Larry Arnn and the Hillsdale Half Step

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Introduction

I have hazarded the guess that you are not even close to being tired of dealing with the subject of Christian nationalism . . . well, neither am I.

The two traditional topics that will get you shushed big time at large family gatherings at Thanksgiving—religion and politics—are very conveniently combined in this discussion, and bundled into just one topic. A model of efficiency.

And so, staying on theme, in a recent conversation with Kevin DeYoung, Larry Arnn—the president of Hillsdale College—made a significant online splash recently when he said this:

There was a backlash as a result, and perhaps some yelling in certain quarters, and so he then issued this clarification:

I am really grateful for these statements because they provide an almost perfect opportunity to highlight the problem that I believe has almost all conservative American Christians by the throat.

In all that follows, please realize that I am genuinely appreciative of all the good that Hillsdale has done, and is continuing to do. This would include the good work of Larry Arnn, not to mention the good work of Kevin DeYoung, Arnn’s discussion partner in that particular conversation. These are the words of a friend and ally.

But that good, however good it might be, is going to run out of gas at some point if we don’t work through a couple of fundamental issues. It is not enough to have gas in the moment. For the journey we are on, one must have gas stations.

Really. Grant Me Just Two Premises

If you are willing to come along with me, I would love to walk together with you through this tangled thicket. All you need to do is grant me the two humble premises below, and I think we shall soon arrive together on the banks of the River of Sweet Consensus. I know, that being the case, some of you may then mutter that “the last thing we are going to do is grant you those two premises, whatever they might be.” Well, that might not be so easy.

This is because almost all believing Christians accept both premises. What we don’t like to do is cooperate whenever somebody starts to exhibit the implications. Hence our difficulties.

The first premise is this. All morality, in order to be authoritative, in order to be morality at all, requires a transcendental source. Without a transcendent footing, there is no such thing as morality. Of course, without transcendence, it would still be possible to have quarrels and disputes—two dogs fighting over a piece of meat, say—but there is no possibility of one disputant ever making a moral appeal to which the other disputant has a moral obligation to submit. In order to have that, there must be an independent and uncreated authority that over-arches the two of them. Indeed, it has to be the kind of authority that over-arches all of us. Otherwise, it is not morality but rather just custom. The stark reality of this premise can be most clearly seen when we look at those who attempt to flatly deny it—as in, materialistic atheists. Of course, they can behave decently—in an orderly and “moral” manner. Their atheism does not require them to pick my pocket or break my leg, to use Jefferson’s homely phrase. But what they are unable to do is give any reasonable account of why they are morally obligated to behave in this way. They could try to say that they are simply following Kant’s categorical imperative, which instructs us all to behave in such a way that we would be willing for our example to become a universal law. Now this is just the Golden Rule, tricked out in different language, but absent God, what is the obligatory reason for following any imperative from outside our own will—categorical, golden, or otherwise? Well . . . we are supposed to consider what would happen if “everybody did that.” It would be chaos. But then, if we are bold enough to ask “why should we avoid chaos?” there is no answer other than mere utility. And if there is no answer other than utility, what happens when we announce that we are not utilitarians? Such non-utilitarians might have to be suppressed on the same sort of principles used by the fighting dogs mentioned earlier, but they could not be answered. And if there really is no God, then it would seem that the ideal position to occupy would be that of the clever criminal—where you get everybody else to obey the categorical imperative, thus avoiding the societal chaos, but in your private life doing whatever suits your animal lusts. So there must be an authority over all of us, and if you claim that there is one, you need to be ready to give us His name. And this cannot be a mere “place-holding” transcendental grounding. True morality is grounded in the nature and character of the living God, and not in the letters g-o-d, or however it is spelled in your faith tradition.

So there we have first premise. All moral claims must be absolute in order even to be moral claims at all, and in order to be absolute, they must have a transcendental grounding. And all believing Christians agree with this premise. This is not a matter of dispute among us. This is a standard line of argument in evangelistic apologetics, as can readily be seen in books like Mere Christianity. But if this is true, as we all claim that it is, then it applies more broadly than to just individuals, which brings us to the second premise.

The second premise is this: All nations, states, or tribes are moral agents. They make decisions and take actions that are either righteous or they are not. Now this premise is where we see a lot of the evasiveness start to happen—smudging terms, blurring definitions, changing the subject, and so on. And one of the things commonly said that blurs it up good is this one: “You can’t legislate morality.” I would like to respond to this one, and I would like to answer it quickly enough that some might even call it a retort. Answer me this. Can you legislate immorality?

