BENEATH SHEEP'S CLOTHING: A CAUTION REGARDING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALS NEED TO BE ON GUARD: OUR ENEMIES ARE TAKING NOTES

The old adage, “like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” is taken directly from Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount. One would think, with Jesus as ‘the author and finisher’ of the idiom, the notion of infiltrative forces subverting the Christian church with sinister ideologies would be met with less scorn. Unfortunately, in an evangelical church whose ethos seems to be “peace, peace, where there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14), the notion of a plot, a scheme, or a conspiracy appears to be a fanciful paranoia.

But the words of Christ are not the only witness of this danger. Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 2:4, “Professing to be Christians, they were really Jews of the narrowest sort, who only entered into the Church to spy into and restrict its liberties.”

Despite the wide swath of religious or irreligious diversity among those featured in Beneath Sheep’s Clothing, this would be the life verse of the film, if films had life verses. The two-part thesis is simple. First, Marxists have wildly infiltrated the American institutions just like they have in countless countries across the globe. Secondly, a recently proposed solution to stop the advance of progressivism in the United States, which appears well-intentioned, may in fact be a sinister but sophisticated scheme to to bring about their desired ends; an unimaginable transfer of power from individuals to the government, the wholesale persecution of Christians, and the eradication of their influence from public life.

The latter is a term known as Christian Nationalism. And as the documentary indicates, it may prove a challenge to convince well-meaning, conservative and relatively traditional Christians that the concept means something far more than simply having a Christian nation, or that the movement may indeed play into the hands of Christian enemies.

The filmmakers of Beneath Sheep’s Clothing did a thorough job addressing the inherent dangers of a one-world religion, a global economic system, and totalitarianism in the digital age. Starting with the historic roots of Marxist subversion in the West, including the origins of Social Justice, Liberation Theology, and public education, the documentary lines out what many of us already know; the devil is long-term planner. Looking at the historical roots of Marxist invasions through the lens of the American evangelical, from our perspective it is clear that plans which take one-hundred to two-hundred years to come to fruition are planned by a devil that doesn’t die, as mortals have short lifespans and shorter attention spans.

For example, many (especially our readers) are familiar with John Dewey, the father of the American public education system, who was a Trotskyite Communist. He very explicitly envisioned a public school system that would not educate, but indoctrinate children into becoming compliant to power, conforming to Communist ideals, and become cookie-cutter drone workers in the cogs of the industrial machine. Many (especially our readers) are familiar with Walter Raschenbusch, who decided to make up a new theology out of nothing but the dark recesses of his heart and cliff notes from Karl Marx, a new theology was designed to promote Social Justice rather than Jesus.

The documentary interviewees and experts recalled the universal outcome and ambition of Marxism, the eradication of Christianity, and Christians. Marx, after all, famously uttered the lines, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Marx confessed, “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above. My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism. The task is not just to understand the world but to change it.” 

Marx, if he weren’t already in torment, would be cackling mightily that Southern Baptists voted to affirm Critical Race Theory (which is explicitly and proudly a Marxist construct) as a “helpful analytical tool.” Apologists for shepherds who have sold out, like JD Greear’s ambassador, Neil Shenvi, have proven subsequently to be neither useful nor analytical on the subject, but certainly are tools.

HT Cody Libolt

It is enough to dismiss with great haste the opinions of men who assert that an ideology they acknowledge is “embedded in a deeply unbiblical worldview” is simultaneously a helpful tool to be used by Christians. It is also enough to dismiss such men as sloppily and unconvincingly working for the Kingdom of Darkness with far less subtlety than subversion usually calls for.

The historic realization of Marx’s dreams has always been the persecution of churches that profess to be Christian. As Beneath Sheep’s Clothing documents from persecution of the Orthodox Church in Russia during the Soviet era, Marx envisioned a world without Christians and his adherents always set about to make it a reality. In a worldview that makes man into a god, Yahweh must be cast down from Heaven and his throne occupied by a mortal. His followers must be forced to convert, because their worship of True God Almighty inevitably makes the demigods of our imagination pale by comparison. The first rule of business of any Marxist regime is the restriction of free expression and control of the human mind. There are no heretics allowed in the Marxist religion, lest someone point out that the divine emperor has no clothes.

Without trying to diminish the superb job Beneath Sheep’s Clothing does at explaining the Marxist trajectory toward totalitarianism and tyranny, it was not ground-breaking by any measure. Such has been explained before, and was once a part of the history books in America’s schools, prior to the Communist school-jacking of public education in the 1940s and 1950s. The history lesson was necessary, however, to sound the alarm on the concerning new movement, Christian Nationalism.

To explain this portion of the documentary, we would like to myself the same as those highlighted in the documentary, particularly of the always-astute, Michael O’Fallon. O’Fallon, who has been the subject of some very unfair treatment on the part of a few on the Christian Nationalism side of the debate, is the granddaddy of the latest iteration of the Anti-Woke Evangelical Movement. Like Winston Churchill hunched over a map making the evacuation plans for Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk, his has been the largely unseen hands crafting an orderly resistance to the leftist invasion of evangelicalism. With this in mind, one cannot and should not presume that his opposition to Christian Nationalism is anything tantamount to surrender or treason. His concern, if only Christian Nationalists would listen and consider, is that the movement may very well be an expertly crafted scheme to give the Marxists we resist the very reason they need to carry out their own Final Solution.

