I can understand Aaron's argument - that certain ideas won't play in America - in the abstract. But, frankly speaking, the application leaves me a bit dumbfounded. If the examples of presidents "refreshing our institutions to address new challenges" equate to upending the constitutional order, which indeed Lincoln and Roosevelt did, then why would anything be off the table?
Having of late discovered the work of Christian and historian David Barton, and before that deeply moved to get active locally in politics here in suburban Phoenix because of Pastors like Rob McCoy, Rick Brown, Voddie Baucham, and writers and pod casters like Eric Metaxas, it certainly seems that the Author enjoys all the fruits of a warm comfortable den to do his heavy contemplations, because he doesn't appear to have spent much time lately in the mean streets or the soup kitchen of any major American city recently.
Not at least since George Bush was doing his pedestrian routine on conservative compassion in New Orleans. Does this new secular barb of a name interfere with your advanced pursuit of Bridge Playing or Crypto investment? Just what wart on your fanny prompted these sagacious distinctions?
And given that since we lost Reagan to Demetia and the nation found itself saddled with the Bush Dynasty, a disaster that arrived with the beginning of the precipitous decline of middle class opportunity, an opportunity likewise battered by another dynasty - the Clintons which followed - whose willingness to sell this country short (as recognized by both Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot) only accelerated once he welcomed China into the WORLD TRADE ORG - and as Trump proved and Steve Bannon continues to elucidate to the nations favor, just how much pain, misery and back to the seventies inflation and insane spending - all due to the unnecessary de-industrializing of America under the ruse of 'free trade' and the unimaginable THEFT of our country into the coffers of privileged few -just what do you need to convince a time out off the hobby horse?
What 'double downs' are you considering? Another 10 trillion in debt by this time next year? Or just plain stupid? Or that Israel loses its first war due in part to the likes of these feckless idiots helping Obama re-establish his fetish that Persia get its just historical props?
Simply put. I don't have any idea what hour you believe we're living in. And as a Christian, what country.
What you fail to understand is Populism rising doesn't care what the coarse secularists on either side of the isle name us. We are going to save this country. With or without you brother.
Why not try and put AMERIFEST on your radar. It's only a little more than a month away. Try it. It just might cure your brain freeze.
The Distributist (Dave Greene) had a take I liked about a month ago and even mentioned yourself in it. It starts at 1:11:30 and goes to 1:43:30 I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOnsEGvgvpM&t=4290s
I’m not sure what Christian Nationalism is despite all the attempts to describe it or deride it. But what I do take exception to is that we are not facing crises as bad as the Civil War or the Depression. This is not an apocalyptic scenario. Those crises were more overt while ours today is more insidious. Legalized infanticide (abortion) is the slavery issue of our time. But unlike slavery the Civil War and the resulting 14th Amendment brought the nation together. The Dobbs decision - while I applaud it - has and will continue to drive the states apart.
Legalized infanticide is the linchpin of the progressive left. As women are deluded into murdering their infants in the womb they have begun more unhinged from marriage and family. Men escape the responsibility of marriage and the sexes are pinned against each other. Sexual perversion is mainstream and is being institutionalized by law. Natural families are becoming rarer and is resulting in more civilization chaos. If this nation does survive it will be if we come to the realization that unborn babies are human beings that are protected by the Constitution.
If not, the nation will end not in a bang, but with a whimper.
I think I generally agree with Aaron's position. Which is to say, in spite of everything, I'm still ultimately some sort of conservative. It's better to conserve what is good about American tradition than to pursue some radical program that argues for tossing all of it, from Washington on down. And also, it just seems like bad politics to embrace a label that is both imprecise and essentially a smear.
Though definitions are critical here, and I think it behooves anyone entering into this debate to be extremely clear what he is supporting or opposing.
Initially, I believe the term was used largely to describe what you might think of as "MAGA Christianity," and some people still use it this way, epitomized by the image of Trump speaking at First Baptist Dallas, or various borderline-sacrilegious memes casting Trump as savior. Though prior to Trump, you might think of a Baptist church that celebrates the Fourth of July as if it were Christmas or Easter, festooning itself in US flags and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" among the hymns.
By the left's most expansive definition/slur, I think a Christian Nationalist is anyone right-of-center who argues for Christian values playing some role in the governance of the nation. By this definition, I would imagine Aaron is a Christian Nationalist, as am I, as, at one time, was David French. Most of us are reluctant to own the CN label by this definition, but we do want to be able to assert that, yes, our fundamental values DO inform our politics, and yes, there is very deep basis for this in American and Western tradition, and no, Current Year secular values are NOT rational or impartial.
Nowadays, internal to conservative Christianity, it seems the term is most often understood to apply to Wolfe's book and philosophy. Which, though I've only read reviews of it, apparently has a somewhat negative view of what I'm calling "MAGA Christianity." So it's not surprising that some people thought Aaron's piece was a direct reference to Wolfe. But as I understand it, it's still a sort of indirect reference to Wolfe, or at least those inclined to his general direction of thinking.
Because Christian nationalism is ONLY possible in the New Heavens and New Earth, when human sin no longer has a role. Otherwise, it is a manipulative pipe-dream of those that think that they are more wise, elite, pure than more common Christians. Essentially showing themselves to be infested with Pride, and Arrogance. Only God (at this point in time) can discern the true condition of someone's heart, and many are much better liars, deceivers than others, and as 2 Peter 2 warns against, the worst ones are the wolves among the sheep.