Can a nation, state, tribe, or any other collective body of human beings, decide to do evil and decide to do that evil together as a society? The answer given by human history is a resounding yes. And when societies do these immoral things, do the rest of us censure them? Yes, and we do this all the time. Can nations break treaties? Steal land? Commit genocide? Launch a lucrative slave trade? Slaughter millions of babies? Yes, they can. When they do things like this, even if they are doing it under the color of law, does it nevertheless remain immoral? Now the reason our answers all come back in the affirmative is because nations, states, and tribes are moral agents.

Now with the examples that I list in the following paragraph, I am going to limit myself to issues that would most disturb a soft left moderate evangelical. This is not because I am being lopsided, or that I agree with them in their moral judgments or emphases, but rather because we all need to run this reductio. I am challenging their right to attempt any moral judgments at all, whether they be right or wrong. If states are not moral agents, then all such judgments are simply beside the point. It is not possible to pronounce a moral judgment that would make a block of wood feel bad, and recriminations aimed at nations would be equally beside the point if nations are not moral agents. But they are.

If states are not moral agents, then I would humbly request that we knock it off with the land acknowledgements. The land was here and we decided to take it. Things are tough all over. If states are not moral agents, then Israel can do whatever they want in Gaza. If states are not moral agents, that means that if there is such a thing as systemic racism, there can be no moral aspect to it. We need not worry our heads about it, up to and including separate water fountains for blacks. If states are not moral agents, then they are not acting immorally when they refuse to do anything about climate change. If states are not moral agents, then there was no problem with the FBI raid on Mar a Lago, and consequently no problem with the FBI raid on John Bolton’s house either. Governments do what governments do, and morality has nothing to do with it.

So there we have it. Morality must be grounded in the transcendent, and nations are moral agents.

The Conclusion That Follows

If we accept these two premises, and if we summon up the courage to reason from them, we will find that we have become Christian nationalists. We may not like the name of Christian nationalist, and we might want to have a word or two with the boys down in marketing, but in substance, we are Christian nationalists.

In the meantime, I am more than willing to go by this name because we can at least work with it. We want our nation to do righteous things, and to stop doing all those unrighteous things, and we want the definitions of righteousness and unrighteousness to come from the living God, and not from some idol.

Nations are moral agents. America is a nation. We have pursued iniquity and embraced it, and we are consequently under judgment. And the only remedy for nations that have sinned in this way is the blood of Christ. There is no other way.

So my version of Christian nationalism is simply this. America needs to stop making God mad. Abortion makes Him angry. Sodomy makes Him angry. Mammon-worship makes Him angry. Pornography makes Him angry. And the only way to avert the judgments of His anger is by repenting of our sin and turning back to Christ. It is sheer foolishness to think that Sodom and Capernaum will have to give an account of themselves at the day of judgment (Matt. 11:23-24), but that San Francisco and Chicago will get a pass. It is not the case that all cities with a distorted understanding of the First Amendment are routed to a friendlier line, like TSA Pre-check. No, the wrath of God is coming straight at them, and their willful distortions of the First Amendment will be one of the sins judged. And not only judged, but judged fiercely.

This is the message. America must repent of her sins and turn to Christ. That is the bottom line. That is the only message. Christ or chaos. Turn away from your wickedness, and come back to Christ.

Now, ask yourself this. What high levels of blurry confusion must we have reached if that message can be rejected by the editor of Christianity Today as a “denial of the gospel?” “Repent and believe” is Satanic now, is it?

Our Stealthy Enjoyment of Fenced Goods

Now most conservative Christians participate in this blurry confusion at some level . . . but fortunately most have not taken it down the dark road that Russell Moore has. But the confusion in seed form is clearly evident in Larry Arnn’s formulation, which I will get to in a minute.

If you have a society with a lot of Christians in it, a general Christian consensus will form. Once that has happened, there are three basic arrangements that can take shape between that consensus and the broader society. We could have a hard establishment of specific Christian denominations as was common in Europe, and with a number of our states at the Founding. Just as the Anglican Church was the Church of England, in the same way. the Congregational Church was the Church of Connecticut. That’s the first option. We could have a soft establishment of Protestant Christianity generally, with Christ formally acknowledged, but no tax support for any specific denomination. That was America for a century and a half after the Founding. There was a separation of church and state, but there was no separation of the Christian consensus and state. There was no separation of Christian morality and state. There was no separation of God and state.

And then third, we have what I call a fenced-goods establishment.

Fenced goods are stolen goods which are then smuggled out to respectable persons at discounted prices, and these respectable persons are willing 1. to benefit from the price of said goods, and 2. not to inquire too closely as to their point of origin. This is the sort of thing that enables us to pretend that monogamy—to take just one example—is natural to fallen humanity. But when no one is willing to name the provenance of these goods, and all the serial numbers are filed off, everything gets jumbled and counterfeit goods get smuggled in also. Soon everything is a perfect mess.

