the midst of every great disaster does there always seem to be a Harvard man in the middle of it?” His colleagued simply concurred with the observation. Perhaps it wasn’t so tongue-in-cheek after all (15.45-16.30). The need to be seen as an intellectual and remain relevant to the broader culture thus engenders an academic culture that views itself as inoculated against error. But the issue is ironically not one of intellect itself, it is an issue of character. It is a stupidity born not of the mind per se, as Bonhoeffer suggested, but one that finds its home, as C.S. Lewis argued, in the chest.
How many such intellectuals, men of great “intellectual agility,” were found in the upper echelon’s of Hitler’s Reichstag or Stalin’s politburo? What Bonhoeffer spoke of briefly in his letter from prison, at a time when it really mattered, Ellul and Sowell have since confirmed with penetrating analysis. As an example, one might consider the linguist, Noam Chomsky (who Sowell also references in the interview). Chomsky is a typical, contemporary intellectual of this sort. Qua linguist, Chomsky was a brilliant thinker, developing and advancing the field of inquiry in rich and important ways. As a political philosopher, let alone a metaphysician, he was, or still is, a rather inept expositor. But it is the stupid among us that put stock in, and support, the grand theories proffered by these so-called intellectuals of our times. After all, we say to ourselves, they are the truly knowledgeable ones– the real “experts.”
This is one reason why we now see a growing resistance to false narratives about free markets, race or gender being challenged mainly by the middle and lower economic and educated classes. Grand lies never have their origin among the people. The am-Ha’aretz might lie like the rest of society, but they don’t invent massively counterintuitive theories to try to explain, or undermine, the reality they smack up against every day. Large-scale, bloviated falsities always originate in the offices and conference rooms of the so-called “intellectual elite.” The most stupid people, therefore, usually being the upper-middle class, college educated and culturally influential who support those elites.
The people of the land often possess a more finely-tuned common sense than the upwardly mobile and pseudo-educated in society. It is why someone like Bill Maher can make this joke about the difference between Los Angelinos and Ohioans, and it is both ironic and funny. This dynamic of an intellectual elite that is supported by an upper-middle class “mini-elite,” is something that men of real genius (and integrity) like Thomas Sowell have highlighted in detail for decades. It is also why men with little formal education, like Matt Walsh, can walk into the offices of the formally “educated” and make them look like fools. But scarier than even the “gender studies” professor at Berkely or Yale, is the compromised man or woman on the street who tacitly supports them. This is where the real battle lies. How many of us average folks will allow ourselves to be made stupid by our intellectual superiors?
Cue the Average White, Evangelical Pastor
One of the most despicable lies that has been imbibed by dumb, white Evangelicals is the one proffered by advocates of Critical Race Theory and “social justice.” The stupidity that otherwise intelligent Evangelical Christians, especially pastors, have displayed in misunderstanding both the “theory” of Critical Race Theory or the “justice” of Critical Social Justice movements is breathtaking. Moreover, there is little that other Christians can do about this stupidity. As Bonhoeffer points out, it is not as if this stupidity can be combatted with force– it is not that kind of evil. Nor can it really be protested against, except to write against it (as so many have attempted to do). In being irrational, yet also incapable of being opposed concretely, stupidity becomes more dangerous than the evil itself. In military terms, stupidity acts as a “force multiplier” to evil, all the while remaining distinct from the evil itself.
And so the typical, white Evangelical pastor becomes a prime target for the speculative theories of the Harvard, Yale, UCLA and Columbia academic. That is not a random list of schools, by the way. Christian Parents may want to look into from where the sociology professors at their local Christian university earned their terminal degrees; especially before dispensing $45k a year for a “Christian” education. Moreover, every Marxist worth his or her socialist salt knows that to infiltrate religious institutions is critical to the success of any cultural revolution. First, compromise the church’s historic doctrines, then, or so the theory goes, watch them fade out of existence.