Why I Do Not Support Christian Nationalism
I can understand Aaron's argument - that certain ideas won't play in America - in the abstract. But, frankly speaking, the application leaves me a bit dumbfounded. If the examples of presidents "refreshing our institutions to address new challenges" equate to upending the constitutional order, which indeed Lincoln and Roosevelt did, then why would anything be off the table?
Having of late discovered the work of Christian and historian David Barton, and before that deeply moved to get active locally in politics here in suburban Phoenix because of Pastors like Rob McCoy, Rick Brown, Voddie Baucham, and writers and pod casters like Eric Metaxas, it certainly seems that the Author enjoys all the fruits of a warm comfortable den to do his heavy contemplations, because he doesn't appear to have spent much time lately in the mean streets or the soup kitchen of any major American city recently.
Not at least since George Bush was doing his pedestrian routine on conservative compassion in New Orleans. Does this new secular barb of a name interfere with your advanced pursuit of Bridge Playing or Crypto investment? Just what wart on your fanny prompted these sagacious distinctions?
And given that since we lost Reagan to Demetia and the nation found itself saddled with the Bush Dynasty, a disaster that arrived with the beginning of the precipitous decline of middle class opportunity, an opportunity likewise battered by another dynasty - the Clintons which followed - whose willingness to sell this country short (as recognized by both Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot) only accelerated once he welcomed China into the WORLD TRADE ORG - and as Trump proved and Steve Bannon continues to elucidate to the nations favor, just how much pain, misery and back to the seventies inflation and insane spending - all due to the unnecessary de-industrializing of America under the ruse of 'free trade' and the unimaginable THEFT of our country into the coffers of privileged few -just what do you need to convince a time out off the hobby horse?
What 'double downs' are you considering? Another 10 trillion in debt by this time next year? Or just plain stupid? Or that Israel loses its first war due in part to the likes of these feckless idiots helping Obama re-establish his fetish that Persia get its just historical props?
Simply put. I don't have any idea what hour you believe we're living in. And as a Christian, what country.
What you fail to understand is Populism rising doesn't care what the coarse secularists on either side of the isle name us. We are going to save this country. With or without you brother.
Why not try and put AMERIFEST on your radar. It's only a little more than a month away. Try it. It just might cure your brain freeze.
What we should pray for and work for is National Repentance.
The Distributist (Dave Greene) had a take I liked about a month ago and even mentioned yourself in it. It starts at 1:11:30 and goes to 1:43:30 I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOnsEGvgvpM&t=4290s
I’m not sure what Christian Nationalism is despite all the attempts to describe it or deride it. But what I do take exception to is that we are not facing crises as bad as the Civil War or the Depression. This is not an apocalyptic scenario. Those crises were more overt while ours today is more insidious. Legalized infanticide (abortion) is the slavery issue of our time. But unlike slavery the Civil War and the resulting 14th Amendment brought the nation together. The Dobbs decision - while I applaud it - has and will continue to drive the states apart.
Legalized infanticide is the linchpin of the progressive left. As women are deluded into murdering their infants in the womb they have begun more unhinged from marriage and family. Men escape the responsibility of marriage and the sexes are pinned against each other. Sexual perversion is mainstream and is being institutionalized by law. Natural families are becoming rarer and is resulting in more civilization chaos. If this nation does survive it will be if we come to the realization that unborn babies are human beings that are protected by the Constitution.
If not, the nation will end not in a bang, but with a whimper.
I think I generally agree with Aaron's position. Which is to say, in spite of everything, I'm still ultimately some sort of conservative. It's better to conserve what is good about American tradition than to pursue some radical program that argues for tossing all of it, from Washington on down. And also, it just seems like bad politics to embrace a label that is both imprecise and essentially a smear.
Though definitions are critical here, and I think it behooves anyone entering into this debate to be extremely clear what he is supporting or opposing.
Initially, I believe the term was used largely to describe what you might think of as "MAGA Christianity," and some people still use it this way, epitomized by the image of Trump speaking at First Baptist Dallas, or various borderline-sacrilegious memes casting Trump as savior. Though prior to Trump, you might think of a Baptist church that celebrates the Fourth of July as if it were Christmas or Easter, festooning itself in US flags and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" among the hymns.
By the left's most expansive definition/slur, I think a Christian Nationalist is anyone right-of-center who argues for Christian values playing some role in the governance of the nation. By this definition, I would imagine Aaron is a Christian Nationalist, as am I, as, at one time, was David French. Most of us are reluctant to own the CN label by this definition, but we do want to be able to assert that, yes, our fundamental values DO inform our politics, and yes, there is very deep basis for this in American and Western tradition, and no, Current Year secular values are NOT rational or impartial.
Nowadays, internal to conservative Christianity, it seems the term is most often understood to apply to Wolfe's book and philosophy. Which, though I've only read reviews of it, apparently has a somewhat negative view of what I'm calling "MAGA Christianity." So it's not surprising that some people thought Aaron's piece was a direct reference to Wolfe. But as I understand it, it's still a sort of indirect reference to Wolfe, or at least those inclined to his general direction of thinking.
Because Christian nationalism is ONLY possible in the New Heavens and New Earth, when human sin no longer has a role. Otherwise, it is a manipulative pipe-dream of those that think that they are more wise, elite, pure than more common Christians. Essentially showing themselves to be infested with Pride, and Arrogance. Only God (at this point in time) can discern the true condition of someone's heart, and many are much better liars, deceivers than others, and as 2 Peter 2 warns against, the worst ones are the wolves among the sheep.