How Christian Nationalism and Progressivism Miss the Plot, Courtesy of Ivan Illich
And why "ordo amoris" is not enough
The last nine years have seen an emerging discussion around the notion of “Christian Nationalism” — what it is, who its proponents are, and why it’s a concern. A cursory glance at Google Trends shows a significant uptick in interest though around 2022.
In general, the ideology is identified as a politically right-wing phenomenon, grounded in a belief that America is an inherently Christian nation and that our laws should reflect said heritage. Common policy positions associated with Christian Nationalism are opposition to legal abortion and hostility to progressive ideas around gender and sexuality. The presidency of Donald Trump spurred considerable anxiety around the ideology, and provided fodder for a number of books about the topic.
Evangelicalism, the stream of Christianity largely associated with Christian Nationalism, is fractured among multiple lines concerning it. Personally, I have never met someone who identifies as a Christian Nationalist, even among those who supported Donald Trump’s presidency. That said, self-identified Evangelicals make up a significant portion of Trump’s base. In his first term, the general argument was that he was the least bad option and would advance a pro-life agenda in the federal government by appointing judges who would overturn Roe v Wade (which did occur), but that assertion is more or less moot now that his influence has managed to erase it from the GOP’s national platform. In his second term, the argument now seems to operate from the premise that politics are upstream of culture, and that his presidency would facilitate an environment that’s more amenable to Christian belief than a Democratic administration would.
However, the fracturing among Evangelicals shows when you consider public figures like Russell Moore and David French, who have come out strongly against Trump’s influence in Evangelical circles. These figures tend to be pro-life, still self-identify as Evangelical and, in the case of French, hold to a neoconservative political agenda that’s reminiscent of the Bush years in the early 2000s. Finally you have more “progressive” Evangelicals or “ex-vangelicals” who’ve taken harder lines against Evangelicalism as a whole, and believe its theological foundations are fundamentally noxious and oppressive.
The notion that one’s Christian beliefs should have influence in the life of the polis is nothing new — the question is rather one of scope and intensity. There are those who would argue that we should display the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses. Others contend that Christ’s sermon on the mount should be our lodestar. Progressive partisans often argue that religion should be “kept out” of politics, but this is fundamentally silly — a representative democracy assumes rule by the demos, and it’s only logical that the beliefs of the people concerning the common good will manifest in how they choose to vote. You can rage against “populism” all you like, but as Curtis Yarvin points out, the line between democracy and populism is relatively nonexistent. The more honest debate would be whose populism.
The United States is not strictly a democracy though — it is a constitutional republic. Both the right and the left love to invoke the constitution when it serves their ends, and decry it when it does not (right and left examples for those who wish for examples in mainstream media).
The debate around the role of religion in policy making is made all the more interesting to me thanks to recent comments made by Bishop Mariann Budde during a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. During her prayer and sermon, she invoked concerns around LGBTQ rights and the treatment of illegal immigrants under the new administration. On the left, many called her “courageous”, while Trump and figures on the right demanded an apology. Of course, calls for censure are ludicrous — she exercised a constitutional right to free speech and redress of grievances in the most direct way possible, to the leader of the free world. Similarly, while it certainly took some guts, Bishop Budde also holds a powerful position in a powerful institution, the Episcopal Church, and stood to gain substantial accolades from her likeminded liberal protestant peers and airtime in likeminded media outlets.
What’s interesting to me though, is that she did what many say we ought not do — she brought her religion to politics. If you know the history of protestantism in the United States, this is unsurprising. The early 20th century saw the emergence of the “Social Gospel” movement, which sought to ameliorate societal ills with Christian ethics. It was coterminous with the emergence of disenchanted thought in increasingly liberalizing seminaries that sought to diminish, if not deny outright, many supernatural elements of the Christian faith, such as the virgin birth, miracles, and even the resurrection. J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian New Testament scholar, addressed this trend head-on in his book Christianity and Liberalism, and was in turn skeptical of any co-mingling of religion and politics, and opposed Bible instruction in public schools.
The roots of the problem go deeper however. Ivan Illich was a Catholic priest and intellectual who identified western civilization itself as a perversion of Christianity. For Illich, the Christian gospel was fundamentally subversive of all political projects. David Cayley, Illich’s close collaborator, writes,
The proper vocation of the Church, [Illich] said, is not to instruct the world, guide its political and social orientation, or provide it with services. All these activities inevitably require the exercise of power and inevitably generate ideological division. The cross, for Illich, stands for the renunciation of power.
For Illich, Christianity was fundamentally anti-ethical, for ethics are “maxims that expressed an ethos, the spirit of a people in a place…”. In the parable of the good Samaritan, and in his conduct toward people, Jesus shows a fundamental disregard for all sorts of ethical proscriptions. He engages with and welcomes both Zealots and tax collectors, who were as fierce political enemies as one could imagine. He destroys all limits and summons us to love the other, whomever that other may be. However, Illich also understands how disruptive and even destructive the institutionalization of such a command may be.
To touch on comments recently made by Vice President J.D. Vance concerning how Christianity has an idea of order of loves, the whole “ordo amoris” debate fundamentally misses the point. Even if you believe that you should love your family first, then neighbor, etc, the attempt to institutionalize love invariably unleashes evils that the best intentions cannot foresee.
The parable of the good Samaritan undermines ethics around who one’s neighbor is by prioritizing the person right in front of you, regardless of whom they may be. But to enforce it as policy would be another blunder in the history of western civilization, which has sought to enact heaven on earth since the time of Constantine.
Neither the Hebrew Bible nor the New Testament were written to people living in a western liberal democracy, and any political theology that neglects to remember this point has already lost the plot (I might even argue that “political theology” is inherently oxymoronic). The Hebrew Bible was a theocracy that upheld the dignity of the immigrant and marginalized, but also enforced strict ethical guidelines that maintained ethnic identity. The New Testament is a collection of mostly letters written to a people who received and spread the message of God’s welcome of all people into his kingdom, one that is fundamentally not of this world.
This reality leaves us in a messy situation, and I don’t have answers for public policy. For me, the main takeaway is that politics is fundamentally a distraction. Your responsibility is to your neighbor. And who is your neighbor?
I’ll leave you to answer that.