Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 27:75 (Autumn 2023)
Article: Christian Nationalism: Part I, The Great Hibernation
Author: Gary E. Gilley

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Christian Nationalism:
Part I, The Great Hibernation

Gary E. Gilley

* Gary E. Gilley, M.B.S., Th.D., Pastor, Southern View Chapel, Springfield, Illinois

Christian attempts at hibernating from corrupt world systems, people, and governments are nothing new. From monasticism in post-apostolic times to utopian societies to cults to the new monasticism, Christians and others have sought protection throughout the years from tyranny, moral pollution, and governmental overreach. Today such is found in several overlapping movements including Christian Nationalism, the American Redoubt,1 Kingdom Now Pentecostals, and theonomy. The present series of articles will ultimately focus on the Pacific Northwest and the growing and influential Reconstructionist communities that emphasize not only hibernation but also ultimately rebuilding American society after a new order immersed in Old Testament Law. The best-known spokesman for this community is Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church and board member and professor at New St. Andrew College in Moscow, Idaho. Prior to examining Wilson and the American Redoubt in detail, it is necessary to identify and have (at least) a basic understanding of many links that connect and have led to this phenomenon.

Links To The Past

Monasticism

Perhaps the earliest attempts among Christians to separate from secular society can be found in the desert fathers and mothers. These hermits and ascetics lived primarily in the desert near Egypt beginning around the

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third century. Many of them became the spiritual heroes of the early church due to their dedicated ascetic lifestyles, claims of visions and miracles, and willingness to separate from all influences of sin and sinners. Later, during the Middle Ages, monasteries filled with monks and nuns followed in the hermits’ footsteps and embraced their pattern of living. The Reformers rejected monasticism, and it finally stopped existing within the Protestant church.

Puritans

Church History magazine had an issue devoted to the American Puritans. Concerning this seventeenth century movement, Gaustad wrote:

While some worked patiently to reform the church, moving it inch by inch and year by year, others gave up hope that such a political megachurch would ever change. So they separated from the national church to fashion a fellowship of their own, with the New Testament as their only guide. . . . The decade of the 1630s, producing what has been called the Great Migration, saw the population of Massachusetts Bay soar to nearly 9,000. . . . John Winthrop [the first governor in America] saw...