Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 29:78 (Spring 2025)
Article: Christian Nationalism: Part IV, Its Strategy
Author: Gary E. Gilley

JODT 29:78 (Spring 2025) p. 7

Christian Nationalism: Part IV, Its Strategy

Gary E. Gilley

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

In a recent conversation between Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe, Wilson defined Christians as those following the Reformed/Protestant tradition, to which Wolfe mumbled agreement.1 While Wilson did not detail the biblical gospel, his point was that when they were using the term “Christian,” they described a redeemed, regenerated person, not merely a nominal or cultural “Christian.” However, in the literature and podcasts by Christian nationalists, this definition is not how the term is normally used. For example, in the conversation just mentioned, Wolfe repeatedly spoke of America as being a Christian nation, yet by no stretch of the imagination nor by any statistical gymnastics could America be described as a nation of redeemed people. Only approximately seven percent of the population identifies as evangelical, and every study and survey of evangelicals reveals an abysmal comprehension of the gospel by this most conservative subgroup of “Christians.” While it is impossible to know how many true Christians, by the biblical definition, there are in America, to claim that America is a Christian nation requires a very creative understanding of Christianity. Narrow that to those who embrace traditional Reformed orthodoxy and ascribe to the historical creeds, as Wilson does in the video, and that number becomes statistically minute.

Nevertheless, Torba and Isker claim that Christians are “the supermajority in The [sic] West.”2 Browsing through their book, Christian Nationalism, one soon discovers that the authors consider anyone claiming to be a Christian as being one, including Catholics, Orthodox, and Quakers,3

JODT 29:78 (Spring 2025) p. 8

despite vastly conflicting definitions of the gospel. In The Case for Christian Nationalism, Stephen Wolfe is perfectly content with cultural Christianity and would settle for Mayberry (a moral, decent people) as a sign of the Christianization of America. Cultural Christianity, he believes, “prepares people for the reception of the Gospel.”4 However, in a rather convoluted argument, Wolfe wrote, “paedobaptism is the position most natural to Christian nationalism. . . . [Why is this so? Because] baptizing infants brings them outwardly (at least) into the people of God. When the body politic is baptized all are the people of God.”