In short, to do real damage in culture, cue up the average, white, pseudo-educated, middle class Evangelical pastor and make him a mouthpiece for your moral vision. Their stupidity becomes the much needed “fifth column” in the maniacal push to usher in the next, great dystopian future. To be fair, this tactic can cut both ways. That is why conservative Christians must understand what it means to be conservative, both in our biblical theology and in our political theory. Here is a good start in how to discern the proper relationship between the two, and here too.
White or Black Christian Nationalism?
In this Hoover Institution interview with three leading, black scholars: Robert Woodson, Glenn Loury and Ian Rowe, we see the articulation of what I think could justifiable be called “Black Christian Nationalism.” Without knowing the explicit religious beliefs of any of the spokesmen, there are nevertheless three easily recognizable themes that run throughout the interview: the nature and importance of the traditional, nuclear family; the admiration and defense of the founding principles of the American Republic; and the importance of local communities, especially communities of faith (specifically of Christian churches) as they support the overarching national project.
What is interesting to me about the views of these three black scholars, is that they greatly mirror the common sense views of the little church I happen to attend; a predominantly non-white, lower middle class church in LA County, where the average level of education is a high school diploma. A church that, one might say, has been trained in the “school of hard knocks,” not the school of “gender studies” at nearby UCLA or far-off Yale.
Traditional family structures, founding political and moral principles and the centrality of religious faith in stabilizing communities. If this doesn’t sound like “Christian Nationalism,” then I don’t know what does. In reality, this is nothing different than what any non-compromised, white Evangelical pastor or theologian would identify as “Christian Nationalism.” The only real difference is here the view is being articulated and espoused by conservatives who happen to be black (both biologically and socially black).
If these three men were white, they would most certainly be labelled as dreaded “White, Christian Nationalists,” mainly by their liberal, white peers or low-level race hustlers. Their views would be associated immediately with those historic paradigms of evil mentioned above, with the exception perhaps of Vanilla Ice. They would be driven out of the public square or, at least, the attempt would be made. We know how this socio-p0litical game is played now, and really we should stop trying to play by its rules. If we do not recognize this game and see it for what it is, we fall into the trap of Bonhofferian stupidity.
What to Do About Black Christian Nationalism?
But we could play by the rules of the game, I suppose, and still come out on the right side of history. And so, given the rules of the critical theory game, it is my opinion that those of us who defend “Christian Nationalism,” yet who happened to be of European descent, should simply affirm the Black Christian Nationalism of Woodson, Loury and Rowe (my term, not theirs). Of course, we understand this is simply a pragmatic move. We know that the real battle is not between blacks or whites at all. We also know that no white person has to punt to black scholars to make his point, just as no black person has to punt to white scholars to make his. Truth is truth, after all, and standpoint epistemology is dead on the vine as a theory of truth.
The real battle is simply between conservatives and progressives, regardless of skin color, social background or ethnic origin. And no, saying this does not deny real racism in the culture (just a note to my favorite commentators, you know who you are). The genuine conflict is one of visions (to paraphrase Sowell). It is between two fundamentally different views of human persons. It is a conflict between those who relish in seeing themselves as intellectuals and who see their powers of intellect as the key to saving mankind from itself; and those who humble their intellects before the transcendent source of mind itself, and who also are willing to bow the knee to the wisdom of the past, even the distant past.
In conclusion, let me be the first to say, that whatever the view is that Loury, Woodson and Rowe are promoting, whether we could reasonably call it “Black Christian Nationalism” or not, count me in! Especially if we add to this trifecta of faith, founding principles and family, the pro-life advocacy of black thought leaders like Mildred Jefferson and Alveda King, then this just is the vision of American society I try to promote on this blog. Further, it is a far more accurate articulation of the kind of society I want my kids to grow up in, than the mind-numbing garbage being promoted in any woke, white Evangelical church. Thus, in affirming the vision of these men and women, I affirm “Black Christian Nationalism.” This is exactly the kind of Christian Nationalism I embrace. In doing so, I think I have a good chance of avoiding the stupidity of our times.
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