Like O’Fallon, we are slow to accuse all of the advocates of Christian Nationalism of nefarious intentions. Indeed, we are slow to accuse all the advocates of Christian Nationalism to even know what they are, in fact, advocating.

During Theonomy 1.0, I lamented the laziness and intellectual dishonesty of theonomists a decade ago in defining the ideology simply as “God’s Law,” as though the implications of the word were no broader than its etymology. In reality, “theonomy” means more than “God’s Law” the same way “pedophilia” means more than “love of children.” Theonomy, for example, requires adherence to the exhaustive detail (to quote Bahnsen) of the Mosaic Civil Code, including the penologies; without that, it’s not theonomy at all. Likewise, Christian Nationalism contains far more beneath the surface than merely desiring a Christian nation.

In 2021, more than three years ago, several articles and podcasts on this platform defended Christians from the liberal wailing and gnashing of teeth on what they referred to as Christian Nationalism at the time. But, as with many evolving ideas, the term has recently come to mean so much more and its dangers have grown exponentially. More will be written on this topic in coming days and weeks, and I desire to be a helpful for both sides of the well-meaning to come to terms with one another.

But to summarize the concerns of Beneath Sheep’s Clothing, in particular, those who desire the Civil Magistrate (government) to begin enforcing the First Table of God’s Moral Law (those commandments dealing with the individual’s responsibilities toward God) will – if successful – grant immeasurable power to the federal government. The creation of laws requiring the worship of God as we understand him are altogether dependent upon the government adequately understanding God. Evangelicals for Harris might give us pause on that point, should the wrong regime consider itself the Lord Protector of the Faith, as once was the case in Great Britain. Many of us do not want politicians making determinations that affect worship in any way whatsoever for the same reason many Christians don’t want teachers praying with their kids at school; there’s no telling who the blue-haired woman is praying to.

The fact is, there is no tyranny on earth like that of a religious tyranny. Attempts at this kind of governance, such as the kind that led to the Counter-Reformation and its Inquisitions, teach us that empowering the state with the tools and power to moderate issues like blasphemy, lead to horrific and bloody consequences (and mostly for Christians). While it is true that Protestants, all things considered, have a pretty relaxed penchant for persecuting others (the burning of Michael Servetus aside), this country was founded by Christians who suffered immense persecution and exile at the hands of professing Christian nations.

One can only imagine a Kamala Harris presidency newly empowered with enforcing the First Table over the lives and rights of individuals, coercing them to observe Christianity as she sees fit. With her hand upon The Message Bible paraphrase, she takes the oath of office and immediately heads to the National Cathedral to hear Russell Moore give an excellent homily on why Trump supporters aren’t real Christians. Phil Vischer has put together a Veggie Tales presentation for the children, complete with vegetables singing about pronouns. David French gives a testimony about why believing in Jesus requires ignoring everything Jesus taught, after which Thabiti Anyabwile passes out decision cards, which are actually just Democrat voter registrations. Karen Swallow Prior hosts a pet blessing ceremony for childless women in the back.

While an absurd imagining, one is hard-pressed to find the Christian Nationalist inverse any less ridiculous. Who will play Rasputin in the new regime, the trusted spiritual counsel to the Head of State? Will it be Albert Moher, the man who required his students and faculty to take dangerous Big Pharma jabs under threat of being expelled or fired? Will it be the man who told us it was our Christian obligation to not worship during flu season, who will advise POTUS on Sabbath Day observance? Will the regime provide deference to the Catholic Eucharist over Protestant protests? Will it support credobaptism or paedobaptism, and how shall we get along? What about Christians who are orthodox in their gospel but who genuinely believe Saturday is the Sabbath? Will they be punished for opening up their business on Sunday to serve their church brethren on what is in their conscience not the day of mandatory rest? What will happen to the great many Christian iconoclasts who view religious images of Jesus to be offensive, when his portrait is etched into stained glass in a building our taxes built?

One of the reasons Theonomy 1.0 died such a miserable, lonely death is due to these exact same kind of postulations. Rushdoony posited, for example, that in the coming theonomic kingdom, the unbaptized could not be citizens. And, in his mono-coventantal view, the unbaptized (and yet unconverted) children of credobaptists could not enjoy the benefits of citizenship until then. Such fanciful imaginations limited his day dreams to mere flatulence in the wind, a passing of gas, that ultimately most Christians would not be convinced of. But such strategizing talk about how the details of how such a thing might work in reality proved to be too complicated for serious consideration.

