A Warning That Is Too Little, Too Late

Trevin Wax (click here for a bio) has recently written a blogpost for his blog on the Gospel Coalition website which tries to warn religiously conservative Christians about the emergence of new and threatening conservative political ideologies that go against the Scriptures. He describes these ideologies as revolving around racism and a rejection of globalism. And that Christians must reject these new conservative ideologies just as they reject new "leftist" and have rejected political liberalism (click here for the article).

Wax's article provides a warning that is too little, too late. It is too little because Wax does not show his full capabilities in his examination oft either past political approaches or the present ones. He doesn't show his full capabilities as he reviews Machen's struggles with liberalism. And he doesn't show his full capabilities in offering specific criticisms of either the new left or new right politics that he sees as posing a danger to Christians.

But his warning also comes too late. For he speaks about an emerging white nationalism that has been tied closely to Christianity because this white nationalism rejects what is politically liberal. But such a new white nationalism doesn't exist. Why? It isn't because white nationalism doesn't exist. It is because white nationalism is as old as the colonization of North America. Our nation's founding fathers, as well as those from the next few generations that followed them, were, for the most part, white supremacists. Even some who opposed slavery and Honest Abe himself were white supremacists (click here).

We could fast forward to the days of the Civil Rights Movement. Quite often, signs held by whites who opposed the Movement associated the Movement and integration with Communism. Some in our government were all too eager to accuse Martin Luther King Jr. of being a Communist. It was conservatives who made these accusations and conservative denominations opposed the Civil Rights Movement. Some of those conservative denominations, like the PCA and SBC, apologized decades later for their support for Jim Crow and resistance to the Civil Rights Movement. And we should note that the racism that Martin Luther King Jr. battled existed throughout the nation. He observed as much racism in the North as he did in the South. The racism was often exhibited in different ways, but it was there. So it should become clear that white nationalism is a bit older thanWax seems to give it credit for.

My own experience growing up in a religiously conservative Christian home in the Northeast saw such a subtle but clear association between political conservatism and white nationalism. The difference between then and now is that the term white nationalism, was not used in public like it is today.

So Wax's warning came too late for families like the one I grew up in. Of course, that is not Wax's fault, but it is the fault of his theological predecessors. And that starts with J. Gresham Machen.

There is no doubt that Machen contributed significantly to our ability to distinguish theological liberalism and theological conservatism. But the baggage that came with the distinctions caused the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater when it came to his reaction to liberalism. That is, not just theological liberalism was tossed aside by Machen's reaction to his denomination's rejection of him, much, if not all, of political liberalism was thrown away to because of the name of 'liberal' or 'liberalism.' In short Machen, like many who possess authoritarian personality types, embraced a black-white kind of thinking that prevented them from making distinctions between theological and political liberalism and from valid politically liberal positions from invalid ones. Thus, both theological and political liberalism was rejected by Machen and, from that, the roots of today's ties between conservative Christianity and conservative politics were planted.

We should note in Wax's article that it is appropriate to accept some forms of political conservatism. But he seems to say that all of political liberalism is viewed as a threat that must be rejected by today's religiously conservative Christians. And this is despite the fact that the Civil Rights Movement was not well supported by political conservatism.

There is one other problem with Wax's approach. Wax, he is a Christian transformationalist. And like other such transformationalists, he believes that Christians are called to change the culture. That Christians are expected to interject their values into society in order to Christianize them, in a sense. Such makes evangelism easier and helps humanity better able to flourish. But such an approach implies how we should share with others. For the transformationalist approach assumes that Christians should seek a privileged place in society in order to better interject, or force, Christian values onto society. This is to be done not just for the sake of evangelism, but out of a call for stewardship. For whatever reason, what is implied by transformationalism is a place of supremacy over society for Christianity so it can better influence society and help human life flourish under the best conditions.

But seeking that privileged place in society immediately rubs against the grain of those unbelievers who are woke. They are woke because they have seen, in history, other attempts by Christians to do the same. And those  attempts had very ugly sides to them. Though certainly the Church should play the role of a prophet in calling out the corporate sins of the state and society. To avoid seeking a place of supremacy in society, we religiously conservative Christians need to collaborate with our unbelieving fellow citizens as equals so as to forge a more just society. We cannot do such collaboration while seeking supremacy over others.

What follows from how we share society with others should be obvious. If we Christians seek some place of supremacy over others in society, we will be more inclined to be insular in what we observe and read about society. That is because our need for supremacy implies that we have a more pure view of people and politics and that view can be more easily contaminated when collaborating with unbelievers. If we share society with others as equals, then we will more readily recognize that not only do we have much to contribute to society, but that we have much to learn from others as well and that unbelievers have much to contribute to both society and ourselves.