This is what should be called Christiany nationalism. It can run for a time on the strength of inertia, but it has no way of defending itself when faced with a concerted attack from hard secularists, radical Muslims, or Klingons. The myth of neutrality is incapable of providing a coherent foundation for righteous governance. However, the fog of neutrality is capable of paralyzing millions of Christians, and can keep them staring stupidly at the destruction of their nation. It can do that.

Arnn’s Second Formulation

And so, with all this in mind, I am afraid that Larry Arnn’s more nuanced formulation does not answer the needs of the hour. Here it is again.

First, let me register my hearty agreement with a portion of this. It is a step in the right direction, but it is still just a half step. Religious liberty really is rooted in Christian principles, and really can be found in the mouths of the Founders. But this merely sets the stage for us to confront a couple of follow up issues.

First, religious liberty is something that really is enjoyed by the citizens of a godly republic. But this is quite a different thing than the religious grounding that is necessary for our laws. That is one thing. Religious liberty means that Baptist citizens don’t have to pay for the support of an Anglican minister. It means that they can build their own churches, and worship without being hassled by anybody. But a religious grounding of the laws is something completely different. Say we are going to outlaw every form of human abortion, which we need to do. But why? If we are going to do anything like that, we need to be prepared to answer the question why. What is our basis for treating a fertilized human egg as a person? One who should receive the full protection of the law? That question cannot be answered apart from an appeal to the image of God in man, which in turn rests upon God’s revealed Word in Scripture. Without a transcendent grounding for such a law, we have nothing to go on. If we have copped the posture of worldview neutrality, and we have a dispute between the Christian and the secularist, then the Christian must give way. We want to hold that the fertilized egg is a boy or girl, created in the image of God, but they maintain that it is single irrelevant cell, and because there is no God, there is no image of Him. There is no way to split the difference on this. You either make the law on the strength of the true God’s authority, or you give way and make the true God angry. Christians in America have been doing the latter for far too long.

And if we want to go meta, respect for religious liberty must itself have a religious grounding. Does God want us to respect religious liberty? The answer is yes, within limits and see below, but religious liberty is itself a religious value. Respect for it flows out of one particular religious tradition (Christianity), and does not flow out of another (Islam, say). To assume that religious liberty will always be respected by everyone, no matter their religion and worldview, is to enjoy your fenced goods. For now.

The second issue has to do with what the Founders meant by religious liberty, a doctrine that they did in fact root in Christian principles. But at the Founding, religious liberty was understood as the principle for navigating the differences between Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Baptists. And at the outer rim of this very Protestant world were a handful of Catholics and Jews, who were accommodated in varying degrees.

The doctrine of religious liberty is elastic, and can be stretched to accommodate a number of options within a broad Christian consensus. But religious liberty cannot accommodate jihadists flying planes into skyscrapers, or Aztec priests slaughtering prisoners on ziggurats, or child prostitution in Hindu temples, or Islamic honor killings. Human religiosity has at many times been beyond grotesque, and we cannot hide that fact with the thin whitewash of secular liberal bromides about the blessings of “religious liberty”—if you want to pretend that the differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and Presbyterians is comparable to the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians, then you deserve everything that is coming your way, good and hard.

The liberal secularist will want to dismiss my examples of jihadists and Aztec priests and child prostitution by saying that those were all primitive religions. We don’t have to deal with such things really, because we have “evolved” past all that. The simple reply to this is the “no, we haven’t.” In the name of our secularist gods, we practice child sacrifice down at Planned Parenthood, we practice genital mutilation on perfectly healthy kids in the name of “gender affirming care,” and we are pressing for the legalization of child molestation under that coy + sign in the LGBTQ+ nonsense. Unregenerate secular religion is no better in principle than the unregenerate Aztecs were. We haven’t evolved past anything.

So to resist all this, we need more than a cut flower conservatism. We need Christian conservatism, conservatism with a root ball.

Conclusion

The secular world is in free fall. The John Stuart Mill chute has failed to open, and the reserve chute, the John Dewey one, is also tangled and stuck. Now when you are in free fall, there is no consistent stopping point. Well, okay, there is a stopping point, but that would be the rocks of reality down below. The rapidly approaching rocks of reality.

So it really is Christ or chaos. And I would much rather reach this conclusion as a result of argumentation, as opposed to reaching the conclusion by means of terminal velocity impact. But one way or the other, we are going to reach the conclusion.