It is likewise so with Christian Nationalism. Whose theology will we be operating by, exactly? It seems that Americans have found a consensus view that our rights are given to us by our Creator and testified to by Natural Law. This creator, most founders agreed, was the Christian God. For those who didn’t concur, they shut their mouths and respected that consensus while the various Christian traditions were engrained in the ceremonial components of American governance. But ultimately, there was also consensus that it was not the government’s job to compel speech or worship of any kind, and neither to ban the exercise of speech or worship of any kind.

Such an idea, engrained in American government, was not a religious compromise of the founders. It was the result of America’s pulpits, full of the children of the British Non-Conformists including the Puritans, Baptists, and Congregationalists who all urged for the creation of a government that was limited and constrained in its power to enforce religious standards of the First Table. From the time Obadiah Holmes was beaten for being a Baptist in 1651 (and subsequently received a charter for religious liberty in Rhode Island) to Presbyterians amending the Westminister Confession of Faith to restrict the government from compelling First Table observance in 1788, it has been American theologians leading the charge to limit government power.

Most of us recognize the runaway power of the federal government, particular in its power to engage in control and tyranny through the FBI, NSA, CIA, and virtually every alphabet agency. This is not to mention the incredible power wielded by anonymous bureaucrats, whose tyrannical power is easily as dangerous as any government agent with a gun. It seems preposterous to us that any serious-minded Christian would like to give the federal government even more power over the conscience of men.

However, the threat that the wrong regime might come to power with a new license over our souls is not the most component of this scheme. There is an additional threat:

The Federal Bureau of Investigations, Homeland Security, the National Security Administration, and their willing accomplices in Big Tech are already compiling every text, every tweet, every blog post, and every YouTube video of aspiring Christian Nationalists postulating laws or edicts that they will pass should they successfully shelve the Constitution and take over the country for Jesus. And some Christian Nationalists, to put it bluntly, are saying stupid things that will be Exhibit A when the movement ultimately fails, and those stupid things will be projected and publicized as the reason the powers-that-be must eradicate Christians from public life.

We are not talking about Media Matters citing Doug Wilson on why JD Vance’s wife wouldn’t be able to hold public office because she’s a Hindu, or Southern Poverty Law Center complaining about Steven Anderson talking about executing homosexuals. We are talking about the federal government targeting all Christians everywhere because of such soundbites, no matter how out-of-context they might be. And what might be seen as a casual conversation among friends on YouTube about how our fantasies of ushering in the millennial reign by legislative fiat will be unveiled, the ignorant or the hostile might take such blathering as far more sinister.

When Hitler exterminated the Jews, he did so based upon a work claiming to outline the plotting of Jews in an international conspiracy to take over the nations of Europe, called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Despite the work likely being a fabrication, it was all Hitler needed to convince the German People to eradicate their aspiring conquerers. Quoting from The Protocols in Mein Kamph, they largely convinced the German people that Jews were indeed a problem that needed eradication.

Every single careless word of a self-confessed Christian Nationalist heard by the ever-listening, omnipresent ears of the American Surveillance State and is currently being recorded and stored. Sadly unlike The Protocols, forgeries would not need to be used to exemplify the more radical desires of certain Christian Nationalists to dismantle the First Amendment.

And lastly, I would ask the readers to consider that although the many advocates of Christian Nationalism are well-meaning, honorable Christian men on the right side of many issues, its leaders need to be met with more skepticism. We all witnesses FBI agents or informants embedded in the crowds at January 6 instigating the crowd to enter the capital, live on television; in fact, there were so many the FBI says that it “lost count.” We heard about pipe bombs being placed within the proximity of Kamala Harris on January 6, and it is hardly conspiratorial, from what we know of that incident, they were placed there by the FBI. The vast sum of thwarted ‘terror attacks’ in our country include an FBI helping to plan the attacks for a low-IQ patsy, like this case, or when they recently created a plot to kidnap a sitting governor and pin it on rightwing extremists. It is without question – indeed, established fact – that the FBI is embedded in almost every group that it considers to be a right-wing threat (such as the Proud Boys). In fact, entire groups like Patriot Front are reasonably suspected of being comprised only of federal law enforcement.

It should cause more than a raised eyebrow that man at the very center of the Woke Movement of evangelicalism, the man who promoted (literally, he hired and promoted these men even long after they came out as flaming liberals) many of the bad actors in Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale like Russell Moore and Matthew Hall, the man who had a temper tantrum that he was asked where he stood on Social Justice at Shepherd’s Conference in 2019, the man who forbade his employees from signing the Dallas Statement on Social Justice, who is now posturing as a proponent of at least his own version of Christian Nationalism. It should be enough to give pause and consider who is leading this movement, and why.

The debate over Christian Nationalism is a necessary one. It needs to be fully thought out, and regardless what upon which side you arrive, your decision is a thoughtful decision after considering all of the facts and possible implications for the future of Christians in an increasingly hostile culture.

I would heartily endorse Beneath Sheep’s Clothing, as it would be an apt starting-point for a much needed discussion.

[Editor’s Note: Critics of the film complain that the documentary film includes some non-Christians. This is true. However, they self-identify as non-Christians, which is far more admirable than the many in leftist evangelicalism who deceptively identify as Christians under a coat of borrowed wool]